Nai Soi Village

The owner of the school sort of ticked me off today-- there was a “Children's day” celebration and I was under the impression that he was going to be with his son who attends one of the local schools. At around 11:30 I finally noticed that the population of the school went from about 20 to about 5. I noted this in my journal and then went off to investigate. The kids that were left told me that they had gone to town on “Children's day” and that they were all off doing competitions and having a good time while we (the new volunteer, Sabrina, and I) were left with nothing to do. Sabina showed up yesterday. She's from Germany, and she is really neat. I am glad that we get along because we are going to really be depending on each other! We already have a few trips planned and I think that her being here will make this experience a lot more fun. (Don't worry Sonia, you are still my main bitch.) I was ticked because I would have loved to go.

Now I had gone to “town” the day before-- “town” being just two small shops and a school and no one who could speak English. I had told the owner of the school that I was going and he let me go reluctantly. However, later he had a change of heart and decided to send a student after me on a motorbike. The student found me just as I was coming out of the first shop. I went back with her and told the owner that he didn't really have to send students after me, and that I was capable of walking a kilometer by myself. He told me that he was worried about my safety. I thought, but did not say, that if was so concerned about my safety then perhaps he should have sent an extra helmet along with the students who went to pick me up. Ironically, riding back with her without a helmet was about 100 times more dangerous then just walking home. I was told that there had a been a teacher who was killed-- I found out later that not only was she Thai, she had been killed in the other side of the country. Being told that I couldn't walk alone in this area was ludicrous after Chicago, Yemen, and even Samoa (where the dogs would attack you. Here, they can't be bothered to even raise their heads.)

So I grabbed Sabrina and dragged her with me to the village. She insisted that we tell someone that we were leaving, so we obediently found and adult that couldn't speak English and told her where we were going, and she smiled at us and waved us off. In town, we had a giggle as the “dangerous” townspeople first looked surprised to see us then waved eagerly. Sabrina told me that being so close to the border was a dangerous spot, according to the web, but according to our own four eyes it looked about as hazardous as my living room. A helicopter did buzz by, however, to warn us that we were only 10km from the border in an area that was one of the larger smuggling zones for heroine as well as being under the jurisdiction of more then one impromptu army.

Sabrina bought laundry soap and I found instant coffee (the mornings here are feezing!) and we wandered a bit more, looking for our kids. We didn't find our kids, but we did find a Thai school that was having a celebration. There was a dance competition, which consisted of a bunch of little asian kids hopping around. Another game included a orange eating contest of some sort, shown here. Sabrina was immediately approached by a little girl who first gave her name as a series of unlearnable Thai sylables, and miracously became “Mary” when it became clear that we didn't have the skills to master her name. Our 11-year-old guide took as around and introduced us to the teachers and showed us her classroom. Hopefully, we will be able to teach at the Thai schools at some point. I, for one, would be very interested. They had Buddhism as part of their curriculum (which both horrified me as a libral who believes that religion should be kept out of the school and fascinated me as a budding Buddhist) with a poster that showed different historical images of the Buddha and diagrams showing how to pray, or whatever you do before a Buddhist statue.


We had an impromptu English lesson, where Mary showed us her name and my own in English and Thai. After seeing the students struggle with “Sabrina”, I am glad that I have a short, easy name (although I wish it wasn't the same name as the Korean dictator). After that, we came home where we were glad to find that we weren't missed.