Thailand Letter
(This was received as a paper letter to Cheryl and Don. Bob scanned it and emailed it to the family. I am including it for its journal value)
July 27,1997 Bangkok, Thailand
Dear Cheryl and Don,
We just came home from church and finished a sandwich. We left our apartment at 7 o'clock this morning and it is now 5 p.m. It takes us over an hour to get to church, they give us lunch and then we teach an English lesson. It is fun to go and see the Elder and Lady Missionaries from the States. The Branch we go to here is doing very well - it is called the Packrat Branch and there were over 50 in attendance today. They had a baptism after Sacrament Meeting and it was held in a large "tank" outside the church building - they had a big wooden ladder that the Elders and the Sister being baptized climbed up on to get down into the water - very unique don't remember how many branches and wards they have here but there is a stake and it is growing fast - isn't that remarkable7??
I have had a very eventful month. We are SO busy - we are picked up each morning about 7 a.m. and taken to a different school each day. As soon as we get to the school they start bringing us ice water, then juice, then treats and then lunch - you know me - I love that. I am really enjoying the Thai food - it is ALWAYS rice but we have never been served the same "topping" twice and they are delicious. Lots of shrimp, pork, eggs and vegetables I can't identify. I have stopped asking what some of the foods are - I enjoy them more that way. We met with the Governor last week - he is a very nice man and so appreciative of the things we are doing. There are 26 American Teachers in his schools and two couples who are refugees from Cambodia. One of the couples was with us for a couple days - Bro. 8L Sister Reed Wight from Ogden. He has a 300 acre farm in West Ogden where he raises turkeys and chickens - he was sent to Cambodia by the church to help with a big feed mill they had built there but when the fighting started there they brought all the missionaries to Thailand. They will be here until they are released in October and will be helping in the schools. The Governor is going to take all of us to dinner on August 5'. We met in his "chambers" and they kept serving us ice water, juice and little cakes - it was fun.
Thank you so very much for coming to the airport to see me off - that meant SO much to me. Jeannie sent me pictures that Rick had taken and you two look so good. I had a good trip - we stopped in Osaka, Japan in the middle of the night and I wouldn't have known we were there except for the Japanese language on everything. People from the BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Authority) were at the airport to meet us along with the Mission President, our first school Principal, and others - we were presented with corsages made from Thai money, leis, and all kinds of gifts for our apartment. Then they escorted us to our "Townhouse". They couldn't have been nicer. They took us to the store to get some essentials and then we tried to stay awake but we couldn't so we "just died" in our only air-conditioned room - our bedroom. We share a king size bed and the rest of the apartment is SO hot it is unbelievable - it's a good thing we aren't here very often. We have had to furnish the apartment and we bought a washing machine and are using the box for a dressing table. We have bought fans too. The church has bought us this computer along with a printer and we are thrilled with that!!!
Our Townhouse is really quite nice according the Thai standards and I haven't seen any roaches yet and just one little Gecko. We walk down a very dusty and bumpy road to get a bus and. you should see the buses - we have to hang on for dear life and where they should hold about 20 they wait until they have at least 50 on them. The street at the end of our road is typical Thai with vendors selling all kinds of food and very humble buildings. We take the bus to the "Market" where we catch a larger bus to take us to the places we want to go. On the way to the Market we pass some of the saddest houses you can imagine. They are right along the canal so they are on stilts and at night you can see inside and they are dirt floors without any kind of furniture and there are little babies and children sleeping on the floor along with dogs. Sometimes some of the young children will get on the bus with us and I silently wish I had brought some clothes to give them. I don't know what they live on - the woman of the family is usually out in front cooking food to sell. I am amazed at all the cooking that is going on ALL the time!!!
The children in the schools are just wonderful. They all wear uniforms - they take off their shoes before entering the classrooms - there are SO - 55 in each class without air conditioning and if they're lucky they have fans and there are no discipline problems. They teach everything in their schools - barber & beautician classes, agriculture (they raise chickens and grow most of the vegetables they eat in their schools). Two of the schools we have taught in have more than 3,000 students - most are around 1,000 with grades from K through 9.
We went to the Buddha Temple with one of our schools one day and that was certainly interesting. They were celebrating some kind of holiday and they decorated a truck with all kinds of flowers and plants and some children riding it wore gorgeous costumes. At the temple they danced all around it and then we all went into a sort of assembly hall and there were other schools participating so there were probably about 3,500 students there. Two monks sat in front and chanted for a long, long time. The principal was sitting next to me and she interpreted what they were saying. They have 5 basic rules: Don't lie, don't steal, don't kill animals or people, covet another person's husband or wife and don't drink whiskey.
The shopping malls here are quite a bit like ours at home but the things in them are very different. We have to put our purses and any kind of bags we are carrying into a locker before we can enter the stores - I guess there is a lot of theft here It is really funny to try to tell a clerk what we are looking for. Most of them don't speak any English and they smile and we think they understand but when they bring us what we have asked for we know they don't.
Virginia and 1 got lost one night. We didn't get back to our apartment until after midnight and then we had to "bribe" a taxi driver to bring us home. We took three different buses and they all took us to the wrong place each time - one time one bus took us to the "bus bam" because it was time for his route to close. We had forgotten to take our map with us but we won't do that again. There are 8 million people in Bangkok and you wouldn't believe the traffic - it takes forever to get any place.
You wouldn't believe how nicely the Thai teachers dress. They all are beautiful women and they wear beautiful clothes with gorgeous jewelry. I brought all the wrong clothes. I thought it would be like the Indian Reservations in Montana but it is very, very different!!!