Thailand Letter
October 24, 1997
Bangkok, Thailand
I keep forgetting to put a date on my letters!!!
Today is Susanna's birthday - I remember all the birthday parties for her when she was a "little" girl - I wonder what kind of party she will have now she is a "big" girl - Ha!!! I hope it will be a VERY happy day for you Susanna!!!
Yesterday was Timothy's birthday. Thank you for your sweet letter today Patrice. I LOVED your Halloween poem Timothy and I'm SO glad your Dad was home and could take cupcakes and drinks to your school for your birthday. I am also VERY happy that you have a wonderful teacher - I won't get to meet her this year but maybe when I come home in a year I will be able to meet her even though she won't be your teacher then. Emily - I am SO proud of you for your report on the "Mormon Trail" - I hope you will save that along with your genealogy report so I can read them when I get home.
I hope Roy and Patrice will have HAPPY BIRTHDAYS tomorrow. I wish I could make Roy a cake with black frosting or something to celebrate his 40th!!! Forty seems so young to me now!!! Patrice - thank you for offering to send me some teaching visual aids. We go into a new school district starting in November so we will be able to use a lot of our same material - THANK GOODNESS!!! When we start back into these same districts again (I believe in January or February) I may ask you to send me some new ideas. It is SO funny - I work SO hard doing things that I am sure will work and when they don't I get SO discouraged. I have made a lot of "matching" pictures and I pass them out to the teachers. They are to describe the picture and then the one who has the matching one is supposed to hold it up. WELL - their English vocabulary is so limited that I just bombed with it. I am determined that it has real merit so I will keep trying.
Today was such a nice day for us but it is getting to be too much - I have never liked being in the limelight and it doesn't get any easier. It was our last day in this school. They asked us if we could finish our lessons at 2 p.m. instead of 3 p.m. because they wanted to "honor" us. WELL - at 2 p.m. they set up this little table with a beautiful cloth and two gold plates on pedestals and had us sit in front of it. Then they gave us each a beautiful fresh flower "thing" to put on our wrists - they are just gorgeous and are made with "jasmine" (sp.) and pink roses. Then they set up a silver bowl with perfumed oil and rose petals in it with some water. They had little silver cups by the silver bowl. Each teacher lined up and filled a little cup with the water and came to us and knelt in front of us and poured the perfumed water in our cupped hands. As they knelt they thanked us and said the sweetest things - all of this was done while Thai music was being played. Then - they did Thai dancing around us and came to get us to dance with them. That wasn't all!!! After this they had us stand in front again and they presented us with beautiful Thai jewelry boxes.
This is almost funny when I think back on it. You would think we were royalty and I wore my $12 dress that I bought at a market and the material in it is very popular and EVERYONE wears it - the cooks, the cleaning women, the market salespeople, etc.!!! I didn't have any film in my camera so the principal arranged for someone to come in and take pictures and she said she would get copies to us. I am sure that when I am 100, I will look at these pictures and have a good laugh.
We had our neighborhood group in tonight. I tried to play my "matching game" with them and I just can't get it right. We all had a good laugh but I am going to have to come up with something to make it work. Virginia does not do one fourth the amount of preparation that I do and she is much more successful. I did teach them some cute Halloween songs and they always enjoy learning about our American cultures. I saw some "pumpkins" at a market today as we were coming home - they were the funniest looking things - green and flat looking. I probably won't be making a jack o lantern this year - Ha!!!
You wouldn't believe how hot and humid it is. When I go to put on my makeup in the morning it just slides right off. We are in air conditioned rooms all day so we are comfortable but at home it is SO hot. We have two fans going right in our faces when our neighborhood group comes over.
I wish you could see our refrigerator. Our supervisor, Pra Pa, came by yesterday with four fresh coconuts, the teachers who took us to the Ancient City brought home all the food that was left over from our trip - meat pies, cookies, lychee drinks and yogurt - then today they sent home more cookies, canned lychees, lime juice, pineapple juice and four fresh mangoes. I just took a bag of spoiled "long gon" fruits and bananas out to the garbage that we just couldn't eat before they got bad. They have served us delicious luncheons at school - they serve a lot of curried soups, rice, shrimp, octopus, and today for dessert we had "sticky rice" with coconut cream on top along with fresh mangoes.
One of our teachers just called and wants to take us shopping tomorrow to a new shopping center - we are to meet her at 9 a.m. I would really like to stay home and get caught up on some things but Virginia reminds me that we are here to "build relationships" so I will go. I could surely buy some jewelry for you - I see a lot of gold. The other teachers tell me that it isn't cheap and I really don't have anything to compare it with. WHAT SHOULD I DO???
I love you all so very, very much. PLEASE BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL. Grandma B
Dearest Family,
It's early, early Friday morning - it's late, late Thursday night where you are. I have a hard time figuring out the time differences so I have finally just decided to know that when I am asleep you are awake and when I am awake you are asleep. I walked in the kitchen a few minutes ago and went to pick up what I thought was a brown leaf on the floor and it "hopped away" - we have little toads that come in through the door.
Claire - thank you SO much for your message about your trip to Bear Lake. I didn't know you had any connections to that part of Utah. One of the teachers with us is from Bear Lake - his name is Ned Budge. What is the name of your family that lives there? I understand Bear Lake is really "booming" now. I know it must be REALLY fun to spend the day with your Mom and Dad.
Bob - I hope your fireside presentation goes well. Ann said in one of her letters that she wants to go to it - I wish I could be there. You have surely put a lot of time into it and I know you will be relieved when it is over. I will be thinking of you on Sunday - at the time when I think you will be giving it.
We had a WONDERFUL day yesterday. The vice principal of Pichaipatana School where we are having our workshop this week had organized a special day for us. It was a State holiday and I believe it was in honor of the Rama who developed the written alphabet for their language - I'm not sure about that. There were three women teachers, the vice principal and our driver and we went in the school van to "The Ancient City". It was quite a long ways away and was close to the sea - that was SO interesting to see that part of the ocean!!! I couldn't believe that place. They have reconstructed all the events of the three dynasties, Sukhothia, Ayutthaya (sp.?) and Bangkok starting from the middle of the 11th century. The palaces, market places, Buddhas, floating markets, etc. are in replicas with historical information along the way. I started taking pictures and then decided to buy the book, It is hard for me to realize that Thailand is older than America - America being discovered in 1492 and Thailand's history going back to 1100. I wish I were smarter and could comprehend all this. Most of the teachers here, including Virginia, are very intellectual and read and read!!!
The teachers had brought so many refreshments - we ate all along the way and such good food!!! THEN - they treated us to dinner at the floating market. Virginia and I ordered the Chinese noodles and they were delicious and we had fresh orange juice. They brought us home first and left all the food we had not eaten.
Did I tell you about the group bringing pizza on Wednesday night. We teach 6 people on Wednesday and Friday nights and they arrived with two huge pizzas and salads, French bread and Pepsi. We couldn't believe it and they said they had ordered it from Pizza Hut. This place is such a place of contrasts - one minute I think I am in complete isolation and poverty and then I find we can order pizza just like in Orem, Utah.
Today is our last day of workshops for this school. Next week we start at another school. October has been a busy and kinda' hard month - I have made a million visual aids - they're important for me but Virginia doesn't make any. She is much more experienced than I am but it scares me to death to not be prepared and as a result, I "over prepare". The teachers would prefer to have their vacations I think but instead they come to our workshops.
I can just imagine how busy you all are. I can see Jeannie and Rick trying to juggle all their carpools with Nutcracker, D'Ettes, volleyball and tennis and golf. The rest of you doing the same thing.
They have scheduled our December trip to Chaing Mai. We leave here on Nov. 27th and go by night train and will be there for 5 days conducting English Camps. I am getting worried but I'm sure it will all work out.
I love you all so very, very much. PLEASE BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL. Grandma B