Peace And Smiles
My adventures as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand:The Land of Smiles
10/7/2019 1 Comment 6 Months LaterIt’s officially been six months since I’ve moved back to America. Six months of having easy access to peanut butter and understanding every conversation around me. Six months of reveling in the luxury of washing machines, tap water, and warm showers. Six months of searching for food that is spicy enough, cursing when the weather drops below 70 degrees, and missing the life I had in Thailand.
I wanted to believe that the transition home would be easy. Despite all of the conversations about reverse culture shock and the warnings that we might feel different in a place we were once the most comfortable, I had convinced myself that I would be fine. I had left home for long periods before, and coming home was always weird, but nothing I couldn’t handle. But these past 6 months have been more challenging than I ever could have imagined. Everything is shadowed with a feeling of nostalgia that surfaces at the most unexpected moments. I baked bread and realized waiting for dough to rise is far more fun when there’s a yai inspecting my work and a gang of neighborhood kids to play cops and robbers with to pass the time . I bought a brand new road bike and went on bike rides nearly every day, but constantly found myself wishing for my beat up hybrid bike with the broken pedal, because riding that meant I had my squad of tiny friends following me. I call my tiny neighbor squad, who tell me about the games they’ve been playing and the bike rides they’ve been on and I inevitably wind up in tears, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have left Khong Chai- it’s filled with so many people I love. I met the team I would spend the summer biking across America with, yet even as we grew closer, I felt lost existing in a group that was not the one I had spent the past 2 years growing alongside. At the end of our trip,I said goodbye to my team, yet could not help but remember a much more permanent goodbye that had left me crying for weeks. The cereal aisle overwhelms me. Repeating my stories exhausts me. The slow, suburban life that I once missed no longer feels comfortable, but I’ve found solace in the fact that I’m not alone in this. During my cross-country ride, I reunited with 3 different returned Peace Corps volunteers, all of whom had experiences similar to mine It validated my feelings of not fully fitting back in where I once did. I’ve had over 2 years to learn and re-learn who I am and grow into that person- so why would 25 year old me fit into the space 22 year old me left behind? I don’t, and that’s okay. 25 year old me fits into other places, and though it hasn’t been easy, I’m slowly starting to search them out. If nothing else, I have a pack of tiny neighbors on the other side of the world reminding me that Khong Chai will always be there as the home I will someday return to.
1 Comment
2/19/2019 1 Comment This Goodbye is HarderEarly last week, some of my kids and I went to help our neighbor Pii Ehm water her banana trees. Dragging buckets from the tap to the trees quickly escalated into Songkran-esque water fight that culminated in 5 drenched people, a grove of well hydrated trees, and the familiar prick of tears at the corners of my eyes. It’s only become familiar in the past few weeks: Moments of intense joy or quiet routine are quickly replaced with preemptive nostalgia and the lingering thought that soon this will all be just another memory. It was frustrating at first. Goodbyes are something I thought I was good at, or at the very least something I was used to. I said goodbye to my friends, family, and hometown to move to college. Four years later I said goodbye to more friends and yet another town when I graduated and moved back home. Every summer, I was a part of cabin groups, trip groups, and staff communities that I inevitably had to say goodbye to once August came around. Two years ago, I said goodbye to everyone and everything I knew and moved across the world with a bunch of strangers. I was prepared for this next goodbye to be hard, both for me and for the people I’ve grown so close to, but I thought I could enjoy my last few months thoroughly and put off dealing with the hard stuff until the very end.
As it turns out, this goodbye is much harder than any of the others I’ve said before. As I’ve slowly started to come to terms with and accept this fact, I became less frustrated by the moments of spontaneous emotion and started to explore deeper exactly why I was feeling this way. The day I finally leave Khong Chai, I will be leaving friends, family, students, and co- workers. These people welcomed me, cared for me, and worked alongside me. My service is a success because of the relationships I built, the lessons I learned, and the knowledge I’ve passed on to my community. While I know I will be back one day, a visit is not the same as living somewhere, and my presence will no longer be viewed as a normal part of this community. So when I say goodbye, it is not only to the people I’ve come to call my family, but to a way of life that I may never encounter again. Eventually time will pass and we will all find a new routine to our lives. There is comfort in this fact but it also makes this goodbye feel selfish. Travel, graduate school, and my choice of career are all a part of my future but I’m faced with the reality that this is not the same for the vast majority of my community members. Many will never be given the opportunity to see a new country, and my students can tell me with great certainty that even though they really want to be a nurse, they know they will be a farmer or a seller because school is expensive. I’m not just leaving; I’m letting go and understanding that life here will shift to accommodate my absence and I can do nothing more than trust that my presence had an impact somewhere. My students have been taught to dream, to think outside the box, and to believe in themselves. I want to be there to help them learn more and see what they become but I can’t. So, no matter how hard it may be, I’m going to trust they will remember these two years, and accept it’s time to say goodbye. In the second week of 2018, I received a package full of Christmas gifts from my Aunt Loyola. One of the many items was a small box titled “The Calming Coloring Kit.” It contained 50 cards with a mandala like design on one side. Every week since then, I have taken a few minutes to reflect on one thing I had learned and written it on the blank side of the cards. And now, I am sharing my 50 lessons with all of you.
10/8/2018 2 Comments Have I Made a Difference?Have I made a difference?
This question has recently become a cloud over my daily life. As I end the third of my four school terms, as the number of months I have left here slowly decreases, as my post service plans are starting to become more concrete, I look around and ask myself: Have I made a difference? If I rephrase this question it is not hard to answer: Is my community different from when I first arrived? Yes, of course my community is different. There is a new 7-11, a coffee shop recently opened, and the roads are in the process of being repaved. Physically, my community has changed, is always changing, but I cannot kid myself and pretend like I had anything to do with it. Have I made a difference in myself? Yes, of course I'm different. I know a new language. I can bake bread. I like spicy food. Plans changing on a moment’s notice no longer stresses me out. I no longer have a need to make every trip perfect. I have become comfortable with always being challenged and never completely knowing what is happening. Living alone, living in a foreign country, starting a new job, all of these things will change you; doing them all at once only multiplies that change. But that is not why I came to Thailand. And the question I should ask is Have I made a difference in my community? I look at my “Tiny Neighbor Squad”: Junia and Noon want to grow their hair long like mine. When a store owner called Bpom fat she replied “no, I exercise, I’m strong”. Pii loves to learn English phrases and works them into every conversation. I look at my students: my fourth graders told me our bike rides are more fun than their phones. At lunch last week, a co-worker told me her daughter, Ked, wasn’t bored in school when I was there, because I teach with activities and make learning fun for her. I look at my co workers: everyone loves pumpkin bread. My co teacher is no longer scared to use her English. My counterpart has applied for another volunteer, because now he understands what life skills are. Maybe it’s nothing huge, maybe these seeds will grow and maybe they won’t, maybe there’s more I haven’t realized and maybe there’s not. And so, I ask Have I made a difference? Yes, of course I have. 9/9/2018 1 Comment From Two PerspectivesMy sister, Meghan, visited me in August. We both wrote about her trip to my site for the Sticky Rice, the Peace Corps Thailand Magazine! (pctmagazine.org) Kayla:“We look alike but that’s about where the similarities stop” is how I’ve been describing my older sister, Meghan, for as long as I can remember. All of our teachers would talk about how much more studious she was, how much chattier I was. She ran cross country, I was a swimmer; she would turn carefully through a ski run while I came crashing along behind her, trying to see how fast I could go and how many people I could shower in snow when I slid to a stop. She graduated and went to law school, I joined the Peace Corps. But, these are minor differences when one considers the power of a sister relationship. She is only 13 months older than me, we grew up together. We shared a room for 17 years: procrastinating on homework, getting ready for dances, packing for camp and vacation, packing for college. We babysat our siblings together, we pranked our siblings together. Meghan and I have shared most of our life experiences with each other and, recently, I was able to share my home in Thailand with her. My sister landed in Bangkok on August 3rd with two of our cousins and two of her close friends. Four of them had just taken the Bar Exam and we spent our first weekend celebrating in Bangkok with matcha blizzards, temple tours, and a Khao San adventure. Then, on Sunday night, the six of us boarded a night bus and began the journey to my community in Khong Chai, Kalasin. We were planning on spending two days visiting my home and, while this part of the trip would definitely place the group far outside their comfort zones, it was the part I was most excited about. The people in my community had been hearing for over a year about the girl who looked like me and the anticipation of her arrival had mounted considerably in the previous weeks. The stares started the minute we got on the song tao to my community and the love followed not long after we got off. The students from my closest school saw us pass and five of them brought their bikes to my house so we could visit my further school that afternoon. My co-teacher followed closely behind with extra fans and bedding and my landlady came over to welcome everyone to Khong Chai. Across the next two days, we visited two schools, played a lot of volleyball (to the entertainment of my students), and greeted an endless stream of curious community members, all of whom exclaimed “naa muaan!” (same face!) upon seeing Meghan and I together. The teachers at both school made sure there was plenty of non-spicy food for everyone to eat and asked excitedly about the places we were traveling to next. I loved watching and translating all of the interactions but, perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone who knows me, my favorite part was introducing the neighborhood kids. I fondly refer to the group of kids on my street as the Tiny Neighbor Squad and we hang out just about every day. They have seen lots of photos of Meghan and counted the freckles on my arms, asking in disbelief if she really has more than I do. Meanwhile, Meghan has seen my plethora of Tiny Neighbor Instagram posts and loves interacting with kids. Naturally, the kids were a little intimidated by the pack of new, non- Thai speaking farangs, but then some of them pulled out my jump rope, a couple others my Sorry board and soon everyone was figuring out ways to communicate and play together. The second day, even more kids came over and a street wide game of Monkey in the Middle broke out. Over the past year and a half, I’ve gone from the scary farang, to a friend, to a big sister- trusted by the moms to care for their kids and go on biking adventures all over the community. I have six younger siblings so these relationships have been a familiar comfort, drawing me out of my house and making me laugh even on my worst days. Introducing them to part of my American family and watching the way they all connected with each other felt like merging the most important parts of my two worlds. After leaving my site, Meghan, the group, and I travelled up to Chiang Mai and down to Koh Phi Phi. These places were beautiful and I’m really grateful to have had the chance to show everyone all over this country but the trip to my site remains a highlight. Meghan knows about my home now and understands how I live my life and sharing an experience like this one will always surpass any of our differences. Meghan:I have been lucky enough to have had several opportunities to travel the world. I have experienced different cultures, languages, and lifestyles and have formed relationships with people across the globe. Most of my travels, however, have led me to the large cities and the parts of the country catered to tourists. When I decided to travel to Thailand to visit my sister, Kayla, during her Peace Corps service, I knew I would be experiencing Thailand in a way that I had not experienced the other countries. As I was preparing for my trip to Thailand, I was excited to see a new part of the world and I was excited to see my sister and what her life has been like for the past two years, but, for the first time before international travel, I was anxious. I was anxious about travelling to a country where I did not know the language; I was anxious about experiencing a culture completely different from anything I have experienced; I was anxious about the level of discomfort I knew I would experience when I entered a rural Thai community; I was anxious about the level of discomfort my presence might cause for the members of a rural Thai community. My anxiety was unfounded for two reasons: (1) I did not realize that my sister was viewed by the community members as a part of the community, not a visitor; and (2) the Thai people are some of the most welcoming people I have ever encountered. The first time we drove into my sister’s village, was an unreal experience. Every road we drove down, everyone stopped and stared with a questioning look on their face. Who were these foreigners that were entering their village? The closer we drove to my sister’s home, the more anxious I became. However, as soon as Kayla stepped out of the song tao everyone’s demeanor changed. Kayla was a neighbor who was returning home from a vacation, not a stranger who was upsetting their daily life. She was greeted with smiles and waves and laughter. I also had the opportunity to visit her two schools. All of her co-teachers and students greeted us with smiles, hugs and their best attempts at English. We were welcomed friends of Kayla who was now a friend, sister, mentor, and daughter. We easily blended into the multiple communities Kayla is a part of because of the relationships Kayla has fostered during her time in Thailand. My short time in Thailand was incredible and it was a pleasure meeting the Thai people, a people who seem to find happiness in the smallest of life’s moments. I was also glad to discover that my sister has found a family abroad. She has truly found people who love and care for her. 6/4/2018 1 Comment A Third HomePeace Corps Volunteers in Thailand have the opportunity to call two places home: one during PST and one during service. For me, the first place I called home was a hair salon in Singburi province, where a family of five took me in for ten weeks. They gave me a bed, fed me (a lot), and did their very best to communicate with me, a person who could only say about 3 sentences in Thai. They cared for me during one of the biggest transitions of my life and I will forever consider them family.
My second home is the small district of Khong Chai in the Southwest corner of Kalasin province. The people here range from coworkers to friends to family; everyone has played a different role in making me feel like a part of this community. The more time I spend here, the more relationships I’ve been able to build and the more confident I am that will be coming back here throughout the rest of my lifetime. On the opposite side of Kalasin is another community that has become important to me. The village of Kud Wa is known by many as the home to the Phu Thai people and the location of Isaan’s largest rocket festival. I know it as my third home. I visited Kud Wa for the first time a little over a year ago. Less than 2 minutes after stepping off the bus a woman selling noodles saw me, assumed I was friends with the local farang (a PCV named Olivia), and pointed me in the direction of the anamai, the landmark closest to Olivia’s house. The rest of the weekend was spent meeting people just as caring and helpful as this woman. There was a huge rocket festival taking place at the time, but that didn’t stop the community members from taking the time to chat with me, eat lunch with me, and dress me in Phu Thai clothing in an effort to share their culture and make me feel welcome. That first weekend was a blurry whirlwind of events- a beauty pageant, a parade, 60 rockets being launched, and at least 2,000 photos, but I left knowing that I would come back, and I have on numerous occasions. Whether it was for more Phu Thai holidays, the opening of the new Tesco Lotus, a trip with Olivia to Pii Beer’s home in Udon Thani, or no reason at all, Kud Wa has always welcomed me with open arms and the sense of familiarity and love that lets me know I am home. Each visit has held different adventures but has also felt a little more familiar: I know what each of the different stores sell and how to get from the anamai to Olivia’s house. I know Yaii Gop will always be the first to greet me - screaming my name the second she sees me turn the corner, and usually following me to Olivia’s house with arms full of fruit or vegetables or snacks that she will waste no time cutting and sharing. Pii Urn will often stop by as we’re eating dinner, sometimes eating with us, but always asking about my site and making sure I am being taken care of. I can count on Nong Happy to be biking up and down the street, and sometimes he’ll pop over to smile shyly at us with Pii Beer not too far behind. I know that they are just as excited to see me as I am to see them and my departure is always be met with “Jer Gahn! Jer gahn! See you!” I know that this comfort, this collective embrace from the community has made Kud Wa my third home. Though I have never actually lived there, I would also never hesitate to return to it. It is a place where the people mean as much to me as my own neighbors and where I have memories and stories that will forever be important parts of my Peace Corps experience. I returned to Kud Wa for the rocket festival this year. I knew the way to Olivia’s house and made bread to share with her counterparts and neighbors. I wore my own Thai clothes and we explored the rocket festival on our own. One year here has changed me a lot: I am more independent, more knowledgeable about Isaan and its culture, and more willing to do spontaneous things like lead a parade. But no amount of time will change my need for community and my gratitude at having found that in three very different but equally beautiful homes. 4/29/2018 2 Comments RedefineThe more time I spend as a Peace Corps Volunteer, the more I realize how much the way I think about and define things has changed. Here, I compiled a list of a few of the most important words I have needed to redefine. Bike (n.) sometimes thought to be an extension of a Peace Corps Volunteer’s body, a bike is the only form of transportation they are legally able to operate. It is key to our independence in the community and can sometimes feel more like a friend than an inanimate object. There for us since the beginning of training, a bike gets knocked down and beat up more than we do but still manages to hold together and give a volunteer the escape required to maintain sanity during service. Friend (n.) a person of any age or background who doesn’t mind your company. You may not be able to understand them on a deep level but you understand that their presence makes you feel happy and loved and you can only hope they feel the same way about your presence. A person you can count on to be excited when they see you. Family (n.) 1) a group of people, related by blood, who are willing to welcome and care for a complete stranger who may or may not be able to communicate effectively with them. They are teachers, caregivers, and support systems. Something familiar to return to. 2) a group of people, not related by blood, who are bonded by the power and emotions of a big experience. They are teachers, caregivers, and support systems. Something familiar to travel to. Home (n.) a space where a volunteer has put in extra effort in order to feel most comfortable. There may be photos on the wall, favorite books on the shelf, or a man behind a counter who knows their regular lunch order. A home can range in size- anywhere from a room to a neighborhood to a country- and a volunteer may have more than one. This is a place where a volunteer knows they can always return and feel a sense of familiarity and belonging Laundry (v.) the act of scrubbing and soaking clothes in an attempt to make them smell better. This may take at least half a day to complete and is a good time to catch up on podcasts and audio books. The relationship between a volunteer and this act may grow from deep dread to an acceptance that this is simply another weekend chore. Love (v.) the act of showing someone they are appreciated, that they belong. This can be done with random gifts of produce, a ride to work when it’s raining, long talks on a hotel balcony, letters or messages from across the world, etc. Without this act, Peace Corps service is impossible. Success (n.) a moment or event that you can look back on and find something to be proud about. (Ex. “My project was completed and I think someone may have learned something. What a success!” or “Today was not great but I still forced myself to bike around the community and say hi to my neighbor so it was a successful day!”) NOTE: this definition is constantly changing and may vary depending on the person, situation, or weather. Support System (n.) a network of people across the globe who may or may not speak your language. They want you to succeed and will go to great lengths to help you remember what you can do. This includes, but is not limited to, calling meetings to help get your ideas into the community, tagging you in relatable memes, sending letters and snacks to your office, and braving long flights or public transportation to visit you. Never more than a phone call or text message away, a support system is the backbone of a Peace Corps Volunteer’s experience; without it, 27 months would be a much more difficult length of time. Work (v.) a 24/7 lifestyle that involves being an active member of a community that does not speak your first language, biking great distances to go grocery shopping, and planning and implementing projects that may or may not go the way you planned. Also includes extended lunch breaks to the best somtam shop in the next province, random weekend morning trips to a place you’ve never heard of, and a community full of people who are always interested in your latest trip and what you ate for lunch. Peace Corps (n.) 27 of the craziest and most challenging months of a person’s life. It is not sleeping on a dirt floor and being adored by all but it is finding comfort in a simpler lifestyle and home in the people we grow close to. It is thinking on our feet and filling hours of free time; it is speaking broken language and cooking subpar food; it is pitching project after project in the hopes people will be interested in helping you and it is coming to terms with the fact that we have to fail a lot before we learn how to redefine and find success. Most days are spent trying to keep up and most nights end alone and exhausted. It is more than our Instagram feeds and our blog posts, more than our stories and highlights. Peace Corps can be appreciated by all but only fully understood by those who experience it. I imagine in another 11 months I will have different definitions for some of these words but that’s all part of the process: growing, changing, and growing some more.
3/13/2018 1 Comment 14 Months Later“So today I was riding around with my counterpart. We visited a couple of farms and then we turned down this road. Doesn’t it kind of look like America? I almost started crying, I really miss that.”- message to another volunteer, April 2017 I had almost forgotten how hard my first month here was. After ten weeks of new friends, daily debriefs and lessons, plenty of coffee, and home cooked meals, I was thrown into a world of strange faces, Isaan dialect, lots of bpa laa (fermented fish) and spicy food. Everything was new, everything was hard, and I would search endlessly for scenes and activities that would give me a few seconds to breathe before plunging back into the wildly unfamiliar. Groves of rubber trees that I could pretend were maples, books whose stories I first read in my childhood home, and music I first heard in my friends’ cars were all comforts I clung too to keep from drowning in this new world.
Somehow, in the past year, I had forgotten all of that. That is, until I was invited to help with some training sessions for the new group of volunteers. One session on resiliency required me to reflect on that first month, what I felt I could control, and how it had changed in the year since. There is no month in the past year that I can point to and honestly claim “that was easy”, but what this session forced me to recognize was how many challenges I had overcome, and how the things that were challenging in April 2017 are now a regular part of my life. I have friends here now (although most are under the age of 7, we have the best time together), my language has improved (and I’ve learned to nod and smile convincingly when I don’t understand), and everyone knows and is okay with me not liking bpa laa (they know I’ll still try the spicy food). The little comforts I once clung to are now just that- comforts: there if I want them, but not necessary for my existence here. Each month has presented itself with its own hurdles and the next 12 will not be any different, but the thing about hurdles is you get stronger the more you leap over them and each time you clear one, you get closer to a successful finish. After helping at the training I traveled to Udon Thani, a nearby province, with another volunteer and her neighbor. We visited the Red Lotus Lake, and took a boat past some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen. “Lol who transported me to Wisconsin? You gotta come visit this place, it’s incredible!”- message to another volunteer, March 2018. 3/8/2018 1 Comment Knowing ThemThey are mothers.
They are teachers. They are farmers. They are sellers. They care for their children and their children’s children. Cooking, cleaning, working all day. They care for me. Visiting, teaching, bringing me vegetables, They care for each other. Helping, chatting, looking after another’s child. They are strong, independent, driven. Sharing, helping, giving They are the backbone of this community Inspiring, empowering, encouraging. They are the faces I love the most Smiling, greeting, laughing with me. They are my neighbors. They are my counterparts and co teachers. They are my friends They are the women of Khong Chai, and I am lucky to know them. 1/14/2018 2 Comments Children's DaySaturday was Children’s Day in Thailand. The day is exactly like it sounds like it would be- a chance for the adults in a community to celebrate their sons, daughters, grandchildren students, or any other kids that may be a part of their life. But, more than that, is was a chance for the kids to celebrate and enjoy being a kid. My Tessaban had a huge event in the morning with free food (including ice cream, hot cocoa, and French fries), games, prizes, and performances from each of the different schools. For four hours kids had the run of the land and no one would criticize them for snagging that extra ice cream cone or running wildly with their friends. When the MC asked for 15 volunteers and 25 ran to the stage, no one was turned away; and when a student didn’t know the answer to the Khong Chai trivia question, the adults helped him figure it out and still gave him the giant teddy bear prize. The kids were everyone’s sole focus: lifting them up, cheering them on, reveling in their happiness and the excitement and pride from the parents was palpable. Why shouldn’t it be? Their kids are some of the most incredible young people I’ve ever met.
The kids in Khong Chai carry more responsibility than I ever did at their age. I have students who care for their younger siblings after school, cook for their families every night, and help in the rice fields during harvest season. They do all this and still manage to show up to school, smiling and ready to try sitting still for an hour and learning from me. Naturally, some students pick up the English faster than others but that doesn’t discourage them from trying and, at the very least, enjoying whatever game or activity I end class with. I have never left school without a smile and I have these people to thank for it. As Children’s Day went on, I saw most of the kids I’ve met since moving to Khong Chai. They greeted me with hugs, waves, and “Hello! How are you?” and I could not stop smiling. So many people here have welcomed me with open arms and curiosity but it was the children who made my limited language skills a non- issue (they just want to play); it was the children who took me on their bikes to show me the best field to run around in; and it’s the children who keep me laughing on a daily basis. They will tease me for my ungraceful attempts at Thai dancing, share in my excitement over a package from home, and tell me stories for hours (whether I understand them or not). We learned the Panama dance together, befriended my stray cat family together, and complained together when it didn’t stop raining for a week. They ask me tough questions (Why are you white? I want to be white. Why did you come to Thailand? Are all Americans like you?) and will listen closely to my answers, an act that has made me more intentional in the way I reflect on and talk about this experience. They are my biggest cheerleaders, my favorite exercise buddies, and my best friends. There is no way I can ever adequately repay them for the positive impact they have had on my life, but starting my second year with a day dedicated solely to them has certainly given me the motivation to try. |