Wildlife Kingdom

Lizards, cockroaches and snails, OH MY! Yes, I see these everyday. The lizards are like little black or pink mice. They scurry around the kitchen and through the walls and ceiling. In fact, one rather large pink lizard lives in the trash bin in the kitchen. I'm sure he is friends with the cockroach that lives behind the stove. I've decided to name him AI (shy in thai). The cockroach is very shy, I turn on the light, and he scurries away. There are many cockroaches in Thailand. I just saw one climb into the printer. I tried to take a picture but my friend was too fast. The snails live on my shoes, on windows and on driveways. You can find them anywhere if you look hard enough. There arealso cobras, but I haven't seen any yet.

I have seen quite a few toads though. They come in all sizes, big at least 6 inches wide, or small, less than 2 inches wide. I even touched one in my front yard. This big mouthed frog jumped at least 5 feet away from me.

The other animals that I have seen a lot are stray dogs and cats. Neither are neutered or spayed. The males look so uncomfortable as they waddle around the school, the mall and the night market. The females have nipples that are so englarged, they touch the ground. Some looks so pathetic that you wish they could be given a home and a decent vet. But this is the third world. No such thing exists.

We do have policemen though. Many policemen. In fact, I was given a police escort this morning on my bike ride to school. He honked as I made a right turn and slowly came up behing me on his motorbike. Soon he was side by side with me trying to amek conversation. Most of it i didn't understand, but I did understand that he was asking me where I lived and where I went to schoo. He showed me his badge. I tried to answer in thai. He had seen me with Emma exercising on monday. He asked me how long I would be in thailand and how long I had ben in thailand. When we ran out of conversation he rode behind me-- THE WHOLE WAY. Apparently, blond girls need to be kept safe here. I understand, but when I pointed to my school and said goodbye, he drove off.

There is a korean soap opera witha girl who wears pants under her school uniform because she rides a bike to school. Once she gets to school she runs around trying to find a place to pull them off. That was me. I made it to my classroom just in time to pull off the exercise pants and run to roll call. While at roll call, I asked my friend Thanks what classes we had today. Since I'm not enrolled in any of the thai classes, I don't have class until the last period. It's an english biology class which might be cancelled because we have a visitor. Again. As I have mentioned to others, I never have class. Transferring credits is going to be a serious problem. Maybe I will try and sign up for private tutoring. It can't be that expensive.

I'm signing off for now, send me a letter or an e-mail if you have questions. Please be specific though, the general "How is thailand?" normally recieves a one word answer. If you want more than that, try to be creative.
Love to all,
Suzanne