My village

Population: 10,000
It sounds like a lot for a village but you're wrong. My village is small. It's country, it's quiet. The houses are squished together, similar to thai lifestyle. Farmers, teachers, motorcycle repairmen, they all live here. In Thailand, one's little plot of land can be miles away from one's house. It's different from the U.S. or most other places in the West.
We like our space. Westerners do. If we farm, we surround ourselves with solitude. Farmers are often like hermits.
In Thailand, the thought of being so alone is utterly foreign. Thai people ride their motorcycles and bicycles and tractors for miles and miles away from their house to get to their farms. They all clump together in a village.

And so, the houses sit a meter apart. Ramshackles houses, teak lofts, each the same an each different. My house sits back from the rest. Down a long windy road past the half acre banana farm and the community cow grazing feild. It's roof is red.
I love my house.
I have my own bedroom and feel incredibly spoiled. My grandmother and brother sleep in the living room.
We all sleep on mats.
Cooking is done in the back shed. It's also where I wash my clothes by hand in buckets and where my grandmother chews her betel wood. She doesn't chew it very often, neither her gums nor her teeth are black.

I used to think I couldn't live without music. Now, music is rare and normally for special occasions. The silence has become comforting. Mainly, because it isn't silence at all. I finally stopped to listen to my surroundings.
I can hear children playing in the village elementary school next door. There are birds in the coconut trees and wind makes the leaves of the banana stalks whistle.

The house is set up just so. In the morning light fills the living room and enters the kitchen. In the evening the setting sun shines right inside the kitchen. It's taste lingering long after it has set.

I sleep with my window open. It's a habit I brought from the U.S. The fresh air does me good and the sounds of the night help me go to sleep. There's a schedule. Crickets and frogs are in the early evening and I hope to be asleep before the dogs begin their howling at two or three am.

It's strange how westernization works in different ways. I read once about madatory workouts during the day in Japan led by the radio. In thailand it's slightly less mechanized.

Every morning a truck drives through the town blasting orders and jokes out of loudspeakers for an hour. Six am sharp and the whole town is awake.
"Children, tell your parents. It's time to get up now. Wake up wake up. Eat breakfast. Eat breakfast!What are you going to have today? rice? Chinese donuts? Eat healthy! Don't forget! Go now! Go eat!"

Thai is the second language of most people here. They understand it but the older people have forgotten how to speak it. They speak Puthai. It's an indigenous language found only in this province. They speak it in Ban Klang (my village) and in Renu Nakhon another small town nearby.

I've picked up a few phrases but I'm sticking to my guns. I'm learning thai. I'm learning more than I did in my last host family but it's still difficult when your family doesn't speak it with each other.

It'd be the same as being an exchange student to the U.S. and your host family speaks spanish at home but english to you.It's only a little confusing.

het peu? (what are you doing? in puthai)

SMILE!! you just read my blog and you're on hidden camera. Cheers!