So on Thursday the school-wide task (envisioned by the Vice Principal P Nitnoi who is also my "Thai mom") was for all the teachers to visit all their homeroom students at their homes and meet their guardians. P Nitnoi thought that this would be a great way for the school to connect with the students/parents and also find out how the school could better provide for the needs of the students, etc. P Wan and I took a motorcycle out early in the morning to various villages to visit about 10 students. None of us (not even the teachers) realized just how impoverished most of our students were. A lot of them live in these houses that don't even have all four walls. Just like some fabric hanging by a pole and a mosquito net on the floor where they sleep. None of the students I visited lived with their parents..just with a grandparent or another relative. A lot of their parents are divorced, gone, or laboring in Bangkok. I found out that one student worked multiples jobs (making straw mats, picking pineapples, and planting rice) to support herself and her grandmother (who could barely lift her head to say hello). I was trying really hard not to cry most of the time. I returned with a heavy heart and a lot of fresh tropical fruits from my students' families trees.
These are my students picking a fresh coconut for me. They were so good at chopping at the coconut with this big knife. And the coconut was so delicious!
Maybe it's all related but I've been wanting to try planting rice. I mentioned it again at dinner and at first everyone thought it was a joke. But after we ate a ton of food and had a drink or two everyone decided that a farang (a foreigner = me) CAN learn to plan rice. And we all got really excited and decided to do it together. So the next day P Wan, P Pla, P Thui, and I went off to a student's field to plant rice!
We went through this jungle to reach my student's field.
And it was so beautiful!
This is me getting started and my student looking at me skeptically. Everyone kept saying, "Can a farang really plant rice?"
But look, I did it! And everyone finally decided, "The foreigner CAN! (Dai! Dai!)"
And this is how I became a Thai farmer:
They asked me to bless the land in Issan language. Well, I was kind of delirious from trying to farm for the first time so I just said everything I could remember in Issan language: "Hello, thank you, let's go, delicious." I guess that wasn't really a blessing so P Wan helped me out and I repeated something really difficult-sounding and everyone was very satisfied and asked me to come to dinner (with chicken or beef!) at their houses. I should ask her what I said!
Gosh, beautiful rice fields really do take a lot of work. My body still kind of aches. I'm also kind of out of shape since I ride the motorcycle all the time. Also, I'm really afraid that the parts of the field I worked on are ruined and the rice won't grow! I hope the rice grows and all the farmers have a good season!
Last not but least...I hungout with snakes this weekend at the King Cobra Village. Everything was free:
It's a shame I wasn't wearing a cool outfit!
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