While my landlord's son used my shower....

I came to realize my true reason for wanting to leave my perfectly comfortable existence in the states, my loving fiance, my supportive family and friends, my cats and every part of my life as I knew before June 29, 2008. I came here to be able to start a new, yet oddly temporary life. To make new friends and even a makeshift family. To create a new community different from any other I had experienced before. I came to explore myself in a place drastically (or is it really?) different from any existence I had known before.

While my previous rantings are over course overly idealistic and simplified, I did reach a point this past weekend that in some ways makes my journey here and any tribulation I've faced thus far worthwhile.

Saturday morning I had planned my day to be exceedingly productive. I was going to grade, grade, grade; write in my blog; respond to emails sent long ago; and many other very important tasks. All of my desire for productivity vanished when my landlord (I can't even think of an adjective that perfectly describes the wonder that she is) knocked on my door and came in just to chat. She wanted to know where I was going over break, to see where I lived on a map, to find out what state in the US was the most similar to Thailand, and a few other things to satisfy her ever present interest about me, English, and other parts of the world we share.

We spoke together about many things while both of us speaking in our own broken Thaiglish. She made herself comfortable on my bed and slowly flipped through my Thai/English dictionary in search of new words. We found a type of comfort with each other than made me feel right at home with her, like she was family.

Tom left a short while later, but returned soon after telling me to go buy "gai bing" grilled chicken from the stand down the street. She was going to teach me how to make som tum (Thai spicy green papaya salad) and we would eat together with her kids (her babies, as she calls them).

When I returned with the chicken, she took me into her covered outdoor kitchen and told me to sit on the floor. She has out her big, earthen mortal and pestle, small tomatoes, limes, long beans, chilies, and a big bowl of shredded green papaya. She instructed me to cut up the tomatoes and proceeded to show me how to perfectly pound together the aforementioned ingredients with some sugar, salt, fish sauce, and to my surprise her own home brewed fermented fish sauce.

We gathered up our feast of chicken, som tum, sticky rice, omelet, and some sort of vegetable that came from a vine to dull spicy things and sat down on a wooden mat outside of her house. We feasted with her too sons in the shade. Tom and all of the her many neighbors who game to visit were quite impressed at my ability to handle spicy things. (I guess I can thank my father for the ability to stomach spicy things).

After lunch, Tom's sons Oom and Oi came to play in my room and spent another 30 or 40 minutes giggling in my room as I attempted to finish my work. While I can barely communicate with the two of them, I guess there are certain things that are universal with kids. We thrive on those connections and I'm so glad to have them around me.

Saturday ended with a few more random visits from the boys and Tom. I felt like I was just up in my bedroom in a house that I shared with them. While sometimes the lack of personal space in annoying, on Saturday it was a wonderful gift.

(the moral of the story to be continued later)