Wednesday 13 May
See the gallery Around our neighbourhood for photos from this post.
The boys have a baby bird. I'm not sure where it came from, but I saw a couple of them feeding it in its nest a few days ago, which was by then on the ground. I think the nest has now been abandonded all together, & it now lives in their room. I don't know how long it'll be before its poor little heart just can't take anymore... I was reminded just before coming to Thailand of the story of a baby magpie that we adopted when we were kids. Its mother had pushed it out of its nest so we took it home & fed & looked after it for maybe a couple of weeks, until my brothers were fighting over who was going to feed it one day, both of them had a hold on the poor little thing, tugging backwards & forwards. That was the end of that pet... So anyway, this bird here, not much bigger than a golf ball & I'm guessing not really ready to fly, gets thrown high up into the air & left to give flapping its little wings its best shot before it either thuds to the ground, or if its lucky manages to get its feet around a branch or something on the way down. They feed it with soft rice, or yesterday with little bits of banana on a skewer.
Yesterday I discovered that we have a kaffir lime tree growing in the yard. Tres excitement! I tore a few leaves up & threw them into the cauliflower in the wok that seems to be a favourite of Nabee's to cook (not a favourite of mine to eat) & it helped a lot. We also had some uni students come after the kids got home from school, to help them with their homework, & they are going to get really involved in helping the kids to study, learn English & Thai (they all speak their native hilltribe language, & pretty good Thai, but it's not great). Four of them came yesterday & they're really enthusiastic about getting involved. There's no money to pay them but they are happy just to help. School here is not free. Actually, when Caty met with the school yesterday morning to enrol a couple of kids, she was given the new fees for this semester. It's not good news - last semester cost around 20 000Baht, but for some reason this semester will cost 55 000Baht for all the primary school kids, & IHF doesn't have it. I'm not sure what will happen. The kids' sponsor money is US$10/month, but doesn't cover all the costs. For example, the primary school changes its uniform requirements every year; as of this new school year, there is, in addition to the everyday uniform, & the girl & boy scouts uniform that they have to wear on Wednesdays, there is now a new Friday uniform.... It's impossible to keep up & to cover the costs.
I also found out yesterday that the hilltribe people, as indigineous people are not "recognised" as Thai citizens. That means they can't get proper ID, can't get a passport, or just enjoy what you take for granted as being a citizen of the country you were at least born in. There is a lot of class-ism here, & the hilltribe people are about at the bottom of the ladder, which is why these kids need so much help, just to get the same opportunities that everyone else has.
Anyway, the clouds have arrived, & although I'm not sure if they're here to stay, it's sure a relief to have the temperature drop a bit, even if it's just temporary...
Thursday 14 May
Yesterday a couple of volunteers who’ve been away on a stint in Laos returned, so the family is growing again. One of them brought back season 2 of Gossip Girl, so I watched a couple of episodes with them & ate some brilliant peanut brittle from the shop down the road. This morning a new volunteer arrived & while she got the grand tour, I had a handover on the vegetable garden from one of the returned-from-Laos people, so now I’ve got the lowdown on that. There’s corn, which is doing quite well, beans, which are faltering, but a couple looking promising, cauliflower; not looking so good, carrots which are so-so, & pumpkin which is growing of its own accord due to the amount of pumpkin seeds that get thrown in with the kitchen scraps.
Kat, the new volunteer & I were invited to play cards with a few of the kids this afternoon. It was a bit challenging because of the language barrier, trying to figure out what the rules & object of the game were, but we got there in the end & it was fun. While Kat & I were having our butts kicked at cards, one of our daredevil boys found a scorpion to kill. Nice.
Anyway, I think the rainy season is here. It’s pretty much always cloudy now, which is good because it’s not so hot, but still ridiculously humid, which has a less-than-amusing effect on my hair, & is prone to dumping phenomenal amounts of rain over periods lasting from 15 minutes to a few hours. Everything is damp, laundry won’t dry even hanging inside with a fan on it for 2 days, & my sheets feel less than crisp when I get into bed at night.
Some bugs, perhaps heralding the arrival of the monsoon, have appeared in biblical plague proportions. They are like giant flying ants (of course, more ants!) & are everywhere as soon as it gets dark, but apparently only come out about 4 nights per year. Love wildlife….
Friday 15 May
It turns out that we do two trips to the market each week; Monday & Friday, so off we went at 7:00am to drop some kids at school (it was raining & they didn’t want to walk) then to get the food. I found a new snack – it’s like a firm jelly, I think made from tapioca & coconut milk, cut into little squares. You get about 10 or 12 pieces for 10B, sprinkled with freshly grated coconut & wrapped up in a banana leaf – totally awesome!
We did some jobs around the house for a few hours when we got back, then Kat & I walked down to a café about 25mins away which has free wifi, air-conditioning, great coffee, tea & homemade cakes & desserts. It’s very cool & is called the Lovin Room, which in the spirit of the movie Superbad, I’m calling the McLovin Room, of course.
It was Caty’s birthday so a few of us went to a Japanese place in town for dinner, which was pretty good, then for a quick look at the night markets which weren’t very busy because it keeps raining on & off. On the way home, all along the roads, people were out with torches catching the flying ants (termites, I'm told). We knew that this was what they were doing, because before we headed back to the house we spoke to one of the kids on the phone & they told us that they were catching & frying the very same bugs…. to eat. So we came home to a late night snack of fried termites, some cooked with soy sauce, some just fried plain with salt. I have to admit that they were pretty good – just a crunchy, salty snack, a bit like popcorn (but instead of the little kernally bits that gets stuck in your teeth, it’s wings….) It turns out that the reason so many people were out catching them, apart from eating them themselves, is that they sell for 1000B/kg (possibly because they only come out 4 times a year). They’re pretty small & don’t weigh much, so I can’t even begin to imagine how many you’d need for a kilo, but it would be a lot.
