Life in the Shoe: ABC Post 3--Amy's Update from Thailand

[Our oldest daughter Amy teaches English in Mae Sariang, Thailand, and is home for a visit. She gave me permission to share her recent update as a guest post. If you want to be on her mailing list, please contact her at jamy.ane@gmail.com . You can follow her on Instagram at @amysmucker]

[Her roommate, Lori, writes at https://insearchofabrook.wordpress.com/]

March 23, 2024

Hello, everyone!

Almost 4 weeks ago I sat down and started to write an update, since February was almost over and according to the schedule I’d planned, I’m supposed to send an update in February. I wrote about 15 words, and downloaded a few pictures--and then promptly forgot about it. It’s been a flurry of activity ever since—lots of finishing up grading, celebrating graduation, school activities, getting ready to go back to America over break, and so on. It doesn’t sound like much when I write it out, but in the moment I had too many other things to think about to even remember that I was supposed to write an update. And now I'm back in my old room in the farmhouse where I grew up, looking out over the green, green grass fields and listening to the raindrops on the roof and the train going by, with no pressing demands on my time, so I have no excuse to put it off anymore.

So yes, I’m home for a visit! I arrived March 19, and will be here until April 24, so 333please let me know if you’d like to get together! This year I’m not planning a fundraising dinner and don’t currently have plans to speak at church or anything, but I’d love to sit down and chat with any of you who are nearby.

I’ve just finished my third year of teaching at Mae Sariang Boripat Suksa School. It’s gone by so fast, yet when I think about when I first came, I feel like I’ve come a long way. Yet I still have a lot to learn, especially with classroom management and finding ways to connect with students.

I posted selfies that I’d took with some of my classes, and several people commented to me on how many students there are. I think it hits you more when you see their faces. But yes, there are around 500 students that I personally taught last term. If you count all the students I’ve taught at least 1 term in the last 3 years, it’s probably over 2000. I only remember a few names, and can recognize some of their faces, but I really struggle to remember who is who, let alone develop a relationship with them. Once in a while we have a chance to connect outside of class, and those times are really special. A couple of times recently a student has come into the teachers’ office and started to chat, and then just sat down next to my desk and talked for a while. Or sometimes they’ll come up and ask questions after class. After I made brownies for an activity with the Christian student at school, several of the girls told me they really wanted to learn how to make brownies, so I invited them to come over last Saturday. In the end only 1 of the 3 girls was free, but she brought 2 of her friends along. They didn’t want to go home when it was over—they stay in a dorm in town, and have strict rules, so they’re not allowed to get out very much, and it was a treat just to be in a real house that’s a little more out in the country. It would be fun, and a good opportunity, to start some kind of regular activity for dorm kids. We’ll see if Lori or I has the time and energy for that next year.

Making brownies

Me with one of my grade 7 classes

Anyone who’s come to Thailand in March or April knows that it’s generally very hot and smoky. Chiang Mai is often on top of the list of most polluted major cities this time of year, and the smoke seems to come out of nowhere. But in our town we can see it—during the day, sometimes, there are billowing pillars of smoke rising from the neighboring mountains, and at night you can see trails of fire. One evening last week I heard the snap and crackle of a fire, and could see the orange glow on the hill behind our house when I looked out the back window. It was a little scary, but as annoying as it is to know that the fires are set intentionally, the one good thing is that you know someone is monitoring it so it’s not likely to come burn your house down. For the most part, the fires just burn the leaves and underbrush, but aren’t strong enough to burn down the trees. Sometimes, however, the fires do get out of hand and burn uncontrolled, and then they are more likely to burn the trees too.

I’m not entirely sure why they’re burning so much, but I know that one reason is that burning encourages the growth of a certain type of mushroom that is very valuable and fairly prolific in the hills in our area. These mushrooms only pop up at a certain time of year—I think maybe it’s in June. In Thai their name is “Het Top,” but I don’t know what they’re called in English. I’ve had them before at church potlucks, and they’re really good, but not significantly better than other mushrooms in my opinion. And certainly not worth having unhealthy levels of smog for weeks on end. Anyway, I’ve heard they also burn just for general forest maintenance, getting rid of the fallen leaves, etc. They also burn the straw after rice harvest, but I don’t think that’s part of the problem now, because that was months ago. I think the biggest issue is that everyone thinks, “I have these leaves I have to get rid of, and my one little fire isn’t going to make much difference,” but a lot of little fires DOES make a difference, unfortunately. Some of the smoke also comes from agricultural burning in neighboring countries like Myanmar and Laos.

1 day on the way to school--obvious fires on the hills // next day view from the exact same spot--can't see the hills at all // night view of the fires on the hills, from our house.

A few random highlights since my last update:

There’s a place about a 2-hour drive from our house where there’s a whole hill covered in Mexican Sunflowers. (They look kind of like big yellow daisies). They always bloom in November, so Lori and I too a quick trip to see them one weekend. The glowing yellow hill of flowers in the light of dawn is stunning—well worth the trip. We also got a pleasant surprise when we ran into our pastor’s family with a bunch of the kids who live at church. We’d both made plans to come without telling the other.

All of Thailand celebrates “Buddhist Lent” which starts around July/August and ends sometime in October, based on the lunar calendar. But in our town we have a special festival to celebrate the end of Buddhist lent. There are vendors who come in to set up booths selling all sorts of things, a mini amusement park for kids, a parade, concerts every night, and other activities that last for several days. It’s always beautiful because they put up colorful lanterns all around town.

Another religious holiday, one that more people are familiar with, is called Loi Krathong. For this one, people make little floats with banana stalks, decorated with flowers. They put in a stick of incense and light it, and float it in the river, as an offering to apologize to the river for using her water the rest of the year. It’s also common at this festival to light sky lanterns and send them off into the sky. The lanterns are supposed to carry away your bad luck. In Chiang Mai, this festival is stunning, with thousands of lanterns rising into the sky, and many tourists come to see it--although for the Thai holiday the floating the offering in the river is the point of the holiday, more than the sky lanterns. Here in our little town, it was much more laid-back, but we did have a market/walking street along the river with lots of food vendors, and it was really crowded. Lori was busy studying, so I went by myself, and ended up seeing a lot of students, and sitting and listening to the school band play for a while. Once again, the lanterns in the night and all the lights along the river were beautiful and magical, but it’s sad to think of people depending on these things to take their troubles away and never really finding true peace.

Lori has finally finished her course to get her teaching license. She still has to take some exams, but the bulk of it is done. So it’s really nice for her to have a bit of free time again. You might be wondering what’s happening for me, with studying and licensing and stuff. I’m still trying to decide for sure, but I’m probably going to take the course from the Thai education department. The complicating factor is that it’s still really new, and so far I haven’t heard any reports from people who have taken the course, on what it’s like. The course Lori did seemed good, but pretty intense to try to squeeze into a schedule that’s already pretty full—and also pretty expensive.

Lori’s parents and sister came to visit soon after Christmas, so over New Year’s day she went to Chiang Mai to pick them up, and I was home alone. The pastor and his wife invited me to go with them to the mountains, to the home village of one of the 2 college-age girls who are doing ministry internships at the church, who both went along on the trip also.

They’d told me it was about a 4-hour drive away, and we were late getting left, so I was bracing myself for a long trip. I knew the pastor was driving fast, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up because nothing makes a trip feel longer than when you think you’re almost there but you just keep going and going for another hour or two. Well, this time, about two hours and 15 minutes after we left, we stopped in a village and the pastor said we had arrived. I thought he was just joking, but he wasn’t! So that was a pleasant surprise.

The church had kind of a big combination Christmas and New Year’s celebration. It was in the church building, which was just this big empty building, and everyone sat on the floor. When the introduced our group, the pastor told me as we were walking up, “You should sing a special song” and I was stumbling around trying to gently decline, when he picked up the mic and announced that I was going to sing. He played the guitar and the two intern girls helped sing, so at least I wasn't entirely alone as I stumbled through “Here I am to worship” in English and Thai.

Then the pastor preached a sermon, and for the rest of the night we had a gift exchange and performances. It was a typical Thai gift exchange—everyone who wants to participate brings a gift, and they put a number on each gift. Then they put all the numbers on slips of paper, and each person reaches into the box and chooses a slip of paper, and whatever number you get, that’s your gift. I never know quite what to give, but I try to get a variety of things, including snacks, so no matter what age or gender of person gets my gift they will enjoy at least part of it. The gift I got, this time, was some body wash and lotion and a pair of socks. Other times I’ve gotten laundry detergent, a towel, or a pillow. Anyway, they would have about 10 people choose their gifts, and then they would pause for a song or dance from a group of people, usually kids. I think there were about 150 gifts all together, so this took a while. I bowed out eventually and went back to the house to sleep, so I wasn't around to see how long the program lasted.

The next morning, soon after I was up, our hosts had breakfast made for us, but the pastor’s wife warned me not to eat too much because we had been invited to several other houses and would probably eat there also. Breakfast is basically the same as any other meal in Thailand—rice, with several side dishes—usually at least one of which is soup. So we did our rounds of visiting in the village, and actually only got served one more breakfast, but stopped and chatted at a couple of places. Then we packed and loaded all our stuff, they said we had just one more place to go—the other intern girl, Tida’s village, not far as the crow flies, but maybe a 20 minute drive away.

At this point it was about 9:00 a.m., and all our morning visits and meals so far had passed rapidly. I figured by 10 or 10:30 we’d be done and on our way, and be back home again by early afternoon, so I would have time to get some stuff done at home or go to a coffee shop. So we got to the village, and went to this little store that Tida’s family owned, which had a little bamboo room on the side that had a lovely view over the valley. We sat down, and someone brought some drinks, but nothing was really happening. Then after a while the intern girls came with a group of young people from the village said they were going to go sing Happy Birthday for their friend, and invited me to come along. So we went, and sang for this girl, with some candles stuck into a pile of snacks. It turned out that I knew her—she had come to our school for area academic competitions a few months previously, and had competed in the storytelling contest that I helped judge. So we hung out and ate snacks in her house for a while, and then I went back to the store where the pastor’s wife was, and took a nap and read a book. There was still no sign of the meal we were supposed to eat at this place (I wasn't really hungry after all that breakfast, but they had said we would eat there) and no clue of how long we were going to stay.

Finally someone came and told us to come eat, and we had a late lunch inside one of the village homes. Then we went back to the store for more reading and relaxing. I went on a walk with one of the girls, and when I came back, the pastor said we were going to have a worship time with Tida’s family, and then leave. But we had to wait a while until her parents got there. When they arrived we sang some songs, and the pastor shared some Scripture and we prayed together. I thought we would leave then—but no, the pastor said he wanted to take a shower before we go. I just laughed when I heard that, but thankfully he didn't take long too long, and about 15 minutes later we were on the road. We did have to make one more stop on the way out to pick up some goat meat someone wanted to give us. By the time we got home, it was after 7 p.m., and dark. It would have been a lovely day if I'd known from the beginning we would just relax all day--I just got a little stressed when I kept expecting that something would happen any moment and it never did. But that’s just how it tends to be, when traveling with Thai friends—you never know what’s going to happen. It’s good for me to learn to be more flexible and patient and trust that things will work out even when I don't know what's going to happen.

One of the morning visits: Jiu the intern is on the far left, and next to her is the pastor's wife

Lunch in Tida's village (in a house like this you can just drop your orange peels or chicken bones through the cracks in the floor)

It was fun to meet Lori’s family! Her sister was here last year, and is actually joining the Igo team in Chiang Mai, but it was her parents’ first time in Thailand.

Our Thai friend Max, Lori, her parents, sister Sara, her friend who also came along, and me.

I taught some of my classes about Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day, and made them mini pumpkin and apple pies. Christian-based holidays are a great way to talk about Christianity within the scope of what's expected in English class, since it's part of American culture.

Every year in December I pull out my suitcase full of blankets and sweatshirts and warm socks, and re-arrange my closet for the 2 months of cold weather.