Every new minute.

Every new minute. 

Ford in pink and purple fearful player.

Tarn a champion Volleyball player and dancer.

        From time to time I think I should pinch myself to remind me that I am "Overseas"; but then a teacher offers me a tasty fried grasshopper as I go to class or I ask whether a lunch dish is pork or chicken and am told it is Frog and the next bowl contained periwinkles. Those are the moments  where I know my location.
        There have been many such moments and days this past week. Tuesday and Wednesday were days for sport and competition between the five teams in the high school. What the students did was remarkable in its creativity and effort, as well as their collaborating with one another. The competitions were in volleyball, badminton, petangue,  (French " jeu des boulles"), sepaktakrau *(sp?), table tennis and dancing. Teams were also awarded points for their cheer-leading prowess. This meant the decoration of their area and their dance presentation and seemingly the loudness and banshee like screeches.
          How they managed volleyball on hot concrete or the contortions of *kicking the bamboo platted ball backwards over their heads or dancing wildly and at times gracefully I know not. The obvious and the subtleties evaded me as a foreigner, but the beauty and co-operation in building sets and movements stood beyond language. 
          Teachers belonged to colour teams and each cheered for their own. They too told me they were amazed by what the students were able to do unaided by adults. Pink won, as far as I could see by their performance in the afternoon dancing play offs. The dances were a mixture of  hop-hop, disco and traditional Thai. The Thais are remarkably prudish, especially in a regional remote area like Issan, despite the shows for foreigners in bars in tourist spots. So it was startling to watch the suggestive gyrations and poses of heavily made up young and usually shy boys and girls on the day.

           When the pink volley ball team, mostly boys', came onto the court several wore pink bows in their hair and a couple had elaborate make up.
Tarn, one of my English students, took time during the breaks to refresh and restore the face cosmetics. The girls screamed more about the lady-boys than the other straight lads. A couple of teachers explained to me that these young people were girls in boys' bodies. No fuss, no phobias, nothing remarkable and so sensible.

            Resuming class after the two days meant riding in the wave of excitement of the two competition days. I was able to print out a sheet with words and phrases about what they liked and what they participated in and get them to practice in pairs and groups. "I liked the two days because...." etc. Therein lies a conundrum of teaching here.

            As I have said my job is to support or teach along with the English teacher.  Much of the time I feel like this is a kind of pretense, a formality bereft of firm foundations. The standards for each class are unknown to me. I am not even sure who the English subject coordinator is. I did find the national curriculum in English recently on line and that is matter for consideration if not implementation. And there is a Teaching Thailand site which is useful. All this is great practice for an obsessive like me in living with ambiguity.

Day in the Bush/Country-Out.

   On Saturday  morning we headed off in the Isuzu ute with lunch packed headed for the house of Santi a friend of our host family. Before lunch we went for a walk along a country road and then through a neighbouring farm. The woman of the house was harvesting flowers or buds for the market. We inspected the frog farm where large specimens were being fed and fattened for the market. It is the rice harvesting time now and each day farmers take their rice to the open concrete pavements near temples to dry out the grain. They heap it, rake it and before sunset bag it. They negotiate with one another as to the order of concrete space use. Each morning as I go to the temple I see a different couple, mostly husband and wife spreading and managing the "green" grain.
      Jack lit a fire of bamboo and coconut  husk. He cut a few pieces of bamboo to make a BBQ spindle for a thin chook with head in tact. I was consoled to see that the eyes were closed. We secured the chook to the spindle with flexible grass, called Dog Fart. It warrants its name, and evidently excellent for stomach upsets. While we roasted away, two women came and lit fires in cement braziers to cook three largeish fish. They stuffed the mouths with fronds of fresh picked nearby lemon grass, to take away the fishy smell. Mats were spread out, plates distributed and in we dived. The chook was deemed too fragmented to serve as it was, so it became soup. Jack's Dad brought various treasures from his morning's hunting. One item was branches of a very spiny plan with beautiful and edible yellow flowers. Sticky rice abounded as usual, often passed hand to  hand by an attentive host.
        While others talked I enjoyed a post prandial nap on a bamboo mat, with  headrest provided thankfully. When I woke most of the party was down at a large pond nearby. Jack was out in a plastic boat fishing. Others were temporizing about going in swimming. The group decision was that I should go in first. In the spirit of my lifesaver father I braved the still water which was warm for about two feet and cool thereafter. Not my favourite medium.
         Before we left I noticed an unusual item hanging beside a roof post. It was a flintlock gun with a long barrel.  I thought these were museum pieces. Another thing I noticed was that the iron roofing was Bluescope steel. It is known locally as Jinjoe Iron, Jinjoe is a kangaroo.  Proudly I tried to communicate that the stuff came from a place about 45 kilometers from my home. They got the message and asked me to bring a lot of it next time I came.

Being here.

         Life in Thindung Village where I live is not bustling. In fact life here is stripped of much of what we call life in Robertson. Bikes replace cars, there are a few little stalls in front of houses, there are two temples and a busy district road runs through it all. But there is a community learning center and along the banks of the Mekong are a couple of what look like roomy bus shelters. They have a container of water and a cup. Seats around the walls often sport a cushion and it is a place to gather and chat, one place known by some title like Community Hall, though wall-less it  has a community notice board. Sometimes in the morning a loud speaker system plays music or is used for announcements. Living here is a skeletal life of mostly essentials.
          So with that kind of stripping it is like a lake where the water level drops exposing the skeletons of former trees, parts of the landscape which are mostly not perceived. So self talk, usually blotted out by TV or being busy, sounds clearly. There is time to tie my shoes slowly, even thoughtfully. It is strange not having any valid reason to hurry "Just so that I can get on to that next thing" or meet some constructed deadline. :"Deadline" what a descriptive morbid word! This is unnerving with so much in large print or loud volume daily, hourly, so much which is normally sotto voce. And so many reassuring distractions like "the news" are off stage. It is for me like being on retreat; monk's cell, simple life, walk, ride bike, visit the temple, sleep, eat, prepare classes, teach: repeat.