I climbed into Bo’s truck along with Beam Beam, Tak, and Bo’s friend Nong when she picked me up from the market the other night. When we got to our house, we dumped all our food off on the tiled table, lit the mosquito keeper-awayer, and say down to start eating. They always have unidentifable food for dinner; I had friend chicken and a pomegranate.
This pomegranate, to be precise, along with one of those coconuts to wash it all down with. Anyways, it’s fairly dark outside and Bo and Nong are munching on something out of a plastic bag which doesn’t narrow it down at all.
“Hey, Bo, what are you eating?” I ask, as Nong shoves one about 3 inches from my mouth as she crunches one in her wide open mouth.
“Uhm, how to say,” Bo says, “Not butterfly…oh, dragonfly!”
“You are kidding me!” I managed to get out as I shoved Nong’s offering away from me and tried not to vomit. Nong and Bo laughed and continued enjoying their regional delicacy.
Tak came out from the house and sat down, carrying a knife and asking if I “fear” her and the knife. She sits down, a neighbor comes by to chat, and I continue picking at my succulent pomegranate. They start chatting full force, almost shouting in Thai, and then all of a sudden Tak held me down, trying to put a fried dragonfly in my mouth. I think I shrieked, I’m not sure, things got hazy. Tak posed for a picture.
(It’s a bad one, but you get the effect.) Then I taught them the word ‘vomit.’
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This week with my M6s we were talking about wishes. They all came up to the board to write a wish on the board. Most succumbed to the mundane: I wish to play football or I wish to visit Japan. But some were hilarious.
- I wish to have a 7-11.
- I wish to be a playgirl. (Don’t worry, I didn’t understand and she couldn’t explain it to me.)
- I wish I were Bill Gates’ daughter.
The best one, however, may have come from my class of 6/5s, of whom only 12 girls showed up. They were awesome. One girl wrote “I wish to be a airhostage.” ?!?!? What !?!?? So I asked her to explain what she meant and eventually we realized she wants to be a stewardess or flight attendant or whatever the PC word of the moment is for the people who smile and are sometimes helpful on flights. Then I demonstrated and gestured what a hostage was and, surprisingly, I think she understood.
Then I took a picture of them.
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The front of the school. The arena in the back was built for the SEA Games and they just paved all the streets and put landscaping in around town for the upcoming event.
Origami birds that some of the girls in my 3/6 class gave me.
This is one of the posters in the English Department. We believe in teaching the kids useful phrases.
