Let Us Do The Going

:rain:

It didn't even look like it was going to rain.
Look at all that rain; it's coming down. Mmm, I love
that sound. So much water clearing the heat away.


...wait! Oh, crap. MY CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and that's when you realize there are serious drawbacks to not owning a clothes dryer. In tropical climates, though fabulous, weather is a capricious lover. The fact that your clothes have been hanging on the line not 5 minutes mean nothing to it--at any point in time, your soapy smelling fabric, your stained skirt you couldn't get the curry blot out of, your underwear is toast. kaptuz. a gonner. I need those clothes by morning! I pick my cotton up from the soil. I don't even want to talk about the ants that make clotheslines into a tightrope show.

Thunder threatens again in the distance. I bite my thumb at thee, sir.

I spent an exhausting day in muggy Chiang Mai city trying to get my errands done. I fixed my cell phone (that's right, you heard me :glare:) at AIS, a Thai telecom company, turned in a shirt and dress to be mended at Valentinos: the International Tailor (ooh la la) for $100 baht (about $4.oo which probably could have paid less if I had devoted more time finding a Thai tailor), and went on the hunt for some Doxy tablets for Anna. I met this great woman named Samia, who was running some sort of sketchy healing/dancing retreat and fingered her telephone number wondering when I'd call her now on a phone that finally works. Though hot, I smiled at how composed I was becoming in town. I think I felt the same way over the two-month mark in Uganda. I know where I am going, I know when to cross the street, I know how to bargain at the appropriate time, balancing smile--show teeth but not too much; bowed head to show humility--with a slightly insistent eyebrow. Isn't that price a little high? Thais walk confidently, yet quickly down streets. I match their speed; I have places to go just like everyone else who lives here.

I wake up every morning looking at green cascading mountains looming above rice fields and people cultivating them in pointed hats like you see in pictures and documentaries, but this morning was unmatched. At HQ, I went to close the blinds to block out the morning glare across my webcam and ended up leaving Bryce waiting. What kind of SKY! The mental picture: green rice stalks on the bottom, hazy white fog from right above their tips up to the clouds, the black silhouette of the Buddhist temple on the hill, and a big-round-sun-ball-of magma jutting out of the whiteness just to the right of the black facade. Wonder. I thought the sun could only do that at sunset.

Back in the street, after finding malaria medicine, I unfortunately ended up behind two western men and two very tiny Thai women. The short 20-something guy closest to me, held his hand stiffly on the small of her back, as his host wrapped her arms around herself. Her black, clumpy sweatshirt overpowered her small shoes. His posture seemed to acknowledge this wasn't going as well as he planned either. She looked toward the street and he, ahead. The woman in front engaged with her chum a little bit more. Her tall stilettos made her sway her frayed mini-mini skirt with better utility, despite minor dips into cracked concrete. The men laughed forcefully at a joke. A large, purple bruise showed underneath her cute leather ankle strap.

But with all the preparations and errands done, I hope to have more observations outside of this house because I am getting out of this house. Tomorrow starts our sabbath. THE INTERNS ARE GOING ON VACATION! Here. To here, my dear family and friends:

Angkor Wat, in Cambodia

(photo by javajive)

after months of being strapped to computers and stressing over professors who defy logistics, the interns are going to see the country. An epic sightseeing rove. Anna and I are taking a 13-hour train south to Bangkok, meeting the boys at the train station (they're down there at a Disaster Relief conference right now), then a 2 hour train to the border of Cambodia, a bus from the border to Siem Reap, then we'll spend a few days at Angkor. "They" say you can't see the whole temple in one day. After that, we'll take some kind of 6 hour transpo to Phenom Penh, then back to the border, one ferry, and pop up at the resort the students will be at on one of southern Thailand's beach islands. I eye my extremely tight pocket book and turn my mind to happier things. Like...new languages and other backpackers with "scam me" written all over their fanny packs. :shudders: those things! Two weeks. I'll try to post pictures if we run into internet cafes.

After that our teachers will begin teaching. The students will reel from the amount of reading. I will try to satisfy professor needs and threaten the sky with my fist. While a thin kid from Ohio stands beside me {for a month!!!} trying to figure out what to make of the world.