We go to school the first week and learn we have no students Friday. We show up to school and find out we have short classes for Sports Day. We show up the next day and find out Sports Day is next week, so it will be short classes until then. We arrive on Tuesday and are told that, no, today will be Friday classes. Half day Friday. No, Thursday and Friday. First period is a concert, last period is first. All last minute, day of. No calendar, scrap the lesson plans.
In a parade for Father’s Day (King’s Day) having the foreign teachers come is an honor, so we went. After an hour and a half of getting all of the individual school lined up, teachers donning pink or yellow, and the bands ready to lead, color guards in spandex and neon, drum majors in heels and cowboy hats, we were ready to go. We then walked several kilometers through barren parts of town at dusk on streets that hadn’t been cordoned-off and to the delight of no spectators, all while carrying cardboard cutouts of the King.
In attempting to book an elephant trekking tour we settled on the jungle trek instead when the elephants were all booked. We assumed that the two treks were different and separate. The assumption resulted in a five-minute hike through the jungle, first crossing a river, then clambering up an ant-covered embankment, climbing an ant-covered ladder, crossing back over the same river (more ants), and falling in line behind the elephants to finish our trek. We dodged mounds of elephant poo and crossed rivers in water up to our armpits, bags held overhead. All this while the Thai families sat comfortably atop elephants, shaded by umbrellas, dry and unharmed by ants.
We go to a restaurant and get a menu all in Thai, so we just point at something and hope for the best. The best instance resulting in stir fried veggies when I was feeling nutrient-depleted; the worst, rice gruel with a raw egg at the bottom and spare parts soup, complete with grey meat, tripe, liver, and various other indistinguishables. We go to a restaurant, try to order food in general and are told “Mai Mi,” no have. No have food? No have cook? We don’t know, but they don’t have something. We show up at one of three border crossings to get into Burma/Myanmar, “Cannot.” Why? “Burma is closed to you. Open Thai Burma only.”
Five months of nothing going according to plan, but here we are. And I have become much more adaptable and easy-going. There was little choice. We live on Thai Time. Things happen when they happen, and always somehow work out. When we don’t understand each other we smile and shrug. A smile goes a very long way. A good sense of humor goes even farther.