>i’m sitting in the teachers’ lounge at watbannoi, the primary school where nick and i teach English to 1^st-6^th graders each day. it’s gotten up to only 36 degrees celsius yesterday and today, so we’re feeling mighty “sabai.” i think it’s safe to say i never thought i’d say, “only 36 degrees,” as that’s around 96 degrees F, but it’s definitely fitting in chiang mai. most afternoons so far, from around 3 to 5, it’s sorta hard to do more than lie on the tile porch floor with a fan, because it’s been over 40 degrees most days. add humidity to 40+ degrees and you get DEATH ; )

so back to the 36 degree sabai weather and super-sabai thailand. we absolutely love it here. our host family is amazing, and the school teachers and students are also wonderful. thai people, so far, pretty much top the list of awesome people. meh and paw (closest transliterations i’m gonna get), our parents, are so so so cute. paw is a rice farmer, and he and meh built the incredible house we live in by themselves—we’re talking two stories of cement and tile, plus a rice storage house out back and a giant giant shed where paw does his many other projects, which include welding, sign-making, and who knows what else. they’re very resourceful people, and every day we learn of new ventures they run. par example, we discovered last night that they also run a sun umbrella business (because meh started making several carrying cases while we were languishing in the heat and finishing HP7—just a few more chapters to go!!!—because she is an industrious thai and we are lazy farangs), and they make these fabulous umbrellas completely by hand out of bamboo! they’re so gorgeous. you can go to our host sista’s etsy.com account by searching for “bigbangzola” to see what they look like. the cute girl with glasses is run, the master artist behind the goods on etsy. i’m telling you, this family is cool.

so that’s our fam: meh, paw, and run. i lovelovelove them so much already. meh and paw speak about as much english as we do thai, if not less, but run’s a regular tour guide (she did study tourism at university, so i guess that’s to be expected), so it’s a perfect environment for picking up the language. they’re so patient and eager to help us learn, and we do a lot, and i mean a lot, of laughing as we mime stories that are way too complicated to communicate without language. i keep fooling myself into thinking i’m starting to learn this language, and then they’ll start talking for rilz, and i immediately have no idea what’s going on.

pause! we just bought these delicious… milk treats? it’s like super thin yogurt that you drink, but we bought two from a darling man (that’s probably not flattering, but i can’t help it—everyone here is so cute and tiny!) for like 15 cents. as nick said, how could you say no to him? mm. delicious, or, “aroy,” which was the first word we learned, because EVERYTHING is aroy here ; )

let’s see, what have we done so far? we’ve taught school for almost a week, but we only do like 3 hours a day then eat lunch with the kids and teachers, and it’s always heavenly. on saturday, we left at 6:30am (not a big deal—the sun and the animals get us up at least by 6, but sometimes by 5, but we go to bed around 9 at least, so it’s fab) for the sikh temple downtown and attended their prayer service and breakfast afterward, and then we got our own hour of instruction on sikhism. pretty fantastic. then we roamed chiang mai (we don’t actually live in chiang mai, but in the suburb sankamphaeng, which is much more rural, so we felt pretty ritzy venturing into the city full of farangs and fast cars!) for a few hours on our own. we visited a few wats, which are the Buddhist temples, and they are everywhere—almost as ubiquitous as 7/11. we got to chat for a while with a monk, him sitting on his bench and us on the floor at his feet, because you never put your head above a monk’s, and he told me i was fat. sigh.

break again for our first second grade class, which was a bit chaotic, but that’s okay. once we learn their names, it’ll be good. also, during this break from blog writing, i went to the bathroom and almost had a heart attack as i heard a loud “CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP” as i sat down on the throne; there is an abundance of geckos in sankamphaeng, and they chirp like birds, and one of them apparently didn’t want to be squashed by my bum. as long as it’s not a “tuukae,” the giant iguana-ish lizards that make the loudest noise you wouldn’t believe and have sharp lil teeth… then i’m good. i guess they sneak into our rooms sometimes, but i’m in no hurry to encounter one. aaaalso, we came home after dragging nick away from his worshipping 2-ft-tall admirers and ate fried banana and coconut—delish. then it started RAINING! and i was cajoled into seeking refuge in our neighbor’s house, except it’s not a house like i thought, but i hat factory. there were a bunch of women sewing silk hats for japan. they were very smiley, and i hung out there for a while while nick hammered signs with paw. and that brings us back to the present. so let’s go back to saturday. sorry for this jumble!

so the monk told me i was fat; correction, he told me there’s no way i’m 22, because i look 15, so it must just be that i get all the milk and meat at dinner and everyone else just has rice. basically, thai kids are kinda chunky because they eat a ton, while adults are sinewy from working 100 hours a week and eating rice. so yeah, he was calling me fat. moving on. that night we went (with our fellow interns from byu) on a NIGHT SAFARI. haha, we rode a bus in the dark through an enormous open zoo, very much a la san diego zoo. pretty cool, actually. my personal favorite was our tour guide, who should be in a movie, because his voice was kind of squeaky, and his english was very fast, and he said a lot of quite hilarious things, some of them rather inappropriate. also, our director’s (hitherto referred to as ralph, cuz that’s his name) neighbor in chiang mai is a woman working on her phd thesis in clinical psych, and she has adorable twin daughters who are turning 7 next week, and as we passed the giraffes, ralph said, “so there IS something taller than nick in thailand!” and one of these cuties shouted gleefully, “WE GET TO SEE A NICK?????” poor thing almost collapsed in embarrassment as everyone laughed, but it is true that nick is something of a celebrity here. he’s about 3 feet taller than everyone else, so it makes sense.

this is huge. hmmm. i’m very sticky. i’m always very sticky. one day i showered three times, and it was amazing. the water is always freezing, which is perfect. also, they don’t use toilet paper here. there’s a little spray nozzle on the wall next to the toilet, and you just fire at will after you’ve done your business. i guess it’s perfectly acceptable to be somewhat damp around your nether regions after returning from the water closet, because honestly, it’s not straying too far from the status quo.

also, meh watches a soap opera religiously every mon-thurs night, and it’s hysterical. i hope to be fluent in pop thai quite soon so i can understand why green demons keep accosting people in their sleep. meh does other things religiously, including waking up before 5 to make sticky rice and “beautiful rice,” which is the red rice paw grows and exports to singapore because thais can’t afford it. it’s delicious, and it’s the center of every meal. spoiled. she also prepares trays and trays of glass of water and cups of tea for her shrines upstairs and at the entrance to the front yard. she is a very observant buddhist, eating no meat—this is weird in thailand; meat is in eeeeeverything, including some sweets—honoring the spiritual protectors of her home, going to wat, and meditating every night. we were finally not too tired to join her on friday night (we’d been going to bed at 7:30-8:30 until then), and it was super cool. she had us light the incense and do our prayers, etc., and then we meditated for 15 minutes. you scoff? try it. it’s kind of a long time to try not to think. after we meditated, we “poured water,” which is the buddhist equivalent of a sacrament, sort of. you pour a glass of water very slowly into a bowl as you recount all your misdeeds of the day and ask forgiveness for them, one by one. when the glass is empty, you ask that you and everyone you injured can be happy, and then you can ask a certain blessing, if you like. then you pour the bowl of water on the trees, because it’s holy water and can’t be washed down the sink or toilet, etc. the whole process took about 45 minutes, and nick and i both loved it. converted!

speaking of, church was also really cool on sunday. the branch is in chiang mai proper right across from the biggest wat in the city. they have A/C in the chapel!!! unheard of, i tell you. it’s pretty small, but the members seem like really exceptional people. the branch president met with us all to talk about how he can “use us more fully.” ; ) he looks maaaaybe 24, and he served his mission in DC, so his english is quite impeccable. he seems like a super sharp guy, and he wants us to try to interact with the youth and singles as much as possible to teach them “gospel culture.” i think we’re doing a barbecue next week. weehaw! i’m excited to be useful again after several years of being kind of unnecessary in enormous provo wards. i think we’re going to learn a ton.

anyway. if you’ve made it to the end without skipping, you deserve a prize. unfortunately, no can do. allow the warmth in your heart to suffice, eh? but now it’s time for me to go to talag (market) for dinner foodstuffs, and nick will take this tome to the semi-outdoor internet café that may or may not be overrun with our students playing computer games on the 10 comps. hope he gets a seat, but i’ma bet nope.

WE LOVE IT HERE! the end.

oh yeah, i forgot. in thailand, everyone has two names, given and nickname. everyone uses their nicknames, though, and it’s not uncommon not to know friends’ real names. anyway, the teachers named us pretty much on sight as mana and manee. apparently it’s kind of like calling us jack and jill or romeo and juliet or something, from an old thai story. so we’ve got to read it. but now your vision of our lives can be complete. we are no longer nick and elyssa. crazy talk.

here are some pics

this is where we eat our meals and they are always delicious (Run is on the left)

our massive group in the Sikh temple

the monk we sat and talked with

our host family (yes everyone is standing and on the same level... I am a freak)

this is our house that Pa built himself! it is incredible

my first elephant kiss... i know i know hold the jokes about my old girlfriends, this was the first real elephant ;)

this is the view from our dining table/front yard. Meh left, elyssa right

until I figure out how to load more than one pic at a time, that's all you're getting. that took forever!

peace!