A Day in the Life

I figured everyone might appreciate knowing what my days look like in the homestay, so here’s a general idea of how each day goes:

6am: I wake up and shower (more like a quick rinse) before getting dressed in my school uniform. Uniforms are a large part of Thai culture, and almost any person you see out and about will be wearing some sort of uniform. The university uniform is a black skirt with a white button up shirt; we wear these uniforms to identify ourselves as students, and to show that we are here in the city study and not just as tourists. Since I don’t go out much dressed in clothes other than my uniform I wouldn’t know, but I have been told we get treated differently by the public when we are wearing our uniforms as opposed to regular clothes.

First day of school in front of my house.

6:30am: Breakfast. Usually it’s some sort of rice or egg dish, although it varies from time to time.

This morning we had sticky rice with bananas (a first) because according to my host parents, it would make me strong for climbing the mountains!

7am: We leave for school. Two other girls in the program live near us, and so we’ve formed a carpool. My host dad drives in the morning; first we drop my host brother and his friend off at school, and then swing back to pick up the other two girls.

8am-12pm: Thai class starts at 8 and goes until noon. We get a small break around ten, but the rest of the time is spent learning the alphabet and various vocabulary words. There are six of us in my Thai class with one teacher, and her instruction is entirely in Thai.

12-1pm: Lunch break. We all (instructors and students) eat outside under a covered patio, and ISDSI serves us lunch. Usually it is some form of rice with vegetables, meat, and fruit.

1-4pm: Lecture time. This past week was orientation, so we spent our afternoons going over rules and expectations, checking gear, and doing a scavenger hunt around Chiang Mai. This coming week begins the block course Foundations, so our afternoon lectures will focus on Thai history, religion, culture, arts, and a variety of other subjects pertinent to giving us a base of knowledge on Thailand.

Eating fried bugs as part of the scavenger hunt....not really that bad, though the after-taste is kind of gross.

4-6pm: On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have CrossFit for an hour right after lecture ends. I thought I was in shape, but apparently I am only in running shape, because the workouts are hard and we are all extremely sore! We get picked up by one of the girls’ parents, and when we do have CrossFit I’m home by around 6. If we don’t have a workout I’ll get home a little bit sooner, so I try to go for a run around our village on those days.

7-10pm: Depending on the day, I usually walk for a bit with my host mom around our village, sometimes after dinner and sometimes before. Either way, my evenings are spent showering, eating dinner, and studying before heading to bed relatively early.

So that’s it, a pretty general week! Fridays are field trip days, so we do not have class, and it is extremely nice to have a break! Today we spent the entire day at Crazy Horse Buttress rock climbing, climbing in caves, and rapelling.

I have decided that studying abroad makes me feel like we are five again; I eat what is put in front of me, I can barely communicate with anyone, I cannot read, and I get driven to school by my host dad. It didn’t help that we were given workbooks to trace Thai letters. We are told the title of the book is something like “My First Letter Book” but we don’t even know enough yet to read the title!

Also, some random snapshots from the last week:

21st birthday dinner!

Stopped for gas on the way back to school after the scavenger hunt. 

Fish in the market.

Nothing like fresh food!

First Weekend with My Host Family

I survived! Three days and not that many charades later I survived the first weekend with my host family! I live with my host mom and dad, younger brother who's 11 and cousin who's 17. It was a relatively low-key weekend. My host brother has English school in the afternoon, so after dropping him off, my host dad and I drove to several different places around Chiang Mai. Saturday, we stopped to buy a school uniform and cell phone, and then drove partway up the mountain to look down on the city (Chiang Mai sits in a valley, so there are actually mountains surrounding the city). Yesterday, Sunday, we stopped at several temples, including the first temple to be built in Chiang Mai. Last night, we all went down to the Night Market, which is basically this long street lined with various food carts and any kind of craft you can imagine. It was completely overwhelming but a fun atmosphere, and I would definitely like to go back sometime!

Today we had our first day of class. Learning Thai is overwhelming to say the least. We have language class four hours each morning in groups of 5 or 6, and our teachers (called Ajaans) do not speak English to us. And since the Thai alphabet is different from English and we can't read it, we have to write down all the words phonetically. I've been told that these first two weeks are the hardest in regard to learning Thai, and I'm just hoping it will start to make more sense in my brain soon!

After an afternoon orientation on ISDSI's policies and procedures, I headed home. I was very excited because I asked my host mom if I could go for a run, and she said yes! But then she told me I had to wait because my little brother was coming too. Now, don't get me wrong, I like my little brother, but what I really wanted was a little run by myself. But my brother also prefers video games to any sort of exercise, so I'm not sure who was more unhappy about the situation. Luckily, his mom allowed him to stop after a couple minutes, so I got in a bit of a longer run. The running conditions, however, are not ideal because we live in this relatively wealthy teeny, tiny village where the loop around the houses takes me under 2 minutes to run and I am not allowed to run on the road outside the gate....so mom, if you are reading this, you don't need to worry about me running, because there are six policemen on the street and I run by my house (where my host Dad stood outside the entire time) every minute and a half!

But, overall it's going well. My family, especially my host dad, speaks more English than I was expecting, which made communication this weekend much better than I had anticipated. Though I do think half of my host parents' motivation for hosting me was so I could help their son with English and make him exercise, they are actually very very nice. It does work out well, because I can help them with English and they'll help me with Thai, and I'm even more motivated now to learn Thai so I can better communicate with them.

Welcome to Thailand

I'm here! After 24 hours of travel, including a 14.5 hour stint from Atlanta to Seoul, I arrived in Chiang Mai last night. ISDSI picked us up at the airport, and then everyone stayed overnight in a guest house. Orientation started today; we got our first look at ISDSI's little campus, which includes an outdoor eating area, a crossfit gym, a big lecture room and several smaller classrooms, and a bouldering wall. We ate our first Thai meal (really spicy, and apparently this meal wasn't even hot) and then played the ever-popular ice breaker games.

On first impression, Thailand reminds me a lot of India, especially the smells, sights, and sounds. It's quieter and calmer, but there are motorcycles and little taxi trucks everywhere. The city, however, is much cleaner than Bangalore and there definitely aren't cows walking the roads!

There are about 35 kids this semester, only about 5 guys and the rest girls. We are from Wooster, Denver U, Kalamazoo, Colorado College, Colby, Calvin, and Yale, to name a few. And among all of our majors we are studying environmental science, biology, religion, and anthropology. Everyone has pretty amazing stories, and I'm excited to get to know the rest of the group!

I'm also really excited about all the activities we can do. There is a rock climbing gym we might try to visit, there's been talk of trying to find a yoga class, and apparently there is an elephant sanctuary close to the city....no shortage of exciting activities!

Now we're about to get a crash course in Thai culture and language, and then we'll be meeting our host families for the next 5 or so weeks.

Just One Week

I just returned from my summer in Texas working with the youth foundation C5. It was pretty incredible. Challenging, but rewarding to watch the kids learn, explore, and develop as leaders. Here's a brief recap:

June was spent with the third-year kids, called "Hammers." Summer programming is just a small part of the year-round, 5-year leadership program, but each year begins with some sort of program. For the Hammers, it's a backpacking trip in Wyoming. Our two week trip began in Utah with a college visit, after which we hit the road to see some of the sights of the west. We went white water rafting, camped, and toured Yellowstone National Park. Some of the highlights include....

Exploring Yellowstone's geysers and hot springs.

Grizzly and bison sightings.

Really great runs.

And sunsets over base camp.

After spending several days at base camp prepping gear and food, we headed into the backcountry for a 7-day backpacking adventure......

Where our views looked like this, 

and this, 

And this. 

We climbed a mountain

and built a snowman at 10,000 feet.

We traveled through fields of flowers like these lupins. 

And, aside from the hoards of mosquitos, had a really great time!

After a short break, we returned to Texas for a month of camp for the first year (Flint) and second year (Lantern) kids. I was an Adventure Instructor and I helped with the ropes course, taught several lessons on leadership, helped with the mountain bike club, and helped organize a 5-day trek for the Lanterns and an overnight for the Flints, among other jobs. Some scenes from camp:

The Windmill.

Exploring the trails on foot (and sometimes by bike).

Sunrise over camp.

Flint overnight.

And dressed as Texas Parks & Wildlife rangers for the dance!

Now that I'm back home, I have less than one week until I leave for Thailand. It's hard to believe I'm going to be leaving for an entire four months, but I'm excited and I feel ready with most of my gear and supplies already packed. Check back for updates once I arrive in Thailand!