The Rain

This post again breaks my silence, but it has been sitting in my computer for almost a week and if I wait any longer to post it, it will be entirely irrelevant. This is from my first full day in Thailand.

August 26, 2011
Bangkok, Thailand

Today has so far been interesting. Sleep came and lasted not long enough, but when I awoke I was somehow ready for the day despite having only slept for several hours. I lounged about my new home, looking outside at the morning unfolding from my perch on the fifth floor. The view faces north and contains little to look at; a few skyscrapers, a number of apartments and the compound in which the school I will be teaching is located. A knock on my door took me to the hallway, where two women: one a vigorous, bubbly American with a sheen of sweat and a short, cheerful Thai. They asked me how I had settled in and gave me a breakfast of some sort of sliced fruit before bidding me good day. A couple of hours later, they returned; my apartment phone, having failed at its one and only responsibility, was checked by the Thai lady, Pi Oi (I’m guessing on spelling here). The two ladies then invited me to lunch, an offer I immediately accepted. We walked for a couple minutes before arriving at stop number one, a street vendor offering fruit smoothies. We each got one. Mine was a coconut-flavored concoction and cost a mere 25 baht (about $0.83). Our next stop was a restaurant with traditional Thai fare. The food was excellent and spicy and I was told about my new home. The American, whose name was Carla, I believe, told me about Ubon, where she was stationed. My two hostesses explained the food and the responsibilities and described their experiences thus far. Carla left us for Ubon and Pi Oi and I boarded a tuk-tuk to the local Jusco, a grocery and drug store located just down the street from my apartment. I purchased some necessary items there and then caught another tuk-tuk back to my apartment. We dropped off my newly acquired items in my room and then walked to the school, where I sent an email to my parents, letting them know I was staying in Bangkok and that I was safe, and then resisted an urge to send off about a hundred other emails. I sat for a while in the cool office and leafed through a couple of books about how to speak Thai while the heavens absolutely opened up outside. Walking back to my apartment in the rain, using a borrowed pink umbrella, which I’m sure a pre-adolescent girl had misplaced, I splashed through ankle deep water, glad that I had worn flip-flops and not shoes I was trying to keep presentable. The rainy season has just begun, but will end in November, or so I’ve been told. Until then, a couple of hour’s worth of rain a day, on top of the already ludicrously high humidity levels. It’s worth it though. I really like it here. I am not in the center of Bangkok by any stretch of the imagination, and I don’t know when I will go to the real Bangkok, but I like where I am right now. I keep smiling for no other reason than I am happy. The food is cheap, the weather is tolerable and I just discovered I have air conditioning in my apartment! God is good, and, so far, so is Thailand.