My First Pad Thai

My first encounter with Pad Thai was not in a restaurant nor was it served familiarly on a plate.  It came suspiciously wrapped in paper...

It might not seem like a big deal to eat Pad Thai or Pad Thai that is wrapped in paper but it was very meaningful to me.  First,  I was in Thailand.  That means it was actually really good Pad Thai.  Secondly, I was tired, frustrated, alone and hungry.  It had been a really long day.  I had woken up at 5:30 am to get the kids up in time so they could get ready for school, eat breakfast, and do their morning jobs before classes started.  It then took two trips to get all the kids to school.  Then, I made sure the children too young for school were fed, bathed, played with and loved.  Plus, plan the daily English lesson and take the two trips back to pick up the kids. 

So, come 10:30 pm that night, sitting in a cold, not white anymore Thai hospital ward was a little bit disconcerting.  I would have been much happier under my mosquito net tucked in cozily for the night.  Instead, I was still awake sitting on the edge of a hospital bed with bright florescent lights shining down on me.  Cat, the woman who founded Bamboo School, had called me after I had managed to get the last kids home from school, asking if I could go stay at the hospital to take care of baby Bekah (10 months old) who was sick and staying there.  Sure! How difficult could that be?  I was a bit unprepared for the response I received upon walking into the hospital ward where Bekah was staying.  I swear every mother, grandmother and woman converged on me.  Clucking and firing rapid Thai at me.  I practically had to fend them off as I held Bekah in my arms.  It was overwhelming as I didn't know enough Thai to communicate with them.  All the women seemed to think that they knew best how to take care of Bekah, and that this little, young white girl surely did not know what to do.

I couldn't tell them how to leave me alone.  I didn't know how.  I couldn't tell them that I had been taking care of babies since I was fourteen and that Bekah needed special care because of her sickness.

I was hungry.  I hadn't eaten anything since early that morning.  I couldn't tell them that. I didn't know how to ask where to buy food.

I just wanted a hug from my comforting mom.  I wanted to be asleep in a bed that I knew.  I wanted to talk to someone.  I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't know anyone there.

So, there I was.  Sitting on the bed with sweet baby Bekah asleep next to me, cold, tired, frustrated and hungry.  In the next bed over, an older woman who was a burn victim was just as uncomfortable as I had been feeling with her bundled and bandaged hands and feet.  She must have understood and she must have had a mother's intuition.  Even though she was obviously in pain and she couldn't even get the pills to her mouth, she could still offer me my first Pad Thai.  I hungrily devoured it out of its street paper wrapper with my bare fingers as I had no fork.  And then I realized, as I was eating, that I didn't feel quite so alone.

As I later learned, her daughter had broughten her the Pad Thai for dinner not realizing she had already eaten the hospital food.  The older woman and I never really got to say much to each other in the way of words, but we shared a bond of understanding of what it means to be uncomfortable and to feel out of place.  I got to repay her over the next few days at the hospital as I helped her take her medicine and helped her eat seeing as how she couldn't use her bandaged hands.

I did eventually learn how to say, "I am hungry." in Thai. 
                    

 

A Little Advice for Ya

Honestly, when it comes to experience I don't have a whole lot of it.  Sometimes I'm a little bit short when it comes to brains and common sense too.  I like to blame it on my hair color, but that's probably a sorry excuse.  I can give you some advice though. 

1) Never assume that people outside the U.S. know how to drive.  This is not intended as a jab at their driving skills.  Its just that some people don't know how to drive a vehicle, period.  I guess I didn't understand that considering that in the U.S. the car to human ratio is 1:2.  Most of us Americans get a chance to learn how to drive as we grow up, take Driver's Ed, and own a vehicle.  Some people in other countries have never even ridden in a car let alone driven one.   

2) Whenever teenage boys ask to drive always say no.  No matter how many times they ask.  I'm assuming this applies to everywhere in the world.  In my case, Thailand especially.   

3) Never attempt to teach someone how to drive when you can't speak the same language.  Don't even let them get behind the wheel until you can explain the concepts of fast and slow, clutches, gears, and most importantly brakes.   

4) When the inevitable happens, like a car crash.  You just got to suck it up, put off that overwhelming feeling of shame and embarrassment, and call someone who can help you.  Hopefully, you are not in this alone. 


At this point, you should be sensing that there is story behind all this.  Luckily, I do know enough not to embarrass myself too much by putting it out there for all to see on the great big world of web.  Lets just say it involved the old green truck. . .

The Old Green Truck

Anyone who has ventured far knows that driving and riding vehicles outside the United States is always an adventure.  An adventure in the sense of being dangerous, haphazard and unpredictable.  Now, picture little ol' blond me behind the wheel in a truck that has got to be as old as I am and pointed down the left side of the road, the opposite side than I was used to driving on.  Throw in a truck bed full of kids on the Burmese-Thai border...and that completes the picture.

It always starts out so innocently enough.  What's the harm in driving a truck-full of kids to school?  Did I mention the truck was a manual and I was driving on dirt "roads"?  Going downhill?  Anyways, as I was driving down the Bamboo School* driveway I took a left onto the main village road and felt a good sized bump.  I didn't think anything about it because the road literally has two-foot ruts in it until I hear a loud chorus of "Teacher! Teacher!"  I slow down and turn around to see what they are yelling about when I see a great big geyser of water shooting up behind me.  Little ol' blonde me had just ran over the village's main water supply line that had been so conveniently placed near the road.  It was quite easy to run it over there, but now the hard part was figuring out what in the world was a person suppose to do after running over a water line, in Thailand.

Fortunately, one of the locals hopped on his motorbike and rode down to the local municipal office to get help while I doggedly drove the kids to school, a little wetter than when we had started and with a new town fixture spewing in the background. (Didn't you think a water fountain was just what the village needed?)  A little while later, the kids safely studying at school, I am trudging very red-faced down the now muddy, rutty drive.  It had to be a site the whole village enjoyed as I handed out ice cold water to the burly, muddy Thai repairmen.

Unfortunately, the adventures of the Old Green Truck do not stop there.  More adventures to come soon. 

Bamboo School   

Mayonaise & Hot Dogs

We were sitting on the one piece of furniture in the whole house.  It was an old, dilapidated couch and looked to have been home to cats and an all male college dormitory before being left on the curb for pick-up.  It was a treasure and a rare find considering its location upon the Mexico-U.S. border. (People are poor here.  In case you didn't know.)  I can remember sinking into its spring-less depths and feeling the cool tile beneath my feet in the empty house.  It was a beautiful thing -that couch- after sitting on concrete floors, standing and squatting in the dusty climate just south of San Luis, Arizona.  My fellow travelers and I had just spent the day playing with street kids which meant playing soccer which meant we got our butts handed to us.  Our high school education served us poorly as we attempted to communicate via Spanish.  We must have looked like aliens, we were so white, waving our hands and making odd sounds but we were cool.  All the kids wanted to give us hugs, take pictures with us, and show us their American things.

As a way to express appreciation for the time we spent in their little town, some of the local women made us an American dinner.  These lovely women thought that we would love some American food after eating burritos, rice, beans and potatoes for a week.

This is where the couch comes in.  As I am sitting in its depths, I am holding a delicious looking hot dog that even came with a hot dog bun.  How awesome was that?   I took a big hungry bite and suddenly I wanted to gag.  Along with my hot dog was a whole lot of warm mayonnaise that my hostesses had so nicely prepared for me.  (Apparently, hot dogs with mayonnaise must be American.) Never in my life have I ever seen a hot dog served with mayonnaise.  Do I need to stress this point more?  I wanted to spit it out right then and there.  Hot mayonnaise and hot dogs do not mix well with hot, dusty days spent playing soccer with street kids on the border.  I ended up eating the whole thing.  I am proud of this moment.  Did I mention that I was surrounded by six white American girls who gagged, complained and did not eat their carefully and thoughtfully prepared hot dogs with mayonnaise?  I learned something that day about myself, about white girls, and about earnest hostesses.         

(This was my first international experience. I was fifteen at the time.  I went with a group of high schoolers from a local church.  We stayed in Mezquital, Mexico.)