Week 11, Thailand
OH ME: oh my.
The end is near. It's so close I can smell it.
Two more days...
Two more days...
In two more days, this three-and-a-half year odyssey towards getting a degree comes to an end. So, never being the one to let up a chance to be spiteful and petty, allow me to reel off the things that have made me so miserable over the last nine weeks.
I hate the early starts. 7:00? What kind of a teacher starts work at 7:00? I hate the lunches, pre-digested piles of sloppy meat and weeks-old veggies in a sauce that tastes like it was distilled through a sewer grate. I hate the way the school only hires white people, because it's better for business; I hate the way Thai people prostitute themselves by working for these assholes as assistants and cleaners. I hate the way the school is built to receive maximum heat from all angles; that nobody uses any of these expensive facilities (science labs, cooking rooms, art studios) because they're on the fifth floor and nobody can be bothered walking that far.
I hate the way that no parents ever come to pick up their kids, ever. They send the maid. I hate that no-one seems to care what the kids are doing so long as they're doing it quietly. I hate the way kids with no English at all are just sat down in the classroom and expected to, I dunno, pick the language up by osmosis or something. I hate the way there are kids with obvious special needs, behaviour problems, speech impediments, and nothing is done about it. They just get in more trouble than the other kids. I hate the way the school accepts kids who are just on holiday from their regular Thai school, who come for three weeks, say not a word - because they can't speak English - and then depart into the void.
It would be overly harsh to say that I hate the staff or the students, and I don't. But I look after a kid who was breastfed until he turned six. His mother would turn up at lunchtime and stick her tit in his mouth. He turned up one day with a black eye after he bit down too hard. When the school banned the mother from coming, the maid would be sent with KFC for him to eat. The parents were banned from doing this. Now the maid turns up with fried eggs and chicken fried at home.
It would be otherwise obvious that the kid has Asperger's syndrome, or mild autism. But with that upbringing, who knows what the cause is?
And then I have this other kid who... But no, I've ranted enough. I feel a lot better. Cleansed. I've been letting it all bottle up for quite a while now.
Edie and I have been checking out Ari, the suburb we're in now. It's a little harder to find things to do than it was at the last place and there are less good-quality cheap-ass food places to go, but there're a couple of cool little bars where the locals sit smoking thick Marlboro reds under the No Smoking signs and they invite you in to watch the soccer and then you all boo the Italians together, because, you know, everybody hates the Italians.
And there's a massive park, Suan Rot Fai or Railway Park, nearby and that place: that place is magnificent. Imagine a park as large and beautiful as Centennial Park in Sydney, with hundreds of people riding those old-school 50's bikes that you see in nostalgic American films, and a big lake in the middle with a fountain and dozens of people in canoes floating by.
In the middle there's a big kid's fun park and a bike park with traffic lights and street signs. To the back there's a massive butterfly garden and to the left, a bocce court (yes, you heard me: a bocce court. Does your local park have a bocce court?). Scattered all over there are basketball courts, soccer fields, takraw nets, outdoor weight-lifting areas. Couples everywhere are slapping shuttlecocks back and forth with badminton racquets and couples in the cars lining the border of the park are slapping shuttlecocks back and forth, too. That was a gross thing to say, but: it is strange to see Thai people making out because public affection is so rare here. The park's got such a 'meet you up at make-out point' 50's thing going for it, as well as an 1800's European feel. I love the whole thing.
Wait - have I explained takraw yet? How remiss of me. Takraw is the pinnacle of human sporting innovation. It is the greatest game ever invented. It is: no-handed volleyball.
That's right. No hands. Feet, elbows, head: yes. Hands: get the hell off my takraw court. So you've got these lithe Thai athletic types everyday down the park with this little rattan ball that they have to kick to each other over a net, like Extreme Hackysack, except the way they do it involves way too many cartwheels, somersaults, backflips and general Russian-gymnast-style chicanery to be of any potential pursuit to me or anyone I know. Still, I got myself one of the balls, because I'm hopelessly deluded and easily led into a sale. But, remembering the lesson of a friend from school, who would walk up and down the beach with a surfboard he'd never used to impress girls, I plan to walk around Bangkok with my takraw ball subtly peeking out from under my bag. Who's to say a giant, sweaty, half-blind white guy couldn't be doing somersaults that very afternoon?
Aaron's gone away to Istanbul (not Constantinople) for a couple of weeks so we're hanging out with his friend Charlie, from the states. He's awesome. I know I say that a lot, and I really tried hard to think of another word for him, but that one is the only one that fits. We're also hanging with Harriet, from the UN, who's taking us on a trip up to north-eastern Thailand (plus possibly Laos) on Friday after work.
Oh my god I just said 'Friday after work' and I got so excited that I peed myself right here in the classroom. I have to go make myself a new pair of pants out of crepe paper.
Lachie
NEXT WEEK: Oh shit I just peed them again! Next week! Next week! Next week! Next week!
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