MicahJohn

Friday night I was returning to my room on my motorcycle from a visit to a friend. The road was wet from rain. As I made a turn at an intersection I hit a bump. Hitting the bump I hit my breaks. Between the wet road, the turning, the bump, and the breaking, my motorcycle lost traction with the road.

I guess thanks to the rush of adrenaline, I did not at first realize that I’d been all that hurt by my fall. I therefore walked over to my motorcycle, picked it back up, and went on my way. As I was driving I became aware of the blood coming from my hand, the pain in my elbow, the pain on my hip, the blood on my foot (I was wearing sandals).

Driving a little further my legs started shaking. My mind was lacking clarity.

I arrived back at my room. I knocked on my neighbors door. He helped me clean things up. He put iodine on my cuts. And used electrical tape to hold gauze on as bandages until the morning.

I’ve been a bit nervous getting on my motorcycle since then. It is terrifying to think what would have happened if I had had any kind of speed when I went down.

The wounds are healing.

I just finished listening to a very good reminder. I just listened to the Pentecost Sunday sermon from FABIC, You’ve Got to be Pentecostal. I want to live a life not my own with a strength not my own. In and of my self I do not have the strength even for surrender. God help me let God help me.

I do tend to note strange (hard to find in the USA) foods I eat. I managed to forget to note that a few days ago I ate duck heads. There really is not much meat on a duck head.

Also I would like to here protest against the welding done on the streets and right outside my classrooms. Nothing is done to prevent the light of the torch being seen directly by anyone who might happen to be around. My eyesight is probably daily deteriorating.

Things went well today. Certainly still learning, but I didn’t have any large minutes of feeling I had seriously blundered. God is good.

Yesterday one of the people here where I live took me to his village to spend a day with his family and friends. The first thirty minutes or so were a little awkward, but after that I had a great time.

We sat around chatting (and eating) for about an hour and a half while waiting for people to show up. Once everyone was there we went down to the river. One of the boats took me upstream a little ways to see the place were two rivers came together. We then went back downstream and joined the others pulling in a large net.

The net had several very small fish (in America I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t throw them back, but here they fry them and eat them whole). When the net was almost the whole way in a large fish made a big splash over in one of the corners. Everyone rushed to finish bringing in the net, taking care not to let the big fish escape.

When we got back to the pavilion by the waters edge we weighed the fish: 9.8 kg. We (minus the they I’m about to mention) then sat around talking and snacking on peanuts while they (those of us who were not sitting around) prepared the fish. They grilled fish steaks. They made fish soup. And they made fish lap (pieces of fish mixed with seasoning and chilies). It was all quite wonderful.

By the time it was all said and done, I had spent 8-15:00 having a good time, eating good food, and improving my isaan (the dialect spoken by natives of the region where I am staying).