MicahJohn

The last day of finals was Wednesday, now all I have to do is get my grades in order.

Sunday my guard took me to his village. We spent the day with his extended family down in and around the river. It was a good opportunity for observing the interactions of genders and ages. Pretty much everybody was represented. There were little kids, bigger not-so kids, people my age, and people who could be my parents or even my grandparents.

I had a lot of fun swimming in the river, pulling in fishing nets, and eating fresh fish.

They would guide the boat in a big U from the shore, throwing out the nets.

Once the net had been laid out in the water, it was hauled in to shore from both ends

Once the nets reached the shore line, we stopped pulling on the lead ropes, and started pulling on the net itself, being careful to keep the bottom side of the net next to the ground to minimize fish escapes.

The other day I was able to get new driver’s licenses and a new SIM card with my old number all in a single afternoon. Dealing with the loss of the things from my motorcycle has been easier than I expected.

I still keep locking myself out of my front door. I lock the lock whose key was stolen out of habit.

Last night I was informed by the police that the compartment under the seat of my model motorcycle can be readily gotten into by someone who knows what they are doing. I was told this when I went to report that a wallet, a phone, and a key had been taken from my motorcycle while I was spending time in the park.

This afternoon a friend of mine checked to make sure that I was aware that a new friend that had been hanging out with us last week was homosexual. I showed my surprise.

The friend clueing me in, wondered at my cluelessness. I can admittedly be quite oblivious at times. The added dimension of a second language and culture didn’t help at all. There are some things straight Thai guys do, that no straight American guy would dream of doing. For example, holding hands with another guy.

I tried to explain the difficulty of reading another culture’s signals to my friend. He didn’t buy it. He said if someone from my country came and acted the way this other guy had acted, he wouldn’t need to understand a word he said to know he was gay. Well, yeah! If he acted the same way a gay Thai guy acts. But he wouldn’t. He’d act like a gay American guy.

Nothing like working to learn another language and culture for over a year to begin to realize the depth and intricacies inherent in these things we take for granted.