new accountant, Ligretto, and care package from America... a good day!

Today was a day full of good things! First, we've been praying for a new accountant, since our lovely Taan is leaving us on Fri. to be an au pair in Virginia. It all happened so fast, but I think we just found out the day before yesterday that somebody would be taking Taan's place. He arrived this evening; his name is Amnuey, and he's from Chiang Mai. This is really good for two reasons: he's a guy and he's Thai! It helps balance the place out (at least a little) to have another guy so that Paul's not the only one, and also it'll balance things out for the Westerner- Thai ratio when the two new girls arrive from America. When they get here, there will be 4 Westerners and 3 Thai staff, although Paul really counts as either Western or Thai; I think he can go both ways w/ his language skills! Paul is in Phuket this week w/ his parents at a church retreat. He said he was giving me a break from his cheesy humor. It's true, he is a goofball. But we sure like to laugh together.

Anyhow, it was just a really nice evening, because our friend Mae came back from Bangkok today (you might have seen him in some of the first pics I took in Thailand, but he went to Bangkok for almost a month). So Amnuey arrived, and then we all ate dinner together. Amnuey is really nice. He just finished Bible college in Chiang Mai. I think he doesn't speak too much English, but it's good, b/c I can practice some Thai w/ him, and he can practice English w/ me. After dinner, I taught them how to play Ligretto, which was pretty good therapy to fight off my homesickness, because I REALLY miss playing games! I miss playing games, and I miss playing ultimate frisbee. Since it seems to rain day and night here, I don't think I'll be able to get too many ppl interested in learning ultimate at the moment! It might be pretty hard to organize anyway, since ppl have such busy and different schedules. Lastly, I am very happy to report that I received a letter from my host mom in Austria and a care package from America today containing a large bottle of Tums and some chocolate! (thanks, Scott, and whoever else might have contributed!) My friends at Step Ahead are happy about the chocolate, too. The chocolate made it intact (surprisingly!), so if anyone else feels inspired to send me chocolate, just ask me for my address. (Haha, I just realized that I said "chocolate" 5 times in the last few sentences). Tomorrow I'm teaching my cooking partner how to make banana pancakes so that she can have a break from teaching me how to make Thai food. Life is good. God is good.

John's visit and first week of teaching

Check out my newest pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/briswann I finished my first week of teaching! This will be a long entry b/c I had a very busy week, so now I have a lot to share w/ you guys. I was kind of stressed out about it last weekend b/c I didn't know what to expect, but it went really
well. Paul was at the Sarojin all week testing the level of the students, and he apparently got some pretty funny responses to his questions, like: "what's this called?" (the object was a spoon) Response: "poo." Oh, the joys of learning a language! But the flip side of that is sometimes even funnier; our director, John Quinley, is visiting this weekend and told a story about his wife, who went to the market one day and asked a lady how much this "dirty thing" cost, b/c the word for "pineapple" and "dirty" apparently sound rather similar in Thai. John's friend David, a retired missionary who worked in Thailand and India, told another funny story: there was another missionary whose last name is Rideout, and some Thai people asked him what his name meant. He tried to say the word for "ride," like to ride a horse, but he got the tone wrong and apparently said "excrement out." The Thais apparently howled w/ laughter and said, "you farangs sure have funny names!" Oh, if language learning weren't so funny, we wouldn't have good stories to tell. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had such a wonderful time this week meeting my students and getting to know them. I'll reiterate what I've said before about teaching Thai people: I'll never want to teach in America again after this year! The Thai students are so welcoming, enthusiastic, and respectful to their teachers. They laugh and smile a lot in class, (in fact, we laugh together quite a lot) and they really put forth a lot of effort. At the Sarojin, one of my students who works in the bakery brought me a sample of fine chocolates! (definitely wins points with the teacher). My intermediate group at Step Ahead is a true joy, though. They know each other quite well, and so there's a great class dynamic, and they really participate 100% in classroom activities.

John and David came into town yesterday, and it has been wonderful to talk to them about their experiences on the field. My busy week was just winding down as they came, so I was able to just sit and talk with them at length yesterday afternoon. John also showed me a Powerpoint presentation this morning about his family's involvement in Phang Nga province after the tsunami, and how the Step Ahead Center was born! It was very exciting to learn about. Also, he's putting me in touch w/ Matthias, a German guy who developed a German course and taught it at Step Ahead. He'll have materials for me, so I think I'll get rolling w/ a German class (pretty) soon, b/c while Paul and I were out advertising for classes last week, three of the hotels asked specifically whether we were offering German. This is a really exciting possibility for me. It means more preparation time, though! After a few weeks, I'll have a better idea of how to manage my time, what is a reasonable amount of work for me to take on, etc. OK, and then also, very importantly, I have great news about my living situation: I'll get to keep my own room! So I can finally unpack my stuff and settle in a bit better. I explained to him why it would be an emotional stress to me if I had to share a room w/ 4-5 people for a year, and he understood. He suggested that we use half of my stipend to put toward the room, b/c they'd normally rent this out as a guest room (like a hotel). In fact, I didn't even know if Step Ahead would be giving me a stipend (it's a small one, but every bit counts!), so to me this is a double blessing. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. My mind is at ease. This afternoon, we went out to eat- everyone from the Center, and then we visited the mushroom farm and the orchid farm that Step Ahead is sponsoring (these are microfinance projects). The orchid farm is at one of the Step Ahead preschools. I've visited two of the four (?) preschools that Step Ahead runs. It is really exciting to be a part of an organization that is impacting this community in such a positive way and to share God's love with these people. In spite of some difficulties and frustrations, I am truly so happy to be here.

first day of classes

Today was the first day of classes! (that is, I finally started teaching my own classes). I'm teaching Beginning II and Int. I at Step Ahead and Int. I and II at the Sarojin starting tomorrow. The first class went pretty well! I have 3 students in Beg. who were in Paul's class, which is nice, because I already know them. Then I had 3 new students, but two of them will probably move down to Paul's class because I think mine is too hard for them. We need more students, actually, so I'm hoping that more will sign up this week.

On Saturday, I met with my language partner, Clear (that's her nickname) for the first time! We are planning to meet for a few hours every Saturday. We are a good match for each other, I think. We spent the afternoon just getting to know each other, and I learned a few new Thai words. Her English is quite good, which is nice. She mainly needs help w/ pronunciation and tenses. We talked about our families and how we came to know the Lord. She became a Christian at her university in Chiang Mai.

On Wednesday, Jit is teaching me how to make a different curry (I think it's called Mossiman). I am looking forward to that! Unfortunately, I had a migraine yesterday, and it has carried over to today a bit. It is a very mild headache, but I had the visual symptoms yesterday morning (blurry vision in one eye, extreme sensitivity to light). I'm getting a little annoyed w/ all the health problems- it's either stomach problems, or being really tired, or migraines... please pray for me to be healthy again.

Eating caterpillars

Benz's mom and sister came down from northern Thailand, and they cooked a huge lunch for everyone. But I had already arranged to make lunch with Jit (the one in the blue shirt, who taught me how to make phad thai). So she taught me how to make green curry- yum! It was so delicious and actually really easy. It only took about 20 minutes! So now I can make two Thai dishes. We all sat down for lunch, and Benz asked me if I wanted to try "Thai French fries." I said "yes" hesitantly. I quickly changed my answer to "no" when I found out what she meant- fried caterpillars (as you can clearly see in the pictures). Well I might be pretty adventurous, but I don't eat bugs unless my life depends on it (that might be a slight exaggeration). In any case, I thought it was really gross but kind of funny, so I took pictures.

This evening, we had a really great class with the intermediates. It was the last class for this session, so we did a review game with the students and played charades. Next week, I'll finally start teaching my own classes! And today we got the schedule sorted out. I'll be teaching MW at Step Ahead and TR at the Sarojin. You can check out pictures of this amazing hotel, if you're interested: http://www.sarojin.com/overview_gallery.html .

After class, Gaan stopped by to ask for some help with German translations for brochures, so Paul and I went down to their shop and hung out for a while. Paul chatted with Geng while I corrected mistakes on the translations. The funny thing is, they were written by a native speaker, but there were a few spelling and grammatical errors. I am happy to be able to help in any way; Gaan and Geng are fun to spend time w/ and they've been so generous toward us. Plus, hehe, German tourists stop by a lot and I get to chat with them a little!

first baking experience, mildly poisonous jellyfish, a demonic festival, and beach volleyball

It was quite a weekend, although most of the excitement happened yesterday. On Friday night I went to the church's community group, where we ate a nice dinner and had a good time of sharing. We went around the circle, and each person shared something the Lord had encouraged them with. There were lots of foreigners there b/c of the visiting missionaries (Steve and Melvin, as well as a few others from the Philippines). We sang a very simple Thai worship song that was fun; the foreigners had to stand up during the "hallelujah" part, and the Thais had to stand up during the "praise the Lord"- in Thai- part. On Saturday night, Paul, Steve and I went to Gaan and Geng's for dinner again; this time we brought the seafood and meat to barbecue. Oh, and I baked for the first time in Thailand! I made banana bread, which turned out delicious, but unfortunately nobody in the house can figure out how to work the oven (or it's not working), so I had to borrow the neighbor's oven. Anyhow, Gaan and Geng enjoyed the banana bread, but I'm still determined to cook dinner for them; Gaan is a little wary of Western food, haha! But I'll change her mind.

This weekend and throughout this week, there's a festival going on in Phuket and in this area called the Vegetarian Festival. It is a gruesome and demonic thing. People abstain from meat and other things (caffeine, alcohol, etc.) and then some people mutilate themselves by sticking sharp objects through their cheeks and try to become possessed by "gods" (the devil). So we've seen people in the back of pick-up trucks driving around, shaking and in trances with sharp objects sticking out of their faces. They drive around in a procession and beat drums and shoot off fireworks. It is really dark.

On Sunday after church, Paul, Steve, Chayot and I took off on the scooters to hit the beach. But it poured on us all the way there; the rain was pelting us like nails and it was really cold! So once we got there, we ran into the water, which was warmer than the rainwater. But almost immediately, Chayot got stung by a jellyfish! (and then Steve, then Paul... but somehow I escaped them!) Apparently, they only have the kind that are mildly poisonous, and Paul said the rain must have brought them closer to the shore. Well, we ran back out of that water in a matter of seconds! It was kind of a funny situation, but I felt bad for the guys. I guess stings from these jellyfish aren't too much worse than a bee sting. By then, the rain had let up, and we just hit the volleyball around on shore for a while.

In the evening, we drove out to one of the small churches for a BBQ, different style than any I've done before! The church is pretty primitive- concrete floors, no sink, and just a squatty potty. But there was electricity. Rach won't like this at all, but the guys killed a live chicken and barbecued it, and we had barbecued squid and fish as well. We sat on the floor around the little grills and dipped stuff in really spicy lime sauce. It tasted really good. I didn't use much spicy sauce, but I had to use some, b/c it was the only seasoning. We had a great time and just sat around the fire talking for a long time.

Sarojin Hotel is swanky

I started this a few days ago and didn't finish, but I'm just going to post it:

Today, Paul and I got to visit the Sarojin Hotel, where we'll be teaching classes soon. And man, it is NICE! I'll post some pics as soon as the wireless is working again. We met with the general manager, but we still have some details to iron out next Monday (with scheduling, levels, etc.). So it looks like for next week, I'll just keep helping Paul plan and teach his classes at Step Ahead and really start planning my lessons to teach at the hotel the following week. I'm pretty lucky to have this time to chill out a bit, meet people, spend time with ministry teams passing through, learn Thai, get sick and get better... and go to the beach. But actually, I'll still go to the beach every day once my schedule gets busy, b/c it's my place to run, think, and pray early in the morning. I love it. There's usually (almost) no one there at 6:40 in the morning. But Khao Lak is starting to get more crowded, day by day. There are a whole lot more white faces around (farangs) than there were just 2 weeks ago.



I think I am going to ask Jit, one of Paul's students, to give me some Thai cooking lessons in exchange for English practice. I can go shopping at the market just fine and get fresh fruits and vegetables, but I don't really know what to cook except for omelettes. I'm not familiar with the spices or the cooking methods. Actually, we usually go out to eat b/c it' s just so cheap anyway, but I like to cook and don't want to go out all the time. But I won't be able to cook much during the week, b/c it looks like I'll be teaching morning, afternoon, and evening classes.

sour stomach

Yesterday, my stomach finally rebelled a little against all the new and spicy foods I've been eating. It wasn't too bad, but after helping teach class, I just went to bed for most of the day and either read or slept. I got to spend some time with Ping, too, which mostly consisted of her speaking in Thai, me speaking in English, laughing, and not understanding each other. I learned the vowels yesterday, though. Thai has a lot of vowel sounds. I ate bland foods (and not much) all day, and after evening class, Paul and I went for dinner with Steve and Melvin, two guys who are doing ministry in Malaysia and Indonesia and are scouting out possibilities for organizing short-term trips to Thailand. Steve is American and Melvin is Indonesian (I think I mentioned them in my last entry). It was really neat to talk to them. I think Steve was relieved to talk to some white people, haha. He's been in Panang, Malaysia for six months. I was relieved to eat some non-spicy chicken noodle soup. Unfortunately, the curry that they ate last night did not agree with Steve and Paul so much this morning.

a different kind of day- starting to understand some Thai!

Think I forgot to mention this last time: you can look at all my albums on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/briswann
For some reason, this blog web-site finds it amusing to keep switching everything into Thai (except for what I write). I keep switching it back to English, but it reverts to Thai. So now I've put it in German; maybe that will stick. I want to thank everyone who's praying for me back home. The past weekend, though filled with excitement, was so frustrating with culture shock and language barriers that for most parts of it (minus the biking), I felt like I could just burst into tears at any moment.

Today I seem to have had a small breakthrough with the language! We did some interesting and different stuff today. There is a ministry team here from Malaysia- which consists of an American guy, an Indonesian guy, and two Philipinos who are living here. The American and Indonesian came to scout out the area for possible short-term mission trips around this area, and they asked Paul to go along and help translate. So I joined them for fun. We visited a people group called the Moken, a fishing community- sea gypsies (that's what they're actually called; I'm not making that up). First, we visited an elderly couple who were looking after their 2 or 3-year-old granddaughter, who, upon seeing me, immediately attached herself to me for the remainder of our time there. She was adorable! She sat happily in my lap the whole time and frowned when we left. Then we walked around the village (?)- I guess it's more like a settlement of houses w/in Bang Niang- with a 17-year-old boy who explained to us some about their culture. It was really neat! They have a community center with pictures and descriptions of the history of their people, a school, and a little soccer field.

Today, for some reason, Thai started clicking with me! While Paul was conversing with people, I really started understanding bits and pieces from the context and from just recognizing words that are often repeated. I think I have also figured out what kinds of situations overwhelm me and what kinds don't. I feel fine hearing a lot of Thai if it's 1-on-1 or in smaller groups, like 5 people or so. But when I go to events with lots of people, like church or church meetings, and I'm the only one (or almost the only one) who doesn't speak Thai, I feel pretty uncomfortable. Part of that is also just because I feel shy around large groups of people I don't know!

This evening, the weather was nice, so Paul and I went swimming at the beach- caught some nice waves! It was sunny and hot today and yesterday. Maybe the rainy season is ending soon (which is kind of a bummer, b/c that means it'll just be hot!).

Ok, signing off now to try to get some better sleep tonight. Sleep has not been all that plentiful for me so far.

a very wet adventure

On Friday, for the first time since I've been here, I was feeling a bit homesick and out of sorts. Probably because the only other native English speaker that I know had left town to visit his parents. :) It can just be a little exhausting when you're hearing a foreign language all the time and trying to learn it, plus (trying to) communicate in your own language with non-native speakers, with lots of missed and mixed messages. Add to that lots of cultural uncertainty, and it makes for some tiring and frustrating days.

So when I jogged by Gaan and Geng's shop on Friday evening and she stopped me to invite me on a biking tour with some German tourists, I gladly accepted! I knew the exercise and time speaking German and/ or English with Westerners would do me good. Plus, I love off-road biking! They picked me up just before 8:00 on Sat. morning with the bikes on top of the truck, we picked up the Germans from their hotel and headed for the countryside. We started off biking on the road in beautiful weather- not too warm, slightly overcast. We stopped at a little guesthouse to use the bathroom and eat some bananas. That's where I saw my first monkey in Thailand and used my first squatty potty. The owners of the house had several pet monkeys- they were so cute!

We continued on toward the waterfall and went off-road for a while. Then it started pouring on us. We rode up and down hills, over slippery rocks, through mud and creeks, while getting drenched the whole time. We were so muddy! It was great. Finally, we came to a spot where we were to leave our bikes and hike up a bit to the waterfall. I hadn't changed into my bathing suit yet, so Gaan said I could go into this unfinished house to one of the rooms and change there- haha! I figured "ok, anything goes." I wore my bathing suit top and bottoms w/ my biking shorts over them; putting back on my soaked and muddy shirt in the drenching rain seemed pointless. We traipsed through the jungle and waded through creeks, but when we came to a spot where we'd have had to wade up to our necks in the creek, the Germans objected. I wouldn't have minded, since we were already so wet and I wanted to see the waterfall, but I was ok with turning around, too. We drove back down to the guesthouse for lunch, because we'd had enough of getting soaked for the day. The food was great, and on the way home, we got to stop and see a waterfall anyway. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of my adventure; I didn't take my camera because I knew it was likely to rain, or my camera could get broken in the rough conditions. Christine and Lars took a picture of me at the waterfall, though, so when they e-mail it to me, I'll post it.

In the evening, I went shopping at the market by myself for the first time. It was fun. I took my time and looked at all the pretty fruits and vegetables. I can understand and say the numbers pretty well now, and that's about all you have to know to go shopping.

cold showers

The main problem I've had so far is that the water heater doesn't work very well in my bathroom! I've only had one warm shower since I've been here. It certainly motivates me to get out of the shower quickly. Since I go running at the beach pretty much every morning, at least I'm hot when I get back and ready for a cool-down. Fortunately, the beach hounds a.k.a. devil dogs (stray dogs) didn't bother me this morning, but now I'm wary of every dog I see.

Last night Paul and I went out for a drink with one of his students and a friend of his, who is from Australia. They both work at Child Track, an organization that helps tsunami orphans. They also apparently do some work with Burmese refugees; there are a lot of them here, since things are so bad in Burma right now. It was neat to hear about their work. Joanne (the girl from Australia) is leaving soon, so we might meet up again before then.

Today, after some brainstorming about the lesson for the beginners on Monday, Paul and I went to lunch with Benz in Khao Lak at this beautiful restaurant overlooking the sea. It was pouring rain though, so we couldn't see too much! Khao Lak is absolutely gorgeous. We actually live just a bit outside of Khao Lak in Bang Niang. Khao Lak is hilly and has some great look-out spots. The road that goes through Khao Lak towards Phuket winds it way up and around the hills and through the jungle (at least, that's what it looks like to me), with an occasional breath-taking glimpse of the ocean through a break in the trees. I don't even mind the rain. It's kind of an adventure to slosh around in the puddles. After lunch, we dropped Paul off at the bus station, where he started his 8-hour journey down south to see his parents for the weekend.

Thai students spoil me

This week I've been co-teaching some with Paul for his lessons. It's been really fun. I'm going to be so spoiled from teaching Thai students that I won't want to teach anyone else after this year. They are so sweet, enthusiastic, respectful, and fun. Even with the language barrier, it is somehow easy to communicate with Thai people because they are so warm and welcoming. It is true that body language and a smile can often communicate more than words. During the intermediate class tonight, unfortunately I got a bad case of laughter while we were doing a dialogue. It's like when you're not supposed to be laughing at church, but then everything just gets even funnier. I had to focus very hard on my paper with the dialogue on it and could not look at Paul anymore because he was laughing too.

I feel that in the past few days, my Thai has not improved at all, because I've been really busy trying to put together the curriculum for the intermediate and advanced classes. There are books and some lesson plans here, but there's not an entire curriculum for any of the classes, so that's what we're working on. It's hard. I don't even know how to go about planning the material for a whole class! (and for several different levels). One of the girls in the beginning class told me today that she's interested in taking a German class, so I'll decide how soon to offer it. I need to focus on the English classes first, though, which are quite enough to handle at the moment. Ok, it's getting late... time for bed.

starting to get over jet lag

Last night was the first night that I slept all the way through! It was great. I slept from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m., and then I got up and went running at the beach. Unfortunately, a dog ran after me and started barking, which I didn't appreciate too much. Yesterday I went running at the beach in the pouring rain, which wasn't so great. It rained so hard it hurt, so I didn't stay out for long. It's been raining so much that almost every pair of shoes I have here is wet. Flip-flops are the best bet, since they dry quickly. Socks are pointless.

I don't think I wrote much about the church last time, so I'm posting a picture of it. It seems to be a very traditional style church. It was cool, because there was a Canadian visiting pastor who preached (he's lived in Thailand for 7 years already, so he preached in Thai). He was here w/ another Canadian guy who's in language school in Chiang Mai. There was translation, but it was hard to understand, and then the songs and prayers weren't translated. But I enjoyed Sunday school; it was a small group, and the Canadian pastor sat next to me and translated. What I really like about the church is that they eat together after the service (every week). It's a good time for fellowship.

This morning I bought multi-grain bread at the German bakery just down the road. It was the first piece of bread I'd eaten since I've been here, and it sure was good! I had Nutella and peanut butter on it. Yum. It was kind of expensive but worth it. I'm just not keen on eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (yet, anyway). So I think it will be worth the few extra baht to buy a loaf of bread per week. Tonight, Benz took us out for a welcome dinner for me and Paul. We had "farang" food (foreign food). It was a lovely restaurant w/ all kinds of dishes- German, Swedish, Italian, American, Thai. And I really enjoy our group. I'm including a picture of them; it's not the best picture, but anyway, these are the people that I spend most of my time with. From left to right: me, Paul, May, Benz, Taan, Ping. And the other pic is of Surin Beach in Phuket.

Paul's teaching me a few chords on the guitar, so maybe soon I'll be able to play some praise songs! Since we have so few people here at the center, it's probably not a bad idea to have a couple people who can play guitar. I'm trying to start figure out lesson plans, which is not an easy task! At this point, I have no idea where to start, so I'm looking through the books and some of the previous lessons that are saved on the computers here. I think we've worked out who will be teaching which levels, and we'll be teaching two classes each (2x a week) at a hotel and then at the Step Ahead Center I'll be teaching two more and Paul one more. This was kinda long, signing off for now.

Rules for driving in Thailand

As far as I can tell, these are the rules for driving in Thailand:
-in general, drive on the left side of the road
-however, feel free to make use of all other space available: center line, shoulder, the other lane, etc.
-a solid double yellow line does NOT mean you cannot pass
-follow the car in front of you as closely as possible
-watch out for scooters
-fit as many people into one vehicle as possible (or on top of the vehicle, if necessary)
-What's a speed limit...?

Today after church, we went to Phuket to go shopping at Tesco, which is very similar to a Wal-Mart Supercenter, and to pick up Benz from the airport. She had spent the weekend in Bangkok for some Step Ahead business. It was really neat to see Phuket while not in a complete daze. We drove through part of the city after shopping. We passed through a couple of Muslim neighborhoods with mosques and bustling markets. Then we went to Surin Beach (I think that's what it's called) and had a nice meal at a restaurant right by the water. It poured almost the whole day, so it wasn't weather for swimming, and the waves were kinda rough at that beach anyway. But it was beautiful. Phuket is gorgeous! It is surrounded by lots of hills. We were only there for a few hours, so I didn't see much, but I'd really like to go back and spend a day there.

Last night, Paul and I went to dinner at Gang and Geng's place (I don't know if that's how to spell their names, and to make matters more confusing, Paul's Thai nickname is also Geng). The couple own a shop that sells adventure tours for tourists (like riding elephants, bamboo rafting, etc.). The lady, Gang, speaks German pretty well, which is why Paul introduced me to her. We sat out on a mat in front of their store and barbecued shrimp and squid and ate rice and curry. It was wonderful. We stayed for a long time and talked about all sorts of things; in fact, they shared with us their story of how they survived the tsunami. I just can't even imagine how scary it must've been for all those who witnessed it. People here are afraid of ghosts of all the people who died. Gang was interested in talking about spiritual stuff and she asked me how/ why I became a Christian, and that opened the door for me to share the gospel with her. She lives right down the road, so I'm sure I'll be seeing more of her. I think Paul and I will cook something for them next time.