Emily Takes On Thailand

Growing up, my family and I would drive up to Boston to see our relatives every year. I remember never being able to sleep the night before, so excited to see everyone again. My sister and I are two of eleven cousins, so you can imagine that this annual one week trip was absolute, joyful chaos. Nothing but swimming, snacking, and laughing until the sun went down, only to rinse and repeat the next day. I've been thinking of these summer days more frequently since moving in with my site host family. My host mom is one of six siblings, and together they have a total of -ironically- eleven kids. They all come to my Yai's noodle restaurant (nextdoor to us) for dinner every night, which means every night it's a party. It's fun to watch: the older cousins play dominoes at the small marble table, the younger cousins run around out front blowing bubbles, and the adults sit on various benches and chairs eating and talking about their days. I understand roughly thirty percent...

I have officially been at site for two weeks. Before we packed our bags, our trainers in Don Chedi told us "you'll have so much down time when you get to site. It's bid term there so you can kick back and relax a bit!" I think they were right, if you exclude the two day exam conference, graduation ceremony, staff dinner parties which you're given thirty minutes prior notice for and told to "go shower!" and the usual demand to play "hospital" with my crazy (but perfect) little host sisters. All joking aside, having a jam packed schedule has been essential for my integration here. I can feel my counterparts and I getting more comfortable with each other (last night she said "I'm gonna miss you when you leave" and I told her she literally has two years before she has to worry about that). My host family cracks jokes with me more, the students who play volleyball ask me to join, even the stray dogs know I'm probably gonna ...