Potato Sacks and Other Oddities

If you regularly check up on this blog, you know this experience has been a lot of things for me: overwhelming, exciting, inspiring, exhausting. These past (almost) 8 months have shaped me in ways I could not have imagined, and have done so in the most surprising ways. But there is one aspect of my time here that I have not put into words yet, and I would like to do so now:

"Emily, our meeting is cancelled today. We have to practice for the staff potato sack race."

These exact words were spoken to me not but four hours ago, with the utmost sincerity and no smile to accompany it. My counterpart could see I was headed to her office to set up for our usual afternoon co-planning session and thought she would spare me the walk. Nice of her, really, considering the absurd amount of flashcards sprawled in my hands and sweat trickling down into my butt crack.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it had already begun. Teachers, most of whom I have never seen without a full face of makeup and an elaborately laced blouse, were jumping barefoot into the dusty and scratchy sacks without hesitation. Students were running back from their errand of getting cones to set as an obstacle for the 'sackers' to get around. Our P.E. teacher was talking strategy: If you stick your feet in the far corners of the sack, you'll have better balance. I wonder which is faster, shuffling or jumping...

I turned my eyes back to my counterpart, who was staring at me expectantly. I looked down at my flashcards, then up to the sky, then shrugged my shoulders. "Alright, let's go."

This exact type of shoulder shrug is not the first I have done in Thailand. It is not even the first one I did today. I walked jovially to school this morning just as I do every day, wai-ing the owner of the convenience store, the ladies with food carts outside of the school, most of my 350 crazy students, and then made my way to the front office to sign in. I stuck my head in and said a cheerful "good morning!" before going to the notebook when I heard my counterpart say "Emily, your skirt's wide open!" Immediately, I calculate the average amount of people who just had a full view of my purple Wednesday undies, and did not care to say anything. The biggest greng jai that's been pulled on me yet.

Of course it is, I thought. Insert shoulder shrug here.

I then walked over to Anuban (preschool) to do my first lesson of the day, where I was once again left alone with all 30 of them. The tall goofy white lady is no longer of much interest, so I sang them the alphabet while they sat on each other's heads or stuck their entire fist in the other kid's mouth.

I'm sure he was justified in putting his fist in that kid's mouth. Shoulder shrug.

My other counterpart grabs my arm on the way to her next class. "By the way, class is cancelled Friday. We have another sport's day."

Sheesh, we love athletics here. Shoulder shrug.

A fifth grader teaches me a poem, I recite it aloud and another teacher overhears and laughs. "He just made you say old lady pubes!"

Shoulder shrug.

My counterpart comes back from teaching her class. "Actually, tomorrow and Friday are cancelled. But wear yellow."

Shoulder shrug.

An older student comes into my class and says in Thai "Kru Emily, your neck is strange."

Well I can't argue with that logic. Shoulder shrug.

If you are not a Peace Corps volunteer, this probably seems funny. To not know what is going on half the time, and to think you know what's going on and having it actually end up being the complete opposite the other half of the time is ridiculous. If you are a Peace Corps volunteer, you know that it absolutely is ridiculous, but ridiculous is your new normal.

When we first arrived in Thailand, we wanted answers. But why are classes cancelled so often?? Why does my host mom insist that I use a straw while drinking out of a water bottle?? What do you MEAN I have to wear the same color for five months in a row?! If we didn't get answers, it baffled us, sometimes even frustrated and disheartened us. Even now, there are days where the amount of confusion and randomness is so great it can start to feel a bit like you're being excluded.

However, after almost 8 months of being here, I have realized that I am simply not going to get answers to everything. They are lost in translation, or there isn't enough time to explain, or there simply isn't any answer at all. And, more importantly, it's okay to not get answers to everything. You should never stop asking, but you should also try to find comfort in discomfort, know that it might not go as you planned, lift your shoulders up to your ears and drop them down hard again, and repeat.

I put my flashcards down on the picnic table, got waist deep in the faded brown bag, looked up at the P.E. teacher and said "Jumping is absolutely the fastest method of sacking, and here is why..."