Rice Grains

Yesterday was a crazy day. When I tried to tell my Thai teacher that in Thai, she looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face. So I tried to explain, and then she told me that Thai people don't use that expression; they just say they had a very busy day.:)

So, yesterday morning I boarded a songtaew to go meet Rin, the pre-school teacher for slum children at the Abba House, at the bus stop in Samrong. I knew immediately that traffic was going to be very bad, but since under normal conditions I can get to Samrong in 15 minutes, I figured I would be OK if I got there in 45 minutes (I had left my apartment at 7:30).

But then I was struck with the unfortunate reality that I had forgotten my phone in my apartment. I knew if I returned to my apartment, I would definitely be late, so I decided to keep going. When I got as far as Tippewan, a little more than halfway to my destination, I grew uneasy. I had no way of letting Rin know I was going to be late and that she should go on without me.

Finally, I hopped off the songtaew and found a motorcycle taxi; I think I was overcharged, but the driver insisted that because of the traffic jam, he needed to charge more. And it is quite a challenge, I'm sure, the way motorcycles weave in and out of traffic. It really is the fastest way to go anywhere. So we weaved in and out of traffic and sped between two lanes of traffic and made it to Samrong in probably 5 minutes. I'm sure if I had stayed in the songaew I would have been sitting there at least another 30 minutes.

Next dilemma: how long do I wait for Rin before attempting to find my own way? I had no idea what time it was (since I had left my phone at home) . It occurred to me that I should probably just find a bus and go; I had only met Rin once, and I couldn't really remember what she looked like anyway, though I suspect she would have spotted me without too much trouble:).

So, I hopped on a bus that I thought should take me in the right direction; I asked the grah-bpao rotmae (the person who takes the money on the bus) if they could take me to "napsuuntorn". Herein lay another problem: originally Rin had tried to give me directions over the phone so I could go by myself, but I was having trouble understanding exactly what she was saying; the street names and areas were new to me, so I guessed at how to spell them. Also, I had not written the directions very clearly. But at least I had that much with me.:)

To make a long story a tiny bit shorter, two schoolgirls on the bus figured out where I wanted to go, so when they got off the bus, they motioned me to come with them. They got a motorcycle taxi for me and told him where to take me--the end of soi 17.

They, however, had gotten me off at a different spot than my directions had told me, so I had no clue where I was. At one point the driver stopped at what appeared to be the end of a street, but I didn't see Abba House anywhere. So what was I to tell the guy? Well, we decided to turn left, went a little bit, then came to another T-intersection. Oh boy,what to do now? He started turning left again, when suddenly I SAW it! We needed to turn RIGHT, and there it was! Yea!!! Thank you God!

It turned out that Rin had tried to call me simply to tell me she didn't have time to stop for me and was going straight to Abba House. Traffic was bad for her too. In fact, no children were at the house when I got there; they had already gone home, thinking school was cancelled. It was 9:30 or after, and school normally starts at 8:30.

But Mem, the young girl who helps Rin, was sent to round up the children, and in a few minutes they were all back at the house. I mostly observed, but Rin had me "teach" the English lesson. The children are learning the alphabet and were learning to write the letter "B" yesterday.

I do have pictures of the children which I will post at the end of this very long and detailed report of my day. (If you're bored, you can scroll down to that section.:)

School ended at 11:30, and then Rin invited me to lunch at Big C Samrong. This time we took motorcycle taxis the "right" way, which really was much less confusing, boarded a bus, and headed for lunch. I suppose I oughtn't have taken time to eat with Rin, because I had planned to be in Bangkok by 1:00, and I wanted to head back home first to pick up my phone.

We had a nice lunch, then parted ways. I did indeed go back for my phone, then got a bus to Bangkok. Traffic was not so great once again, though not as awful as the morning. But on my way, I realized I had forgotten my little paper with directions to The Well, my next destination. Fortunately I had my PHONE! So I called and got the soi number, got off the bus, walked a few blocks, got a songtaew, and then walked again down the street to the house.

I didn't get there until 2:30 and had to leave by 4:00 for my language session. But it was good to mingle with the girls at the center.

So, at 4:00, I walked back out to the main road and got a taxi. We had not gotten very far at all (the meter still read 35 baht), when I remembered I had used all my small bills except for one 20-baht bill. The rest were thousand-baht bills.....UGHHHHH, what to do now???? When I asked the driver, he gave me the expected negative response: no, he had no change for my 1000 bahts. So I had him pull over, I scrounged through my change, and paid him exactly 35 baht, then walked until I found a songtaew costing 6 baht, which, fortunately, I could pay:)

When I got off the songtaew, I had a few blocks to walk to get to the skytrain, but once I was on board that, I was able to relax a bit and cool off.

So that is why I told my teacher I had a crazy day! I had ridden 4 songtaews, 3 motorcycle taxis, 1 taxi, 4 buses, and taken 2 trips on the skytrain to get where I needed to go yesterday.

And now for the Abba House preschool pictures!