Thailand with Phil 2024

 It’s Friday, and we have the first week of teaching under our belt. We’ve been here almost two weeks. And suddenly there’s a shift in our brains. I must admit, our first days were spent in a haze, trying to make sense of our surroundings. Coming from a quiet, clean, tree-lined Midwest neighborhood and landing suddenly in a noisy, congested, dirty, crowded, polluted city brought its own culture shock. Our living area faces Ladprao Road, which produces a cacophony of never-ending traffic noise and sirens in full throat. (The bedroom is much quieter, but you can only spend so much time lying down.) A walk to the store or the gym is an assault on the senses: the roar of motorcycles, bursts of exhaust from rusty buses, cracked pavement, the stench of sewer water in the gutters, and humid heat bearing down on all of it. The first week was one of intense focus—learning where to find food, where to shop, how to teach English, how to access medical care, how to explore a world that is bewi...

 With two days of teaching under our belts, we can confidently say: We are enjoying this. Very much. Phil and I have been assigned to team-teach two classes, both Level I English. One meets from 1-3 p.m., the other from 4:45-6:45 p.m., Monday through Thursday, for four weeks. Because Thai schools teach English vocabulary and grammar, Level I is not as basic as it sounds. Most students know a decent amount of words and also have studied verb tenses, pronouns, and sentence structure. So our classes focus mostly on pronunciation, as well as listening and speaking skills.  In a city like Bangkok, you’d expect many people to speak English well. That’s not the case. They’ve studied grammar and vocabulary, but have little experience speaking or conversing in English, since their Thai teachers are unpracticed in that also. If Phil or I have questions in a grocery story or restaurant, for example, we must resort to Google Translate to find a Thai word to express the concept of chicken ...

Three days before we left for Thailand, Phil’s new tooth implant fell out. He called our dentist the next morning, asking for an appointment. She is on maternity leave, and the dentist filling in for her refused to come in to the office and see him, even though we pleaded with her that we were leaving for Thailand that weekend and that he would be teaching there for two months. No dice. It wasn’t enough of an emergency. So he flew to Thailand with the tooth in his pocket. Yesterday, when he told the volunteer group about his tooth, two retired dentists said he should be seen immediately—they couldn’t believe he wasn’t seen back home. So one accompanied us to the hospital that sits just half a block from Santisuk, Vejthani Hospital. Thailand is known for its superior medical care and low costs. In fact, medical tourism is a thing here, with patients flying in from Asia and the Middle East to be seen here. And Phil’s experience shows why. We walked into the hospital’s dental clinic, whic...

 (1) All teacher volunteers (mostly from Minneapolis) gathered on Saturday for teacher training. Phil and I had gone to the gym earlier to work out, because sitting for hours is difficult in a classroom setting. (That IS one thing I am getting too old for.) A missionary who works with Santisuk, Deb Guzman, led the four-hour training session. There were 17 teacher volunteers around the table. Next to me near the far end of the table are Lyndell and Gary Moberg, friends from the North Church in Minneapolis (they are the ones who encouraged us to apply). We know several others as well. After three or four days of simply being on our own, it was good to be with a group again. It helped us feel that we are really part of something here, instead of being two little particles tossing around in the huge sea of Bangkok. The training was fast-paced and a bit overwhelming (most volunteers have been teachers here before). But they all assured us newbies that the first two or three days had bee...

 (1) Okay, it’s hot. We realized this the second we stepped out of the airport at 10:00 p.m. Warm, moist, traffic-scented air wrapped itself around us and wouldn’t let go. We have been told by several natives already that Thailand has three seasons: hot, hotter, and hottest. The sad thing is that they laugh when they say this. Like it’s a joke. I can’t imagine living here during the summer, when it routinely gets well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We took a walk this morning around 11 a.m. to explore the back streets around the Mission House, and turned back after ten minutes, even though it’s only 88 degrees. The humidity is stifling, the sun is relentless, and we are beginning to understand why the city comes alive once the sun goes down. I forgot to pack a hat, but we will buy one today. We bought a smoothie and collapsed on our bed when we got back. However: we left Minneapolis in part to escape the winter. So no complaints. (2) Traffic is relentless as well on Ladprao Road, whi...

 We flew into Bangkok about 24 hours after arriving at the MSP airport (with a 2-hour layover in Seoul). The flight was uneventful and really quite pleasant. We were impressed with the gleaming, comfortable airport in Seoul. However, we were disappointed in our food choices at the airport: We didn’t fly 6,000 miles just to eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts, burgers, and chicken nuggets. But these seem to be very popular with the Koreans.  We flew into Bangkok five hours later and were met by Fang (lovely young “teacher care coordinator” at Santisuk English School) and Shane (youth pastor), who delivered us to our apartment at the Santisuk Mission House about 11 p.m.  After a sound night’s sleep we were awakened at sunrise to birdsong that made me think we were in a jungle. Well, we were in a jungle of sorts—a concrete and steel one. The view from our back door (we are four stories up, no elevator).  I took an early morning walk to fight jet lag, exploring our immediate neig...

 It is Christmas Eve night. The radio is playing centuries-old Christmas music, rain patters on the deck outside, and I am sitting in the pine room, in the quiet of this night of ancient mystery and gladness.  Every gift is given. The final pile of Christmas cards is on the counter, ready to mail on December 26. All that remains is a quiet dinner tomorrow with a small handful of us—Phil, me, Neal, Paul, and Rui (a friend from China).  And then…Thailand. A week from now we will be flying over the dark waters of the ocean, chasing the sun into the east, struggling to sleep in the crowded comfort of Delta flight 171 to Seoul. About 21 hours after we take off from Minneapolis, we’ll land in Bangkok, weary and disheveled and excited. I’m trying to imagine what it will be like—the colors, smells, sounds, the feel of the air in my face. Will we enjoy teaching English? Will they keep us so busy we won’t have time to explore, to read a book for pleasure, work on writing and editin...