Life Without Toilet Paper: The Adjustment to Peace Corps Pre-Service Trainee Life in Thailand

First of all, to the friends and family I have not yet called, and to the friends and family I haven't called in weeks, I love you. Thank you for your patience with me as I adjust to my life here.

I consider myself blessed in innumerable ways to be living this experience each day, but I consider myself lucky in one respect: I have always been restless. I have never been the sit-still kind of woman, and I suppose I get that from my mama. For years, I have filled my days with as much as my physical body would allow, which, to be honest, is often more than my psyche can withstand. Still, I have persisted, and - though I have too frequently found myself mentally strained and emotionally exhausted - I have never regretted a minute of it. I brought this developed social fortitude with me to Thailand, and - to be honest - I have no idea how I would survive here if I hadn't spent the last 8 years or so building the ability to juggle so much.

What I'm getting at here is, we're busy. Most days I wake at 5:45AM, to enjoy a little personal time before the family is bustling around the house. I usually read the news, or just mindlessly scroll social media while I daydream and process. I get dressed at 7AM, eat breakfast at 7:30, and bike to work at 7:40. From 8AM - 4:30PM, I attend language class and technical training. I'm extremely impressed with the Peace Corps language program. In 7 weeks, I have learned more Thai than I did in my first 6 years of Spanish in middle and high school... granted in school I wasn't studying Spanish 4 hours a day, 3 days/ week, nor was I living with a Spanish-speaking family. Still, we are all getting a hold on the language, and it's something to celebrate. Our technical training covers everything from lesson planning to classroom behavioral management to special needs training and in-classroom advocacy to medical sessions to Thai law, to Buddhism, and the list goes on. After afternoon technical sessions, I usually stay late for an extra half-hour of Thai language tutoring, followed by a bike ride to whatever cafe sounds best - usually with my friend, Angela - for an iced coffee or something sweet. Angela and I live near one another, so we bike home together most nights (usually after we stop by 7-11 to see Angela's host mom and Chris P's host mom - Nuu - who is our good friend). I arrive home around 6:30 - 6:45PM most evenings, sweep the floor and/ or clean the bathroom or kitchen, maybe do laundry, help prepare dinner, eat with the family, play with my 9-year-old host sister, Neem, for a bit (especially on the evenings I arrive home earlier than 6:30), shower (hab naam in Thai), and by the time all of this is done it's 9PM (or 7AM in Colorado). Exhausted, I brush my teeth, put on a movie, and fall asleep.

On the weekends, we usually get an early start. We're up around 6AM - or 7:30AM on the days I get to sleep in - to get dressed, saak paa (do laundry), gin khao (eat), and bpai (go) wherever we're going that day. The dta-laats (markets) and wats (temples) are starting to blur together, but yesterday we went on a long journey to a waterfall! We loaded 12 people into a pickup truck (6 in the cab, 6 in the bed... don't worry, Khun Rumpai, the trainees were all inside the truck!) and drove three hours out (and three hours back) to swim in a river with tiers of naam duuk (falling water) slipping over rocks coated in velvety algae. After the water fall, we visited some flower fields, where we played with goats and ate fresh papaya (and Ray had chicken nuggets). We made it home around 8:30PM, hab naam (showered), gin khao (ate), and I went right to bed (bpai noon).

Most Sundays begin with a family trip to the market, followed by laundry, and then I usually spend the day biking around Singburi. Our province is gorgeous, with sprawling rice fields, a large, winding river, and wats sprinkled across the landscape - specks of white and gold and royal blue glittering in the afternoon sun. Last Sunday, two of my fellow volunteers and I biked some 20-25km, and spent the day shopping and making offerings to the Lord Buddha at two of the larger temples in the area.

Amid all of the life there is to live here, I've found it even more difficult than I did in Colorado to make time for solitude and decompression. There's so much happening constantly - there is always a meeting, or a group outing, a wedding or a monk ordination (both big parties), a funeral, a fishing outing, a market run, something to clean or fix or do - and I love it. I really do. As exhausted as I find myself at the end of everyday, I am so grateful. I am so grateful for my life in Colorado, which prepared me so well for all of the challenges I have faced thus far in Singburi. I am grateful for my friends and family back home who continually check in with me, even when I don't respond for several days. I am grateful for the days I feel frustrated here, because even in these moments, I know with my whole heart, there's no where else I'd rather be. I am grateful for the Thai and American friends I've made here, who are so kind and supportive and willing to share their contagious laughter. I am grateful for the Peace Corps staff, who have always heard and honored our feedback, and who are giving us the invaluable tools we will use throughout the duration of our service - which begins in one month's time, when we swear in, leave each other, and move to our sites, which are scattered throughout the country. I am grateful for my host family for being as totally normal - and totally weird - as any other family anywhere in the world... but particularly for being the kind of weird that makes Singburi feel like home. And I am grateful for my dad, who is waiting for me to come home before he sees the new Beauty and the Beast, who has still managed to keep me grounded, even from the other side of the world - as he always does - and who I miss everyday.

Living in Thailand forces me to remain present in every moment of every day. For the first time, I don't have time to scheme and plan. Everyday is an adventure, even when I'm just going through the motions, and I am grateful. I am exhausted and sweaty (so sweaty, like my sweat is sweating) and grateful and full. So full. And I am missing all the people I left behind, but I am becoming someone new again, and I think that's important, too.

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