Anna and I stayed with this incredibly kind, generous and patient family this weekend for our homestay. Pa and Ma, two brothers and Um, the little sister who was our guide for the weekend with her father.
- Being blessed by a monk by having water thrown on us. Surprising and refreshing.
- Giving offerings to a monk outside our family's house: Our "mom" hurried us outside on Saturday morning with bags of food and lo and behold, a monk is sitting outside in a tuk-tuk like vehicle with a big bowl. Anna and I carefully put the offerings in the bowl without touching the monk or the bowl. Then we bowed down on the ground as he blessed us (I hope/think).
- Giving alms at wats: Incense, flower and gold all included. We learned the whole procedure, including wai-ing and bowing three times, putting incense sticks in and setting flowers down. That is a horrible description but barring any additional vocabulary, that's what I got right now.
- Feeding hundreds of catfish: We threw dog food off of this dock area to the hundreds of nearby catfish, who splished and splashed all over each other to get to the food. We had the family's 4-year-old semi-adopted grandson with us (he lives down the street with his parents, but they work long hours and so he seems to spend a lot of time with our host family. They clearly love him like a son. He went out to dinner with us the first night and then we went to Tesco to buy him a toy afterwards. So. Adorable). He had a blast, and it was fun to watch him.
- Receiving my fortune after shaking out some sticks and finding my number to be 24. It said that because I take care of people, I can expect other people to take care of me in the future. How nice.
- Finding out I am going to law school (according to Buddha) - You sit next to a golden elephant in the wat, pray to Buddha for something to happen to you in the future (for me it was more of a question) and then lift the elephant with one finger. Then you wai and pray again, and attempt to lift the elephant once more, with the same finger. If you can lift it the first time, and not the second, it means what you prayed for will come true. When Pa told me this, I was like oh ok, I should pretend like I can't lift it the second time or something, to be polite. No but really. I couldn't lift it. At all. It was amazing how light the elephant was the first time, and heavy the second. Law school it is!
- Drinking "lucky water:" At the second wat we went to on Saturday (which housed a 50-foot tall Buddha) Rebecca and I were coached by our "sisters" to drink water out of a, um, dirty-looking bowl. Rebecca smiled and took a sip from the little cup and handed it back to her sister. Her sister, thinking Rebecca had misunderstood, smiled and said, oh! You have to drink the whole thing! The look on Rebecca's face was priceless. So we smiled and downed it. Now we are supposed to have good luck.
- Seeing a 50-foot tall Buddha. Huge. Beautiful. Amazing. No photos - inappropriate.
- Riding an elephant: Um yeah. Turns out they're big and take big steps. Which throw you forward. And backwards. We crossed a street on the elephant (I am not kidding. Traffic circle and everything) and had a little elephant party at the end of the 10-minute trek with the rest of our relatives.
- Receiving my Thai nick name - Deun (it means moon). Our "pa" named me "Moon" and Anna "Star." He explained that the moon has a special connotation in Chinese culture, and is very beautiful. It was so sweet.
- Wading through two feet of water for dinner: Anna and mine's family hung out with Rebecca's family, and on Saturday night we went over to Rebecca's family's grandmother's home. It was a traditional Thai house on the river propped up with stilts. Stilts were used back in the day because of the river's frequent flooding during the rainy season. Well, this is the rainy season and go figure, the area is flooded. So the path to her house was covered in two feet of water. We got there after dark, and we see a couple feet of decidedly murky water between us and the house. Rebecca's father pulls up his pant legs and wades across, I thought, to bring back some kind of flotation device to take us across the water. Ha. Nope. Our father then laughs, starts pulling up his pants too and says, ok! So we laugh and hike up our skirts and step into the brownish water. I have an open blister on my ankle, and for a second, pondered the likelihood of an infection. Mai bpen rai, Ali. Once I realize there is a paved path beneath my feet and not seaweed/mud/fish, I chill. But these aren't the most reliable paths, so at one of the uneven points, I slipped slightly, and part of my skirt fell into the water. Ma yelled oi oi oi! I swiftly (and gracefully, of course) yanked it out of the water, laughing. She started laughing. I made it to the porch, wet but smiling.
- Learning how to cook Thai food. My only mistake was nearly scalding three of our "relatives." No big, right? They only ran away and shrieked in terror. I am clearly set for chef-dom. "Next time, be more careful?" After that I was demoted to holding empty dishes.
- Naming our "sisters." We ate dinner with a dozen of our "relatives" on the grandmother's porch that overlooked the river. After we ate, the parents asked us to give our sisters' American names. We decided on Lily for Rebecca's sister and Annie for our sister. They seemed to like them and kept laughing and calling each other the names. So I think we did alright.
1. Anna (my roommate) and I sitting with our host parents.
2. Famous Buddha Lying Down statue at Ayuthaya
3. Most famous/oldest wat at Ayuthaya, ancient site of the capital of the Thai kingdom.
4. View from the top of the wat
5. Inside another beautiful wat
6. Elephant riding caravan
7. What happens when you ride an elephant and look down...
Two questions.
ReplyDeleteWas the buddha inappropriate or was it inappropriate to take photos of it?
Did you check whether suction or magnetism wasn't behind the elephant lifting buddha trick? :) jk
Awesome Pics!