Stories from the Homestay

Written 2/23/14

It was 8:30 in the morning. i'd been up since about 6:30, having stepped out of my bedroom and into the kitchen, determined to join in with my host family in the morning. The day before, when I'd woken up at seven, my host mom had seemed surprised--i assumed she was laughing about how late I'd slept when she saw me at seven. She was about the leave to bring M to school and then go to the market, so she told me to go back to bed and she'd be back with my breakfast at 8:30.

So today, wanting to get up earlier, i made my appearance at 6:30/ My host mom was astonished and quickly explain in here little English that I'd totally misread what she told me the day before. According to her, it was totally okay for me to sleep until 8:30 until she got back from the market and so once again i went back to my room, talking advantage of the down time to read and journal.

Now i was sitting at the table and my host mom had just handed me my breakfast.

two small plastic tins of brightly colored sticky rice. one had what i'd eventually learn is a sort of custard and the other one something that tasted distinctly like fish. I poked away at the custard, eating it in a few quick bites, but decided to pass on the fishy one.

today, my host mom gave me another packed lunch. Yesterday, i'd been given a juice box,  a packaged tuna sandwich that was light as air, and a banana. today was a soy milk juice box, some strange hot dog like packaged morsels and an apple.

It was Thursday, my second whole day in the homestay and my host mom's reluctance to give me normal Thai food and instead giving me stuff that seems vaguely  American--plastic packaging to boot--was beginning to concern me. I'd heard what the others in my group were eating for breakfast. definitely Thai food. Actually they tended to have left overs from dinner for breakfast.

while it wasn't like i wasn't being fed, i definitely didn't feel like i was being given the same breakfast as the rest of the family. wanting to actually experience the way my Thai host family ate, i brought up the minor problem to my leaders and my teacher who runs the home stays. The confusion clarified, my breakfast now are much more Thai: rice with something, maybe barbecued pork, chicken, or hard poled eggs. Soup even. And it's all delicious.

the house of my home stay family is simple but clean. And the kitchen is located outside. because its outside my host mom doesn't want me in the kitchen when its dark out "Because the mosquitoes will bite  you." I appreciate the sentiment, but since she cooks at the same time that it is getting dark it means that I haven't learned very much about the secrets of Thai cooking.

i have offered several times to help. But the only job I've been given is chopping vegetables. But one day as my host mom informed me of what we were going to have for dinner, I, like I've done before, piped up and said in my very simple Thai, "I'd like to help cook that!"

What I should have said was "dichan chop chuay tam aahaan!" but what I actually said what "dichan chop tam aahaan!" I like to cook that. suggesting that I'd actually made it before. My host mom seemed surprised (at this time I hadn't realized my mistake) and she kept repeating "you can make it?" But since my Thai wasn't quite good enough to now exactly what she was saying, I inferred that she was just double checking that I actually wanted to help, so i nodded my head enthusiastically.

it was only as she brought me to the kitchen, and still surprised that i supposedly already knew this dish, gestured at the stove and the post that I realized i'd forgotten to add "chuay" the Thai word for help. After quickly clarifying what i meant, i was delegated again to chopping veggies.

Lest you think my home stay has been all awkward and miscommunication, it hasn't. My host sister, M, is wonderful. she's delightful. Warm and funny, smart and playful, she's the person I've spent most of my evenings with. At first she felt the need to teach me all of the Thai words she could think of, parading them endlessly past my while i dutifully wrote down the phonetic pronunciation. but then, once my stranger status went away, we started jumping rope, Thai style. braiding each others hair (she's a master at it, about a million times better than me and i feel so bad that i can't put her hair in anything more interesting than simple french braid.), playing cats cradle, watching tv, or even learning a few phrases in french (of all the things i'd imagined i'd do here, learning french phrases from a little Thai girl was not one of them). it'll be very sad to say goodbye to this girl, who is such a joy to be around.