A Day in Huai Lan (Thailand)
My morning starts off with an early bike ride to the reservoir in the village. I leave my host house by 6:30 with Axelle (one of my peers), whose host house is right next to mine. It is usually a little chilly in the morning because winter started in Thailand in the middle of October, so I make sure I have a long sleeve shirt on while I ride. On my way to the reservoir, I have to say hi to my favorite village dogs, who greet me every morning and save the crabs that wander from the rice fields to the road. After the very steep hill, we finally get to the reservoir, and my favorite part of my morning is when I see all of the mountains surrounding the beautiful green water. As I ride my bike around the reservoir, I say hi to the group of people who walk around the reservoir every morning.
Axelle and I get back to our houses at 7:05, and then we go get ready for our day before eating breakfast. Breakfast, which Axelle and I eat together because Axelle’s host mom works during the day, usually consists of rice and an array of food, sometimes being noodles with eggs, stir-fried vegetables, fried bananas, rice porridge, fried chicken, and my favorite green curry. After we are stuffed to the absolute brim, we leave the house for the day.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, our cohort goes to our internship. Yeili, Brandy, and I all intern at IMPECT (Inter Mountain People's Culture and Education in Thailand), which focuses on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous rights throughout Thailand. We take the van that P’Deang (our van driver, who drives us everywhere!) drives to IMPECT. When we get there, we are greeted by our supervisor and the other interns that work at IMPECT, who attend Chiang Mai University.
Our day usually starts with ordering some coffee and then getting started on the many files of translating we do. The most recent files we have translated were documents that are for a conference to teach other people about different Indigenous Thai groups. After translating and, of course, chatting in between, we all grab lunch. Sometimes we grab lunch at the market close by or eat lunch at IMPECT. Today, we ate lunch at IMPECT and had noodles with soup. We were able to cook the noodles how we wanted and add our own toppings to it. They were so good! Thai work breaks are pretty long, and as long as you get back to work at some point, the supervisors don’t mind. After about an hour, we get back to work. By three, we have our routine English practice with our coworkers, and of course, we also get to practice our Thai. After lots of laughs and mistranslations, P’Deang is at IMPECT waiting for us. We all hop in the van and head back to Huai Lan.
When we get back, Axelle and I head home. I drop my stuff off in my room, and today, Axelle and I went to Yeili’s house to hang out. At around six, we headed back to my house to eat dinner. Dinner was barbecue, which is one of my favorite meals. Axelle and I helped set up the mini grill, which is concave in the middle to put your soup and noodles in while you grill your meat. As we set up, we asked Mae Wandee (my host mom) how her day was and what she was up to. Then Axelle and I sit down and eat a whole lot of noodles, soup, vegetables, and meat. As we talk about our days, the oil splashes on us, but we don’t mind.
After dinner, we help clean up, and Mae Wandee hands us fruit to eat while we play Uno Flip at Yeili’s house. When we get to Yeili’s house, her host aunt and her host mom are there, ready to play Uno Flip. We all sit and play and have lots of laughs while we all betray each other. By nine, Axelle and I are home saying our goodnights and heading to bed.