#19 Fresh Market

You'll know when you've entered a fresh market by the nauseating smell of raw pork and chicken neatly organized on tables with buckets of live fish sitting on the ground.Women will have their machetes in hand hacking away at a pig head or sorting through the intestines of the latest slaughter. When I first moved to Thailand I was shocked by the openness of the fresh market compared with the US where you aren't even allowed to see how the animals are killed. I was also shocked by how the meat lays out on tables for hours in the hot sun with the women having a contraption of a plastic bag attached to a stick swishing away flies. Along with the meats they have an incredible spread of fresh vegetables, herbs, spices, and fruits that are brought over from the local fields. Although I don't do any cooking in Thailand, since my Thai roommate so generously buys my food and cooks, I rarely actually get to purchase anything from the fresh market other than a piece of fruit for a snack. I do love walking through it looking at the latest fruits and vegetables that have come into season or the whatever strange fish or animal they have laying about. For example there was ant egg season and spread across tables where leaves with live ants and their eggs that you could scoop up and buy, quite a delicacy here.

There is nothing to hide in Thailand when it comes to food. Everything you buy and eat is killed and cooked right in front of you.

Tid bits of Orientation

Most of our time in orientation this first month is spent learning Thai and completing the necessary lessons and coursework to receive our TEFL certification. However, we do get some breaks to do some fun activities and start to explore our surroundings.

On Sunday we had the chance to take our first big trip into the city, Nakhon Phanom. We all squeezed on to a Sang Tao. which translates as Two benchs, consisting of a pick-up truck with two benches in the back for passangers (pictured above with the boys hanging on the back!). In the city we got to visit the Fresh Market, Indo-China Market, a Temple, see the Mekong river and its view of the Lao Mtns in the background. Here are pictures from the fresh market:

On Tuesday we receive our first Thai dance lesson. We were first exposed to Thai dance at our welcome dinner party and it looked fairly simple to the untrained Westerner. We quickly learned that it is nearly impossible to look half as graceful. The class consisted of many laughs and a few simple moves learned.

One evening after class was over, I got a chance to play in a pick-up soccer game with a bunch of Thai high school boys and 3 of the male volunteers (Ben, Peter, and Zach). Since girls in Thailand never play soccer, I think it was quite a surprise to them to have a female player. Since it has been a few YEARS since I have even touch a soccer ball, I had to jump right back in to attempt to keep up. However it felt so good to play again and I was very impressed that they included and welcomed me into the game. Here is a group shot of us after the game!

Last night, we had the chance to walk down to the night market which I know I will be visiting frequently this next year. The market consisted of very yummy food and I tried an empanada type thing, waffle with something on it, and my favorite bubble tea! I'm slowly going to work myself up to the fried crickets. I also got lured into buying some Thai clothing, $1 shoes, and head wraps!