Happy 83rd Birthday to the King

On December 5th, The King turned 83. Ongoing celebrations for the past week or so and ceremonies have ensued. Friday afternoon my small school of PlaPak Noi held a ceremony where they constructed a huge banner saying "Long Live the King" along with candles and ensense burning. After some buddhist prayers were said each student had to approach the King's picture and bow. It was a really sweet ceremony and shows even in the smallest, poorest parts of Thailand how much the people universally love and honor their king (its even against the law to speak poorly of him!). PlaPak Wit asked Amanda and I to perform a Thai dance at the festival that they were putting on. A little hesistant we agreed not knowing exactly what we were getting ourselves into. From wednesday to friday we met with the dance teacher from the high school to learn our routine. It is a fairly simple routine but we definitely lack the grace of a Thai dancer. At a very young age they start training to thai dance bending thier fingers backwards to look more elegant. Anyways the highschool team was already gearing up for their performance the same week so we went a little scant on our practice time and basically hoped for the best!

The day had arrived and around 1pm we started the very long process of getting ready. I was a little nervous on how they were going to handle my curly hair since they have probably never dealt with it before but they assured me all will be fine. First they started brushing out my curls which just made a huge fro and then backcombing it, basically turned into a giant frizzed knot... worried. Using lots of hairspray and bobby pins they created a bun with a lot of poof...I was impressed! From there make-up started where they literally put layers of white make-up on me, a thick foundation and powder. Next intense drawn in eyebrows, dramatic pink eyeshadow, and painted on red lips! I turned asian in an hour. when I finally got to peek at a mirror after they finished I didn't recognize myself. We had a little break, which is when we learned that we weren't dancing at PlaPak Wit but at the city pavilon and not only the whole village of PlaPak was going to be there but also the surrounding villages...grrrreat.

At 5pm we started to get dressed. They wrapped and pinned us up in traditional thai outfits complete with about 10lbs of silver sparkly jewelry. I even got a huge tiara to stick around my bun. We were definitely Thai'd at this point. About now I really wished we could just walk around in our outfits and say Hi to people and skip the whole dancing in front of 100s of people part.

Yes, I was wearing all that jewelry at once!

As soon as we arrived we became the local celebrities at the festivals. Photos were being snapped every few seconds and people ushing their children in and out to get photos with us. I'm pretty sure this will be the closest thing for me to be a celebrity. There was a candle lightening ceremony for the King and before you know if we were up on the stage. I'm pretty sure my mind went blank at this point and looked at Amanda shaking. There were several video cameras on us and flashes going off with everybody silent and looking. I made it through the performance which I barely remember now because I was so nervous (thank goodness for Amanda!) . Of course everybody was sure to tell us we did wonderfully even if it was terrible ahaha.

The stage we performed on

From there we took more pictures with important people, hung out with Amanda's PawAhh, and watched Thai boxing. I wasn't so keen on watching the boxing and my heart was clenching as I watched tiny 10 year old boys enter the ring but Thai's are allll about boxing. It was hard for me to watch but I tried to go along with it. I even got to go up to the ring and present the boxers with a flower lay before the fight began. We ended the night by saying multiple times to the PA that we were very very tired after being ushered around all night and needed to go sleep. Rambo, our police security guard, escorted us out of festival even pushing people out of the way to make sure they didn't touch us. To both Amanda and I this was a little much since the whole night we mainly wanted to go hang out with our students but too tired to deal with it we smiled and moved on. It took a good 15 minutes of scrubbing to get the make-up off and handfuls of conditioner to untangled the hair-sprayed knot but I would say it was worth it. That night I will always remember. Everyday I'm still amazed at the generosity of Thais and my village. Just being a foreigner is such a big deal here and they are the most welcoming people. I'm hoping to get the newspaper article about us and video recording that was put on Thai Tv!

Popping the Bubble

Rewinding to last weekend, two very important Isan Holiday's were celebrated and it was an extarordinary weekend. On Saturday morning we left to WAT PHRA THAT PHANOM" (วัดพระธาตุพนม) where each year a festival is held in That Phanom to honor the temple and also the anniversary of King Rama V’s death . This is the most famous temple in the Isan Province and is ledgened to contain The Buddha's breast bone, and as such, it is one of the most important Theravada Buddhist structures in the region. For this event we witnessed over 300 highschool (including the highschool that I'm living at, PlaPak Witaya) Thai dancers preform traditional routines, they were gorgeous!

Along with watching the dancers we had a chance to tour the temple. Within the temple there are mutiple places to make merit. In the picture I'm lightening an ensence stick, say a prayer, then stick it in. part of this process is then sticking a gold piece of paper to the statue.

After celebrating at That Phanom, we headed over to Nakhaon Phanom to celebrate Fire Boat Festival, “rua fai.” Wikipedia describes it best as,

"Communities from the province build large scaffolding out of bamboo, which they put on boats and float down the river in the annual fire boat festival. Tin cans are filled with kerosene and stuffed with rags, then arranged on the scaffolding to form images of temples, the king, dragons, etc. At night the boats float down the Mekong river for the appreciation of spectators. Held one night a year, at the end of Buddhist lent."

For the festival we stayed at Pi Dtao’s house, who is hosting our volunteer Sara, and is a very small lady but contains more spunk than you can image. Her apartment sits right next to the indo-chin market and on the mekong river, prime location! In all the festival was amazing seeing these gigantic boats containing hundereds of lit candels float down the mekong on a full moon night.

On a different note, yesterday was our last day in orientation and our group split up and moved to our seperate villages. Since we have literially been living on top of each other this past month it was sad to see everybody off to their own villages and schools while my roommate, Amanda, and I stayed at home in PlaPak Wit. This is the start of a new adventure and the security of our English bubble is now gone. Starting Monday our formal teaching begins. Being the only volunteer at our schools and for most, the only english speaking person the language barrier and classroom experience begins. Yesterday after moving in, my co-teacher from Pla Pak Noi, Pi Med, invited me to the local womens aerobics class that is held every evening. Very happy about the invitation, I accepted, and experience my first class being 1 of 4 attendees. I was the youngest by at least 20 years but enjoyed the time to bond with my co-teacher and meet some of the other ladies in town. The aerobics was held outside with loud Thai electronic dance music played and consisted of some simple steps and hand motions. It was a little embarrassing doing this little dance number basically on the side of the main road but I tried to embrace it and have fun with the ladies.

I feel there is so much more to add about my house for the next year, my schools, and important people I've met but this post is already too long! After a long day in NKP of collecting school supplies for monday and other house essentials I'm ready for bed! Also since Thai people get up around 5:00am, roosters are crowing, dogs barking, children screaming, and rice trackors already on the road, there is no sleeping in!

Here is a picture of a little boy we saw in the back of a truck during the fireboat festival with his bottom sticking out and is how I'm feeling about now! too cute!

Thai Dance Lessons

This is our embarrassing first day of Thai Dance Lessons! I can say we definitely all improved by the end of the week!