thailand

Finding Silence.

/ Sloan / 1 Comment

I had to remind myself that is was Christmas Day all day. Even though my morning started at 5:02am, just like many Christmas’s of my youth, I did not open stockings, I didn’t walk downstairs, sleepy eyed and groggy to see a mountain of gifts beneath the tree my family decorated. I woke up at my normal time and did my normal routine—coffee, small breakfast, yoga, dressed and walked to school.

My roommate and I were asked to dress as Santa and his helper and pass out candy to the Thai kids who think Christmas is no more than children getting presents and Santa riding a sleigh—oh wait…This is how Christmas in Thailand began.

Most of my kids that I teach on Tuesdays were spending the week at a Buddhist Temple getting education on meditation, Buddha, dangers of social media, history, The King, healthy living—everything you can imagine. They were asked to wear all white and spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday observing and learning. I was a bit jealous.

My boss, Kim, invited me to join her at the Temple for lunch and observation. Walking into a big room, meditation mats on the floor, a Buddha shrine in the front we were welcomed by a smiling monk and soon the children filed in, silently and respectfully. They sat, prayed and waited patiently for the speaker to begin her lesson on online gaming and the dangerous effects it has on the mind.

After a modest lunch and weird dessert, my new friend Oho (pronounced OhO, a dipping sound—start high, go low, end high again. I like to just call him Oh!) offered to walk the grounds with me. Oh is a student hoping to obtain his Doctorate degree in the next year, I told him to practice his English on me and we talked quietly about ourselves, asking questions and getting to know one another as we enjoyed the Temple property.

It was quiet there. We often take quiet for granted without realizing it. Until I was at the Temple I hadn’t realized how noisy my home is; even right now at 5:27am there is a motorbike starting, a rooster crowing and the noise of the street that is close by. At the Temple it was silent and so effortlessly peaceful.

Oh and I stopped at a shrine, knelt, and he told me that this is the Buddha you pray to for wealth, money, and success, he told me to pray if I wished. I prayed. I prayed hard. I prayed for a wealth of strength and personal success in accomplishing goals I am setting for myself. I prayed for help. No one likes asking for help but Buddha was offering it to me on Christmas day so I prayed to Buddha.

Oh watched me. I’m sure he noticed my discomfort and my lack of knowing what to do. He told me to slow down when I bow (three times when you come, three times when you go) he taught me take that moment slower, showed me where to put my hands, he told me to breathe. We talked about the difficulties of meditation. I told him my difficulties with religion in the past and then asked me how I felt with Buddha. Connected I said. Welcomed. He smiled and offered his knowledge to me any time.

We continued walking, talking and overcoming the language barrier. I again, reminded myself it was Christmas afternoon and I was wandering a Temple with a practicing Buddhist. Happy that I missed the crazy shoppers from my retail days, smiling that I didn’t have any obligations to fill, or meals to help clean up after. Reminding myself that it was Christmas and I was around the world in a Buddhist Temple.

I hope my loved ones had a wonderful, stress free Christmas season. I hope they were able to breathe and enjoy the moment. I hope they enjoyed one another’s company and appreciated the quiet that a snowfall brings.

 

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Kim, Oho and I at the Temple

Kim, Oho and I at the Temple

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A Silly Storytelling Session About Storybooks

/ Sloan / 2 Comments

Bored and confused they look up at me, their eyes begging me to stop. We’ve been repeating the same seven “S” words over and over for the past 15 minutes. I’ve broken down the syllables, reconstructed them, repeated them in order, out of order. I had all the girls stand up and repeat, while the boys sat happy they didn’t have to do anything for a moment—then had the boys stand, then had all over them stand. I get it, nothing can make repeating words you don’t understand interesting. Not even a goofy white girl making faces, doing motions—it’s boring. I know.

            I have my reasons for these “S” words—not just because I love the letter and enjoy alliteration (Silly Sloan stands in front of class snickering stupid secrets.) I want them to read the words so that when I read them the “S” book they get it. 20 minutes into class I pull a storybook out of my book bag. They smile, they’ve forgotten all the boringness I just put them through and the 33 eight-year-olds grin so hard their faces may stay that way.  They stare at me, waiting with excitement. (The students stare at Sloan as she starts the storytelling.)

 

I love reading to kids. Even to kids who don’t speak the language that I’m reading, they all have the same awestruck reaction to pictures, words, the cadence of the teacher’s voice. They forget about the worksheet they were working on and they listen, they unconsciously repeat the words they just learned (yes! It worked!). I imagine them doing what I did when I was kid; making up definitions for words I didn’t understand, giving characters names, wondering how on earth the teacher is reading upside down or without looking at the book! I now get how my first grade teacher did it, I can now read upside down, I can read with out looking at the pages.

 

Bombarded

Bombarded

Story books, story telling, being so absorbed in what someone is saying is an amazing feeling. Being on the receiving end is magical, but I am enjoying giving this to the students; I feels as though I’m blasting them away from the hot classroom, away from the teachers that yell too much and we’re in our own world of story time.

Craved Intimacy

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I’m not sure what kind of kid I was, if I was affectionate, ‘huggy’, or standoff-ish. Was I the kind of kid that latched onto a new friend’s leg and ‘koala’d’ them until they shook me off? I really have no idea—maybe my Mother or Father could chime in on this one. As I’ve gotten older and my relationships have become closer I like to think of myself as a hugger. I have memories of cuddling with my best friend on the couch, spooning, in the least sexual way possible. Him and I just fit so well, watching a movie and enjoying another body’s warmth.

Living in Chile where a kiss on the cheek is a standard greeting, college where a hug was normal or having a boyfriend to hold my hand, living on the west coast where a hug was the only way to greet—I definitely became accustomed to daily, multi daily embraces. My old roommate can vouch for the fact that I used to knock on her door and just ask for a hug every once and awhile. South East Asia isn’t quite as comforting.

Instead of a kiss on the cheek or a hand shake they/we wai. A simple bow, a smile, sawadee kahhhh. As funny, and as light hearted as this culture is there isn’t much physical affection—I’ve never seen couples holding hands, you won’t see teenagers making out under the stars by the river front, or old couples embracing. It’s such a change from my old norm.

 

I spent the last weekend in Ko Chang, an island South East of Bangkok. I met up with a friend Friday evening and we embraced after not having seen each other since first arriving and meeting in Thailand nearly two months ago. Sitting on the beach, watching the sunset and talking about how this is our real lives, a head on my shoulder an arm around my waist walking home from a crazy night—such little things but it was unexpected because it’s been two months since I was leaned on out of the blue.

While getting a Thai massage and hearing the water lap on the sand my eyes were closed and I listened to different languages be drowned out by the ocean. A woman I never met, a woman who spoke little English was sitting on my butt. She was rubbing the muscles of my back, neck, glutes, calves, feet, fingers, cheeks; such intimate touch was welcomed but again, after two months it was a struggle to relax into the touch.

View

View

I’m finding that I don’t like to be surprised by these little intimacies, I want to have them often enough that they are not a surprise. Never before did I crave an embrace and not know where to turn to get one, (there were days I would text a certain friend and he would come to my work specifically to give me a hug when I asked.) Here, I know I can count on getting latched onto by a child daily. The children have no problem wrapping their arms around my waist or legs and not letting go—sometimes I wonder where this love for embrace disappears. It’s nice, but not the same as what I’ve grown to take for granted in the US.