The Day Before Yesterday

Here’s an short anecdote about daily life in Sakon Nakhon.

I was on my way to my new favorite coffe shop, which just sprang up while we've been here. 

It seems to be made and decorated with a lot of reclaimed wood:

...which makes sense because Thailand has cut back on their logging because of environmental concerns. 

Anyway, I was on my way there and was hailed by a student (“Hello, Teacher! Where you go?”) as I biked down my street, a group of three monks (“Oh! Farang!”) when I pedaled through the wat, and my favorite papaya salad lady (“Sawadee-kha, Ajarn Rose!”) while I navigated the alley.

I was a hundred yards short of my goal when a woman walking an enormous golden retriever flagged me down in the way that Thais flag down buses and taxis. 

She turned out to be an elementary school teacher, knew that I was an English teacher (everyone just knows) and asked me to help her with her homework, as she’s working on a doctorate at the local university.  I told her that I was leaving for Chiang Mai via Bangkok in a few days and wouldn't be able to tutor her, but she didn’t want tutoring-  she just wanted me to drop whatever I was doing right then to help her. So she took her dog home and then brought me her homework in the coffee shop. 

It took only about ten minutes to take it apart- it was an assignment for an autobiographical essay, and she was having trouble with difficult words like “neighborhood”. But then she and her friend, who also showed up, told me all about teaching elementary school, wanted to know about my teaching, gasped at my travel plans, asked where I was from and about my family and if I was married, asked if I liked Thai men, tried to set me up with the friend's nephew who works at the coffee shop, and repeatedly and plaintively asked why I was leaving Sakon Nakhon and would I ever come back. To the first question I replied that I loved the town, but that my parents wanted me to come home and settle down (sorry Mom and Dad), which is a familiar narrative for them. This response leaves out the real truth of the matter, which is that while I do love this town I never intended to be here any longer than one term, and I feel like I've pretty much played it out. To the second question I told them that I hoped so; privately I pretty much assume I never will. 

After about an hour of that, the lady with the homework asked me to come to her house less than a block away, apparently just to see it. It was a traditional Thai house with the bedrooms elevated above an open tiled living area, which is where I sat, petting her dog (who is pregnant, as it turns out), looking at photos of her daughter graduating from college and her son as a monk (again- mothers are the same everywhere). The son is an engineer outside Bangkok, and the daughter is working to become one at a university in Chiang Mai. Then we walked back to the coffee shop where she paid for my coffee, tried to buy me cake, thanked me, and left. At which point I sat down to finish my blog post on Chiang Mai.

But then an elephant strolled by, so I fed it some sugarcane. And then I got to writing. 

And when another elephant stopped by at dinner, I just explained that while I fully support elephants eating sugarcane, I had already donated that day. 

And that should give you an idea of why, up until this past week or so, I didn't get much done on this blog. Blame it on people eager to learn and elephants with sugar addictions.