Trip to the Market

Sorry all that our weekly blog has been a little late! It has been a little busy with our English Convention last weekend. Our English convention was amazing! We felt it had come at the perfect time! After a couple of weeks, the full realization of how challenging this language really is starts to hit you. So to attend the English Convention where we met so many other need greaters from all around the world was very encouraging. Some who, like us, have been here only for a week or a month to some who have been here six or seven years!! The newbies with their enthusiasm to start their adventures to the encouragement to stick it out from the long timeess. The parts on serving where the need is greater and learning a new language all had special significance. One special pioneer who served in Nicaragua who now is serving in Thailand said, 'Jehovah helped me to make the change, to move clear across the planet, from one second language to another, and to not just help me get through the drastic changes, but to ENJOY them.' This comment we really took to heart. So with renewed determination to put into practice the various suggestions to make this move a success, we started week three. 

Since this week we are still handing out invitations to the a Thai Convention we thankfully could keep practicing our presentations from last week. Of course because we were so great at our presentations last week we were upgraded to a much longer and detailed one this week! Well, actually it was because we would say our two lines, hand them the tract, and then they would just stare at us and the tract blankly like, "whaaat?" So seeing a need to be better understood, we asked for a little more help with our presentations, which did result in their lengthening by quite a bit, but also in a bit better understanding on the householders part! One day, a small success will be when we don't need to read our presentations straight off the page! 

On one of our outings we came across a pretty little park where the locals seem to spend weekends laying about the shores of the river. We think you can even rent little mats to lay on, and they have ladies going about selling bags of bread to feed the pigeons, which the locals were buying! It impressed us how clean these parks are, the city seems to take pride in maintaining this little patch of tranquil greenery.


This week we went to Chatuchak Weekend Market. With roughly 35 acres of market stalls, it is one of the worlds largest markets. We spent about 4 hours in the market and felt like we only saw a small corner. But we only live about 20 min. from this particular market so we can always go exploring another day. Great place to get souvenirs mostly. They had a lot of knock-off purses and watches, beautiful ceramics and artwork, lovely handmade scented oils and soaps, and other odds and ends. 


Bethi was brave enough to let a thai women play with strands of her hair using pots of coloured gel. The results were surprisingly cool and we found ourselves walking away with a small box of 8 colours that we can place on selected strands and wash out the next day. Also, a good place to try some different foods catered to locals and foreigners alike, our favourites being the mango sticky rice and the coconut ice cream served in its shell paired along with the water. 













It was a challenge trying to meet up with people, some we just found randomly along the way and we tried to stick together like glue because it would be an impossibility to find each other again. Although with the help of a map we were able to find our way out of the maze at the end of the day.

One last thing we wanted to mention was that each of our blog posts are from the three of us, each contributing photos, or a few paragraphs. Stay tuned for more posts and photos from the 3 Intrepid Travellers!

There are a lot of things about living in Thailand that remind us of our days in Nicaragua. The brightly coloured coragated tin houses, the lush greenery, the obstinate rejection of driving rules and the small translucent geckos on the walls. Of course, that might just be the way it is living in a tropical developing country. There are certainly a lot of things not like Nicaragua.... Where you would be getting rice, beans and plantain, you are getting a lot of fish, shrimp, noodles and soups. Take away the music blasting on every street corner and substitute it with little shrines covered with ceramic zebras. We are working on understanding this zebra obsession. 

The brothers and sisters here have been very helpful in finding us a place to live, as well as making us feel at home. After our second meeting here some Korean sisters invited all the girls over for supper at their place. The food was delicious, and we read encouraging life experiences, which were translated by filipino sisters.

 Earlier some of the brothers showed us how to look up apartments online for our area and even took us to check out a few.  But by then we had fallen in love with the condos where we were temporarily staying, and since nothing could hold a candle to it, we worked really hard bartering with two condo owners to get an affordable price!  We needed to be out of where we were staying by Sunday evening, and by Sunday morning we finally had papers signed for a one year lease.  So we now live in an apartment that a few in the congregation call "Little Bethel" since there are 3 other couples in our building. It's a great location as it is a 5-10 min walk to mall and shopping centre which we frequent on a daily basis as they have a really cheap Asian style cafeteria that we go to with the service group and because there is always something that we managed to forget to buy. At least we get our exercise! Setting up home has been fun and it's so nice to finally unpack our suitcases.

Our first morning in service we each got paired with someone fluent in Thai, and we practiced our presentations repeatedly for 2 hours solid. The percentage of those who understand a word of what we said was a little lower than we would have liked, but we are confident that with practice, that the number will slowly rise! Getting the tones right is the biggest challenge, and we are looking forward to receiving thai language lessons from a sister in the hall starting in 2 weeks. One thing we noticed in service is that the bathrooms here are really nice. This is a picture of a gas station bathroom in our territory!

On Monday there are no service groups or meetings so we decided to check out this shopping centre that everyone refers to as "The Mall". There are lots of malls here so we assumed that this one must be an overwhelmingly impressive mall to receive such a title. Much to our disappointment all we found was an overpriced department store and a ton of little shops of nothingness. One thing Thailand will never disappointment us with is the overwhelming options of food and one place we decided to try out was an all you can eat Japanese restaurant. We didn't know what to expect but we followed the waiter to a long table where we each had our own cooking pot and you choose which kind of broth you want to cook all your food in...spicy, chicken or creamy. After they bring you each your own pot of broth and turn the burner on you begin to select from the the little plates of food whizzing past you on the conveyor belt...meat, dumplings, vegetables...pick what you want and cook it in your pot. There was also a buffet table of all kinds of sushi, dumplings, tempura etc. We were almost done lunch when we smelled something burning, we looked around to see what it was and soon realized that Carmen's pot had boiled down to nothing and was black on the bottom. The waiter rushed over to rescue us and took Carmen's pot away. We literally could hear him scrubbing the pot from the kitchen. We felt bad but now we know. 

So we are walking back from the grocery store one evening when low and behold here is a baby elephant walking towards us on the sidewalk!! As amazing of an experience as it would seem to be, it was actually quite traumatic. It's a cute little thing, but it looks strange, like something is wrong with it's eyes.  It is being lead by two men that offer you the chance to feed it a small bag of sugar cane for $.70. With the touch of their cane the elephant crosses its knees and curtsies, and toots it's little trumpet. Bethany feels instant sadness and Carmen and Marie do not feel inspired to participate, as it feels like some kind of dirty back alley transaction to give this man money. Bethany reluctantly gives the man 20 baht and feeds the starving elephant. How was this life changing experience for Bethany? To quote her, "Today I saw a baby elephant. It was very depressing because I like elephants and this one seemed sad, and underfed, also blind, and sad." Well, there you have it folks. Also, does anyone have any contact info for PETA? Bethany wants to give them a call..

Thailand, we have arrived.

FORWARD

  We apologize in advance as this first entry is being written going on 52 hours of sleep deprivation.  Fits of uncontrolled laughter intermingled with tears streaming down our faces best describes our current state..

ARRIVAL

   We really are regretting not having tried to learn some Thai before coming, as you would expect it has been hard to communicate as we have tried to circumnavigate our surroundings.  From Carmen telling the Taxi Driver, “it’s NOT One, Two, Three” as he misinterprets the mispronounced Nawongwang Tiwanon road, too Marie single handedly offending every waitress in the cafeteria with her attempts at saying a simple “thank you” with each dish they brought, and finally Bethany’s frustration at getting a straight answer for the cost of a bunch of grapes. 

   We have also been debating for the last hour the message of this massive sign that sits across from our window, if only we could read Thai, our most important questions could be answered!  Any ideas anyone????

    But starting a bit earlier in our trip, the first leg was great as they had to change our seats and due to Bethany’s snide remark, “does that mean we get upgraded to first class” and Marie thankfully deciding to wear a classy outfit we were upgraded to hot towels, free cocktails and hot meals.  But that was less than 2 hours of a flight and the airline then progressively downgraded us so that by the end of our journey we had resorted awkwardly to tossing our legs up walls and into pretzel shapes around seat trays to taking turns annoying the flight attendants with our need to stand  in the aisle for half hour intervals.  

   

    Carmen’s vision of eating authentic Ramen in Japan (during connecting flights) was slightly crushed by eating it at the Tokyo Food Court at 4am with digestive consequences for all partakers, but surprisingly Sushi at the food court in the tiny strip mall in our Thai neighbourhood was quite delightful!  Thanks Thailand for saving Japan’s reputation!

    Our drive from the airport to the Nonthaburi Suburb where we will be staying took us past downtown Bangkok and we love how each of the tall buildings have very unique distinctive designs and we will post pictures later when we actually get to visit that part of town, but we can already tell we are going to love living in this city which we get to call home for the next 9 months!!!