Letter to Tera - Dec. 8, 1993

December 8th, 1993 (letter to Rob & Tera)

            Wow, a phone call, three packages, and a five page letter.  What a week!  Your letter had so many questions, I figured I’d better get busy and write on feather weight air mail paper!

            I am getting my hair cut today.  It is growing awfully long, but I always have it in a ponytail. So it isn’t very healthy.  I won’t get it too short, just the bad cut off.  I was so worried about haircuts here, the number of beauty salons is the same, and there are 10 or 12 in Takfa!  It costs about $5 for “the works” (farang price!)  About $1.50 if I have a Thai friend to tell them I am ok!  PeDom is going with me.

            Tonight is a party.  Our NyAmphur (Big Cheese for Takfa, my boss Wai’s him!) is having a party tonight, something for all the teachers.  I get to sit at the VIP table (cause I’m a farang!) It has its advantages!  Plus, now that I am a teacher too, PeDom calls me “Cru Tracee” (teacher Tracy), but then she says, “Goose Morning”.  That’s the way the Thai kids say “good”, they know it is wrong and it’s kind of a Thai joke!

            Package number three arrived today, “yippee, bug repellent!” I don’t use it all the time, but boy when I need it, I kiss your feet.  Most people have mosquito coils (I do) and if I come over, they are instantly lit.  Some countries have red carpets, third worlds have mosquito coils!  Also, thanks for the batteries, Thai batteries are less than $1 for 4, but they only power a Walkman or flashlight for about an hour.  I have been very good about taking vitamins too, the Peace Corps gives us supplements to take too.

Please ask someone to send me Kool-Aid, we have sugar here.  I live in the sugar cane belt; it is good to munch on.  (Twilight Zone!) my co-worker just pulled a bag of sugar cane out of the fridge.  They are trying to hide it from me, because yesterday I nearly ate a whole bag by myself!  Arroy, means delicious!  You should hear this group.  The sugarcane is on my desk now – everyone is still laughing about it and PeTek is calling me “Bahwan” which means sweet talker!  You say it when you don’t believe something nice someone says.  Thai people will ask you what you like best and then call you bahwan!  I am bahwan jing!  (True sweet talker!)  The Thai people tell me in six months I will be speaking Thai geng (good), Bahwan!

Today, I acquired another student-teacher.  She is 25 and going to England in January.  Two days a week she will visit and help me with my Thai and I will help her with her English.  Plus, everyone in the Nicome has become my personal language coach!  The kids more than ever, I think their parents tell them how to talk to me!