Bathroom Friend

Today was absolutely perfect. Up to 20 minutes ago… when… I FOUND A GIGANTIC HAIRY BEADY EYED SPIDER IN MY BATHROOM! It was about the size of my hand. And right next to my mirror. We surprised eachother I tied the door shut and turned the light back off. After a lot of consideration I have come to the conclusion it was a tarantula. Grandma J, I brought along a tiny dream catcher you gave me once for a little bit of home and to keep my dreams good in this strange place (also I thought it might be a nice American gift for someone at the end of my trip). Its going to have to work pretty hard tonight!

Other than that today it rained!!! Hallelujah!!! Its so comfortable now!!! I got up at 5:30 and went for a morning run on the beach in the light rain. Next, I went home and clean up and got ready for the day, and then went out and tried to make a skype date with Tor. Unfortunatly, the internet place was not open and poking around in back I couldn’t find anyone to open it for me  I had a Phad Thai breakfast at a little restaurant called Thai Pancake and chatted for a while with the people there, watched some Thai T.V. that I didn’t understand at all. I ended up getting some orange juice down the street and drafting a set of interview questions for the businesses I’m going to interview. While in the café, me and a wonderful Thai woman named Pung (which means bee) and two Farang who are volunteering here for another Farang friend who is building a resort, struck up a conversation and I did an informal / quite long and through and interesting interview for my project. It was outrageously rewarding, and my head was throbbing at the end because Pi Pung is a very good Thai teacher and was constantly helping me correct my sentences and teaching me new words. Then Pi Pung helped me interview the restaurant owner/worker SomSak and that was a really great interview too! (he spoke way too fast and emphatically and big-word-ie for me to understand on my own).

I was walking home in a moment of joy, and noticing the beautiful yellow flowers in the trees, and the teal water, and being proud of my SIP and speaking with such interesting people and all of a sudden this Thai word just pops into my head. I think “did I just learn this from Pi Pung? ( no… ). Is this a word I just heard and recognized, but didn’t know?” and I was still holding the dictionary from the interview so I looked it up and I found it. (which is really unusual because usually I remember/hear a consonant wrong or something and can’t find it) but I found it and guess what it was…. Experience (noun)! I even had the tones right! I had been thinking about what a great experience this was! Brains are such astonishing and complicated things. Somehow my brain found this word, that I didn’t know I even consciously knew, and drew it up when I hadn’t even come to the word in english yet! Wow!

I took a recovery break and looked up and wrote down correct tones and stuff for most of the words I’d just learned from Pi Pung. I read some of Di’s poetry, was enamored yet again, and ate some fruit on my porch. I sort of wanted to sleep, but was tired not sleepy, so I just relaxed for while and when I started to feel anxious about productivity again, I packed up and headed back into town. I did two more interviews in town (a very curious and kind shop owner) and a Urak Lawoi fisherman/restaurant/bungalow worker. The Urak Lawoi fisherman was around and was super easy to understand because he really dumbed down his langage for me, and motioned a lot, and made sure I followed - which was really nice. He gave me some interesting points of view, and insightful quotes like he “likes his restaurant jobs more than fishing by a lot because its not so much work” and “having tourists come allows the islanders to earn much more money to support a different way of life (they are able to buy things besides food, like electricity and tv ect)”, but they have to save money when it comes because the flow of tourists is unsteady and they may need to eat later. As the island becomes very developed the kind of people have changed from coral/diving loving, to just beach going people. He also talked about rotationally closing islands to allow the coral time to rest and recover from diving impacts.

After that it was starting to rain a bit so I started to go home, but felt the inkling for more adventure and came back into town, taking refuge under the awning of a shop. The people said “come inside and sit with us for a bit until the rain stops” and we sat together and chatted. (they ahd just got their dog fixed and the daughter drew on it with red marker to look like a tiger, and wrote on it). Then the daughter got two umbrellas and walked me to Pooh Bar (where I was going) so I wouldn’t get wet!

At Pooh Bar I met back up with Pi Pung and some of her friends to watch the soccer game. I ordered some delicious noodle soup with chicken meatballs. We hung out and her friends seem sooo nice. I walked home along the sea shore. And then I met the spider and my day took a rapid turn towards horrifying.