Thai Language Lessons

We've finally started learning the language! We have a tutor who comes to our house three times a week. Every Monday, Thursday, and Friday she spends an hour with the three girls, then two hours with Tim and me. I taught her the idiom "like drinking from a fire hose"-- that's exactly what these lessons are.

I am SO glad Tim and I learned the Thai alphabet on our own before starting lessons. We used two different resources for that: Manee and Friends and this Android app. Both have been incredibly helpful. Manee and Friends is like a Thai Dick and Jane, a beginning reader that used to be commonly used in Thai schools. Apparently it's been out of print for many years, but someone has used it to make a 22-lesson website complete with audio. The app, called "Thai Script," is fantastic. I have no idea if it's available for iWhatever.

The girls are enjoying their classes so far. They are learning basic conversational Thai and beginning to learn writing the Thai letters. The Thai alphabet is kind of complicated. There are 44 consonants, though a few of them aren't used anymore. Vowels... it depends on how you count them. There are 15 different symbols, but they can be combined to make over 28 different sounds. But again, I think some aren't used. Vowels can be placed before, after, above, or below a consonant--or a combination of before, after, and/or above. Oh, and then there are four tone marks. And just to make it extra interesting, there are no spaces between words.

Every consonant has a "thing" that goes with it. So for example, ก is the first letter of the alphabet. When used in a word it's pronounced roughly "Gaw." Its name,  ก ไก่, is pronounced "gaw-gai" (more or less, it's hard to equate it to English sounds). "Gai" means chicken, so it would be like saying A-apple for the first letter of the English alphabet. 

Today the girls were learning to write the letter ค, the object for which is water buffalo (khaw-kwai). So this is what we came up with: 

I've pared down some of our other homeschool subjects so I can spend more time on Thai with the girls (and on my own). It's a constant balancing act! We've scaled back to doing copywork in place of most of our language arts subjects. It's a great way to teach and reinforce proper grammar, spelling, mechanics, and syntax. For right now I'm using George Washington's "Rules of Civility." It fits right in with our American history studies, and they're great little sayings to live by! Today's sentence: 

When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body, not usually discovered.

Good advice, no? ;-) 

The post that took three times as long as it should have

I thought that once we got here, I'd be blogging all the time. There'd be so many fascinating stories to tell, amazing pictures to share, I'd never run out of great material. It hasn't quite been like that.

It seems like a lot of our time has been taken up with just... figuring things out. How to buy a car. How to rent a house. How to drive. How (and where) to shop. Everything has a learning curve to it. And there's a basic rule of thumb here that everything will take about three times as long as you think it should, whether that's paying a bill or picking up groceries.

But I do feel like we're getting settled in, slowly. I was able to sign the girls up for a gymnastics class which was a huge triumph. That was something we'd talked about before we even moved here, thinking that in Thailand it would be more affordable than in the U.S. It took us a couple of months, but I finally found out about a class that had been arranged for expat kids and was able to get the girls into it two days a week. They love it! The gym is less than 7 km away from us, only about a 20 minute drive to get there. Getting home takes much longer, sometimes up to 45 minutes. Not only do we have to deal with rush-hour traffic getting home, but there are loads of one-way streets all over Chiang Mai. Sometimes we have to drive several kilometers in order to turn around and get going the right way! Everything goes the right way for getting to the gym, but getting home... not so much. :)

Traffic engineering here can really boggle the mind sometimes. There are some things that are great, like underpasses for through traffic at busy intersections. Other things are insane, like what I call The Roundabout from Hell. This is a roundabout that I approach from the east. My destination is a driveway that is on the north side of the roundabout. The challenge (aside from the normal challenges of Thai driving--like nebulous lanes and motorcycles zipping around like mosquitoes) is that oncoming traffic really doesn't enter the roundabout. The eastbound lanes just go straight, with the roundabout sticking out like a growth. They don't need to slow down or merge at all. I need to cross that traffic to get to the driveway, without getting rear-ended by the cars behind me that are continuing westbound or the ones coming in from the street that joined the roundabout from the south (especially those that are continuing around to the east), or cutting off any motorcycles that were planning on staying to my right while going through to the west. Fun times. I get to do this twice a week, as that's the entrance to the stadium complex where the gymnastics classes are held.

I would add a picture to this post, but the internet's running slowly today and the upload would take three times as long as it should.

Observations from our first five weeks here

Some random and unrelated thoughts...

We've been in Chiang Mai for over five weeks now. In some ways this still feels like a vacation, but getting into our own house is changing that. While we were subleasing we were basically living out of suitcases and boxes. That made it feel like living in a hotel, more or less. Now that we're settling in, unpacking, and trying to figure out a daily routine we're losing the hotel feeling. There are a few boxes still to unpack but most of our things are now put away. Now if only I could remember where I put everything! 

We all like it here. The girls have each said that they want to go back to Florida to visit, but not to live. That may change over time but it's really encouraging for now. 

One of these things is not like the others... 

It's been especially interesting for the kids to sort of change roles as far as "fitting in" to society. In the states our family tended to stick out in a crowd. People would notice Ellie and Bethany because they often looked different than most of the people around us. Now they blend in with the crowds and Tim, Micah and I are the ones who are noticed. Total strangers will pet Micah's hair, which she likes. Anything to be the center of attention for that girl! Thais will often start speaking to Bethany and Ellie, assuming that they're also Thai and speak the language. We do still get curious looks and the "Are they all yours?" question, either through words or through gestures. But I think Ellie and Bethany are really enjoying being part of the norm. Ellie's even commented how nice it is that people on billboards look like her. 

We have received such an amazing welcome. Two families in particular have been incredibly kind and helpful, especially when Tim was in the hospital. They took care of the girls, shuttled me around since I was still afraid to drive, and made sure that we had everything we needed. It's been humbling to hear them giving thanks to God for us being here, as they've prayed for a long time for someone to come and fill this position. 

I think it's pretty cool to see plants that I've long been familiar with as exotic house plants growing in my yard. It's also pretty cool to have tropical fruits growing in my yard and neighborhood. I have a banana tree in my yard, and just walking down the street I can see mangos, pomegranates, limes, and other tropical fruit hanging over the walls. 

It's hot here. Not as hot as Florida or even the Midwest these days, but ohmygoodness it's humid. Our house has a/c in the bedrooms only. We turn it on in the girls' rooms every night to help them sleep (both for the temperature/humidity and to mask noise from outside) but we can usually just leave the windows open and a fan on in ours. But earplugs are a necessity when the windows are open. If it's not the dogs and cats in the middle of the night, it's the birds at the crack of dawn! The sun here is just as intense as Florida, maybe even more so. But there are a lot more clouds here so it doesn't always feel that way. 

Not all Thai food is spicy. But food that's Thai hot can melt your face if you're not used to it. My heat tolerance is increasing but I'm nowhere near Thai hot yet. I can take a bite or two of that before I want to cry. Ellie has a great heat tolerance and is willing to try just about anything. Bethany and Micah can generally find something they like no matter where we go. Street food is great, and fruit shakes are awesome. 

I miss the beach. But I think it's pretty neat to almost always have mountains within view. 

It's fun to be able to indulge in little things like pedicures. When they cost all of $5 and change, it's something we can have fun with once in a while. 

Edited to add: I'm posting almost every day on Facebook, including lots of pictures. Make sure to friend me there if you haven't already! 

New City, New House

We've been promising our Facebook friends pictures of the house we're going to be renting but I thought it would be better to post them here instead of just there. That way I can do a a little more explaining and describing.

Before I show you the house, let me put it in context by telling you a little bit of what I know about Thai houses in general. Most (including ours) do not have central air conditioning. Instead, they are designed to make the most of airflow and natural cooling. All the houses we've looked at, and most of the houses we've seen even just driving around, are built of bricks or cement block covered with plaster or stucco. Pretty much everything has a roof of terracotta tiles. There are lots of windows on all sides of the house to bring in the breezes. There are usually very large roof overhangs so that the windows can stay open during the cooling rains. The roof overhangs can make houses look much bigger from the outside than they actually are. Pretty much all houses also have bars on the windows and sometimes the doors. My guess is that this is because the windows are left open most of the time. Bars on the windows don't indicate anything about a neighborhood's crime rate.

There aren't any garages, but most homes have carports. This isn't just for parking the car; it also makes for a place to dry the laundry during rains. It's a also good place to leave shoes, as Thai culture requires removing shoes before entering a home. There's most often a small covered porch or patio area at the back of the house as well, usually off the kitchen. That's where the washing machine, cleaning supplies, tools, etc. are generally kept.

All homes have a wall around the property with a large rolling gate at the driveway. I think this is just the custom, but it's definitely good for keeping the stray dogs out (and there are lots of those).

Homes aren't carpeted. We've seen tile and wood floors in equal quantities. Our new home has tile downstairs and wood (actually laminate) upstairs.

Okay, now that I've said all that, here's our house!

Our guess is that it's about 1400 square feet, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. It's got a full kitchen, which not all Thai homes have. The front door (under the archway to the right) leads directly into the living room.

That's the living room and front doors. This house is what I'd call semi-furnished. It comes with that little wicker set in the living room (small loveseat, two chairs, small table) and some other furniture which you'll see in the next pictures.

The living room is open to the dining room:

Nice that it comes with a table and chairs. My back is toward the front door here. This is the view to my left:

That didn't focus (it was pretty dim) so I'll keep it smaller. But there's a bathroom to the right, and a closet under the stairs to the left. Straight ahead is the kitchen.

I'm looking at the back of the house, kitchen door on my right. There's a door behind me that leads into the carport. This is a really big kitchen by Thai standards. Most Thai houses don't have built-in kitchen cupboards, so this is great. They also seldom have a stand-alone stove, just a one- or two-burner cooktop that sits on the counter. We are lucky to have a three-burner cooker and even an oven. We also have a decent-sized refrigerator, which is to my left but not pictured. (Actually a lot of Thai houses don't have kitchens, but just an outdoor cooking area.)

Even though we have built-in cupboards, we'll need to get a stand-alone unit for storing food. Apparently the bugs will get into the cupboards but there are special food cabinets that do better at keeping them out. That will go in the space next to the stove.

The stairs are really pretty. :)  Upstairs are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bedrooms all have individual air conditioners. It's pretty hard to get a decent picture of a bedroom so I'm not going to post them. There are two smallish bedrooms, each about eleven feet square. One comes with a double bed and wardrobe (there are no built in closets here), the other is empty. The master bedroom is bigger and comes with a bed and storage cabinets.  We'll be replacing the mattress--it looks like it's seen better days--but the bed frame is fine so we'll keep that.

Here's another little tidbit about Thai houses. Most don't have hot water piped through the house. Ours is no exception. The showers each have their own heating unit (which is typical), but there is no hot water in any of the sinks including the kitchen. Often the shower is just a sprayer on the wall in the bathroom, no curtain or tub to keep it contained. This house is nice in that all of the showers have a rail where we can hang a curtain, and one even has a small bathtub.

Speaking of water, you can't drink it from the tap. Most people have drinking water delivered in large bottles, which is what we'll be doing. Tap water is fine for cooking (as long as it boils), cleaning, bathing, and brushing teeth. But most people still have a whole-house filtration system just to get sediment out.

We have the keys to the house already but we can't move in until after July 1. Obviously we need to get quite a lot of furnishings so it will probably take us a couple of weeks after that before we're actually living there. We didn't ship anything over so we're starting from scratch: linens, dishes, cookware, you name it. But that's another story!

We have a nice yard, big enough for the kids to play and big enough to get a dog.

Front yard

Side yard--it's a corner lot

The girls are really excited about that! It will be an all-outside dog, which is really common here. It'll be good to have a watchdog to help keep the strays away. 

This is the back of the house. The silver tank is a reservoir. Until about a month ago this neighborhood had community water. Apparently at times it could be inadequate, so everyone has a reservoir like this as a backup. We were just hooked up to city water so hopefully that won't be an issue. The blue is the filtration system, I think. We'll be getting a washing machine that will go out here too. That's the window over the kitchen sink at the right.

The other side of the house, facing the front. I think that might be a banana tree to my right. That would be yummy!

Our new house is in the same moo baan (neighborhood) as the house we're currently subleasing, called Suan Non Si (I don't know what that translates to). We really like it here. There's a good mix of farang (foreigners) and Thai, lots of trees, a great little restaurant creatively named Ah Han Thai ("Thai Food") that even delivers, and a nice little coffee shop. Here's a video of us driving from our current house almost all the way to the new one. It's less than a minute and a half long and will give you a good feel for where we're living. You'll see the restaurant as we drive by.



100_2930.MOV from Lisa C on Vimeo.

 So there you have it.

On our way to the new city

How is it that time can pass so quickly, and yet seem to take forever?

It hasn't even been a year since we first started exploring the possibility of a 'round-the-world move. It was in late July of last year when a friend/co-worker casually asked Tim (in my presence) if he'd ever considered working in Chiang Mai. Tim's answer was that he'd love to, but "Lisa would never do that." My (slightly offended) response: "You never ASKED me!"

So he asked me. I said I'd be willing to consider it, at least. And that was the beginning. He next contacted the supervisor of the Chiang Mai office, who said that they were really wanting to get a more stable presence there: preferably a married couple, ideally a family. And that the people who were there at that time would be returning to the U.S. at the end of the year (2011). Well then. The office pushed things into fast forward and in late October/early November gave us preliminary approval to go. The timing was the next biggest question. They really wanted us there ASAP, but we told them we had commitments that would keep us here until late April. That put us on target to arrive in Chiang Mai in early summer 2012. 

At that point, moving became a reality, albeit a distant one. We started slowly clearing things out, getting rid of stuff, thinking about how we were going to do this. But it was too early to really start doing much. After the first of the year we started preparing in earnest: online garage sale, trips to Goodwill, talking to family about what we should do with antiques and family "treasures." A trip to St. Louis and Detroit in February took the first load of stuff destined for storage in family basements. More clearing out, a real garage sale, more online sales, more donations, and a lot of good-byes found us with two fully loaded minivans headed northwest on May 10. 

There had been quite a few little bumps in the figurative road before we hit the literal one. Starting in the winter, it seemed like things just kept breaking. The first thing to break was actually a bit before that, I think in the fall: the inside passenge door handle in our minivan. No big deal, we had that fixed. Then a light fixture in our kitchen failed. About a month before our move date, the breakages started coming faster. The rear liftgate latch on the minivan snapped. Ordered the part for the minivan, called an electrician for the kitchen. Next it was the washing machine, which refused to agitate on one cycle. Back online to order a part for that. Electrician fixed the kitchen light easily (and inexpensively), new minivan latch arrived and Tim installed it. He then went out of town for two weeks and arrived home 10 days before our move date. 

The washing machine part arrived while he was away, so as soon as Tim got home he installed that. But it didn't work right. So he called and ordered yet another. In the meantime (now less than a week before moving), the lock on our front door broke. And our hand-vacuum that we used on the stairs. And the full-sized vacuum that we used for the rest of the house. 

Our neighbor (and the husband of our property manager) was able to fix our lock. The full-sized vacuum really only needed a belt. The hand vac had failed catastrophically and wasn't fixable. 

The second replacement part for the washer arrived two days before we were leaving. That morning, Bethany dropped a heavy object on her toe. X-rays showed a slight crack in the tip of the toe bone. Yes, another breakage. (Thankfully, within a couple of days she didn't have any more pain, though.) Tim installed the new washer part; it didn't work right either. No more time for repairs, we had to get a new washer pronto. We found a used one not too far away. On the way to go get it, I joked to Tim: "What else could possibly break?" When we arrived, the driver's side door latch snapped off in his hand. SERIOUSLY?!?!

The next day we invited friends to come and take anything that was left. We packed the leftovers in a box and Tim took it to Goodwill. Walking across the parking lot, the bottom burst out of the box and everything in it crashed to the pavement, including a whole lot of glasses. More breakage. 

The next day we drove away from our home for the past six years and headed for my sister's house in St. Louis. The first day of driving went slowly, with a much later start than planned and every stop taking 2-3 times as long as we expected. The second day began much better with a good, early start... only to be thwarted by a flat tire! All we could do was laugh.

We made it to my sister's with no other problems or breakages and had a nice weekend with them. Monday morning as we started getting ready to head to Michigan, Tim went out to the garage and blew a light bulb. On the drive, his left-turn indicator (on the rental car) stopped working. But then it spontaneously started working again. At last, something working in our favor!

As of this morning the car door handle is fixed. We really hope that will be the last repair we'll have to deal with! We will be here in Michigan for about three and a half weeks before flying out of Toronto on June 9. 

Kumquats

Here's another repost from my old blog. I'll mention that my kumquat tree has grown a lot in the past year; it's been repotted and is now around four feet tall, including the pot. It's a lot bushier than it was last year, too. It still puts out loads of humongous kumquats. I picked one the other day that was larger than a clementine, bordering on the size of a small orange. From what I've read that's just a characteristic of this variety of kumquat (Centennial). I love the way citrus can flower and fruit at the same time. Growing up in Michigan, where things flower in the spring and fruit in the summer or fall, this is still novel to me. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a big flush of blooms, just as the fruit was starting to ripen. It looked and smelled wonderful. I'm going to miss my little trees, and I really hope I'll be able to have some fruit trees of some sort once we're in our new home. (By the way, we leave Florida in less than a week, and will be on a plane to Thailand in just over a month!)

I made kumquat curd today, using the same recipe as I did last year. It turned out just as delicious as last time. 

Repost from March 3, 2011.

I love lemon curd. It wasn't something I ever had growing up. In fact, it was one of the foods that Tim's family introduced me to when we were dating. We used to show up at their place when the food in our college dorm was inedible, and Tim's wonderful parents always wanted to make sure we were well-fed. There was a usual litany of foods that we'd be offered (beans on toast? sardines? tinned fruit? Little Debbies?), and I actually don't remember lemon curd being among them. But at some point it was offered to me, probably on toast, and I was hooked. My favorite is to have it on a toasted English muffin... mmmmmmm.

I've recently gotten totally hooked on kumquats. I have an itty-bitty kumquat tree growing in a pot in my backyard. It's only about three feet tall, including the pot (!).

Itty-bitty tree

 But it put out a surprising number of kumquats. And they were HUGE:

Giant kumquat

I've eaten a few out-of-hand and pureed and froze some a few weeks ago. The last of the "crop" has been sitting on my counter for over a week now, and time was running out on them. It was time to try making them into something. A kumquat curd had been suggested to me at some point, so I decided to give it a go today.

Google found me plenty of references to kumquat curd, but no actual recipes. Most people mentioned using a lemon curd recipe, so that's what I did. The results were AMAZING. I can't wait for my tree to produce more kumquats so I can make more of it. I want to get some canning equipment so I can make it by the gallon and preserve it.

A note about the ingredients: of course, lemon curd is made from lemon juice. Kumquat puree is a lot thicker than juice. When I added it to the curd, it seemed too thick so I wanted to add something to thin it. I would have used lemon juice, but Bethany used the last of it to make lemonade this morning. So I used a little splash of lemonade, and it seems to have worked well. If you don't have lemonade, use a little lemon juice, orange juice or water. Oh, and don't use lemonade that's made from a powder or mix. That just wouldn't be right.

Kumquat Curd (adapted from Alton Brown's Lemon Curd recipe)

• 5 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup kumquat puree**
• about 1 T lemonade
• 1 stick butter (1/4 lb), cut into pats and chilled

Put about 1 inch of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, combine egg yolks and sugar in a medium-sized metal (or heat-proof glass, like Pyrex) bowl and whisk until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the kumquat puree and just enough lemonade so that everything comes together into a smooth mixture. Once the water reaches a simmer, reduce heat to low and place the bowl on top of the saucepan like a double-boiler (the bowl should be large enough to fit on top of the saucepan without touching the water). Whisk until thickened and smooth, about 8 minutes, or until mixture is a light creamy orange and coats the back of a spoon. Remove immediately from heat and stir in the butter one pat at a time, allowing each piece to melt before adding the next. Transfer to a clean container. Alton's recipe says to lay plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd, I assume so that it doesn't form a skin. I just covered the container and it's been fine. Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks (as if it will last that long!).

**To make kumquat puree, wash kumquats well and remove any stems. Do not peel. Cut in half and remove the seeds, then puree in a blender or food processor until it's as smooth as you can get it (which won't be completely smooth). Puree can be frozen in zip-top baggies.

Kids and stress

It's been really interesting to see how the stress of moving is affecting each of my kids differently. Interesting as in, these poor kids!

One of my girls has starting picking fights with her best friend. The books I've read say that this is common, sort of an unconscious way of making the separation easier. She also has gotten a pretty bad attitude toward me and her sisters, but that may also be a function of her age.

Another has become really fearful of being away from me. She won't even go to a friend's house to play anymore. Church is a major ordeal if she can't come into service with me. She can't articulate what she's really worried about, other than she's afraid that she'll be afraid and then won't be able to find me or her sisters.

The third has become terrified of weather and storms, specifically tornadoes. If the wind starts to blow and/or clouds start to build, she gets absolutely panicky. Never mind that tornadoes are fairly uncommon here, and I think pretty much unheard of in northern Thailand. She's even having nightmares about tornadoes pretty regularly.

Since all this has really happened in the last month or two, I'm attributing it to the stress. I'm hoping that once we actually move and the stresses change, their reactions to it will change as well (I have no delusions that our stress will go away, though). I'm glad that we'll have a few weeks between leaving here and arriving there where there won't be quite as many pressures all the time.

Edit: I should add that for the most part they're really handling all this very well. They're excited about moving (mostly) and generally have good attitudes about it. I think that's what makes these (unconscious) effects even more interesting.