On the Road to Doi Ang Kang

I graduated from my TEFL program yesterday having taken and passed my final exam.  That puts me back into job searching.  Thursday I was taken on the back of my teacher's motorcycle to teach English to a small group of teachers.  The school was next to the River Ping which runs through the middle of Chiang Mai and floods this school every year.  I was told that the school is private but only takes whatever the Thai government gives it to run, not charging students any additional fees.  Buildings were in various states from usable to quite rundown.  Despite that, the teachers had great spirit and were willing to sit with this beginner teacher running through nouns and verb tense.  They also gave me an endless supply of baked goods, coffee, Ovaltine and even some sticky rice.  My teacher can speak Thai and he has developed a good relationship there.  Perhaps if I learn Thai I might have some more similar experiences.

Nee's job is wearing her down because of the hours and commute.  She has thought about quitting already or at least I have tried to talk her into doing so.  She does have the only job at the moment, though, so perhaps she should hang in there.  As our lease runs out next week, we need to find a new place.  We looked out at the towns near her office but there are not apartments.  We could rent a house except that comes with a long-term commitment and often without furniture.  We would prefer shorter leases for now and to not have to invest in another house full of furniture.  We sold or gave away everything we had in the US and hate to have to start all over again.

Her brother, Suvitt, came up from Bangkok to help us look for something.  We have a few options.  One is we have been offered the chance to take over a friend's bed and breakfast and live there.  It would be in the middle of town but the obligation may be more than we want.  We could also move out closer to Nee's job but there aren't any apartments there.  Our final option is to just stay where we are and wait another month until I might get a job.  By the end of April, I should know.

We are staying in a resort in the mountains above the smoky town of Fang.  The evening was highlighted with a dinner of fish, vegetables and bee eggs, the last thing I took only one bite of.  Over night I could hear some very loud lizards screaming for whatever the were screaming for.  I wasn't sure.  Nee told me the lizards are quite large and a bit intimidating.  Fortunately I never saw any.  We spent the morning at a family service for their deceased father, including much food, firecrackers, as they were Chinese, and burning paper money.  The service took place in the middle of their father's lichee nut orchard.

After we had a hair-raising drive back through the twisting roads of Thailand, wondering if this was my last trip.  We made it home and decided to not go into the hotel business and Nee would keep her job.  The trouble is still out to get her to work.  Stay tuned.