COC Camp

As you all know I have been on break since the 25th of September. I have posted a small piece about some of my previous activities, but as I have been very busy and have not always had internet I have been unable to post anything else. This is the first of two posts that I will be doing, the second will be coming either tomorrow or the day after (depends when I find time to finish it). This first post is about the Cultural Orientation Camp that I went to for AFS. It was from the October 9th to October 13th. I am going to try to give you details about the events, but I’m sure that I will forget things (I will look at my journal to try to remember everything) or won’t explain things fully so feel free to email me with questions as I now have internet every night again.

October 9th, 2009
I spent the morning with Bashayer, my friend from New York who is also on the scholarship and lives in the north. She was staying at a hotel not far from the place I was staying so I met her at 8:30 and we spent the day together. The first thing we did was go get some food. Her sister told us to go to a 7/11 so we went to try and find one. The first one we went to had nothing so we continued knowing that there was definitely going to be another somewhere close by. We walked through a market and I tried to convince her we should eat at one of the little road side places but she was afraid we would get ripped off so we continued to look for a 7/11. We finally bought some food at our 3rd store, a pancake with custard inside, a piece of sandwich cake, some butter cake, and some banana muffin thing (I also got a yogurt for some protein so don’t worry mom it wasn’t all junk food). After we returned to the hotel we sat down in the lobby and ate while we watched a movie. There were some children there and they thought that the two of us were very interesting so they kept playing by us and watching us, it was really cute. We left the hotel at 11 to head to the AFS office, and after traffic we arrived there around 1. We set our stuff in the office and then headed for lunch. They told us there was a place just down the road, so we walked and we saw this little place on the left but Bashayer’s host sister said that wasn’t it so we kept walking for about 15 minutes before turning around and going to the place that we had seen before. We ate some noodles and I got to practice my chopstick skills again (they are getting better I can actually get the food to my mouth sometimes now). They didn’t have water but they had this really gross tea that Bashayer and I tried to drink but couldn’t get more than a few sips before giving up. We went back to the office to wait because no one else was going to be there until 3. We sat and watched a movie and drank some hot chocolate (they had some in the back of the office and they told us to help ourselves). At 3 we had some meetings and then we headed to the hotel which was about a 5 minute walk but it was pouring and we didn’t know when it would stop so we had to take some cars. They put Bashayer and me in a room together, so we were happy about that. Once we got settled in we all met on the main floor to eat because there was a small café there. I didn’t like what I got much, but I ate it all anyway. After dinner it was free time so Bashayer and I talked and read until like 11 when we decided we should shut up and go to sleep because we had to get up at 7:30.

October 10th, 2009
Getting up was a little difficult because I was still tired and I’m not a very good morning person (though I think that I’m much better than Bashayer). P’ Dai, the AFS leader, came at about 8:45 to give us breakfast which was a banana muffin, some muffin that I don’t know what it was but it was really good, an apple, and some apple juice which tasted funny but I drank as much as I could being the fact that my straw was broken. It was about a 2 hour ride and I read the whole way. Just before we got to the resort we stopped at a store (Tesco Lotus) and I bought some oreos and I found some Fruit Loops and I bought a pair of plastic shoes for the mud for later (100 baht). Once we got to the resort we settled into the house that we were at with the three others and P’ Jar, and AFS returnee who was helping out (she stayed in St.Paul, MN). We ate lunch which was fresh seafood and then we headed out for our activities. We took a ride in one of the Trucks to the river and then we took one of those really long boats with the roof to the along the river into this little spot in the forest that was filled with monkeys and mangroves. We got out of the boat and into the mud. It was fun because the mud kept slipping under our feet or we would go lower into the ground (it probably sounds gross to most of you so you will have to trust me that it was a lot of fun). We used our feet as shovels to make a whole for the mangrove trees we had to plant for our community service project. After we finished we went back to the boat and we sat on the front and the guy poured water over our hands and feet so that we could wash up (his aim was bad and my shorts got soaked). After we were all clean we went out to the ocean, which was connected with the river, to do some water skiing. Their water skiing is very different than ours, it is a board with a rope to hold on to and it is connected to one of those long boats (I don’t think they have boats like what we know because in everywhere I’ve been I haven’t seen one anywhere). I didn’t want to water ski, but I didn’t want to be the only one not to so I did. We all got off the boat and jumped into the water. The current wasn’t really strong but you couldn’t stand in one place for very long. I was the last one to go and it was a lot of fun, I’m glad that I did it. After the water skiing we went back to the resort and went canoeing. Bashayer and I weren’t very good at first but that was partially because I had a bad paddle so she had to try and do everything herself. Once I got a good paddle it was fun. We talked the whole time and were probably out there for an hour and a half or more (we didn’t have a watch) and by the time we got in everyone else was back at the house cleaning up and relaxing. For dinner we had more fresh seafood and it was really good. The bugs got really bad at the end of dinner so we all had to head inside for the meetings. We had a Thai lesson and I was very embarrassed because everyone knew way more than me and when they were asked questions they could answer and I just sat there and looked like an idiot! I was most embarrassed when P’Dai came over by me and asked if I even wanted to learn Thai, that is when I decided that I’m done with the English and that as soon as I get home I’m telling my host family that there will be no more English! I’m done relying on it, I want to learn Thai and I’m not going to until I stop speaking English and start speaking Thai.

October 11th, 2009
Nothing was on time, but what can I expect nothing is ever on time (not even movies, I went to a movie and was 10 minutes late and they said that the movie wasn’t going to start for 15 minutes after when I arrived!!!). We had a lot of meetings and discussions and I think that they were very helpful for some things. I paid closer attention to the Thai lesson and wrote down everything that they were saying so that I can study it. After the meetings and the Thai lesson we had lunch and then a 15 minute break before we made a dessert. They had already made the dessert but we took and put banana leaves together with these little stick things and then put the coconut, flour mixture inside and closed it with more sticks and placed it on a grill. I didn’t like it much but I ate it anyway because everyone else was eating it. After we finished making the dessert we cleaned up and went to Ampawa, the floating market I went to with my host family a few weeks back. The water level has risen a LOT since I was there! They bought us some ice cream and some other food for later in the evening. There were a lot of people there and I kept getting separated, but it was fun. When we got back we had dinner and then had free time which meant that Bashayer and I read while the other girls did their own thing.

October 12th, 2009
We packed up our stuff and headed to a golf resort to help with the YES Thailand Selection camp. When we got there we checked into our rooms, Bashayer and I were together again, and then went to lunch. We talked with Patch a little, our leader from DC. After lunch was free time for an hour before we had to get together to prepare our presentation about America for the students. I was given the topics of Host Family and Culture Shock, which was really easy for me to talk about for 5 minutes, I hope that they understood me they seemed to understand because I could see their faces comprehending different parts of what I was saying. After our presentation we had a 3 ½ hour break until dinner. After dinner there were some ice breaker activities which were cool to watch though I wasn’t very good at some of the things we were supposed to be doing. At night Bashayer and I watch movies and just hung out until we both fell asleep in the middle of Sweet Home Alabama.

October 13th, 2009
We were supposed to get up at 6:30 because breakfast was at 7, but I turned the alarm off and fell back to sleep until 7:10 so we didn’t make it to breakfast until 7:45. At 8:30 we had to go and say our goodbyes and then at 9 we were leaving. With 5 minutes left before we had to leave I went to download Bashayer’s pictures and because I was in such a hurry I didn’t pay attention to what I was doing or to her disk and it got stuck in my laptop because it was too small. We spent 15 minutes trying to get it out, using tweezers (which were too big because the space was too small to even be able to open them) and the little hook from a pair of nail clippers, nothing worked. When we got to the van we told P’Dai and everyone tried to get it out. We spent probably 45 minutes trying to get it but nothing worked! They dropped Bashayer and I off and Srunya picked us up (Bashayer was going to spend the rest of her time with me before she had to leave for the bus to take her home). When we got to Srunya’s her sisters all tried to help get the disk out and finally we did usually something similar to a crochet needle, I was so happy! After we got it out we went to lunch at one of the stands next to Srunya’s house. We ate noodles, they were really good; I had a little of everything so that I could try it all, some things I like and others weren’t very good but I didn’t mind them that much. After lunch we went back to Srunya’s and watched some TV shows on my laptop until 2 when we went to get ice cream. I had a huge sundae for 100 baht, it was soooo good! After the ice cream Srunya took me to get a foot massage because my foot keeps cramping. It was wonderful, though my foot still hurt a little afterward but nowhere close to what it was! While I was getting my massage Bashayer and I talked and she showed me pictures of her home and the city, I can’t wait to go and visit her in the summer it looks so pretty. When we got back to Srunya’s, Bashayer’s sister was waiting for her and so she had to leave. After she left I spent the rest of the night trying to load my pictures onto my computer, but something must have got messed up when we were getting Bashayer’s disk out because my computer wouldn’t let me, so until I can figure something out you guys get no more pictures, sorry!
Well that was the COC camp. It was a lot of fun and I loved hanging out with Bashayer, I wish she lived closer to me! I got a lot out of the discussions we had with the leaders. I hope that by the next time we get together (in March) I will be able to speak just as much as the others, that is my goal! The next blog I do will be about ChaingMai, my trip to the North! I love to hear from all of you, so write me!

Pictures:
I don't have pictures of every thing because I didn't want to take my camera on the water for those activities, Bashayer has photos but I couldn't get them yet so you'll have to wait for them.

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