(pictures aren't working, so please see Facebook for a visual accompaniment to this post).
Yes, yesterday we visited the local market for the first time. And it’s not your everyday street vendors selling fried bananas or fresh watermelon outside the corner 711. It’s actually an adventure: a spectacular array of just about every fruit, vegetable, grain, spice, and faunal body part could you think of eating. But I left not with a pig’s head or chicken foot; only with 1.5 kilos of my new favorite fruit, some mangosteen (“mancoot” in Thai), which I bargained for and bought from a smiling Thai woman. Fun story, by the way: said fruit apparently got its English name when a farong incorrectly called it a “mango,” and the Thai vendor replied with “mango, su teen!” which loosely translated means, “What the hell kind of mango is that?” So the story goes.
But all this is only background for my real story. Our trip to the market transpired after five of the Chinese students, three of whom are returning to China next week, wanted to cook a Chinese meal for us. It was one of the highlights of the summer so far.
We started with a trip to the market, which got a bit complicated because the girls were trying to decide what all to cook. One of them, Playao, loves to cook and grew up working with her family’s restaurant, so she organized most of the evening. They took awhile at the market because, remember, these are the Toy Story aliens who move en masse and do everything in unison.
They cooked at least five different dishes, leaving pots and pans all over the back patio of the Zone and sending me and a few others on urgent 711 runs to buy extra cooking oil and such. I was also assigned to the rice cooker, which seems simple enough: throw the rice and water in, turn it on, and it does the rest for you. But who knew you’re supposed to wash rice before you cook it? Who knew you’re not supposed to open the lid while it’s cooking? Not me. Luckily, everyone was watching me closely, and somehow it turned out all right. Bethany, if you’re reading, I have found the miraculous answer to cooking rice successfully.
Quick tangent: we had a gorgeous sunset last night after it had rained all day. This is a view of Doi Sutep just down the street from the Zone.
Dinner was inside because a plague of harmless but irritating moth-like bugs had descended on the world, so we somehow fit fifteen people in the tiny inside kitchen area. The food was delicious, especially what Playao called “Grandmother’s Potatoes.” And beyond that, it was a just a great evening with all of them. Their English has improved so much even since we’ve been here, and we’ve become good friends with all of them. Everyone has been officially invited to everyone else’s homes in China or America, whoever gets to the other country first.
So there’s a semi-typical day. Today we hung around outside the English department building at Payap, which we’ve been doing more lately. It’s a good spot because most of the students really want to learn English and are more inclined to talk to you. A few of them gave me a brief Thai grammar lesson and then taught me the entire Thai alphabet—all 44 characters, of which I remember one—and we talked about school and travel and such. We've invited a lot of these students to come visit us and hang out at the Zone, but many of them are busy with school and just hesitant to really start coming around. Which is understandable, so we just try to go to them. We've been meeting a lot more people lately and trying to stick around while they overcome their reservations about speaking English. Most of them speak really well and just don't think they do.
Anyway, tomorrow we’re cooking farong food for our cell group, completing the week of delicious, eclectic cuisine and almost constant spending time with people and meeting new ones.
Still miss you and all and love you all. See you soon!
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