Sunday, September 2, 2007

Bai Tii Ows

I didn’t really know what to expect when my counterpart asked me to go on a trip with her & the daycare teachers to Chaing Rai. I had heard about these trips (called bia-tii-ows- in Thai) from other volunteers, but had yet to experience one for myself.

Now, the only thing my counterpart really told me about the trip was that it had something to do with training for the daycare teachers and that we would leave Thursday and come back on Friday.

I showed up to the office on Wednesday and my counterpart asked me to go to a meeting that was being held upstairs. When I went up, the daycare teachers were there & they had a guest lecturer speaking to them (she spoke too fast…I have no idea what she was telling them). We broke for lunch & my counterpart then told me that we would be leaving from the office at 4:00 the next morning.

Things become much more complicated when your only form of transportation is a bicycle. My office is a 4 minute bike ride and a 10 minute walk from my house. It is very difficult to carry a suitcase (large or small) when you are riding a bike; plus, I didn’t want to leave my bike out overnight. So that left walking…at 3:30 in the morning…in the rain.

They rented 2 vans to take us on our little trip & I was very surprised when in addition to the daycare teachers, 2 office workers, the nayoke (mayor), and two village council members joined us on the trip. I had no idea why they needed to attend a training for the daycare teachers.

I don’t’ remember too much of the drive up…I slept most of the way. Once we got to Chaing Rai, we drove around for a while and then finally stopped at another SAO (the government office where I work). We went up to their meeting room & their nayoke gave a speech about their area & then they took us to their daycares to see how they have things set up. We went to 3 different SAOs/daycares & that was the entire “training” that necessitated the trip.

After the “business” was done, we went to the Northern-most tip of Thailand. There you will find a border crossing into Burma and a fairly large market. As soon as I stepped out of the van, I was approached by beggars…you could tell that they were from Burma & were really poor (their clothes were filthy the women had babies strapped to their backs, and they were all very thin) and I felt really bad for them until I realized that they were not approaching the Thai people I was with for money…only the “rich” white person. The market was pretty interesting. They had a lot of jewelry and foods (the Thais like to bring snacks back as gifts for the people who couldn’t come – I brought chocolates back for everyone).

The next day we went to a Wat (temple) which was absolutely gorgeous. (I got a few pics but then the battery on my camera died).

We then went to Payao & went to their reservoir. And that is when the drinking started. They ordered quite a few beers with lunch and then we all piled into the vans & on the drive home they stopped every 10 minutes to buy beer & every 5 minutes to pull over to the side of the road so that they can go to the bathroom. And after every beer stop, they got louder and louder and my headache got worse and worse. Now Payao is the site of 3 other volunteers and while I was there the thought ran through my head that it would be absolutely crazy if I ran into one of them. Well I didn’t in the city, but as we were driving home, we were driving through a village & everyone was looking for a place to buy more beer when I noticed Matt walking across the street! It was so crazy to see another volunteer without having planned it beforehand!

Anyway, we got home at 7:30 in the evening and by that time my counterpart was PASSED OUT in the front seat of the van (and there was no waking her). I’m glad that I had Saturday to recover. All in all, the bia-tii-ow was an interesting experience…one I’m not too sure I want to repeat in the near future.

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