Calypso Cabaret

Tara and I have been hanging out in Bangkok for the past couple of days. Most of the other volunteers have left Thailand & we're waiting for Tara's friend to get in before we head down South to the islands to go diving. We were getting a little bored so we decided to go see a cabaret show.

It was a fun show...not quite what I was expecting, but that happens a lot in Thailand. The dancers were beautiful & you couldn't tell that they were really men!

Bangkok Goodbye

This last weekend was the last weekend most of the PC Volunteers in my group (group 119) would be in Bangkok. About half of the volunteers had left early for various reasons...so the remaining volunteers got together for a last goodbye.

It was REALLY hard saying goodbye to everyone. It seemed as if 3-4 people were leaving every day. I'm going to miss these amazing people & will hopefully see a lot more of them in the future!

Packing

Every time I planned on doing any packing, either someone came over, called me & made me go to them, or my power was out. So on the day I was supposed to leave, my house looked like this:

As you can see, things weren't going well. I had a little freak-out at noon, but got right back to things & got it all packed by the time they came to pick me up at 6:00. I ended up with 7 bags...which I do not recommend lugging around the Bangkok bus terminal!

Goodbye at my school

My last day at my office was Monday the 16th. When I showed up, they told me that I had to go to my school tomorrow because they wanted to have a bysee for me also. I hadn't planned on doing anything but packing & cleaning, but I really wanted to say goodbye to my school. I hadn't had a chance as I had been traveling & when I did make it there, the kids had just been let out for their summer break.

The ceremony was very similar to the one my office did for me...except this time I was up on a stage & sitting on the floor (which gets a little uncomfortable after an hour). But here are some pics...

The students watched the ceremony from their seats.

See the awesome sign they made for me?!?

The teachers were hilarious. I gave them my camera & they went a little wild with it...they had to get a picture of them sitting beside me during the ceremony.

Then they tied the strings on my wrists.

The kids had all made letters for me too.

Then even more pictures...

I will really miss these kids!

Going Away

Last Friday, my SAO had a little going away celebration for me. They did a traditional ceremony called a bysee. The bysee is a ceremony where they make offerings to the spirits so that they will grant you good luck.


Here they are they day before preparing. They are making the bysee using banana leaves & flowers.





And the finished bysee.

I've done a bysee before, but this one was a little more intense than previous ones. They told me to go to the SAO before 10:oo (I usually go in after lunch), I got there at 9:30 & they were still getting things ready. I got pretty confused at one point when they made me ride my bike back home to put on a different shirt so that I could give them the one I was wearing. I thought they just wanted it to compare sizes (for a gift) but they told me that they needed it for a while. I found out when I went to the bysee that they needed it for the ceremony. Apparently, I had to "give" something to the spirits. They also brought in the village's "spiritual medium" to do the ceremony.

That's my yellow shirt on the table.

Here is one offering to the spirits...that's rice, money, flowers, and candles.

A little video clip of the ceremony.

Here we are offering food to the spirits...apparently they like to eat chicken heads & intestines, sticky rice, bananas, and rice cakes.

More video...she started filming right after he tore off one of the chicken heads & put it on the plate I was holding...yummy!

And here he's using a flower to "paint" my hands with water.

And at the end of the ceremony, each person tied strings around my wrists & said little good luck prayers for me.

When they were done, it felt like I had sweaters around my wrists...which is not a good thing because it's over 100 degrees here!

After the ceremony, we all had lunch. (We actually ate the chicken that we had for the ceremony)

Later that afternoon, they took me to some nearby waterfalls for a little picnic.