Not only the title of an incredible episode of LOST, "lost in translation" has been the overriding theme of my life for the past 36 hours. I moved in with my host family yesterday morning, and i have never been so intimidated in my life. The only comparable experience was when my parents sent me to summer camp in 4th grade with kids I didn't know. These experiences will go down in the books as the two most traumatic of my life, I'm sure. (I'm being melodramatic, I know). But more of that later...
Saturday morning we woke up at 6 am to embark on our trek up a mountain to get to a wat (temple) at the top called Do Suithep. The hike started off pretty mild, but halfway up the mountain we came to a road and were offered rides to the top, being told that the second half was a killer. Not wanting to lose face, I chose to suck it up and hike the rest of it. Soon after this point, two of our students nearly fell down the mountain when a rope we were using to help us climb up came loose and sent them tumbling. After that we found ourselves climbing up rocky slopes steeper than you would think possible until we finally reached a road and saw the wat up ahead of us. For the entire 3 hours of the hike I was reminiscing about the senior trek and how glad I was that I would only be hiking 3 hours...and not five days. (just kidding, jon!) After our time at the temple we were treated to 2 hour Thai massages which was equally as awkward as the hike was strenuous. There were "girl rooms" and "guy rooms," but there weren't enough mats in the "guy room," so one poor male soul was unwillingly transfered to our room, which allowed enough comic relief for us to overcome the awkwardness. Later that night we all enjoyed our last night together since we would be parting ways the next day.
On Sunday morning we went to the school to meet our Thai families. We waited at tables with our names on them as our families came out one by one to find us. Awkward? I think so. My family is a mom, dad, and two boys, ages 8 and 12. They live a little bit out of town and the mom and dad run a school next to their house for computer students. The dad is a physics teacher and the mom runs the office. Teng (the 8 year old) likes playing basketball and Tay (the 12 year old) plays the tuba. (Keep in mind that all this information could very well be false since I really have no idea what they're saying.) Yesterday was spent entirely with my family, and it was so intimidating/frustrating/exhausting/awkward. I became really overwhelmed with the language barrier and the fact that I was alone in a house with strangers. We went out to dinner that night with the family and about 20 of their students from the computer school. Talk about intimidating! When we got home I immediately locked myself in my room, called my parents crying, and tried to go to bed. The best part about it was that we left the house at 6 AM the next morning to go get breakfast...my class isn't until 8.
Today when we arrived back at school we all had stories to tell. The details of everyone's experiences were different, but we all had the same feelings: intimidating, loneliness, etc. Some people are living in mansions while other are in very modest houses. My friend Tim is living in a mansion with fountains and streams running through the house, while my other friend Desiree has to take bucket baths. Some are sleeping in beds big enough for 5 people, while others are sleeping on the floor. We laughed so hard this morning exchanging stories, it made all of it worthwhile. The best one of the day was from my friend Chris: his host father was trying to explain to him in broken English that he was Muslim and chose to say it this way: "you know Bin laden? ... Me....bin Laden." I can't imagine being on the receiving end of that statement. Anyway, we laughed a lot and empathized with eachother. It makes it better knowing that everyone else is feeling the same way.
Today was the first day of my internship at RICD, a center for children with disabilities, and it was different than I expected. For some reason they weren't expecting us so we didn't have much to do. There were only 3 of us, so we walked around a little and studied some Thai and generally were bored. Finally we found someone who needed our help: a Belgian man is here working on putting together a wheelchair distribution. He is actually the man who started the non-profit called "Wheels of Hope." In February they will be going around the country giving out wheelchairs to disabled people, most of which have never had the luxury of owning one. I was looking at the applications and pictures of people they will be giving them to, and it broke my heart. There was a picture of a 20 year old boy who looked like he was 10 or 11 at the most. Helping him coordinate wheelchairs with people's applications really made me feel like I was doing something. I came there to do music therapy but ended up doing something completely different, and that's okay. Mai pen rai (it's okay).