What I'm Thankful for (besides the obvious, which is you!)...

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for Loi Krathong, a different holiday. Actually thinking about Thanksgiving is a little more than I can handle, especially considering last year's outpouring of love from my family. So I'm taking solace in the next best thing, Thailand's festival of lights, laterns, and beauty contests.

The preparations for the festivities began in earnest several weeks ago, but are now in full swing. If time really is money, than Loi Krathong costs approximately one million US dollars to put on. Handmade flag garlands and nine-foot-tall pink lotuses litter the office lawn. Takhob's kateuis, ladyboys are honing their skin-bleaching and make-up techniques for Wednesday's pageant.

My own preparations included learning the following song I plan to sing ad nauseam next week. Enjoy a better rendition, and check back for Loi Krathong updates next week.

Legacy

There's this really funny story the ladies at my Tessaban, office, tell me during lunch at least once a week. It's hilarious. Ready? Here it is:

One time Shelby cooked lunch for us. She made vegetable stir-fry. She put all the different kinds of vegetables in it. The end. 

First you should know, Shelby is my Peace Corps predecessor. She served in my village, Takhob from 2010-2011. And then you should know how much the Tessaban  raconteurs love this story. They can't spit it all out before breaking into raucous laughter. It's apparently comical and a little scandalous. And though I can't tell you definitively why this is a funny, much less scandalous story,  I will say outside-of-the-box cooking is not a thing here. Adding all the vegetables, unheard of. Ergo hilarious?

What strikes me most about Vegetablegate, is that it's Shelby's Takhob legacy. This is how she is remembered.  Shelby herself told me she worked on water buffalo diary, solid water disposal, and environmental education. But what does our community remember? The time she cooked pak tuk yang, all the vegetables. 

This has got me thinking of my own Peace Corps legacy. I'm approaching the one-year mark and "How will they remember me?" is the burning question. I like to think I'll be remembered for my ground-breaking community development projects. But if no one remembers Shelby's cool projects, the chances they'll remember my composting efforts are remote.

Still, I'm sure when I'm gone they will still mention their second favorite farang from time to time. The only clue I have, as to how I will be remembered by my T-ban, is the "stories" they currently share about me with the same raucous laughter. Here are some candidates for my legacy:

This is our farang, El. She puts a whole spoon of chili peppers in her noodle soup.

El's parents send chocolate for American holidays. Oh man, we love that chocolate. 

El wears her shoes in the house. She is such a silly farang.

The farang made spaghetti one time. It was not spicy.

Our farang is beautiful like a Thai person, she has many Thai shirts. But her hair is not like a Thai person's. 

El has a weird purse she got in Cambodia made out of trash. I bet it only cost one baht.

Look what happened to El when she was at the beach! She is much uglier now that her skin is black.

El loves to have fun. She smiles a lot too.

I hope it's the last one. If I can't be remembered for my work as a volunteer, maybe I can be remembered for being nice.

Election 2012: A Spectator Sport

Sitting in an internet cafe waiting for the exit poll data to start trickling in, I am seriously questioning my expat lifestyle. Leaving the office this afternoon and looking forward to a whole night with no internet was unbearable. I knew I had to get to the nearest pay-to-use computer as soon as possible to feed my burning election desire.

I thought I had kicked my punditry addiction this election cycle. I missed all but one of the debates and I'd only been checking the Gallup poll once a week. But this morning my political cravings were back with a vengeance. I warned my Thais I could not be bothered to sit around and eat mangoes, "It's election day!" or as one Thai put, "erection day."

I'm typing rapidly, hoping to finish this post before the sun goes down, rural Thailand shuts down, and I am forced back into my unwired row house. Tomorrow when I wake up I may be the last to know if America has a new President and if the state of Minnesota did the right thing. I feel uneasy observering an election I have so much stake in from 20,000 miles away.

I may be inhaling election coverage sorrounded by fifty plus twelve-year-old boys playing World of Warcraft but my heart is back on my couch in Minneapolis sitting with my parents eating flaming hot cheetos, drinking root beer floats, and praying that we'll have the same president when we wake up.

Great Balls of Fire

I did not take this picture.

"The fireball experience is much more than just watching a few small lights rise from the river; it's mostly about watching Thais watching a few small lights rise from the river."
               -Lonely Planet

When  a local Nong Khai news crew interviewed me for a story they were doing on the Naga Fireball Festival, I echoed Lonely Planet.

I warned my fireball-watching compadre, Leslie, that we probably wouldn't see any Fireballs since I'm not the luckiest  PCV. But after my suspicions were confirmed, I explained to the reporter that, actually seeing fireballs would have been great, but it was almost as fun to pretend to see a fireball, jump up and point, sit back and enjoy mob mentality and work. Watching Thais watching fake lights rise from the river. I also told the reporter that with without jing jing fireballs,  most of the night was blissful: full moon, floating laterns, candle-lit boats.

What I didn't tell the reporter was that some fo the night was more harrowing than fun. After a floating luminary and attached sparkler almost landed on our picnic blanket I wanted to grab the microphone from the boring semi-dignitary was speaking to the crowd and do an impromptu lesson on stop, drop, and roll, People of Thailand, during tonight's  festivities, many of you will catch on fire. Here's what to do...Although distressing, this part of the event it inspired my new community development project: Festival Fire Safety 101.

We went up to Nong Khai to watch some tiny fireballs inexplicably shoot out of the Mekhong River, what we got was an undeniably Thai experience, danger included. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if I would recommend the festival to my friends living in Thailand, "You should definitely go to the Festival just not with me, I'm not that lucky."