Thursday, December 28, 2006


ban pha taek was good. few people, friendly and gentle villagers (they didn't make half the amount of noise rp made, damn rp), roaming village dogs and cats that either allow themselves to be petted or ignore you, a LOVELY river that we bathed in, and freedom.

now i suppose you can understand my enthusiasm for the river - i like the idea that you can't step into the same river twice - and we bathed in it one cold afternoon, climbing up the rocks of a small rapid and giggling while we ate biscuits sitting on the riverbed (yes we ate almost continuously, the altitude and temperature combining to release dangerous appetites within us), even after discovering that tiny leeches had clung to us while we were displaying our tribal/native skills. i love the river.

on the last afternoon we went forrest food gathering with the villager who takes care of the village centre (the village is so old, the hilltribe centre is based there) and a guy slightly younger than us. it took us two hours. we trekked a very long way away from the centre into some hilly areas that look impressive but impermeable from afar, but apparently hide edible baby ferns. and we had to cross the river many times, sloshing across the cold water, getting cut by the stones stuck in our sandals because it was too muddy and dangerous to walk without shoes in that part, and sinking occasionally into the soft sand (complete with shrieks on my part, because i am an unfortunately shrieky person). i would be a complete failure at living in the jungle for a week at least, until i figure out how to distinguish green plants from green plants.

i annoyed everyone on the trip (five other girls) by being my usual self, ie more interested in the animals than the humans. i named all the dogs i liked, and kept checking all the animals' genders (bad habit, but i need to know whether to refer to them as he or she) and almost didn't want to take out meowy (a very cute cat with lovely fur) who kept coming into our house. oh, and we stayed in the ex-headman's office, because he had it spare. it had tiles on the floor - the only tiles we saw in the village. needless to say, we would have preferred staying in one of the wooden stilt houses, especially when we woke up in the below-ten-degrees-mornings. but it was rather nice to have a place to ourselves since we didn't speak much thai (mine's limited to enquiring after toilets and people's names and ages) and no karen at all.

we went to the upper primary school a couple of days to carry out a project, and played with some girls who taught us thai songs and games. at the risk of sounding sentimental, or heaven forbid, human, i wish we'd been able to spend more time with them. oh and on our last night, the ex-headman's son flirted outrageously with one of the girls on the trip. the only one who actually spoke conversational thai. we thought it was hilarious. he asked her to leave her heart behind in the village. i guessed it by his hand gestures (yay i rock at reading body language. no wait i don't) and laughed myself into fits. su min had told the rest previously about my past ambition to be an indian chief (INDIAN chief, not village chief, su min!) and how i'd have to marry the chief and kill him to get there, and the rest tried to matchmake me with the guy whom we all thought was the ex-headman's son, but is really his friend. i resisted all attempts (because i am, as you know very well, un-interested in any human) until the real son started up his flirtation with the j1 girl and thankfully diverted their attention. in case you're wondering who the new headman is, he belongs to another village; four villages share one headman, so the ex-headman is still rather powerful. he's probably the richest man around anyway - he's got a tv (a small one), a computer in his office, and a fridge. very impressive for that village.

and here's the bit i liked most about the village. i felt so much more at home than i've ever felt anywhere else, especially in singapore. i'm not talking about the people (yes they are nice, but people are just people, you know?) - i mean the way there're soil and grass and trees but no paved roads, no throngs of people, nothing to remind you of yourself. i like the way the only mirror was in the centre's toilet (yes there were toilets, at least there were ceramic bowls that led to tunnels deep within the ground, with no flushes, and we bathed with dippers and pails, and i loved it because the icy water left my skin tingling) and i didn't even realise i'd broken out til su min mentioned it, and i never had to care that i didn't comb my hair (i don't usually comb it, but glancing into mirrors at home reminds me that i should) or anything else that we are required to care about in 'civilisation', as we came to call it. it's just so easy to forget about how you look, and focus on what's around you - the feel of the river pulling at your legs, or amber (the mother dog) teaching poopy (her kid) to forage for food, or, come to think of it, amber and her mate running through the greenery ahead of us in some extended game of foreplay (i'm sorry, there's no other way to put it, considering what we went on to stumble across), and the way they looked so free and unrestrained and carelessly happy, and now i'm staring down at emma who's asleep at my feet (she's so independent these days that half the time i have to go to her) and i'm just a little bit sad that she'll never have a mate like that. sorry emma, but population control, you know?

i know i sound crazy, and i resent that i have to justify my craziness, but i went on that trip partly to find out if my dream to run off and be a village teacher was misguided. and i'm starting to suspect that it isn't. in chiangmai i prayed for a sign. but being me, i need more signs than just this. so i'll wait. if i can't stand teaching in a typical singaporean neighbourhood school (like what i'll be doing, oh, next week? yikes!), i'll leave after uni and nie and serving my nie bond. i don't think i'm the city sort of girl. clothes and makeup are only fun if you have somewhere to wear them to, and most places entail meeting people you'd really rather not meet. my mother loves to remind me that when i was a kid, we'd drive past this area with lots of green open spaces every sunday on the way to church, and i'd never fail to tell my family about my ambition to be a pig farmer far far away. well, i don't like pigs now, but i still want to be far far away, surrounded by greenery and falling leaves and a river if possible.

it probably seems morally wrong for a person like me to be a teacher, given my dislike for and distrust of mankind in general, but i also know that it is my moral duty to serve mankind, and in truth i'm really very theorectical about it. i know the benefits of education, and even if i can't stand the people to whom i am tasked with handing over the beacon of light, i'll do it, because God called me to it. does that make sense? it is my unfortunate calling. unfortunate for me, anyway. my mother says God has a sense of humour. i don't have to like people, or even think much of them. i just have to do what has to be done. emma is wriggling her toes in her sleep and waving her paws about, it's all very cute. she's so cute, but so cold, it hurts a little. i guess dingoes really are independent dogs when they grow up. she could live without me.
10:11 AM ; 0 comments

Wednesday, December 13, 2006


i realise i've been ignoring this blog. oh well. been rather busy with emma. she's the sweetest little (okay not so little) dog in the world. about 7 months old by now, a brown cross-breed (that's what the spca calls mongrels but personally i think mongrels have a nice streetwise aura) with skinny legs (they're getting scarily muscular though) and a chubby chubby furry throat =D i don't know why her throat is so chubby and furry. i pull at it all the time and call her my chubby little frisbee =D she's really tolerant though - she usually puts up with my manhandling her with a long-suffering look. she doesn't even snap at me when i flick her ears or poke her toes or generally irritate her. but when she goes into mad-dog mode (usually when she's having too much fun and forgets herself, or when it's about to rain) it gets a bit scary because she has really strong jaws and really big teeth and i have the bruises to prove it. it's quite horrifying the way her play biting leaves huge blue-blacks, and she's ruined a couple of bones and her doggie bed already.

here's the bit that i love - she hates guys. really. we think she was abused by a guy when she was a puppy because she's very pain insensitive (the choke collar has no effect on her, and she merely looked offended when my sister accidentally kicked her face) and seems to fear/dislike guys. she's getting over her fear though. she used to duck behind me when guys walked purposefully towards us on our walks, which was really embarrassing, but now she just sniffs obligatorily, unless a whole horde of noisy smelly army guys rush past. she still dislikes them though. intensely. my sister's friend saw her home the other night, and she rushed towards him, stuck her head through the grilles on the gate and barked menacingly while the poor fellow stood harmlessly against the corridor, smiling awkwardly and pretending that emma wasn't being hostile. in the end my sister had to tell him to go. i told her she's never going to get a date now, but that doesn't seem to bother her. we really are a family of independent women, aren't we? =D

she's fine with girls though. she loved vank, she really did. i was scared she might bark at her, but she rushed at me and did her whole licky thing when i came home, and then greeted vank the same way. and then proceeded to run towards her when she whistled. which hardly seemed fair because she doesn't always come when i call. but then the novelty of being whistled at wore off and she reverted back to having selective hearing. and now she keeps peering behind the toilet door and under the sink, like she's looking for vank, or something. my mother is convinced that she misses her. i hope she looks for me under the sofa while i'm in chiangmai. and vank is such a good influence, emma peed on the newspapers twice today even when she was off the leash, and i was so pleased that emma got ver excited and rushed at my feet and now i have scratches. but i'm still pleased.

and she's so cute - she recognises songs, i think. one afternoon i played forrest gump on the piano, and later that night when it played on the radio, her ears perked up and her eyes lit up for a bit before she settled back in. okay i'm babbling like one of those over-proud new mothers, but i'm convinced my baby is smart enough to recognise music. and when i play the piano she lies on my left foot or leans against my right foot and dozes off. and she likes to lean against my leg when i'm sitting on the couch, or lie with her head in my lap while i'm sitting on the floor. she's so cuddly i love her =D

but she isn't fully toilet trained (i always have one eye on her when she's off her leash, which means i haven't concentrated on a book or movie in weeks) and she tends to bark non-stop at intruders (all guys except my father are intruders, female visitors are company) and then she sleeps all afternoon after keeping us awake at night with her barking at random loud noises, and we're positive the neighbours are going to sue us if she doesn't learn to keep quiet soon.

and i'm going to miss her like crazy when i go to chiangmai (but there'll be stars in the sky!) and i hope i come back in one piece, alive, because i want to watch her grow up and have her sit beside me for the next twelve or so years, and i'm probably jinxing myself writing this, and i can't seem to stop blabbering, but oh well. i love her, i really do.

page doesn't know she exists. i keep them very far apart. my mother put page in the bathroom because her running on the wheel distracted emma at night, but my sister took her out again so now she's out on the landing. still running on the wheel all night, that nocturnal rodent. she's completely docile compared to emma, at least when it comes to bathtime. all my pets seem to dislike males though - page bit my father. then again he likes to tease animals so he's really just asking for it. and i swear i didn't teach them to be man-haters. i think it comes naturally to all rational females. and some exceptionally bright males. there are now six females and one male in the house. i am going to snigger wildly if my sister ever deigns to get a boyfriend. he had better own a set of armor.
9:19 PM ; 0 comments