There is a heat wave in Krabi. A heat wave in the tropics. Imagine that for a second, will ya? Having trouble? Lemme paint a picture. Put yourself in the hottest sauna you’ve ever experienced. Got it? K, now add a large bonfire, a space heater, and a fire-breathing dragon. That’s about how it feels here. Everyone knows what it feels like when sweat drips down your back. It’s pretty gross. But when I can follow the progress of that drop – or as is the case, drops – as they makes their way down my butt, that’s when I know I’ve never been quite so hot. When said sweat trickles start inching down my leg, meaning I have felt their journey all the way down my icky sweaty body (Oh man, this is starting to sound like a bad porn novel), that’s when I start to worry about heatstroke. It is the most horrifyingly disgusting thing ever. We are apparently entering the “summer” months soon. If what we’ve been experiencing so far isn’t summer, then these next few months could very well kill at least two out of three of us.
As part of the school uniforms, girls at Aolukprachasan School must have short hair. They’ve all got these little bobs, making it so difficult to distinguish who is who. There are a handful of girls who have long hair that they wear pulled back in a ponytail or braid, but it is our understanding that they have to seek permission from the director in order to keep their hair long. Whether there is a random lottery or good grades gets you long hair, or it’s simply based on the mood of der führer il duce the director is unknown, but there are very few girls with long hair. Recently we’ve come to realize that the girls’ hair must be a specified length – just above the chin. If their hair exceeds the allowed length, then they are forced to have their hair cut by a male teacher (as far as we know, the designated hair-cutter) under Building 4 on Fridays. Occasionally I’ll walk into class to see girls huddled together at the back, furiously hacking away at their hair so the guy won’t be able to cut it for them. As you can imagine, this amateur trim-fest results in some pretty ridiculous styles. Some girls have uneven hair all around. Some have a sort of unintentional diagonal effect going on. I saw one girl who must have been in a hurry and only cut the hair on the sides. Her came around the back of her head and at her ears there was this abrupt one-inch step-up. Sheer insanity. Pun completely intended.
At all the markets all over town, there are caged birds for sale. They’re everywhere. Every little stall selling anything – from the weird corn-and-ice-cream combo I have yet to try, to Thai periodicals, to chicken satay – have rows of cages holding one single bird. The birds are quite pretty – shiny black feathers with yellow accents and pointy heads – and they have beautiful, funny little chirps, but why there are so many for sale is still a mystery to us. I think it’s possible that people buy them to release for good luck, but beyond that I’m out of guesses.
Because the hot-water boiler-thinger we used in the morning to make our “coffee” and oatmeal was unceremoniously ripped from the English department, the only explanation on the matter being that “The owner come to get,” we had to find an alternate way to get hot water. After some searching, we found that the school store had a large drum of hot water we could use. Now every morning while the kids are at their assembly, we fill our glasses with boiling water in the store. There is a table next to the big hot drum where some random assortment of teachers and staff sits to chat in the morning, and because Thai people are so generous with their food, they constantly offer us snacks. And because it is rude to turn down food offered, we generally have to take what’s given. One morning, one of the women gave us delicious banana muffins she had made. Sometimes we get sticky banana leaves wrapped around gooey sticky rice wrapped around funny meat (not a favorite). This morning, hoping for more banana muffins, we were instead given a small bag of what looked like dense pink and white mini-cupcakes that had split open at the top. They smelled faintly of flowery soap. Turns out they tasted like flowery soap too. Soap cakes, if you will.
Yes, yes, fine. I’ll cease and desist with the cringe-worthy puns. J
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