I’m writing from my school on my first day of classes, in my new home of Ban Phaeng; what a difference one week can make! I finished my training in NKP and was starting to ease into the expat community. The word here for foreigner is farang /– for-wrong/ and given that there are only a handful of us, we are easily identified. Now that I am officially moved to my village, I am the only farang to be seen, and the new feature of every photograph taken (without any hint of exaggeration, every single person I meet asks to take a selfie with me).

Here is my housing situation: I live in a cottage on the edge of a rice paddy, a few minutes walk from school. It is quite elevated, in case of flooding during rainy season and to deter snakes from entering my home during hot season (Thailand has three seasons total: rainy, hot, and cool). I have AC and a hot water shower, so I’m luckier than most! I don’t have a kitchen or a sink (think: washing dishes in a water basin outside and spitting toothpaste into the toilet), and the house is lacking insulation, which means I find toads clinging to my bathroom wall on a daily basis. I have to self-flush my toilet – I’ll spare the details of what that means, but the good news is that I do, in fact, have a toilet of some sort!

Everyone here has a nickname – sparing me the task of learning hundreds of unfamiliar Thai names. The head teacher at my school, for example, is called Boom. Her English is impeccable, and her style is beautiful (riproy to the extreme). Over the weekend, she arrived at my cottage, said, “I’ll take you to lunch now” and off we went. I had heard that Thai people express their love by providing food, and this has revealed itself to be true. For nearly every meal, a fellow teacher has arrived at my side to say, “Excuse me! I take you to lunch now!” It is so endearing.

I share my office with several other teachers. My school has 1,200 students, grades 7-12 (called M1 – M6, here). On Friday, when I was introduced at the school assembly, I was gifted an enormous bouquet of flowers! It was a very warm welcome. I share the English-teaching responsibilities with others who are much more bilingual than I am, though the students still seem quite excited to engage with a native speaker. In Thailand, instead of waving hello, one puts “prayer hands” (palms together, fingers straight up) in front of the chin and gives a slight head bow. If someone presents you with this gesture, you must reciprocate. All day, students have been running up to me to catch my eye and show me the Thai hello (sa wa dee ka). Everywhere I walk, I hear “good morning, teacher!” It is too cute.

The two themes of my life outside of the classroom have been communication difficulties and kindness. I am putting in the time to study Thai, but the language is based almost exclusively on tones. For example, the word seux pronounced /– sew/ means “tiger”, /– su-ah/ means “mat,” and /– soo-ah/ means “shirt,” all depending on where the inflection is placed. It’s tricky to pick up. What makes everything more difficult is the fact that even gestures are not the same. The “come here” hand-waving motion is incredibly inappropriate, for example. When I have pointed to food at a food stand and pulled out my money, it apparently has not conveyed that I wanted to purchase that item. We are speaking two different languages on every level.

That does not prevent everyone from showing me the warmest hospitality, though. When I could not communicate the food that I wanted, a clothing storeowner across the street, who speaks a bit of English, came over to help translate for me. When I biked to a furniture store to get a shelf for my cottage, everyone realized I would not be able to bike the furniture home; so, they put my shelf and my bike in the back of their pick up truck, had me sit in the front, and drove me back to my cottage (stopping at every single intersection for me to point which way to proceed).

Even though I look drastically out of place, I do not feel very farang. Everyone here exudes jai dee – a “kind heart.” See, I am learning.