Khon Kaen Week 1:
It’s hard to believe that only a week ago I was waking up for my very first day in Thailand. Even with the very little Thai that I know, I somehow already feel as though I’ve been here for weeks. Since arriving at Khon Kaen, CIEE has us in a busy schedule trying to prepare for classes and homestays to begin. Our apartments (dorms) are two minutes away from the CIEE office, which has been our home base thus far. Every student is located in the same apartment building with a Thai roommate. The day we arrived on campus we had a crash course on Khon Kaen University life. The staff from CIEE explained the basics of the campus, courses, dorms, food – anything we could ever need to know. At 5:30, the end of our information session we could see all of the roommates eagerly waiting outside the window. The CIEE staff ushered us outside as the roommates lined up in groups of ten, flipped over their signs and were met by an excited American student! Unfortunately, I was one for six or seven students whose roommates were in Bangkok for the week on a public health trip but roommates of friends helped us drag our luggage over to the apartment building.
Now, even though my roommate had not arrived a lovely small green lizard greeted me as soon as I entered the room. The little guy was crawling on the wall above the two desks in the room. Realizing that this would likely be a common occurrence, I tried to start unpacking with the lizard in the room. Then it started to crawl. I stood outside my room staring at the lizard scamper around until finally someone else’s roommate came in and chased the lizard onto the floor, then picked him up and gently placed him outside. It was a very emotional first fifteen minutes of the move in process!
That evening my friend Desu’s roommate Anne offered to take a few girls (myself included) to get uniforms at the school store and then to the night market. The night market is a popular KKU hang out featuring lines of stalls and small clothing vendors set aside a large cover seating area. It was awesome. You could find just about anything in this tiny little space with rows and rows of food costing at most one to two dollars, and students sprawled all over. I absolutely loved it. We ended up running into many other CIEE students and roommates and had the chance to talk with more KKU students before heading back for the night.
The next day began with a quick trip to the fruit stand and a welcome meeting with the vice president of KKU and other staff from KKU’s international student services. The morning mainly consisted of logistical tasks and quick tour of the part of KKU closest to us. We were shown the two types of busses, the main food center, shopping area, ATM and post office before breaking for lunch.
That afternoon we had a large and small group discussion about a collection of anti-oppression readings that had been assigned the night before. During our small group discussion of six students and a peer facilitator or pfac, we talked mainly about privilege. We talked about when we first realized that we were privileged and the different types of privilege people have. We went through most of the articles, but ended up focusing on the idea of “helping”. During this program we will all be traveling to different communities and hoping to learn about their way of life. However, so many times students (and adults) will look at these types of trips as an opportunity to help the communities they are visiting. But are we looking to “help” them? Are we in any position to enter into the lives of these community members and tell them how to live? Should we be telling them to do things that we have decided are correct? Should we even assume that they are looking to be helped? We talked a lot about that word – help.
As our small group discussion was coming to a close our Pfac asked an interesting question. Did we ever think that we would stop talking about the communities as us and them? Us, being the students participating in the CIEE program and them being the community members we are living with, our Thai roommates and the people of Isaan. I really hope so. I think the best outcome would be if I felt comfortable enough to say we by the end of the semester.
Friday, after a quick three hour Thai lesson the group was divided up between PH (public health) and DG (development and globalization) to create goals and ground rules for our two programs. This is a task I have done a few times before usually in groups of ten or fewer. Doing this task in a group of 30 was quite eye opening. The task itself did not seem that daunting when explained, but when put into action it rather quickly became a mess and nothing was getting accomplished. After four hours of high tension the staff finally told us that it was time to move onto the next activity, a welcome change for all of us.
We walked outside, rather agitated, to see matts lining the floor outside of the CIEE office space. In the middle sat a monk behind a small flowered structure draped with short, thin white strings. All of the CIEE students were asked to sit in a circle with the roommates sitting behind them, as a long white string was passed between our hands to connect every CIEE student. The monk began a prayer, which I regretfully admit I do not know the significance of. After the prayer was over the roommates explained that each person has a kwan like a guardian angel assigned to watch over them. If the kwan leaves you, bad things will happen and the monk today was calling our kwans to us. The monk and other staff members then came around the circle to tie the small white strings around our wrists. While they tie the string they wish you good luck and good fortune in your future (for us it was for our time in Thailand). The ceremony was the best possible ending to our rather stressful group time together. It seemed to rid the tension of the group rather quickly, as we all were forced to focus on the much bigger picture.
After the ceremony all of the roommates and CIEE students sat in groups on the mats eating dinner “Isaan style”. Multiple large sets of plates were placed in the middle of the circle and we were each given a bag of sticky rice (no individual plates or utensils) to eat with. I sat with two roommates and five CIEE students since three of us still had not met our roommates. The roommates patiently allowed us to practice our horrible Thai on them, making fun of us the entire way, answering our questions about Khon Kaen and activities in the city, telling us about their studies – it was an absolute blast. Everyone just sat outside, eating and laughing for hours.
Sarah, Jessie and I (two other CIEE students on my trip) were all anxious to return back to our dorms to meet our roommates. We were told that they would be arriving back from Bangkok at 8:15 PM, so we left the dinner in quite a hurry to be settled back in the room before their arrival. 8:15 rolled around with no sign of our roommates, followed by 8:30, 8:45 and 9:15 until a van pulled up in front of the building.
I heard a knock on my door and was greeted by roommate Tok Tak. We had a very brief conversation before I ran into the bathroom and began an evening of vomiting trips. Boy do I know how to make a first impression. My poor roommate kept waking up in the middle of the night to check on me (likely because I woke her up), until I decided I was able to hold out for a few hours and head to class in the morning from 9-12. After class I spoke with an ajaan, who I had called earlier that morning, about how I was feeling. Since I wasn’t able to drink or eat anything she nicely informed me that I would have to take a trip to Khon Kaen Ram – the nearby private hospital. Rather unhappy about that news I headed back to my room to pack up a small bag of busy work incase I would be sitting around for a few hours before the van arrived. Ajaan Poi, another ajaan, accompanied my over to the hospital to help get me checked in. She came for the first hour or so consisting of check ups and doctors visit when I was then informed that it would be necessary for me to spend the night just so they could ensure nothing serious was going on. Ajaan Poi spent some time with the receptionist discussion room options. Similar to book a hotel room, certain rooms were full and would not be available until the evening, etc .We settled on moving me into the ER just to start the IV until another room because available. Ajaan Poi brought me over to the ER where after a few tries they were able to draw blood and set up the IV.
After I was settled in the ER Ajaan Poi headed back to the office. Those first fifteen minutes were the most terrifying time I have had thus far on the trip. I have been blessed to never be in such a situation where I do not speak more than a few words of the most popular language. As nurses rolled by, saying things to me and asking questions – the best I could do was stare back with a blank face, having no idea what I was being asked to do. Even then, I am privileged enough to speak English for only after an hour or so I was assigned an English speaking nurse for the night. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be stuck in an English speaking hospital, not speaking a word of English. You’re forced to just sit there watching people fly around you, asking questions, hoping you’ll answer when you honestly can’t even find a way to communicate to them that you don’t know what’s going on.
I realized my safest bet was to try and sleep and curled up under my sweatshirt in bed. A nurse quickly came over to cover me in blankets, and within minutes I was fast asleep. A few hours’ later two nurses started moving my bed to a new room, as an overnight room had opened up. After attempting to sway to the doctor to let me go home, I called ajaan Poi to let her know that I must be staying the night. My roommate came around 8PM to spend the night with me as I drifted in and out of sleep between then and 8AM when the doctor just finally came in to say I can go home later today.
I’m not sitting, waiting anxiously for my discharge papers to come so I can go back to my room, shower and just start a normal day. I must say, the hospital rooms are beautiful. You have a full personal (very clean) bathroom, a refrigerator, microwave, extra couch/bed, balcony – they really set you up. Even though I could not communicate with the nurses, every nurse has been incredibly sweet, always trying to say a few words in English or simply asking if I am okay each time they popped in and out. For however ridiculous this experience has been I have a few comments
1) This hospital is amazing. I was never really waiting around as I have found is quite common in the hospitals I have been to the US
2) As my sister mentioned on the phone, I have successfully managed to make a hospital visit almost every place I go
3) My roommate is way too kind to me. She spent her first night back from her long school trip listening to me move around the room all night, then spent her second night in a hospital.
4) I am privileged to speak English – I have taken this for granted my entire life. Sitting in a foreign hospital with the option of finding a nurse or doctor who speaks your language is truly a privilege.
5) I have made wonderful friends in only a week. When I was waiting for the van to come, I ran into a few girls I have become closer with this past week. The amount of offers I had from the girls to spend the night, or come with me, pick up crackers or apples were amazing. Coming into a completely new situation like this almost forces an instant connection with those around you. Understanding that these 30 odd people who decided to sign up for the same program that you did must now become your family for the next four months is an odd concept, but I am happy that I know understand that it really will work.
I again, apologize for the long texts! My goal is to be caught up to the present by the end of tonight, meaning there will soon be shorter more exciting posts to come!
allthaiedupoo 