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Published: August 23rd 2008
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I knew that I should start writing my blog again as I watched a 14 year old Thai lady-boy (suspected) swinging in the hammock outside my house singing along to a CD. The house was swinging, although that was more to do with his bulk rather than his singing abilities!
There have been quite a few changes…..
I now live at the elephant camp, in a house made from eucalyptus, bamboo and pineapple leaves. House may be stretching it a little I suppose, possibly it’s more of a shack! I’ve actually recently moved house and was in a smaller one before, now I even have a garden!!! And before that I was living with a Thai family….
Arnon and Ao are no longer in my life. For various reasons I decided to leave them. Things just came to a head and I decided to leave. I’d been seeing one of the mahouts (seeing as in romantically!) for about a month and was shown such amazing kindness and acceptance by him (Tia) and his family. Straight away, without any asking from me, as soon as I said that I’d left Green Jomtien apartments he said “no problem, move in
with me and my family.” So I did! I moved into their house made of wood and corrugated iron, with an outdoor shower with no screen.
Their house has 3 indoor rooms - a kitchen and eating area, a TV/day room and a bedroom - which is all ‘open plan’ and one outdoor room. Embarrassingly they gave me the indoor bedroom and they slept in the outdoor room. I was mortified and the next night tried to get them to change places with me but they wouldn’t.
Showering was interesting… All the ‘showers’ at the camp are outdoors and involve pouring bowls of water over yourself from a big drum that’s been filled during the day - there is piped water coming through a single tap for each house, or shared between 2 or 3 houses. I was staying there in February - Thailands cool season (oh it drops to about 35̊) - and by the time I showered on an evening the water was very cold! The reason I left it till late to shower was because there was no screening, you have to shower wearing a sarong and are in full view of the other houses
The gardens opposite the camp at Khao Chee Chan
I keep thinking about sneaking across to one of the salas to do yoga but I've not been brave enough yet! around. They probably weren’t remotely interested in watching me showering but I still felt pretty self-conscious! Getting dressed in the open plan house was also quite a feat….
I spent a month living with Tia’s family in their house, incomprehensively watching daytime Thai soaps, trying not to laugh at the atrocious acting - which they take very seriously and watch avidly, and getting used to eating rice 3 times a day. From the start we got into a routine where I would cook on an evening (to be honest so that I could be sure there would be something that I liked!) and I would proudly serve up a dish that I really enjoyed eating. It's basically noodles that you mix with water and then fry with the little packets of oil and seasoning that you get in the pack. It was a while before I realised that I was actually serving the equivalent of fried pot noodle.... no wonder they weren't eating it! On my first morning staying there I had breakfast and Tia's mum had made an omelette, along with their various Thai foods (lots of fermented fish) and I could hear whisperings from around the
corner of "what did Sam eat?"
A few days after I’d left Green Jomtien Mrs. Noi came to see me. She had stopped working for Arnon a few days before I moved out, unbeknown to me - I’d kept asking where she was as I hadn’t seen her but no-one would say anything. She had come to tell me that the management of the elephant camp had told Arnon that they no longer wanted him to run the project at the camp. A week or so later they asked Mrs Noi if she would help them run the volunteer project themselves and, as I was staying at the camp, would I help them out with the volunteers, emails and a website. So it looked as though life would continue on pretty much as before.
It was good to have something to focus on, I don’t know how the women living at the camp - mahouting tends to be a very male dominated profession - cope. They do just seem to sit around, watching TV, cooking, doing a bit of sweeping and gardening early morning… It was driving me crazy, so to have the task of helping them to
Tia's familys house
the kitchen going through into the bedroom on the left and the TV/day room. Now you understand why getting dressed after a shower was interesting? set up the website kept me occupied, writing all the blurb which a past volunteer was then putting on line. At this time there were no volunteers coming to the camp, so it was good to have my time was taken up with this.
At the same time I was also trying to adjust to living at the camp….. After a month of living with Tia’s family I moved into another house. I was experiencing a huge rollercoaster of emotions at this time and it was a relief to have somewhere that felt more my own. One of the things that I still often struggle to get used to living at the camp is the Thai’s apparent lack of the concept of privacy…I cannot walk through the village without being asked by everyone I pass where I’m going. It is a typical and popular Thai greeting, rather than an actual direct question, but it does get a bit much when you’re headed to the toilet! The best thing though about having my own pad is having my own shower, which they built a screen around made of pineapple leaves! So I can shower properly, privately! The house was on
Tia's familys house
This is where I had to shower!!! the corner though, en-route to the elephant bath and on the tourist ride path, so I did have to plan my showering time as any tourists taking a ride on an elephant or any mahout riding their elephant to take a wash could see straight into my shower from their high vantage point!
One other thing I’ve had to get used to here are the very, very, very early morning starts. Seriously, they get up at 4.30am! Mind you I’ve usually been woken up by then by the cockerels that don’t realize that they’re supposed to wait until sunrise to start cockle doodle bloody doing! They start at 3am….and once you’ve heard one announce themselves you just know that there’s gonna be another answering in a few seconds…and that that’s the way it’s going to continue throughout the rest of the wee hours. The thing I really miss though living at the camp? Not having an indoor toilet. During the day it’s not too much of a problem, but at night when you don’t know what’s lurking in the grass…… Many a morning have I almost sprinted to the loos…. to a chorus of “where you go????”
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Bryan
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sattahip
Great information, I live in sattahip, dont forget to pop by our site http://www.sattahipforum.com/forum