Seeing a Thai Birth and Culture Day

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Today was a great day at Nakornping hospital: I spent one hour on my ward with female medical, time in dialysis with their doctors, and after went to labor and delivery with other students and was able to observe a birth and almost a second one. Communicating with the nurses at the hospital is interesting because many of them claim they don’t speak English well yet they get by just fine and we can understand them. This idea of being shy and nervous to speak English from competent Thai individuals is a common theme I keep seeing. Our Thai nurses know more than they think yet see themselves as unable to communicate. Their perception of us as superior creates difficulty and I wonder if they felt more confident what else they might teach us. I continued to noticed similarities in equipment with the dialysis machines which can do hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. The birth was very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed being there to witness it! I got to see first hand what my fellow students have been noticing while in labor ward with the lack of mother support during contractions and pushing, how quickly a mom goes from the ward to delivery room, and the changes in nursing care. The nurse did the entire procedure and work, which is amazing to me! This was a practice is being flexible and open to what was thrown at me, as we had no idea if a birth would occur during the hour and a half we were there. Thankfully, one did and we got to watch and marvel at the beginning of a life.

We got back to quickly turn around to attend culture day with the Thai students. This j term trip has been nonstop with little time to catch up, we are exhausted at this point with no rest for the weary in sight! The culture day was daunting, as we had no prepared much despite hearing from our buddies how long they had practiced. The time was great, I loved seeing the thai traditional fashion show and the creativity of the students as they prepared. Getting to break the ice more and play games and laugh together I feel brought us all closer. Something as simple and mundane as musical chairs became so great and hilarious to watch as well as play. Our chacha slide dance went very well despite little preparation and we were able to get some students dancing along with us. My only question, why don’t we have a culture as elegant and graceful as there’s! Unbeknownst to us, BCNC had a New Year’s party that evening and we got to attend along with all the students of the college. This was overwhelming at first and I felt myself prying to be flexible and excited for the opportunity and not focusing on the tiredness and desire to be away from people. Most of the program, announcements, and really everything was stated in Thai, so I found myself asking my Thai buddy or anyone I knew what was going on. My present number was in Thai, so I had the buddies help me keep track of when mine was stated. Also, the professor’s present drawings were stated in Thai, making me reliant on my buddy to listen. I was unable to communicate and understand what was happening, allowing me to exercise my flexibility and openness muscle and let me just follow the crowd and see what would happen. I ended up having a great time, getting a cool prize, and enjoying the skits, dances, food, and fun we had that evening. I wore a red and gold butterfly mask and I felt very fancy. We were around students from the entire school and I remember seeing the oldest students and being surprised how much older they looked than the freshman Thai buddies we have.

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