Blog 5

I was thinking hard about what to write in this week´s blog. There hasn´t

been something extraordinary, I could tell. It has been a week as usual.

But maybe that’s the extraordinary thing: to say a week as usual. It

implicates, that there is actually something that approximates everyday

life in Thailand. Even though my Thai is still pretty poor – only some

basic words and sentences - I work on it. I manage somehow to get along.

It´s incredible how much you can understand contextually, especially if

you know the person you are talking to a bit better. However, it doesn’t

help you much when you are about to buy mosquito spray and want to know,

it´s whitening. Thai letters are still a mystery to me – somewhere in

between beautiful ornaments and Linear A.

But there is always someone around to help you and even if it´s with hand

and feet. Charades between shampoo and bug killer. Sometimes it´s life

writing the best stories of all.

The rain found us finally this week. Our local coordinator kept telling us

at the weekly family dinner, the monsoon comes next week. Every week was

hot and – beside some rain at night- dry. I´ll bet, there has been more

rain back home and it´s summer there. I automatically stated to wonder

where the rainy season got its name from. However, the rainy season should

be almost over, so were we told this week. The rain started the same

evening, rhythmic and constant, choking every other sound from outside. I

love rain. Listening to the rain with a good cup of tea has the same

effect on me like a warm fireplace in a frosty winter night. As a side

effect of this rain the days are cooler, which everyone appreciates very

much. To illustrate the temperature change, I was even wearing my dad´s

warm sweater till lunch time.

Well, what can I say, the rain didn´t last too long and now we are back to

32.8 °C in the house. Too bad.