WanderMama

Here are some weekend pics, hanging around at home.  The house isn’t as big/fancy as it looks from the outside.

I feel like we spend money non-stop.  We are always stopping and buying food mostly.  Yet, the sums we spend here in Mae Sot
are very small. Here’s some things we spent money on this weekend:

Fried Dough (breakfast WBoy): 5 small pieces for $0.16

12 small bananas: $0.16

Rice cakes: $0.16

Rice soup with pork (breakfast for WanderPapa and Girl): $0.80

Pool (WPapa and Girl): $3

Mechanical Rides at the Tesco: $0.33 each (x5)

Coffee and Donut combo (Dunkin Donuts): $1.80 (… x 2 ok you caught us)

Haircut:  $3.50

3 Juice boxes: $1.80

Kellogs Corn Flakes (very small box) $1.80

Diapers (42, size L) $10

Dinner (2 veg pad thai, pork fried rice, noodle soup) $3

Well they made it.  I feel guilty about the whole school thing.  I mean WanderBoy should be in school — he is 4. But it’s not in English and frankly Thai is only going to be useful for a few months.  I feel like he should save himself for Chinese.  He says school is fine.  He’s not jumping up and down excited to go but he’s not crying.

WanderGirl, i.e. the bat outta hell, cries her head off every time we drop her.  Not sure that having a nanny would be any different and our communication (no English at all) would be a problem.  Plus we don’t want to buy tons of toys.  But I still feel guilty about her being in daycare from 8:30-3:30.  Seems a long day for a little girl.

We are still getting a written form each day telling us all the things that they did.  WGirl often gets: “Dance and sing with friend”, while WBoy is aparently more apt to “Watch friend sing and dance a little”.  Another common one on WGirl’s sheet “Enjoy and happiness her friends.”

WanderPapa is plugging away at work and I have increased my teaching to 3 classes per day and 1 Saturdays.  I’ve started teaching the farang (foreigner) yoga and hopefully will train someone local to keep it going when I leave.

BTW Great news for those of you who read about my young female student who needs surgery.  She heads to Chaing Mai next week!  Hurrah!

Pictures: School Bus, Bribe for first week of school (big boy bike) and playground shots

Yesterday, while the kids were in school, WanderPapa and I took a ride to the Burma-Thai border.  It’s very close to town.  We had a nice lunch and then strolled with ice cream.  We browsed the market there, bought a green pig lamp for WanderBoy, and then walked along the river which seperates the two countries.   We felt young and free again.

We sat and watched the action on the Burma side of the river.  People on inner tubes easily making the 3 minute journey across the river into Thailand, likely to sell their wares or work illegally.  We also watched monks, older women carrying huge heavy loads, and families crossing the bridge itself on foot.  From our vantage point on the side of the river Burma looks similar to Mae Sot, but then again in many ways Mae Sot doesn’t really look like Thailand to me.  We never encountered this much poverty in Thailand before.

Around 3pm, WPapa went and got the kids from school.  It was the first time that WanderBoy slept there…well he didn’t actually sleep but he stayed the whole day.  Well done.  He ate, rested and played alot.  He even told papa that he likes school.  Awesome.  We are really proud of them for adapting.  But man, even having them in daycare 9-3, they are draining.  We really feel that we have two kids, WanderGirl has become such a little person and is now by far the more challenging of the two.

Last night, I feel asleep totally exhausted at 7:30.  Kids+two hours of yoga+45 minutes biking = very tired.

Maybe not so young afterall.

Here’s more shots from Mae Sot.  And yes that is my bike.

My afternoon classes have grown larger, which is nice.  I am doing all seated and lying down poses to accomodate various strength levels.   Yesterday we had 15+ students and the day before 20+.  The weather has cooled off and it’s breezy during the class.  A nice way to spend an hour every afternoon.

Some of the students are very sick.  One young girl, probably about 12, has a huge swollen stomach and skinny, spindly legs and arms.  It seems difficult for her to breath.  Her father, through a translator, said that she is retaining fluid and needs surgery.  She is waiting to be transported to Chaing Mai, about 5 hours away.  This probably takes a while to arrange because she is Burmese/Karen and cannot legally travel in Thailand.  However, I cannot help but think how I would feel if my daughter was sick and I knew that 5 hours away doctors could help her, yet I had to wait.  Needless to say these people are far more enduring and patient than I will ever be.

Sadly, due to their circumstances, they have no choice.  So they wait.

This a.m. WanderBoy and I played at a school playground that is two minutes away from our house.  I wasn’t sure we were allowed in but maintenence guy said “No problem” in English.  It has a safe surface and the same plastic slides/bridge between sections etc… that we are used to.  No swings but we will put them in at home.  Nice find!

Before arriving at the playground, by contrast, we biked through totally different countryside than we would find in the US.  We saw Burmese village life, transplanted here on the Thai border, up close.  Bettle nut spit blotched the road, men wore longhis, kids were bundled up in hats to against the chilly 80 degree temps.

A nice morning.

I’m having a nice, normal-feeling day.  WanderGirl woke at what is becoming the normal time: 6 a.m.  (She goes to sleep around 6:30p.m.) Our neighbor seems to leave for work then and so she and I wake up.  The boys sleep on.

This morning, I put her in lightweight long sleeves and pants, to guard against early morning mosquitos, and went for a walk.  We passed orange-robed monks singing, literally, for their rice.  The local people come out of their houses and offer the barefoot monks, ranging in age from about 7 to 70, rice for their daily meal.

We walked on.  We found a nearby school with what looks like a playground made from plastic — not rusted metal.  There are no playgrounds or open spaces for kids to speak of, so this could be a find.  Not sure if it’s open to the public but we’ll find out.

After WanderGirl’s morning nap, we biked to Tesco (12 min) and enjoyed a Dunkin Dounuts Frappe while the kids climbed on those coin-op kid amusements that all malls have.  It was air conditioned.  It was lovely.  (C & J if you are reading…this may be our meet up place.  It’s about half-way I think:)

Now we are getting ready to head to the pool, once WanderBoy wakes up.  WPapa just bought pad thai, pad si yew, fried rice and two portions of white rice for $3.50.  Yum!

Life is good.

So I’ve been holding off on publishing pics of my family but here are a few:

At the pool in Bangkok:

WGirl in her bike seat (helmet not shown):

Our House in Mae Sot (bathroom and WGirls room not shown):

I’m so proud of these kids of mine.  They made it through a morning at a Thai nursery school.  WanderBoy was freaked out at first, WanderGirl was like bring it on.  When we went back to pick them up, after about 2.5 hours, they were both happy to see us but not screaming/crying/running away from the teachers.

We got these written reports on their progress and both seem to have done well.  Thank God they know some English — and WPapa is gung-ho on improving his Thai.  Here are some quotes from the reports:

WBoy: “Give block and the toy (to) his friend” and “don’t dance music, look at his friends learning play.”

WGirl: “Enjoy and happiness her friends” and “She like her music.”

This is a huge load off.  They will be together, in one place. Plenty of toys and songs and little people to be crazy with. WBoy from 9-4 and WGirl from 10:30 (post nap) to 4.  If all continues to go well.

Ahhhh…this is coming together.

We have bicycles.  In a word they are flamboyant.  We will never mistake our bikes for other peoples.  Mine, “the panther” (the manufacturers chose the clever name, not me)  is hot pink.  It has a comfy seat for WanderBoy in the back.  WanderPapa’s is candy apple red with the word “Sweet” written in large letters and plenty of swirly flowery design on every surface.  It has a seat for WanderGirl in front and WanderBoy in back.

I’m not going to lie to you, I was livid when I saw these bikes.  I might have said things like, “How could you choose that girly red flowery *%$# thing … what is wrong with you?”

After venting via email to my gals back at home, I calmed down enough for him to explain the good deal that he got and that these were the only bikes with the features we wanted.  Still…

We had fun riding to the pool.  Our new landlady drove by and tooted the horn of her SUV.  Kind of shaking her head. I said to WPapa, “She must be thinking what is with these weird farangs (foreigners)?”  I said, “We are like Peter Pan, we’ll never grow up.”  We still aren’t the cool kids, the bikes prove that, but we’re having fun.