#yesabroad

A lot of things have been swimming around in my mind recently about the days that lay ahead of me. Part of me is scared, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s a different kind of fear than the kind I normally face. This time I’m not just walking through a haunted house or giving a big presentation in front of my English class. Instead, I’m going to spend a year of my life in a place completely foreign to me. But that fear is muddled together excitement, for I am anxious for the days to come. I plan to make the most out of my year, and spend my hours anticipating the year in front of me. 

At my national pre-departure orientation, I was told of how there would be highs and lows throughout the year. And while I know this is true, I can’t help but feel that this will be one of the happiest years of my life. Part of the reason I decided to blog in the first place was to document the roller coaster of emotions that I am bound to experience. But besides this, I also want my friends and family to be knowledgeable about how I’m doing and what is happening in my life there without contacting me every day. I plan to only contact people from the United States once a month in order to keep myself grounded in India during my year.

I know it’s been a while since my original post (about a month now), but I’ve been a tad bit busy adjusting to my surroundings. When I left off, I was just leaving home. Saying goodbye to my friends and family, at the time, seemed easy. And perhaps it was my excitement, but I felt as though my transition was going perfectly.

 I arrived late on the 1st to the La Guardia airport, where I was transported a couple of hours later to the Long Island University campus. This destination was a short one, but I still remember it quite clearly. There were two other countries being orientated with us, Indonesia and Thailand. Me and a couple of other girls arrived late to the campus and late to the opening session. After all the activities of the night, our alumni and us went out into the courtyard of the nearly empty college campus. We spent the night playing sardines and having fun in the darkness. The next morning we woke up for breakfast and morning sessions which promptly ended with the clinking of plastic cups and the sipping of sparkling apple cider. This marked the true beginning of our exchange year.

This week and last week, I have been doing a bit of domestic travel within Thailand for AFS business. First to the Phitsonlouk Provence for orientation camp, then to Bangkok for the tenth anniversary of Thailand’s first YES abroad group, who they sent to America.

In Phitsonlouk, we had orientation camp for four days, and we stayed at a hotel. The first day was mostly just settling in and getting the agenda for the next couple days. The second day, we went to a nearby school and did cultural activities such as handicraft, cooking, dancing, and boxing. Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures from that day because I was focusing on what I was doing. (Basically any post I make regarding AFS group things will be lacking in the picture department because I’m participating rather than photographing. Just visit the YES Thailand 2016-2017 facebook page.) The third day was a discussion day and then the next day we went home. At night during this camp, we had lots of free time, so we would have hour long pool parties every night, where you had to be a major part of any conversation or be drowned not by the water, but by the ever-present overwhelming number of Italians that will certainly, but unintentionally, exclude you from the conversation by speaking their language, even though they were all adept or fluent in English. The third night’s pool party was especially great because I had brought a sepak takraw ball and while there was no tennis net to play over, there were two flotation rings at either end of the pool, so we played an improvised game of water polo, in which there were three rules: first to five wins, no drowning, no choking. (There was a penalty for breaking the last two, but I’ll just skip that ;) )

The other day I left for Bangkok at 10:00 PM and was forced to pull an all-nighter because the bus was pretty shaky because of the driver or the road, or both. I arrived in the city the following morning at four AM, the bus station flooded so the only dry-ish places were the raised areas within the curbs. I got off the bus even though I wasn’t sure if it was the right station to the tune of taxi company employees repeatedly urging me to take a taxi to god knows where. They told me in English where I “should go” but I was so tired I couldn’t even think to interpret his accent. Luckily, about a month ago, I bought a phone I knew would work and was able to get a hold of the AFS person meeting me there who confirmed I was in the right place and told me to decline the taxi people’s incessant urges, even if I need to be rude. It never came to that though.

Thursday felt like it was thrice as long as it actually was, and my day was divided into three parts: Arrival, Grand Palace, and Embassy Party.

Now, when I say Grand Palace, I’m actually referring to a highly touristic Buddhist Temple in Bangkok, that may have used to be next to the previous royal palace(?) I don’t remember. During this part of the day I was in an exhaustion-induced trance, and I more or less just moved through time knowing I wouldn’t completely remember what all I saw due to the effects of light sleep deprivation, so I took as many pictures as possible and bought a book about the Temple’s history for twenty Baht. The place was extremely picturesque. Unfortunately it was a little difficult to fully enjoy because it was about as densely packed as the entrance of The Magic Kingdom in Disney world everywhere.

The third part of the day was the Embassy Party. We left the hotel at about 3:00 PM and arrived a half hour early, so we went to the mall adjacent to the residence, where we spent the vast majority of our sojourn in the premium grocery store. I bought a decent sized German Style pretzel bread for 45 Baht, roughly a dollar-fifty, and that was that, though I did have a mission to find hummus, but failed.

Finally, it was time to go to the party. 

The campus of the Ambassador’s home is absolutely gorgeous, you can definitely tell it belongs to an important person. From what I saw, there’s a tennis court, a pool, a walking path, and a very nice garden, but I was so busy talking to people I didn’t have a chance to see the whole thing, oh well.

I met somebody who I hadn’t seen in almost nine years there. His name is Nat, he stayed in Cheasining with a couple family friends while he was on the YES program, and my American mom was his liaison. We chatted for a while among ourselves and anybody else who wanted to meet us, or we wanted to meet.

During this time, I also met the ambassador himself, who is a very nice guy. We talked for a moment and then there were some things he had to attend to for the upcoming speeches.

I did not help deliver the speech Annabelle wrote on behalf of all of us YES Abroad students, and I am glad I didn’t because her delivery of it made it one of the best speeches I have ever heard. You will be able to see that as a post on here, but I apologize for the awful sound quality.

As for the rest of the party, I was basically just talking to people. Nat, Michael from the US Embassy, the ambassador, and various YES staff.

Next, we finished off by going to a night market where I bought a Tshirt and then we returned to the hotel where I passed out immediately. By this time it was midnight, and I was running on less than one hour of sleep.