Return to Ban Puai and Ubon Part 1 (8-27)

Tony and Duncow met me at the airport in Ubon. It was really nice to be met with smiling faces for a change—instead of just arriving on my own. It was good to see him and his family again. I stayed in his new guest house, which is also where he hangs out to use the computer and do a bit of private teaching. It was wonderful waking up to the view of their farm. Their new project is growing mushrooms, the kind that grow in bottles. It was interesting to learn about that process. The mushrooms grow quickly—from barely showing to being ready to harvest in one day. They cut the mushrooms once or twice a day and deliver them to the local market to sell wholesale. One delivery time is 2:00 AM. Not a job for me. The girls have grown up nicely. Boink speaks English well now and asked a lot of questions about China. I enjoyed chatting with her. It was good to be with the family again.

Wednesday night I had dinner with Lovely, Kate, and Angela and husbands and children. It was really good to see them and catch up with them again. I felt a little bad that this had been arranged but Tony was unable to join us.

Wednesday Khun Dakom called me to tell me that Phra Kong had had an operation and ask me to visit them at the hospital. So Thursday I spent the day at the hospital with them. Phra Kong has a private room. He was on one side with two monks attending him. Khun Toy and Khun Dakom stayed on the other side. Khun Dakom returned home every two days to take care of his animals and trees, but Khun Toy didn’t leave the hospital while he was there except to buy food across the street. On Thursday many people visited throughout the day. There are no designated visiting hours; people just came in whenever they wanted to. A head monk from another wat came. Two nuns, whom I remembered, came. When they were there, the monks went out to the balcony. Friends of Khun Toy and Khun Dakom, some of whom I recognized, came. People from the village where the wat is, some of whom recognized me, came. We had about an hour of quiet time in the afternoon when we slept. From what I could understand, it sounds like he had a tumor in his intestine. Good news is that it wasn’t cancerous.  

Friday I went to Ban Puai to stay with Khun Teamjan. We stopped at school in the morning. My teacher friends had heard from Khun Yindee that I was there and were ready to greet me with big smiles and a few hugs. And a little English, which was sweet as most of them don’t speak English other than the greetings. Everyone told me that I am beautiful. It was really heart-warming to be with them again. Teachers and primary students are wearing white on Fridays during this Buddhist Lent three months, part of the new government's policy to promote Buddhism. Primary students upstairs saw me and waved. They don’t know me, but they were excited to see a foreigner. 

Students have a morning quiet time now where they sit outside the classroom and listen to quiet music and maybe meditate. This is part of being a Buddhist school, one of the school’s many projects. One teacher told them that I would take photos of this to send to America. So I obliged.

Khun Teamjan’s grandson, now 9, greeted me in English and could chat with me a little. It was nice that he wanted to do that. Before eating dinner, he folded his hands and said the prayer they say at the Catholic school he attends because it’s a private school, not because they are Catholic. I was surprised when he did that, but it was because he wanted to show me his English, not because he does it every evening. Her granddaughter, now 5, and I had a good time playing together. Of course she didn’t remember me from before, but after a while she brought the photo of her brother, two teachers, and me at his kindergarten graduation and pointed to me “Yai Jackie.” I was touched that she knew who I am even if she didn’t remember me.

Saturday I walked over to say “hello” to my former neighbor Khun Ying. She was very happy to see me, as always. I’d planned to go on to other friends, but she took over the rest of my time. She took me to the wat and gave me a tour of all the new things there: garden beside the abbot’s house, new houses for the monks, the big, yellow gate, two new signs. Lots of changes. Then we went to the mesh tent area where the women were preparing the abbot’s lunch. Most monks take food for lunch during the morning offerings and eat it in their rooms, but the abbot eats special food in this special area. He came to eat and chatted while we waited. Since he speaks some English, he asked me several questions and took photos to put on Facebook. After he ate, the food was put on the mats for the rest of us. Fortunately, Khun Teamjan arrived then and I didn’t have to not eat the food, as most of it looked like food I can’t eat.

Khun Teamjan and I drove to Ubon to see Khun Toy and Khun Dakom at the hospital. On the way, she asked what I wanted for lunch. I said “somtom” because it a light lunch that I like and I had a dinner to go to and because it’s quick and easy, which would get us to the hospital quickly. She called her son, and we picked up his wife and son. Then we drove for half an hour to one of the seafood restaurants along the river. So for lunch we had four dishes—fish, noodles with shrimp, curried seafood in a coconut, and green curry soup. No som tom. But, of course, it was all delicious. Her son joined us at the restaurant, which was good because there was too much food for us three women.

After lunch, we went to the hospital and then Khun Teamjan drove me to the meeting point to go to Tony’s for dinner. Samporn had invited an English teacher she wanted me to meet. It turned out that he knows Khun Teamjan and Khun Toy and Khun Dakom. Khun Dakom built the road in front of the school where he teaches. Small world.

After dinner he drove me back to Ubon and to Aemmie’’s house. It was a full day for socialization, and I was tired and hadn’t wanted to go there, but I was glad I did. I recovered from my tiredness around 8:00, which often happens and had a really good visit with Aemmie and Khun Kasemsri. I’d wanted to spend time with both, just not that night. But it worked out well. We went upstairs to the air conditioned bedroom and chatted while Maysia went to sleep.

Sunday I returned to Khun Yindee’s house, as I wanted to spend time with her on the weekend when she isn’t working. In the late afternoon, we went to her farm near Ban Puai. For the first time, she is growing rice herself. (Her sister has always taken care of the farm.) The main purpose of the trip was to throw special food into the pond to hopefully attract fish in the fields to go to the pond. Then kindhearted Khun Yindee went to some places in the fields that were almost dry and picked up fish for her husband to take to the pond so they wouldn’t die.

Monday I ended out at school with Khun Yindee. It felt natural and good to be there. The school has a good feeling to it, and I feel at home there. Many students greeted me with a “Hello,” unlike the first time I arrived at the school when no one spoke to me for months. However, students—even in grades 6 and 7—can’t say more than that and “How are you?” and “I’m fine.” Sad. As sometimes happens, teachers had a meeting all morning with a man who came to talk about an upcoming contest; so students were left in class with grade 9 students monitoring them. The contest is a national contest that will select four winning self-sufficiency schools. I remember the project because they had a regional contest when I was here. So teachers will busy preparing documents and special displays for the next month. The way things are done hasn’t changed.

The school is now a bilingual school. Science, social studies, and art are taught in both Thai and English. Students also study Chinese.

I had lunch with several of the teachers. I have always felt comfortable with them even though I am on the fringe of the group since I don’t understand them when they chat and I’m not involved in their activities. Even so, I enjoy being among them.

Tuesday I returned to the hospital. Phra Kong was released to return to the wat; so we all went there for the day and night. It felt good to be there again, as I have always liked being there. Khun Toy and I did the forest walk, which I always enjoy. 













She also showed me the Budda image carved from one of two tree trunks she donated. The other is waiting to be carved. The tree trunks were soaked underwater for a long time. I remember learning this about teak floors in an old house in Vietnam. Sleeping at the wat means sleeping on a thin, bamboo mat on the tile floor. Hard.

New at Wat Hua Don is the foundation for a chedi/pagoda that is being built. Khun Dakom said it will cost about 8,000,000 bahts/$265,000. The top is finished and on display. It contains Buddha relics. The project will take one to three years to complete.

At breakfast on Wednesday several of the village women greeted me, which was nice. I remember them, too. We enjoyed watching the squirrels eat the left over rice that is put out for them. 










Khun Suwit and Khun Teamjan came to the wat later in the morning and we went on a short tour of three nearby wats. Wat Pat Tammiset has special Buddha images, one of which has relics from the Buddha, as do many of the wats. 

Another wat has a boat that Khun Dakom said is about a thousand years old. It was found at the bottom of the nearby river twenty years ago. It is 24 meters long and 2.7 meters wide. 

The third wat has a boat that is 150-200 years old and was found in the river two years ago. It is 26.5 meters long and 3.5 meters wide.   

Then we returned to Khun Dakom and Khun Toy’s home for a couple days. We slept in the small house by the pond; Khun Toy and I in the larger room, and Khun Dakom in the smaller one. We laughed about the time the rat took my watch during the night.  Khun Toy brought out the sheets I had given her when I left. I don’t think they’ve been used since, but I enjoyed, especially enjoyed the top sheet since Thais use a blanket instead.

A new addition at their house is a washing machine. It’s nice that Khun Toy now has one. The other new addition is android phones. Khun Toy had bought one when I was here two years ago and they’d been sharing it. Now they each have their own phones, given to them by Phra Kong. They are fanatic about using Line, the chat app most Thais use, and Facebook and have them out every time they sit down. I think they spend about four hours a day checking their communications. With their new phones, they have also become photographers. Thus I lost one of my “jobs,” as one of the few things I could do for them was take photos and give them to them. Now they take their own and have joined the people who take photos all the time. I taught both of them how to post photos on Facebook; so that will be a fun way to keep in touch. They have enjoyed photos I post; now I can enjoy their photos.