Alright; ain’t gonna find time to write a ‘proper’ blog
post, so here goes spitting one out before my brain is totally fried. Well, my
brain is totally fried, but whatever. Tuesday and Wednesday are my busiest
teaching days of the week. But set that aside for now and let’s get down to the
point.
Days like Tuesday are why I’m here.
On Tuesday, I was shown the kindness of a free ride not
once, but FOUR times. That NEVER happens! Yes, occasionally it happens. There
is a group of nice motorbike guys that will sometimes take me to the end of the
soi, and have driven me to the hospital when it was clear farang girl in
pajamas needed some assistance. Diagnosis, tonsillitis, yes, I’m pretty sure
that’s the problem too, so much so that if you said let’s go upstairs and cut
you open I would have obliged. The chapter in the novel ‘Mai Pen Rai Means
Nevermind’ entitled ‘Farang with the Cut Throat’ was sounding very familiar in
that waiting room. Thankfully we agreed on a course of antibiotics, let’s go
ahead and throw in the etc. etc. etc. and be done with THAT story. Long version
is not necessary. That was last month and we’re good now, me and my tonsils. I
always start new jobs with tonsillitis (shaking head and mouthing not really).
But I digress.
Tuesday, one of the Thais that works in the school kitchen
was riding by in a tuk-tuk, stopped and picked me up and took me with on the
way to work. On the way home, I was walking in the rain and a kindergarteners
father picked me up in his taxi and took me the rest of the way. I don’t teach
the kindergarteners so at first I was confused, and then glad, and as soon as I
got upstairs it really hit monsoon proportions.
And then I was doodling around on twitter and whatnot and
all those other internet activities you don’t need full brain power for and found
out exactly when Aung San Suu Kyi would be exiting the Suvarnabhumi
International airport, and from exactly which exit. Wasn’t originally planning
to do this; but armed with that information and not at work I thought why the
hell not.
Now I must say, this is absolutely the most creative excuse
for not working on lesson planning I have come up with to date. I decided what
the heck, I can take the trains and go see history unfold. I’m in Bangkok, and
I have to work during the day when she’ll be out and about and giving talks and
visiting Mae Sot, why on Earth not tonight?
I set out and a taxi just outside my building waved at me; I
explain I’ve got no change (taxis start at 35 baht and I’ve got 17 in my pocket
in coins), only a 1000 baht note (which is waaaaay too much to break in a taxi,
fyi, if you ever needed to know). So, he drove me to the mouth of the soi (bok
soi) for free. Alright, so that’s third times the charm today for kind people
giving me rides in one day, I must be on to something here.
I walk on and grab a motosai to the BTS station for 10 baht.
And then I ride the Silom BTS to the Sukhumvit BTS to the Airport Link, all of
which takes a fair bit of time (though I’ve just listed all of the elevated
train transport in Bangkok). I’m running later than I would like; I was already
delayed because I remembered I needed to charge my DSLR battery. Armed with
both cameras with decent battery life I set off around 7:30pm, her arrival at
the airport was 9:40pm. Let’s move!
Of course, by the time I got there I was starving since I
hadn’t really made a dinner plan. And I ended up doing something I advise all
Americans visiting Asia to avoid doing at most costs. I ate at Subway.
Glorious, glorious mediocre sandwich. Had I not been craving a sandwich so
badly, it might have been a problem. Though actually, the airport perhaps has a
slightly better sub than elsewhere in Thailand. Generally speaking, especially
if you’re not in Asia long, it’s not worth it. But oh, a sandwich.
I regrouped and headed up to the second floor and figured
out a way to get outside to where she would be exiting. Once I spotted the
cluster of tripods and video equipment it was easy.
I saw people from Myanmar holding up signs to welcome her. I
saw the canine unit brought out to sniff around well before her arrival. I met
a Thai that lives in my neighborhood, and he ended up driving me home along
with his maid from Southern Myanmar. She had made a welcome sign. She was
crying after we saw her.
In typical fashion, my DSLR shot at the crucial moment was
terrible and though I charged my batteries, I let my compact camera’s card fill
up. D’oh. But I was there. I saw the Lady set foot on foreign soil for the
first time in 24 years. I experienced the kindness of so many Thai people in
one day, after living in the backpacker ghetto and getting run through the mill
repeatedly at Immigration I didn’t think it possible. I saw women with signs to
welcome her crying, and smiling, and crying. It was a small moment. Each of
these things that occurred on Tuesday were small moments. But these are the
small moments that I’m over here for in the first place.
I’m glad for days like Tuesday.