Wooden Bed

I know you’re all waiting for the elephant trekking story but it doesn’t feel right posting that entry with out a picture of me on the elephant. I had a disposable camera on hand but can’t seem to find a place to develop the pictures. I’ll have to wait till I can steal some from the girl who shared the elephant with me.

So now we can jump a day and get to arriving at the school. The school shall remain anonymous while I’m here so I don’t get fired for bitching about it.  We made the trip back from Kanchanaburi after we rode the elephants and were promptly picked up by the school coordinator. There are three other girls from the OEG (Overseas Ed Group) program going with me: Jenna, Katie H and Katie S (I’ll refer to them as H and S). H and S have known each other for about five years and Jenna and I hadn’t spent a lot of time together at orientation. Together we all tried to ask question after question to our very sweet coordinator, Pook. Pook speaks English in a broken, almost poetic form that we all have a hard time understanding. She took us to a great meal (crab meat curry made my toes curl) and then took us to the school.

The outside of the dorm we are living in resembles the college dorm I had at CSU. Nothing I couldn’t handle. Then Pook held out two keys.

“You and you,” she said, pointing to H and S “on floor 2 and you and you (Jenna and I) first floor.”

Excuse me? Jenna and I eyed each other than looked at Pook.

“Own rooms?”

“For time being, you sleep together.”

“We were told we’d have our own rooms.”

“Yes. For time being, you sleep together.”

Hell no. Jenna and I did the ‘Dead Man Walking’ march to our room and peaked inside. Tiny. Floor covered in ants. Rank smell. Mosquitoes buzzing in the air. Sink covered in dirt. We threw our bags down and I saw Jenna standing in front of the bathroom. I peaked in and saw grime from at least two years covering the wall and floor, a brown toilet seat with little chunks missing (to be honest, it looks and feels like an animal used it as a chew toy). And the shower was missing. Perhaps missing is the wrong word; there is a shower in the form of a hose hung over a drain in the corner of the bathroom (which I would later come to find has no hot water). Also, the bed is a hard wood block. This is not an analogy. H and S have a lizard in their bathroom. We named it Phil. (Photo was taken after we spend two hours cleaning the place. It really cheats you guys out of the full experience but everyone was in shock that night and no one snapped a photo)

In all honesty, I can deal with this. Ants: get some Raid. No hot water: it’s too hot here for a warm shower anyway. Wooden bed: fully stocked pharmacy of sleep aids down the street and I bet I could beg Mom to ship me my old mattress pad if I really needed it.

The roommate situation is the tough one. I haven’t shared a cell with another person since college and I wasn’t planning on ever doing it again. But all bright neon signs my instincts have honed points to this being a lasting arraignment. Well you know what they say: that which doesn’t kill you only makes you bat-shit crazy and that always leads to good writing material.