For 2/21

Blog for 2/21/09

So I ended up going to MHS pretty much directly after I finished the last post. I bought a sweet skirt and some loose pants that tie, as well as two more notebook and some shampoo. Also a Snickers bar- I miss my junk food, certainly. The rest of the day wasn’t especially eventful- I watched the girls basketball game, and boxing, and then pretty much crashed. I wrote a journal entry for class about the boxing, so I’ll stick that here__
It is night out, but still warm. The air is heavier than in the day, but I put on my jacket because I’m already used to being hot. Then, I head back to watch the sport I haven’t yet-boxing. Saeree Wittaya is one of 12 schools here in a junior college at MHS for four days of competitions. Today, I have watched soccer (football), basketball, volleyball, ping pong, and three different Thai games I have never seen or heard of before. Still, I didn’t realize how many students were really here until I got to the ring. It’s set up outside the building with the basketball court, near the main road of campus. There are five light bulbs illuminating it, hung on two intersecting wires. If you looked at it from directly above, it would resemble the 5 on the side of a die. People are crowded around three sides of the ring and the stairs leading up to the gym and it’s over looking balcony, where I am, despite the massive swarms of insects congregating around the lights. A table takes up the fourth side, where some kind of officials sit. One match is already partially through, and you can tell each boy is tired. One is proclaimed the winner, for no conceivable reason that I notice, and the next two contestants emerge. They are dressed very similarly, in red athletic shorts and thin tank tops, one red, one blue. Matching foam head protection goes along to identify them. It’s almost like a helmet, but with ventilation on the top and sides. Both boys are still wearing what look like their regular sneakers, bouncing lightly on top of the Thai word I can’t read, and they smack gloves together before the bell dings and the fight begins. These are not big kids, but small and wiry 13 or 14 year olds, I would assume, and still with every hit, or almost every one, the crowd begins chanting in time with the punches. You can smell the salt of sweat, and nearly taste adrenaline. In between rounds, they retreat to their corners to get wiped, watered, and reset, before again resuming the tricky and tentative steps, hesitant jabs and fearful rallies, sometimes ending up against the ropes, and sometimes ending clenched together in a tight embrace. Tension is palpable during the height of activity, but at the end athletes through arms around each other quickly, and one is pronounced a winner. Again, I can’t predict ahead of time who it is.
So that was pretty exciting. The next morning, the 20th, I didn’t get up so early, because I slept through when the rest of the teacher woke up, and ended up outside just as breakfast was being served. I worked on my project a little, and watched some sports, and in the afternoon I came in here to work some more. The woman I live with, who is just such an enigma, came in to lay down, and watched me type a bit, and then told me the names of the numbers in Thai, and I told her in English. This is like, the most forward she’s been. Eventually I ended up napping for a while, and then got up, and she was down in the cooking area, and motioned for me to follow this girl, but I really had to pee, and I didn’t know what was going on. I get back from the bathroom, and then she leads me off, down this little dirt hill after talking to a Thai boy for a moment, and then through this little forested bit toward the road. We climb through the barbed wire fence, and I snagged my skirt, :( so now one seam had a gap in the back, but I only paid five bucks for it, so that’s not the end of the world. We get to the road, which I assume we will cross, but then we just wait. So I figure someone is going to pick us up, and sure enough, one of the man teachers comes by on his motorbike and I hop on the back and whiz down the street a little bit, where I can see the rest of the school, as well as all the others, all dressed in their uniforms. I had heard the marching band practicing earlier, so I wondered if there would be some kind of parade, but I didn’t imagine anything on this scale. Turns out the sign all around the school we’re staying at for ROMSAK GAMES is what we are doing, and it’s modeled after the Olympics, so this is our opening ceremony, and I was going to walk with the teachers from Saree Wittaya. (The woman who sent me off, did not, which again makes me wonder what context she is here in?) Ahn recruited this man to tell me most of this, who seemed pretty fluent. We walked in our school groups from this area, to the football field, where we had our ceremony. I really wish I had my camera, because there was some phenomenal costumes, but heres the skinny. First was the marching band, all dressed in white, and each member had a large white plume on their head, lead by a baton twirler with a short skirt and tall white heeled boots. Followed by them were three groups of flag carriers. The first was a group of girls, in black pants, red shirts, black longish jacked, and black hats, that almost looked like cowboy hats, carrying red yellow and black striped flags. Then, another group of girls, this time with silky red vests and a white sash, who had some gauzy white gold flag, and during one of their performances something that looked like a black and white umbrella. Third was the blue group, in light blue polos and carrying blue flags. Next came two groups of banner carries; the first, four girls in long skinny skirts, with the last six inches some kind of translucent delicate fabric, and pink shirts with gauzy sleeve, kitten healed sandals, and elegant hair decorations— like a circlet of gold leaves, with trailed down their long pony tails. Then came a banner carried by boys, plainly dressed, and then a group of military folks carring flags. After that was another group of girls, each dressed differently, some in classic country dress (our representative) others in very decorative beaded outfits, each carrying some kind of round on the bottom and pointed at the top. Then came the tribute to the king: yellow flags, and one of those tables but meant for carrying with a potrait, decorated the yellow swathes. A blue dressed group of the volunteers running this were next, who went, when we got to the field, to the flags and raised the up to music (one for each school). After that were the schools. Most were headed by a girl volunteer wearing a long skirt with a twirly horizontal stripe pattern, but in different colors, and a pink top, with some jewlery and make up to complete the look. We were first, and had a boy carrying our school flag, wearing the traditional vest in reddish, and some girls wearing a dress version in white, then the rest of the school in their sports uniforms. Most schools were similar, though without the group of dressed up students. Once we got to the field, there was lots of standing around listenting to speeches I didn’t understand; except for the words basketball, football, volleyball, and Mae Hong Son, then music and flag raising, and the lighting of our Olympic torch accompanied by some misbehaving bottle rockets, and then a flag show. The stands were filled with two different groups, one side in teal shirts the other in blue, who sang songs and waved these different colored papers in time. After all of this, we walked to the school, and didn’t have to make dinner because it was supplied (I got to eat chicken, oh joy! Not school food!) accompanied by live music by a band. Then what seemed like a jazz ensemble of the marching band, with costumed dancers and singers in sequins and hats and feathers at various points. Soon after that, I escaped to go to bed, but I’m not sure how long it went on or what else happened.. I was just too tired. This morning, it’s back to watching sports, and trying ot learn how to take a freaking good photograph. It’s hard, and easier when people are doing thing, but I’ve decided I want to learn more about art photography vs. journalistic photography. No internet here, so I can’t even see.. there are just so many different but ordinary things that I’d like to photograph, but interestingly, not just objects, you know? And I am definitely not good at it. but I did get some pretty great action shots of my favorite Thai sport, with boys kicking balls in the air with their legs over their head and all. Rockin. And I’ve been further thinking of the next two years, and I’m pretty decided to do Italy, Greece, Spain, and France, if I can do all of them next year, briefly if I have to, and then South America the next spring. Then I’ll be ready to graduate. After that.