Loygatong, etc.

You know, it's funny. I sat down today to help a friend write an article for a school newspaper back in her home country, Australia. I told her that I'm a bit of a grammar geek (although you probably couldn't tell by reading my blogs, as I'm not really into editing them), and I would love to help her with this article. Well, sitting down to write it proved to be more challenging than I had anticipated. It brought me back to high school and college English classes, writing those dreaded essays as late as I possibly could, often the morning it was due. As I was sitting there trying to formulate intelligible sentences that would be school newspaper-worthy, I realized how I'm so not into writing articles, but I could edit them all day long! I've often thought how it would be a fun job to work for a newspaper, but now I'm not so sure. :) However, I truly do enjoy writing down my thoughts in the form of a blog. I'm not sure it prepares me for writing any great works, but it hits the spot for me...the itch to get my thoughts down on paper. One of my greatest skills is forgetfulness, and I would really hate to forget my life as it goes by, thus this blog and numerous journals that I have kept throughout my life.

In other news...this week is Loygatong, an annual festival held on the full moon of November (ish?) where Thais say sorry to the river for all the pollution and bad things they've done throughout the year, and put offerings into the river to make penance. It is a Thai Buddhist tradition and the whole country shows up to celebrate. There are special markets, fireworks going off every night for probably a month, a parade, and even these cool lanterns that people light and they float up into the air. The children all had to bring a special "boat" to school that consisted of a cross-section of banana tree about 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick, with beautifully folded banana leaves and flowers pinned to the top. The Thais are brilliant when it comes to making these! Last night five of us, including the eldest of the girls, Belle, went to watch the parade and check out the market nearby. It was a lot of fun, but it made my heart sad to see all these people putting their offerings in to the river, believing that it is somehow washing away their sins for another year, or something to that effect. I've felt a heaviness this week, and I'm strongly suspecting that Loygatong has something to do with it. The enemy has a hold on this nation through Buddhism, robbing Thais of the joy and freedom of knowing Christ. That's something I should be fired up about, but often I just feel a numbness or a heaviness in my spirit about it. I don't like that at all, and my prayer is that God would open my heart and my eyes to see Thailand as He does. Please join with me in that prayer.

Today, I think the highlight of my day would have to be lunch time. I joined my friend Bethany (also from Australia) on a walk down to our favorite Lan Ahan (food shop?) where the cook has really become a friend of ours, P'Na. As soon as we got there, as she often does with me, she put us straight to work! Food sanitation standards seem to fly out the window in these places, yet I've never gotten sick off of the food. Apparently using different knives and cutting boards for meats and vegetables is a convenience that you don't have on a busy lunch rush in Thailand! We were busy chopping vegetables, cutting chilies, dishing out rice, and my favorite: cutting congealed blood! That's a first for me. I've eaten it, just not cut it before. There's really not much to it; it's about the texture of a light, eggy custard that holds its shape but easily falls apart in your mouth. It's REALLY not my favorite thing to eat, and I avoid it whenever possible, but it's a pretty prominent (yet nonessential, in my opinion) ingredient in some good soups. After we helped P'Na through the rush, she had me cook our food! It was nice because now I have a better idea of how to make some tasty Khao Pat (fried rice). All I need is to pick up some oyster sauce and I think I'm good to go! I already have the fish sauce on hand, which is an essential ingredient to pretty much ANY Thai dish. I was quite skeptical about this stuff at first, but have since embraced it. It's amazing how many food phobias have gone out the window this past year. Who would have thought I'd be eating whole fried bite-sized fishes, worms, blood, chicken fat, unidentifiable meats, SUPER spicy foods, along with the prior hang-ups such as olives, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and fish. I'm still not down with eating bite-sized octopuses or much other sea food aside from fish, but I'm thankful for how far being in Thailand has brought me from being a picky eater. It makes my previous hang-ups seem quite trivial. :)