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Letter from Issaan - Part 2


phoenix

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Letter from Issaan, part 2

Building extensions are going on, Nok & Sister had decided to put a large room onto the house, to give the family more space. Well, really another lean to, on concrete poles 2 metres above the ground, one step lower than the rest of the house, with a balustrade all around, wooden floor and a corrugate iron roof . The older part of the house is also mainly open space, but has currently two small bedrooms, and some wardrobes partitioning off a third area as sleeping area. The ladder used by the builders is an extremely rickety bamboo job, and I keep waiting for it to collapse. It doesn’t.

Cooking charcoal vs gas. The kitchen, a roofless platform on stilts, leaning against the main house, but 3 steps lower, is a rather basic affair. Almost all cooking happens on a clay charcoal burner. Nok bought a two burner gas stove, and a bottle, but Meh and Poh are rather disdainful about it and never use it. Cooking happens at any time during the day and night, and different family members rarely eat all at the same time. Often the cooks eat before the rest of the people present. Usually a meal will consist of several dishes, usually have sticky rice as a base, freshly caught small fish, and some meat or chicken dish (Maybe because I am here, I suspect in leaner times fewer meat dishes.)

Wide variety of greens, leaves from around the garden, and sauces made with unmentionable ingredients, like fermented fish paste/sauce, that lives (literally, I think it is alive) in a variety of big jars in a corner. One or two sharp knives or choppers, a pounder (moratr and pestle), one or two cooking pots, and a cane rice steamer are the main cooking implements. The dishes are washed (occasionally) on the edge of the open deck, by scooping a plastic bowl of water out of the large clay water jar, and all wastewater is simply chucked over the edge into the dirt (mud) about 6 ft below the platform. Any westerner with a sense of hygiene would go green at the gills, but the food is delicious, and I don’t seem to physically suffer from this hygienically challenged environment.

Little boy Ben, about 6 or 7, goes school, after having filled his small woven cane rice container (‘lunchbox’ wink.gif" border="0 with sticky rice, to eat at lunchtime. I am instructed to give him 5 Bt (or even better 10 Bt.), as a treat, so he can buy something else to eat while at school.

On the second night, with again a cluster of friends, rabbits and relations lying sprawled around the TV, playing Molam DVD’s, rather early, Nok announces that I must be tired, and it is time for me to go to sleep. I didn’t think so, and resist, but she can be quite directive, and eventually I relent around 9.00 o clock, and wander to our bedroom. Get into bed, and two minutes later she arrives, slips under the blankets, and slips out of some of her clothes (in that sequence). Suddenly I realise why I was supposed to be tired. The music in the open living area is still blasting loudly, and people are still talking (usually also loudly), so it is easier to indulge in Nok’s favourite excercise without fear of having every move overheard by the whole family. Stupid of me not to understand. I suppose that this tactic is quite common in such open living conditions with little privacy.

Anytime out of the bedroom, Nok keeps some physical distance. While in the appartment, or walking around BKK with me, she’ll touch a lot, but not at home. I have to restrain myself many times from spontaneously reaching out and touching her, not in a sexual way, but just in a friendly way. When a few times I forget and reach out, she’ll look at me sternly.

Day2, same morning ritual, except that Nok gets up a bit later, luxuriates in cuddling up to me. She complained it was cold at night. (I was hot under two blankets). Most of the morning was spent elaborately doing mum’s hair, in preparation for tomorrows party, I found out later. This involves washing, cutting, putting rollers in with little bits of paper clutched in between for producing curls. Total about 2 hrs.

Then we get into the car to drive to the regional administration building, 10 km away, and the adjoining police station. We wait for quite a while, then Nok is seen by what appears a middle level police officer, young guy in his early twenties. She talks with him in his office, for about an hour, he makes notes and types them ot. Then her cousin, who accompanied us, and kind of acts as a guarantor that she will not flee, and I are invited into the office. The two women and the cop banter and chat merrily, while the statement is completed. Nok signs, cousin signs, cop signs, more jokes are made. We get back to the waiting room and watch how Nok is fingerprinted about five times. The fingerprint officer and Nok also have great fun about the black stuff on here fingers, and many other jokes I’ll never know about. So far the whole thing has taken about 2 1/2 hours. Before getting in the car, I am told that now we must first eat, and that the cop interviewing her recommended a little roadside (open) café, two doors down from the police station. The three of us sit down, order some food.

Five minutes later we are joined by the interviewing police officer, who is offered a seat, and a beer, and invited to order a meal. More joking and banter. 5 minutes later the fingerprint cop joins us, and gets a beer, too. The meals, and the beers keep arriving, as does a third man, something to do with police, but now in private business (don’t ask me why. All this meal at about 50 m from the police station, in full view, taking about an hour and a half! Finally, I suggest to Nok that if we are to arrive at a party we were invited to tonight, maybe we should slowly consider moving on. Bill is called, about NZ$ 20, for an extensive meal and drinks for 6 people. I realise that my status requires I pay for the whole affair. Everybody beams smiles at each other, and takes leave. The cops drift back to the copshop, we get into the car.

The meal was of course a carefully planned PR exercise by Nok and her cousin, and the way things are done here. She ended up on very good terms with the main cop. In fact, I think he was a bit intimidated by her, he was 5 yrs younger than she is, and as she later told me, a fairly innocent country boy. Her accounts of her living in Taiwan, her one Thai and subsequent two Taiwanese husbands got him intrigued. Then, seeing me on the scene, he said to her “ Now you are divorced again finally, and in a few weeks you get your maiden name back, I suppose you will be marrying this falang?” “Oh, no” she replied, “He is still married, I am just his Mia Noi” ((minor wife)” The young man obviously was slightly shocked at her openess, but she seemed to think that was a joke, and recounted the exchange later in the car, laughing uproariously with her cousin.

 

Arrive home,more hairdo for mama and Ben. After that, we are making tracks, intending to go at the friends house where the two day party is starting. Intend to stay one nite at the friends house friend prior to travelling around Issaan a bit.

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