Dear Family and Friends,

Bangkok good-byes began with Noi, one of my favorite W House ladies, the one who bestowed my laptop’s name of “Baby,” the one who sheltered Baby while I was in Cambodia, the one who advised regarding the cheaper post office, the one who laughed at my pestle and mortar, and the one who hugged me tightly and told me that “they’d await my return.” Ahh… The good-byes continued when my traveling friend and my ex-pat friend and I met at Food Court restaurant. One had pizza, one had Singaporean noodles, I had Tandori tofu (I ordered what looked good) and a dessert of fried rice balls (I tasted but didn’t really like) served with tamarind ice cream (v. nice). We then took my last journey on the Skytrain, whence I hugged my expat friend, ran to my room, sped-finished thank you cards to W House girls, changed into jeans, and zipped my suitcases. I tugged them down the stairs and final good-byes commenced. I smiled with and hugged the giggly food girls who were so wonderful and then I said a grateful and respectful good-bye to Wendy – who I am positive had waited to see me off. Wendy called for my cab while I said a fond, fond farewell to Bo, who had patiently taught me all the Thai I knew, who had encouraged me to try her dinners so I’d have an idea about genuine Thai food, and who has the best smile in Bangkok. And I said an easier farewell to my traveling companion, whom I’m certain I will see again. Suddenly, my suitcases were in the trunk of the cab and I was turning to watch my friends, lit by the W House sign in the soi, wave as we pulled away. How could I not be sad?

Bangkok will always hold a special place in my heart – and it is no exaggeration to say that a great part of this is because the people at Wendy House are special.

It was not “my” driver that took me to the airport – he sent another and the other wasn’t able to tell me why. As we traversed the darkened Bangkok streets, flat drops splattered the car and created white & red refractions all over us. We were stuck in traffic and I was alone with my turbulent thoughts until I pulled out my journal… naturally that was when the driver managed to pull away from the traffic and my writing got ragged for a few blocks until we got re-stuck and the driver glanced at me and said “same, same.” I sympathetically agreed.

Yet honestly, I was preoccupied with the ghosts gathered in the my mind’s eye: me in my “cowgirl outfit” (dubbed so by one of my Thai students) sitting at the Ratchadamari bar with beer and the boys, the uncertain me pulling my heavy suitcases into my new, hot-pink blanketed room at the top of W House. Me, in shorts, staring for the first time at the Skytrain map or signing myself into a teaching practice group under the florescent ECC classroom lighting, or laughing with my Siem Reap friend over the cement dust scattered all over the classroom. My close CELTA friend and I giggling at the day’s events over Soya noodles and coconut juice, my traveling friend and I edging stair by stair down the to steep Wat Arun, my “smiley” smile as I worked with students from the front of a classroom, the literal camera flashes from our student party on the final day of CELTA, the gold, peaceful forever reclining Buddha touching the ceiling of Wat Pho, the accidental splashes of the powerful Chao Phraya on my face. Singing down the flooded streets of Chang Mai, stiff, dust-laden hair from the “natural air conditioning” of Theara’s Cambodian tuk tuk, my frolicking friend’s smiling face pressed against the glass as I typed on Baby at the W House window. I feel that I am the same Laura that you all know – but how can I not have acquired additional sensitivities from my Southeast Asian experiences? How can I not cry inside at the hunger in Cambodia? How can I not listen for Buddhist temple bells? How can I not have acquired a certain amount of confidence derived from experience in front of classroom or in making travel arrangements or in exploring a town when I don’t speak a word of their language? How can I not?

And of course, the answer is that I have acquired all of this and more. I feel as if I’ve switched from existence to living. But Bangkok was a suspension, a pause, while Korea and (I pray) the answers to the questions that I departed the States with, await. Time will tell.

This is my last blog entry from Thailand.

Love,

Laura