Okay, so  we just found out our sites, and this Golden State girl is headed for the North side!  Chiang Mai!!!  I'm so excited; reading the history of Thailand you learn that Chiang Mai was one of the early and only true kingdoms before everything consolidated in Bangkok, so there will be museums, historical sites, temples and ruins galore!  As Chiang Mai is another huge tourist destination nowadays, there's an airport semi-close to me, so you-all who want to visit will have an easier time doing that!  The north is where all the weaving and textile magic happens, so I'm thrilled on account of that as well; Akha spindle, here I come!  There's also a rich tradition of theater and dance up north, and I'll be teaching 5th through 9th grades with my co-teacher, so my background onstage will be really useful!  Aside from the attractions of numerous national forests, mountains, more temperate weather, there's an elephant training facility semi-close to where I'll be where you can be an elephant trainer for a weekend; washing the elephant, shoveling its poo, RIDING THE ELEPHANT (which was on my checklist of things to do before I die), and even making paper from elephant dung, because it's so fibrous.  ...The fact that I'm thrilled about making things with elephant poo might give you a hint about how excited I am at this posting!  It's a 'remote' posting, which is below 'rural' on the urbanization scale, but I have two of the very best 126 trainees up there with me, and the area has had experience with PCVs in the past.  In the packet of information they gave me the enthusiasm of the teachers and school directors I'll be working with came through loud and clear, so I'm really looking forward to meeting them and getting started.  I know I'll have to take it slow, but I'm so, so, so excited to be up north.  I'll have a new dialect to learn, and other 'new' ways of doing things, especially not cutting my hair or fingernails or anything on Wednesdays.  Superstition up north says that will shorten my lifespan, so I'll have to remember about that so I don't accidentally cut short my 2 years here!
v
3/13/2014 10:04:39 am

Sounds like a great opportunity!

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    These are the personal opinions of Spook, and do not reflect those of the Peace Corps.

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