Nam took the babies to see their old nanny. Her new house is almost complete, but is out in the sticks. At night, the house is apparently crawling with all sorts of bugs, frogs, and who knows what else. Max brought back a couple to play with at home.
Category: Around Mahasarakham
Cowboy Haircut in Maha Sarakham
We were growing out Mina’s hair (which only looks cute when put in tails), but it got too nappy so it was time for a cut – A COWBOY CUT!
This guy is famous in Sarakham – he’s the living embodiment of Carabao culture.
We are Hos (love everybody) + special Tinglish Bonus
“Bye Nior” is a common Tinglish (Thai English) term meaning “graduation party” (goodBYE to the seNIORs)., which this flyer posted on a window at Maha Sarakham University is apparently advertising.
As for the hos, I think they are trying to convey that they will be our hosts/hostesses.
So, does anyone want to go to a graduation party with a bunch of hos?
I saw Pai Mei yesterday.
Or at least I thought I did.
As he walked closer to my car, I saw he was actually an Indian Pai Mei with only one arm.
Or maybe not.
BTW, this is the official tune for Pai Mei spotting.
Spit Roast Pig
When we went to our good friend’s party last month, the kids tired out in an hour or two and we took them back home (just a 2 minute drive). Imagine my joy when I returned solo to freely flowing brew and this:
One of our friend’s father-in-law’s friends who looked like he stepped straight out of a Cometbus narrative was manning the spit for a while, then I tried my hand at it… Eventually, only the deliciously crackling neck and head remained. The thing about roast pig is that you have to eat it hot – 100x more delicious.
Max’s first fish
A couple weeks ago, we went to my coworker and good friend’s father-in-law’s place for his new house celebration. He’d built a new house on top of the foundations of an older one at his 15 rai (1 rai = 0.4 acres) property five minutes walk from our home. There are several fish ponds on the site, stocked with all kinds of fish including tilapia, catfish, snakehead, etc.
Max was so excited about going fishing for real, he couldn’t sleep the night before. Until then, we’d been practicing for safety with hookless tackle (a rubber door stopper tied to the line) at the ponds in our neighborhood, but Max was ready for the real deal. When morning rolled around, we went out into our garden and dug up worms for bait, which both Max and Mina couldn’t believe just lived in the ground around our house…
Just before noon, we headed over to my friend’s FIL’s place and found that Max was unwilling to eat; he was completely enthralled with the prospect of actually fishing, so I pulled a couple of bass rods from the back of our car and set up with light rigs. Then:
This was actually his second fish, perhaps a bleeker, related to carp in any case. We were fishing the shallows in 1 meter deep water with fallen submerged trees everywhere, so my sliding sinker rig did a perfect job. The total for the day was five small fish between Max and his friends, and typically, they all got bored after pulling in their own fish. Max was scared to actually touch the fish, just as I remember being, so it was a good learning experience for everybody.
On the deep side of the pond we were fishing they apparently catch 7-8 kilogram catfish of various species (giant Mekong cats included!) on a regular basis; I saw some they pulled that morning in the 5kg range waiting to be prepared for eating, so I don’t doubt it. I was trying to keep the kids from being traumatized by a leviathan, so we stayed in the shallows!
RMU Freshman Molam Performance
Taken (shakily, sorry!) at dinner gathering for the International Conference on Science and Social Science / International Conference on Science and Agricultural Technology held at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University in Thailand.
Being MC for an event means you get the closest seat to the stage!
I announced that it’s common practice to tip the performers if you like them, and I think the girls and the band made out pretty well…
A Tribute to Buildings 1&2, Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University
They are knocking down our “Little House on the Prairie” schoolhouses and will soon replace them with new facilities. They were probably the oldest buildings on campus with solid wood construction, and were a lot cooler than the concrete buildings that have come to represent typical SE Asian construction… In recent years, some of the rooms had been upgraded with whiteboards and sound systems, but there was nothing like going into class every morning and asking students to clean the blackboard erasers.
They would knock the erasers on the outside wall below the window sills, which is how students coming in late could hear that class was starting. These classrooms were a pain to teach in on the hottest days, but were still more comfortable than their modern uncooled counterparts in our newest buildings (one of which is the tallest building in Sarakham yet boasts classrooms with no AC, broken desks, and in the ghettoiest rooms, blackboards as well).
These were mostly used as auxiliary classrooms and our English program will eventually move from our home in an old administration building (Building 4) to the new buildings whenever they are finished. Reversely, the prior occupants of Buildings 1&2 (including Thai Dance, Music, and Thai Language departments) have come to replace the Law department in our building, so instead of meeting aspiring ambulance chasers in our hallways, we are now serenaded by glorious band practice sessions and Thai dancing below the stairwells. We’re so used to it. it’s hardly even surreal anymore..
One ThaiPad Per Child
I took this photo a couple months ago out toward the local ostrich farm. The political party that put tons of these signs up on all the roads won Sunday’s elections, so I guess Max and Mina will be getting their ThaiPads soon…
Essentially Isan
This was taken last week at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham, my university, at a welcoming ceremony for freshmen (aka “freshies” in Thailand). In the foreground, English program students are praying during a traditional bai sri ceremony around a Christmas tree-shaped arrangement of folded banana leaves, as other students play takraew on the courts in the background and molam blasts from the unseen stage to the left.