tales from a temporary sleephole

i am on a mission to get a map of the world for the boys' school. brian knows where i can find one in english AND thai. a conversation with the school's official english teacher (and the reason for the map) follows (i will spare you the severe awkward english, and paraphrase):

english teacher: so...canada is close to america?
raych: well...they're right next door, actually.
et: oh, so canada is protected by america?
r: well, actually, (attempts to explain how canada is recognizes the queen of england, but is independant, yada yada)
et: oh, so canada is close to england.
r: (awkward pause), well, no, actually. it's across the ocean.
et: oh. i thought that canada must be protected by america, since you both speak english.
r: (awkward pause), well, actually, (attempts to explain how english comes from england, even though we seem to speak it more clearly because the north american accent has become more prominent)

more conversation ensues, in which the subject of the french girls comes up.

et: but they speak french?
r: yes (attempts to explain how canada has two official languages, has to draw rough and woefully incorrect map of canada to explain how one province speaks french, while the others speak english and bitterly resent learning french in high school)
et: oh, so canda is close to france?
r: well...actually...

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so kyla (one of the missionary kids) and i have been talking about going to this market in ang sila, because even though there are markets freaking everywhere, this market has the best this and that market has the cheapest that, and so on. our market in bang saen has the best rot dii (deep fried dough around a banana drizzled with sweetened condensed milk and sprinkled with sugar). ANYway, we had the afternoon free yesterday, so we took joy (kyla is her foster sister), and headed out. we songthaewed a ways and then got off and walked...we'd probably been walking for half an hour when kayla says 'you know, i think i always just got dropped off there, and then songthaewed home. so i don't actually know how long this road is.'

10 k. that's how long the road is. we found that out 8 k down the road, when p'ganniga passed by us on her new scooter, did a double take, and pulled around. she made us stop where we were and wait for a songthaew, which apparently come down that road every...indeterminate long period of time or so. none had passed us to that point, at we'd been walking for...oh, i don't know. how long does it take to walk 8 k in flip flops, pushing a stroller?

the market was awesome. we took a songthaew home.

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it was my day off, and the boys had a half-day at school, so we sat around and played chinese checkers and chess all afternoon. i was (until today) undefeated at both. i played dao a game of chess, and won, and then bun played dao a game of chess and won, and then golf played dao a game of chess and won. i figure this was all part of his elaborate plan to set me up, because when he and i played again, he skillfully manoevered me into a trap. there's always that long moment where you sit and try to figure a way out...who can i kill this guy with...who can i throw in the path of destruction...who will take a bullet for their king? you know you're doomed, but you still search for a loophole, while your opponent softly chants 'bye bye, see you laytah, bye bye, see you laytah' and smirks at you.

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kyla and i went in to sri richa today to see pirates of the caribbean. it was fabulous. anything else i could say would be a plot spoiler, except how much do i love johnny depp? so much.

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dave (kyla's dad) is spending the night at alh with the boys, since it's my night off, which means i'm kicked out of the house...so i'm sleeping at the church. i'm glad i don't live here all the time, because there are a good five other people living in this building right now, and NONE of them are in bed, and there's some AWful thai movie playing in the other room...but i got changed and let my clothes lie where they fell, and i have the air con dropped to 18 (my sweetie boys keep it at 27), and i'm blogging in my bed. this is alright by me.