On a lighter note...

So, I apologize for the recent posts being full of negativity. As someone near and dear to me pointed out, why focus on the shitty parts of life?  Truth be told, I am finally able to let go of pretending that life is so great and exotic and wonderful and lovely here.  In that, I am able to see things that I truly appreciate.  But some part of letting go of pretending is to put some of my disappointments out there as well. 

But for now, we'll get back to what this blog was meant to be, and that is Living in Thaianmar.  Today I'll give you all a tour of my house.  Something I've been hesitant to do forever because, well, I guess because I'm a bit embarrassed at my living situation.  You'll see why.  Later, I'll write about the town, and then hopefully down the line I can get to what I really want to do and that is interviewing some locals and telling their stories. 

So, here is where I live:

As you can see we are very close to the border of Myanmar (Burma).  About 15 minutes by motorbike.  I'll talk more about the town itself later though.

Here is our house with us in front (yes, my husband is shorter than me.  We're like Jack and Kate.  Remember them?  If you don't you are far too young/I am far too old):

This is called a "hong taeo" in Thai.  It means row style apartments.  There are 8 of them on our side and another 8 on the other side with a small alley running in between.  The alley is nice for kids to play in, as there aren't cars, but occasionally motorbikes zoom by.  There's also a lot of trash, which is unpleasant, but at least it's off a busy road.

This is the living room from the front door:

We're lacking a bit of, um, everything.  But!  We have a fridge!  It stays in the living room because you will see the kitchen in a minute.  We have a rice mat that we throw down when we're hanging out there.  There's a desk that was drug in from the kitchen and had been used as a drying rack for bottles.

If you look right from the living room, you'll see the bathroom.  It's actually nice that it's inside the house, usually the bathrooms are out back, with the kitchen, meaning you have to walk outside at night when you have to pee 1,456 times while pregnant.  So glad I didn't have to do that.

Don't be fooled by the hot water heater, it hasn't worked since a week after it was installed due to the electricity demands, our little place just couldn't handle it.  A western toilet!  But how do you flush it?!

You pour the water in from the red bucket.  This doubles as Asher's current favorite place to play, we even woke up one morning to find him inside the bucket.  We've started closing the bathroom door.

Next we have our bedroom:

We're practicing the Montessori floor bed technique for adults.  We got rid of our handmade bed when Asher refused to sleep on his own and we gave in to co-sleeping.  Eh, it's a bed.  With the classic storage box nightstand and converted bedsheets into curtains.

We even have a "closet":

Fancy.

Next we have the Crowned Jewel.  The one room in the house I spent time and money on.  Actual curtains made by Bubbe.  Asher's room:

I love this space.  It's so nice to just hang out in here.  Unfortunately the tookays agree and this is where they lay all their eggs.  We've managed to duct tape all the openings though so it's been less of a problem. 

Lastly, out back from the living room (and the window in Asher's room) is the kitchen.  It's a bit of a nightmare for me as a Westerner, but pretty standard as far as Thai houses go.

There's a drain in the back that runs the length of all the apartments.  So we get everyone's (4 rooms worth) discarded food waste and I don't want to know what else.  I feel real bad for the people in room 8 though.  The sink and the counter and the pot rack were all hand built by Amon.  He's such a genius.  The washing machine is my favorite.  I use it every day.  It's only cold water and doesn't agitate very well, so to get the tough gritty stains out (ie: cloth diapers), you have to hand wash. 














So, that's my home!  And it is really pretty great when you compare it to the others in the area.  But I still can't wait to one day have our own house, sans the open kitchen drain.

This may piss some people off. Good.

I am moving back to America as a single mother, for all intensive purposes.  I am married but my marriage is not registered in America as I see it has no benefits, only hindrances.  Since I am a single mom I can qualify for more assistance from the government, at least at first.  Asher and I have already, thankfully, qualified for medicaid.  I hope to get some childcare assistance when I arrive.  But that's it.  And, after I am employed, I will "make too much" to continue to qualify for medicaid, and forget about childcare assistance.

So even though I will be a single mom, living in my father's basement (whoop whoop!), I still have to financially survive without the assistance of government.  The costs of healthcare alone are staggering... what about daycare, food, gas, diapers?  My aim is to go there to save money, but it looks like that will be very difficult to do in the big scheme of things.  I might as well only work part time, make less money, qualify for benefits, and come out evenly.  (Ask me about a friend who got diagnosed with MS, had to go down to working part time so she could qualify for medicaid and get treatments.)

What really irks me about this is that America, land of the free, a prosperous fucking nation that we are, is the ONLY developed country that still treats people like they owe something to the government for merely existing. 

My friend who is English also married a Thai man, but her situation is much different.  She goes home to have her kids, which is free to do, I come to Thailand to have mine  because it's free for me here.  After she has a kid she gets fully paid maternity leave for 3 months,  for working full time during *some* of her pregnancy.  After the kid is born she also gets PAID BY THE GOVERNMENT for a while to be able to stay at home and take care of her baby properly.  As the child grows, social welfare will pay for half of his daycare costs if she qualifies, but guess what?  At the age of 3, all kids go to preschool for free. 

Look, I'm not saying England has it perfect, but we all know how it goes in America.  Having to work full time for the duration of your pregnancy to save up enough for maternity leave, then only have 8 weeks off, and if you want more you have to take out of your disability insurance (because having a baby makes you disabled, obvs), if you have it.  Then you most likely have to find a childcare setting that accepts children so young, which, of course, will be at least half of your monthly income.  Add rent to that, food, diapers, gas, insurance, loans from that university you went to so you could better yourself but ended up in the same place just with more debt.... You're broke.  We're broke.  I'm BROKE. 

I was looking on a website for assistance for single mothers, and what is also there, beneath the link to affordable housing?  A link to a shelter for abused women.  Is this reality?  What about women who choose to be single parents?  Moreover, what about the single fathers out there?  I was raised primarily by my father from the age of two, and I can't imagine the struggles he had. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I am so appreciative of the benefits that are out there, especially in Boulder County.  But I really wish I didn't have to be poor to get them.  Does that make me a socialist?  Well if so, so be it.  There isn't so much wrong with a government actually supporting it's citizens.

LDs and PBDs

Well it's done.  The biggest and latest Life Decision has been made.  It seems that my life is full of those, and they're usually Pretty Big Deals.  Or is that just life?  Or do I live my life in chaos?  Not sure. 

Anyway.  We decided that in early March Asher and I will be moving back to America, Colorado specifically, for about six months.  If you've read my previous posts I am sure you can come to the main conclusion as to why this was decided, but for a summary:  Things here are not going well.

I guess since I got fired from the children's home my work life has slowly fizzled out.  I was once a well respected American nurse doing some pretty amazing things in this town. You can read about how it all went down here.  As of late I am an unemployed soon to be stay at home mom.  Which does have it's attributes and is definitely not me being completely worthless, but at the same time, it is not why I moved here.  I want to be out there, being a nurse, doing what I do, loving it, living it.  Without that, there's nothing for me here.

There's also the other life factors that go into this decision.  Mainly Asher's continued illnesses.  Since he was six months old he has been suffering severe GI distress, was hospitalized on IV antibiotics at one point and had to be rushed to Bangkok at another point.  He seems to always be sick with something, whether it be unexplained fevers, a cold, a flu, or the GI thing.  The thing is though, that when we were in America in November, for a whole month he went without getting sick.  He did have a small cold at one point, but none of the more distressing things we've been dealing with.  He was fine.  When we got back here we brought him back to his nanny's where not even two days had passed and he was sick again.  I am not sure what is going on, but I can't continue to keep him there knowing he will keep coming home ill.

I quit my job due to this, in anticipation of needing to stay at home with my son.  There were also some nasty thing happening at my place of employment.  I won't go into details here, but I was morally obliged to quit at the point that I did.

So, I guess the real kicker to all of this is, as usual, Amon.  I explained in my earlier post that he would not be able to come with us due to family being here.  That, unfortunately, still remains to be the same.  Amon will come with us for 3 weeks to help us get settled, but then we'll both be on our own.  It is so incredibly sad and heartbreaking that it had to come to this.  I never thought I'd be in this situation.  I feel guilty and douchey and all sorts of things.  I am taking my husband's son away from him.

I guess the one shining light is that it will only be temporary.  That Asher and I will come back here.  Maybe the situation here will be different.  Maybe not.  Hopefully I will at least gain perspective.  But even that... once you have insight into one aspect of life, it all goes changing again and you have to start from scratch. 

I am looking forward to being home though.  Despite the sadness and the missing, I am sure we'll keep busy doing all sorts of things Americans do.  I am excited.  I can't wait to take Asher to story time at the library, let him run around in parks, swing on swings, go sledding!  I envision summer days full of good friends at the reservoir in Boulder, splashing around with our babies.  I will be so glad to be a nurse again.  I will learn the new drugs and treatments, don gloves once again!  Wearing scrubs, stethoscope dangling, pockets full of alcohol wipes and KY Jelly, pens going missing, being yelled at by doctors... ah, I can taste it.

Good times ahead, I know it.

Happy Holidays to y'all.  Here's the one picture I managed to capture of Asher on Christmas day.

With Love.