Jungle Pizza

So, I made a pizza yesterday.  From scratch.  I don't know, maybe I just needed a challenge.  So I thought I'd share with you a little tutorial, How to Make a Pizza (from scratch) in the Jungle.

First off you have to make the tomato sauce.  So you dice tomatoes, onions, garlic then sauce them.  That took about 20 minutes.  I added dried basil, oregano (both of which were smuggled in from the States), salt and a teenie bit of sugar.  It came out pretty decent.

Next step is making the dough.  I guess I could have done this first and let it rise while making the sauce, but whatevs.  Next time I know.  So I took some yeast, and some water and mixed it together, then mixed that with flour and a bit of salt.  Yeah, dough.  I'm sure you know how to make dough.  It was dough-y.  The only problem was that the yeast I used had been sitting on our shelf for the entirety I was away, and probably a good couple months before that too.  So I think it lost its potency or something because this is what the dough looked like even after sitting for, like, 45 minutes:

Step three is to check on the toddler.  I had planned on doing this while he was sleeping, but he decided not to nap.  So he was left to his own devices:

Ask not why there is a spoon in the bathroom, be impressed that the kid played by himself, mostly, while you were busy.

Step Four:  While the dough is "rising", cut/grate the cheese.  I had planned on grating, but when I went to look at my 50 cent grater I realized it was a little rusty and also swarmed with ants?  So yeah, step four for me was to cut up the cheese into small cubes resembling grated cheese.

Step Five: Roll out the dough.  Of course I don't have a rolling pin.  Those are difficult to smuggle in, and quite heavy.  So I used the next best thing: a roll of saran wrap.  That worked pretty well, saran wrap isn't sticky, especially when foured. 

Step Six: Place rolled out dough "circle" onto pan.  Yeah, I can't roll out a circle.  But fuck it, it tastes the same no matter what shape, right?

Step Seven: Put the sauce on the dough.

Step Eight: Plug in the oven.  Yeah, I don't have a proper oven either.  But I do have this amazing toaster oven that works just fine. 

Step one-hundred: Put the cheese on the pizza.  Here you can add any other variety of things, but seeing as I would have to go a butcher a pig and figure out how to make bacon or pepperoni, from scratch, I decided this pizza would be just cheese. 

Step one million: Go check on the kid again.  Make sure he isn't trying to rearrange the fridge. 

Step one million and eleven: Put the pizza in the oven and hope the dough at least rises there.

Step 112,000,000:  Take out the pizza.  Look at it, taste it.  It tastes OK.  But then realize that your husband, who is actually from the jungle, makes much better pizza that this whitey does or could do!

Reality.

I've found that people don't like to read negative things, or partake in negative thought or talk.  So, for that I apologize.  But here comes another one.  I can't deny where I am at in my life at the moment, it can't all be rainbows and sunshine, Lord I wish it could. 

I didn't write while I was in America.  I was there for six whole months. Sometimes I had ideas of what to write, but never got around to it.  I didn't have the motivation, the drive, to write like I do now. 

To sum it up:  It was great, and it was hard, but mostly great.  I lived with my dad and he was such a huge help with Asher.  Being able to live rent free was amazing.  I was at least able to save a bit of money that way.  But, America is expensive as shit.  My car, the insurance, the title and registration, the brakes crapping out, Amon's I-130 visa fee, gas, food, daycare.... Holy crap, daycare.  I knew it would all be costly, but it blew my mind when it totaled out every month.  I am, in fact, in a worse position now, financially, than I was before I went to the US.  So, that was a huge fail. 

But my friends and family made up for that loss in a big way.  I could not have done the solo-parenting thing if it weren't for them, and I do not know how people do it.  I had to be to work at 6am, five days a week.  Daycare didn't open until 7am.  How would that work if I didn't have my dad?  How would that work if I didn't live with my dad?  Would I have to hire a nanny?  Well, there goes another few hundred a month. 

Anyhow.  It was great, and it was hard, but mostly great. 

Now.  Being here.  Back in Thailand.  I guess, looking back, I left for a reason.  I didn't leave because everything was honkey dory here.  I didn't leave because I needed to make more money to stay here for longer.  I left because Sangkhlaburi no longer has anything for me, or for my son.  There is no hope in a place so far removed from reality.  The culture I once was in love with has shown it's true colors in the form of ignorance, drugs, and severe alcoholism.  Every day I see poverty and no way out.  Every night I hear the songs of men drinking their liver into failure.  I see husbands cheating on wives, the neighbor who got another girl pregnant while his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their son.  I hear sounds I so wish I never had to hear, and that I do not want my precious, innocent son to ever hear.  Sounds of dogs hurting, crying out in pain from being poisoned, beat to death, run over by cars.  Sounds of the hand slapping the cheek of a wife who may or may not have mouthed off.  Sounds of belts hitting the backs of innocent children, boots kicking them... And I can't escape it.  I can turn on the music and dance and put on a smile for my kid, pretend it's all OK.  But one day he will go out of my sight and he will see these things, hear these things.  I don't want that.  I know I cannot protect him from life, I know that and I don't intend to hover over him, but there is a line.  And this town is continuously crossing the line.  The other day the neighbor came over and kept saying "Asher bpai gin lao, bpai".  "Asher, go drink whiskey, go".  No.  No. No.  Amon's father offered Asher a cigarette.  Put it up to his lips before I got to him and slapped it out of his hand.  No.  It's not OK.  It is all so not OK.

While I feel all of this there is also a sense of hopelessness like I've never felt before.  How can I get out?  With my husband and my son and my sanity intact?

I am in Bangkok now, looking for a job.  Though that's not so true.  I am staying at a luxury hotel that I paid for before leaving the US, wandering through the fancy shopping mall, running on a treadmill, and swimming in a pool.  It's too soon to have to escape the jungle, but I needed to get my head together.  It still isn't together and today I have to go back there.

Maybe some idea will come to me.  I hope so.  

Back.

Being back in Sangkhla after a 6 month hiatus in America.   It’s a lot harder than I thought.  Everyday is a fight… I fight with Amon, I fight with my surroundings, I fight for my child’s safety, health and wellbeing.  From the bugs, the mold, to the absolute filth I live in.  The stench of the morning drain in my kitchen.  The fear of poisoning my son accidentally with rotten foods.  Always with people trying to give him sugar, sweets, cigarettes and even beer.  Mosquitoes biting us, electricity running out daily.  Bugs in my bathroom, giant ants coving my living room floor.  This is the jungle.  I know it, so well.  People call out to us when we walk down the street: Hey Falang!  Look!  Falang baby!  Or they stare, stare, stare with glares.  I know they are not being malicious or mean, they are just ignorant.  Ingnorance here.   So much un-education.  So much.  How can I live in a place that has nothing to offer us?  No future?  We are drowning… Not making enough money to buy things, almost not enough even to eat.  I didn’t save enough money in America.  We have to pay the rent, the electric and water bills, but there is no money.  My son always saying “bye-bye?”  Like he too wants to escape.  I have to tell him, “sorry baby, there is nowhere to go”.  The heat, the moisture.  8am and already sweating.  My legs full of bruises.  Malnourished.  No veg for days, no fruit aside from watermelon.  My baby is not eating anything except for sweets and hotdogs.  Hotdogs full of chemicals and processed cheese.  He too has black circles under his eyes and has already lost weight.   The multi-vitamin I give him every morning is not enough.   What can I do?  What more can I do?  Will it get better?  Or worse, like it usually does?  What now?