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.

 

Values

Values.  I've been thinking a lot about the values in my life.  What do they mean?  What are they exactly?  I guess I haven't really pinned down a core set of values for life since my son was born.  I suppose they have changed quite a bit.  I've always been one to say, if it doesn't cause harm to anyone or anything, it's probably OK.  But now that I think about it, I do have some specific things and thoughts and people that I value more than just "do no harm".

Firstly is the health and safety of my family.  I would do anything to protect my son, I am a big giant slobbering Mama Bear in that respect.  But I also like to let him try new things, step out of my sight sometimes, be with new people, experience new foods and flavors.  I do value those experiences.  So where is the line drawn?  Being around sketchy people is a line, for sure.  Playing in filth, poop, broken glass, etc. is also a line.

It's been hard to align my values with this town.  I feel like many people don't share the same ones with me.  I feel like children here are mostly left to raise themselves, without consequence or manners or morals.

For example, we built a little play area for Asher outside on the porch.  By we I mean Amon.  I watched.  He does beautiful work.  Anyway, this play area has all of Asher's toys, which aren't that many (it's hard- nay impossible- to find quality toys here).  The neighborhood kids see him playing and BAM, here they are, playing with him.  This is OK, except that they don't have the manners I would expect from my own child.  Asking before you enter another person's space, saying please and thank you, respecting the toys, not taking toys away from Asher, not fighting or biting or kicking or spitting on/with each other.  These kids are here now all the time, regardless of whether Asher is out there playing or not.  They help themselves to the toys, and because they don't respect other's property, end up breaking them.  They don't clean up.  We have even come home to find some kids playing in there while we were out.

I don't like it and I know that is SO American of me.  I want to be relaxed and say "whatever" to the whole situation, except, well these are not the values I would like to teach my son.  I want him to have manners, to ask before entering, to say please and thank you, to avoid cursing, biting, kicking, and screaming if he doesn't get his way.  So how can I teach him these things when he is surrounded by the opposite?

My friend once pointed this out to me.  When I was about 12 weeks pregnant and completely naiive about having a baby in the jungle.  She said, "What is going to happen when you ask your kid to go in and wash his hands before eating and all the other kids don't do it?"  I shrugged it off at that point, thinking it'll be no big deal, I'll make him wash his hands, end of story.  I mean, that's just one example and maybe it will be easy to make him clean his hands, but what about all the rest?  How right you were my dear friend.

Alas, it is Christmas eve, a time when we hold our loved ones close, sing happy songs, open presents.  Even though we are here in the jungle where people don't celebrate Christmas, I will do it.  I will play stupid music all day, light the tree in the evening, drink hot cocoa under the stars and tell Asher about Santa Claus.  Because that's also something I value, the wonders of Christmas.
 

Normalcy vs My Life

So a good friend of mine started a blog, and I love it.  I love her, and you know what they say, copying is the best form of flattery.  Or do they only say that to older siblings when younger ones are relentlessly shadowing them?  Anyhow.  I decided that I wanted to spend more time on this blog.  Maybe someone will read it and find it interesting, this life of mine, here in the jungle.

I've been thinking a lot about my last post.  About how raising a child here is so much different from being in the States.  It's a battle sometimes, I won't lie.  It's excruciating even.  Simple things that most of my friends and family know to be true and sound when it comes to child rearing is simply not so here.

The latest of these is the bottle.  Like, OK, I know it isn't the end of the world if Asher keeps his bottle till he's two.  But I am ready for this stage to be over, and I want to protect his teeth.  You all should see the teeth on some kids here.  Most of them have rotted out front teeth from the bottle, or soda, or soda in the bottle.  It's gotta hurt, right?  I mean, I know when I have a cavity, it's not a joyous thing to eat or drink.  So I really want to avoid that whole thing.  Locals on the other hand, have the opinion that these baby teeth will just fall out anyway, so why worry about them being rotten?  I mean, most adults walk around with betel nut stained teeth that are half missing, so why should it matter that the kids have the same, uh, condition?

Well it matters to me.  And that's all that should matter.  I want to give my kid the best in life and him having a tooth decay problem is not a reflection of me giving him the best.  The battle comes in the form of my husband and the grandmother who watches Asher.  I try to give him a sippy cup and when he won't take it, it's immediately to the bottle.  I know that if I only offer him the sippy he's bound to take it at some point.  Every day, twice a day, I meet this and we fight.  And he usually wins, because, at the end of the day, I am so tired of fighting for everything else, what's another fucking bottle?  Then, we get up, we start again.  And again, and again.  I may one day win.  Or I may just give in.

I recently went back to the states.  Just got back last week actually.  It was blissful.  It was better than I thought it would be.  To have my kid in a car, and me, driving around, to places.  Wow, heaven on earth I tell ya.  We went to the beach, we saw all my family and friends that I love so much and who love me and Asher, we swam, we swung, we slid, we read books at the library, we went out to eat, we ate, ate, ate.  We even saw the Great Wall of China with my cousin and her son.  That moment was so special.  We shopped, a lot.  I got a babysitter (thanks Mom!) and saw a movie, in a movie theater.  It was fabulous, every last second of it.  Except for one huge thing.  My husband was missing.  My other half, my partner, the one who I can fight with every day about a bottle and still go to bed smiling with.  I really love this man and to not have him with me for a month was pretty hard.

So now I am back here, to the monotony.  The job I don't enjoy, the heat, the rice, the poverty, the trash, the noise.  It's like a heavy weight that I carry and I want to get rid of it, but how?  How do I shed the hatred I have of this place?  I want to go back to when it was magical, when I saw people walking down the street with big buckets on their head and I smiled, instead of feeling so jaded about it all.  I guess I can't go back in time.  Those days are over and I've moved on to even greater ones... just how to reconcile the joy with the displeasure?

Amon and I are talking about some day moving back to the States.  Some day is a long ways off though.  I don't know if I've mentioned so much about him, his history, but his family is here.  His only family is his father and he is elderly.  Still strong as a horse mind you, just needs some extra help that only Amon can provide.  I can't ask him to leave his father.  He won't leave his family.  Speaks volumes of the kind of person he is and the kind I am, eh?

So for now, I will sit with this place, these people, enjoy my son, swim in the river, drive a motorbike and eat Thai food.  It's all I can do until I can't anymore.

Having a baby in Thaianmar (Thailand/Myanmar)

It's been a while.  A very long while.  And I've been meaning to write for all that while.  But I haven't.  Because reading other blogs and facestalking is way more important, or fun, or whatever.

Anywho.  I wanted to share the silly, sometimes disturbing, things that Karen, Burmese and Thai people say to do with my child.  By the way, Asher is now 5 months old, a very strong and healthy little boy.

When he was born the first craziness came about in the form of blankets.  Actually, even to this day I have to fight Amon about the blankets.  Wrap him up, keep him warm, ALL THE TIME.  When he was born he was immediately wrapped in a receiving blanket, and then a nice, plush, heavy blanket.  He was barely removed from these wrappings (except for pees and poos) for the next 3 days.  This actually turned quite scary, and was actually pretty detrimental to Asher's health.  He developed severe jaundice, his bili levels were almost too high.  He wasn't eating well, wasn't quite getting the hang of the whole nursing thing, and was sweating, a lot.  By day 3 of life he had stopped peeing and pooping all together and had to be rushed back to the hospital at 2am where doctors threatened to put a feeding tube in him if he did not start eating and peeing.  Luckily we dodged that bullet, but the fact is that had we not wrapped Asher in a thousand blankets, he would have peed out the bili instead of sweating it out, and we could have potentially avoided jaundice.

Luckily that was the most serious effect of the suggestions and we haven't seen any ill effects since then.

So along with blankets, there was water.  Give the (exclusively breastfed) baby water.  Nope.

When he turned a month old the "shave his head" haranguing began.  To this day it is still an issue with the locals that I chose not to shave my kid's head.  He's a baby.  It's not going to happen.

"Shave his eyebrows, then put butterfly pee and tanaka on them so they grow in thicker".  Um, butterfly pee?  Where exactly do I get that?  How...  Oh nevermind, I'm not going to shave my baby's eyebrows anyway.

I told one mother that my milk was drying up.  She said, I'm pretty sure, "shave the baby's head, then shave your breasts, and the milk will come".  Shave my breasts?  How much hair do YOU have on your boobs lady?

NO DIAPERS IN THE DAY!  It's too hot, don't you know.  So instead you put these little shorts on and then they get pee and poo EVERYWHERE.  We've managed to compromise by using cloth diapers.

Cover his chest, always.  Because if you don't, the air can go in and give him cancer.  Or something.

Make him wear a hat, preferably a knit one, whenever he goes outside.  Yes, even in one million degree heat with one million percent humidity.

"If he is sleeping and jumping in his sleep (startle reflex) put a pillow or something heavy over his chest and he won't jump."  This actually is good advice, as Asher has insane reflexes, however, he jumps so much that the pillow inevitably falls off.  And then he ends up on his tummy, always.

Speaking of tummy, I am so not allowed to do tummy time.  It will make his chest flat.  Why are the poor kid's nipples so far apart?  Because I did tummy time.  Duh.

"Exercise the baby's legs, hold them straight for 5 minutes twice a day so they don't stay curved."  Lord knows we can't all be walking bow-legged forever.

Also, it is perfectly acceptable for a stranger to walk up to me and ask me if I am breastfeeding.  In fact, it's pretty much the first question people ask, even before asking if he's a boy or girl, his name, his age... it's "luk gin nom meh?" Does baby drink mother's milk?  Which, I mean, depending on your standpoint with the whole breastfeeding thing, could be good.  I don't tell people he is fed both breastmilk and formula, because I get "the look" if I do.  I am obviously just too selfish not to exclusively breastfeed my child.

In the "cold" season I can't give the baby a bath anytime after 4pm.  It's too cold and he could die.  Pretty much.

Now that Asher is beginning to eat real food, I have gotten a whole bunch of new advice.

Here is how to feed your baby:  Lay him down on your lap, with your legs straight out, and his head in your groin.  Yeah.  Now feed him like that.  Oh, no, don't worry, he won't choke.

To make rice: Boil the rice until it is watery, put it through a towel, scrape off the goo.  You get about 1/2 a teaspoon every 10 minutes, so it's totally worth it.  No, you cannot use a blender because the metal in the blades could come off in the food and then your baby WILL DIE.

He cannot eat anything but rice.

WHY are you giving your child pumpkin!?  What, are those CUCUMBERS!? Are you seriously trying to POISON your child?

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There are many other things people have "advised" me to do, but for the most part I can agree with some things.  Like co-sleeping.  People are astonished and appalled that Asher has his own bed in his own room.  They see his room and ask, "who sleeps in there?", and when I tell them "that's Asher's room" they are shocked.  I would love to sleep with my baby if a) it weren't so hot b) he actually slept and c) it wasn't so loud in my room.

Another thing I kind of like is the whole going back to your roots, Eastern medicine stuff they use.  Like certain foods I was forbidden to eat after giving birth because they make the body too hot or too cold.  I was only allowed to drink warm water.  I was supposed to stay in bed, covered in tumeric and do nothing for one month.  People looked afraid when I told them I had to go back to work after only 2 months of leave.  "But how will the baby eat?"  "He needs his mother."  And this I agree with wholeheartedly.  Incidentally, I did not go back to work, and am still a stay at home mama.

With all our love from the jungle,

Ani, Amon and Asher

Pregnancy is a trip

I don't know what I thought it would be like to be pregnant, but now that I am, I can't remember what it was like to not be pregnant.  This whole adventure has been chock full of excitement, anxiety, and changes beyond what I ever imagined. 

I can officially say I hate women who claim things like: "Oh, I just loved being pregnant!"  Tell me lady, what exactly did you love about it?  Getting fat? Having gas all the time?  Heartburn up to your nose?  Relationship stress and changes?  Having to spend all your money preparing?  Peeing all night?  Having random people touch your body?  What is so glorious about these 9 (actually 10) months? 

I started out with bad morning sickness that made me lose a lot of weight.  Which made me constantly worry and feel guilty.  Now that the morning sickness is gone, the pounds are piling on it seems and I'm sorry, but after battling being overweight since I was 12, it's not easy.  The image of being thin and beautiful does not go away when you all the sudden have an alien living inside of you. 

Being pregnant in Thailand is even more of a trip.  I am away from my best friends and my loving family and I miss them daily.  I know this is a choice I made, but it continues to be a difficult one every day.  There are few people in this little town that I can relate to, so I end up turning to my one confidant and that is Amon.  He has been incredibly gracious in listening to my whining and putting up with my moods, but I can't help wonder if one day he will get tired of it all? 

I constantly have Thai people telling me that my stomach is too small for how pregnant I am.  This makes me feel guilty.  Even though the doctors all say the baby is measuring fine.  I am either too fat, or not fat enough in this country.  I can't eat chili (which I crave all the time), I can't wear tight pants because the baby can't breathe (the baby doesn't breathe you idiots), I should exercise more, but I can't swim, run, or walk, it's perfectly OK to eat raw fish and why in the hell am I not eating fish?  I shouldn't bother buying a crib or a rocking chair or even having a nursery because it is bad luck to prepare all this before the baby comes, I should have bought land and built a house before getting pregnant, and so on and so forth.  All these rules and customs that are not my own are constantly thrown at me by Karen, Thai, Burmese and Mon people.  I know that their intentions are well, and that yes, it does take a village, but sometimes I just miss my own culture and how we do pregnancy. 

I broke down and bought the "What To Expect" book today.  At least I can get a little perspective of what it's like outside of this country.

I worry all the time about settling here in Thailand.  Is this really the right place for me?  Why did everything happen so fast?  Why did I let it happen so fast?  What happens when my money runs out?  Am I really going to realistically be able to travel to America 3 months out of the year for work?  What about the kid's school?  Where will he go to school and how will I take him with me to the states if he's in school?  Will I ever be able to work and get paid as a nurse in this country?  What if I have to leave Thailand to go back and live in America? 

Please, don't get me wrong.  I love my people in that country and it is a good country and I miss it, but the idea of living there again, especially as a single mom... that's the one thing that terrifies me more than anything else.  My heart races just thinking about it.  I wasn't happy there when I left, and even though circumstances have changed, I just can't picture myself back there and happy.  It's become pretty much a fact that Amon will not go with me to the states.  To live or, unfortunately, even to travel.  He cannot justify spending 6 months of income on a trip that doesn't produce anything in return.  Asians don't travel for the fun or excitement of it, they travel for work.  And that is just something in his culture that I've come to accept, kind of like he has accepted that I have to go back from time to time.  It's sad and strange that most of my family won't get to meet the father of my child unless they venture here.  But, alas, this is the path I have chosen. 

Becoming pregnant has turned my life upside down and twisted it around in so many ways.  Most of the changes are good, but damn, this has already been the hardest thing I have ever done.  Everyone says that it's worth it though.  It better be.