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?

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.