Well, it’s really just that: a big water fight.

I’ve been describing Songkran to people as this big water fight, but it wasn’t until we drove down the street and you actually watch hundreds of adults, children, teenagers, grandparents, foreigners and locals soak each other with water that you believe there is a holiday devoted to this.

Today we had the privilege of joining some of our fellow Partners’ staff in celebration of Songkran. We all met at the office and split into three trucks, each filled with: a huge tub or two of water, multiple toilet buckets, a few water guns, and four to five people. We then paraded through town, with everyone else in Mae Sot, and enjoyed the biggest water fight I’ve ever seen.

Water is everywhere. People are using hoses, toilet buckets, water guns, homemade water guns–whatever they can find to drench you. The streets are full of trucks with the backs filled with people (and a large tub, of course, filled for free around town). The streets, also, are lined with all ages, water going everywhere. A few (including us on our second round) add ice into the tubs…we purchased eight blocks of ice about 10″ x 4″ x 5″ (this is completely a Kelli guesstimate so take that with a grain of salt) for 5 baht (16 cents) each.

In addition to water, there’s powder. Supposedly it’s for good luck, but they mix baby powder or talcum powder with water to create a paste, which they then throw on you or smear on your face and clothes.  That’s probably the worst part, I’d vote, particularly if it gets in your mouth.

There’s quite a bit of dancing, too. People on the streets pull out big speakers and blare Thai music for everyone to dance to.

Oh, and a lot of alcohol. I’ve never seen so much alcohol in the middle of the streets, in the back of cars, and on motorbikes.

They love to see the farangs (Thai for white person) and gulawahs (Karen for white person) out for the day, too.  We thus heard an array of English phrases as we were drenched, including: “Happy New Year” (which made sense, this is traditionally a new year celebration), “Merry Christmas” (not as much sense…), “I love you” (odd, especially when someone is rubbing your cheek with powder), “How do you FEEL?”, and “Made in Thailand!” (while pointing at himself…).

I loved seeing all the smiles. Everyone became so animated,and you suddenly become friends with hundreds of people you can’t communicate with as you cross a million cultural barriers for a silly water fight.

The best part of the day, by far: we passed a lady on the road spraying everyone with a powerful hose. As she sees the foreigners coming, she points her hose downward, gives us a polite Thai wai & bow (a proper greeting, so Thai-level proper that we don’t receive it much in Mae Sot)…and then proceeds to drench us with the hose. She simply needed to welcome us first.

We were sad we couldn’t take the camera with us to capture the fun, but after we saw how wet we got we’re confident it was the right decision. We did take a couple quick shots when we got home, though.

To prevent our new helmets from getting wet, moldy, and smelly like our previously borrowed helmets, I came home with a plastic bag on my head and Stephen used a pillowcase that we keep in the bike. (It’s generally used for drying the bike off after rain or siting on if the seat gets too hot in the sun.) Either way, it’s a good thing decency and style got thrown out the window awhile ago.

This photo can’t really capture how wet we were. There simply wasn’t a bit of us dry.

And I’ve now decided this might be the best time of year to visit us. It’s definitely a fun experience!

 

Oops.

We have a big, blue water reserve in our back yard that, well, reserves water for our washer, sink, shower, toilet, etc.  The city water usually comes in each evening, and we can let it fill up.  We don’t typically go through the whole reserve in a day, though, so we simply check on it and “open” the valve to let it fill up if needed. We try not to let it get to full, because it will run over the top and cost us money in our water bill.

Before we went to Chiang Mai on Wednesday, we [wisely] turned the water off to save money & water.

But then [not so wisely] forgot to turn it back on.

And now it’s empty. I was taking my afternoon shower after a long day in the heat–in our house, where I sweat while I cooked, cleaned, studied Karen, and simply sat; all sweating–when the water started sputtering and splattering.

Like I said, oops.

Unfortunately, I had already started an elaborate dinner for our friends coming over.  Stephen & I had both been cooking all day to make: hummus (after cooking chickpeas & mashing them with mortar & pestle), babaganoush (after making tahini from scratch, plus mashing it all, again, with mortar & pestle), naan, Greek rice, falafel (chickpeas cooked first, & mashed…), and brownies for dessert.

I really loved the cooking, and Stephen was a wonderful help with the mortar & pestle mashing. But this is quite an elaborate meal to then have no water to wash dishes with. Our kitchen now looks like this:

Oops.

As of 9:10pm, the water hasn’t come on yet, either.

Don’t worry: we’ll survive. We have plenty of drinking water. We just may not be taking showers in the hottest month of the year, and we may start using Germ-X more than we’d like. We’re just hoping the water comes on before too long!

This is just a collection of things I’ve been meaning to get out and never got around to until now.

We decided to go out this Saturday to begin our garden. We thought we should start by picking up trash, which turned out to be plentiful, and took about an hour.  This includes the three times we had to stop and pick a few dozen thorns out of our feet and ankles from this lovely, harmless looking plant that is stalking our yard. Stephen dug up three of the thorny things with a broken hoe (part of the trash we discovered).

We were also trying to determine how we’d fence around our garden to keep out the mangy street dogs out.  Part of the trash pile we found included a stash of broken bricks (assumably those that didn’t make the cut for our house).  We decided that would be an easy and free way to fence around our compost at least, again to keep the mangy dogs out.

It seemed like such a good idea.

By the end, we determined a few things:

There weren’t as many bricks as we thought, thus leaving the wall about a foot or two lower than we’d pictured.

We also thought more of them were more whole than it turned out.

I’m more of an artist than an engineer, but I’m not much of either.

We’re just hoping it holds up…for a little while.  It was a nice day to be out in the sun, despite the sweltering heat. And we decided since we were inside of our yard with the wall & closed gate, it’d be okay for me to wear a tank top & shorts (I know, scandalous!).  Well, in the end we both ended up burnt to a crisp. And we saw someone from a second story staring at us, so I’ll be wearing capris and a tshirt next time…

And it is officially hot season.  So begins the month everyone has warned us about: “You just want to die. And then it rains.”

We also had the joy this weekend of putting together this amazing gift from the Helmicks–

They sent us a package last week (I know, two in one week?!) full of many different treasures, including this photo puzzle. It was my favorite! I’ve been telling everyone at work about it, and they all thought it was a wonderful idea, too.  We loved putting it together and seeing the pieces, thinking, “That’s my mouth!” and “That’s Keri’s eye!”

And we’re back in the swing of things this week, studying our Karen and organizing teams. We’re also headed back to Chiang Mai again on Wednesday–we found out we have to have our marriage license “approved” with a signed affidavit from the US Consulate. We got our work permit sorted out, but now we have to change our visas to fit with our work permit (we don’t really understand, but the lady in the office in charge of our visas tells us this…).  Anyway, we’re headed up Wednesday, have an appointment Thursday morning, and we’re headed back. Kind of a hassle to mess with the bus, and I can’t imagine the US Consulate being fun or cheap. Oh, well.

We also have Friday off of work for a holiday, and all of next week off for Songkran. It’s the annual water festival–it’s actually a Buddhist holiday, but really it just means that everything closes down for the week so that everyone can participate in a country-wide (and really Southeast Asia-wide) water fight.  We’re not sure yet if we’ll be in town, but we’ll keep you posted on the fun.

Unrelated–has anyone heard of Rebecca Black? Is she cool now? I saw something about her on Facebook and we looked up her “Friday” music video. It was awful. I thought she sounded like a nasally bubble machine.

…and that’s a wrap.

We’ve been adding a few touches to our house in the last few weeks in an attempt to make it more of a home.

And I think it’s working. We’re much more convinced.

As you can see, we’ve added our couch! We decided to go for it, and we’re already so thankful we did. About a week after we ordered it, we realized that other than our bed, there is no place for to sit near each other.

We also added photo collages on three walls. It allows us to have tons of photos of family, friends, and supporters, and provided a cheap way to decorate! Then the wall behind Stephen has two 11×14 photos of our families. The blank wall across from Stephen (in the top photo) will ideally have an embroidery piece I have plans to work on sometime soon…

We had the cushions on our chairs recovered by Pi Pranee, who oversees sewing at the Partners office.  We picked out material–

–the same fabric in three colors. (I’d say they coordinate; others might disagree.)  She made us covers for seven large, flat cushions: two red and two purple to make our four chairs comfortable, and then three green ones for additional floor seating. We also have some smaller pillows on the way to add some color to the couch. With the cream wall, cream tile, and cream couch…we needed to add a little color.

And then we wanted to use the fabric in other ways, so we covered buttons and used those on our photo collages, like this:

And thus, we continue to chase the illusion of home 🙂