My life has revolved around real estate this week. It really shouldn’t be so difficult to find a place to live, but there are so many different options and it is hard to decide what will work best these next several months!
(Image on left is view from my office window.)I spent Saturday and part of Sunday exploring the Khao Lak and Bang Niang backroads with two team members looking for housing. There is no formal system of advertising housing here, just signs posted along the road or even just in front of a house with a telephone number to call. We drove all along the main road and up into the rubber plantation neighborhoods and down into the beach community neighborhoods hunting for these signs and making endless calls. It went something like this. Call is made to number posted on sign. Person answering recommends another number (maybe her sister or cousin.) We call second number and set up place to meet. Arrive at house/room/bungalow. Owner arrives 20 minutes late without keys. Promises to return in another 20 minutes. We take off looking for other houses and maybe return in 1 hour, arriving back just as person with keys arrives. Then discussion of cost begins. On the phone my team member is quoted one price. On arrival the owner takes one look at me and the price doubles. Many reasons are given for the newly exhorbitant cost. My team members demure shyly and I am left confused, most conversation untranslated. At housing options where my team members are not satisfied with the neighborhood, environment, etc I do not get translation at all and have to accept that I will not be living there. It is funny and weird and frustrating all at the same time. I have seen giant 3 story office/homes completely unfurnished that I can’t imagine wandering around alone in, new houses next to construction and on a busy road but promised that it will be no problem, very quiet. Yeah right. I have seen one room shacks, one room bungalows, store fronts for rent, shared housing, and hotel type housing. We looked at places on the beach (too expensive), places practically in the jungle (hard to get to, many bugs), and a beautiful cottage with a tremendous view which is only available for 2 out of the 4 months I’m here and is ¼ mile straight up the steepest road I have ever driven on. So the search has continued all week in the evenings. For 2 of my team members the situation has been equally as frustrating and so I know it is not just the foreigner being picky. The fact is that there are zero one bedroom, furnished, clean, quiet and safe apartments available. So either I will be in one room or in an entire unfurnished house. Today I attempted to convince the owner of 5 beautiful vacation bungalows right on the beach that he should allow me to pay half price since I can provide income during the off-season when he usually closes and doesn’t have renters. He came SO close to agreeing but ultimately rethought things and gave me a lecture on how his clients are all rich, German, and that he doesn’t actually NEED my pitiful offering during the off-season. I think that will be the last approach I make to a beach front place.
In other news, we really got the office and training underway this week. Even though we seem to move at a sluggishly slow pace – due to the heat (our office is not air conditioned), events and invitations that pop up unscheduled, and to the more relaxed Thai culture – we have already finished the child protection training and are moving into “cultural norms and expectations” soon to be followed by case work principles and management. I don’t really know when we will begin our field work/home visits but I just don’t want to be one of those projects that rushes into the field without the proper preparation. It would be very sad if we alienated the Burmese community or our “clients” due to poor planning. It is a bizarre thing to feel myself sort of detoxing from Washington DC. If I were managing a team and project in DC I would feel a lot of pressure, stress, and responsibility. I still feel some of that here, ie. I can still see that I am always on time, concerned for the time of appointments made, trying to keep on task and schedule, setting goals and expectations. But I can also see that no one operates like that here and soon I will not be able to either. Ha ha ha. And so each day I remind myself to take it easy. Enjoy the pace. Remember that this is actually the good and normal life and that it is DC life that makes us less healthy and happy. I don’t know, it is so strange. I am just so glad to finally be working directly in the field. I can’t wait for Jeremy to come and see what this life can feel like away from traffic and noise, where a “bad” commute is a 5 minute drive and where homemade lunch can be purchased anywhere along the roadside for under $1.Away from TV and locked doors and where exercise is a morning walk to the Metro. Of course there are things that aren’t great, although I can’t quite think of anything other than the heat and sad little stray dogs. 
I think I may have come across the good life.
Before wrapping this up I have to make one clarification. It has been pointed out to me that if you were considering coming to visit you may have been scared off by my vaccination horrors. Specifically the cost involved. BUT let me say that to enter Thailand and especially to come to this area you don’t need any vaccinations. Nothing required. There are no reports of malaria near the beach. I had my Typhoid and Hep A shots because I like to be able to eat whatever I want without worrying (raw veggies and iced drinks, etc), I only had to be vaccinated for Rabies and Jap. Encephalitis because I’ll be going with my teams deep into the “jungle” and rubber plantations all throughout the province where there is a slight chance I’ll run into these diseases. Especially because I can’t resist petting dogs and monkeys. So do come and visit. I promise to find a suitable place to live where you can visit me and share the good life. J
A.
No comments:
Post a Comment