2008.03.17

The last day of training! Hooray!

2008.03.16

This is our morning snack. Mind you, breakfast was rice porridge - sort of a rice soup with shrimp and some vegetables, but not spicy. So this "lump in a blanket" was like a pancake wrapped around a smush of some sweet paste stuff. The Thai folks didn't know what it was either. I want a Big Mac. There is a nice breeze today, and right now it's only 88 so not too bad.

Saw what looked like hunmmingbirds in a flowering tree near the house this morning. They are really sun birds, says Andrew. I will try to get a photo later.

Just as I'm missing the pets back home, we arrived at the restaurant to see one of the buffet kitties splayed out on the table. Ah, just like home.

Went to bed early tonight but had trouble sleeping. I'm really homesick. Oh, and Bathroom Spider was trying to take up residence in the toilet paper roll. Needless to say I was surprised. We discussed it and he decided to move out.

2008.03.15

Actually felt hungry today! No fever for like 12 whole hours! No longer hate Thailand - maybe it was the flu I really hated all along. Still not sold on Thai food though. Have both lungs full of crap, but slowly coughing it up. Feel better than I have all week. Starting to think I may yet survive.

Went to a market tonight - got a present for John and some stuff for the folks at the office. Also saw fried grubs, grasshoppers, and water bugs for sale at one of the food carts. And - I learned that the apparently random strings hanging from buildings aren't random. They are put there by monks as a blessing to keep ghosts away!

2008.03.14

Sick. Had to ask Karn to pull over on way to class this morning so I could barf. Very professional. 1st day of MedARKS. Rose from my death bed repeatedly to get the dang program to install, and to help people. Learning despite my grave illness. By the way the whole cold shower every day thing? Getting very, very old. Hate Thailand. And Thai food. And humidity. And the flu. Nothing cool happened today.

2008.03.13

Soooooo sick. Couldn't teach - made Aasim do it. Except when he chickened out. Fell asleep during class. Have high fever. Body aches. Delirious. Trip to Sri Racha with Ding for drugs. Chemist wanted to give me antibiotics but they only have penicillin and sulfa. Be dead soon. Hate hate hate Thailand. Except binturongs.

2008.03.12

Sick. Going to die. Hate Thailand. Except baby jaguars.

2008.03.11

Ugh. I am sick. I think it is bigger than a cold. Teaching is hard when your throat hurts! Happily, the students are still learning and having Aasim and Andrew here is a big help. We did more complicated stuff today, so that was fun and hard at the same time.

But who cares about that work-related stuff - today I got to hold a BABY WHITE TIGER!!!! How amazingly cool is that? Her name is Valentine and she is a 1-month-old female they are hand-rearing. They are (obviously) sort of casual about animal contact. Aasim got to hold her as well, but she clearly prefers me! ;-)

When we got back to the room this evening, there was a huge tokay gecko on the wall just inside the door. I was thrilled. Andy and I got several photos of her (we think she's a female because we've not heard any calling) before she ran away. Apparently her depth perception is skewed when running across a white field, since she crashed into a little bump-out on the wall. She was big enough that we could hear her footsteps as she ran, and we heard her crash too. She recovered quickly and fled behind the air conditioner.

2008.03.10

After an unpleasant 2:30 a.m. knock on the door from Karn, I learned that the Thai team was at the airport and unable to find Andrew. I didn't know Andy's cell phone # (turns out he doesn't have one!), so I called Cyd. "Hi Cyd - it's Elisabeth," Pause. "Why?" replied Cyd. Happily, while I was on the phone with her, Andrew found a pay phone and got ahold of Karn. With the help of a physical description of Andy from me, they soon found each other. I fell back asleep.

The first day of class seemed to go well; there are about 25-30 students. We had a little struggle with installation - to make ARKS work on thai computers, you have to set all the regional language things to English. Happily, Karn knew that so we were able to fix it. A little more dinking around with the ISF and we were up and running. It was hard to get used to - I would speak, then Karn would translate, and the students would stare. At least if I jumped around or slapped my head or shook my fist threateningly at the computer, I could get them to laugh... me and the Three Stooges, crossing language barriers! They were able to complete the exercises for today, and we finished only a tiny bit behind schedule.

Oh and I think I am getting a cold. Swell.

2008.03.09

Thailand, day 1. Arrived in Bangkok late on March 8th, and was met at the airport by Dr. Karn Lekugal, vet at Dusit Zoo in Bangkok. He and a driver took me to Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi, about an hour southeast of Bangkok. The zoo is huge, and most of the staff live on grounds. We went to the tourist accomodations, small rooms with AC and a bathroom - it was a bit odd that to get to my room, I had to walk through the public men's room, but oh well. I was happy enough to have a bed after my zillion-hour flight!

Awakened this morning to the sound of tokay geckos calling. Ate breakfast on a nice terrace overlooking the ocean (in the distance) and a nifty banana tree, which I photographed for Henry. Lots of geckos, butterflies, and wonderful bird calls.

After breakfast, learned that we were moving from the tourist to the staff accomodations. The zoo has a ton of houses, where - aside from the bathrooms and paths for walking - the entire floor is covered with mattresses. There are no kitchens or laundry or living rooms, just places to sleep. Thai people don't usually use toilet paper, so there are little vegetable sprayers on the wall beside each toilet (at least they are sit-down rather than squat toilets!).

Met Dr. Mitchell Bush and his wife, Lanna May. Dr. Bush is from the National Zoo in DC and is here for a few years helping train the vet staff. Toured the zoo with Ding Kongprom, the bird curator, and was thrilled (and sort of amazed) to be able to walk right up to Willy, a male Indian elephant, who was chained but not in an enclosure.

Later, I had some SPICY pad thai for lunch (my hosts laughed. Apparently, it wasn't spicy), then went into town with Ding to grab some bottled water, pop, cookies, and TP (vegetable sprayer?! I think not!) Then home to bed - after a quick scan of the house to be sure I wasn't sleeping on any of my house mates - like great big spiders or geckos!