It feels like family

March 30 2016 

Pa Cha An had eight children (I think). Her youngest daughter is Tia and two days ago Tia’s husband, Pla, died of stomach cancer. Tia and Pla have two young children. They live about two hours out of Bangkok. The services will be on Saturday and I think all the family will go there for the services. Pa Cha An no longer can travel so a nurse will be with her here in Phetchaburi.

Today when I went up to the house, Noi, one of Pa Cha An’s sons, had laid out a number of items on the dining table which is outside. I assume this is a ritual for the deceased. I came back to our house and asked Ron to take some photos. Linn is Noi’s first wife. Although they are divorced they both live separately on the property as does one of their daughters, Ae and her son Hope. Linn takes care of just about everything here: housekeeping, laundry which she mostly does by hand, the cooking and some gardening. She asks to do our laundry while we are here as a way to earn money and I am glad to let her. Everything comes back ironed including pj’s.

Pa Cha An and her late husband owned a lot of land in the past. Much of it has been sold and developed with private residences. There is still a large plot across the drive that is Pa Cha An’s property. If I understood correctly, Noi and Linn have planted a banana grove as a business venture on part of the property.  That is Linn with me in the photos. There are over 100 trees. In addition much of the land has been cleared for Ae, Ai and An, Noi and Linn’s three daughters. Nit, another son of Pa Cha An’s has also cleared land for himself. He is single and works in Bangkok as an accountant. Today Linn gave us a tour of the new ‘development’. It is amazing. We have been coming here since 2005 and that land was fallow, a tangled mess of shrubs and weeds. Not anymore. The various family members have worked very hard to make the cleared land a reality.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this but none of the people who live on the property speaks English except Ae who speaks a little. Yet all of us are able to express our love and appreciation for one another. We can communicate enough to get by. Often Linn or Ae will surprise us with a meal which they bring down to our house. Ae brought us breakfast one morning, Linn brought dinner one night. All this from people who live close to the ground with very little if any income. Ae works in a food factory and Linn has no income. They share a room and a bed in the big house. Hope has a room upstairs. Noi lives in a little house next to ours. Nit comes on the weekends and stays in a room in a separate building from the big house. Tui, another daughter who is a nurse practitioner in Bangkok, also comes on the weekend and stays in the big house. Tui also speaks some English. Tui is the one who takes responsibility for the financial matters of the household and it appears she helps out various members of the family.

Today is our last day here. Tomorrow we drive to Hua Hin, about an hour away and turn in the rental car and get taken back to Bangkok. We will go by Leslie’s house to pick up our luggage and have the driver take us on out to the airport. Our flight is at 8:00 p.m. and we arrive in Ahmedabad at 2:00 a.m. Friday with one stop on the way. 

Ron has received his initial schedule from the dean at CEPT university and fortunately his first meeting isn’t until noon on Friday so we can sleep in. After his first meeting I will join him for lunch then he has meetings the rest of the day. Saturday we will look for an apartment and Sunday I think we are on our own to start exploring Ahmedabad. Ron will hit the ground running on Monday. Looking at the schedule it appears that the dean has already done some ground work and Ron is thankful to see that they are ready to get down to work. He doesn’t want a repeat of Rep of GA where there was little to do.

We started to pack today, will go out for our meals today and get up tomorrow to spot clean the house, take out the trash and clean out the refrigerator and take any leftover food items to the big house before leaving.

We are eager and excited to get to India. Frankly it has been a bit of a slog. Over a year ago Ron was invited to be on the proposal. Last March he was told it venture probably wasn’t going to happen as the two entities were so far apart on terms. Then in early October Ron was told the venture was back on and that was six months ago. So you can understand why we are eager to get there.

We are grateful we were able to come to Thailand first to see Pa Cha An. She is not in good health, is bed ridden and at 92 her time on this earth is limited. We wanted to see her and have been able to visit with her daily. She speaks no English and our Thai is so limited I hesitate to say we speak any Thai other than ‘hello, thank you, delicious’, etc. However that has never stopped us from having a good time together. A few years ago she lost her sight and now it seems her hearing has diminished. We stand by her bedside and hold hands and chat away. She always rubs Ron’s arm and pulls on is arm hair because he is so hairy and she knows it is him. Thai’s has no body hair to speak of.

This has been our shortest visit in a very long time. Our last visit we stayed for three months and I hope to do that again in the future but now it is onto India.