Geckos in my Cereal

When I woke up this morning, I decided to water my plants and sweep the front porch area. After I put a load of laundry in my new washing machine, I decided to eat breakfast. So the usual routine. Pour the milk in and then pour the cereal afterward. Not so easy today. Halfway as I poured the cereal, I saw a black thing come out of the box and then fall into the milk. I yelped like a dog as I let loose of the box and the rest of the cereal exploded out of the box. I looked closely and discovered it was a dead house gecko. I decided I wasn't on Fear Factor, so I threw the milk and all its contents in my bushes outside.

Moral of the story? Don't leave your cereal box out in the open in Thailand for more than a week, because some old house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) may find it a perfectly suitable final resting place. TITH (This is Thailand).

A Jumping Spider

 

This afternoon, after I came back from the morning market, I spotted this little creature as I was hanging up my pitcher plant. She was quite striking and had interesting iridescent markings on her back. I fancied for a moment that I discovered a new species of spider and ran to get my camera. I just found out though that it has already been named and researched. Darn, better luck next time. 

In case you were interested, this little female (sexual dimorphism noted, females have a larger abdomen with more iridescence) is a Phintella vittata (C.L. Koch) 1845. She is a jumping spider and her relatives live all around Southeast Asia. It's nice to have such interesting creatures in my front yard.

The Little Boy with the Champak Flowers

 

Amidst the heavy traffic in Bangkok, I decided to head back to my hotel in a tuk-tuk. At a large intersection under the freeway, the tuk-tuk stopped as the light turned yellow and red. The driver shut off his engine and just stayed still. While I was staring out into the Bangkok traffic, a little boy came up beside the tuk-tuk. He looked like he was about seven or so and he was selling champak flowers in little bags. I was surprised because one, he was in the middle of a large road just walking around, and two, it was 9 PM at night. I bought a bag of flowers for 20 baht from him. 

I kept thinking about the little boy that night as I lay on my bed and the fragrance of the champak flowers filled my room. I thought of the contradiction between the hip “hi-so” Thais walking around with their large shopping bags and looking very much like they came out of some soap opera and the little boy, the little boy who was selling champak flowers in the middle of the road at night. Such a dichotomy should not have shocked me for I know if its existence, but after being exposed to the high life in Bangkok due to my family's visit, it was startling. 

The sight of the little boy was even more profound because I am a teacher. He looked like he could have come straight out of my Matayom 1 class. He should be at home watching cartoons, reading a book, or doing homework, not selling flowers in the middle of the road. He should be enjoying his life, because he won’t be young for long. I worry where he will go or who he will become when he grows up, just as I worry for some of my students in the lower level classes at school. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see the little boy again. I couldn’t do anything for him really, and the 20 baht will just be like air. All I could do was to say, “Chok dii na,” as he thanked me and went on his way. I hope that I can help my own students within one year to guide them toward a good future. 

Impromptu competitions

Here's a photo to show I'm still alive...once again. There are impromptu speeches in Thailand (which are not really impromptu since the questions are given beforehand), but more so, there are impromptu competition (which are really impromptu). I found out that in addition to training one of my students, Pipe, in an ASEAN speech competition, I was actually also supposed to take him to the competition by myself which was in Phitsanulok. I was informed of this latter fact 20 hours before the trip, and not by my teachers, but my my own student! Anyways, I was able to help Pipe and after two rounds of speeches and many bouts of near-nervous breakdowns, he got 3rd place in all of Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, Tak, and Uttaradit. Not bad at all.