Picture left: Never a dull moment backstage at Simon Cabaret in Patong Beach Phuket where one can enjoy the best lipsing (=playback) theatershow outsite Greater Bangkok....
Picture right: Gong, our housekeeper since february, checking on the waterstorage behind our house on 15 Soi Manessi.
Called this second entry of Siam-Dutch Adventures, simply same same as before but then part 2 ;-)
If you think, is that all he has been occupied with in the last 6 weeks of 2009 and the first month(s) of this year, hell no haha... wish, in a sense, that was true! So, next to all as told before, in those first weks back in Thailand, next to getting papers signed by Kik & legalised in Bangkok by the Dutch Embassy AND the search and organising of the urgently needed medical treatment of my liver, we also needed to move house around the 1st of december, we were receiving friends from Delft same time and we received my sister and brrother-in-law for a good two weeks after Chhristmas.
This last visit felt more like comming home then I ever expected.
When one stays far away from ones natural habitat, for such long periods as I have been doing, then being able to spend so much qualitytime with ones own family and speaking ones own language, feels sooooo great, its hardly to believe! Quite unexpected haha.
I can assure you, its not at all easy for myself, but also not for Kik, having to communicate allways in for both of us a strange language... because english, as good as I might actually be able to express myself in it, is still and remains a foreign language. For Kik its even harder, because he never really learned to speak english on a level we in europe have gotten used to, not to mention the dialect the Thai in general speak with.
This makes communication one of our mayor obstacles.
Every one of you who shares or has shared his life with some person not from your own country (or language), knows what I try to say here.
Also I made the beginning with the first lessons of Thai... which in itself went quite well, but because of cancellation policies if one wants to cancell a lesson, even well in time, caused by accident or illness, is such that I had to decide after a while to stop taking lessons for a while because simply I didn't know when I was going to feel well enough, strong enough to actually follow a lesson effectively.
Knowing, wittnessing that my energylevels were dropping in a scary rate, and knowing that Kik isn't cut out for keeping house on top of some other issues, made me look like crazy for a housekeeper.
And ofcourse I wanted a gay housekeeper. Ergo, it took a while before I found a guy, Gong, who was highly interested to fill that position under the conditions I was willing to offer.
Gong is no stranger to me and Kik and is the friend of another friend of ours, Lin, who performs in the cabaretshow at My Way here in Patong Beach. Till early last year Gong did same, but health problems forced him to stop. Knowing all about such problems I offered him the position and he gladly accepted and now stays in our house and takes care of us, but mainly me, haha. Also he now also helps me/us with preparing our new venture, a theatercafe annec karaoke bar The Backstage here in Patong which should open its doors one of these weeks.
One of the first things he had to take care of was making sure our watersurply would be well taken care off. Till then we had a relative smal watertank which proved not enough to service5-7 people on a daily basis. And with a small baby, Satang (means small money) I wanted to be sure water was not going to be a non stop problem and headache!
So we organised an extra watertank, twice the size of the old one, to be placed next to the old one, so in effect our water storrage capacity trippled. Well, at least we now have much less waterproblems as before and so makes us all relax a little bit better ;-)
Unbelievable that what we take for granted in the West, that you can just open your tap and water flows, and not only water but in Holland also drinkingwater. Here your watersupply is not automatic and guaranteed... or you must be able to have your own well drilled on your property....haha, in which case you only have to worry about electricity for the pump to pump up the water from the well.... and also the electricitysupply is not guaranteed here.
It is a revelation how relaxed the Thai react when either one breaks down .... and I truly wonder how they would react in Holland. Knowing how sometimes panick breaks out there when by accident the electricity drops out for even half an hour, let alone for many hours... companies get sued, local governements climbing up the walls, etc. Here everybody is relaxed, take out the candles, and try to make fun out of a lousy situation.... even when it takes half a day or longer... and may it be water or electricity! Though when the electricity goes, in general people also stop having water because most waterpumps here who take the water out of the municipality waterpipes to the houses, run on... electricity... the pressure on these waterpipes is not allways sufficient to get the water to your tap, ergo, we also at times need an extra pump if we want to be sure that when the water flows it also flows in our storagetanks.
Well, and so we have lots of things which we still take for granted in the 'West' but are much less taken for granted here. By the way a lesson worth learning ;-)
ALso we experienced the unexpected death of 3 (young) friends within 2 weeks, which made me wonder for a while, how Kik and his friends manage to deal with that. Got the impression that I was smore impressed by it all then they are..... it seems, at least thats the expression they give you, that its a normal thing for them that friends die so young, early ... though on the other hand you see that they are impressed by it, and are truly sad and grieving. But still, the realistic way they deal with it, the normal part of daily life they make it, is also healthy for us westerners to experience. The deal with it in a respectfull but same time ordinary way and , as far as I can see, are not hiding anything about it.
Like with most things in Thailand when more then one Thai meet, food gets prepared and served... the most wonderfull food... which one eats near the coffin in the Temple here and when one turns ones head one also has a view on the crematorium of the Temple... all so wonderfully realistic and simple in approach, and it feels very very natural.
And in case the crematorium is working, if the smoke blows down on the tables, they just pick everything up and move all outsite the reach of the smoke..... one time I experienced just that and not knowing if I would be ofensive if I would get up and move, I waited till the Thai took the initiative to move... they have a longer tolerance level, and allways first wait if it keeps on blowing your way before they actually come into action... so for a moment my drink and food smelled of a burned stuffy barbeque... very hard to describe the smell.
And now its enough. One tends to wander off on all kinds of paths here while telling experiences, haha, and enough is enough.. for now!
Hugs to you all!!
And so we keep having our trials, tribulations, distractions, sadness, excitement, joy, stressfull and relaxing times.......
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