Black fumes pour out of the songtaew in front of ours, nearly suffocating us all, but it doesn't affect me much. I am too busy staring at the green rice fields that fly past; the street-side vendors selling such exotic fruits as ngo, mamuang, saparot, and durian; and watching the "good luck charm" sellers dart in between traffic selling their wares. All this time, I am amazed at the differences and oddities I am finding every day in my new world. Thailand.
I've been in Thailand for nearly one month now, and I can't believe what I've learned. It's mind-boggling to think how I just got on an airplane one day and flew to the other side of the world to live for one year, absolutely unsure of anything that would be awaiting me there. Thinking about it this deeply right before departure would have made me second-guess my decision to be an exchange student, but I am oh-so glad that I didn't.
Everyday I find things that literally amaze me, almost to the point that I forget what I'm doing, and almost get hit by the crazy Thai traffic. Like 5-year-old Thai children buying kanöm outside of the school, then climbing into a big truck-turned-school bus, smiling at me with their baby powder smeared faces while wearing their school-issued bib to keep them from getting too dirty. Or biking through the country-side outside my town in the red dirt roads, watching water buffalos and jimmy-rigged water pumps pull the rice patties through another green year; throughout the bike ride, finding a gorgeous Buddhist temple every kilometer or so. Or, when I walk through the market, two blocks from our house, and I see eels swimming in buckets, or toads ready to be fried, or whole fried chicken (with heads still attached), and the toothless merchant grins at me, asking in simple Thai (they all know I can only speak the basics), "You want chicken today, no?"
Everyday I am amazed. Amazed by the temple out my bedroom window, amazed at my host-grandmother, getting up so early to cook rice for breakfast, so amazed at the genuinely kind people I encounter everywhere I go. Truly, I do live in Amazing Thailand.