Too old for camp ?

Our group spent this weekend in a village in the mountains near Chiangrai, with the Lahu people. Picture West Virginia, Thai style. Okay, bad comparison. My point is that there are no Wal-Marts nearby, ugh. Alright, probably that's also a bad way to describe it. Main ideas: beautiful mountains, as well as palm and banana trees, surrounded us, modern-day plumbing did not, we slept on hard wood floors for three nights in a row. Addendum to the main ideas: I was sick (pukey, squirty, and fevery) the first full (Fri)day there, so I actually got to spend three nights and one full day lying on the hard floor. I had been really looking forward to the weekend as a chance to be on an adventure with friends and to have slumber parties under palm trees and bright stars, but I may have set my expectations too high (though those things did, kind of, happen).

I'm not one for homesickness, but I haven't been that ill in over four years, so at 5am Thursday morning I sobbed on Kaitlin's shoulder because of my belly ache and heartache for a bed and a mama. The worst part about Friday was being ostracized from what ended up being the highlights of everyone else's weekends: the fishing and the hike through jungle-ish territory. Not to worry though, each time loneliness made me start to feel sicker, Kaitlin and/or Evelyn would come to check on me and update me on any new important events that I missed. Friday evening, Gavin, Alex, Ev, and Kait brought me some rice in a banana leaf and sat with me while I ate and giggled with excitement at seeing four beloved friendly faces that I had missed so dearly all day long.

The weekend did not prove to be life-changing for me as we were told it would be, but it sure was nice to have time to think, and I know my mom will be happy to know I actively missed her. How's that for optimism?

Tonight we returned to campus around 4pm, and some friends braved the "asking host parents' permission to go out" realm. All went quite smoothly, and Gav, Kait, Ev, and I made it with little difficulty to the "Walking Street," a large Sundays-only-market-type-place that offers all kinds of foods and clothes and bags and jewelry and trinkets for very cheap. Many of the merchants seem to target farang (=foreigners) with more primitive-looking merchandise, while several others clearly attempt to appeal to the Thai people by providing more Western (yes, meowch) paraphanalia. Last Sunday I went with my host sister, May, and I noticed that we were each attracted to opposite kinds of things: she to shiny clutch purses; me to earth-toned shoulder bags sold by an individual claiming in the few English words she knows that her products are hand-made, hand-made, so she will settle for a price no less than 260 baht.

Thanks for the comments and response emails, it's nice to know people are reading and enjoying. Send any comments/questions/suggestions to the mailing address below. Be on the lookout for my upcoming articles published in TIME magazine, their annual "visit a third-world country asap because it's hip" issue.

LYLASABADAMAGAFABFF. No more getting carried away, I promise. Oh eight.