THAILAND 1: The Breaking Point

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Driving away from the airport, our eyes squinted from the brightness of our surroundings.  “Everything’s so clean,” Justin observed with awe. 

“Didn’t I tell you that Thailand was great!” It had been 10 years since I had been in Thailand, but it was just as clean and friendly as I remembered. 

We spent the next two days in Bangkok frantically trying to purchase everything we needed for school which started in three days.  For some reason in our minds, it was a great idea to only pack for Nepal, and purchase everything else that we need for school in Thailand once we got there.  Our logic: We didn’t want to carry it all around with us while hiking through the mountains of Nepal.  Isn’t hindsight one - ALWAYS 20/20, and two - a real stinger as it slaps you in the face with the reality that should have been apparent in the first place?

The city is huge, people are bustling everywhere, and there are more modes of transportation than I can name.  We rushed around in shopping malls looking for garments that would fit us.  Quickly we discovered that finding clothes that fit would be more of a feat than we had anticipated.  Our dress code was strict and specific, and our budget was tight.  Justin and I were a head or two above the rest of the shopping crowd, which made for great navigation, but not so many purchasing options.  For the first time in my life I found my shoes in the XXXL section, and Justin would have to settle for the longest pants they had: classic Steve Earkle high-waters!  We managed to stay within budget, and on schedule.  Soon the craziness of the city was over and our flight to Phuket was leaving . . . on to school, a million expectations, and endless possibilities.

Since the day we got married, every one to three days we’ve packed up and moved on to the next location, but when we arrived at our hotel at the All Seasons resort in Phuket, knowing that we would be stationary for a full three weeks - we felt as though we were finally coming home.  “Can you believe we’ll be in the same place for three weeks?” I exclaimed happily to Justin as we entered our bedroom.  As the door swung open my expectations of a lush romantic paradise halted. . . “Separate beds, again!” I whined unhappily.  We had only slept in the same bed a few times in Kathmandu, and we were looking forward to lying down in a nice clean, comfortable bed and preferably the same one!

“Oh, well . . . we’ll just push them together. And we’ll talk to them about it tomorrow.” Justin said trying to remedy the situation. It was late and we were both too tired to deal with it at the moment.

The next day we rented a scooter and went grocery shopping.  We had a tight food budget to manage and eating out every day in ‘tourist land’ wasn’t easy on the wallet, but luckily we had a mini-fridge to keep some food in.  Phuket is a beautiful island to scooter around on, although the roads can be very dangerous if you aren’t an aggressive and confident driver.   Here, in Thailand, you drive on the left side of the road, you don’t adhere to the traffic laws (especially if you’re a bike), and there are a lot of people to constantly be watching out for.  Justin drove the scooter like he had been driving all his life; perfectly confident on the left side of the road and weaving in-and-out of traffic.  As I wrap my arms around him and we fly up and over the hills of the island I feel safe, a new sense of freedom, extremely happy, and on top of it all the ride is exhilarating!  But we can’t be out too long because tomorrow is our first day of school.

The first day of class passed by quickly, although with the morning came the sunshine which shone brightly over the nearby beach and beckoned us to shirk off our responsibilities and come out to play.  The atmosphere of the class was filled with excitement as everyone was anxious to be headed down the new road of teaching and living in a foreign country.  Only a few already knew where they were being placed and the rest of us waited anxiously, checking our emails regularly hoping to hear where in Thailand we would soon be living. 

The next morning during our lunch break, Justin ran back to class to grab his mug.  A few minutes later he walked through the door of our room a grim expression across his face, “Do you want to the good news, the bad news, or the really bad news?” My stomach sank, I already knew what he was going to say . . . my worst fear. 

“It doesn’t matter.” I squeaked through my already tightening throat. 

“Well, you . . .” he hesitated for a moment and looked at me already regretting what he was about to say, "You can’t legally teach in Thailand.”

“Legally? What do you mean legally?” I said slowly, already beginning to get angry. 

“Well, ummm . . . it is actually illegal for you to teach in Thailand.” He said looking at me, his face scrunched, as though my head might explode and my brain juices would splash all over him. 

“Because, I don’t have a degree?” I asked my tone bitter and filled with shame.  Not waiting for a response I started to argue my case with him, “BUT I ASKED that SPECIFICALLY BEFORE coming ALL the way HERE!” I inhaled a small breath that only fueled my fury, “MULTIPLE TIMES!”

“I know, and she [our teacher] said that we should send her those emails, because they shouldn’t have told you that you could teach here.” He said as though this somehow was the good news. 

“Illegal!” I mused angrily. “It being DIFFICULT to get a job without a degree is one thing, but it ACTUALLY being ILLEGAL is an entirely different story.” 

“Yeah . . . so, ummm . . .” he swallowed as though what he was about to say would actually cause the final explosion, “ummm. . . we won’t have enough money to live until I start getting paid if you can’t get a job here.  So, we should probably talk about whether or not you should finish school.”

I sank onto the bed and tears started down my face.  Not go to school?  Not teach?  How are we going to save enough money to go back home? What am I going to do? I can’t believe I got scammed! I came all this way. . . My thoughts swirled around in a hopeless downward spiral.  We hadn’t paid the final $1,000 toward my school, we were suppose to make the payment that morning, but the internet at the hotel was too expensive and we hadn’t made it to an internet shop yet.  “I guess we don’t have any other choice.  I just won’t go to school.” I choked on a sob, “There isn’t any point if I can’t get a job here anyway.”  The rest of the evening was filled with grave disappointment, and I couldn’t believe that I came all this way just to be duped. 

The next morning I awoke puffy eyed and somber.  “You should still come to class today, just until we tell her you’re not coming anymore.” Justin said sympathetically.  I grumbled in agreement.  We had spent the entire night spilling over all our documents, crunching numbers, and focusing on the contract that we had signed with the school.  Exhausting every possibility that we could think of and looking for any way out of the situation that we were in; we were tired, disheartened and still didn’t have an answer.  We just couldn’t accept that I wouldn't be going to school – there had to be a way to make it all work.

We dashed to class that morning dodging giant raindrops trying to avoid getting soaked before entering the air-conditioned classroom.  It was the last few days of the monsoon season, and it had decided to go out with a bang! The sky continued to dump sheets of heavy rain all the way up ‘til the first break.  “Want to grab a snack?” Justin asked.  I looked up at the sky, and since it had stopped raining for a moment, I nodded in agreement.  On the way to our room the grounds were flooded, we waded through the water to our door, and upon opening it we realized that the door had not been an excellent guard against resisting the advances of the water.  My heart sank.  Wet clothes that had been left on the floor that morning had been picked up by the hotel staff and placed on top of our computer, and our electronics bag dripped from our nearby side table. 

“Our documents!” I said rushing over to opposite side of the bed.  “Oh no! They’re soaked!” I cried out as I began picking them up and spreading them across the unkempt bed.  We had been told that we needed our original birth certificates, Justin needed his official diploma, and of course our passports.  They were all laying on the floor from the night before when we had been looking over them.  Shoulders hunched I plopped on a corner of the bed that wasn’t drying our documents, “I’ll clean this up, but it will make me late to class.  Just tell them our room got flooded. And I’ll be there when I can.”

I returned late to class, my chest tight, and my head constantly spinning with all the different possibilities.  I ran our finances through my head again and again – they never added up.  I didn’t bother listening to a word that was spoken in class as my entire focus was on the decision that needed to be made.  Anger, bitterness and trying to do the right thing rolled around and wrestled with my insides.  Advice began to come in from all sides as news of what had happened to us started to spread.  My headed pounded from the stress, and Justin had grown quiet and reserved.  Our instructor pulled us aside after class and informed us that her higher-ups were pressuring her for the payment, and that we needed to make our decision immediately; this added to the mounting pressure that we already felt.

By the time class ended my stomach was in knots, and my headache was threatening to turn into a migraine.  I had spent the entire day solely focused on making a decision and I was no closer now then I was the previous evening.  Justin and I picked up our scattered documents, tore off our wet sheets, and sat down to talk it over.  “I’ve made my decision.  I won’t go to school anymore.”  I started much more confident than I felt, and ended choking back tears laced with bitterness, anger, and resentment.  “There’s too much of a risk.  If we make this payment, we’ll only have a hundred dollars a week to live on for the next month and a half until you get your first paycheck.  We won’t have any reserve for emergencies, and if I don’t get a job – we won’t be able to afford to go home.” 

“Ok.”  Justin knew how difficult the decision was for me to make, but he also knew it was the only logical decision that could be made.  Until the moment he spoke that tiny word, I felt that I had been standing at the edge of a cliff, and a rope with a giant weight tied my ankles together; and now that he agreed - my fate was sealed and I fell forward off the cliff.  The embarrassment and shame that I didn’t have a degree, the guilt of not being able to pull my own weight, and the anger of being conned draped tightly around me, and I plunged onward toward the rocks where my dreams of teaching were already shattered.  The room began to close in on me, and my vision became tunneled toward the door.  All I could think to do was to escape from this moment, this room, these feelings. . .

I ran out the door not having the slightest idea where I would go, not speaking a word to Justin on the way out, and fighting back the torrent of tears that was pounding from within desperate to get out.  I walked down the road towards the beach.  I walked until I felt I was alone, and I dropped to the sand with dead, glazed over eyes and a heavy heart.  It was the first time I had seen the beach since we had gotten there, and it might as well have been a blank wall.  I stared for awhile expecting the tears to come, but they didn’t.  I felt numb, and hopeless for the first time since leaving home.  Even with everything that happened in Nepal, all of the disappointments, danger, sickness, and leeches; even during the moments of fatigue, and the heartbreak of losing our flute there was still hope that it all would come to an end, and that there was always Thailand after all.  But now, sitting on the beach in the Promise Land, knowing that I was the sole reason our time here would be very different and difficult, and the single fact that I had come all this way . . . so far from home.  I shook my head slightly at this thought.  There just didn’t seem to be any way out of this situation.  We don’t have the means to quit and go home, or to fly somewhere else.  We're stuck . . .

It is interesting how your mind-set makes or breaks your world; how it creates freedom or bars.  Living and working freely as I choose to, making a living, contributing. . . I am free, but take away my options, my choices, tell me that my hands are tied and there is nothing I can do. . . you may as well have added bars to my mind. 

Thunder rumbled across the water, the sky cracked open simultaneously releasing a down pour and awakening me from my self-pity.  Like the ebb and flow of the waves in front of me, my tears had ebbed and now began to flow hard and steady as the monsoon rains that drenched me.  Whether I sat for a breath in time, or for an eternity, time had become unknown to me.  I cried, releasing the past few days of anguish and frustration, my tears falling as one with the rain, dropping steadily and disappearing into the sandglass of time.