By LizGoodwin04
As part of my study abroad program, we stay with 6 different host families in various rural villages for a week each over the course of the semester. This past week, we stayed with a host family here in Khon Kaen, just 15 minutes away from where we are taking classes. While we spent the evenings and mornings with our families, we spent the day at classes here on campus. Though it wasn’t a complete immersion, this homestay was like a test-run to get us acclimated to staying with a family and improving our Thai.
I was paired with another American student in my program to stay with our host family, who lived in a neighborhood called the “4 Region Slum,” for four days. My family was huge and we spent most of the time trying to figure out just exactly how everyone was related. The other part of our time was spent desperately trying to understand what was going on. I thought I could understand basic Thai phrases until I realized I couldn’t even understand when our Meh (host mom) asked us “Chao mai?” (Early, no?). I just stared and went to my go to answer “Ka!” (Yes!); hoping of course it was an appropriate answer to respond yes to. In another embarrassing instance our Meh spent 10 minutes telling us to “Nang!” or in other words, sit down. Whereas, we spent those 10 minutes walking around the room asking “Nang?” while pointing at the garbage then “Nang?” while pointing at the food and finally after walking outside and noticing the bench “Oh, nang!”
On the last day of our homestay, the program arranged for an exchange with the students and our host families. There was a translator at the exchange so we could tell the families everything we had wanted to say, but didn’t know how and also so we could ask them questions about their community. During the exchange we were able to learn more in depth about how the community was founded, as well as how the community will progress into the future. Right now, a railroad track runs along side the community and during the exchange we learned that there are plans to expand these tracks 20 meters on either side to build a high-speed railway. By expanding the railway, every family in this community would be displaced and would lose everything they ever worked so hard to achieve. During our stay our family was so generous and kind. They had patience with us when we couldn’t understand anything they were saying, they took us to the market with them at 4 am and had a monk bless us, and then even invited us back to stay with them later in the semester. Although it was heartbreaking to learn that this development project could displace them in only a few months, it was inspiring to learn that they are currently in the process of organizing to send a representative to the Department of Transportation in Bangkok to fight and stop the expansion of the railroad.