The Word of the Day is "Jintana"

This is Eem. He's one of my favorites. On Tuesdays all the kids wear traditional Thai dress: silk.
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Today was my last day at the wat and at Baan Kok Yang School. The last two days have been amazing and exhausting, though neither of these words is right, and to try to explain them in this space will be inadequate.

First off, my association ("friendship" would be incorrect and inappropriate) with the head monk has become exponentially closer, since three days ago when he sat so close to me I had to back away out of respect. Nyana, the teacher at the wat, doesn't speak very good English at all, and the monk hardly any, so conversations are interesting. He looked at me, asked something in Thai, and Nyana said, "He wants to know you are here happiness." I smiled and said, "Yes, yes, I am happiness here." Then he asked some other questions which took about a half an hour to translate among the three of us. It was nice, and after a month of cultural snafus and ugly wais, I was grateful that he took the time to talk to me.

See??
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Later at school, I taught second graders parts of the body. When I pointed to my fingernails, I said, "FINGERNAILS." When I pointed to the nails on my feet, they all shouted, "FINGERTOES!!!" which is what I'm going to call them forevermore.

The next day, the wat had the gift-giving, and I was so freaked out by all of the ceremony that attends the giving of a gift that I seriously started shaking. It was the most monky the monk had ever been, and at that time, sitting for the first time below him, as is custom though he had never before made a point of sitting higher than me or anyone else, and on my feet as I should have been for the rest of this entire month, I recognized the place he holds in his village and in his wat, and he stopped being the monk in the saffron robe and became a tiny bit god-like. It was all a bit too much for me, as maybe this whole month has been, though not in a way that I haven't been able to handle, more just that when you are born into one culture and one place, the rest of the world becomes a series of pictures in books, and to find myself in the picture was not what I thought would happen.

The monk offering me a gift. It was batik cloth made by one of the teachers' mothers. He placed the gift box on a gold bowl, and then I reached for it with my right hand. I probably should have used both, but I think the right hand is fine. The left, though, no (they wash themselves with their left hands).
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I received batik cloth made by one of the teachers' mothers, with bright manatees on them. Manatees, which I have always, always loved, and which I will one day keep in the bathtubs of my home, are the mascot (not the right word..."symbol" is closer but not right either..."spirit animal" maybe?) of Trang. They call them "dugong," which Kelly said is what some people in the US call them, though I've only heard "manatee" and "sea cow." The gift, quite frankly, looks like a cheap cloth you'd buy for 40 cents at a fabric shop, but then it has the name of the woman who made it, and this Buddhist calendar year (2549) at the bottom, and I will keep it forever, of course, because as we have already discussed, I am pathologically sentimental. But I think anyone would keep this. It's bad karma to toss the gifts that monks give you. Speaking of which, I found out yesterday that when monks give you food, it's a big deal. They've been giving us food for two weeks. It wasn't until I told Pong and he made a very impressed face that I learned that we probably should've been more effusive in our thanks when they slid us fruit.

Me and Kelly and kids and Monk.
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Today I said goodbye to the kids at the wat, which was hard. Kelly was sick today (the heat and the food finally getting to her too), and so I was alone when I have to leave. Nyana must have explained that I was not coming back, because when I left, the children followed me to the gate, wai-ing and waving. When I started to walk to the truck that takes me to the primary school, two of the girls started to cry. I came back and gave the kids hugs, and told them things they didn't understand because I don't speak enough Thai so instead spoke English, and one of them, a quiet and serious boy who has never made a point to climb on me or throw blocks at me or talk to me, put his hand on my forearm. I thought he was just touching me, so I put my hand on his head. He reached again for my arm, and with one of his hands held the back of mine long enough to place his right hand the way he wanted it: in a handshake. Thais do not shake hands, and I have no idea when he learned to do it, but it signaled to me the time to leave: the lump in my throat grew too big, and I just couldn't be there anymore.

The Head Monk before his wat's Buddha image. This picture, big deal.
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There was another, smaller, more emotionally manageable ceremony at the school--I received a batik shirt in a bright lime green which must be visible from space, and a necklace. But I also received my Thai name, which was given to me by the teachers. Thais have nicknames, as I've explained in another entry, and mine is similar to my English name. It translates as "thought" or "imagination."

It's Jintana.