Shockers

One year ago, I pictured my future self living in a Mongolian gurt or African hut, studying nomadic routes, digging trenches, writing novels in my abundant amount of spare time, and eating rare rat meat. Like most applicants, that was how I imagined the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. However, I find my present self living in a 1200 sq. ft. concrete house with sparkling tile floors. My nearest super store is 15 minutes away (by bicycle) and remains stocked with imported foods from the likes of Australia, England, and the US. During the week, free time is so hard to come by that I can barely keep up with this blog, let alone a novel. And I prefer to spend my weekends hanging out at the local swimming resort eating delicious phanaeng curry. Rare rat meat is never on the menu.

This isn’t exactly a life of sacrifice and hardship, ya’ll.

I did dig a few trenches, but even that didn’t go as imagined.

With blisters on my hands and sweat dripping from every pore, I thought to myself, ‘Now this is more like it.’ My work for the day was clearly defined, people understood my presence, and my biceps were getting some serious exercise. It was a scene straight out of a Peace Corps recruitment catalogue. The topic of my water cooler conversation, however, was most likely inspired by a catalogue presenting images of mail order brides. Not volunteers.

It all started after a woman grabbed my elbow. I was trying to drink a cup of water. The gesture was friendly and only slightly aggressive, but water spilled down my neck and I couldn’t help the sigh that followed.

“Yaak non gap luuk sao mai?” she asked.

Translation: “Want to sleep with my daughter?”

Wait. No. I’m jumping the gun. I need to give you a little more context. Let’s rewind five minutes.

My village held a week-long community clean-up event for the youth, which was a perfect opportunity for me to get acquainted with everyone and represent myself as their Community Development volunteer. I joined the women who dug trenches on one side of the street while the men kept to the other side. When conversation drifted towards girl-talk topics, I was not surprised. For the thousandth time, I was asked if I have a lover, if I’m interested in dating Thai people, and if I’m lonely. Everyone stopped digging and gathered around, me in the middle. For the thousandth time, I provided my standard answers: “No lover. Thai people are great but I don’t want a lover. I don’t have time, and boys give me headaches.”

Usually, that last part makes everyone laugh, but this time was different. They made a collective “oOoOo!” sound and turned to look at a blushing young woman, maybe eighteen years old.

Another question from the crowd: “You like girls?”

The crowd laughed, whooped, and hollered, but then they collectively silenced and leaned in, awaiting my answer.

“Uhh… Yeah, I like everyone. Wait, I think I do not understand…”

More laughter.

“My daughter likes you. She thinks you’re beautiful.”

“Oh, thank you!” I said, turning to the blushing daughter, “You’re beautiful too.”

More whooping and hollering. The all-too-familiar feeling that I was the butt of someone’s joke hung overhead, so I decided to walk six feet from the aggressive crowd and get a drink of water from the cooler. But the desperate attempt to switch things up was, of course, in vain. Everyone followed.

Bam. Elbow grab. “Do you want to sleep with my daughter?”

As would any level-headed female volunteer, I assumed she didn’t mean anything sexual by the question. Many Thai people sleep in groups. The more, the merrier. And they have a difficult time understanding why anyone would ever choose to live alone. But there was something different going on. It couldn’t have been that simple. Something was going over my head. Everyone was looking at me with wide eyes and impatient smirks. Something about this question was creating a cliff hanger.

A giggle was quickly stifled with a shoulder bunch. They were waiting.

I strategically responded with, “Mai dong bpen huang ka. Chop yu baan kon diao ka. Mai glua.” (You don’t have to worry. I like living alone. Not scary.)

The girls roared with giggles and two or three of them playfully slapped the blushing teen on her arms.

The mother did not seem satisfied with my answer. Several unfamiliar Thai words rolled off her tongue, accompanied by a facial expression full of determination. Towards the end of her comment, I was able to catch the Thai words for ‘beautiful’, ‘want’ and ‘lover’...

My stomach turned. I looked back up at the blushing teen. I realized she was in the center of a gaggle. Friends swarmed her and playfully slugged her shoulders. She was grinning from ear to ear, but she couldn’t look up.

My only thought was, ‘Holy shit.’

I managed to wiggle out of the situation with a passive return to the trenches, but my horror hung overhead for the following two hours. As I dug, I thought about the fascination Thai people have with foreigners. The primary basis of said fascination stems from an assumption that we are all born rich. Therefore, many Thai women literally hunt for foreign husbands. I realize this is not a flattering observation, but it exists nonetheless, and this fact has been clear since Day 1. But I never thought this observation would have any direct impact on me, a female. I never imagined I could be prey to the huntress.

At this point, I’m nearly five months in. Sounds like a fair amount of time, no? One might think I’d have things figured out by now, but that’s just not the case. I have so much to learn, so many surprises around each corner. My eyes will pop out of socket once a day. My jaw will drop 654 more times. And somehow, I find myself looking forward to each and every shocker. I just hope that's the last of the lesbian sexual propositions from concerned mothers... Once was enough.