A Frog Passes on a Life Lesson

You just have to laugh when you find yourself squatting over a toilet in the middle of nowhere. Laugh to keep from crying. Laugh, because there just may not be anything funnier than finding myself hunched over trying not to touch the seat of this outhouse.

I’ve only just arrived here. I don’t know where I am or really who I’m with. It’s pitch black; the only light I have is whatever’s illuminated from my headlamp. And the only thing I can see are ants…everywhere. They’re crawling around the base of the toilet and over the seat. I try to pee quickly and jump back before they have an opportunity to crawl over my feet. When I do, a giant frog leaps up from the drain in the floor and onto the toilet seat. Our eyes meet, and after a few minutes of taking each other in I reason with him.

You stay over there.

I’ll stay over here.

No sudden movements or all bets are off.

If you know me well, hearing that I’m on a farm, in the rural area that is the Burma-Thai border, having a tête-à-tête with an amphibian, you’d probably be like ‘eh, that sounds like Hana.’ I love being outside. I can rough it with the best of them. But even when roughing it, there’s something comforting about sleeping in the dark and knowing what’s out there. Here in Thailand, I don’t know what’s out there. Despite, a biology degree I can only make vague guesses as to the fauna that lay beyond my doorstep. That, unfortunately combined with vivid imagery of the bugs that seem to be a delicacy around these parts, frightens me. I’ll go charging into the woods at home because I know the worst thing I’ll find is a bear or mountain lion. Even more likely I’ll just come home with a nasty case of poison ivy. Here, I’m shit out of luck. I’m just another stereotypical dumb American.

So, standing in the corner of an outhouse I begin to reevaluate my choices. Where in my life was the turn that led me here? Here to the dimly lit concrete block with just a toilet and hose for showering. Where was the fork in the road that would have led me to the life that everyone else has gone on to lead? Maybe I do want the secure job, the picket fence, and the family. Maybe I do want to join the masses. Where is it in my genes that makes me so prone to situations like this? Why do I always seem to find myself negotiating with frogs in the middle of the night?! And the hardest question of all why do I seem to enjoy it?

I tell the frog all of this and he just stares unblinking at me. Somewhere though, on some level I know he understands me. Or at least, he sees me. But even he doesn’t want to hear me gripe. I open the door to the outside world and he leaps out making the turn in his road to continue to be a frog. Outside of the tiny brick house is a whole other land. I can’t really see it but I know it’s there. It sounds different in the wind than home. The trees are more tropical and are heartier in their movements. But the stars, oh, the stars are the same ones I’ve always known. They come as a set with the same moon I’ve seen every night before this one.

I know there was never any fork in my road. There was never the option of studying some practical subject and sitting behind my financially secure desk and white picket fence. There was never the off ramp to business school or 401Ks. There was never any other real option than to become a vagabond. That path in life that everyone else walks won’t fulfill me. Time has come and chipped away at my soul; and only standing in places like this, where I can see every star for a million miles, can begin to fill some of those cracks. I wish that I could make this more clear to those at home waiting for me to return. Sometimes I wish for them, that I would stop moving around and sit still and let them love me. But I am too selfish to sit still for anyone but myself. So until I’ve filled every crack in my life with something greater, I must keep moving.

A Dirty Hoe and a Handkerchief

From a dead sleep, I’m jolted awake. The haze of my unconsciousness hangs around clouding my vision. There a noise behind me. Wait, no it’s above me. It’s my roof. The roof is caving in! No, wait. I shake the sleep from my eyes and try to concentrate on the noise again. There’s a sudden loud scraping noise on my thatch roof.

It’s chickens.

There are chickens on my roof.

Simultaneously, my whole hut shakes like from an earthquake. The wood seems to shift under the pressure of this movement. Pumpkin, the pig, has stood up from underneath my hut causing the floorboards to buckle. She, also disturbed by the noisy chickens, takes the opportunity to shift in her wallow. Torn from my slumber I now hear everything. Horses in their stalls next to me, sheep bleating, turkeys wobbling around in the fields. Confused roosters crowing in the middle of the night. There’s a kitten that sneaks through the floorboards to sleep under my bed; I can even hear her purring having slept through the onslaught of farm noises. Too exhausted to shoo her out of my hut I roll back over, letting her be hoping that I too will find it easy to sleep.

Kitten sleeping under my cot

Pumpkin’s wallow under my hut

For those of you that don’t know. I’m currently stationary in Thailand. I’m WWOOFing. WWOOF is the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Basically in exchange for my sweat and tears I get a roof over my head. Even though in the summer Thai heat I often feel stupid for ever agreeing to do this, at the end of the day–I get the better end of the deal. I get to meet people from all over the world and see how others live their day to day life. Which was basically the whole point of my trip. Yes, I wanted a break from the U.S. and to explore an opportunity to see part of the world I’d only ever dreamed of. But truly the whole point of why I love to travel is to experience something different. Something totally opposite to my day to day life. The more uncomfortable I am, the better. The harder it is, the stronger I will be. And believe me, it’s hard.

It’s easily 125 degrees by the time we take our first break. Work starts at 6, sometimes earlier, to beat the morning heat. No need anyway, by 7:30 the sun is up in the sky beating down on everything. By mid morning we are all dizzy with sweat and fatigue but we press on until our task is done. We begin at 6:30 by taking care of the animals, we muck the stalls and the pins of the horses, sheep, deer, and chickens. We give food and fresh water and grass to everyone and then we, in turn, have our breakfast in our open air kitchen. Mama, always makes us a fine meal. She is the mother of the farm’s owner Arnon. They, along with the rest of the family and volunteers run the farm year round. They are up even earlier than we are and go to bed long after.

After breakfast, we begin our daily task. This could be anything that needs to be done around the farm, like maintenance or construction. Currently, we are clearing out an area over run with weeds to make a garden. Armed with a hoe and a handkerchief I get work. It’s easy to settle a restless mind when you’re weeding a garden in the sun. You can’t really think about anything but getting it done so you can puddle, naked in front of the fan in your hut. Determined, the group of volunteers has managed to weed a surprisingly large area so Arnon can grow pumpkins. ‘Sexy pumpkins,’ as he calls them.

Arnon is a kind man always wearing a smile. He speaks English very well and I am convinced he understands more than he alludes to. His favorite word is ‘sexy’ and he always reminds us not to ‘worry, be happy.’ This followed with his giddy laugh brings a smile to everyone’s face. He amazes me with his strength and determination. When it gets too hot in the afternoon he demands we get water, take a shower, and rest. We all do this gladly. But after my shower, I find him still weeding in the garden underneath the brutal sun. We take a lunch break, Arnon cuts more grass for the animals. We rest during our midday siesta (when it’s far too hot to do anything else), Arnon drives fence posts into the ground for the new cow pin. He never seems to stop and he never loses his positive attitude (and the man never sweats). It’s contagious, everyone here has different backgrounds and different outlooks on life but we are all happy to be in the company of such a brilliant person. We all congregate in the kitchen and chat about what our lives are like back home and why we’ve decided to put all that behind us and sweat underneath the Thai sun.

After lunch and a quick nap we are back to work at 3:30. We muck the stalls again, change their food and water. We put the animals back in their pins after letting them wander around all day. They reluctantly meander back into their stalls and seek shade.

For the rest of the day Arnon makes sure we have something to do. Chatpawai is a small town on the Burma-Thai border. There isn’t much to see but always something to do. He’s taken us to markets and into town. He lets us volunteer at the local school to teach English and at a refugee camp on the border (more on those later). On Friday, our only day off from weeding, he’s promised to take us to the local hot springs to swim and relax after a hard week at work. At the end of the day, the farm sounds lull me to sleep like a bizarre lullaby. Too exhausted to let them keep me awake, I drift off to sleep hoping no chickens crash land on my roof.