Rayong Bound

After what seemed like an eternity, with time creeping by at a glacial pace, suddenly, with the announcement of where we would all be going for the next 2 years, time has sped up and the end of training seems just around the corner, which I suppose it is.

Although we were as prepared as we were ever going to be, it was still somewhat of an abrupt transition to visit our sites this weekend (March 1-3).  After weeks of being surrounded by 49 other trainees and 20-some Peace Corps staff, of having almost every conceivable thing prepared and/or done for us, we boarded a tour bus, drove to Bangkok, toured the Peace Corps office and were then suddenly on our own, most of us traveling alone to site.  Most of our teachers had written out where we were going in Thai just in case we couldn’t make ourselves understood at train and bus stations. 

I went for lunch with some of the trainees who were headed in the same general direction.  And where did we go?  To a Mexican restaurant of all places.  It is interesting what Americans abroad miss, in this case, guacamole and cheesy burritos.  By the time we finished nearly half of the trainees had made their way to the same place.  The Peace Corps grapevine rivals 4G speed.

After lunch the 4 of us who were headed southeast went to the Ekamai bus terminal where we saw that the next busses for our respective destinations were all leaving in 15 minutes.  We bought our tickets in short order, bid one another a hasty good-bye and good luck (“choke dii” in Thai) and headed off to meet the communities in which we would be living for the next 2 years.