Exploring My Town

It's been almost two months since have I departed Texas and I've had many people ask me if I've been homesick yet. Surprisingly, the answer is not really. Of course I miss my family, friends, and dogs, but I haven't had the feeling of extreme sadness or the thought of wishing I was back in Texas.

Although I haven't felt homesick yet, there have definitely been days that are harder than others. I've caught myself in moments of sadness and anger which is usually followed by a few tears.

When I moved to Thailand, there were very few restrictions due to Covid. Life was pretty much back to normal here- bars were open, traveling across the country was safe, and schools were fully functioning in person. The day I got out of quarantine, a major spike in Covid cases hit my town. There has been more than 10,000 cases in my town since December 15th, which required my town to completely shut down. Schools, restaurants, malls, and even parts of grocery stores instantly became closed unless deemed as essential.

Police check points have been put into place to limit the amount of people leaving and entering Samut Sakhon. Our province is currently the only province in Thailand that is still considered "Maximum Controlled".

Because of the closure of schools, I have not begun teaching. Because my school is the nursery and kindergarten campus, our kids are too young to fully learn through Zoom so I have not been needed at my school much. I go to the Kindergarten campus once a week to record a video for the students but I spend most of my time at the bigger campus where I live. I'm so thankful they have given me the opportunity to create lesson plans for other teachers so I can still get paid. This is a huge blessing.

Because of the outbreak and being from Samut Sakhon, we can't do as much as we had once hoped after being released from quarantine. It's nearly impossible to travel anywhere because our passports now state that we live in Samut Sakhon and booking a hotel, hostel, or airbnb requires proof of your passport.

Those moments of anger and sadness are not because of feeling homesick, but because of the situation. It's a hard reality to face when you can't leave your small town and even simple tasks such as getting groceries, shopping, or eating at a restaurant are extremely challenging.

We have been making the best out of a not so great situation. We have been lucky enough to sneak away to Bangkok a few times but here are a few things we have been doing in our down time!

We have found a few of our favorite local "spots". Which include a nice coffee shop for takeaway coffee, a guy who cooks the best chicken fried rice, and the sweetest lady that makes tasty soda drinks!

This is the campus that we live on. It's the larger campus but offers so much for us. It has a pool, soccer field, exercise room, a little track to run on. We have spent quite a few weekends hanging out at the pool and grilling out.

We've traveled into Bangkok just a few times and ventured out to the mall. The malls here are between 5-8 stories and are extravagant. We even decided to go to the movies just for the experience. We saw the movie Soul (Disney plus doesn't work in Thailand) and the movie was in English with Thai subtitles. This experience was very similar to going to the movies at home except during the previews, there was a tribute to the king in which you must stand.

Most nights, we have "Family Dinner" in one of our rooms. Typically, we go to the market and all order something different that is unknown to us. We spread out all the market goodies and then all try each other's food. Family dinners always include a lot of laughs and is a great time to talk about the day or how we are feeling.

Overall, some days are better than others. It seems like some of the restrictions are easing around Thailand. It sounds like schools will be fully operating soon so that's exciting.

Stay tuned for another update- hopefully about school!