Aniversary . . . Party?

After a quiet dinner for two – Massaman curry, peanuts with ginger and kaffir lime leaves, fresh cucumbers, a bottle of beer, and some sticky rice – eaten on the porch, we decided to take a walk for some fresh air. It was very dark along the river, since the street lamps still aren’t completely repaired from the flood, but a short distance from our house we could hear some gentle northern Thai music coming from a house with a few well-placed lanterns.

We approached the house slowly, wanting to spy for a few minutes on the music but not wanting to get pulled inside, but as we peeked out from a shadow we were spotted anyway. As expected, they called us up... and feeling good-natured, we went, despite not knowing the owners. Not expecting to see any familiar faces, we were first surprised to bump into Ajaan Catawood, an English teacher at the local high school we’ve worked with several times at various events. A minute later, as we reached the open porch where the "party" was happening, we were even more surprised to see that Por Or Samart, the principal at Robert’s small school, was one of the musicians.

Overlooking the river, on the dimly lit beautiful wooden porch, a pair of plastic mats on the floor were covered in different dishes of food, around which were seated about 10 people. Robert sat down on what seemed to be the primarily male side, and I sat down among the 4 women, none of whom I recognized. Drinks were poured (whiskey for Robert, water for me), and the conversation began.

Robert reports that his side of the mats covered many weighty issues, including the current generation of Thai youth’s lack of respect for hard work and the differences between Eastern and Western forms of Buddhism. (He reported that at one point, the man on his left attempted to make a "fulcrum" with his hands to show the comparison, but Robert’s Thai wasn’t quite up to the task of complete understanding.) For my part, the female conversation focused on simpler topics such as the time zone and weather differences between Thailand and America, the Thai foods that one can eat if one is vegetarian, and – slightly more advanced – the teaching of English in Thai primary schools.

Both of us enjoyed ourselves considerably for an hour or so before making a graceful exit. We agreed that it was not the anniversary evening we had been expecting, but it was nice all the same. After all, how many more wedding anniversaries will we spend on a stranger-turned-neighbor’s porch overlooking a river in rural northern Thailand?