:o)

my flowers are alive

city girl country boy

this is a tale of discovery: of pineapples and jungles, and bread and pasta.

I started writing this few months ago and then forgot about it - so i'm gonna start again.

I work with a man named shoo, he's the site manager for our project, or will be when all is finished anyway. anyway, shoo has lived in khuk khak all his life - all 45 years of it...he has never been out of the country, and hates it when we have to go to phuket "i'm a country boy", he tells me frequently. he has many "gardens" around the province, and often goes and stays in his house while he works up there.

one of his gardens is quite nearby in khao lak, one day i had bought some papaya from the market - but it wasn't ripening so i was throwing it away - shoo saw it and said he'd eat it, and that we could get some more papaya form his "garden".

so off we went to pick some papaya - when we arrived i realised it wasn't a garden at all, but a huge section of the jungle. as we made our way up the hill i could see a wooden hut with a fire burning underneath, his brother was staying up here for the day, and would go back home to his family the next morning (they live about 1 mile from here).

off they went in search of papaya just for me, back they came with a basket full - what a great super market! i think i might introduce them to england - see how it goes down? not sure how we'd cope with all the snakes etc though. and i guess the lack of tropical climate would be a hindrance to my plan.

maybe i'll have a rethink.

on our way out of 'shoo super store' i saw a pineapple sitting on the ground, then a few more. then it occured to me that they were actually growing out of the ground. i think this might have been my biggest revelation since i've been here: pineapples grow out of the ground. who knew?

so that was my excitement.

the following week we went on a "staff outing", if you can all it that -me, the headmaster, boom (the woman who works in phuket) and shoo. In the evening boom suggested we all go out for a meal - so we went to a place called 'farang' (thats what us western folk are fondly [occasionally] referred to as) - this was thai/italien fushion food....can you imagine? it was actually delicious.

the headmaster was nervous about having farang food - he told boom that he was never sure what to order so was embarressed. he semed to like it though, but shoo was the funniest. one of our families funniest holiday memories is when katy would stand up to eat in restaurants when she really liked food - she would do it subconciously - just stand and dig in with great determination. well this very same thing happened to shoo in this restaurant. after mashing up his bruschetta and eating it with a spoon, we got to the second course. shoo was so excited he was practically pulling peoples plates out from under them to try each new thing - he loved it! i think this was the first time he had ever tried farang food, it was great to watch.

those were the two discoveries of that month - the thai country boy goobled down franag food, and the farang -previosly city - girl discovered how pineapples grew.

the end