FIsh Farm

Well, here I am in Thailand, writing a blog to save and post later on as fast as I can, as my computer’s unrechargable until I can find a plug converter) battery slowly drains away. It currently has 20% power left…. Which gives me? A half an hour? Probably more…. We’ll see.

Blahhhh… soo much to write about.not enough time. Lets see if I can get it all down.

We went on a field trip to a tilapia fish farm the other day, where, instead of merely looking at the fish ponds and dully taking pictures of them, we actually helped farm the fish. The entire process and ideas behind the practice were really interesting.

It felt exactly like an episode on dirty jobs. I spent the day hip deep in muddy tilapia ponds, giggling with excitement as I helped drag nets across some very murky water to help gather fish. You do this systematically— lined in a row, helping drag a net that spans the length of the entire fish pond across the bottom of the pool . This way, you are able to collect as many fish as you can with out leaving  room for escape.

 The water in the ponds is about as deep as your hip, but when you’re helping drag a net, you crouch till its up to your neck. Your hands hold a lead wire, and you do your best to scrape it across the bottom of the pond. By the time you’ve reached the end of the lake, the net is vibrating with tilapia that are struggling to escape. They unexpectedly will leap out of the water, hoping to leap out of the net that’s surrounded them. At one point in time, a fish swam up my leg and leaped into my arm pit. I squealed, along with the people around me.
At the end of the lake, you lift your arms up from the water. All the girls arms look  awkwardly manly there is sludge that has stuck to your arm hair. A million fine little hairs, all stained black all over. I never realized that I had hair on my fingers until the other day.
None of the fish that I gathered in the net that day were ready to be eaten. They weren’t big enough. Instead, we merely transferred the fish we caught in to another pool, where they would have enough space to grow until they were large enough to eat. 
The main idea behind the fish farm revolves around maintaining the populations of fish inside the various ponds, so the fish are able to grow to a size big enough to sell for a decent amount of money. By sweeping the nets across the lake and gathering we were able to control the fish population in the lake to keep the area under control. We were also able to preserve the pond we had; if too many tilapia stayed in it, they would ultimately eat away all the resources until the pond was leached of its nutrients.
Other types of fish live in the pond as well, to help maintain a healthy ecosystem with in it. There were karp. Huge Karp. They were beautiful. For all you art nerds reading this out there- a combonation of deep and bright cadmium yellows, mixed with a little bit of ochre on the edges of the scales. Exactly like a giant, fat luminescent, goldfish. One of them was filled with eggs. She looked like a globe with gills and a head.

Also harvested fish eggs. You catch fish, and pry open their mouths. If they have eggs- they will barf –(seriously – they really barf it) up oodles of these tiny little yellow dots (Color: light cadmium yellow, white, and maybe a pinch of ochre and ultramarine blue to make it look a little brownish green in the shadowed sections) all over the place. When your fish starts to puke, you hold it over a net, and collect the eggs as quick as you can. Ted found a fish that puked. I was jealous. I myself, had enough trouble merely figuring out how to hold them properly before they slipped away from my hands.

Strange New Things

Oooooffff..... It seems to be harder to keep up with this blog thing than I expected. I've been meaning to write out something all thoughtful and good and edited and such- but it doesn't seem as if that is going to happen any time soon, so I guess I'll just type up somehting quick for now.

Spent the weekend with my host family. I am living with a chain of women. There is grandma-who I'm supposed to call Mom, (she's like 55 I think.. around my parents age...) and Pi Ahn  (the pi part means older sister... in Thailand you adress everyone as if they were a family member. So anyone slightly older than me I will adress with a Pi infront of there name.... any one younger than me I will adress with a Lom, for younger sister/brother, infront of it.  I think I'm supposed to adress all the non pi/lom folk as uncle or aunt.... but I haven't learned the word for that, so for now I just smile and nod...), and then Ahn's daughter Shaw. there are also Host mom's parents, who are old, live next door, and tend to appear in the house from time to time. Great Grandpa likes to wander in the house from time to time, and read the newspaper on the floor.

I have eaten, seen, and smelled the strangest foods here. Those of you who know me understand that the fact that I'm saying this means a lot. Thai markets are probably the coolest things ever. Everytime you turn your head, you see something new. Yesterday, walking down the street- I turned my head and saw a pigs head sitting flat on the table of a pork vendor, right next to a clothing store. (there were flies. It stared at me. I stared back. And longed for a camera.) Markets are filled with the strangest looking fruits. fruits I thought could never exist. My family bought a huge bag of these strange things that are red with a zillion stringy lime green spikes  coming out of it.Its this wieerd fruit, and I can't pronounce the name of it for the life of me. All I know is its title sounds a little bit like the sound of my cat when she's trying not to barf. But the fruit tastes wonderful. the bright red/ stringy green part is this waxy harder shell. You cut it open with a knife, and it reveals this whiteish clear intrior, thats sort of the shape of an egg. Kind of the color of a pupa or something... not to gross all you out or anything. Anyways. Its waxy, juicy, a little rubbery, and tastes sort of like a strawberry.

There's anouther GIANT spiky fruit that I tried that has a really creamy interior- like cool whip. A great texture. Unfortunatly, it tasted like a strange mixture of vanilla and garlic. peculiar... interesting... but lets just say its not my thing.

I ate cubed pigs blood in a soup the other day. And I'm pretty sure those funny wiggley things were intestines.
 Moments between thai class consist of a flurry of exclamations concerning the peculiar things we have eaten, seen, heard, and have been asked to do.
A girl in my class was telling me today how her host parents enthusiastically dug out a thai-english dictionary, so they could tell her that she was eating pancreas.
Pancreas.... I wonder how that tastes. Or maybe I already know with out knowing it yet.

Soooo.... we had our first physical fitness test today. and I had a massive asthma attack. Asthma- this new thing I seem to have developed, which I'd hoped was only a result of me moving from Michigan back to Colorado. HA.HA.HA. I was wrong. Day one of our lovely physical fitness training- where we sprinted all of 200 meters, and I sound like a squeeky toy from petsmart. Lovely, just Lovely.

On that note- I have agreed to go on a bike ride to a hotsprings this weekend! Up hill! With my neighboorhood's competitive bike team! I'm So excited!!!!!!!!! I'm Not Being Sarcastic here!!!!! I can't wait!!!!!! It's 60 km, but that can't be as long as the kal-haven bike trail- and Kaitlin and I powered through 20 miles of that in the rain on a shitty ass bike made for small children. So I think I got this covered. Plus, 55 year old host mom is going, and Pi Ahn- host moms daughter- is going to drive next to us the whole time( to watch us struggle? make sure I'm safe? i don't know) they're gonna try and get me a team shirt. I'm pumped.

Thailand- day one

Well- here I am in Chiang Mai after the plane ride, and first day- which was spent in a  hostel. I suppose I'm just going to type out some stuff I wrote on the plane, becuase I'm too tired to try and think right now.

On the Plane Ride:

writing to pass the time. I thought about trying to sleep again,  because I am tired, but the very thought of trying to doze off for yet a third time in that awkward folded position makes my legs and back tingle with discomfort. And so- awkae it is. for a little bit longer at least.
The iconic screaming infant finally just stopped. There's always one on every plane- but still, THANK GOD IT ENDED.
A breif commentary on the Thai Airline. Its the first dollop of different that has come to  me so far, and my eyes have been soaking up as many strange details I can possibly find. The seats are colorful-lavished with striking hughs of deep cadmium yellow, magenta, and plum. When I walk down the isles to my seat, I feel like a tropical bird has molted all over the interior of the plane. All those bright colors, fallen in the middle of the soft buisness colored airplane walls. Cool, man.
The stewardess is tall, slender, and beautiful. She wears a long skirt that traveles to her ankles, a deep purple cloth wrapped tightly around her body. ( Later, she changed outfits- but I forget what the second one was) She seems elegant, and nice.
They have menus for the food here. And the food is actually good, to. I just had this wierd cocunut chicken thing- its tasty!

I can't wait to step off the plane, step off the airport, and feast with my eyes. The first day is always the most artistic. Your eyes spot a million and one great things. mmmmm...... eye feast.

I don't feel nervous. Curious maybe- but not nervous. I wonder who my host family will be. I wonder how that will go. mmmmm... host family.

Yo.

So it seems to be the new thing to blog while you travel. So I am doing just that. Going to Thailand tomorrow and will write something more interesting while I'm on the 18 hour plane ride. Oh. And as for the title of this- its the first five words that I could think of. Sparkle marshmellow leprechaun frogface seemed way more interesting than something like KELSEY'S GOING TO THAILAND OMG. so thats what I'm calling this. yup.