Part of the curriculum in my studies at WBU includes frequent field trips to study village life. These usually last no more than 3 days (that

Ahh Mr. Natural welcome to the Isaan village class. I to have just completed some to the class requirements myself. So far I have passed numbers 1,4,5,8,9,12 although I guess I passed 10 but that is doing maintenance around the house (wiring, cutting grass, vehicle maintenance, etc.)

Your well on your way my friend. But hey it could be worst...you could be back in falangland

3 days... I salute you. After 3 hours I get the shakes, 4 hours I get mild hysteria and start giggling at everybody, 5 hours I sit rocking back and forward banging my foot on a chair like John Mills (Michael the village idiot) in Ryan's Daughter.

Hey, you missed out eating those bugs that were eating you a few minutes ago are bloody good eating, especially with a rice whiskey.
Bloody good way of losing weight...replace the beer and chips with raw rice whiskey and water chasers and all the hopper type bugs lighty roasted (taste the same as chips when done well) and a couple of kilo's can be lost a week...and a bit of upstairs functionality...but hey TIT...gotta love it....

I don't think this qualifies for a WBU course,just life experience in an Isan village!

I must be staying with a different village family from most of you blokes. Mine as I have previously advised consists of the parents of 86 and 84 and their 11 offspring who range from very poor though to substantially well off. The siblings last year contributed in cash or in kind to build a new house for their parents to replace the previous one destroyed by termites. The richer siblings take in the poorer kids of the family and house and financially support them through their schooling and university.One young lady is studying (cooking) in Oz and I was appointed her "daddy in Melbourne" on behalf of her real father in Issan. It is an honour which the family treats seriously. When I cooked farang food for the whole family a few months ago, the very polite children helped me, and the entire family was delighted at my making the gesture to repay some of their many kindnesses. As I say my Thai family must be different from many of those written about here and I truly love and respect them all.

Our village must be upmarket, OK the locals sit on the floor to eat but not where the animals have been or the children 'relieve' themselves.....and theres always clean mats laid down first. They always use spoons from the communial food bowls, then their fingers off their own plates.
I will agree I don't like to see the babies peeing in the street but the same thing happens in the western world, and the older kids are always polite to me and the TW, she gets a wai from most if not all of them
There's always bedding fluttering in the breeze around the village
I can't think of any of the older girls who aren't in higher education, apart from one who went off the rails and got herself pregnant, she now works at the local village shop.
OK the usual Thai things do occur, the bug and fried fat eating, the total lack of safety procdures, playing the local lottery and sleeping on the floor but that IMO is all a part of the charm of LOS.

All in all I must live in a different environment........

you have been paying attention to the lectures and field trips, very good. i was at the same school, different campus, Ban Tad. very little difference, and the same at most houses in the village. especially the kids getting sick, respiratory, due to dirt, chicken dropping, the dust just gets kicked up and they are so low to begin with, they suck it in. kid use to go to grandma, or kindergarten, and the next week would be sick, vicious cycle. solved by no longer going to village kindergarten or grandparents.

good luck with the rest of the classes. since you love the campus so much, remember this when asked to build a house next door. live as far from in laws as possible, unless you enjoy living with them. when comes time to sell that house, you need someone who also want very quiet life, which i enjoy, or another student at that campus to take over your dormatory.

the older kids were very respectful and well behaved, but it seems younger than 5 were completely unsupervised, would wander and do anything. drove me crazy, especially when the visited my house. watch your kids or don't bring them. you can tell the village loved me.

Kudjap or Bust wrote:Our village must be upmarket, OK the locals sit on the floor to eat but not where the animals have been or the children 'relieve' themselves.....and theres always clean mats laid down first. They always use spoons from the communial food bowls, then their fingers off their own plates.
I will agree I don't like to see the babies peeing in the street but the same thing happens in the western world, and the older kids are always polite to me and the TW, she gets a wai from most if not all of them
There's always bedding fluttering in the breeze around the village
I can't think of any of the older girls who aren't in higher education, apart from one who went off the rails and got herself pregnant, she now works at the local village shop.
OK the usual Thai things do occur, the bug and fried fat eating, the total lack of safety procdures, playing the local lottery and sleeping on the floor but that IMO is all a part of the charm of LOS.

Sounds like ''The Village Suburbia'',little higher up the ''class''ladder with more income

It sounds like a "day in the life" to me. That's why I couldn't live in the village! Like Irish Alan 3 hours is my limit, though I did once go on an endurance course and managed 3 days.

Or...you could write a book:

http://www.bahtsold.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2874

Thanks all for sharing your knowledge. Sound like there is a variety of situations out in the Isan communities.
The two main things that would keep me from moving onto the home campus full time is the lack of basic cleanliness and the constant barrage from the unruly children in the household.

My teacher has a 20 month old son. They stay with me in Udon often to ensure I'm doing my WBU homework. After completing this course I am considering either taking my teacher and her assistant off of the campus to set up private tutoring or building a annex close to the home campus.

However, I have vowed to myself to take this course slowly to ensure I've learned and fully understood all of the lesson at WBU.

I have seen and heard many situations involving ''sons'' or ''boys''being raised differently than girls that could be a problem for you.

Some are:no discipline,spoiled rotten by the women of the family!Sometimes ,the family interjects themselves into your personal life through the raising of the son.I know several situations where there is conflict between the falang that wants the boy to become more independent and responsible sooner than the family that dotes over him and does everything little thing for him!

Understandinf the preface to this course,might make it a little easier to understand and graduate!

i could never live the village life, and a village where the inlaws live to me is like commiting financial and emotional suicide, about 70 kilometers away ive found just right, close enough for a proper visit, without them living on your doorstep and out of your fridge. and worst of all telling me how i should live my life, which usually equates to what they want or need. i may not pass the W B U coarse but ill learn to live with the dissapointment.

Your observations are all too famialiar.

I hope you are resisting the temptation to correct their situation. They have lived this way for a long time, as have their parents. What may seem inappropriate to you might actually be most approrpriate, given their environment and situation.

Some of the things I initiated in my wife's village while I lived there, such as getting the family to use a water filter, wear motorcycle helmets, and run the light on the motorbike worked pretty well. Others, preiodically dumping chlorine to the water well didn't go over well at all (ruins the flavor!).

Observe, enjoy, and appreciate that everything you were taught as a child might not be true in all cases.