The Right Kind of Hardship.

I didnt know at first that you could see the sea from my bungalow

I believe in suffering. Even a little fear is a good thing because it gives your heart a chance to work itself. Here in Thailand, I have found just the right degree and variety of hardship. Things are not easy or convenient, but I feel good and very relaxed.

Most people on Koh Samui dont walk as much as I (I actually haven’t found anybody who does). I bought a crappy bike for $30,  but riding it up hills has set my neck out of whack and forced me to visit Wit (Alison’s masseuse) every other day. So I walk. I walk at least 10K per day and sometimes more. I am now getting used to the hills and they no longer take my breath the way they did when I fist began walking nearly a month ago. The shortest distance is the one to school, which is nice, but because I miss the morning walk, I often get up early so I can go to the beach for breakfast. I discovered a quiet section on the beach road that I don’t know well and going there before school gives me the feeling of being on vacation that I preserve by not going there often. Its amazing how different things look in the morning, afternoon and evening. The night light really conceals the shittiness of the structures, but I like the morning when workers are slowly rolling up the metal doors that conceal their businesses and sweeping whatever gathered during the night from their doorsteps. Mostly I eat meat on a stick and sticky rice for less than a dollar for breakfast, but when I choose to sit down in one of the very few street-side cafes serving breakfast, I am overtaken with a feeling of being a tourist on this island and I like it,  but I must pay over triple the price of sticky rice and meat sticks for this feeling. I like counting my pennies too. Its part of the hardship I don’t mind enduring.

Water container (fish eye effect on camera…sorry)

I found a yogurt shop run by a woman from Isreal who makes yogurt without sugar. This shop is about 4K from my door. Jean (the owner) sends her children to our school, so she agreed to deliver and gave me teacher’s price. I purchased a glass jar and brought it to her to help reduce my consumption of the plastics that I am certain my landlord would just burn in the yard. I also discovered that the store up the road will deliver a large vat of drinking water for 100 Baht (about 3 dollars). I am very very happy about that, but Nadene is sending me a Britta filter and I may double filter it. You never know about the water here. Its an open sewer system that cannot really deal with the monsoon water and there are frequent floods. When I arrived last March to do my TEFL course, the system was spilling over into the streets and the shop owners spent many hours disinfecting their wares. Everyone says to have at least 3 days worth of supplies ready for emergencies and power outages. My student Chilly says things like “I like when the electricity goes out.” I’m with you Chilly. I really like her politics and her desire to also endure a little hardship.

Chilly’s parents (French mom, Thai dad) own a resort (the Jungle Club) up the mountain from me. I haven’t been up there yet, because its a very long walk up a steep hill and I walk for transportation, not pleasure or exercise (though these things are a by-product of my daily walking) but I hitch rides with Jungle Club workers on occasion if I see them going my way when I am exhausted and carrying too much. Yesterday Jack had me accompany him on his errands before he returned me to my own door. So I carried the hotel guest’s laundry as well as the spoils of my shopping. The best produce prices can be found in the open air markets where Thai shop and the proprietors rarely try to charge me western prices. I also prefer to eat at these markets even though the food sits out all day. I figure if Thai people eat it, so can I because they seem really healthy to me.

The other day while visiting Wit the masseuse, I discovered that in between the pain and tension I was feeling in my neck and shoulders were waves of love and good feeling that I didn’t even have full access to (I don’t know how to describe it exactly). It was then I realized that I wasn’t even quite giving in to that physical pain because I feel generally happy and content, but not exactly elated and that discovery very much surprised me. To be happy without trying, or without chasing romance or without suffering any strict standards of living (like by eating only this or that) –that is what surprised me, that feelings of happiness and true contentedness could just be by-products of enduring a suffering that resonates with my deepest desires and makes me feel acutely alive.