Fragrant, Twitchy and Tongue Tied.

I'm on the highway to......

                                                                    

The 30 minute car ride to my new apartment was a blur.  I tried to focus on making a good impression while stealing glances out the window in order to begin absorbing my new surroundings. It was a lot flatter than I expected, resembling faintly the horizon view of my prairie hometown, except the colors were different. It was a blanketed color of lush, rich green. Where there were fields of wheat or canola back home adding hues of golden yellow, there was only green palm tree fronds, green rubber tree leaves, and covering the earth was thick green vegetation that I imagined was full of snakes and giant scorpions.
This bright green was only dulled by a few streaks of brown. A dead palm frond here, couple tree trunks there.
 Occasionally, there was a shock of red earth. The wind gently lifted the red dust and it mixed in with a transparent heat wave shimmer which danced over and around anything stationary. 
 I suddenly realized that my new boss was speaking and turned my gaze to him just as he said, “So, that is about eighteen hours.”

Confused I apologized, “Sorry, I missed the first bit. Eighteen hours of what?”

I saw a quick flash of doubt enter his eyes. “I was explaining that you will be teaching eighteen hours a week.”

 I made a quick, lame joke about how, when you are used to forty hours a week, eighteen must feel like a walk in the park. A flicker of mischievous humor crossed his lip as he replied “Yes, pretty much a walk in the park. Except it is over 35’C in this particular park.”

I held my arms closer to my body, so my fashionable sweat stains were less noticeable, and attempted a fearless laugh, but I was pretty sure he could smell my fear just as easily as he could smell my traveler’s perfume.

The car grew silent for a while and I was free to study Thailand from the car window. I felt a bit as if I was visiting a giant aquarium. From the safe bubble of the car I felt comfortable, unchanged, as if I had walked into the largest attraction at the aquarium but would soon step out on the other side into the daylight of the town I knew.

After all, I was sitting in a lovely, clean, four door sedan, listening to Sigur Ros and had just finished having an English conversation. The only thing throwing off this illusion of 'things as normal' inside the car was the fact that the steering wheel was on the wrong side. This was causing me to have irrepressible spasms each time I saw a large pickup truck hurtling towards us from what seemed to be the wrong side of the road.
Also, I was trying desperately to hide my urge to constantly kick at the ghost brake pedal, but despite my efforts, my new boss seemed to notice the twitching and gave me a sidelong glance that was mixed with both pity and trepidation.

 He was being a gracious new boss, offering his knowledge of Thailand and trying to get to know his new employee. I imagined him going home to his wife and her asking about the new girl. ‘What’s she like?’  Fragrant, twitchy and tongue tied would surely be his response.
.I jumped out of this daydream just as we turned off the major road and into a narrow alley.                   

Apparently, I was home.

Thank god he didn't pick me up in this.
(also thank god the guy in this pic was not him.)