Just a trim.

As of 6 tonight, I “bit the bullet…” “went all out…” [add other ridiculous little phrase here] and got cute shoes AND bangs!!! Okay fine, my shoes aren’t really all that cute. In fact they’re knock off, $4.50 Birkenstocks, and my bangs, well…without a blow dryer, curling iron, or straightener, you could say they’re looking a bit funky, air drying with all this crazy humidity…but I will not be discouraged!! Kev actually was first to get his hair cut earlier this afternoon, and after watching him get a (seriously, no lie) 10 minute head massage and shampoo, I decided it would be a crime if I didn’t get one too (right?!). So, I found a cute little picture of a hair cut I liked, and showed the guy what I wanted. Obviously there is a BIT of a language barrier in this joint, but when he saw the picture I liked he said…”Oh! You want Asian girl hair! I give you straight Asian girl hair!” (this is what I THINK he said, by the way.) l smile and nod my head, and adjust myself in the really sticky pleather chair. Now there are two things I should mention at this point. One. While, yes, I picked out a picture of an Asian woman to copy my hair after, there were absolutely NO magazines of any white girl haircuts to choose from (not that I initially minded). Two. As I mentioned earlier, my hair’s been runnin’ with this whole humidity thing, and has left me with quite the crrrazy do’s these days. My hair is thick. I am white. Unfortunately, no amount of hair product will leave my hair as straight, slick or shiny as any of the girls’ here. I figured the man would recognize this. But decked out in his pink Lacoste hat, matching polo sweater vest, tight leather pants, and enormous diamond encrusted cross necklace and earrings– it was obvious, this man was on a mission. Almost 2 hours later, my “trim with bangs” was completed. Looking down at the floor, I laughed at the 1/2 of head of hair laying on the ground. This poor man truly could not handle the wave in my hair. Every time he cut and released the hair he was holding, my hair would lay with a slight wave. I watched as his face tensed up, and he grabbed the thinning shears, trying to thin my hair down to a point of no wave. When he could thin-no-more, he resorted to the hair wax, and methodically attempted to tame my hair into the “Asian hair” style he promised. You could almost read the profane words of frustration coursing thru his brain, mixed with the lack of understanding on “why it won’t lay flat!!!” In the end, afraid of losing any more hair, I finally stopped him, and just told him I liked it just like it was. He smiled, and whipped his hand across his forehead with a sigh of relief, and then proceeds to say, “You the first white girl hair I ever cut! Not like Thais, it hard!” Ha. My poor hair has been through so much over the years. It’s a wonder it doesn’t fall out just to spite me. I walked out looking like a drowned rat, while yelling at Kev for laughing at my “special new hair cut.” It was quite the trip…but now I’m one step closer to “fitting in”…right?! 🙂

Okay, so back to the list. Number 3… (Dun, dun, duuuuuun!) Being able to drive a scooter like a bat out of Hell. Let me just say for the record: Kev has mastered that skill. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he has Thai blood coursing thru his veins. Today alone he ran 3 stop lights (common practice), utilized his horn multiple times (common practice) and mastered the delicate art of car/tuk-tuk/pedestrian/songatheaws/scooter/stray dog weaving. Needless to say, I’m veerry impressed (and scared to death most of the time:)). Speaking of stray dogs, the other day Kev picked up some dog treats at this night bazaar and has been carrying them around searching for hungry stray dogs for close to a week now. A giant bag. Full. Of smelly dog treats. It’s pretty cute, I will say.

Tonight we ate dinner on this boat while putzing along the river. It was an amazing way to see the city from a different angle. After, we went to another night market (where I bought my shoes!) and drove around looking for stray dogs to feed for an hour. It was really fun. Although pretty scraggly, they are pretty cute…and make me miss Clee the Beeo.

On a totally different, not so happy note, the other day I went to the Women’s Prison to get a massage. I heard that they had just implemented a program where 100% of the money the women made would go directly to help them get back on their feet when they were released, or to their families, assuming they weren’t getting out for a while. The woman I was with was named Soi, who seemed to have an incredibly sweet, but unmistakable sadness to her. I was just making small talk with her when she said, out of the blue, “so I bet you want to know why I’m in here.” After trying to assure her that, no, it really wasn’t any of my business, she said she needed to talk, and wanted to tell me. So I sat back and listened to how she had just seen her 4 year old daughter a few hours earlier and had been doing a lot of “thinks” all day about how she got there. She told me about how she found out her husband was molesting her daughter, and when she found out, she bashed his head in with a mortar and pestal. A bit graphic, sorry. She said he was in “really bad shape,” and that even though she was just protecting her daughter, she had a long time to serve. I haven’t looked into this, but she told me that in Thailand children are considered almost like adults by the time they’re 3. Which means, even though this little girl had no way of truly protecting herself from her dad, she still is responsible for her safety as far as the court is concerned. It was really difficult to take in. She also talked about the child-sex industry and made mention to why it’s so big here. She told me that even though it is now illegal to sell your child into the sex industry, parents (in especially rural villages) often have no way of protecting their daughters from it. And, of course, there’s no protection for the parents trying to protect their children. It’s a sick, frustrating cycle. I asked her if I could do anything, give more money, etc, but she told me no, she was just giving a service, and couldn’t take a cent more from me. When I left, she gave me a giant hug and thanked me for listening to her “thinkings.” I smiled, asked again if there was anything I could do and left feeling unbelievably drained, helpless and sick to my stomach. So much for a relaxing Thai massage! I guess this is the kind of stuff you find out once you’ve been somewhere for more than a week…you trim off the fat, and get to the meat of the issues effecting the people you’ve been surrounding yourself with.