View from an Ambulance

Well...even after living here for a month, Thailand continues to surprise me. For instance, I have no idea why ambulances here are even equipped with sirens at all, since they accomplish nothing. No one pulls over; no one stops; no one gets out of the way. And what truly left me speechless was getting onto a toll road...the ambulance actually had to stop and fill out paperwork to get out of the toll, taking twice as long to get through there. Lissa and I wondered how many people died in ambulances in Bangkok each year just trying to get to the hospital.

Let me start over. Today was our first soccer tournament. The girls played hard and definitely figured out some things we have to work on (wished we weren't having a tournament this early in the season, but maybe this was the best time to figure these things out). Then, near the end of the third game, one of our players got hit and fell to the ground...and didn't get up. By the time I got there, her eyes were slits and her body was shaking from shock. It took a good ten minutes to get her off the field, and at least 30 minutes for an ambulance to get there. She did get her eyes open more, started breathing more normally, and was able to say a couple of things before we wheeled her out onto the ambulance stretcher.

We determined that Lissa and I would go with her in the ambulance, but we found out that we weren't allowed to ride in the back with her, which made me mad because she looked really scared. So, we sat up front...our speechlessness growing at the speed bumps, the uselessness of the siren, and the toll booth fiasco. But it should be fine now. Her parents were there when we showed up, and the doctor told us she had a muscle spasm in her neck from the collision. She was sitting up, looking better, and heading for x-rays when we left.

Teaching continues to be up and down...depends on the day and the class. I feel like it's going well, but there are always random factors that influence it. I wish I didn't feel so tired all the time....but, ah well. Not talking to Adam is still weird, particularly on the weekends. Hard to believe that on Tuesday he will have been gone two weeks. How is it that time can seem to move so much more slowly when you're waiting for something? In the meantime, I'm definitely keeping busy with school stuff and trying to reward myself in small ways. I could definitely use a fun trip somewhere, though. Right now, my breaks look like a bowl of chocolate cereal, playing with Larisa's puppy Chang (Thai for elephant), and wondering why there's a bunny hopping around the floor of a nearby restaurant.

Oh, Thailand...what will you think of next?