Pizza and Snakes

So things are going pretty well so far since being at site. I hope you all have gotten all caught up on my last few posts. Since being in the office for the week I have mostly just played on the internet and started learning to read Thai. You will be happy to hear that I am good at both of these things. Reading Thai is difficult; it can take me 30 minutes to read one page about someone buying fruit at the market. Also when I am in the office I try and talk to all the employees. They are all really friendly and I like their personalties, not sure about their level of work though. I haven't found anyone who is not enthusiastic about me being here but I am still not sure who my main counterpart will be. They all seem too busy right now to take me around the community. As for this, my tentative plan is to visit each community group (there are 20) and do some participatory community mapping with each. This mapping method is a community entry tool. Instead of me biking around and making the map myself, this method allows me to meet the group members, work on a small project together, learn what is important about the community to them by how they draw the map, learn what areas are dangerous, and hopefully learn a little Thai and local dialect to boot. It also gives me a chance to explain what the heck I am doing here for two years. Alas all this is easier said than done. 

In other news my homestay is going fabulously and I have started making friends with the neighbors. Also my wonderful host sister, Pi Ni, brought be two pieces of pizza from the city last night! It was Hawaiian style from 7-11 but it still tasted pretty good. Right now my family is working on building a mushroom hut. Did I mention that they are an organic and self-sufficient household? Pretty cool stuff....in not so cool stuff, I came precariously close to a snake as I stopped to make a turn on the way into work today and last night I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my shower! Not sure if either of these guys were dangerous, ie POISONOUS!, but my co-workers and family think it's no big deal, you know "just let them do their thing, and you do yours"...I tried to explain that in America we kill the animals that get in our house...they thought this was crazy. Also sighted, an enormous toad, and rat (well it might have been a mouse, not sure).