Gone Fishing

It’s hard to believe that our time in Thailand is almost over. I’ve written embarrassingly little for this here journal. I’ve taken lots of pictures, but I haven’t kept up with writing.

I’ve had lots of things to say, but have found myself thwarted trying to align time, energy and technology. When I’ve had the time to write, I haven’t had the energy. And when I’ve had the energy and time, I haven’t had access to my computer. Or the internet. And when I’ve had time and technology, well, you know.

I’ve also had a ton of other stuff flooding my mind – preparations for the next legs of our journey, for one. It’s back to Cambodia for me, then India. Just the emotional and spiritual weight of tackling another country is enough to keep me awake when I should be sleeping and make want to take a nap when I should be doing other things. Like writing.

At any rate, my time in Thailand is quickly ending. Which means my family is going home and I’m not. It’s not like I’ll be alone – I will have friends and colleagues joining me from the beginning of August until the close of my trip in the middle of September – but I’m not quite ready to let them go. In fact, I’m not quite sure I’ve scheduled this thing correctly, and I’m considering other ways of doing this next year so I don’t have to make my wife a single mom for so long.

So, tonight it was nice to have a relaxing and rewarding evening fishing with a group of sweet, sweet kids from Doi Saket 2. We went old-school, with Huck-Finn-style stickpoles. I’m not a great fisherman, so it was fortunate to have an extremely well stocked pond at our disposal. It was only slightly more difficult (and way less disturbing) than shooting the proverbial puppy in a box.

We grilled the fish over a charcoal fire, and ate it with mountain rice and generic Thai cola. Delicious, relaxing and a great way to spend my second-to-last day in the country.