Baha'i Volunteer House

Some of our friends and relatives are asking for pictures of where we're living, so we thought we'd dedicate a post to describe our temporary home. We're staying at the Baha'i Volunteer House. A couple of posts back, you saw a picture from the outside.

As you can see it is a long and narrow townhouse. The living room is quite spacious, but it is very sparsely decorated compared to our crammed houses back in the west. Thai living seems to be quite simple. In fact many homes don't have living room furniture, but instead use cushions for sitting on the floor.

As you can see from the picture, the dining area has a simple folding table and plastic chairs. It's certainly functional, but has none of the luxury of some of our friends' homes. I was on the webcam with Kim recently and she was in her dining room. In the background I could see the gorgeous print of a tulip, that I've always loved, and I could well imagine the softly painted, spotless walls, the gleaming wooden table, and padded chairs. For a brief moment I missed the niceties of home. Then the moment passed, and I was back into my hippie happiness.

The kitchen is nothing like the ones at home. There is one set of shelves, rather than the numerous cabinets that you find in most Canadian homes. There is a small sink for washing hands, but the dish washing is done outside. We don't have a dishwasher, microwave, toaster oven, or oven for that matter, no coffee maker, grinder, food processor, waffle iron, or four burner stove. Instead we have an electric kettle which is well used for making tea and instant coffee or hot chocolate. We also have a toaster used each morning. We do have a fridge, although it is about half the size of the one at home, and we have a gas burner. I haven't been doing a lot of cooking, because it is so convenient to go to the market and pick up rice and curries. We have done some cooking at home, but it takes a little longer as you can only cook one thing at a time. We end up setting things aside with a plate over it to keep warm while we prepare the next item.


We don't have air conditioning, but we do have several fans. Surprisingly we are remaining quite comfortable. The house cools down in the evening when the temperature goes down to the mid-twenties, and then seems to stay cool for most of the day. It's been around thirty in the shade. We're checking the temperature as part of our home schooling exercises!

In the back, outside, there is a covered porch. We have another set of shelves there with glass doors. We use it for extra pantry items. We use the porch to do dishes and to hang our laundry out to dry. We don't have a clothes washer either... Well, I guess we do. His name is Nadim! There is no hot water except in the washroom that is just off the kitchen so we haul the water from there for dish washing.

This is where the infamous frog story took place. We haven't seen any more frogs since that first day. The house hadn't been lived in for six months, so I think the creatures had started to move in.

We've adapted to the no frills and are really enjoying it here in Yasothon. We are walking to get to various destinations as we don't have any vehicle. We may soon be able to borrow some bikes, which would help us to explore just that much further.

We live across from a little farm with chickens and roosters (that seem to cock-a-doodle-doo in the middle of the night), and some water buffalo and goats as well. Today we walked down a street with rice fields on either side. It is harvest time for rice. We "talked" with a farmer for a few minutes. It was kind of interesting to see rice as a plant, much like wheat growing in our Canadian fields. As you break the grain from the stem you get a little pod and with a bit of difficulty you can open it up and sure enough you see a raw rice kernel.

CM