Christmas newsletter 2019

So it's been 5 months since my last post! I normally prefer to write meaningful stories on here but since I appear to have succumbed to the writer's disease of starting off strong and then dropping off, I think I will unashamedly make this post a Christmas newsletter for 2019.

There have been quite a lot of changes since I last wrote. The biggest was probably taking Sam out of school in August to homeschool him this year and also getting a rescue dog, Theo. Both have been really positive changes for our family. 

Below is one of my favourite pictures from the beginning of this fall semester. We do lots of work honestly, but the slower schedule allows time for window gazing too. Organizing Sam's work has been a bit of an adjustment for me with my Thai Village work schedule but we are figuring out a rhythm that works for us. Sam also gets to participate in a homeschool co-op one week a month which has been a great fit for him. We are so grateful for the flexibility to be able to adjust to what works best for our kids.

Tyler, Rhiana and Liam continue at school and benefit from the diverse community there, the new renovated campus this year and all the many wonderful activities, friends and colleagues.

In the summer, we got to make our first trip to the US in four years. The hardest thing about a life overseas is time away from family and dear friends but it makes it all the more precious when you get to be together. The kids had a blast with cousins and grandparents in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Cape May, New Jersey and I also got to reconnect with dear friends during short trips to Chico, California and Nashville, Tennessee. We ate as many fresh berries as we could, overdosed on burgers and crammed in classic American experiences including amusement parks, 4th July fireworks, a day at the ball game, fishing and camping, Maryland crabs and even a quick trip to New York.

Boys' first baseball game at Camden Yards

Fishing with cousins in the creek just outside Sykesville, MD

All the goofy cousins with Grandad

If you're interested in a crazy travel story, ask me some time about how our flight from Chiangmai to Baltimore took us 72 hours via Guangzhou, China. It was our most epic travel delay yet and we hope not to repeat it any time soon.

It has been a good year for family connections as we've also had visits from almost all my family in the UK. My Mum was here in February and then my sister Debbie and family in October, followed by my sister, Janet here in December. So amazing . . . . and we never take these visits for granted. 

With Janet at Wat Umong

With Debbie's family in our driveway

Grandma celebrating with Rhiana in Singapore after she was invited to the regional competitions there for National History Day

After all these visits, there was only one sister Ele who I hadn't seen, and thankfully I got to remedy that during my annual Thai Village trip to the UK in November. Well, I say annual as I hope it will be, but this has only been my second year so far. Many stories to tell from this trip and a post will be coming about that soon. Thank you to all those who hosted me and helped us provide a growing market for Thai Village products, building longterm sustainability for struggling families here. Job creation is such a powerful tool in the fight against poverty and I continue to feel passionate about serving in this field.

Some of our Thai Village artisans on a home visit with one of our woodworkers

On the family and kids front, we are grateful for health and life and opportunities to pursue our passions which I will refrain from listing here! We have seen God's hand of provision in big ways this year and in many daily answers to prayer. We are trusting Him for the pieces yet to be fulfilled and grateful for all the ways that we see Him in the daily grind and in the world and people around us.

In lieu of Christmas cards this year, we want to wish all our family and friends a very Happy Christmas and exciting adventures in the new decade! We would love to hear from you too and welcome any Christmas news or emails at cherylstinchcomb@gmail.com or quick messages in response to this post.

Thank you for reading and Happy Christmas from the Stinchcombs!

Happy New Year 2020!

Three years in Thailand!

Three years ago tomorrow, we arrived in Thailand to begin a new chapter of our life in Chiangmai. It was a short plane ride from India but a whole new world! So many things have become normal now, it's hard to imagine those early days or how we ever lived without our regular tropical smoothies and high daily dose of vitamin D. 

What to pick today? - passion fruit, banana, mango, lemon, coconut, strawberry, coffee and Thai iced tea are some of our favorites.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked on a facebook group what were some fun, interesting facts about living in Thailand. It got me thinking and I enjoyed all the responses so I thought I would mark our 3-year anniversary by sharing some of my favourites with you. 

• My glasses steam up every time I get out of the car in rainy season
• We wash dishes without hot water
• Fried egg is no longer just a breakfast item but is served on the side of many main dinner dishes
• We see monks walking barefoot on the side of the road every day on the way to school.

A bit blurred but taken out of the car window in our morning traffic jam

• Geckos are a part of our home and sometimes turn up smushed behind door frames or dying in the sink. Gross!
• The table is set with a fork and spoon in Thai restaurants (knives are hard to come by)
• I can wear flip flops every day and for almost every occasion (work, church, school event). Weirdly, this is one of my favorite things about Thai life! 
• Shoes are left at the door everywhere (hence the popularity of flip flops - easy to take on and off)
• Corn in icecream is a thing, as well as durian, green tea and salted egg icecream flavours!
• We show respect to the King daily by playing the King's anthem at the beginning of every school day (everyone stops whatever they are doing and stands in silence for 2 minutes). It is also played at the cinema before every movie accompanied by a video of the King.
• Tropical fruits are not only delicious, they are also an art form and Thais like to decorate with them.

• Car parking attendants blow whistles to guide you into your spot (took me a while to figure out the meaning of the different whistles but I have it down now!)
• Riding a scooter is the best way to avoid traffic . . .and the biggest challenge of driving a car is avoiding the scooters.
• Thai food is cheaper to eat out than to cook at home.
• Rice is not eaten with chopsticks - they are only for noodles.
• Our preteen boys can order "kao pat muu crap" when we're out for dinner. It means "pork fried rice please". Never ceases to entertain! 

Thailand - thanks for a wonderful three years!

May musings

I thought I'd post a few snippets from our day-to-day life this month. It's May. The end of term is less than 3 weeks away and, as all teachers and parents know, it's a pretty mad and emotional time of year - tests, projects, awards (or not), graduations, farewells, parties. There's a lot for kids (and parents) to get frazzled about.. . . . . and a lot of reasons to turn to the Prince of Peace and rest in Him. Sometimes we do a better job of that than others but He is faithful.

Here's a few eclectic thoughts and pics from our activities this month.

The rains have come now, so the pollution is mostly gone (hallelujah!) and we are enjoying being outside again. Badminton in the garden in the evening, biking to school again and even a family bike ride this past weekend.

Just getting ready to turn into our driveway.

When we first came to Chiangmai on holiday from India, we hired bikes and rode around the old city, so somehow it feels reminiscent of being on holiday when we take the time to ride again. Always good to play tourist in your home town.

Biking amongst the pigeons and the tourists at Thapae Gate. 

We have also been making the most of time left with special friends. The end-of-year farewells when living overseas are hard, and this year particularly so for some of us. Our church does an annual farewell service at this time of year and our school puts on a sale for people to sell off their possessions before they pack up. Both of those were last weekend. The goodbyes are coming and we can't hold them back forever but we can make the most of good friends while they are here!

Game night with some dear friends this past weekend

At Thai Village, I got to visit a lovely elderly lady last week who gave me an interesting perspective on goodbyes. At 72, she had recently lost her husband of over 50 years but she told us she didn't want to be sad "because then his spirit won't be able to leave." Instead, you could see the joy in her as she reminisced about their shared experiences together.

Sharing stories over a fried ant snack! (Look carefully in their hands). Even my Thai colleagues were a little bit dubious about chewing it so I didn't feel so bad for only taking a token bite!

During this conversation under a tree we found out that in her culture (Northern Thai), if a young man touched a woman at all, it meant he had to marry her. She explained how she met her husband working in the fields and because he touched her foot when they were gathering the crop, that was it, their future together was sealed! I'm not sure if she was making it more dramatic than it was but how fascinating to learn about these different concepts of courtship and marriage. I was grateful for this window on a life so alien to my own and yet, despite huge language and cultural differences, we could still enjoy a shared moment together in the shade.

Well I told you it was an eclectic post this month! Thanks for reading and being interested in our lives here in Chiangmai! Next month - our first trip to the US in 4 years!

My first snake!

I was so excited to spot my first snake in Thailand this morning! This beauty was climbing on the electricity pole directly outside our bedroom window.

It's a golden tree snake apparently. Mildly venomous but harmless to humans. Gorgeous! I have since discovered that these are also known as flying snakes for their capacity to glide through the air. I'm thankful I saw it first in climbing mode and not gliding towards me! Hoping it might stay around until the boys get home from school but probably unlikely.

While I'm here, thought I'd add a few more nature discoveries we've made recently. We found these cicada molts resting on trees on a recent trip to the beach.

It was weird because I would wake at 6 am to really loud cicada singing and then by 6.10 am, it had stopped and I went back to sleep. Not sure if they sing right before they molt but it was fun to discover anyway.

And one more discovery from this morning as well.. . .  a heart-shaped fig found on the ground at a local market. 

Now isn't that a beauty?! Enjoy the nature around you today and take the time to stop and look! Thanks for clicking!

(Click here to read about more wild things we have encountered here in Chiangmai.)

An important piece of paper - part 2

I've been hearing good things about Chiangmai immigration recently - less waiting, less paperwork and even stories of immigration officials bringing out Birthday cake for people celebrating their day by waiting in line!

This is good news because honestly, if you live overseas, you spend a lot of time at immigration. It's one of the less glamorous parts of an overseas life . . . . 90-day check-ins, visa renewals, applying for re-entry permit before we leave and updating our residence every time we get back. I have not added up the time spent filling in forms for a family of 5 or waiting in line for someone's important piece of paper but it has been a lot. 

As some of you may know, I have been having a bit of drama with my visa recently. When I started work at Thai Village I switched my dependent visa linked to Tyler's job to a volunteer visa of my own. Thanks to a lot of work by my Thai Village team-mates, I was able to get a 1-year work permit on this visa in November last year! A big answered prayer as work permits had previously been disallowed for holders of volunteer visas. 

The checklist of papers for the work permit is pretty extensive!

Jessie and I are holding the papers but really Jade (front right) did all of the work!

This was a huge high point on the paperwork journey . . . but there have been many low points too like being denied visa renewal recently and having to leave the country unexpectedly at short notice.

So far, in the past 9 months, I have done 3 visa run trips to neighbouring countries - Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos - plus obtained one visa during a planned trip to the UK. If you know me, you'll know that I love to travel so it's not the worst burden ever, but honestly visa runs are costly and are mostly all the boring bits about travel and not much of the fun stuff, unless you have time and money to add on some extra days. In Vietnam we did (see this post) but not so much the other times.

Our most recent visa run to Vientiane, Laos was 2 days spent mostly waiting at the consulate and working in coffee shops but I enjoyed a few walks around the city and snapped this pic outisde Wat Sisaket

Tyler and I are very lucky that we have colleagues at our places of work who prepare most of our immigration paperwork for us. With rules often changing and officials being very strict about how forms are filled, we are so glad we are not on our own in this and we're very grateful for the hard work of our team-mates. Thank you!

I am writing this post now, because my visa obtained in Laos will be up for renewal soon and together with my colleagues at Thai Village, we are hoping to successfully extend our visas for a full year, thus eliminating the need and expense of more visa runs. I would be grateful for your prayers in this process. The pile of papers required will be even thicker than for the work permit!

In the mean time, I will be going to immigration next week to do a 90-day check-in for two of our kids (don't ask how the five of us got on four separate 90-day schedules!!) and maybe, if I'm lucky, someone near me will be having a Birthday that day! 

My favorite Thai words

We are now well into our third year in Thailand. I firmly believe in learning the local language when you live overseas but boy, the Thai language is hard and my progress is much slower than I want it to be. 

Amidst grappling with the unfamiliar script, the 44 consonants, 28 vowels, 5 tones and lots of alien sounds to get my mouth around. . . . . I do however find language learning fun and a fascinating window on culture and life here. Here's a few of my favorite Thai words I've learned so far.

ถุงเท้า (tung taao) means sock. Some words in Thai tickle me because of their simplicity. This word literally means "bag for your foot".

กินข้าว (gin kaao) is a phrase we use here all the time. It means to eat rice but is actually used to refer to having any kind of meal. Most Thai people do eat rice at every meal, but even if you don't, you can still use this word. The word ข้าวเช้า (kaao chaao) means breakfast or literally morning rice! 

Rice varieties, Sansai Market, Chiangmai 

If you agree with someone in Thailand, you say เห็นด้วย (hen duai) which literally means to see together. Similarly to sympathize with someone is เห็นใจ (hen jai), or to see their heart. How beautiful is that?

ไม่ใช่ (mai chai) is the word for no in Thailand - or literally "not yes"!  I might be reading too much into this but somehow this fits with a culture where people don't like to disagree with you to your face. With this phrase, even when they're saying no, they're still actually saying a modified form of yes! 

The word ใจ (jai) meaning heart, is used a lot in the Thai language to describe people and feelings. For example, being kind is ใจดี (jai dii) good-hearted and being impatient is ใจร้อน (jai roon) hot-hearted but my favorite is generous, มีนํ้าใจ (mii naam jai) literally "having a heart that flows like water". How about that for a description of what generosity really is. 

Water flowing in abundance at Mok Faa Waterfall

In the same vein เข้าใจ (kaao jai) means to understand in Thai, in other words "to enter your heart". Oh how I am hoping for more of this fascinating language to enter my heart soon and with it, a deeper appreciation of this beautiful culture and people.

Hope you enjoyed this little taste. Thanks so much for reading!
สวัสดีค่ะ Sawatdiikha

Wild things of Chiangmai

So this post may have some pictures of creepy crawlies in it. Please feel free to stop reading if this is not your thing. First of all though, I want to make a few things clear about where we live. 

Yes, we live in the tropics and we have banana trees and palm trees growing in our front garden, but we do not have to slash our way through undergrowth to get to school in the morning or share our bed with unwanted visitors; we have yet to have any poisonous animal inside our house (though not unheard of amongst our friends!) and we do not live in fear of snakes or spiders biting our children when they play outside. Just want to keep this real. 

Having said that, there are some amazing tropical creatures here and since many of them are probably unusual to most of you, I thought I would share a little taste of the wild things we have encountered here in Chiangmai.

Because it's rainy season right now, let's start with the frogs. 

Brown tree frog making a visit

This one we found on the porch at our old house. We haven't seen them yet at our new house but we know they are here because they make a right racket, especially after it rains. Apparently, tree frogs mate in the rainy season and the environment is perfect right after a cloudburst, so the loud croaking we hear after the rain is the male's mating call. 

Click here to listen to the tree frogs outside our kitchen window the other night.

This house gecko has been sleeping in our bedroom

Geckos are called jink-jok in Thai and we have them all through our house. We happily share our space with these cute creatures because they eat the much less welcome mosquitos and other flies. The only down sides are the droppings they leave behind and occasionally finding a smushed gecko in the hinges of a door frame. We didn't mean to, I promise!

A cousin of the house gecko is the much larger tokay gecko which gets it's name from a loud vocalization it makes. We hear these a lot but the only time we've ever seen one was on the ceiling of a restaurant out of town. This is a bad photo but I was happy to get it as tokays are notoriously shy. He was over a foot long and had excellent grip on the woven bamboo ceiling. 

You have to admit, tokay geckos are pretty cool!

Click here to hear the sound of the tokay gecko.

Moving on to insects, I do not have time here to list or show pictures of all the colourful bugs we have encountered in our garden and on our hikes. They are pretty funky and all of us (apart from our eldest) enjoy discovering new ones and attempting to identify them. Here are a couple of our favorites.

Lantern bugs found gathered in pairs on their host tree, Chiang Dao

Thailand Monkey Grasshopper found resting near Sticky Falls

Unidentified caterpillar found on a hike up Doi Suthep
Some caterpillars can be poisonous here so we avoid touching those
with spikes or hair especially.

And now to the three scariest ones - spiders, scorpions and snakes. India had prepared me well for these - not that I ever got used to having spiders the size of my hand in my house. . . . but there is a resilience that builds up I guess. Here, whilst we have had lots of little spiders in our house, including the tiny jumping ones, all the big scary ones have been encountered in the wild so far and somehow that makes them much less threatening.

Even I could see the beauty in this orbweaver spider, Southern Thailand.

Scorpions have yet to make it over the threshold in our house, although again we have seen them on our hikes. This picture was taken at an insect zoo where we were allowed to touch only the black ones which have much weaker venom even though they are bigger. Not sure I would be this brave though.

Liam and friend at Chiangmai Insect Zoo, 2015

And snakes have actually not featured at all in our Thailand experience so far - except at the snake farm. We've heard stories of house intrusions and we see signs like this in national parks, so they're out there, but thankfully keeping their distance.. . . . for now.

Sticky Falls warning sign - photo credit Tina

There's so much more I could write about of course - the colorful birds and butterflies, the numerous species of ants that live here, and even the awful and creepy giant centipede. . . . but I haven't got good photos of them yet so that will have to wait. 

Thanks for being interested in our "wild life" here in Thailand. We'll be sure to keep you posted on more wild encounters. For now, I'm off to bed to be rocked to sleep by the mating tree frogs. 




 

So how was your summer?

School started again here yesterday. That means we're all asking each other that inevitable back-to-school question, knowing full well it's impossible to sum up your summer in a couple of sentences.

This summer for us has, in many ways, been a microcosm of the full range of experiences and emotions that go along with a life overseas. Let me try to recap . . . 

One of our children had hard goodbyes at the end of the semester with close friends who were leaving back to their home country; we had wonderful visits from family and friends which filled our whole summer with joy; we got to travel to new places and combined visa runs with relaxing stays on tropical beaches; we experienced frustration in discovering that the immigration laws had changed by the time we got back and my freshly stamped visa suddenly became no longer my best option to work here longterm; we longed to be back in our other home with the news of the loss of a dear Grandad (in UK); we grieved from afar and talked for hours on skype and messenger to stay connected with family in far away places; we cherished the moments with dear ones visiting, knowing that all too soon they would be leaving and cramming as much as we could into that short precious space in time. 

Grandma love at the end of the school year

Auntie Rachael in Vietnam with us - one of the best travelling companions a family could hope for! 

Buying plants in memory of a dear Grandad who loved to tend his beautiful garden.

Reconnecting families - Tina and I haven't had extended time together since our kids were born so their visit was a huge gift for all of us.

So yes, our summer was wonderful . . . . .with sadnesses and stresses mingled in. We felt the distance intensely, especially in the loss of our dear Grandad but also when that distance was breached for a brief window and we got a taste of being with those who are usually so far away. Distance sucks, but one thing is for sure - it certainly makes you cherish the together-time all the more.

Amazingly, thanks to the very generous gifts of some family members, we are going to be able to travel to the UK later this week to attend Grandad's funeral and be with family. That is not something we take for granted with the life decisions we have made so we are very grateful for that.

I leave you with a picture of this dear man, taken earlier this year when he blessed us all with his presence all the way over here in Thailand at the ripe age of 88. We will miss you Grandad. 

A trip to Wararot market

There are lots of places to shop very comfortably here in Chiang Mai. I remember being very excited by all the modern supermarkets here when we moved from the mountains of India. I still appreciate the convenience of shopping in an air-conditioned building with organized aisles etc . . . . . but there is something about the market shopping experience which I have always found stimulating and fun - and Chiang Mai has lots of that to offer too.

Anyone for rambutan, longan fruit, asian pear?

This week, I had reason to go to Wararot Market. Wararot is the biggest market in Chiang Mai, partly indoor on 3 floors and partly spreading throughout the surrounding streets and overlapping with the Ton Lamyai flower market along the river. It is a full-on sensory experience with all kinds of sounds and smells, bustling crowds in narrow spaces and colourful displays drawing you down alleys in the hope of a sale. 

Amazing array of orchids at Ton Lamyai Flower Market

It can be overwhelming at times especially if you don't know where to get what you're looking for. I was thankful to have a Thai friend show me around a bit when we first moved here and that helped a lot. Since then, it has become my go-to place when looking for material, tacky party decorations, baskets, flowers, Thai-style clothing and traditional gifts. 

This week I was on the hunt for some material for a new skirt (not to be made by me, I hasten to add!). There are loads of fabric options here, many really brightly colored as you might imagine.

Thankfully, there are also some stalls which cater to a more subdued colour taste and I found what I was looking for in this little outlet.

A bit like Target though, Wararot is not the kind of place you can just pop into for one thing! Inevitably, there are other things that catch your eye which you really didn't know you "needed"! 

My favorite part of Wararot market is the traditional Hmong section out the back. The colours here are just stunning and the traditional indigo patterns always draw my attention.

A vendor takes a moment for breakfast before setting up the rest of her stall

So, yes, I may have bought a couple of new cushions for our balcony and a few gifts for my gift box! Not bad though when you  can get all of that for 200 baht (about $6).

I could have stayed for longer but it was getting hot and I needed to do my grocery shopping back in those air-conditioned supermarkets! So I weaved my way back to the car, picking up some fruit supplies along the way. 

Just by the main road, there is a little Chinese temple which I popped into since I had my camera this time and caught this shot of a little girl counting incense sticks for her mum.

Thankful to add these little experiences to my day and will never take that for granted about living where we do - though the grocery shopping in a modern supermarket is quite nice too.