Like the clock ticking at home

As the clock ticks at home…. it doesn't sound like anything. I estimate that the clock in our room is about 55 years old. Until my mother passed away in 2006, it has been ticking for 40 years in the Beeklaan in The Hague.

After that it ticked on for about a year with my youngest brother at the Elandplein. When he also died, it ended up with Mieke and me in the Boxtelse Knuistendome (I don't miss an opportunity to mention this most beautiful street name in the Netherlands). Then it happily continued to tap the Touwbaan in Maashees, after which it moved to Thailand at the age of 50. And that's where it stopped. Not because we forgot to wind it up, because we had neatly done that. We suspect that the heat and high humidity have become too much. Most things have a shorter life in Thailand, partly due to lower quality and lack of maintenance, but mainly due to the climate.

Our suspicion was confirmed when the clock at one point, after the hot time had passed and of course in the middle of the night, struck 8 o'clock. From then on it worked again for a while, but last summer it stopped working again. Last week it had a short revival, but now it has passed and it has come to a standstill again. We don't mind that very much. The clock is so lavishly decorated that you can't tell what time it is. And we don't like it either; it's there because it's a family heirloom. We are thinking about giving it a place in a kind of totem pole with memories that should arise on the land.

Even without a ticking clock, we now feel completely at home here. And there are regularly times when that feeling is reinforced again. Sometimes they have nothing to do with how people here behave towards us. This week, for example, I cycled to the town of Hang Chat to buy fruit and saw how a new main tap for the water supply had been installed in a village. It is then above the ground, without lockable fencing around it. That is simply possible here, because no one dares to turn off the tap “for fun” or to kick the thing to pieces out of boredom. All main taps of houses, and all water and electricity meters are also just outside. Nice and easy for the meter reader; he can also record the stand when you are not at home.

After buying a kilo of mangoes for a euro, I had to look elsewhere for bananas, because my favorite fruit lady had run out of them. I stopped at a roadside table that had the biggest bananas I've ever seen. A large comb, with about 8 bananas on it, cost 1 euro. The man asked where I came from and in my best Thai I made it clear that I came from the Netherlands but now lived in Nong Noi. A flood of Thai words now emanated from the man. It all went way too fast for me to understand it properly, but I caught "baan din" and "suaymaak" among other things. He apparently knew about our clay house (baan din), thought it was very beautiful (suay Maak) and seemed very excited that he now had a resident of the house in front of him. I should take the bananas for free, he thought. I thought I could pay for it; 1 euro is not much to me and a substantial amount to him. We finally agreed when I told him to buy an ice cream for his kids. That argument usually works well here. He walked with my shopping bag to a crate behind him, put the bananas in it and then put the bag on my bike. When I got home there was a giant comb with 15 bananas in my bag. Would he still have given half of it for free? Now we have to eat our way through the banana mountain.

On the way back I was also completely happy with the cycling woman with a whole load of fagots on the back of her bike. Incidentally, Vrouwtje is not meant to be derogatory: Thai people, especially the older ones, are often very small. The diminutive therefore really refers to the short length. Like most Thais, she cycled at just enough speed to avoid falling over. When I saw her in front of me I could easily stop and grab my phone to film. Just before I wanted to pass her, she suddenly turned off, so I had to slam on the brakes. Laughing broadly, she excused herself and said and gestured about everything I didn't understand. But that didn't matter; the intent was clear.

The last part to our house led through the rice fields, where work was in full swing. “Hey hello” was called to me from all sides. For most, that is the only English they know. Friendly smiling faces everywhere. You can't help but feel at home here, right?

Warning: The following paragraphs may be disturbing

Okay, sometimes, very occasionally there are situations in which feeling at home is briefly suppressed. That happened to me a few weeks ago when I wanted to cool off in the cold tub, the large tub with cold water in the garden. I had settled in comfortably with an e-book and a glass of fruit juice when I became aware of a not-too-pleasant smell. It was already dark, so I used my phone's light to see if there might be a dead critter somewhere next to the tub. I couldn't find anything and was about to sit down again when I suddenly saw the cause of the smell: a dead rat floating in the water. Never before have I jumped out of the tub so quickly and never before have I been in the shower so long afterwards. Fortunately it is now the cooler time, because I still don't have much urge to go back into the tub.

Today was another such moment. Although we usually just sit and relax in the afternoon, we always have a coffee break. We usually make a delicious mocha ourselves from coffee, cocoa and coconut milk. When I was almost finished my coffee I noticed a big lump in the bottom of my mug. At first I thought that the coffee-cocoa mixture had not been stirred properly. If only that had been the case. It turned out that a small toad had jumped into my mug and it had not survived the shower of boiling water. I left the rest and kept the pad, to show to the doctor if it made me sick. Fortunately, that did not happen.

Boiled coffee pod

Of course, the puns go back and forth here. For lunch this afternoon we heated up pad thai in our solar oven. Mieke is afraid that a mushroom will now break out. I'm looking for someone with a senseo, so that the coffee pad can still get a good destination.

And the clock…. that still doesn't add up.