Exactly one week ago I was standing on stage at a Thai festival in a red ball gown, covered in rhinestones with an XL tiara on my head, handed a microphone and asked to sing. For anyone who says pics or it didn’t happen, just you wait.
How did I get there? Honestly, I’m still not positive… but here’s what happened.
Last Saturday started out like any other Saturday. At 6:45 I met a group of my friends to bike to our weekly mandatory event. This week we were going to have extra language training. Our Thai has definitely started to progress! Even though we’ve only studied Thai for five weeks, I feel as confident in my Thai now as I do in German after four years of high school classes.
Around noon, Peace Corps staff let us go to enjoy our Saturday. A big group of us headed to a restaurant located right on the river and spent most of our afternoon relaxing before our 6:00 curfew (and I thought my 11:00 curfew in high school was strict..).
As soon as I got home, I knew my family had something up their sleeves. We had been planning on going to a nearby festival. My brother Bas is a lyche (pronounced lee-kay) dancer and I have now been to three or four of his shows. Lyche is a slower, more controlled dance. The dancers focus a lot on the movement of their wrists, hands and arms. It is very beautiful and many of the dancers also sing. (Often at the same time! – that one was for you, dad). They also dress up in elaborate costumes and wear **a lot** of makeup.
That night my host mom was a little too excited for us to go to the festival. Last week my family asked if I wanted to have my makeup done like the dancers and I politely declined, but this week I thought I’d let them have some fun. So I sat down and Bas (my brother..) started to do my makeup. To be completely honest, it didn’t look great. Actually, I think a better word for my appearance would be “scary.”
My family had a few laughs. Then, proceeded to have me try on a very intricate dress, reminiscent of MTV’s Sweet Sixteen, or the most intense dress you saw at your high school prom. But then I changed back into my regular clothes and we were off to the festival. During the car ride, we listened to one Thai song over and over again. And my family continually had me practice one line of the song. In hindsight, it is a little bit more obvious now that they were preparing me for my performance… but at the time I thought we were just doing Thai things?
Once we got to the festival, we immediately went backstage, because I have an “in” with the bouncers. ;) My host mom asked one of the dancers to re-do my make up. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought I looked frightening. However, once she was done recreating my face I can’t say I looked much better.
With phase one of the make over done, we moved on to completing the look. I obviously needed a tiara and it had to be at least one foot tall, just to confirm that I am indeed taller than 98% of the Thai people I know. Then, I stepped into that red dress, my host mom quickly stuffed my tshirt down the front of the dress, and bam! Done.
At this point I was still hoping we were just taking pictures.. That is until my host mom led me to the entrance of the stage and had me practice singing the lyrics of the song. Now there was no turning back, my host mom gave me my cue and I headed on stage behind Film (Bas’s girlfriend). I did my best to keep a straight face, but I'm sure you can imagine that didn't go too well. However, the show did go on. I might have mispronounced every word they asked me to sing and I may have accidentally said "Sawadee kaa" (hello) three times, but hey! I only had three minutes to mentally prepare!
I still haven't received any inquiries about booking me for future events, but I'm sure people are just trying to find my email.
(PS it's theresa.kozelka@gmail.com if anyone is reading this)
