In a foreign state in a foreign land: when illness strikes, loneliness does too

It was a day like any other. I woke up early, walked the path from my apartment to the school, past the goats grazing and the dogs barking, past the chubby baby with the white powdered face, past the monkeys and the motorbikes.

I stood in the sweltering heat during morning assembly, participated in schoolwide aerobics to the tune of Nelly Furtado's "Maneater," stood respectfully silent for the nationwide playing of the Thai national anthem and headed off to teach my first-period class.

It was a day like any other ... until third period. I entered the room and was met by the usual rehearsed "GOOD MORNING, TEACHER!"

Somehow the room felt hotter than usual, though it is difficult to distinguish between a few degrees when the temperature is well above 90. I wasn't sure it was hotter, but I was positive something was not quite right. But there was no time to try to figure it out. I had just 60 minutes to teach 50 students their only English lesson for the week.

I felt a sudden knot in my stomach and winced in pain. Surely this wasn't the nerves-induced type of ache. I was in my final weeks of teaching at Kainarai and had no reason to be nervous.

I took a breath and felt my face flush. Fifty blank faces were staring at me. I could barely breathe, let alone speak.

"Uuum ... uuuhhhh," I stammered, uncertain if it was acceptable to temporarily abandon my class, but positive that I didn't have much choice.

"I'll be back," I blurted out as I burst from the classroom toward the front office and the only flush-toilet bathroom on campus.

(In America, if you feel ill and think you might vomit, you may grab a trash can or duck behind a bush. But I wasn't just any old Joe in America. I was a teacher, I was in Thailand, and I had to try to save face as much as possible. "Saving face" is an important part of Thai culture that often dictates behavior. In order to save face, Thai people do what they can to avoid confrontation and public embarrassment.)

An uneasy stomach, a wave of heat and sudden panic. Was it the flu? Had I caught some sort of bug?

Whatever it was, I wouldn't be able to hold it back for long. I ran through the front office, forgoing the expected greetings, securing the bathroom door behind me just in time.

My mind raced and my body ached. Feeling weaker by the moment, I leaned on the wall and replayed the previous days' events in my mind. I hadn't eaten anything different and I wasn't sleep-deprived. In fact, I had just returned from a relaxing weekend in Hua Hin, complete with sunshine, pool time, great food and plenty of rest.

What could possibly have gone so wrong?

I washed my hands, splashed cold water on my face and tried desperately to pull myself together. I had an unsupervised classroom of perplexed students to attend to.

Stepping gingerly back into the classroom, I forced a smile and a small laugh, offered a quick apology and picked up the whiteboard marker.

But before I had a chance to even remove the cap I felt my stomach turn, my face burn and my pulse begin to race.

"Uhhh ... sorry!" was all I could manage to say as I raced again toward the front office.

How could I teach like this?

When I emerged from the bathroom the second time, red-faced and teary-eyed, I offered an apology and very basic explanation to the office staff.

"Khor tod na kha — mai sabaii" (Sorry/excuse me — I'm not feeling well).

This time, instead of heading back to my classroom I stopped off at the infirmary... where things started to get a bit fuzzy.

I stumbled to a futon and lay down in agony. With the room spinning and my head throbbing, I tried to explain to the nurse what had happened and asked her to have another teacher cover my class. She offered me water and tea, insisting that I drink something to avoid becoming dehydrated, but I could hardly lift the glass to my lips.

The hot, still air in the room was suffocating. In all of the sweltering days I had spent in Thailand, never did I miss air conditioning as much as I did in that moment.

When word of my condition reached the headmistress, she came immediately to see me and insisted I go to the hospital. So weak I could barely stand, I was helped to a school van by P-Jaew, a primary school teacher, and we were driven to the local hospital.

Even in my dazed state I could tell that this hospital was not like the first-class, world-renowned type found in Bangkok.

Lopburi Hospital — from the dilapidated exterior and outdoor waiting area to the ancient wheelchairs and the outdated nurses' uniforms — appeared to be from another world, a time past, a place forgotten.

Would I be forgotten here? My exhausted and dehydrated brain began to wander down a morbid path just as a dead body was wheeled in front of me. Is that what happens to people who come to the Lopburi emergency room?

Thankfully I didn't have much more time to consider my fate as a nurse came, gave me a hasty evaluation and promptly admitted me.

"You'll have to stay for 24 hours," P-Jaew told me as the nurse hooked me up to an IV and wheeled me down the hall.

I was comforted by the thought of being cared for in a quiet, private, air-conditioned room.

Instead I was delivered to a huge, hot room overflowing with sick and elderly local people.

Scanning the room, I was positive that this was the room where they brought people to die. To my left, a woman lay moaning and shaking; to my right a fragile elderly lady lay coughing so hard I was sure she would break in two, and all around I saw pained faces and slouching bodies and not one person within decades of my age.

And there I spent the next 24 hours, feeling dreadfully alone in the big room with the dying people. Every now and again a nurse would come by to give me some pills or boiled rice, a cat would come in through the open door and wander about, and the doctor would stop by to check on me.

But in a room full of people (and cats and mosquitoes) I was alone. And it occurred to me that no matter how independent or adventurous you are, once in a while you still need a friendly face and a hand to hold.

Thankfully, they came.

P-Jaew returned to check on me as promised. She brought a towel, a comb, some soap, and some tissue (which I later found I would need for the bathroom and a shower in the morning).

And she brought her family. They spoke their broken English, and I, my broken Thai. Together we managed a decent conversation and even some smiles.

The headmistress came. She brought more tissue and a small cake. And in that dingy, crowded room, we talked more than we had ever talked before in the four months I had spent at Kainarai.

My co-teacher Ben came, and he brought another teacher, Amy. It was a relief to finally speak English and an even bigger relief to know they cared.

And when they all went home and left me alone again, I found I was not alone at all. A woman who had been sitting nearby with her ill mother came to me, smiling and offered to tuck me in. "Mosquitoes," she explained. "Many tonight."

While Lopburi may have been lacking the shiny, modern facilities that Bangkok hospitals boast, it was rich in a small-town kindness ... that reminded me of home.

Ashley M. Fitzgerald was a teacher, model and program coordinator in Thailand until December, when she left due to political unrest. She is now the international student adviser and registrar at Intercultural Communications College in Honolulu. She is a 2000 graduate of Harrisville Central School and a graduate of Middlebury (Vt.) College. "Grown Local, Gone Global" is published every other Sunday. You may send your questions and comments to her at afitzgerald@wdt.net.