Mattison Boveri is a junior currently studying abroad in Thailand through a fully funded scholarship from the U.S. State Department. Her weekly observations will be posted in her column in The Forest Scout, “Half the World Away.”

In Thailand, I was reborn. When I arrived, I was a baby. Just like any baby, I was given a name, Fah Sai ฟ้าใส (it means “clear sky” in Thai). Simple communication was exhausting, requiring a hundred times the brain power to translate and comprehend. In the first couple of days hand gestures and charades sufficed for illustrating basic needs. While conversations developed around me, I was isolated by the seemingly unbreakable barrier of language.

As a baby, I had to learn to eat. With a spoon in my left hand and fork in my right, utilizing the fork as a tool to push food onto the spoon. I tried new food. Pineapple (much smaller and cuter than in the US), Thai mango, rambutan, mangosteen, longans, durian, dragonfruit, and chicken feet (I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat chicken feet again…). Learning what I liked, what I didn’t like, what was not spicy, what was spicy…pretty much everything.

I needed to be told how to get dressed, apparently the tag is in the front on my school uniform skirt… I learned to fold the top of my socks once, wear a belt and bow in my hair every day. I learned on Wednesday we wear our gym uniform. I realized this after I showed up to school in my skirt and shirt and was the only student not in jogging pants and sneakers.

Crossing a street requires an escort. Motorcycles, cars, and dogs can be crazy. Walking anywhere requires an escort. In my new environment, I must slowly learn about my surroundings and that means little freedom to wander.

School is a whirlwind, overwhelming at times. Instructions in a foreign tongue buzz around me constantly. Being unable to understand can occasionally cause frustration. This emotion comes at different points in different days, when my mind is not able to keep up with the ever changing, dynamic world around me.

Other miscellaneous things I had to learn include laundry, taking off my shoes whenever I entered a room or at school, not to place my school bag on the ground (out of respect), the wai (a way to greet people by putting both hands in a prayer position and bowing your head), to shower twice a day, to use a non-western style toilet at school (a porcelain bowl in the ground), to eat rice for every meal, the list goes on and on.

Everything is new. Slowly, these new things just become things. They evolve into a part of daily life. However, as patterns forms and normalcy is established, new nuances are learned, deeper layers pulled back to reveal more aspects of the culture to adjust to.

I am alone. Playing catch up. Everyone around me knows the path through the maze. I have to learn my own way through trial and error. After all, I am just a baby. One day I will learn to talk, to dress, to walk, to read, to write, etc. but a baby does not learn all this overnight.

I am a 16 year old baby. In the US, I can legally drive a car, complete calculus level math problems, run outside wherever and whenever, and have read all the Harry Potter books. Halfway around the world, I have only a basic idea of how things work, cannot read anything, and cannot cross a street without endangering my life. My existence is a series of interesting guesses, full of childlike wonder and curiosity. Returning to simplicity and incompetence gives me the chance to see the world for the first time, all over again. I wish it upon anyone searching for irritation, debilitation, and failure. In exchange for what, you might ask. Yet to be determined.