Oceans Away

Scared

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:22:59 +0700

I realized yesterday that more intense than my thoughts of how much I’m going to miss some of the awesome people I met, seeing little Thai kids or monks every day, the amazing food I get here, not even having the option of watching tv, and the millions of other little things that make living here so great, is my feeling of fear about entering my old world again.

I feel more alive here. I feel like a fuller, more awake, more aware person. I talk easier, I smile easier, I laugh more, I dance when there’s music on. I listen to people fully and whole heartedly. I take more interest in reading the New York Times and haven’t even thought about Western pop culture in 6 weeks (and shit, does that feel amazing).

I realized this the other day during my 2nd belly dancing lesson, instructed by the wonderful Shadia. The first one was during my first (maybe second) week, and it felt so awkward. I was convinced I wasn’t doing it right and didn’t feel comfortable “free dancing” with Shadia. This past time, there were only 4 of us doing it and we were all free dancing and possibly looking like total fools but we did it and we didn’t think about it and it was fun. Those of you who know me well will realize that is not exactly characteristic of me.

I’m afraid that I’m going to go home and get sucked back into the stream of things and turn back into the unfulfilled half-awake person that I was. I realized after I started doing it that I’ve been scrambling to think of things I can do when I get home to keep this from happening. I researched volunteer opportunities in Lakewood. I’ve looked up yoga studios’ costs and schedules, I’ve found belly dancing lessons in Wooster. I realized how fucking sick I am of doing essentially nothing at home. I was bored out of my mind and knew it and didn’t know what to do about it and here I feel better and now it’s about to go away and I’m not sure how to handle it and not sure what to do about it and not sure how many people I’m going to offend when I come back with this attitude.

And I’m scared.

New Peoples, Weird Times

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:45:00 +0700

We got a ton of new people in the last 24 hours. 12 are here now, 2 are on their way. Almost all girls. Having new people here makes me realize how long I’ve been here, how comfortable I am here, how much I’ve learned here, and how gradual the process was. It’s awesome that there are new people here ready to help out but I kind of miss our intimate little group we’ve had going lately. Also, so many of the new people are here for 3 weeks or less, and it’s like, what’s the point? It’s funny to see the different reactions from the staff and old volunteers when people say how long they’re staying - there’s a big difference in reaction depending on whether you’re staying for 1, 2, 3 weeks or 4+ weeks. I cannot believe I only have 4 more nights here.

This weekend was pretty good. I got pretty sick (stomach) gradually in the middle of the day on Friday and didn’t eat anything between lunch on Friday and lunch on Saturday; my body just did not want to to hold on to anything. I chose not party and stay in town on Saturday, so I walked around the night market with Shadia and Kristin, who also decided to spend the night at Mirror. It was fun. I drank a Sprite and felt a lot better, got some energy and a tiny bit of appetite back. Kristin and I got some take out from the vegetarian restaurant and brought it back to Mirror and sat at the kitchen eating our delicious food and had a beer and it was great. Kristin is probably the person I’ve gotten along with best here; she’s freakishly like me. We’re both vegetarian, both do yoga (she teaches at school so we’ve been doing it together every morning), we both have beagles, elephants are our favorite animals, we are both fascinated by and love reading about buddhism, our itunes libraries are almost identical, the list goes on. I wish she had arrived here earlier, I’m going to be sad to say bye to her.

I slept for TEN HOURS Saturday night, which is more or less unheard of here. People are normally up by 7:30 and I slept till 10. It was FANTASTIC. In the morning Kristin and I walked down to the little shop, got some drinks, and wandered around a nearby Akha village. Then we took a tsung tao into town to pick up the others who had stayed in town and we all went to an ostrich farm. Hahahaha Andy Chris and Rhae rode the ostriches but I didn’t, I felt super awkward about it. It was absolutely hilariously ridiculous though. There were little bunnies EVERYWHERE and I found one that wasn’t too scared so I scooped it up and carried it around for a while. We sat down at a little cafe and I had an amazing and uber chocolatey iced mocha. On the way home we stopped at the market to get bananas for our banana boats that we would cook later :) On the way home the tsung tao driver let us get on top and ride the rest of the way on top of the tsung tao. It was soooo much fun and sooo beautiful and we got the strangest looks from all the Thais but it was so great. I took a video, I’ll post it soon.

That night we made a bonfire and made banana boats, which I’d never heard of before, but basically you slice a banana open, stuff it was your candy bar of choice, wrap it in foil, and stick it in the fire. Yummmmmmmmmm. We had a pretty early night but it was fun. One last night of our awesome little group before all the newbies arrived.

Today I’m going to the hospital where we teach/play games/make crafts with sick kids. Should be very interesting.

I look forward to seeing you all :)

Awesome Video

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:17:38 +0700

you should all watch this video. It almost makes me cry. I know I’m gonna watch it when I start to really miss this place, and it’ll make me cry then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTEMcZg3It8

I really want to come up with an I.S. that will allow me to come back here. I think I could come up with something good, something politically or socially based. Something about social activism, perceptions of justice, maybe Thai prejudice, something along those lines. I could get funding to come back, do some interviews, maybe spend some more time with hill tribe people, etc. Showering here in the winter would be the closest I’ve ever been to hell though.

They’re spraying some sort of stuff today that keeps mosquitoes from reproducing, in order to prevent the spread of dengue fever. No one’s had it here, but apparently it’s not uncommon in the area. :-\

I discovered what they drink in heaven

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:48:40 +0700

PINEAPPLE KIWI SMOOTHIES. oh, and COFFEE BANANA SMOOTHIES. You can get smoothies here for 15 baht, which is the equivalent of….maybe 45 cents. I’m going to be obsessed with them when I get back. My plan is to buy at least 100 kiwis, peel them, and freeze them, so I can make these smoothies year round.

This is by far the dumbest blog post ever, but I just needed to document my love for these brilliant concoctions, so that I will never forget them and continue to make and enjoy them for decades to come.

Eye-Opening Week

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:57:13 +0700

This week was really…good. It wasn’t very eventful, which was nice, because I have been soooo freaking busy since I’ve gotten here. I still haven’t had a day in which I didn’t do anything. On Saturday we went to Big C (huge mall/grocery store), bought too many groceries and a coffee Oreo Blizzard (yes, Thailand’s got DQ), then went to town and spent most of the night with P’Noi, who was having a vegetarian BBQ. Jesus, were those vegetables and tofu good. Even the meat-eaters were raving about them. James even said “omg, those vegetables were amazing. And I don’t even like vegetables”. What could we expect though? They were made with his mom’s sweet chili sauce!

Oh I forgot to mention the going away party and talent show we had on Friday. I was a backup dancer/singer for Rhae and Calina’s lipsyncing to the Glee version of Don’t Stop Believing. It was epic. James and Julian did a hilaaarrrious act where James sat on Julian’s lap and Julian was his arms, you know what I mean. They did “A Day at Mirror”, I’ve got the whole thing on video, I’ll put it up when I get back to fast internet. We also all wrote on each other’s t-shirts, since 5 of the people who came to Mirror with us were leaving, and it was so sad and cute and we all got drunk and it was great.

Anyways…several things about being at P’Noi’s made me realize things that I’m going to miss about Thailand, and things from the western world that are fucking ridiculous. Take his BBQ brushes; they were made out of some banana leaves and a rubber band. Think about all the people you know who probably spent $15 on a damn grill brush from Bed Bath and Beyond or Amazon, one that was mass produced in some factory somewhere, and P’Noi made an awesome one out of some leaves. Free. Efficient. Effective. Conservative.
Let’s take a look at his bathroom - It’s behind a wooden door that looks like a small stall door, and by that I mean it comes down to about 2 feet off the ground and goes up to about 6 inches above my head. Inside there’s a floor made out of stones and dirt. It’s actually quite aesthetically pleasing, the stones are rather nice. There’s a squat toilet, which you flush with a bucket, a sink which you turn on with a wrench (only cold water), and a little basket for his tooth paste and tooth brush. Mind you that this is the bathroom in his shop, which is coincidentally also where he lives most of the time, where he sleeps on the bed which people lay on whilst getting tattoos. When he’s not in his shop he stays in the mountains or with hill tribes. But, back to the point, think about your own bathroom. You’ve probably got a toilet which uses disgusting amounts of water every time you flush it, a sink and shower with hot and cold water that someone probably paid thousands of dollars for, a floor that cost at least a few hundred dollars, and bottles upon bottles upon bottles upon bottles of shit that you rarely use, or used a few times and then forgot about, you get the idea. And I guarantee you that even in your most wildest dreams, you are neither as happy nor as content as P’Noi. That is a promise.

I’ve found myself not dreading the crappy toilets with buckets to flush but rather thinking, “I cannot believe how wasteful the toilets at home are! We should use buckets too!”. I’ve started turning off the water while lathering in the shower not only because they are ice cold but because I think about the fact that there is limited water in this part of the world. The fact that we even have water to shower in, not even to drink, but shower in, makes us so lucky here. I’ve been thinking about how strange it’s going to be to go to a home that is normally occupied by one person and is 4 times the size of a hill tribe person’s home. It’s going to be strange to go home to cabinets that have been stocked with the same shit since 1994 that has long since been forgotten. It’s going to be strange to go home to a population that never thinks about these things, has never seen these things, has never thought these things. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but it’s just what I’ve been thinking lately.

I feel so so so so unspeakably grateful to have had first-hand experiences that have shown me that money and possessions poison everything. I always understood the theories behind the preachings of anti-consumerism, the idea that it’s easy to become obsessed with money and possessions and easy to lose sight of what is important, but I understand it so much more now and have seen it with my own eyes. I sincerely hope that I can keep these memories fresh in my mind and can keep holding on to everything this place has taught me. I hope that I have the audacity and courage to live differently and maybe inspire others to do the same. I promise I’m not going to install a squat toilet or build a bamboo hut in my backyard (although I know I could, if you have me some bamboo and a machete). I really need to give this some more thought and see if I can sum it all up more succinctly.

I also just want to say that I am very pleased with how Ryan and I have been through this whole experience. I’m relieved to know that I can get on just fine without him. I can be happy and be myself and have my own life and be fantastic. And during all that, I can miss him greatly. I am not relieved to be away from him; I miss him every day. I do not dread seeing him again; he’s one of the few things I’m looking forward to. But I know that we are not dependent on each other, that we can live separately, and to me, to us, that is important.

You know when you’re so happy, not in an excited way but...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:33:44 +0700

You know when you’re so happy, not in an excited way but in a calm, peaceful, thoughtful way, that you can actually feel your body chemistry changing, the endorphins and serotonin kicking it up a notch? That happens way too frequently here, and too infrequently at home, for me to be too excited about leaving.

Everything is going to be different now

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:00:50 +0700

I’ve had several conversations today about the various ways it’s going to suck to go home. I think it must be because a bunch of the big group that I arrived with is leaving, and the rest of us are at least half way done with our stays, but everyone seems to be freaking out a little about leaving.

I don’t really know what to say or how to explain it…but we all know that we feel different and that going home is going to be, in the very least, strange.

A bunch of the girls just barged in because Dot got stung by a scorpion and we had to look it up. Apparently they’re rarely harmful, but we’ve got a scorpion in our room, so there’s now a party to find it, so I ought to go do that in a second.

Let’s just say that, when people ask me “how was it?!” I’m just not going to know what to say. It’s been an experience unlike any other. I really really hope it has changed me as much as we’re all thinking, because it would have only changed me for the better.

Time to stop flipping shit, because I’m only just over half way done.

25 minutes of free time!

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:48:00 +0700

Just got back from Jalae child care center, where Rhae and I worked on the ABCs and played with play doh. In 25 minutes, we are off to town to go to the hill tribe museum. We think that they would be willing to sell post cards that some volunteers made to raise money for the hill tribe scholarship fund, which is a project started by Mirror Foundation that aims to raise money to send hill tribe kids to school. I bought some of these myself, so a few of you will be receiving some (I hope to mail them today).

So I haven’t posted in forever, let’s think about what I’ve done…

Taught monks, a few times. They are so awesome and shower us with snacks and are so eager to learn. One of them gave Wendy and I a quick meditation lesson before we left last time. Ha, meditation lesson from a Thai Buddhist monk. My grandpa would be so jealous.

Went to Chiang Mai and went zip lining through the rain forest, which was one of my most favorite things I have ever done.

The mosquitoes have gone absolutely INSANE. They’re ravenous. They’re trying to take over. I’m going to get dengue fever.

I don’t have a whole lot of time to go into detail about everything I’ve done, so let’s just say that I don’t think I’m going to be thrilled to walk into my house, when I get there in 20 days.

I’ve gotten used to sleeping on a rock, to flushing the toilet with a bucket of water, to carrying around bottled water with me everywhere and not drinking from taps, to eating rice at least twice a day and suffering the consequences, to taking freezing cold showers with terrible water pressure (I don’t know if I would ever get totally used to it….), to sweating profusely and wearing bug spray 24/7.

I’ve gotten used to the unbelievable beauty that is Thailand, to hanging out with amazing people every single night, to helping someone in some way every day, to being part of an amazing organization that is dedicated to making life better for so many disadvantaged people, to paying the equivalent of 95 cents for an awesome meal, to never being cold, to seeing the bright faces of smiling kids almost every day, and to all of the peace, compassion, and good heartedness that just swallows you as soon as you get to this place.

I’m trying to hard to make the most of my last 3 weeks.

Right now I’m sitting in Boonbundan guesthouse in Chiang Rai. It’s pretty much a dump...

Mon, 31 May 2010 19:44:15 +0700

Right now I’m sitting in Boonbundan guesthouse in Chiang Rai. It’s pretty much a dump but it costs us about $2.50/night for 4 people in a room with A/C. Everyone pretty much comes here every weekend to get out of the country, spend some time in A/C, take hot showers, and go to the night bazaar.

I have been so unbelievable busy, which is great, because time is flying. I am starting to really love it here. I wish that I could share it more thoroughly with so many of you though. Pictures do not do the beauty justice, and these words do not do the experiences justice. I told Ryan, and I wholeheartedly believe, that I could stay here for quite a long time if he were with me. I think he would absolutely love it, especially this city. We’ve been hanging out with P. Noi a lot, who is a 3-time-ex-monk 24-year-vegetarian whom I’ve never seen wear anything but fisherman pants and a headband, who owns a tattoo shop/handmade leather bag shop/bar. He’s an extremely funny and genuine guy. When you walk past his shop, no matter what time of day, he yells “good morning! Sit down! Have beer!”. His shop is just adorable too, covered in foliage, littered with little stools for passerby to sit on and have a beer, and is now adorned with his new kitten, Elizabeth, whom he found yesterday, after she was mauled by a dog! P. Noi took her to the vet and now she hangs out as his shop. That’s the type of guy he is. Anyways, I think Ryan would dig it. I can just imagine him chilling with us and P. Noi and he would feel right at home in this little city. I’m gonna try real hard to make it back here some day.

The most prominent experience since the last time I posted was my stay with an Akha hill tribe in their village. It was an extremely poor village, and none of them had ever seen Westerners before. The village consisted of maybe 15 houses, mostly one room, made of either concrete or bamboo. Many of them just had red dirt/clay floors. The night of the day we arrived, we had a meeting where we met the leader of the village and they expressed their gratitude for us coming to help, and one of the women cried! It was incredible to see exactly how much it meant for them for us to be there. They were so generous and hospitable and made us AWESOME food in ginormous portions.

Our main purpose in going there was to rebuild a house that had been destroyed in a bad storm that happened a few weeks ago. We learned that the house belonged to a man that, due to injury or some medical condition, is unable to work, and receives only 500 baht per month from the government. That he receives any government aid is actually kind of surprising considering the fact that most hill tribe people are not citizens and I didn’t think they would get any aid, but 500 baht is roughly $15, maybe $18 dollars. So, we split bamboo that we had chopped down in the forest the day before, which involved basically beating the everlasting shit out of it with a machete (yes, I got to use a machete). We dug holes for the support of the house, put up the bamboo walls, and had to stop at that point because they needed special people to do the roof. We also made concrete and installed a concrete floor in another house, which was A LOT harder and more time consuming than it sounds. We all worked so hard, it was so gratifying.

Most dramatic hour of my trip so far….

Well, seeing as how we are in rural Thailand, there has always been a lot of joking about eating dog. So, our guide asked 2 of the guy volunteers on our 2nd night if they wanted to eat dog. Because of his accent, they thought he said “duck”, so they enthusiastically replied that yes, they would love some duck. So, a man from the tribe walks up to a dog that was currently playing with another dog and some tribe kids in front of a bunch of the women volunteers, puts a leash on it, drags it over to the next house, hits it on the head, slits its throat, and then roasts, cleans, and chops it up, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING!!! Girls and kids were crying, some of the volunteers were cheering, some of us just got depressed for the rest of the night. It was CRAZY. Crazy. Everyone was asking how I felt about it, being the only vegetarian in the group, and honestly, I think I was one of the least shocked/troubled people in the group. I realize that there is an obvious difference between a dog and a chicken or a pig, but I feel basically the same way about it as I do any other animal. And I think that it’s important for people to be forced to think about what actually goes into producing meat as food. It’s gruesome. It’s violent. It’s sad. And it’s reality.

That night, the Akha women dressed each and every one of us up in their traditional Akha wedding gear. It was GREAT. Pictures will soon follow.

When we left, all the women cried. They touched their hearts and then touched ours, and hugged us, even though that is something rare in Thai culture. It was so fulfilling to see what an impact we had made. No one had ever come to their village to help them before, even though they are so unbelievably poor. It made me realize how much you can do with so little, how you can be happy with a one-room bamboo house, some rice, some vegetables, and family. I can’t even think of adequate words to describe the experience.

Just yesterday we went for an elephant ride. I felt very controversial about it, but I had already paid for it, as it was included in my fees, and the elephants seemed to be relatively well-kept, so I rode the elephant. Honestly, my favorite part of it was standing with them, touching their trunks and their massive bodies, feeding them bananas, looking straight into their eyes. I just love elephants.

Today I went to the most amazing waterfall on the planet. A bunch of us rode on motorbikes (I just witnessed a terrible motorbike accident yesterday, so I was terrified, and my life was constantly flashing before my eyes) and got lost a bunch of times but eventually made it to a national park, at which point we had to trek 1400 meters to the waterfall. The ride was gorgeous. It was cool because we were riding alongside a river, and it was just getting progressively more rainforesty. The trek was even better. Basically it was 1400 meters through a bamboo and palm tree forest. Again, I won’t even try to describe it, but I could not believe the sight I was seeing. And then. The waterfall. It was just….so powerful! We all swam in it, obviously, and it was big enough to produce an insane amount of noise and wind, and standing under it was exhilarating, breathtaking, beautiful, something out of a movie. There were slippery rocks behind it that you could sit on after you passed under it, which was kind of scary considering how slippery everything was, and the gross amounts of water falling on your head. We had to get pretty far up before we stopped feeling like we were drowning and could actually see. But man, was it worth it. Today was probably the most aesthetically beautiful day of my life. And the whole time I was in that jungle and standing under that waterfall, I was wishing that Ryan was next to me. He would just love it.

Time for bed. We slept until 12 today due to our crazy and hilarious night out, but we are all so tired today, and I have a breakfast date with P. Noi, Julian, Emilee, and Rhae at a vegetarian restaurant in town at 9 am.

I miss you all so much. I am no longer in any rush to get back, but I cannot wait to see all your beautiful faces again.

NO TIME

Sat, 29 May 2010 15:31:59 +0700

Oh man, I’ve been so busy. I just emailed my dad and I already have to go plug in my batteries, take a shower, and get ready to go to town. I have had no free time in foreevveerrr which is great but I also want to tell everyone what’s going on.

So since I last posted, I have gone on a home stay with a hill tribe, seen a dog being cooked, built a bamboo house, installed a concrete floor, ridden an elephant, gone on a boat ride down the Makong river, washed my clothes by hand, and lots of other little things. I am dying to write more about it but I just don’t have time right now. Hopefully Monday.

My weekend in 10 words: drinks, food, tie dye, Pi Noi,...

Mon, 24 May 2010 22:08:21 +0700

My weekend in 10 words: drinks, food, tie dye, Pi Noi, cockroach, rain, friends, memories, motorcycle

See the path cut by the moon, for you to walk on. See the waves on distant shores, awaiting your...

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:23:25 +0700

See the path cut by the moon, for you to walk on.

See the waves on distant shores, awaiting your arrival.

Dream the dreams of other men, you’ll be no one’s rival.

Dream the dreams of others then, you will be no one’s rival.

It's too hot for creative titles

Thu, 20 May 2010 17:08:54 +0700

I have so much to say….I don’t know if anyone cares to read it all, haha. But I figure this doubles as a journal that I can always go back to and remember life in Thailand, so I might as well say it all.

One thing that is pissing me off is how disturbed everyone is by the fact that some people around here (not people that live with us, but some native northern Thais) eat dog. They just don’t realize the hypocrisy of it. Tell me, why is a dog any more valuable than a pig, cow, chicken, or any other animal? Guarantee that if you spend a year getting to know a pig you will feel just as attached. A dog’s life is no less valuable than anything else’s. I hate that people cant see the homogeneity of life and appreciate it. I just cannot get over how disrespectful it is to rip something’s body into pieces, cook it, and eat it. Just for something as miniscule as the pleasure of one of our senses. It’s so not necessary. Take a look at our closest relatives - chimpanzees or orangutans. They do eat meat every once in a blue moon, but only when it practically smacks them in the face. For them, it is advantageous because food and nutrients are scarce; the shot of protein and iron and all the other animal nutrients can make a huge difference. For us, it’s just unnecessary. And it’s disgusting. Vegetarian rant over.

I taught school today! It was so much fun. First I was with kindergartners for 2 1/2 hours, teaching the alphabet. Some of them were super eager and ready to learn and were doing awesome and others were just crazy and we kind of gave up on trying to keep their attention. After lunch and coffee and snacks (they treated us soooo well) we taught 4-6 graders for an hour. We taught them body parts. Some of them were sooo shy and my kids did not get it at all but some of them were really catching on and it was awesome to feel like we were actually accomplishing something.

One of the kids whom we were teaching the alphabet fell out of a tree a few years ago and hurt his leg. Now, it is so infected and rotted that you can apparently see down to the bone. He is hill tribe (Akha), and they are not citizens (something this organization is trying very hard to change) so he does not get health care. Doctors want to amputate his leg because it is the cheapest and easiest thing to do. However, they say that it can be saved. The Mirror Foundation is now working with the hospital to see what can be done and the other volunteers and I are planning on starting to fundraise so that this awesome little boy can keep his leg. So, if we start a facebook group asking for donations, DONATE!! He is such a smart boy too; he was so eager to learn and learned all the letters so well. There could be so many opportunities ahead of him, I would hate for him to lose a leg because he fell out of a tree.

I’m starting to really like all the other volunteers. We have all bonded so much over the common new experiences, and the joy of teaching these awesome adorable little kids who love us so much. And they are all really cool people. And really nice. It may be strange and possibly wrong but I’ve noticed that one of the ways I judge how much I like someone is think, how much would I like partying with this person? Haha, and seriously, everyone here would be so sweet to party with.

I’m so excited to go to town this weekend. Bed, AC, warm shower, omg. All for like $10/person. Apparently there’s a lady in town that will do your laundry and fold it for 20 baht, which is like…67 cents. Hell yeah.

I forget everything else I wanted to say, and we’ve got a meeting in half hour, so I’m gonna go. Ew, we just found a millipede on the floor :( You should have seen the beetle the school kids were passing around today. They are obsessed with bugs.

TTFN. I’ll post pics from school tomorrow.

Warming Up

Wed, 19 May 2010 05:40:39 +0700

Today was my second day….it was busy but good. *side note* a bug just crawled down into my keyboard and disappeared into my computer. I have a feeling that might happen a lot.

We had orientation, which involved learning a lot about the organization with which I am volunteering and giving all of my time for the next 6 weeks. During parts of it I literally almost cried. The organization was started by a group of activists in 1991 who were protesting some sort of military occupation and got really involved in social issues of all sorts. Some of the original activists apparently still live around or in the volunteer village. Now, the organization has all sorts of programs that focus on maintaining hill tribe culture, fighting drug and alcohol abuse and poverty, educating about AIDS, helping hill tribe people gain citizenship, basically empowering the locals in any way possible so that they can become educated and make a living and fight exploitation.

There are tons of other things they do - every Saturday we play games with the hill tribe children that live around the volunteer village. Every night at 7 they have music lessons with the locals - I can hear them all playing guitar and drums right now. Tomorrow night we’re going into town for some sort of “initiation” which I think might entail eating a bug, in which case I will abstain no matter how much I am ridiculed. Thursday night we’re getting belly dancing lessons, and every Friday night all the volunteers play mafia. On saturday evenings we all go to the supermarket and then the night bazar, and we can choose to stay in town (you can get a room with AC for 3 people for about $10) for the weekend or come back to the village.

There was just a lot of talk about living sustainably, in harmony with others and nature, having an anti-hierarchical structure in which everyone helps everyone else, and respecting the local customs and rules. It really gave me a sense of what I’m doing here and why. I feel really lucky to be connected to such a powerful and respectable organization.

Some of the rules frankly just piss me off though. For example, I’m not allowed to show my shoulders because showing “too much” skin will make Thais think you’re a slut. I had to swim in the waterfall yesterday in pants and a tshirt, while the guys just wore their bathing suits. Thais are always polite, even if you do something that offends them, because they hold politeness above everything else. I guess I just have the “screw you, I do what I want” typical American attitude, to an extent. I am not really willing to lost that quality either It really makes me appreciate the freedom of America. I just want to say, “yes, I am wearing a tank top, and no, I do not want to have sex with you. But it’s 100 fucking degrees and I only pee twice a day even though I drink water constantly because I sweat so much.” They’re just so easy to offend it’s silly.

When I get tired, I miss home. It’s like, when I’m here during the day, and occupied, it’s fun, but then I just want to leave and see Ryan and go to bed. I got to know the other volunteers today pretty well though, so it’s getting a little more comfortable.

Turns out we are not allowed to take days off. If you leave the project, you are not allowed to come back. So, I’m thinking, in order to get to my beach, I might just leave here a few days early and skip my flight out of Chiang Rai and just catch my flight in Bangkok. There are a bunch of people who are volunteering for a month and then traveling south for a while, so I might be able to meet up with them. I would have to go without Rhae, because she’s here for 2 months, which makes me sad, but I’ve got to go.

There’s been talk of getting bamboo tattoos. Apparently you can only get them done in 3 places in the world, Thailand being one of them, and monks somewhere do them for donations. I will have to think real long and hard about that one.

I’m off to take a bucket shower, which the other volunteers, who have tried both, have decided is superior to the lame shower heads.

I miss you all and I promise I will not be like many of the people here who decided they loved Thailand so much and just never left.

Discouraged/Miserable

Mon, 17 May 2010 20:03:32 +0700

Today was my first day in Chiang Rai. Someone from the Mirror Foundation (with whom I’m volunteering) was at the airport, along with 2 other volunteers, to pick Rhae and I up when we landed. The 2 volunteers, Ben and Jeanelle, are really nice and funny; they assured us that living and volunteering here is soooo much fun and that time is going by really fast for them. I was really excited by their words of encouragement and the great scenery and different culture visible all around me.

We came to the volunteer village and got a tour, met some of the other volunteers, ate some lunch, brought our things to our room, etc. Then, we went to a waterfall. Somehow some of the British volunteers arranged for a bus to come pick us up and take us to a place where we had to hike about 10 minutes to get to the waterfall. It waqs fun and really refreshing after our first day in the intense heat. We came back and ate dinner, showered, and now all the new and jet-lagged volunteers are resting/sleeping.

So, why am I miserable, you ask? I’ll tell you why.

There are 11 of us sleeping on the second floor/attic of a house with holes in the floor boards and cracks in the walls. Our mattresses are abut 1” thick and lie on the bare wood floors. The house has 2 “bathrooms” and when I say bathroom I mean a filthy, ant-infested room with something resembling a toilet and some sort of contraption that can be used to dump water on yourself (in a manner somewhat like a shower). 2 of the toilets are squatters. None of them flush; you have to use a bucket to dump water in them until all the waste is gone. We can’t flush our toilet paper; we have to throw it away. 2 of the showers are bucket showers, aka you dip a cup in a large basin of water and dump it on yourself. The other 2 have shower heads, removable from the walls, which have such poor pressure that it took me literally several minutes to get all the soap off myself. There is no heated water. The tap water is not safe - I have to walk down to the communal eating area and get water from a filter there to drink and brush my teeth. When we eat at said area, it is absolutely teeming with flies - we have to continuously shoo tons of them away.

Not to mention the fact that I miss Ryan terribly. It’s just absolutely squashing my spirit. The distance is killing me. 6 weeks? SIX WEEKS?! What was I thinking? Tell me, what was I thinking? How can I get out of this? How can I cut it in half?

I may be being overly dramatic because it’s hot and I haven’t slept much in days and I’m having kind of a cultural shock I guess…but I’m miserable.

Toilet control panel!

Sun, 16 May 2010 11:59:57 +0700

Toilet control panel!

Updates from Seoul

Sun, 16 May 2010 11:56:38 +0700

Hola!

I’m in my room in Seoul right now, with only 58 min left on my comp battery. The front desk only has a 2-pronged outlet converter and stupid Macs have 3-pronged chargers :(

On my flight to LA I sat next to a girl the same age as me. She tried to pay for the DirecTV that shows on the back of the seat in front of you, but her sound didn’t work, so I bought it on mine and we shared the ear phones and watched like 3 movies. Ice Age 3 was my favorite. When I got to LA I called Ryan and cried, and then called my dad and cried, and did not get to go to the restaurant I wanted because I had 3 fewer hours than I thought I did. I’ll hit it up on my way back though, when I have 12 hours.

I ended up having to go to a whole other building where the international terminal was, and on my way there I made friends with Andrew, an Indiana guy originally from Australia, who was also headed to Seoul. He’s a very seasoned traveller and actually helped me a lot. First off, he was someone to talk to and keep me company; otherwise I probably would have ended up crying again. Second, he had been all sorts of places before, including Seoul, so he quelled some of my fears.

That 13-hour flight was surprisingly non unpleasant. I won’t go so far as to say it was pleasant, but it was not bad. I managed to sleep for a lot of it :-D And I even got my hotel voucher! I am thoroughly impressed with this whole travel system. On the airplane they knew I needed a vegetarian meal, they actually had my hotel voucher, and apparently my bags are going all the way to Chiang Rai without me having to get them! I keep expecting everything to fall apart at any second. And to get food or water poisoning at any second. I’m guessing that’ll stop soon haha.

My hotel room is super cute, with little slippers in the foyer, an Asian custom that I’ve always heard about but never seen, a couch, and an awesome high-tech bathroom! The toilets got a control panel! I’ll post a picture of that…

Lunch was interesting, but I enjoyed it (those of you who know me best will not be surprised when this inadvertently turns into a food blog). I tried this stuff that looked like spicy cabbage, which I expected to be good, but actually tasted kind of fishy, so I didn’t eat much of it. They had crinkly french fries and ketchup, haha, and toast, and salad with dressing that looked exactly like key lime pie cream filling, which was MUCH better than I was expecting. I went out on a limb and tried the seaweed soup, which tasted like, well, the sea. I put some rice in it and scarfed it down though; I’ve always heard seaweed’s good for you.

The store across the street had calling cards so I got to call my dad and Ryan!! The card cost 10,000 wan (I exchanged $25 and got 27,350 wan). I told the lady at the counter that I needed a card to call the United States and was not comforted or confident when she said “…Mexico?!” (I have been told I look Mexican…) but I bought it anyways and it works so that’s fantastic.

I get picked up for my next flight in 3 hours. I have a 5 1/2 hour flight to Bangkok, where I will meet up with Rhae at the Starbucks, then we have a 10 hour layover (I might try to convince her to get a hotel room) until we finally get to Chiang Rai!

That’s about all for now. Hopefully I’ll get an outlet converter in the airport and I’ll be back later :)

my new BFF4LIFE!

Tue, 11 May 2010 11:14:21 +0700

my new BFF4LIFE!

Getting started...

Fri, 07 May 2010 01:35:36 +0700

So, I still have 8 days before I leave, but I have my last final in 4.5 hours, and I’m desperate for procrastination activities. I figured I’ll get this thing set up but probably won’t write anything till I get to Seoul.

Right now the only thing on my mind is, should I get these stupid malaria pills????