Ms. Calluna takes on teaching

Tues. June 9th 2009

I've been getting many requests to continue my blog, even though I am no longer in Asia and (soon) will no longer be ambulating about the countryside. Because of these two drastic changes, I initially wasn't going to continue this blog after returning to the states, but to be honest I miss it and apparently some other people do too. And for the next couple of months, I'm still not tied down to any one place, even though I am working towards a more specific end than "experiencing Southeast Asia."

Back in January, during my first days in Chiang Mai, I was accepted into the U.S.'s Teach for America program. This program is a branch of Americorps, which many people call "the stateside Peace Corps. While Americorps is a one-year renewable experience working with a wide variety of non-profit and volunteer organizations, Teach for America is a two-year committment for corps members, all of whom are recent college graduates who agree to teach in an underperforming and underserved school district. Corps member teachers' larger purpose is to combat the educational achievement gap that exists in the United States. Each year, we engage in "big goal setting" with our students and their families. Most of our students are performing below (some very below) grade level proficiencies in math, reading and other content knowledge areas. This is a HUGE problem since a solid education is vital to college admissions, job prospects, and other aspects of a person's life. Lacking basic literacy skills drastically circumscribes an individual's opportunities and options.

The children I will teach are bright, creative, vibrant individuals. Due to where they live however, the educational system has failed them. Some will probably believe they are stupid and cannot succeed in school. This is not true, and it will be my (and my fellow corps members') job to help them unlearn this personal belief and help them prove to themselves and others, through making great educational strides during the year, that they are the brilliant individuals I know them to be.

I'm so stoked.

And scared pantsless.

So, tomorrow, I depart my beloved home state - Land of 10,000 Lakes - and head for the Atlantic Coast - Tar Heel territory to be exact. I'm taking some time to visit friends and family as I drive out and I will do my best to find breaks in training to write updates on what I'm doing to prepare for the fall and provide reflections on my experience as a new teacher, in a new region of the country.

Wed. June 10th 2009

Today I said final goodbyes to family and set out for Madison, WI - the first stop on my journey east. Wisconsin was uneventful. I did make the same mistake that I made traveling to the Dells two summers ago, though. See, you take I-94 out of the twin cities and it counts up from zero at the border. I needed to take exit 92. All of a sudden, I hit exit 98, and I’m kicking myself for missing the exit. So, I get at exit 102 and turn around. While doing so, I’m marveling at how quickly the state went by. But then I realize I am much further from Madison than I should be... And all the advertisement distances do not add up to mile 92. Hmm... Flipping backwards through the AAA Trip-Tik confirms my suspicions - Yes, I need to take I-90’s exit 92, not I-94. Never do directions mention that the two meet and when they do, the mile markers transfer to I-90 rather than 94. Since you do nothing to get on 90, and it is technically still 94, both Google (two years ago) and AAA (today) told me to follow I-94 to exit 92. Thanks guys. Very helpful. This particular exit/problem has now cost me almost an hour of my life.

In Madison, I’m staying with two friends, sorority sisters. They have what amounts to a starter home as an apartment - 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo. And they’ve been complaining about rent. Really? I suppose it probably seemed cheaper and more worth the money when they first leased it two years ago, when the economy was strong, versus today, when everything is expensive. I will be lucky to call such a nice apartment home.

The three of us and a boyfriend went out to eat with another sister and her fiancee at a place called Cheeseburger in Paradise. We (after much pointless head-scratching) decided to go there because of the sweet potato chips that you can get as a side. Duh-licious. Good call M!

Over dinner and throughout the night we talked about the work each is doing now, either two or three years out from undergrad. All three were science majors in college - a path I nearly pursued. One is in her second year of graduate school, after first doing a year-long internship at the National Institutes of Health. In grad school she’s studying the meningitis bacteria (which is apparently closely related to the gonorrhea bacteria - the main interest of her lab’s research), and even though finals are over, she still has a huge project due in a few weeks. K. said it’s their last chance to kick her out of grad school, so it’s kind of a big deal and involves writing a grant proposal and defending the project to a five-person faculty committee. I told her it sounds kind of like the undergrad theses students do at our school, but a much bigger deal. And mandatory.

M runs experiments (or protocols) for a pharmaceutical company. She’s been able to advance very quickly (from a “1” to a “3” in half the time as her boss and former trainer) and loves the work she’s doing. And, really, who wouldn’t love to get paid for spending time with chimps? I think it was M who also at one point had been doing some work related to the herpes virus... or maybe she just said she had an enlarged and stuffed facsimile of “the herp.” (K. has one of gonorrhea - and she gave them to family members at christmas. Sorry you’re missing out fam.)

S. is also in the pharmaceutical field, but not with a drug company. Instead she is working to reproduce human tissues for testing. Apparently you can manufacture stem cells from skin cells, and then use those stem cells to make other cells. It’s a wickedly difficult process and her team is working to find the happy medium between number of cells produced and the number that actually function as the type of cell (heart, skin, kidney, etc) that they’re supposed to be (growth-purity ratio). It’s a lot of running the procedure over and over and trying to be more exact with cell feedings and other lab techniques each time to have more functional cells. The goal is for drug manufacturers to be able to better test for and neutralize some of the unwanted effects of medications (such as - and I’m making this example up - a drug to cure acid reflux somehow damaging the heart muscle over time... something like that - keeping side effects from happening).

Back at the apartment we watched Transformers and played with the dog, Benny. He (the dog) really didn’t take to me. Every time I moved to a new part of the house he seemed to forget who I was and that he had already met me and been told I was safe. Essentially, this amounted to a lot of barking, which is no big deal, but it really flustered M, who had never seen him act like this before.

What I learned about the real world: The hours suck. There isn’t as much down time as you think you’ll have when you are slugging through all-nighters in college. It’s early mornings and working weekends and holidays. Yes, your evenings may be more free, but be prepared to have your only desire to be sitting on the couch or crawling into your bed. And I’ll still have to grade. Woo hoo.

What I’m resolving to do differently: I’m resolving two things - 1. Live within my means, starting with a cheap (read small?) apartment. I don’t want to be unable to save or have a night out once in a while because my rent is too high. - 2. Schedule fun nights. This is like scheduling “me” time, but with friends. I don’t want to find myself living in the same town as friends and never seeing them. It would drive me crazy. Even if it’s pizza and wine at someone’s apartment, or with my roommate and their significant other - one night a month, I’m spending with friends not working, having fun.

Fairytale, 2

So... The International Tribunal. Officially called the ECCC - Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, this court has been years in the making. The international community and many Cambodian citizens have been trying to arrest, charge, and try KR officials since the regime fell in 1979. The head honcho, Pol Pot, died before any legal action could be taken.

Initially the public was supposed to apply for passes/clearance to visit the court, so we went on Tuesday after we taught English over the lunch hour, with no expectation of actually getting in to the building or compound. As we arrived the trial chamber was going on a 20 or 30 minute break, and Ajaan John asked if we could go in when the court restarted - AND THEY SAID YES! We were so excited. And a mite uncomfortable, because we were dressed for Cambodian heat and bumming around... not actually sitting in the trial chamber. I definitely went to the ECCC in a peasant skirt and beater-style tank top... :/ Jenna had to borrow Catherine's scarf to get in, because they wouldn't allow in shorts. Maybe we should have dreamed a little bigger.

All embarrassment aside, this was an amazing experience. We were witnessing the first day of trial proceedings in the first case to make it all the way to trial at the ECCC. Whoa.

(Before each case actually makes it to trial, there is a pre-trial period where the judges, defense, prosecution, and civil party attorneys attempt to hash out all of the nitty gritty rules and procedures for the actual trial. Some things are the same as trial - the defense likes to question the detention of the accused in both chambers, and the civil party attorneys don't really get to do anything ever being two examples - but the pre-trial is where Cambodian and international law get smushed together and a procedure and rules are agreed upon, and trial is where things really get adversarial and guilt needs to be proven and sentences handed down. Of the five cases currently active at the ECCC, four are in the pre-trial stage and one - the one we saw - has proceeded to trial chambers.)

The case before the trial chamber currently is prosecuting Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch (pronounced Doy-ik, we think) the man who ran Tuol Sleng/S-21 Prison during the Khmer Rouge. On Tuesday we missed the first Prosecution and Defense opening statements (they each gave 2) and we just missed Duch addressing the court, coming in as the second Defense attorney gave his opening statement. After the opening statements finished, the trial for the day ended with discussion of some logistical problems that had crept up along with some civil party attorney discontent being expressed due to their lack of opening statement.

We decided to go back to take in a full day of court in small groups. I was drawn for the second day of Duch's trial on Wednesday. We arrived at the ECCC at about 8:45 on Wednesday morning excited to hear the outcome of some of the previous day's debates, since the Justices wanted the time to confer, and to see what would happen next. In summary, the Court denied the Civil Parties' request for opening statements and requested that the Defense put forth the challenges they had alluded to the day before in their first opening statement. At first they didn't want to and tried to write everything off as a misunderstanding, but when asked a second time, the attorneys finally spit out their request to have the court release Duch to house arrest, since he had been in jail for 10 years - 2 years without being charged with anything, 7.5 in the custody of the Cambodian Military, and the final 2.5 in the custody of the ECCC (the .5s are approximate). There is apparently a Cambodian statute that says people charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes or related charges cannot be held for longer than three years, that supplied the basis of the Defense's request. The Prosecution countered, but didn't really put forward overly convincing arguments (at least, not as convincing as the defense was, in my view). One of the Civil Party attorneys made the best argument for retaining custody of Duch. She said that the ECCC has until July before their three years of custody are up, so this is a non-issue that should maybe be discussed in July, if ever. She is one smart lawyer lady. And she had badass hair. The justices decided to break for lunch and conferencing.

After lunch, the Justices came back and said they were gonna take the weekend to discuss release, but that they had decided the next order of business should be to read into the court record the "agreed upon facts" from the indictment. Basically, what happened was the pre-trial chamber came up with this indictment, listing the crimes Duch committed. The Prosecution then broke the indictment down into individual pieces of factual evidence and submitted these to both the court and to the Defense. The Defense was then supposed to go through the facts and designate whether they "agreed" with a fact, "agreed in part", "disagreed" or "did not contest" the fact. The facts that are agreed to or not contested are then considered not up for debate or discussion during the trial; that part of the indictment is fact, true. The Justices, on the recommendation of the Civil Parties, decided that it would be best for everyone's understanding of the case and proceedings if the agreed or not contested facts be read aloud. In the first of three parts, there were some 240 agreed or not contested facts that the prosecutor read aloud in the trial chamber. They ranged from the location of S-21 and M-13 (another prison Duch ran for a time), to the number of prisoners held and killed at S-21, to the methods of torture and the genesis of torture training manuals (:Duch. He produced three volumes of torture techniques and rules of interrogation for the prison... oy). I started the reading trying to write down each fact. About 60 in I switched to writing numbers to keep track of the total and jotting down the facts I found particularly compelling. At 200, I quit writing all together and just marked tallies. I have a full page and a half or two pages of notes that are almost entirely number sequences. I felt a little dazed by the time we left the courtroom, especially when I remembered there were still 100 or so facts to be read from the second section of the indictment (the defense had chosen to not respond to the third part, since it spoke about Duch's character or personality or something, and they felt it resembled self-incrimination, so they didn't look at those facts).

The next day Nathan, Patricia and Catherine went to the court, while the rest of us bummed and taught English. Thursday was part of the pre-trial chamber proceedings for Ieng Sary, the foreign minister for the KR. The man who tricked the entire world to allowing them to hold and keep their UN seat while committing crimes against humanity, if not genocide, even after they had been forced from power. He makes my blood boil. On the docket for Thursday was an appeal put forward by the Defense, requesting that Ieng Sary be released from jail due to poor health, if not cancelling his trial completely, since he was suffering from "near fatal old age" or something like that. The appeal was (obviously) shot down, but according to N, P, and C, the whole lot of that court (minus perhaps the Prosecutor) made themselves look like a complete joke before the justices gave their decision. The attorney's arguing skills were apparently far below those of Duch's trial chamber. Sary also liked to make the justices angry by moving to sit with his attorneys, without permission, instead of his assigned place in the middle of the room, which is just a hilarious image in my head, especially since he's too feeble to "run across the border to Thailand" (a direct quote from the defense) due to the fact that he's suffering "terminal old age" (a summary of the defense). Ridiculous.

I need to peace out for the day, before I spend all of my baht on internet. Yeah, that's right! We're back in Thailand! Woo!

Oh - and here are some links if you are looking for more info on the ECCC and the trials:
ECCC Website
Phnom Penh Post - Enlish-language daily newspaper
and... Supposedly the Cambodia Daily has a website... somewhere on the web. But I can't find it. It's another English-language newspaper and I had lunch with three of their reporters on Wednesday.

“If you stand in the same place for too long, the sticky comes off on your feet.” “...Eew. It does!”

Laos, Day 2... And return to Chiang Mai

On our second day in Laos the whole group of us nine students decided to trek to the waterfall and possibly on a cave tour as a group. We decided to meet for breakfast and head out as soon as possible afterwards. That was as far as our planning got. We had no idea where the waterfall was or if we could walk or if we had to take a taxi. We didn't even really know how to get a boat/cave tour. Oh yeah, and we're in Laos so we don't speak the language at all. Fun.

We set out, swimsuits on under our clothes, and walk the 15 minutes from our hotel to the main "downtown" of Luang Prabang. We're starting to squabble about whether to just ask a taxi or try to get a tour company to help us when one of the taxi drivers stops to talk to us.

Now, the taxis in Laos are a bit different than those in Chiang Mai. In Chiang Mai you have a handful of regular taxis, but mostly people get around using song-taows - covered pickup trucks with benches in the back (also called rot-dang or "red machine", because song-taows are almost exclusively red) - or tuk-tuks (covered three-wheeled motorbikes with a bench on the back). In Luang Prabang the most common sight was the love child of song-taows and tuk-tuks, which we christened the song-tuk. This name makes no sense if you look at the Thai etymology, but it's definitely fun to say.

So, back to the song-tuk driver. We try to explain to him in a mix of broken Thai and English that we need to get 9 people to the waterfall, and we want to know how much and how long this will take us. It took about 15 minutes for us to get the whole deal worked out, but eventually everyone is satisfied that the driver is going to take us to the waterfall and bring us back, and he'll do it for a reasonable price. Sweet. Then we take a closer look at the back of the song-tuk and worry a little about it both fitting us all and getting 9 Americans (who are fairly larger than Lao and Thai people) all the way to the top of the mountain. Hmm... but no time for nay-sayers! We're going to the waterfall. :) This is why I love traveling with this group.

It takes us over an hour to get up to the park where the waterfall is located, and our song-tuk gets a flat tire when we're about 15 minutes from the park. But the drive up is gorgeous. Laos is very green and has these beautiful mountains that while not as young and rugged as the Rockies are also not yet as old and rounded as the Appalachians. They're teenaged mountains and are a fabulous mix of points and outcrops, but still completely green. Gorgeous. And some farms have a rice crop in the field right now, which is not the case in Chiang Mai, so we all spent the ride up taking a ton of pictures. I kept trying to take pictures of the villages and towns we drove through to the point that people started telling me to stop. But I couldn't. I'll post some of the best when I have some time.

Once we get to the park, we find out we still need to purchase tickets for the waterfall itself, and the ticket people are very cranky because we only have baht rather than kip (last time I listen when Drexler says we don't need to change money). We're also pretty sure that they over charged us. But it was still worth every penny.

The waterfall we visited has about a bajillion levels as the water makes it's way down the mountain to the rice paddies and eventually the Mekong. I started by walking up to the base of the main falls. You aren't allowed to swim in this part of the falls anymore - although they have lots of postcards with people swimming, so I think you could in the past. Once we were done climbing around on the rocks and taking pictures, most of our group wandered back down the hiking trail a ways, until we reached a quiet pool where we decided to swim. Our pool was not posted as a swimming or no swimming area, and we took the lack of signage to mean that it was allowed, just not publicized. We quickly found out why it wasn't publicized, too. There were lot and lots of rocks at unpredictable intervals. The were mostly rounded but you could still scrape shins and elbows on them if you weren't careful. Also, the decaying leaves and sand made a very squishy and sticky bottom of the pool, and as we found out - if you stood in one place for too long the bottom would coat your feet with the sticky slime. Fun! Despite this, swimming was still a blast. And very refreshing (read - freezing cold). 

That night we went to see a performance of traditional Lao dance.  They performed a portion of the Ramayana - think Beowulf, or Illiad/Odessy, or King Arthur and then make it Asian and Buddhist, and then you kind of have a cultural understanding of the Ramayana. It tells the story of two lovers who go through a bunch of rebirths and perils in order to be together. He goes to war and she gets kidnapped but remains chaste.  The part of the story we saw involved the Princess being tempted by two separate men - one of whom wanted to kill her handmaids too - and not only did she refuse them and remain chaste, she also saved her handmaids.  Pretty badass for a pouty princess. 

After the dance, we went out to dinner and had delicious pizza. Drex also wanted us to try Mekong Whiskey.  I still like girlier drinks better. Drex and I also had the "what are you going to do with your life" talk. His daughter just graduated with a masters in journalism and he seems to think that would be great for me to do. I still think I'm gonna end up teaching girls in Pakistan or working with some group in Africa.  I don't really have active plans for either, I just feel like it's an eventuality at this point.  I also told Drex that I'm still thinking about grad/law school at some point. His response was something about how all of that could still lead to journalism. Apparently he really thinks I should grow up to be Samantha Power. 

After dinner we spent some time at the market, looking around mostly, and then headed back to the hotel.  As this is going on I'm hearing the first stories about a ghostly visit that two of our party supposedly had at the hotel the night before. 

It was pretty freaky stuff.  Vera couldn't sleep on one side of her bed, because the ghost would push her until she moved. She and Michelle both saw someone that was not either of them in the room that night. Then my roommate tells me she wants to sleep in the haunted room with Becca, leaving me alone for the night. 

So we're all in a bit of a creepy mood when we get back to the hotel, at which point Becca finds her key missing. Did the ghost steal it? Vera and Michelle were going to stay with Becca, rather than in the haunted room - was this the ghost's way of trying to dissuade them from leaving? This is what everyone was thinking, but, priorities, we get the hotel to unlock Becca's room and check to see all of her things are still there... Everything's there, but it's been moved... Definitely the ghost.  

Or as it turned out two creepy men, who turned the key in the next morning.  Becca had moved out of her room and into mine and Catherine's the evening before, once we were certain the desk clerk hadn't just misplaced the key.  Ghost or no ghost, no one was okay with her sleeping in that room when someone, or something, else had the key. 

The next morning we left and flew back to Chiang Mai.  Nothing too exciting happened. We had the same flight attendant as we did on the flight to Laos. That was kinda crazy. 

And that was my adventure in Laos. 

1 million displaced; 600,000 killed since junta came to power in 1990

- my notes from today's Thai culture class on Burma. 

Other highlights:

- average sentence for protesting the military government: 64 years

- 140,000 refugees are located in camps in Thailand

- Burma/Myanmar listed by the WHO as 190 out of 191 countries ranked on public health

- at least one-third of Burmese children are under-nourished in a country that has an over-abundance of natural resources

- U.S. and France still have companies building and utilizing natural gas pipelines in the country that are/were built by slave labor (the U.S. company - Chevron)

- military also uses slaves/forced laborers to carry supplies for them and as human mine-sweepers in mined areas

- rape is used as a systematic tactic of war

- any government project - such as gas and oil pipelines, hydroelectric dams - and areas they fear rebels travel - jungle paths, roads, past bases, ethnic minority villages - are heavily mined, making travel through the country extremely perilous

- previously opium, and currently production and sale of methamphetamines is the main source of income for most people and is tacitly supported by the government (because they can pretend to crack down for the international community, and continue to squander the country's resources for their own benefit)

- the government's arms providers: china, russia, singapore, israel

Links:

U.S. Committee for Burma

Burma Campaign UK

Burma Partnership

Shan Women's Network (Shan is one of the ethnic minorities being targeted and chased out of the country) - if all you can see at this link is the newsletter, look to the left and click on "about"

Burma Rivers Network (the rivers are one of the resources being exploited by the government with the support of - currently - China, India, and Thailand.  Slave labor is often used to build the hydroelectric dams, or the other countries - particularly China - import their own workers, doubly damaging the local economy.) 

I will post more about the week and our culture class later, but I needed to share some of this information as quickly as I could. 

My temple has the biggest Buddha

- creeper monk.

The end of the weekend and beginning of this week was full of flirtatious males and group drama.  It all makes for some pretty fantastic stories, so here goes. I may or may not use pseudonyms in the following story (or subsequent posts to be honest).

First off, Saturday started with a knock on my door around 7:30 a.m. It was Vera coming to ask if we had seen Michelle.  Turns out we hadn't, since we had been... you know... sleeping. Vera says "I don't think she came home last night because her bed is still made.  I don't know where she is.  And really I don't remember how I got home" from the club many had been out at with one of our Maw Chaw buddies the night before. Uh-oh. 

I get up, throw on a sweatshirt, and meet V. in the hallway.  We wake up others of our group to get professors room numbers, and then V. suggests we go talk to Ian, because she's pretty sure Ian brought her home from the club, and maybe he knows where Michelle is.  So we traipse upstairs barefoot in pjs and knock on the boys' door.  Later they told us about the conversation they had when the knocking began:

*knock-knock-knock*

"Ian, I think there's someone at the door."

"No there's not."

*knock-knock-knock-knock-knock*

"Yeah I think there is.  You should answer it."

"No.... Fine."

So Ian gets up and answers the door, despite his roommate's bed being closer to the door. 

Once Ian opens the door, we explain how Michelle is missing, and does he know where she is?  He does not, but has our CMU buddy's phone number, and suggests we call her.  I want to rip him a new one for leaving an intoxicated Michelle behind at a foreign club, but manage to restrain my self. Vera calls Thai Buddy, who also doesn't know where Michelle is, but promises to call back. 

A few phone calls later we find out Michelle is at Maw Chaw with Thai Buddy's guy friends, and they bring M. home on the back of a motorcycle shortly thereafter.  I'm left struggling with the fact that one person got left alone at a foreign club. I mean, it's girl code to not do that in the states... That means it should doubly not be done in another country.  Right?

The next day, roommates start fighting and growing sick of each other.  A general consensus has developed that us chicas are shifting around when we leave for our weekend trip to Laos, and then again when we go to Vietnam. 

Mere hours later, teasing goes too far and others of our group are fighting.  That made twice in one day that I wandered off with another person, to allow them time to vent, away from the group.  Lucky for me, I'm not yet sick of anyone.  And I got to eat amazing food and delicious shakes while out on our two-some adventures. 

Then, Monday morning our profs get into an argument before class.  It was like watching the parents fight... No good. 

After Monday, the fighting cooled down and the flirting started.  

Tuesday (1/27) Emily, Patricia and I walked to a wat near CMU campus called Wat Suan Dok.  Suan Dok was the first wat to hold monk chats as a tool to help their monk university students studying English to learn more easily.  Suan Dok also holds weekly meditation retreats, which a bunch of us are interested in attending and we had gone to try to find out more information.  Along the way we met a handful of really sketchy monks.  First, as we were walking, we ended up behind a monk who asked us if we were going to Suan Dok.  When we said yes, he offered to walk us in... and then took us to the back gate... and asked us to donate to the wat... Really this wasn't so strange yet, but then he took things from our hands.  Monks aren't supposed to do that... We decided that we probably still made merit for donating, even if he pocketed our 20 baht each.  

Once inside the wat, we had a hard time finding anyone who spoke english, and as we were debating sticking around until the monk chat started to get information about the meditation retreats or coming back the next day, a group of younger monks calls out - "Hey! Hey! Come over here!" - complete with typical catcall inflection.  But hey, this was a wat, they were monks right?  They probably meant well... didn't realize how they sounded. So we walked over to where they were, giggling a little bit, and sat down to chat.  

The first thing they wanted to know about was whether or not we knew languages other than English and a little Thai.  We answer Spanish (P. and me) and Latin (Em).  Maybe it was just to keep the conversation going, maybe not... but the next question out of the monks was "What does 'bonita' mean?" And then, "How do you say you are beautiful? ... Can you write that down for me?" From there we discuss how most of the monks at the university will not stay monks and fully ordain after graduation (in a couple of weeks), how monks don't usually interact with women, the differences between robe colors (there is none, just a temple's or a monk's choice).  Then Mr. "Bonita" Monk has to leave and tells us "Ustedes estan bonitas Americans."  Hmm... 

We continue to chat with the other monks, discussing how everything can be an act of meditation, so long as you remain in the present moment - not overly attached to the past, or concerned about the future.  Just present, here, now.  The monk suggests we should come visit his temple because it is the most beautiful and has the biggest Buddha.  He is very insistent that we need to come to his temple to see this Buddha, telling us the temple never closes, it's open all night. After an hour of flirtatious conversation, we're starting to chuckle to each other between comments about the size of the Buddha.  He was just so insistent, both in his flirtations, implying that he wasn't going to be a monk in another month, and inviting us for a night-time visit to his temple... It was a little sketch.  And as we left a lot of inappropriate jokes were made, probably undoing any merit we had gained by donating to the temple on our way in.

When we stopped at his temple, Montien, on the way home, we were kind of disappointed; the temple was beautiful, but the size of the Buddha was much exaggerated.  

That night Gen, Kacie and I went back to the jazz club near our guesthouse. Gen secretly (or not so secretly) has a crush on the saxophone player who runs the club, so she goes almost every night, if even for a little while. I hadn't been out for a few days and was ahead on reading, so I decided to go.  Kacie had a crap day and wanted to blow off steam, so she started buying shots.  Then we started getting hit on by a 30-something guy from Chiang Mai, working for Shell in Bangkok, who was back in Chiang Mai on business.  As Patricia dropped Emily off into my care, Mr. Shell Oil bought the second round of shots and then left. Thankfully. 

While Gen was eyeing the saxophonist, I had noticed the guitarist.  The two of us sat and watched them play a set, while Kacie and Emily ventured to the second floor loft, where you get to graffiti the walls.  As it wound towards closing time and Gen went to seize the chance to talk to her sax player, Emily and I wandered inside and found ourselves next to another college-aged American - the guitarist!  As we were talking about what brought us all to Thailand, Z. (that's what I'm gonna call him) asked where we went to school, and got excited when we said Coe.  That seemed strange, so we asked how he knew about Coe. Turns out, Z. was one of the co-founders of Banaa, a student movement that began at George Washington University to bring survivors of the various conflicts in Sudan, and particularly Darfur, to the U.S. to study.  Apparently Coe has agreed to finance a scholarship for a Banaa scholar to come to Coe sometime next year.  I hadn't yet heard this but it makes me SO happy.  Z. is also an excellent activist contact to have and was fun to talk to. And Gen made first contact with the Sax Player, Kacie ended up in a better mood, so all in all it was an excellent evening. 

After unsealing, please quickly drink down.

 - bottle of green tea with milk

To quickly catch us up on the last three days, on Tuesday (1/20) Emily and I spent the morning working on our Human Rights readings for a-jaan John (a-jaan being Thai for teacher).  We decided that we wanted to wander for a place to read, because sitting in the guesthouse felt like a waste of Thailand. 

The first couple of readings were somewhat frustrating.  First, I disliked the way both authors wrote.  They came off as rather western and condescending. Second, I feel the authors placed too much emphasis on certain rights, at the expense of more basic rights/needs.  They were awfully focused on civil/political rights (like voting, protesting, unions, independent free press, etc.) rather than whether or not people have food, water, shelter, a means of living. I'm not saying civil and political rights aren't important or necessary or deserved, but how can you worry about whether or not someone can protest their government if they don't have food to eat? And, to repeat the oft-asked African Politics question, why is western/American democracy the only "right" way to govern a country? Third, the reading was extremely dense and, I would submit, a bad choice for a first class.  Especially when you view how class actually went, but I'll get to that in a minute. 

In our wanderings Em and I found ourselves in a residential area, fairly free of farong.  We stopped for a while at a shop where the matron did not speak english and the three of us used some pretty kick ass pantomiming skills to buy/sell drinks. She was the sweetest lady too, very smiley and friendly. 

We stayed there for a while, but we really wanted some coffee or milk tea, so after about an hour we wandered some more, and found a guesthouse cafe, that was full of farong.  They sold coffee grown by a nearby hill tribe, which was okay - tasted kind of like espresso.  I miss Costa Rican coffee.  As we were contemplating lunch, a-jaan John (whose homework we were doing) walked into the cafe and asked to join us. Turns out the cafe was one of the premier vegetarian eateries in Chiang Mai.  Who knew? We all tried vegetarian versions of northern Thai specialties.  Emily had some sort of curry. I had finely chopped tofu-meat with spicy veggies over rice. John was so excited that they served brown, instead of white, rice. 

After lunch it was time for Thai class at Maw Chaw, so we boarded our song-taow and set off across town.  Now, each year, as western bodies adjust to eastern bugs, the students all get some rough stomach ailments.  A-jaan Bob guesses that we either bring the stomache flu with us from Coe, or its Asian digestive bacteria kicking the American digestive bacteria out of our GI tracts.  Each year, the ailment is named after the first student to get it.  This year it's named after my roommate, Holly (nickname Holly-Bolly) but the best being sick story goes to Chris, Bolly victim number two.  As we rode to Maw Chaw on Tuesday, the Bollys caught up with Chris and he vomited out the back of the song-taow all across the city streets of Chiang Mai. By the end of class three hours later he was fine. So the Bollys (or Woerhles or Claytons as previous years know them) go.  

Tuesday in Thai class we learned how to introduce ourselves, say how we are feeling and where we are from.  Here's what I know:

Sa-wa-ti kha. Di-chan chuu Heather kha.  Di-chan naam-sakun Lewis kha. Di-chan mai chuu-len kha (I don't have a nickname). 

Sa-bai-di (I am well). 

Di-chan maa-jaak muang Mahtomedi, rak Minnesota, pra-theet America kha.  Baan di-chan yu thii tha-non Wedgewood kha (My house is on the street Wedgewood).

I can also ask for all of that information.  Pretty sweet. 

After class we went to a-jaan Bob's favorite place to sit and write.  It's a fantastic tea shop a couple of blocks from the main gate of Maw Chaw.  I asked if there was a bathroom in Thai and was understood; I'm pretty proud. Emily got the most amazing peach tea - it tasted like biting into a warm peach, no joke. Bob said this was his favorite place, because it's the only shop in Chiang Mai that can successfully make western cakes; everywhere else they taste like cardboard, but these were delicious.  Along with the great refreshments, we also had a really fantastic conversation, granted about Coe and Cedar Rapids, mostly, rather than Thailand, but thought provoking nonetheless. It was nice to talk with our two a-jaans for a while, rather than simply asking something about Thai or how to get somewhere. 

After the tea shop, a group of us went to the mall.  Along with exploring, we had a pretty diverse list of purchases to make (sandals, towel, alarm clocks, shower curtain, cell phones, phone cards... ). The mall here has (I think) four floors.  The bottom floor is mostly food stalls and technology stores.  On the third floor we found a department store.  I bought sandals from a shoe shop on the second floor.  The only real difference from the malls at home was that the open areas of the mall had been taken over by vendors of various items.  Some appeared to be overflow from nearby stores, but others were independent.  It was kind of like having a kiosk at the malls back home, but bigger.  Think outdoor market meets mall kiosk. The food court area was this way as well. 

Since it had gotten dark while we were shopping and getting massages (yes we stopped for Thai massages at the mall - proceeds went to the senior citizens' club), we decided to ride back.  Instead of taking song-taows, we decided to live on the wild side and take tuk-tuks. While song-taows are most definitely road worthy and safe, one questions if tuk-tuks can claim the same, being glorified tricycles. As we drove through the mall's parking garage ramps, it felt like we were on a roller coaster and going around curves always made you wonder if the tuk-tuk would stay upright, but it was so much fun and also 5 baht cheaper than a song-taow once we haggled down the price.  

When we got back from the mall, Kacie, Emily  and I went to a local bar and had a couple of drinks and discussed homesickness and our mild culture shock (really inspiring conversation, huh?).  Kacie and Emily got one of the best cocktails I've ever had.  Next time we go out I'm writing down what's in it so I can add it to the Cocktail Hour bar book, right next to the Agua de Sevilla. 

Once back from the bar, we watched the inauguration proceedings.  What was with John Roberts fumbling the oath of office? Congratulations to our new President!

Wednesday (1/21) everyone slept in after our late night watching the inauguration.  We had our third day of Thai class, where the highlight was harrassing a group of Thai CMU students so we could practice asking and receiving answers about names, nicknames, where people are from, and where they're currently staying. It was one of the most awkward experiences of my life. For a very descriptive retelling by Chris, click here.

Wednesday afternoon Kacie, Emily and I went to a cafe by CMU to finish our reading for a-jaan John's Human Rights class.  The cafe described itself as a milk bar and served a strange assortment of milkshakes, toast, garlic bread and mashed potatoes.  Needless to say we binged a little on the American flavors.  Then we flagged ourselves a song-taow to get back to the guesthouse. As with each time we manage to do something on our own, we were a little proud of ourselves. 

During our song-taow ride, Kacie initiated an interesting discussion about culture shock.  She feels that Thailand isn't really all that different from the U.S., that it is just as consumerist, citing the malls, markets and the expensive trinkets our Maw Chaw buddies have.  I guess I feel differently.  Wandering the city (both here and in Bangkok), you do see many shops but most are selling food and other things people need for their daily lives.  There also is not the largesse and excess that is so rampant as you wander the streets of Minneapolis, Washington, or Chicago.  People here aren't forming corporations, dealing with imaginary money, building high-rises.  They're doing what business they can to make a living. I realize this is a generalization; there are well-off Thais and a lot of resources go to keeping the temples dazzling with their gold-leaf everything.  But I guess I, unlike Kacie, feel a difference. I can't go buy a bottle of champaigne at 10 pm (like we tried to do for the inauguration); the mall closes at 8 so everyone can go home, see their kids. All the drinks you buy at cafes or on the street are tiny - they last me five or ten minutes, versus the at least a half hour at home. At the 7-11 people buy one drink or one snack at a time, versus us Americans who go in and buy three or four things at once.  Yeah, our student buddies have the newest cell phones and Mo has a wicked expensive car, but I'm not sure that's the rule either; and I'm pretty certain the huge markets are at least partially for the benefit of tourists. 

Long story short, perhaps the cultural differences are not as pronounced as we had been lead to believe they were, but I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say that I feel totally at home here either. 

Yesterday, (Thursday 1/22) we didn't have Thai class because Maw Chaw was having their graduation ceremony, complete with a visit from the princess.  So, instead of Thai class we each met with John and Bob to discuss our independent studies.  Mine has changed a bit from the original topic.  Bob and John suggested, as we were in the Chicago airport, that I direct The Vagina Monologues in Chiang Mai.  It seems that it will end up working out, since there is a group of English majors that need to do a performance-based final project. My final project then, would be to write a monologue based on the stories of the thai women I meet. I think it has the potential to go very well and be extremely interesting, but a lot of the factors that would make it successful or not are out of my control, which makes me nervous. I don't really like resting my grade and graduating GPA on circumstances I can't control, but John and Bob seem to think it will be amazing, so here goes! I still plan to try and learn as much as I can about kateoy culture, and hopefully integrate that into my monologue, but John thinks focusing on TVM will be a better use of my time right now, which is probably legitimate since I had been wanting to do a soc-like project, but really had no idea how to go about it. 

Also with our free day, we went to wat Jedii Luang so we could participate in monk chats. Monk Chats are basically what the name implies.  English speakers go to the wat and talk to monks who want to learn or practice their English skills. Most of the time we discussed monk life and Buddhist thought. Probably the most interesting tid-bit we learned is that the only monks who can participate in chats are the younger monks and novice monks.  Fully ordained/higher level monks can't have fun or talk to women, which excludes them from the chats. When our monk told us this, I kind of felt like I was helping to lead him away from his goal of attaining enlightenment.  But he seemed good for a chat, so I didn't feel too guilty. 

Today (Friday 1/23) we go back to CMU for language class.  I think this next lesson is on food. 

First Days in Chiang Mai

Sunday (1/18) we arrived in Chiang Mai, via train from Bangkok. We all looked a bit worse for wear after spending a night on the train and wanted nothing more than to reach the guesthouse so we could shower and change clothes. But these thoughts were temporarily driven from our minds by the amazing welcoming committee from the university that met us at the train station. Two professors and four students came. If I understood everything right, the profs were our program director and one of our Thai professors, and the students are going to serve as our official guides to Chiang Mai University and city. They helped us with our luggage and into song-taows (red pick-up trucks with the bed converted into benches - they serve as busses around Chiang Mai) and brought us garlands that are some kind of buddhist good-luck charm.

The city of Chiang Mai has an old city and a new city. The old city lies in the southwest quadrant of the whole of Chiang Mai and is separated from the new city by a brick wall in varying states of still standing to decrepit. The wall originally fortified the city against attack. Outside the wall lies a moat, again originally built to further protect the city. Now the moat has fountains and fish and at least portions of it are being used to test a new water quality regimen.

The old city wall has four original gates, one for each cardinal direction. Our guesthouse (Mountain View Guesthouse) is located just inside the north gate, also known as Chang Puak Gate (or White Elephant Gate in English). Once we had showered, changed clothes and relaxed a bit after the train ride, we trekked from the north gate to the new city side of the east gate for a Sunday night walking market. This market was HUGE. It takes over a square that is a daily market and then the next four or five blocks as well. Nikki, Gen and I wandered the market together, haggling for some deals and trying to take in as much as we could. I have some pictures of the crowd and street musicians, which I will post as soon as I can get pictures off my camera (I apparently forgot my cord stateside).

On our way back from the market we got lost and decided to ask for directions after hitting a handful of dead ends and finding ourselves next to the prison. It turns out we really were only a couple of blocks too far west and not far enough north.

Monday (1/19) we started our lives as Chiang Mai University students. That morning I couldn't wait to go downstairs and see us all in our matching black and white outfits! It was really strange to see everone in uniforms when I was used to them in colorful sweats, but still familiar because the Chiang Mai University (CMU) uniforms are very similar to the uniform I wore in high school. Mostly though, I was just really excited for Thai class and to re-meet our CMU buddies (picture will appear shortly!).

When we first arrived we met with the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. Rather than "departments," each section of the school are called "faculties" here. The Dean welcomed us and told us a bit about CMU and the FoH in particular. The faculty was founded in the 1960s and has grown significantly since then. This year, they graduated 5000 undergrad students and 300 grad students from that Faculty alone. At CMU (or Maw Chaw as the locals call it) Humanities includes Psychology, Foreign Languages, Thai Lit and Language, Home Economics, History, Philosophy and Religion.

After our introduction from the Dean, we reunited with our Thai buddies - DiDi, Mo, Mai (or Jessi - because she likes Jessica Alba), and Pan - who are actually French students. After mingling over coffee and potato filled pastries, we boarded a purple, elongated golf cart for a tour of CMU campus. The purple golf carts serve as the campus busses and seat about 10-12 people. We saw all the different Faculties' buildings, trekked around the campus lake, tried CMU milkshakes (made by the Faculty of Agriculture students), and discussed life as a CMU versus a Coe student. One of my favorite moments was walking back from the lake. Chris confessed he had the song "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid stuck in his head and a few of us started belting out as much of the song as we could remember. When we stopped at one point, at a loss as to what lyrics came next, DiDi jumped in and continued the sing-a-long with us. Disney had it at least partially right with that "small world" business.

Once we finished our tour, we went to the Student Union to look around an perhaps buy lunch. We also aquired our fifth unofficial buddy, DiDi's friend Top. While at the Union we stopped in the campus store, where everything is lavender and elephants. Eating at CMU was also a bit of an adventure because it was one of the few places we've been so far that had no English at all around the food stands. I eventually let Jessi order for me.

Lunch also provided this gem from Top: "I usually eat my rice with food." - said to Holly who was the first to come down with the stomach ailment this year and decided to just have white rice for lunch.

After pointing out the best place on campus to get coffee (HB7 for 10 baht), our buddies left so that we could start Thai language class. This first day we just learned the phonetics of the language. For a taste of Thai - try to tell the difference between a "t" in say Text versus a "t" in for example Still. They are two different consonants in Thai. Now repeat that distinction with "p" and "k." And imagine a vowel that sounds like getting punched in the gut. Yeah. This is going well.

After class we met back up with our buddies and got ice cream. Mo and Jessi marked many of their favorite sights and hangouts on our maps, so we are never at a loss for places to visit. Still waiting for the perfect opportunity to go to the nightclub with Mo though.

Awesome Lingo Tool

I'm kind of a language nerd, in that I love learning about other languages, listening to other languages, finding similarities between languages, exploring how languages shape cultures - if it deals with words, I'm there.  So, the other night I decided to google references for my independent study and for information on Thai language and culture, and stumbled across this site. I am in LOVE with it.  

Called Omniglot, it has information on the development, history, alphabet, and pronunciation for hundreds of different languages. It also includes external links, sample text (both the Torah/Bible story of the Tower of Babel, and from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and useful travel phrases.  It even has a host of created languages (like Klingon - the key to my brothers' hearts)!  I could spend hours exploring, hope you all have some fun too!