…because I’m done. This has been one of the longest days of my life. I awoke at 4 am to the sound of what had to be a dozen roosters crowing (I was told later there were only two, but I have yet to fully accept that statement). I basically napped until it was time to get up when the gong was rung at 6 am. Vanessa and I showered and got ready for our first day. We were about to walk out the front door when Meredith returned from the kitchen stating that Panong had thought we were going to start work at 6 am, necessitating our waking up before it was even light out. I suppose that is not actually a bad plan as that is one of the coolest times of the day and if I am going to be relegated to watering (by hand) the entire garden I would rather it not be under the burning sun. So, we missed it today, but tomorrow we will arise even earlier and begin our day of work at 6 am, one hour (although morning work sometimes takes an hour and a half) before breakfast at 7 am.
Today we were out and about at 7 am for breakfast and then sat in on the women’s meeting (which is actually pretty sparse of women as there are only eight in residence and four of them are going to school during the day) at 8 am. During the meeting it was decided that we would make the central garden area “beautiful,” in whatever way we felt that should be achieved. This process involved breaking out an ancient weed-whacker, which Ross put to good use, and some old hedge clippers for snipping down weeds close to the plants (where the weed-whacker would do more damage than good). We spent our time from 8:30 to 11:30 (with one ten minute break) working in the garden and it now looks amazing and is once again usable (it had become very overgrown). The work was very hard for us poor, lazy law students. We were constantly going during those three hours, with Panong and sometimes Sa Ae (one of the fifteen year old mothers) joining us in our work. We did a good job by my standards, but we are now living in fear of what they will ask of us next (the dreaded field is still unplowed!). We were given a few minutes to shower and then had lunch until 12:30. At that time we started English lessons with the men for a half hour, followed by English lessons with the women until 2 pm.
The English lessons went ok, but I don’t feel comfortable with them. Unless you have had training for teaching English as a second language to someone else it is a nearly impossible task for the native English speaker to teach the language to others. Unfortunately, none of us have had the proper training. We are all fumbling around, trying to remember how grammar was explained to us when we were in the second grade and failing miserably I’m sure. There are two men learning English at this time, one of whom has been studying for three months (Djom) and has a very good basic grasp of the language, and the other who has been studying for about two months (Troat) and is at a very remedial stage. Both men want to learn conversational English without learning to read and write it, which makes it even harder, as learning by speaking only involves pointing to objects and stating their names (which means, after the half hour lesson when we are done repeating the words they are most likely completely forgotten and there is no way for the men to be reminded of what the words are since they can’t read them and try to sound them out). Try thinking about how to explain proper grammatical structure when the student doesn’t even know what grammar means; a very tricky task. The women are more advanced and, therefore, a bit easier to teach. They both understand the basics and are learning some finer points of grammar and mostly want to learn more advanced vocabulary and pronunciation, such as the sounds of “th,” “tr,” “ch,” etc. which often don’t show up in the Thai language and are, therefore, very tricky for the native Thai speaker.
After our lessons, we were told our assistance was needed in the nursery/day-care center. When we arrived we were informed by the two women watching the children that they needed to leave and we were now in charge of the five year old, five month old, one year old, and one and a half year old currently in residence. No time table was given as to how long the children would be in the center and we were left on our own to survive or be destroyed as the kids saw fit. After about a half hour, two more young children (around two years old) were brought to us and it was a full house. As the only member of our team with “child care experience” (thank you to all of my brothers and sisters out there giving me nephews and nieces, not) I was put in charge of the very small baby. Well, I can now report that Sal Ah is a bit of a fussy child who likes to pee on me. Diapers are considered a luxury item here (they are very expensive), so children are simply dressed in their clothes and when they pee (most likely on you) you simply change their pants, wash their bottoms, and move on. Three times that child peed on me. Luckily only once did it actually hit me, the other times I managed to hold her away in time to avoid the actual pee. I now never want children until I am well into my thirties, if then.
We spent over three hours in the nursery/day-care center until after five when Mikayla and Katrina came home and informed us that the center closes at five and we could take the kids back to their mothers at that time. We promptly did so and then got some plates for dinner, which is served at 5 pm. We receive an hour for dinner and then are “free,” although that is not really the case as the school kids have just gotten home and want to play with us too. Tonight we managed to play until around 7 pm, when we pleaded exhaustion and their dinner time to escape. The exhaustion bit of our story is very true and even though it is only 8 pm here, I am ready for bed.
A Few Extra Notes:
1. If we have more weeding adventures here I am likely to expire as I am just as allergic to the weeds found in Thailand as I am to the weeds found in the US. My arms are now covered in Cortisone cream in the hopes that I will be healed and ready to go tomorrow (there is only a bit of lingering red rash at this time, so my wish will most likely be granted).
2. My tilly is a lifesaver and I love it. I wore it all day while gardening and it did a wonderful job of both providing shade and air flow to the top of my head. There can be no better hat on Earth than the tilly.
3. Someone would make a fortune introducing the concept of a rake and gloves in Thailand. Here, a broom is used to gather the cut weeds together from around the yard and gloves are not to be found. I learned the hard way to be careful when scooping up the weeds here with a couple of cuts to my hand.
4. Going to the restroom is extremely uncomfortable as it is not completely closed off from the rest of the house. You see, the bathroom is a separate room, but the walls between it and other rooms do not go up to the ceiling (they miss it by about two feet) so when you are using the bathroom everyone can hear what you are doing. Can anyone say awkward?
5. It is very hard to make a child listen to you when you are speaking two different languages. Most of the time when we are interacting with the non-English speaking children there are a lot of blank looks being passed around with no sign of comprehension on either side. Luckily laughter and acting like a dork are universal, which saved our butts today.
6. Only four days left and counting of Immersion Week…
Monday, May 31, 2010
Welcome to Wildflower
Well, here I am. I am laying on my bed with my computer before me, having completed my afternoon of introduction to Wildflower, my Immersion Week location. We had the morning off, during which I finished my packing for this week and stressed about the time I would be spending away. In a tender moment of goodbye to my ability to choose my own food, I ordered pad see ew for lunch and then headed off to the BABSEA house with the other apartment dwellers to await our dispersal to our various locations.
Wildflower Home is located on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, about a 20 minute drive from the BABSEA house, on a small patch of land, probably about 3 acres. The buildings are located in various areas on the property and consist of both temporary and permanent structures built of wood and adobe brick respectively. The buildings consist of a preschool/daycare center for the very young children (at five they start attending regular school), a kitchen structure, an office/crafts center, a teaching/meal time gazebo type structure, a bank of rooms for the women and children to stay in, a house for the founding family (who permanently reside here and consist of a family of five), another building for “guests” where I am staying, a bamboo cabin for the boys, and a permanent structure at the back for the caretaker, his wife, and their five children. At this time there are only eight women at Wildflower, but about 15 children, which makes it a noisy, fun place to be, if a little exhausting.
We arrived and were given the tour by Meredith, a current employee/volunteer with whom we are living (by we, I mean me and Vanessa). After our grand tour we were given some time to relax, but were quickly followed by some of the English speaking children, two of the founders’ children, Katrina and Mikayla, and one of the refugee children, Whin (this is not how you spell her name, but I have no idea how to spell it and am pretty sure I’m pronouncing it wrong too). They are an amazing group of kids and extremely welcoming (and they also all speak English and Thai, and Whin speaks a Hill Tribe language and Vietnamese as well). Incredible. After our “relaxing time,” which really became more of a get to know the girls session, we went back to the kitchen area where the women were starting to prepare the evening meal.
We came to Wildflower on a good day as today was the birthday celebration day. Here, because there are so many people coming and going and so many people in general, individual birthdays are not celebrated on the individual day, but rather on a single collective day and cover a two or three month span. On these special occasions, meat is ordered and today’s meal consisted of sticky rice, fried chicken, papaya salad, and fish balls, with birthday cake for dessert. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. The food is all served cafeteria style with people filling their own plates from a line of food, which will make my life much easier as I don’t have to worry about offending people by not eating what they put on my plate, as I will be the one filling it. Meredith told us tonight that it is much more common to get plain rice and a soup or some vegetable stir fry on normal days, which sounds delicious to me and calms some of my fears about potential food disasters (they also know all about my allergies, so that should be fine as well).
After dinner (and for a while before) we spent time with the kids and played some games. Even the non-English speaking children are starting to warm up to us a little and have begun to smile and wave, so I have hopes that in a few days they will be comfortable with us. After dinner (and a small “food fight” during which cake was smeared across everyone’s face whose birthday has not yet happened and who will not be around to celebrate when it is, which included most us), we left for our cabins and Vanessa, Meredith, and I spent a long time talking about Wildflower, traveling in general, and the specific political/human rights situation here in Thailand. The chat was extremely informative and gave me a lot of insight into some of the problems of Thailand about which outsiders (Westerners particularly) never hear.
It turns out that Thailand is one of the few countries that does not recognize refugees from other countries. To enter and stay in Thailand as a non-citizen you must have the requisite paperwork from your home government to be within the country. This is unfortunate, as many refugees are unable to get the correct papers when they are fleeing their countries and are now within the borders of Thailand illegally. These people are often arrested and extradited back to their home countries where they are once again thrown in jails to be tortured or simply disappear. It is a tragedy that this is occurring and many of the refugees here are from Vietnam and Burma and a few even from Laos. In addition, Thailand has a long history of poorly treating the people of the Hill Tribes. Many of the city dwelling Thai view the Hill Tribe people as being completely separate and not “truly” Thai, which is odd as they would be the first to say that the land of the Hill Tribe people belongs to Thailand (it’s funny how selective memory can be). In any event, this all leads me to the fact that many of the women (and some men) here are either refugees from one of these other countries or from the Hill Tribes (who speak an entirely different language from Thai as well and are often illiterate as the Thai government won’t pay for schools in their regions). It is all very sad and it makes you understand even more how incredible a place like Wildflower is to these people, the last safe-harbor available to the most downtrodden and forgotten of society.
But on to lighter thoughts…tomorrow we will be put to hard labor. The caretaker’s wife has decided to commandeer our services in the garden and the plowing of their main crop field, which is hard as a rock due to the slow start to the wet season (which is being termed a drought now). We will also teach language lessons to the men and women, help in making handicrafts (I might be using my sewing abilities here as their regular sewer is gone to visit her family and they don’t have anyone else who can operate the sewing machine well – fingers crossed for that project!), help with cooking, and all around getting to know the people and getting involved in this amazing community. These people really have formed a genuine community that works together and helps each other during the hardest times of their lives. Two of the women here are just 15 years old with one year old babies, but are able to go back to high school and study thanks to the other women and the directors here. I can’t wait to get started tomorrow and become a small part of this place. My fingers are crossed that it all goes well!
Wildflower Home is located on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, about a 20 minute drive from the BABSEA house, on a small patch of land, probably about 3 acres. The buildings are located in various areas on the property and consist of both temporary and permanent structures built of wood and adobe brick respectively. The buildings consist of a preschool/daycare center for the very young children (at five they start attending regular school), a kitchen structure, an office/crafts center, a teaching/meal time gazebo type structure, a bank of rooms for the women and children to stay in, a house for the founding family (who permanently reside here and consist of a family of five), another building for “guests” where I am staying, a bamboo cabin for the boys, and a permanent structure at the back for the caretaker, his wife, and their five children. At this time there are only eight women at Wildflower, but about 15 children, which makes it a noisy, fun place to be, if a little exhausting.
We arrived and were given the tour by Meredith, a current employee/volunteer with whom we are living (by we, I mean me and Vanessa). After our grand tour we were given some time to relax, but were quickly followed by some of the English speaking children, two of the founders’ children, Katrina and Mikayla, and one of the refugee children, Whin (this is not how you spell her name, but I have no idea how to spell it and am pretty sure I’m pronouncing it wrong too). They are an amazing group of kids and extremely welcoming (and they also all speak English and Thai, and Whin speaks a Hill Tribe language and Vietnamese as well). Incredible. After our “relaxing time,” which really became more of a get to know the girls session, we went back to the kitchen area where the women were starting to prepare the evening meal.
We came to Wildflower on a good day as today was the birthday celebration day. Here, because there are so many people coming and going and so many people in general, individual birthdays are not celebrated on the individual day, but rather on a single collective day and cover a two or three month span. On these special occasions, meat is ordered and today’s meal consisted of sticky rice, fried chicken, papaya salad, and fish balls, with birthday cake for dessert. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. The food is all served cafeteria style with people filling their own plates from a line of food, which will make my life much easier as I don’t have to worry about offending people by not eating what they put on my plate, as I will be the one filling it. Meredith told us tonight that it is much more common to get plain rice and a soup or some vegetable stir fry on normal days, which sounds delicious to me and calms some of my fears about potential food disasters (they also know all about my allergies, so that should be fine as well).
After dinner (and for a while before) we spent time with the kids and played some games. Even the non-English speaking children are starting to warm up to us a little and have begun to smile and wave, so I have hopes that in a few days they will be comfortable with us. After dinner (and a small “food fight” during which cake was smeared across everyone’s face whose birthday has not yet happened and who will not be around to celebrate when it is, which included most us), we left for our cabins and Vanessa, Meredith, and I spent a long time talking about Wildflower, traveling in general, and the specific political/human rights situation here in Thailand. The chat was extremely informative and gave me a lot of insight into some of the problems of Thailand about which outsiders (Westerners particularly) never hear.
It turns out that Thailand is one of the few countries that does not recognize refugees from other countries. To enter and stay in Thailand as a non-citizen you must have the requisite paperwork from your home government to be within the country. This is unfortunate, as many refugees are unable to get the correct papers when they are fleeing their countries and are now within the borders of Thailand illegally. These people are often arrested and extradited back to their home countries where they are once again thrown in jails to be tortured or simply disappear. It is a tragedy that this is occurring and many of the refugees here are from Vietnam and Burma and a few even from Laos. In addition, Thailand has a long history of poorly treating the people of the Hill Tribes. Many of the city dwelling Thai view the Hill Tribe people as being completely separate and not “truly” Thai, which is odd as they would be the first to say that the land of the Hill Tribe people belongs to Thailand (it’s funny how selective memory can be). In any event, this all leads me to the fact that many of the women (and some men) here are either refugees from one of these other countries or from the Hill Tribes (who speak an entirely different language from Thai as well and are often illiterate as the Thai government won’t pay for schools in their regions). It is all very sad and it makes you understand even more how incredible a place like Wildflower is to these people, the last safe-harbor available to the most downtrodden and forgotten of society.
But on to lighter thoughts…tomorrow we will be put to hard labor. The caretaker’s wife has decided to commandeer our services in the garden and the plowing of their main crop field, which is hard as a rock due to the slow start to the wet season (which is being termed a drought now). We will also teach language lessons to the men and women, help in making handicrafts (I might be using my sewing abilities here as their regular sewer is gone to visit her family and they don’t have anyone else who can operate the sewing machine well – fingers crossed for that project!), help with cooking, and all around getting to know the people and getting involved in this amazing community. These people really have formed a genuine community that works together and helps each other during the hardest times of their lives. Two of the women here are just 15 years old with one year old babies, but are able to go back to high school and study thanks to the other women and the directors here. I can’t wait to get started tomorrow and become a small part of this place. My fingers are crossed that it all goes well!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Doi Inthanon
Today was a brilliant day. The fact of the matter is, you can’t beat a free day, especially a free Saturday. This morning I woke up early in the hopes that the tentative plans a group of us made yesterday would not be cancelled (largely due to hangovers from the many pitchers of margaritas consumed last night – not by me, but by other people) and, luckily, they weren’t! Today we went to Doi Inthanon National Park, which is located about 58 km outside Chiang Mai (by the way, everything here in Thailand is in km and Celsius, which means that I am in a land where I can’t judge distances and can’t tell the actual temperature beyond using the words hot and hotter). But, I will tell you more about the Park itself later, for now we will concentrate on the journey…
According to the travel guide book, Lonely Planet (a must have in any travelers backpack), the best way to get to the Park is by bus from Chaing Mai, however, we were told by our language instructor that it would be better to hire a red truck to drive us there if we got a large group together. Our instructor called her friend and got us a great deal on a red truck, 1800 Baht for a round trip (for the group) and for the truck waiting for us during the time we were at the Park. That turned out to be a wonderful suggestion and made the trip a whole lot cheaper and easier!
A group of us left the Res to meet the truck and the rest of our party at the BABSEA house at about 8:30 in the morning. We managed to leave the house in our red truck at around 9:45, about 45 minutes late, which is to be expected when trying to get a large group ready to go and actually on the road. The group consisted of me, Zenia, Bobby, Samir, and Lucy from the Res and Ellie, Peter, Kyla, Jen, and Helen (a lawyer/pseudo-coordinator from Australia) from the house; all-in-all a very good group for traveling to the Park as we shared a common goal, a burning desire for water and an escape from the city for a while.
We drove for about an hour to reach the Park, which is located in a mountain range to the north of Chiang Mai. What is truly special about this Park is that it is filled with waterfalls. Supposedly you can hike around the Park, from waterfall to waterfall, slowly traveling to the pinnacle of the main mountain, which features monuments to the King and Queen and the rare event of frost in January. However, this is not the best way to do it during the heat of May/June as the distance from the gate to the top is about 42 km, which is WAY too long to hike for us lazy, inexperienced (at least in the heat and humidity of Thailand) Americans/Canadians/Australians. An easier way to travel the park is by red truck and as I have mentioned, we had our very own red truck at our disposal. After paying our entrance fee to the Park (which was once again hiked up due to a “Foreigner Fee”), our truck driver took us to the tallest waterfall, the Mae Ya Waterfall, which turned out to be the best. It was an incredible sight. We drove to a parking lot near the falls so that we only had to hike about 600 meters to the falls. The Waterfall looked amazing, with just enough water to be impressive, but not so much that we couldn’t climb on the rocks to reach the falls and stand under the spray. We all quickly dashed into the water and began the slow climb over slippery rocks to the water pouring down from the last step of the waterfall. The sight was incredible and the water even better, cool and fresh during a hot day and after a very long, hot drive. We stayed in/near the water for over an hour until we decided it was time to check out some of the other sights.
As I mentioned, our driver had taken us to the largest fall first, which is actually located at the back of the Park, so the drive to the next waterfall took a bit of time. We arrived at the Mae Klang Waterfall at around 2 pm and found it to be a much smaller waterfall with a lot more people congregated around it as it fell into a wide, shallow pool perfect for swimming (if you didn’t mind the dirt and debris covering the surface due to low, overhanging trees). I didn’t swim at this waterfall as I am very much a wuss and dirty water does not appeal to me at all. Instead, I sat on a rock above the water, writing postcards (maybe even to some of you!) and chatting with the others.
The day was simply relaxing and fun, allowing me to see yet another side of Thailand, this time a bit of the natural landscape. The Thai forest is beautiful, a strange mixture of rain forest and palm trees. Although we did not do any hiking into the forest around the waterfalls, it is obviously beautiful even from the edge and would be amazing to explore and study; perhaps on another trip. Our return to the “concrete jungle” after our superb time in the wilderness was hard and made more difficult still by the necessity of running errands that had to be done before we leave for Immersion tomorrow. I managed to get everything done today, including my laundry, which I am now doing by hand and which is currently drying around my room on every available flat/hanging surface. Snacks for the week were bought from the store, anti-malaria medication was purchased from the drug store for my trip to Laos, and books on education and teaching were retrieved from BABSEA. When we returned home, Zenia and I began the long process of packing, which will be concluded first thing in the morning (provided my clothing is dry by then…*fingers crossed!).
As you must know by now, tomorrow I will be heading out to Wildflower for “Immersion Week.” What many of you may not know…we are not supposed to use internet during this time. Most of the other interns will have no access to the internet (and some won’t even have electricity!). I, however, am lucky to be going to a place with both. In the spirit of true “immersion,” however, we at Wildflower have been asked to abstain from using the internet as much as possible. I’m sure this will not be possible for any of us (after all, the internet is a force that cannot be denied and the pull to blog even more so) and I don’t think anyone will mind if I log on once a day to post a brief message out to the blogosphere (I certainly won’t mind). I plan to at least try to post once a day, but do not worry about me if it takes a couple days or more. I will write a post every day on my computer and upload them whenever I have a chance. I hope you all continue to check for new posts and don’t feel too lost without me. :) I will be back as soon as possible (perhaps even once tomorrow morning before I leave) and I will continue to write. Until my next post, goodnight and goodluck!
According to the travel guide book, Lonely Planet (a must have in any travelers backpack), the best way to get to the Park is by bus from Chaing Mai, however, we were told by our language instructor that it would be better to hire a red truck to drive us there if we got a large group together. Our instructor called her friend and got us a great deal on a red truck, 1800 Baht for a round trip (for the group) and for the truck waiting for us during the time we were at the Park. That turned out to be a wonderful suggestion and made the trip a whole lot cheaper and easier!
A group of us left the Res to meet the truck and the rest of our party at the BABSEA house at about 8:30 in the morning. We managed to leave the house in our red truck at around 9:45, about 45 minutes late, which is to be expected when trying to get a large group ready to go and actually on the road. The group consisted of me, Zenia, Bobby, Samir, and Lucy from the Res and Ellie, Peter, Kyla, Jen, and Helen (a lawyer/pseudo-coordinator from Australia) from the house; all-in-all a very good group for traveling to the Park as we shared a common goal, a burning desire for water and an escape from the city for a while.
We drove for about an hour to reach the Park, which is located in a mountain range to the north of Chiang Mai. What is truly special about this Park is that it is filled with waterfalls. Supposedly you can hike around the Park, from waterfall to waterfall, slowly traveling to the pinnacle of the main mountain, which features monuments to the King and Queen and the rare event of frost in January. However, this is not the best way to do it during the heat of May/June as the distance from the gate to the top is about 42 km, which is WAY too long to hike for us lazy, inexperienced (at least in the heat and humidity of Thailand) Americans/Canadians/Australians. An easier way to travel the park is by red truck and as I have mentioned, we had our very own red truck at our disposal. After paying our entrance fee to the Park (which was once again hiked up due to a “Foreigner Fee”), our truck driver took us to the tallest waterfall, the Mae Ya Waterfall, which turned out to be the best. It was an incredible sight. We drove to a parking lot near the falls so that we only had to hike about 600 meters to the falls. The Waterfall looked amazing, with just enough water to be impressive, but not so much that we couldn’t climb on the rocks to reach the falls and stand under the spray. We all quickly dashed into the water and began the slow climb over slippery rocks to the water pouring down from the last step of the waterfall. The sight was incredible and the water even better, cool and fresh during a hot day and after a very long, hot drive. We stayed in/near the water for over an hour until we decided it was time to check out some of the other sights.
As I mentioned, our driver had taken us to the largest fall first, which is actually located at the back of the Park, so the drive to the next waterfall took a bit of time. We arrived at the Mae Klang Waterfall at around 2 pm and found it to be a much smaller waterfall with a lot more people congregated around it as it fell into a wide, shallow pool perfect for swimming (if you didn’t mind the dirt and debris covering the surface due to low, overhanging trees). I didn’t swim at this waterfall as I am very much a wuss and dirty water does not appeal to me at all. Instead, I sat on a rock above the water, writing postcards (maybe even to some of you!) and chatting with the others.
The day was simply relaxing and fun, allowing me to see yet another side of Thailand, this time a bit of the natural landscape. The Thai forest is beautiful, a strange mixture of rain forest and palm trees. Although we did not do any hiking into the forest around the waterfalls, it is obviously beautiful even from the edge and would be amazing to explore and study; perhaps on another trip. Our return to the “concrete jungle” after our superb time in the wilderness was hard and made more difficult still by the necessity of running errands that had to be done before we leave for Immersion tomorrow. I managed to get everything done today, including my laundry, which I am now doing by hand and which is currently drying around my room on every available flat/hanging surface. Snacks for the week were bought from the store, anti-malaria medication was purchased from the drug store for my trip to Laos, and books on education and teaching were retrieved from BABSEA. When we returned home, Zenia and I began the long process of packing, which will be concluded first thing in the morning (provided my clothing is dry by then…*fingers crossed!).
As you must know by now, tomorrow I will be heading out to Wildflower for “Immersion Week.” What many of you may not know…we are not supposed to use internet during this time. Most of the other interns will have no access to the internet (and some won’t even have electricity!). I, however, am lucky to be going to a place with both. In the spirit of true “immersion,” however, we at Wildflower have been asked to abstain from using the internet as much as possible. I’m sure this will not be possible for any of us (after all, the internet is a force that cannot be denied and the pull to blog even more so) and I don’t think anyone will mind if I log on once a day to post a brief message out to the blogosphere (I certainly won’t mind). I plan to at least try to post once a day, but do not worry about me if it takes a couple days or more. I will write a post every day on my computer and upload them whenever I have a chance. I hope you all continue to check for new posts and don’t feel too lost without me. :) I will be back as soon as possible (perhaps even once tomorrow morning before I leave) and I will continue to write. Until my next post, goodnight and goodluck!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Heat, Humidity, and the Day Market
I have been hot here in Thailand. I think that message has come through. Thailand is a country of heat and humidity, there is no way around this fact. But there are times when the heat and humidity are a little worse than others. Today was one of the days in the middle; however, if you go the wrong places or do the wrong activities, those middle days can become blistering and nearly unbearable. But to tell this story, we need to go back in time to this morning…
The morning began like many other mornings in Apartment 440, PT Residence. I awoke to my alarm, quickly got ready for my day, and then hurried off to Uniserv. Today was a short day of orientation, consisting of the final group presenting their lesson plan and the big reveal of our placements for Immersion Week. (*Imagine a drumroll…) I have been placed…wait for it…at…Wildflower. As a refresher, for those joining us late (or in case I am just totally forgetful and haven’t actually written about this yet and have only imagined it), Wildflower is an organization for women in crisis located just outside the city of Chiang Mai. The women living at Wildflower are often single mothers who have been abused, are refugees from a neighboring country, or come from a Hill Tribe in the mountains (who are not treated as well as the city folk). There are about 15 women there now and they vary in age from 16 (she had a baby last year at 15 years old) to 30 or so. The women all have at least one child and they live and work at Wildflower where they receive classes in English, gardening (farming), making handicrafts, cooking, health, childcare, etc. It is an amazing program started by an American woman and her American-Asian husband who traveled here to Thailand, decided to stay, and saw a great need for care of single parent women that the system is often unable or unwilling to assist. Women who have gone through the program often either become integrated into local communities or return to school and even go to University for higher education.
The Immersion Week program consists of three possible placements: Mae Rim, where interns live with a family, work with the family, and teach at the local children’s school; King’s Project, where interns live in a hut at the center of a small community and work in forest restoration in the Thai rainforest; and Wildflower. When the various projects were first described to us I wanted to go to King’s Project as it would be extremely interesting to compare my time spent in Forestry Camp in the Sierra Nevada forest to the Thai forest here. However, I am now getting extremely exciting about my impending stay at Wildflower. There are four of us going (two girls and two guys); we will be working with the women in their gardens, teaching them conversational English, and helping create the handicrafts they later sell at the local markets. It should be an incredible experience.
After a group discussion on each of the three projects we were set free for the rest of the day and all of tomorrow! Empty bellies sent us in search of a quick meal and soon we were off to celebrate and make the most of our free time. The placements for Immersion necessitated another shopping trip, this time to the best local bookstore, DK Books, for some children’s books in English as gifts for the families we will be staying with (or for the group we will be staying with, as is the case for me), and to the Day Market, which is located outside the bounds of the Old City. Our time at the bookstore was fun. It is always an interesting experience seeing familiar authors in such foreign languages, such as Plato and JK Rowling (Harry Potter). We spent a long time picking out the perfect books for our groups and then decided to brave the afternoon heat of Chiang Mai on a 15 minute walk to the Day Market.
It took some searching and many stops for directions, but we finally achieved our goal when we reached a grouping of streets crowded with people, where the sidewalks were edged with stalls full of wares. Now, this market is very different than the other markets I have previously described. The Sunday Walking Market and the Night Bazaars cater to the tourists of Chiang Mai. The stalls at those markets are full of “native clothing,” “traditional art,” and thousands of mini Buddha statues that can be bought in bulk and lugged back as souvenirs (something I will not subject you all to). The Day Market is a completely different beast all together. This market is made for the locals and is full of the items anyone living permanently in Chiang Mai or the surrounding regions might require (clothes, undergarments, bedding, raw food, etc.). There simply aren’t adequate words to describe the intensity of the market, but I will give it a try.
By the time we arrived at the market, after our long trek, I was beyond hot and entering the realm of sweltering. The stalls of the market are so close together that they form an endless chain stretching along as far as the eye can see. Tarps covering the stalls form a roof line that obscures the vision and soon all you can see is the blur of the market and all you can feel is the sun beating down on you. When you finally find a small crack in the line of stalls, you can dash in and walk along the small strip of sidewalk left to pedestrians. The stalls almost completely obliterate the view of the buildings that actually form the block, but at the location of the Day Market this does not matter. The building behind the stalls is actually a part of the market as well. As you turn right at an intersection and follow the stalls inward (often in a search for the air conditioning you are sure must be hidden inside), you are led around as if the Market is a hive leading you into the center. When you finally reach the interior you are confronted with lines upon lines of food stalls, filled with raw and fried foods. The area above this food market is open, stretching to the ceiling, but along the sides are more stalls, about three stories filled with hundreds of stalls. Simply the sight of all these sellers is exhausting and the heat and humidity of the building is unimaginable. No photograph could truly capture the sight, smell, and feel of this place and words fail completely. After only five minutes I was desperate to leave and never return. The ability to survive in that environment must be either bread into the bones, learned over a lifetime, or suffered from necessity.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the way this market is run, simply that it was too great a culture shock for this poor bookwormy traveler. The Market was teaming with people of all types, all busy and intent on their tasks. However, the spirit of the Thai remained true even in this frenzied atmosphere. As I was at my lowest (and hottest point), sure I could not take any more, I saw an old man walking down the sidewalk between stalls with his baby grandson in his arms. The baby was covered with sweat and obviously miserable even in his sleeping state and I’m sure he was getting heavy. The man was quietly walking along and the sight he made as I saw him, so sweet a figure of the patient older generation with the new, made me smile. At that moment he looked up at me and smiled back, a simple gesture that is so often lacking everywhere in the world but here. At home, I would have passed him on the street (probably as the baby sat in a stroller) and a smile would have gone unnoticed (as no eye contact is made) or ignored (as a smile could even be interpreted as rude), but here it is simply taken as it was meant, a gesture of friendliness and a shared moment. This rejuvenated me and allowed me to finish my time in the Market with a lighter step and a renewed feeling of well being. Although I might have failed my test of surviving as a native (I clearly cannot handle their true method of shopping), it was an experience I will remember.
I ran from the Day Market as soon as our group had reconvened and we immediately hopped in a red truck to return to the Chiang Mai that we love and adore (and at least partially understand). By this time I was desperate and in great need of some strong rejuvenating force, so I ran into my apartment, changed quickly into my swim suit, and headed to the pool. I was in such a rush to be in the water by this point that I literally ran part of the way and immediately submerged myself, content to simply sit on the bottom of the pool until the need for air drove me to the surface. I stayed in the water, alternately swimming and simply floating, for about an hour until it was time to return to the apartment for a shower. After my shower, we all (both the Res group and the BABSEA house group) met at the Mexican restaurant we had stopped at last night, for an evening of food and margaritas with our Thai language teachers. I know I promised no more non-Thai food, but I claim immunity as the location of our meal was chosen by a higher power than myself and I could not change it. I had a good time and am glad I went, but am now extremely tired from my long day and ready to get some sleep. I wanted to tell you a little about my plans for tomorrow (I have the whole day free), but they are looking a little up in the air at the moment, so we shall all have to wait a little longer and see what the present future holds once it becomes the past. :)
The morning began like many other mornings in Apartment 440, PT Residence. I awoke to my alarm, quickly got ready for my day, and then hurried off to Uniserv. Today was a short day of orientation, consisting of the final group presenting their lesson plan and the big reveal of our placements for Immersion Week. (*Imagine a drumroll…) I have been placed…wait for it…at…Wildflower. As a refresher, for those joining us late (or in case I am just totally forgetful and haven’t actually written about this yet and have only imagined it), Wildflower is an organization for women in crisis located just outside the city of Chiang Mai. The women living at Wildflower are often single mothers who have been abused, are refugees from a neighboring country, or come from a Hill Tribe in the mountains (who are not treated as well as the city folk). There are about 15 women there now and they vary in age from 16 (she had a baby last year at 15 years old) to 30 or so. The women all have at least one child and they live and work at Wildflower where they receive classes in English, gardening (farming), making handicrafts, cooking, health, childcare, etc. It is an amazing program started by an American woman and her American-Asian husband who traveled here to Thailand, decided to stay, and saw a great need for care of single parent women that the system is often unable or unwilling to assist. Women who have gone through the program often either become integrated into local communities or return to school and even go to University for higher education.
The Immersion Week program consists of three possible placements: Mae Rim, where interns live with a family, work with the family, and teach at the local children’s school; King’s Project, where interns live in a hut at the center of a small community and work in forest restoration in the Thai rainforest; and Wildflower. When the various projects were first described to us I wanted to go to King’s Project as it would be extremely interesting to compare my time spent in Forestry Camp in the Sierra Nevada forest to the Thai forest here. However, I am now getting extremely exciting about my impending stay at Wildflower. There are four of us going (two girls and two guys); we will be working with the women in their gardens, teaching them conversational English, and helping create the handicrafts they later sell at the local markets. It should be an incredible experience.
After a group discussion on each of the three projects we were set free for the rest of the day and all of tomorrow! Empty bellies sent us in search of a quick meal and soon we were off to celebrate and make the most of our free time. The placements for Immersion necessitated another shopping trip, this time to the best local bookstore, DK Books, for some children’s books in English as gifts for the families we will be staying with (or for the group we will be staying with, as is the case for me), and to the Day Market, which is located outside the bounds of the Old City. Our time at the bookstore was fun. It is always an interesting experience seeing familiar authors in such foreign languages, such as Plato and JK Rowling (Harry Potter). We spent a long time picking out the perfect books for our groups and then decided to brave the afternoon heat of Chiang Mai on a 15 minute walk to the Day Market.
It took some searching and many stops for directions, but we finally achieved our goal when we reached a grouping of streets crowded with people, where the sidewalks were edged with stalls full of wares. Now, this market is very different than the other markets I have previously described. The Sunday Walking Market and the Night Bazaars cater to the tourists of Chiang Mai. The stalls at those markets are full of “native clothing,” “traditional art,” and thousands of mini Buddha statues that can be bought in bulk and lugged back as souvenirs (something I will not subject you all to). The Day Market is a completely different beast all together. This market is made for the locals and is full of the items anyone living permanently in Chiang Mai or the surrounding regions might require (clothes, undergarments, bedding, raw food, etc.). There simply aren’t adequate words to describe the intensity of the market, but I will give it a try.
By the time we arrived at the market, after our long trek, I was beyond hot and entering the realm of sweltering. The stalls of the market are so close together that they form an endless chain stretching along as far as the eye can see. Tarps covering the stalls form a roof line that obscures the vision and soon all you can see is the blur of the market and all you can feel is the sun beating down on you. When you finally find a small crack in the line of stalls, you can dash in and walk along the small strip of sidewalk left to pedestrians. The stalls almost completely obliterate the view of the buildings that actually form the block, but at the location of the Day Market this does not matter. The building behind the stalls is actually a part of the market as well. As you turn right at an intersection and follow the stalls inward (often in a search for the air conditioning you are sure must be hidden inside), you are led around as if the Market is a hive leading you into the center. When you finally reach the interior you are confronted with lines upon lines of food stalls, filled with raw and fried foods. The area above this food market is open, stretching to the ceiling, but along the sides are more stalls, about three stories filled with hundreds of stalls. Simply the sight of all these sellers is exhausting and the heat and humidity of the building is unimaginable. No photograph could truly capture the sight, smell, and feel of this place and words fail completely. After only five minutes I was desperate to leave and never return. The ability to survive in that environment must be either bread into the bones, learned over a lifetime, or suffered from necessity.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the way this market is run, simply that it was too great a culture shock for this poor bookwormy traveler. The Market was teaming with people of all types, all busy and intent on their tasks. However, the spirit of the Thai remained true even in this frenzied atmosphere. As I was at my lowest (and hottest point), sure I could not take any more, I saw an old man walking down the sidewalk between stalls with his baby grandson in his arms. The baby was covered with sweat and obviously miserable even in his sleeping state and I’m sure he was getting heavy. The man was quietly walking along and the sight he made as I saw him, so sweet a figure of the patient older generation with the new, made me smile. At that moment he looked up at me and smiled back, a simple gesture that is so often lacking everywhere in the world but here. At home, I would have passed him on the street (probably as the baby sat in a stroller) and a smile would have gone unnoticed (as no eye contact is made) or ignored (as a smile could even be interpreted as rude), but here it is simply taken as it was meant, a gesture of friendliness and a shared moment. This rejuvenated me and allowed me to finish my time in the Market with a lighter step and a renewed feeling of well being. Although I might have failed my test of surviving as a native (I clearly cannot handle their true method of shopping), it was an experience I will remember.
I ran from the Day Market as soon as our group had reconvened and we immediately hopped in a red truck to return to the Chiang Mai that we love and adore (and at least partially understand). By this time I was desperate and in great need of some strong rejuvenating force, so I ran into my apartment, changed quickly into my swim suit, and headed to the pool. I was in such a rush to be in the water by this point that I literally ran part of the way and immediately submerged myself, content to simply sit on the bottom of the pool until the need for air drove me to the surface. I stayed in the water, alternately swimming and simply floating, for about an hour until it was time to return to the apartment for a shower. After my shower, we all (both the Res group and the BABSEA house group) met at the Mexican restaurant we had stopped at last night, for an evening of food and margaritas with our Thai language teachers. I know I promised no more non-Thai food, but I claim immunity as the location of our meal was chosen by a higher power than myself and I could not change it. I had a good time and am glad I went, but am now extremely tired from my long day and ready to get some sleep. I wanted to tell you a little about my plans for tomorrow (I have the whole day free), but they are looking a little up in the air at the moment, so we shall all have to wait a little longer and see what the present future holds once it becomes the past. :)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monsoon Season
Before I came to Thailand I did research. After I received my letter of acceptance into this program, I decided that it might be wise to do a little research on the country I was shortly to visit. I knew that I enjoyed the food, so the next logical step seemed to be research online. I looked at a variety of sources including my generations’ personal favorite, Wikipedia (which is actually a good place to start with your general information research on a topic), and the CDC (in an effort to learn what could potentially kill me, the list is long). Next, I went to a variety of bookstores and read travel guide books about the country and what to expect. One of the main pieces of information I gleaned from all of these sources: I am visiting Thailand during what is termed, Monsoon Season.
As you may have noticed from my previous entries, there has not been a whole lot of rain here. I was told it rained the day before I arrived and since then it has rained about twice (heavy rain worth mentioning, not the stupid sprinkling rain that reminds me of Portland, pathetic). Well, today that has all changed. During the final portion of our day of orientation today it started to rain. Now, this seemed like a good thing as the usual course of rain here is about 45 minutes to 1 hour of torrential downpour, then the clouds part, the sun comes out, and the water covering the streets evaporates in a few hours, which makes the entire city feel muggier than usual. When we were released from our class we all walked downstairs and stood under the overhang looking at the wet ground and the delicate drops still falling. The assumption at that time was that the worst of the rain had passed. Thus, we set off walking toward our apartments, stepping carefully to avoid splashing any mud or residual water up on our legs. Well…that was useless. After about three minutes of walking the sprinkles got a little harder. We still weren’t worried as it still wasn’t coming down too hard and the drops actually felt a bit refreshing in the heat. As we were walking, Bobby (another American law student) said that he had also read about the “Monsoon Season” of Thailand and that if this was it, he was a little disappointed. What a jinxer. Evidently the great Buddha has a sense of humor and thought it would be hilarious to give us a taste of a true Thailand downpour as we were walking since we had openly doubted the lands ability to produce monsoon-ish rain. At this point we had gone too far to turn back and by the time we reached the main road where we could conceivably catch a red truck it was too late, we were completely soaked. Now, “completely soaked” here means that within 2 minutes of the rain starting my t-shirt was soaked through, even my underwear was wet, the streets ran like rivers, and my hair acted as a waterfall, cascading water down around me. At first, it is very easy to be upset, but after about 3 minutes I saw the humor of the situation and began to enjoy it all. I mean, here I am in Thailand, caught in a monsoon rain without my umbrella and raincoat, the way no self-respecting Thai person would be caught. It was quite the experience and I’m glad it happened, although from now on I will be smart enough to keep either my umbrella or raincoat with me at all times. :)
The time before the rain and the rest of the day were very good too. Orientation focused on practicing pieces of our lesson plan presentations we have been working on for the last day and a half, with the entire class participating in the activities we would include in the lesson plan. Our group went first this morning and it all went very well. In these long days of presentations I am finding it best to go as close to first as possible as the group is still fresh at that time and willing to actually pay attention (although only to a limited degree) and today we were lucky enough to go first and then had to simply listen and participate in the rest of the presentations.
After getting soaked through, I finally made it back to the apartment where I quickly dried off and changed clothes. Unfortunately, the rain meant the death of my “monk chat” plans I prepped you for yesterday. You see, at the Wat Phra Singh there is an amazing program where you go the temple between the times of 5:30 and 7 pm on certain days and you can “chat with a monk.” In Buddhist culture women are not allowed near the monks in normal day-to-day situations (obviously they can pray in front of a monk when visiting the temples), but out of respect to the vows monks take regarding celibacy, etc., women are not allowed to give anything directly to a monk (to give a donation a monk takes the money from the woman in a special cloth, no hand-to-hand contact), they cannot initiate conversation with a monk, and they should really walk widely around a monk so as not to accidentally have contact. In fact, buses in Thailand are built with a special “Monk Section” so that monks do not come near any women. The monk chat at the temple is meant to make monks and their ways of life more understandable and accessible to the non-Buddhist. They allow an individual (man or woman) to have a long chat with a monk, asking any questions they can think of to the monk. In return, the monks are able to practice their English language skills (which means I can count the “monk chat” as community service!). To me this sounds like an amazing opportunity! I have a hundred questions for those monks, including: do you own other clothes besides the orange robes, why did you decide to become a monk, why did you decide to become a monk, what do you do all day, what are your special duties, how do you become the head monk, what was your education like, do you only study Buddhist religion or traditional school subjects too, etc. I was very disappointed that the rain canceled our “monk chat” (but it is held outside and is canceled if it rains). However, I have great plans to participate in this later, either on Saturday here in Thailand or at one of the temples in Laos (since they have the program as well).
As our planned event had to be abandoned, Zenia, Sam and I joined some other people for an early dinner at a small bakery near the apartments. I am ashamed to say that I have finally caved and eaten some non-Thai food. Today, at approximately 5:30 pm I ate a hamburger with French fries. I am so disappointed in myself. It didn’t taste like a traditional American hamburger; it was definitely a Thai variety. Unfortunately, this bakery had more American food on the menu than Thai and by the time I realized that (I had been told there was a decent amount of Thai food on the menu before agreeing to go) I was starving and decided to give in and order some Western food. One of the other girls there, Laura, did make a very persuasive argument though. You see, at home I never stick with one type/region of food 100% of the time, instead I am constantly mixing it up with American, Thai, Mexican, Chinese, etc. It is, in fact, crazier for me to only eat one type of food here than to mix it up now and again with another type of food. Therefore, my “little slip” of eating Western food is actually more natural than I had been previously acting/eating. While this is a good argument, I am not sure I fully buy it. After all…the real reason I came here was for the food! :) Don’t worry, in the future I will stick with my Thai food! We cannot have this argument changing my plans of eating Thai food all the time.
After eating, we headed out to the daily night bazaar in the old city to look for some souvenirs that Zenia needed to buy. I didn’t find much although I did buy myself a Chiang Mai t-shirt (with an elephant), a smurf shirt for immersion week (the smurfs are awesome by the way), and a pair of crop pants that are very popular here. In addition I bought what has to be the best souvenir ever and it was only 20 Baht (under a dollar). It’s a little pink crab creature about the size of a dime made out of palm leaves! Doesn’t that sound amazing?! I’m sure all of you are sitting there, reading this and thinking, “No, Lauren. That sounds silly.” And for some reason that is what everyone else has been saying too. To that I reply, “You lack all scope of the imagination and you need to start letting yourselves be amused by the simpler things in life.” Life can be all too serious and it is very easy to get caught up all the negative aspects. A good way I have found to combat this problem is to constantly look for the little amusing things in life that bring tiny bursts of pleasure. If you keep focusing on those things, you start to see them everywhere and soon your life is filled with tiny moments of happiness and laughter, which I consider a great way to live life. Give it a try and see what you think…
We came home early from the market as it wasn’t quite as fun as the Sunday night market. As I mentioned, this market occurs daily and is largely for the tourist population in Chiang Mai. Therefore, most of the stalls there are semi-permanent and are filled with what I consider debris, but some people consider souvenirs (ex. Small Buddha statues, mini temples, etc.). In addition, there are fewer people at this market and it simply lacks the energy and vitality of the Sunday Waling Market.
In any event, the market was fun to visit and a good thing to have seen. I have now showered and am ready to go to bed. Tomorrow should be an interesting day as the entire city of Chiang Mai is shutting down for a Buddhist religious festival (and if I had managed to go to “monk chat” I would know which one it is, but as I was unable to attend, I am completely in the dark as to the purpose of this celebration) and we are going to learn where we will be placed for our Immersion Week (either in Wildflower, a camp for in-crisis women, Kings Project, a forestry center, or with a family in a rural community). I’ll give you the scoop soon! Until then, good morning!
As you may have noticed from my previous entries, there has not been a whole lot of rain here. I was told it rained the day before I arrived and since then it has rained about twice (heavy rain worth mentioning, not the stupid sprinkling rain that reminds me of Portland, pathetic). Well, today that has all changed. During the final portion of our day of orientation today it started to rain. Now, this seemed like a good thing as the usual course of rain here is about 45 minutes to 1 hour of torrential downpour, then the clouds part, the sun comes out, and the water covering the streets evaporates in a few hours, which makes the entire city feel muggier than usual. When we were released from our class we all walked downstairs and stood under the overhang looking at the wet ground and the delicate drops still falling. The assumption at that time was that the worst of the rain had passed. Thus, we set off walking toward our apartments, stepping carefully to avoid splashing any mud or residual water up on our legs. Well…that was useless. After about three minutes of walking the sprinkles got a little harder. We still weren’t worried as it still wasn’t coming down too hard and the drops actually felt a bit refreshing in the heat. As we were walking, Bobby (another American law student) said that he had also read about the “Monsoon Season” of Thailand and that if this was it, he was a little disappointed. What a jinxer. Evidently the great Buddha has a sense of humor and thought it would be hilarious to give us a taste of a true Thailand downpour as we were walking since we had openly doubted the lands ability to produce monsoon-ish rain. At this point we had gone too far to turn back and by the time we reached the main road where we could conceivably catch a red truck it was too late, we were completely soaked. Now, “completely soaked” here means that within 2 minutes of the rain starting my t-shirt was soaked through, even my underwear was wet, the streets ran like rivers, and my hair acted as a waterfall, cascading water down around me. At first, it is very easy to be upset, but after about 3 minutes I saw the humor of the situation and began to enjoy it all. I mean, here I am in Thailand, caught in a monsoon rain without my umbrella and raincoat, the way no self-respecting Thai person would be caught. It was quite the experience and I’m glad it happened, although from now on I will be smart enough to keep either my umbrella or raincoat with me at all times. :)
The time before the rain and the rest of the day were very good too. Orientation focused on practicing pieces of our lesson plan presentations we have been working on for the last day and a half, with the entire class participating in the activities we would include in the lesson plan. Our group went first this morning and it all went very well. In these long days of presentations I am finding it best to go as close to first as possible as the group is still fresh at that time and willing to actually pay attention (although only to a limited degree) and today we were lucky enough to go first and then had to simply listen and participate in the rest of the presentations.
After getting soaked through, I finally made it back to the apartment where I quickly dried off and changed clothes. Unfortunately, the rain meant the death of my “monk chat” plans I prepped you for yesterday. You see, at the Wat Phra Singh there is an amazing program where you go the temple between the times of 5:30 and 7 pm on certain days and you can “chat with a monk.” In Buddhist culture women are not allowed near the monks in normal day-to-day situations (obviously they can pray in front of a monk when visiting the temples), but out of respect to the vows monks take regarding celibacy, etc., women are not allowed to give anything directly to a monk (to give a donation a monk takes the money from the woman in a special cloth, no hand-to-hand contact), they cannot initiate conversation with a monk, and they should really walk widely around a monk so as not to accidentally have contact. In fact, buses in Thailand are built with a special “Monk Section” so that monks do not come near any women. The monk chat at the temple is meant to make monks and their ways of life more understandable and accessible to the non-Buddhist. They allow an individual (man or woman) to have a long chat with a monk, asking any questions they can think of to the monk. In return, the monks are able to practice their English language skills (which means I can count the “monk chat” as community service!). To me this sounds like an amazing opportunity! I have a hundred questions for those monks, including: do you own other clothes besides the orange robes, why did you decide to become a monk, why did you decide to become a monk, what do you do all day, what are your special duties, how do you become the head monk, what was your education like, do you only study Buddhist religion or traditional school subjects too, etc. I was very disappointed that the rain canceled our “monk chat” (but it is held outside and is canceled if it rains). However, I have great plans to participate in this later, either on Saturday here in Thailand or at one of the temples in Laos (since they have the program as well).
As our planned event had to be abandoned, Zenia, Sam and I joined some other people for an early dinner at a small bakery near the apartments. I am ashamed to say that I have finally caved and eaten some non-Thai food. Today, at approximately 5:30 pm I ate a hamburger with French fries. I am so disappointed in myself. It didn’t taste like a traditional American hamburger; it was definitely a Thai variety. Unfortunately, this bakery had more American food on the menu than Thai and by the time I realized that (I had been told there was a decent amount of Thai food on the menu before agreeing to go) I was starving and decided to give in and order some Western food. One of the other girls there, Laura, did make a very persuasive argument though. You see, at home I never stick with one type/region of food 100% of the time, instead I am constantly mixing it up with American, Thai, Mexican, Chinese, etc. It is, in fact, crazier for me to only eat one type of food here than to mix it up now and again with another type of food. Therefore, my “little slip” of eating Western food is actually more natural than I had been previously acting/eating. While this is a good argument, I am not sure I fully buy it. After all…the real reason I came here was for the food! :) Don’t worry, in the future I will stick with my Thai food! We cannot have this argument changing my plans of eating Thai food all the time.
After eating, we headed out to the daily night bazaar in the old city to look for some souvenirs that Zenia needed to buy. I didn’t find much although I did buy myself a Chiang Mai t-shirt (with an elephant), a smurf shirt for immersion week (the smurfs are awesome by the way), and a pair of crop pants that are very popular here. In addition I bought what has to be the best souvenir ever and it was only 20 Baht (under a dollar). It’s a little pink crab creature about the size of a dime made out of palm leaves! Doesn’t that sound amazing?! I’m sure all of you are sitting there, reading this and thinking, “No, Lauren. That sounds silly.” And for some reason that is what everyone else has been saying too. To that I reply, “You lack all scope of the imagination and you need to start letting yourselves be amused by the simpler things in life.” Life can be all too serious and it is very easy to get caught up all the negative aspects. A good way I have found to combat this problem is to constantly look for the little amusing things in life that bring tiny bursts of pleasure. If you keep focusing on those things, you start to see them everywhere and soon your life is filled with tiny moments of happiness and laughter, which I consider a great way to live life. Give it a try and see what you think…
We came home early from the market as it wasn’t quite as fun as the Sunday night market. As I mentioned, this market occurs daily and is largely for the tourist population in Chiang Mai. Therefore, most of the stalls there are semi-permanent and are filled with what I consider debris, but some people consider souvenirs (ex. Small Buddha statues, mini temples, etc.). In addition, there are fewer people at this market and it simply lacks the energy and vitality of the Sunday Waling Market.
In any event, the market was fun to visit and a good thing to have seen. I have now showered and am ready to go to bed. Tomorrow should be an interesting day as the entire city of Chiang Mai is shutting down for a Buddhist religious festival (and if I had managed to go to “monk chat” I would know which one it is, but as I was unable to attend, I am completely in the dark as to the purpose of this celebration) and we are going to learn where we will be placed for our Immersion Week (either in Wildflower, a camp for in-crisis women, Kings Project, a forestry center, or with a family in a rural community). I’ll give you the scoop soon! Until then, good morning!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Cheap Food, Good Times, and Souvenirs
Today was a day of cheap food, good times and souvenirs. My day was much more pleasurable than the last two, partly because I was feeling better. Although I suppose there is meant to be a unit of trust in blog posts, the truth of the matter is, I made an executive decision that it was best for me to keep you in the dark since I was ill with just a bit of a sore throat and general achy feeling. I took Nyquil the last two nights and Dayquil yesterday and am now feeling 100%, ready and raring to go.
It was a good day of orientation in that, after a brief presentation from one of the interns, Cris, on the Philippines (which was extremely interesting – we watched a video on human rights in the Philippines and a march across the country by farmers in an attempt to gain land rights) we were quickly divided into our small groups and allowed to work on our own without interruption. That is the type of work environment I enjoy: being in a group with other hard-workers who just sit down and get the job done. In keeping with our 32 baht a day assignment, we had lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall establishment where all the meals are 25 baht (if you have tofu or chicken or pork). The food was delicious and the price can’t be beat. As I was able to go all of yesterday without spending money (once again subtracting the amount spent on laundry) I was able to spread that 32 baht across the next two days (technically now today and tomorrow) and add funds to those totals giving me 49 baht per day. Thus, I stayed within my budget. Lunch was quick as we all wanted to get back to Uniserv to continue our work. In the afternoon we simply had to present the lesson plans we had developed to one other group (with Wendy or Helen, BABSEA leaders, acting as overseers). Once the presentation to the other group was over and compliments/criticisms given we could spend the afternoon as we liked, either improving our project or free time.
My group worked hard during the morning session and managed to come up with a near perfect lesson plan, thus giving us the afternoon off after 3:30 pm. Zenia wanted to go to a couple shops for souvenirs and I tagged along. We ended up stopping at a lot of stores along Nemmanhemin and I made Zenia and Sam wait for 15 minutes outside a Thai bookstore for me when I was buying souvenirs (good ones too!). I suppose it really shouldn’t come as a shock that I would spend a ton of time in a bookstore in a foreign country, but it might be a little surprising to you when I say that nothing there was in English! :) I guess it is just the breed of bookstores as a whole that fascinate me, not only the ones in English.
After shopping, we headed back to the apartments so that Sam and Zenia could rest, but all I could think of was swimming, so I put on my suit, grabbed a friend, and went to the pool. We stayed for about an hour and once again I felt like I never wanted to leave! It is amazing how good the water feels here. I can’t wait to get back to the States (by the way, everyone calls us “America” over here and nothing else; they just won’t know what you’re talking about if you say the US or the States) and get a gym membership so I can start swimming again. I have officially rediscovered my love of being in the water all the time. When I got back from the pool I took a quick shower and got ready to go out with the other apartment kids. They have been going out to clubs and bars almost every night since they got here (except for curfew nights) and I was finally convinced that it would be a “cultural experience,” and I suppose that in some ways it was. Here in Thailand, everyone drinks whiskey with club soda. When you go to a bar or club, you stand around a table, order a bucket of ice, a bottle of whiskey, and several bottles of club soda. You then mix the drinks at the table and start pouring it down (by the way, whiskey and soda is disgusting and I hate it). This is entertainment. For the most part I was bored (although there were live bands and one was pretty good), and it wasn’t long before we left (so others could go in search of more lively entertainment and I could just escape). As we were walking down the street we ran into our Thai language teachers and stopped to have margaritas with them, which was an amazing experience. We were finally told a little about Thai politics, which I would love to relay here, but I’m not allowed as we were all warned not to discuss Thai politics or religion on internet sites or in emails while in Thailand (people disappear forever after making that mistake). Suffice it to say, it was an interesting conversation and very informative. It was just a good experience to have an open and honest discussion about the region’s politics and religion without evasion and dismissal of questions.
Our night ended at around 12 am and we are now ready to go to bed. Tomorrow promises to be a similar day (with individual work time in the morning and presentations in the afternoon), but with much more interesting plans during our free hours; as a little preview I will just say that it includes a “monk chat.” Imagine what you will…until then, good night!
It was a good day of orientation in that, after a brief presentation from one of the interns, Cris, on the Philippines (which was extremely interesting – we watched a video on human rights in the Philippines and a march across the country by farmers in an attempt to gain land rights) we were quickly divided into our small groups and allowed to work on our own without interruption. That is the type of work environment I enjoy: being in a group with other hard-workers who just sit down and get the job done. In keeping with our 32 baht a day assignment, we had lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall establishment where all the meals are 25 baht (if you have tofu or chicken or pork). The food was delicious and the price can’t be beat. As I was able to go all of yesterday without spending money (once again subtracting the amount spent on laundry) I was able to spread that 32 baht across the next two days (technically now today and tomorrow) and add funds to those totals giving me 49 baht per day. Thus, I stayed within my budget. Lunch was quick as we all wanted to get back to Uniserv to continue our work. In the afternoon we simply had to present the lesson plans we had developed to one other group (with Wendy or Helen, BABSEA leaders, acting as overseers). Once the presentation to the other group was over and compliments/criticisms given we could spend the afternoon as we liked, either improving our project or free time.
My group worked hard during the morning session and managed to come up with a near perfect lesson plan, thus giving us the afternoon off after 3:30 pm. Zenia wanted to go to a couple shops for souvenirs and I tagged along. We ended up stopping at a lot of stores along Nemmanhemin and I made Zenia and Sam wait for 15 minutes outside a Thai bookstore for me when I was buying souvenirs (good ones too!). I suppose it really shouldn’t come as a shock that I would spend a ton of time in a bookstore in a foreign country, but it might be a little surprising to you when I say that nothing there was in English! :) I guess it is just the breed of bookstores as a whole that fascinate me, not only the ones in English.
After shopping, we headed back to the apartments so that Sam and Zenia could rest, but all I could think of was swimming, so I put on my suit, grabbed a friend, and went to the pool. We stayed for about an hour and once again I felt like I never wanted to leave! It is amazing how good the water feels here. I can’t wait to get back to the States (by the way, everyone calls us “America” over here and nothing else; they just won’t know what you’re talking about if you say the US or the States) and get a gym membership so I can start swimming again. I have officially rediscovered my love of being in the water all the time. When I got back from the pool I took a quick shower and got ready to go out with the other apartment kids. They have been going out to clubs and bars almost every night since they got here (except for curfew nights) and I was finally convinced that it would be a “cultural experience,” and I suppose that in some ways it was. Here in Thailand, everyone drinks whiskey with club soda. When you go to a bar or club, you stand around a table, order a bucket of ice, a bottle of whiskey, and several bottles of club soda. You then mix the drinks at the table and start pouring it down (by the way, whiskey and soda is disgusting and I hate it). This is entertainment. For the most part I was bored (although there were live bands and one was pretty good), and it wasn’t long before we left (so others could go in search of more lively entertainment and I could just escape). As we were walking down the street we ran into our Thai language teachers and stopped to have margaritas with them, which was an amazing experience. We were finally told a little about Thai politics, which I would love to relay here, but I’m not allowed as we were all warned not to discuss Thai politics or religion on internet sites or in emails while in Thailand (people disappear forever after making that mistake). Suffice it to say, it was an interesting conversation and very informative. It was just a good experience to have an open and honest discussion about the region’s politics and religion without evasion and dismissal of questions.
Our night ended at around 12 am and we are now ready to go to bed. Tomorrow promises to be a similar day (with individual work time in the morning and presentations in the afternoon), but with much more interesting plans during our free hours; as a little preview I will just say that it includes a “monk chat.” Imagine what you will…until then, good night!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Money Please!
Today is the first day of the Great Poverty Experience. As I previously mentioned, we were assigned the task of living on the amount of money the UN considers the world poverty level for three days (the level is $1 US/day). I must admit that, at the very least, they started easy on us. I ate breakfast in my apartment this morning, as I usually do, which consists of two slices of wheat bread (so that I don’t turn completely Thai) and a glass of orange juice (from the market, where the oranges are green!). We are lucky, in that BABSEA provides us with a variety of fruit each day at Uniserv, which we are able to munch on: bananas in the morning, pineapple and watermelon in the afternoon, and a variety of delicious local fruits all the time. Each morning I eat 1-2 bananas and in the afternoon I partake of the smorgasbord of fruits and today was no exception.
In addition to this supplement of my diet, today BABSEA bought us lunch at the local Women’s Detention Center. This Detention Center has a program (I believe it is sponsored by BABSEA) that teaches the women English and skills to help them become useful members of society when they are released (this is a minor detention center for women who are caught stealing or selling drugs). The program teaches women to sew, clean, cook, etc. and one business they have is a restaurant across the street from the center, which is where we ate lunch today, where women from the center work and are taught cooking skills. The food was good and eating only rice and sautéed veggies was a nice change from the constant influx of Asian spicy, saucy dishes. Thus, I was able to go half the day without even needing to use my 32 Baht (although I suppose the food I bought yesterday for breakfast, but ate today could be called “cheating,” but as I don’t agree with this project at all and don’t see that it is even close to an accurate representation of what poverty would feel like, I have chosen to ignore this argument by labeling it ridiculous).
The morning and afternoon of orientation activities felt endless. The energy level in our classroom is now at negative numbers and everyone is a little (or a LOT) tired of the orientation process. At this point, I just really want to be in my country placement, working at my job. I have found before, and am finding once again here, that stagnation of my brain is not a good thing and I don’t like being without a true intellectual pursuit. Unfortunately, orientation’s activities are not particularly higher brain function necessitating items and I can now feel brain cells atrophying. A terrible side effect of this is the loss of my patience and a general increase in the sarcasm level. I am finding that the tendency of law school in the US to attract a Type A personality (someone who is nitpicky and detail-oriented) is a universal trait among lawyers around the world. Unfortunately, when you cram this many Type A’s together in one setting, don’t give directions or general guidance, chaos and irritation ensue, causing discord. While we are all trying to stay pleasant through the process of “making it happen” (as Bruce is constantly telling us), things are starting to get a little tense. Luckily, we sorted through most of the administrative details of our next major project today and over the next three days we are focusing on that work in small groups.
After we were released from orientation, Zenia and I walked down to retrieve our laundry, which had been freshly washed, pressed, and folded. Laundry in SE Asia is supposed to be extremely cheap; however, I couldn’t find a place to do it by weight, so it was by load, which is much more expensive. I have decided to start washing everything but my pants by hand in my sink and towards that goal I bought a small bag of hand clothes washing detergent for my t-shirts and delicates (aka undies). Isn’t this amazing? I am turning into such a cheapskate traveler in a foreign country. I now think 150 Baht is too expensive for a pair of pants when it is only around $4.50 in American money. I think I may be going crazy, but I just can’t help it. I’m sure the 32 Baht/day deal isn’t helping this situation either.
The laundry excursion finished, we headed out to some shops on Nemmanhemin that Zenia and Sam wanted to check out. I mostly just tag along and pretend to look around since I’m not really that interested in traditional clothes shopping (cool Thai clothes would be another story), and I’m just waiting until we go back to this bookstore we stopped at a couple days ago. ;) (Isn’t that a shock?) We didn’t stay out long and headed back to the apartments before setting off for Thai language lessons. Now, here is one thing I don’t understand…the language lessons are held at BABSEA house and because of the rule about money, us poor folks at the apartment have to walk for 15-20 minutes to get there. Each night we walk to the house tor Thai lessons, arriving right on time, and the people living at BABSEA house wait and don’t come out until 10 minutes after lessons have started. How does that work?! These people live there and simply have to walk outside to be on time, but they never are! I suppose you could write it off as them following the “Thai custom” of always being late, but I find that a pathetic excuse when none of us are Thai. Urgh. But now my rant is over and I will move on to pleasanter things.
Zenia and I were geniuses tonight and decided to raid the BABSEA fridge for leftovers from lunch today for food rather than paying for dinner out. Thus, we ate rice and veggies for dinner as well and now have 32 extra Baht to split between the next two days, which makes our lives a whole lot easier. Woo-hoo!
To be honest, if I were to describe today in one word it would have to be: throwaway. Today was neither a good day nor a bad day, but definitely not a day of how I want to spend my time in Thailand. Part of the problem is that I am tired (I will definitely be going to bed soon), but the other part is that I am just done with the whole concept of orientation. I am sure things will be looking up tomorrow though. Until then, sleep will be the best cure for my orientation blues. :) Good morning all!
In addition to this supplement of my diet, today BABSEA bought us lunch at the local Women’s Detention Center. This Detention Center has a program (I believe it is sponsored by BABSEA) that teaches the women English and skills to help them become useful members of society when they are released (this is a minor detention center for women who are caught stealing or selling drugs). The program teaches women to sew, clean, cook, etc. and one business they have is a restaurant across the street from the center, which is where we ate lunch today, where women from the center work and are taught cooking skills. The food was good and eating only rice and sautéed veggies was a nice change from the constant influx of Asian spicy, saucy dishes. Thus, I was able to go half the day without even needing to use my 32 Baht (although I suppose the food I bought yesterday for breakfast, but ate today could be called “cheating,” but as I don’t agree with this project at all and don’t see that it is even close to an accurate representation of what poverty would feel like, I have chosen to ignore this argument by labeling it ridiculous).
The morning and afternoon of orientation activities felt endless. The energy level in our classroom is now at negative numbers and everyone is a little (or a LOT) tired of the orientation process. At this point, I just really want to be in my country placement, working at my job. I have found before, and am finding once again here, that stagnation of my brain is not a good thing and I don’t like being without a true intellectual pursuit. Unfortunately, orientation’s activities are not particularly higher brain function necessitating items and I can now feel brain cells atrophying. A terrible side effect of this is the loss of my patience and a general increase in the sarcasm level. I am finding that the tendency of law school in the US to attract a Type A personality (someone who is nitpicky and detail-oriented) is a universal trait among lawyers around the world. Unfortunately, when you cram this many Type A’s together in one setting, don’t give directions or general guidance, chaos and irritation ensue, causing discord. While we are all trying to stay pleasant through the process of “making it happen” (as Bruce is constantly telling us), things are starting to get a little tense. Luckily, we sorted through most of the administrative details of our next major project today and over the next three days we are focusing on that work in small groups.
After we were released from orientation, Zenia and I walked down to retrieve our laundry, which had been freshly washed, pressed, and folded. Laundry in SE Asia is supposed to be extremely cheap; however, I couldn’t find a place to do it by weight, so it was by load, which is much more expensive. I have decided to start washing everything but my pants by hand in my sink and towards that goal I bought a small bag of hand clothes washing detergent for my t-shirts and delicates (aka undies). Isn’t this amazing? I am turning into such a cheapskate traveler in a foreign country. I now think 150 Baht is too expensive for a pair of pants when it is only around $4.50 in American money. I think I may be going crazy, but I just can’t help it. I’m sure the 32 Baht/day deal isn’t helping this situation either.
The laundry excursion finished, we headed out to some shops on Nemmanhemin that Zenia and Sam wanted to check out. I mostly just tag along and pretend to look around since I’m not really that interested in traditional clothes shopping (cool Thai clothes would be another story), and I’m just waiting until we go back to this bookstore we stopped at a couple days ago. ;) (Isn’t that a shock?) We didn’t stay out long and headed back to the apartments before setting off for Thai language lessons. Now, here is one thing I don’t understand…the language lessons are held at BABSEA house and because of the rule about money, us poor folks at the apartment have to walk for 15-20 minutes to get there. Each night we walk to the house tor Thai lessons, arriving right on time, and the people living at BABSEA house wait and don’t come out until 10 minutes after lessons have started. How does that work?! These people live there and simply have to walk outside to be on time, but they never are! I suppose you could write it off as them following the “Thai custom” of always being late, but I find that a pathetic excuse when none of us are Thai. Urgh. But now my rant is over and I will move on to pleasanter things.
Zenia and I were geniuses tonight and decided to raid the BABSEA fridge for leftovers from lunch today for food rather than paying for dinner out. Thus, we ate rice and veggies for dinner as well and now have 32 extra Baht to split between the next two days, which makes our lives a whole lot easier. Woo-hoo!
To be honest, if I were to describe today in one word it would have to be: throwaway. Today was neither a good day nor a bad day, but definitely not a day of how I want to spend my time in Thailand. Part of the problem is that I am tired (I will definitely be going to bed soon), but the other part is that I am just done with the whole concept of orientation. I am sure things will be looking up tomorrow though. Until then, sleep will be the best cure for my orientation blues. :) Good morning all!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Back to Reality
Today was Monday here in Chiang Mai, which means we’re “back” at orientation. Now, I say “back” with the quotations because, as you know from my previous messages, we did not get a proper weekend or even one truly free day. To be sure, yesterday was loads of fun and I had a wonderful time doing all the touristy things, but even when it’s been fun, there is something about the fact that it wasn’t just your choice that brings the whole thing down a little (in the sense that we didn’t get a free weekend, or perhaps that is the residual pain from the forced hike talking now…). But now, we’re back at work at Uniserv. This morning I started the day with a lemon soda (which is actually made with limes and is actually limeade rather than a soda) from a little coffee/tea shop across the street from our Res called Zane’s. The beautiful thing about lemon soda is that they make it all in front of you, squeeze the limes, add the sugar water, ice it, pick out the seeds, etc. It is definitely worth the 40 Baht price and I will continue to buy them as they are a wonderfully refreshing drink in this sauna called Thailand.
In orientation we did a lot of exercises today on international law, NGO “speak,” and fundraising. We mostly learned about it through group games and exercise and while I did learn a lot I think I would have learned more through a lecture presenting the material in a calm, reasonable manner. We have been told over and over again that only 5% of the information heard in lectures is retained, but I often wonder if that is not so low a retention rate for law students. We have been trained, really from our first day of school, to learn information through lectures, and that practice of teaching cannot be seen in any better place than in law school where all the information the professor wants the student to retain is mentioned and briefed in class in the lecture format. Therefore, I can’t help but think that lecture would be a viable method of teaching us. However, games are more often used here at BABSEA orientation. While they are fun and I will admit that they stick in my memory, I often don’t remember answers to questions I didn’t know beforehand, which means that I am don’t often learn those items that I didn’t already know. I suppose I could always review the information again since they often e-mail it to us later, but I find myself too tired at night and the spotty internet connection here means I don’t often receive them for a long time. Oh, well.
I mentioned to Dad earlier (when I talked to my parents on the phone) that today was boring, but on reflection, I now realize that I wasn’t giving the day enough credit. As I mentioned, the games in orientation were fun. The reason it seemed boring at times was actually the result of all of us being tired from the very busy 7 days we had just put in with no break. But we actually did have some fun today… during one of the game sets our teams were given points and scores with negative marks for wrong answers. The result of those negative marks was the eating of a fried silk worm by a member of our group. Well…I ate one! While only one person needed to “take one for the team,” I thought: this isn’t an experience I should forgo just because it seems like it should be gross. So, I took the plunge, popped one in my mouth, and *crunch*. The taste with the worms isn’t what gets to you, because, really, there isn’t a great deal of flavor. No, it is the texture. The first crunch is fine, but as you go to swallow once the chewing is finished a small coating of debris (there really is no better word to describe it) is left in your mouth, coating everywhere the worm touched. No amount of successive swallowing will clear the way. The only way to get rid of it all is to drink a large glass of water with plenty of swishing. However, that fact does explain why our local Thai volunteers (there are 3-4 young Thai people who volunteer for BABSEA) said they go great with alcohol. :) Eating a silk worm or two would definitely be a good excuse to take a drink!
Our lunch today was delicious, a return to The Salad Concept, the amazing salad place we ate at for lunch a few days ago. I had the same lunch salad I ordered the last time (Organic Tofu Salad); although this time I ate it all by myself. We had a fun time chatting and laughing and then returned to our orientation. We got out around 5 pm and had to run some errands, which were about as exciting as they sound: dropping off laundry and grocery shopping. After that, we walked to the BABSEA house for Thai language lessons, which was actually pretty fun as it started raining as we walked (although by Thai standards it was barely a sprinkle). For dinner after our lessons we went again to the small restaurant around the corner from the house, what we have named The Garden, where I ordered pad see ew and stuffed myself on my favorite dish once again (not quite as good as the other place, but good all the same). I am happy to report at this time that I have officially finished my first week in Thailand and have suffered no ill tummy effects! Woo-hoo! I’m sure it’s from all of your good wishes, so keep it up because I would like to go this entire trip without a major stomach (or other type of) calamity.
Some Special Notes-
1. We are now experiencing a day-to-day alert curfew (simply until all the “red shirts” are out of Bangkok and back home in their original provinces), which started at 11 pm tonight.
2. My internet connection is terrible, which is why I haven’t uploaded any new photos tonight or yesterday (but I promise they are coming and they are fantastic!).
3. The next three days should be interesting for us all. As a new “challenge” to us interns, for the next three days BABSEA requires us to live on $1 (US)/day for all of our primary living expenses (basically travel and food/drink, not living expenses). This means that on each day we have 32 Baht to spend and no more. I’m sure this exercise is meant to make us feel how it would feel to be a person (1/5 in the world) who lives below the poverty line (which is judged by the UN as $1/day to live on), however, I have a few reservations with the assignment. Firstly, an individual who lives on that amount of money would not be living in this area because $1/day would not allow him/her to afford these apartments with the TVs, air conditioning units, and hot water for showers. This means that they certainly would not be able to afford the food we can find within walking distance as the entire area would exceed their income (or lack thereof). Secondly, this project wastes my Thai food time. I am now relegated to eating plain rice or pooling my resources with others and buying raw food, walking to BABSEA house to cook at night (for leftovers too), cooking, eating, then walking home. (I would not be able to afford a red truck, so walking would be rule of the day.) Thus, I cannot go out to try all these amazing restaurants and experience all the delicious Thai food I have yet to eat. Three eating days wasted when I only have a limited amount of time left in Thailand. Thirdly, I had planned a lot of sightseeing in the afternoon after we were freed from the orientation, including a visit to the weekly night bazaars in the old city (need a 20 Baht red truck to get there), shops and things in the old city, and restaurants all around Chiang Mai, all of which are now out by our new rule. I feel very upset about the loss of our time and ability to act as tourists and visitors during the only time left to us by the long days of orientation.
4. I love Thailand and am so happy to be here. I am excited that I will be able to do some more exploring soon (we do get the upcoming Saturday off), but I also can’t wait to move on to Laos and explore that city fully during the time I am there and to reconnect with the Laos people I got to know over the last week who left yesterday for home, but who we will meet up with again soon (Chinda and Lamnleugn).
5. I hope you are all still enjoying your vicarious travels through Thailand. In spirit you are all here, but if you want a firmer connection…don’t forget to send me your summer address if you want a postcard from Thailand! I have some ready to go!
In orientation we did a lot of exercises today on international law, NGO “speak,” and fundraising. We mostly learned about it through group games and exercise and while I did learn a lot I think I would have learned more through a lecture presenting the material in a calm, reasonable manner. We have been told over and over again that only 5% of the information heard in lectures is retained, but I often wonder if that is not so low a retention rate for law students. We have been trained, really from our first day of school, to learn information through lectures, and that practice of teaching cannot be seen in any better place than in law school where all the information the professor wants the student to retain is mentioned and briefed in class in the lecture format. Therefore, I can’t help but think that lecture would be a viable method of teaching us. However, games are more often used here at BABSEA orientation. While they are fun and I will admit that they stick in my memory, I often don’t remember answers to questions I didn’t know beforehand, which means that I am don’t often learn those items that I didn’t already know. I suppose I could always review the information again since they often e-mail it to us later, but I find myself too tired at night and the spotty internet connection here means I don’t often receive them for a long time. Oh, well.
I mentioned to Dad earlier (when I talked to my parents on the phone) that today was boring, but on reflection, I now realize that I wasn’t giving the day enough credit. As I mentioned, the games in orientation were fun. The reason it seemed boring at times was actually the result of all of us being tired from the very busy 7 days we had just put in with no break. But we actually did have some fun today… during one of the game sets our teams were given points and scores with negative marks for wrong answers. The result of those negative marks was the eating of a fried silk worm by a member of our group. Well…I ate one! While only one person needed to “take one for the team,” I thought: this isn’t an experience I should forgo just because it seems like it should be gross. So, I took the plunge, popped one in my mouth, and *crunch*. The taste with the worms isn’t what gets to you, because, really, there isn’t a great deal of flavor. No, it is the texture. The first crunch is fine, but as you go to swallow once the chewing is finished a small coating of debris (there really is no better word to describe it) is left in your mouth, coating everywhere the worm touched. No amount of successive swallowing will clear the way. The only way to get rid of it all is to drink a large glass of water with plenty of swishing. However, that fact does explain why our local Thai volunteers (there are 3-4 young Thai people who volunteer for BABSEA) said they go great with alcohol. :) Eating a silk worm or two would definitely be a good excuse to take a drink!
Our lunch today was delicious, a return to The Salad Concept, the amazing salad place we ate at for lunch a few days ago. I had the same lunch salad I ordered the last time (Organic Tofu Salad); although this time I ate it all by myself. We had a fun time chatting and laughing and then returned to our orientation. We got out around 5 pm and had to run some errands, which were about as exciting as they sound: dropping off laundry and grocery shopping. After that, we walked to the BABSEA house for Thai language lessons, which was actually pretty fun as it started raining as we walked (although by Thai standards it was barely a sprinkle). For dinner after our lessons we went again to the small restaurant around the corner from the house, what we have named The Garden, where I ordered pad see ew and stuffed myself on my favorite dish once again (not quite as good as the other place, but good all the same). I am happy to report at this time that I have officially finished my first week in Thailand and have suffered no ill tummy effects! Woo-hoo! I’m sure it’s from all of your good wishes, so keep it up because I would like to go this entire trip without a major stomach (or other type of) calamity.
Some Special Notes-
1. We are now experiencing a day-to-day alert curfew (simply until all the “red shirts” are out of Bangkok and back home in their original provinces), which started at 11 pm tonight.
2. My internet connection is terrible, which is why I haven’t uploaded any new photos tonight or yesterday (but I promise they are coming and they are fantastic!).
3. The next three days should be interesting for us all. As a new “challenge” to us interns, for the next three days BABSEA requires us to live on $1 (US)/day for all of our primary living expenses (basically travel and food/drink, not living expenses). This means that on each day we have 32 Baht to spend and no more. I’m sure this exercise is meant to make us feel how it would feel to be a person (1/5 in the world) who lives below the poverty line (which is judged by the UN as $1/day to live on), however, I have a few reservations with the assignment. Firstly, an individual who lives on that amount of money would not be living in this area because $1/day would not allow him/her to afford these apartments with the TVs, air conditioning units, and hot water for showers. This means that they certainly would not be able to afford the food we can find within walking distance as the entire area would exceed their income (or lack thereof). Secondly, this project wastes my Thai food time. I am now relegated to eating plain rice or pooling my resources with others and buying raw food, walking to BABSEA house to cook at night (for leftovers too), cooking, eating, then walking home. (I would not be able to afford a red truck, so walking would be rule of the day.) Thus, I cannot go out to try all these amazing restaurants and experience all the delicious Thai food I have yet to eat. Three eating days wasted when I only have a limited amount of time left in Thailand. Thirdly, I had planned a lot of sightseeing in the afternoon after we were freed from the orientation, including a visit to the weekly night bazaars in the old city (need a 20 Baht red truck to get there), shops and things in the old city, and restaurants all around Chiang Mai, all of which are now out by our new rule. I feel very upset about the loss of our time and ability to act as tourists and visitors during the only time left to us by the long days of orientation.
4. I love Thailand and am so happy to be here. I am excited that I will be able to do some more exploring soon (we do get the upcoming Saturday off), but I also can’t wait to move on to Laos and explore that city fully during the time I am there and to reconnect with the Laos people I got to know over the last week who left yesterday for home, but who we will meet up with again soon (Chinda and Lamnleugn).
5. I hope you are all still enjoying your vicarious travels through Thailand. In spirit you are all here, but if you want a firmer connection…don’t forget to send me your summer address if you want a postcard from Thailand! I have some ready to go!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Tourist Times
Today was the first day we were able to act like true tourists in Chiang Mai (with a few changes along the way). We started our day too early at 5 am when I awoke to the buzzing of my alarm. A quick trip to the bathroom and I threw on my hiking clothes. A red truck was waiting in front of our apartment to take us to the start of the trail for Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Wat means “temple” in Thai and that is exactly what it is, a temple set on a very tall hill outside the city. But to fully explain a little history is necessary here…
Chiang Mai (“New City”) is a very old city (founded in 1296) that has often been the center of the Thai empire (even before Thailand was officially Thailand). Chiang Mai acted as the capital until the area was conquered by the Burmese in 1558 and was held for two centuries. The Thai finally threw the Burmese out of Thailand, but in 1776 the city was abandoned for 15 years because it had been so thoroughly destroyed during the years of Burmese occupation. When they eventually came back to the city it had to be largely rebuilt and it was never again declared the capital/center of Thailand, which was now Bangkok in the South.
Doi Suthep was built in Thailand about 600 years ago. It was built to house a very famous Buddhist relic that resided in Chiang Mai at another wat in the old area of the city. However, when the relic (a piece of Buddha’s shoulder bone) spontaneously replicated it was decided that a special temple should be built to house the relic. The bone was, therefore, strapped to the back of a white elephant and it was decided that wherever the elephant stopped to rest, they would build a new temple. Unfortunately, the elephant decided to wander up an impossibly steep hill and didn’t rest until reaching the top. Today, Doi Suthep sits in that exact location and is considered the most holy site in the area. Today, there is a red truck that can take you up the mountain on a very curvy road full of switchbacks, however, Bruce (the leader of our program) decided that climbing the mountainside on foot would build more character and would be a better experience. Therefore, we set out on a trail for the temple at 7 am, after we had all congregated at the base. Well, the hike took a while and was EXTREMELEY hard! It only took about 2 hours to climb up to the top, but most of the way was incredibly steep and difficult. We were hiking along a set trail through the forest, but often the trail consisted of branch roots and packed dirt acting as stairs upward and strong vine trees as ropes to assist in towing yourself up. I managed to make it to the top with a great deal of complaining, but it was a close call, and I’m sure everyone was sick of hearing about my pain by the end (somehow it makes you feel better if others are in mental pain from your whining about your physical pain, don’t ask me why).
Reaching the top felt like a HUGE accomplishment and in all honesty, it was. I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow from all the hiking, but it was a good(ish) experience making the climb and seeing that I really could do it. I carried three bottles of water up the mountain with me and it was a good thing I did because I drank two of them completely on the hike and broke into the third at the top. Now, that might not seem too incredible to you, readers at home, but consider the fact that I did not have to use the bathroom for almost 3 hours during that time. Where did the water go, you ask? One word: sweat. I have never sweat so much in my life as I did this morning during that hike. To give you a frame of reference…I was wearing a shirt that is supposed to “wick” away moisture during long hikes like that and help keep you cool. By the time I got back to my apartment at about 10:15 am the handkerchief in my backpack was damp. Therefore, I sweat enough to go through my shirt and backpack and into my hankie. Parts of me sweat that I didn’t now were capable. Being a swimmer, it was particularly gross as I am not used to sweating even when I exert myself. In the pool, the sweat is just instantly washed away, but not so in hiking. By the time I got to the top I felt exhausted, but I ate the watermelon I had bought at the market yesterday and packed, which went far toward rejuvenating me for the coming sightseeing.
The temple was amazing. There are 100 steps leading up to the temple itself and along the way, the handles for the staircase are made up of the extended bodies of dragons, whose heads appear at the bottom of the staircase and tails at the top. They were beautiful! When we arrived at the top we had to buy a ticket for “foreigners” for 30 Baht (less than one dollar, remember) and we were able to enter the temple complex. There are a lot of small buildings and side areas surrounding the main temple with Buddha statutes and rooms for monks and prayer. The main temple was closed off with scaffolding, but the entire thing is gilded in gold so that it gleams in the sunlight (even the filtered sunlight we had because of the clouds – and actually, thank goodness for the clouds because I’m not sure how I would have survived the hike had it been hotter and sunnier). We were very respectful while in the temple area (ex. No shoes, covered shoulders and legs, head lower than all Buddhas, etc.) and our respect must have shown because at one point Zenia and I were kneeling in a small enclave (one of many surrounding the main temple) and the monk presiding over a prayer included us in his blessing (by flicking water on us many times during the course of the prayer). It was amazing to see the temples; however, it is always important to remember to be respectful of the faith of the people visiting. Most of the visitors to the temple are going on something akin to a religious pilgrimage and while we are there for sightseeing reasons, we were very careful not to intrude on their religious ceremonies and their more serious use of the temple.
After we were finished touring the temple we took a red truck (thank goodness!) back to our apartment to clean up and refresh ourselves. We got our bathing suits on and walked the four blocks to Muan’s apartment for swimming. (Muan, as you may remember, is a Thai law student working with BABSEA who has an apartment near us with a pool in her complex she invited us to use.) The water was AMAZING and it felt so good to once again be in the water as opposed to feeling as if you were in water due to the humidity. We stayed at the pool for about an hour and 15 minutes and then headed back to our apartments to shower and change into some clothes for sightseeing in the Old City of Chiang Mai. We decided that, as we have so few days to act the tourist in Thailand, we would have to make the most of the time that was given to us. Therefore, instead of relaxing after our arduous hike, we opted to go out to see some temples in the Old City. Chiang Mai has around 300 temples (an equal number to that of Bangkok), but my guide book pointed to five in particular (three easily accessible in the Old City), so we decided to visit them.
The first temple was Wat Chiang Man, which is the first and oldest temple in Thailand and the site at which excavators found a stone tablet that was used to help date the city’s construction. It is believed the temple was built under the reign (and direction) of King Mengrai, who was a huge influence on Thailand during its formation and who named Chiang Rai (a neighboring city) after himself. The second temple we visited was Wat Chedi Luang, an extremely interesting looking temple that was mysteriously partially destroyed (the top of it is partially collapsed) hundreds of years ago. There is some confusion about how it was destroyed (earthquake, cannon fire, etc.) and as no one knows what it looked like before, it has been left alone and has never been reconstructed. The elephants around the temple are particularly amazing and we all agreed (Zenia, Sam, and I) that this was our favorite temple.
At this point we were really tired of walking (and extraordinarily hot as we were forced to wear long pants in deference to the modesty necessary to visit the interior of a temple) and I was definitely starving. We stopped a small restaurant across the street from our second temple and had a delicious lunch! We actually ordered a plate of French fries as an appetizer :) (we just wanted to try them and wanted a little break from pure Asian food). I also had my first plate of pad see ew in Thailand!!! It was absolutely delicious and I am happy to report that it tastes very similar to the wonderful pad see ew I enjoy at home (which means I’ve been eating the authentic stuff!). I had been craving it for a few days and it was certainly worth the wait! After lunch we walked on toward our third temple. Along the way we found a shop that had been mentioned in my guide book, Chiang Mai Cotton. I bought a beautiful cotton Thai skirt there and I can’t wait to wear it. :) After that we headed off once again. The third temple on our list was Wat Phra Singh. This is a more modern temple, with some interesting tree gardens where there are signs sporting some great Buddhist (and non-buddhist, I think) sayings. At this point in our trip we were really tired of walking (it was 4:30 by this time), but we didn’t want to head back to our apartments as we were directly across the street from the area of the Sunday night bazaar, which we were supposed to visit that night. We sat under the trees at a small picnic (marble) table and chatted for that time about movies, books, etc.
At 6 pm we headed off for the night market and exploring the stalls. The Sunday night market certainly caters to the tourists and while we were told over and over again that the Thai love to bargain, it soon became clear they don’t like to bargain with foreigners as much and that when they are at the Sunday markets they are less inclined to bargain and more inclined to drive up the prices. We stumbled along at first, not buying anything until Zenia got into full Indian bargaining mode. She was incredible! I have never seen such bargaining skills and I’m sure the Thai were in shock. We managed to get better deals than we expected (although we’re all sure that we could still have gotten the price down further if it had been the Saturday market for locals rather than the Sunday tourist market). I got one cute skirt, a necklace, and these incredible pants that are hard to describe, but extraordinarily comfortable.
We managed to walk almost the entire length of the market (which had to be a couple miles long) and by the end my feet were aching so badly I didn’t think I could take another step. We grabbed a red truck home and I immediately jumped in the shower and am now feeling clean and fresh, ready for bed and extremely tired. So, goodnight (or good morning), my dear readers. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my tourist times as much as I enjoyed having them.
Chiang Mai (“New City”) is a very old city (founded in 1296) that has often been the center of the Thai empire (even before Thailand was officially Thailand). Chiang Mai acted as the capital until the area was conquered by the Burmese in 1558 and was held for two centuries. The Thai finally threw the Burmese out of Thailand, but in 1776 the city was abandoned for 15 years because it had been so thoroughly destroyed during the years of Burmese occupation. When they eventually came back to the city it had to be largely rebuilt and it was never again declared the capital/center of Thailand, which was now Bangkok in the South.
Doi Suthep was built in Thailand about 600 years ago. It was built to house a very famous Buddhist relic that resided in Chiang Mai at another wat in the old area of the city. However, when the relic (a piece of Buddha’s shoulder bone) spontaneously replicated it was decided that a special temple should be built to house the relic. The bone was, therefore, strapped to the back of a white elephant and it was decided that wherever the elephant stopped to rest, they would build a new temple. Unfortunately, the elephant decided to wander up an impossibly steep hill and didn’t rest until reaching the top. Today, Doi Suthep sits in that exact location and is considered the most holy site in the area. Today, there is a red truck that can take you up the mountain on a very curvy road full of switchbacks, however, Bruce (the leader of our program) decided that climbing the mountainside on foot would build more character and would be a better experience. Therefore, we set out on a trail for the temple at 7 am, after we had all congregated at the base. Well, the hike took a while and was EXTREMELEY hard! It only took about 2 hours to climb up to the top, but most of the way was incredibly steep and difficult. We were hiking along a set trail through the forest, but often the trail consisted of branch roots and packed dirt acting as stairs upward and strong vine trees as ropes to assist in towing yourself up. I managed to make it to the top with a great deal of complaining, but it was a close call, and I’m sure everyone was sick of hearing about my pain by the end (somehow it makes you feel better if others are in mental pain from your whining about your physical pain, don’t ask me why).
Reaching the top felt like a HUGE accomplishment and in all honesty, it was. I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow from all the hiking, but it was a good(ish) experience making the climb and seeing that I really could do it. I carried three bottles of water up the mountain with me and it was a good thing I did because I drank two of them completely on the hike and broke into the third at the top. Now, that might not seem too incredible to you, readers at home, but consider the fact that I did not have to use the bathroom for almost 3 hours during that time. Where did the water go, you ask? One word: sweat. I have never sweat so much in my life as I did this morning during that hike. To give you a frame of reference…I was wearing a shirt that is supposed to “wick” away moisture during long hikes like that and help keep you cool. By the time I got back to my apartment at about 10:15 am the handkerchief in my backpack was damp. Therefore, I sweat enough to go through my shirt and backpack and into my hankie. Parts of me sweat that I didn’t now were capable. Being a swimmer, it was particularly gross as I am not used to sweating even when I exert myself. In the pool, the sweat is just instantly washed away, but not so in hiking. By the time I got to the top I felt exhausted, but I ate the watermelon I had bought at the market yesterday and packed, which went far toward rejuvenating me for the coming sightseeing.
The temple was amazing. There are 100 steps leading up to the temple itself and along the way, the handles for the staircase are made up of the extended bodies of dragons, whose heads appear at the bottom of the staircase and tails at the top. They were beautiful! When we arrived at the top we had to buy a ticket for “foreigners” for 30 Baht (less than one dollar, remember) and we were able to enter the temple complex. There are a lot of small buildings and side areas surrounding the main temple with Buddha statutes and rooms for monks and prayer. The main temple was closed off with scaffolding, but the entire thing is gilded in gold so that it gleams in the sunlight (even the filtered sunlight we had because of the clouds – and actually, thank goodness for the clouds because I’m not sure how I would have survived the hike had it been hotter and sunnier). We were very respectful while in the temple area (ex. No shoes, covered shoulders and legs, head lower than all Buddhas, etc.) and our respect must have shown because at one point Zenia and I were kneeling in a small enclave (one of many surrounding the main temple) and the monk presiding over a prayer included us in his blessing (by flicking water on us many times during the course of the prayer). It was amazing to see the temples; however, it is always important to remember to be respectful of the faith of the people visiting. Most of the visitors to the temple are going on something akin to a religious pilgrimage and while we are there for sightseeing reasons, we were very careful not to intrude on their religious ceremonies and their more serious use of the temple.
After we were finished touring the temple we took a red truck (thank goodness!) back to our apartment to clean up and refresh ourselves. We got our bathing suits on and walked the four blocks to Muan’s apartment for swimming. (Muan, as you may remember, is a Thai law student working with BABSEA who has an apartment near us with a pool in her complex she invited us to use.) The water was AMAZING and it felt so good to once again be in the water as opposed to feeling as if you were in water due to the humidity. We stayed at the pool for about an hour and 15 minutes and then headed back to our apartments to shower and change into some clothes for sightseeing in the Old City of Chiang Mai. We decided that, as we have so few days to act the tourist in Thailand, we would have to make the most of the time that was given to us. Therefore, instead of relaxing after our arduous hike, we opted to go out to see some temples in the Old City. Chiang Mai has around 300 temples (an equal number to that of Bangkok), but my guide book pointed to five in particular (three easily accessible in the Old City), so we decided to visit them.
The first temple was Wat Chiang Man, which is the first and oldest temple in Thailand and the site at which excavators found a stone tablet that was used to help date the city’s construction. It is believed the temple was built under the reign (and direction) of King Mengrai, who was a huge influence on Thailand during its formation and who named Chiang Rai (a neighboring city) after himself. The second temple we visited was Wat Chedi Luang, an extremely interesting looking temple that was mysteriously partially destroyed (the top of it is partially collapsed) hundreds of years ago. There is some confusion about how it was destroyed (earthquake, cannon fire, etc.) and as no one knows what it looked like before, it has been left alone and has never been reconstructed. The elephants around the temple are particularly amazing and we all agreed (Zenia, Sam, and I) that this was our favorite temple.
At this point we were really tired of walking (and extraordinarily hot as we were forced to wear long pants in deference to the modesty necessary to visit the interior of a temple) and I was definitely starving. We stopped a small restaurant across the street from our second temple and had a delicious lunch! We actually ordered a plate of French fries as an appetizer :) (we just wanted to try them and wanted a little break from pure Asian food). I also had my first plate of pad see ew in Thailand!!! It was absolutely delicious and I am happy to report that it tastes very similar to the wonderful pad see ew I enjoy at home (which means I’ve been eating the authentic stuff!). I had been craving it for a few days and it was certainly worth the wait! After lunch we walked on toward our third temple. Along the way we found a shop that had been mentioned in my guide book, Chiang Mai Cotton. I bought a beautiful cotton Thai skirt there and I can’t wait to wear it. :) After that we headed off once again. The third temple on our list was Wat Phra Singh. This is a more modern temple, with some interesting tree gardens where there are signs sporting some great Buddhist (and non-buddhist, I think) sayings. At this point in our trip we were really tired of walking (it was 4:30 by this time), but we didn’t want to head back to our apartments as we were directly across the street from the area of the Sunday night bazaar, which we were supposed to visit that night. We sat under the trees at a small picnic (marble) table and chatted for that time about movies, books, etc.
At 6 pm we headed off for the night market and exploring the stalls. The Sunday night market certainly caters to the tourists and while we were told over and over again that the Thai love to bargain, it soon became clear they don’t like to bargain with foreigners as much and that when they are at the Sunday markets they are less inclined to bargain and more inclined to drive up the prices. We stumbled along at first, not buying anything until Zenia got into full Indian bargaining mode. She was incredible! I have never seen such bargaining skills and I’m sure the Thai were in shock. We managed to get better deals than we expected (although we’re all sure that we could still have gotten the price down further if it had been the Saturday market for locals rather than the Sunday tourist market). I got one cute skirt, a necklace, and these incredible pants that are hard to describe, but extraordinarily comfortable.
We managed to walk almost the entire length of the market (which had to be a couple miles long) and by the end my feet were aching so badly I didn’t think I could take another step. We grabbed a red truck home and I immediately jumped in the shower and am now feeling clean and fresh, ready for bed and extremely tired. So, goodnight (or good morning), my dear readers. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my tourist times as much as I enjoyed having them.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
My Internet is Back!
I know you were all worried about me (not mad at me for not posting as some may have suggested; worrieeeed about me because I didn’t write for so long). Well, the truth is that our internet did not work properly in our apartments for two days. For two days I was without the internet, which means no blog, no e-mail, and no connection to the world outside Thailand. It was a little sad, but mostly irritating. I still wrote blog entries (as you must have noticed since I posted them all at once and you had to read two or three in one day) and just managed to post them the other day. So, now we are back on track and I am blogging about my day at night before bed and am once again able to post my entry so that you get it first thing in the morning! (For all of you good readers out there willing to read my blog that early, Rae, Mom, and Jana.) It is Saturday night here and we were lucky enough to have half a day free. We had one morning activity (but it didn’t start until 10 am, so we got to sleep in a bit) regarding our travel arrangements to our countries in two weeks.
At 11:15 we were FREE! Zenia, Sam, and I went to lunch at a wonderful salad place near Unniserv (which was a welcome change from Asian food – not that I’m getting tired of it, but it is nice to have a small break every now and again). We went with Mike, so we could ask him a million questions about Vientiane (the capital of Laos where we will be working and living for eight weeks). Then us girls went out walking around Neemanhemin again, to see some of the shops and areas we missed out on last night. We came back to our apartment at around 2 pm and then headed back to our apartment for a brief rest (which turned out to be about 15 minutes). Then we headed over to BABSEA house to go to the market and then have a Thai food cooking lesson back at the house.
The market was a lot of fun again, although not quite as bustling or hot. A large group of us wandered around the market, looking at all the stalls and food offered. Most of us ended up buying a lot of fresh fruit (watermelon, pineapple, mango, etc.). It is so amazing buying food here as all the people are so polite and caring. For example, at one point I stopped at a stall and bought a bag of sticky rice. The woman behind the counter didn’t speak any English, so she called over her son to translate and make sure I knew that it should be eaten with mango as it was sweet rice for a dessert of Mango, sticky rice, and coconut milk. I don’t know of any other place where the people are so considerate; it was amazing that a woman who didn’t speak my language would take the time to ensure a foreigner understood the food completely. And a smile goes a long way here. There are often times when the few words of Thai I know and the few words of English the seller knows are not quite enough to get the whole message across, but with a smile, some pointing, and a little laughter we all figure it out. Although no one word could adequately describe the Thai people, I think the word Lovely is a good start. There is such a sense of graciousness, accommodation, friendliness, and general sweetness here that you can’t help but be happy in this wonderful country.
After the market we went back to BABSEA house where we were supposed to have a Thai cooking lesson, but there were so many people, that there wasn’t really a “lesson” per se. (I learned a LOT more the other night during the Laos dinner.) We did get to help prepare the vegetables a bit and I learned a few new techniques for shredding green papaya and carrots, but other than that, there simply wasn’t room in the kitchen for us to really observe. The food was delicious, but I suppose I will have to take some lessons at an actual cooking school to really learn. I’m planning to take some of those classes when I get back from Laos (to learn to make pad see ew please!). While working on the veggies I expressed an interest in learning in Laos as well and Lamnleugn said she would teach me if I wanted! I can’t wait to get there and learn to cook Laotian food!
Tomorrow is going to be a VERY exciting day. We start EARLY in the morning, at 6 am on a hike to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple that overlooks the city of Chiang Mai and is one of the holiest sites in the city. It is a LONG hike up a steep hill to reach the temple at the top and so we start early in the morning in an effort to miss some of the heat. In addition, at night we will be visiting the Sunday Night Market, one of the largest outdoor stall markets around and a huge draw for the area. But more on that later…(this was just a teaser!)
At 11:15 we were FREE! Zenia, Sam, and I went to lunch at a wonderful salad place near Unniserv (which was a welcome change from Asian food – not that I’m getting tired of it, but it is nice to have a small break every now and again). We went with Mike, so we could ask him a million questions about Vientiane (the capital of Laos where we will be working and living for eight weeks). Then us girls went out walking around Neemanhemin again, to see some of the shops and areas we missed out on last night. We came back to our apartment at around 2 pm and then headed back to our apartment for a brief rest (which turned out to be about 15 minutes). Then we headed over to BABSEA house to go to the market and then have a Thai food cooking lesson back at the house.
The market was a lot of fun again, although not quite as bustling or hot. A large group of us wandered around the market, looking at all the stalls and food offered. Most of us ended up buying a lot of fresh fruit (watermelon, pineapple, mango, etc.). It is so amazing buying food here as all the people are so polite and caring. For example, at one point I stopped at a stall and bought a bag of sticky rice. The woman behind the counter didn’t speak any English, so she called over her son to translate and make sure I knew that it should be eaten with mango as it was sweet rice for a dessert of Mango, sticky rice, and coconut milk. I don’t know of any other place where the people are so considerate; it was amazing that a woman who didn’t speak my language would take the time to ensure a foreigner understood the food completely. And a smile goes a long way here. There are often times when the few words of Thai I know and the few words of English the seller knows are not quite enough to get the whole message across, but with a smile, some pointing, and a little laughter we all figure it out. Although no one word could adequately describe the Thai people, I think the word Lovely is a good start. There is such a sense of graciousness, accommodation, friendliness, and general sweetness here that you can’t help but be happy in this wonderful country.
After the market we went back to BABSEA house where we were supposed to have a Thai cooking lesson, but there were so many people, that there wasn’t really a “lesson” per se. (I learned a LOT more the other night during the Laos dinner.) We did get to help prepare the vegetables a bit and I learned a few new techniques for shredding green papaya and carrots, but other than that, there simply wasn’t room in the kitchen for us to really observe. The food was delicious, but I suppose I will have to take some lessons at an actual cooking school to really learn. I’m planning to take some of those classes when I get back from Laos (to learn to make pad see ew please!). While working on the veggies I expressed an interest in learning in Laos as well and Lamnleugn said she would teach me if I wanted! I can’t wait to get there and learn to cook Laotian food!
Tomorrow is going to be a VERY exciting day. We start EARLY in the morning, at 6 am on a hike to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple that overlooks the city of Chiang Mai and is one of the holiest sites in the city. It is a LONG hike up a steep hill to reach the temple at the top and so we start early in the morning in an effort to miss some of the heat. In addition, at night we will be visiting the Sunday Night Market, one of the largest outdoor stall markets around and a huge draw for the area. But more on that later…(this was just a teaser!)
Adventures of a Foodie Continue
Today arrived with me asleep in my food coma. It was hard to get up and get motivated this morning as I was still feeling the sleepy after effects of ingesting more food than I had ever eaten in my life (but as I previously mentioned, food it was impossible to stop eating). We began another day of BABSEA Orientation, but today it soon became clear the honeymoon period of love and adoration was over for most of us. The best word to describe our group would probably be listless. While we have participated in endless energizers, group activities, and “learning sessions,” it soon became clear that all we wanted on day five was a break. That break was somewhat in sight (we had the entire afternoon after 4:30 off), which in some ways simply made it harder. Somehow having your goal so close at hand makes the suffering to achieve that goal so much worse, even if it is exactly the same as what had previously occurred. We struggled on, however, and managed to get through the majority of the events without incident and even conjured up some genuine enthusiasm for some of the events (when we finally got to talk about the law and draw out “definitions” of legal terms).
The real excitement for us all (me for having experienced it and you all for being jealous of me) is about the food I ate today. Lunch was somewhat of a bust. We went to a vegetarian buffet across the street from the first restaurant I ate at (what I call, The Noodle Bar). As many of you know, I am not a fan of the buffet system in general and I can now report that this has not changed in Asian countries. I still hate buffets. In any event, we ate our fill, returned for the afternoon lessons at Uniserv and gained our freedom! (At least until tomorrow morning at 10 am.) Zenia, Sam, and I decided that it would be a good idea and a fun time to go out shopping and exploring during our down time. Unfortunately, this is all that is really left open to us as 5 pm is too late for a touristy activity, too early to check out night life, and too early for more food. We set off in the opposite direction from our usual route to Uniserv or BABSEA house from our apartments. Heading toward the mall was not a useful trip, however, as the mall was closed and military personnel were stationed around the area to keep people away (not in a scary way though, mainly just standing in front of pylons used to keep people from the underground parking garage). We decided to try walking in the other direction and after about a ½ mile we came to a sign high on a signpost stating 500 meters to a museum of Insects and Natural Life. I got really excited and insisted we turn down that road, but nothing came of the supposed museum (I couldn’t even find it), but it turns out we turned onto a really nice shopping district of Chiang Mai, Neemanhemin. Since shopping was the entire point of the exercise that was a very good thing. It was fairly late at that point so many shops were closed, but we were able to find some still open and had a good time just walking around, going in to random shops.
At about 7 pm, however, we started to get pretty hungry and decided to look around for a restaurant in the area. As we were looking we spotted Chinda and Lamnleugn walking around too, also looking for a restaurant. We invited them to join us and found a place quickly. I’m so glad we ended up meeting up with them. We all looked at the menu and they helped decide what we would order, for the table instead of individually, and everything was amazing, items that we wouldn’t normally think to order, but really enjoyed. We had some Thai Laap, a Thai soup (that is supposed to be very similar to a soup in Laos), a red coconut curry with chicken, and a SUPER spicy beef stir fry dish that was good, but WAY too spicy for any of us (a three chile rating on the menu, which I will avoid from now on). So, dinner was delicious and I once again made a pig of myself. While we were eating I also experienced my first Thailand torrential downpour. It was so COOL! I have never seen it rain so hard and so much water come down so fast. However, Zenia assures me the rain last Sunday was even harder with more water, an interesting concept and something to look forward to (as long as I’m not out in it without a coat or umbrella!). It smelled so good as it rained and cooled down the air a substantial degree.
We got home in time for curfew and once again there was a lack of internet in our rooms (which I’m sure you all noticed over the last two days as my posts were delayed). For some reason the internet is not working in the rooms at the end of the hallway, but is fine in the rooms nearer the elevator and central corridor. I decided to sit in the hallway so I could update my blog and check emails and soon everyone in the surrounding rooms came out in the hallway too and we had a great internet party. We all sat on the floor of the hall with our computers, chatting, laughing, and surfing. We ended up hanging out for about 3 hours, until midnight. Our conversations ranged from Constitutional comparisons (Australia, the US, and Canada) to nude photo shoots, school loans to invasive species, etc. It was a great experience, talking with such a wide variety of people with so many perspectives on life and the law. If nothing else good comes of my time here, I am glad I came and had the opportunity to meet so many truly amazing people.
*Note: This was actually what happened yesterday, but I didn’t have a chance to post it until today. :)
Political Situation Update:
1. The curfew will be over tomorrow night
2. A cease to all violence and protest in Bangkok has been called and all protesters have returned home
3. Banks have reopened around Thailand and everything seems a lot calmer
The real excitement for us all (me for having experienced it and you all for being jealous of me) is about the food I ate today. Lunch was somewhat of a bust. We went to a vegetarian buffet across the street from the first restaurant I ate at (what I call, The Noodle Bar). As many of you know, I am not a fan of the buffet system in general and I can now report that this has not changed in Asian countries. I still hate buffets. In any event, we ate our fill, returned for the afternoon lessons at Uniserv and gained our freedom! (At least until tomorrow morning at 10 am.) Zenia, Sam, and I decided that it would be a good idea and a fun time to go out shopping and exploring during our down time. Unfortunately, this is all that is really left open to us as 5 pm is too late for a touristy activity, too early to check out night life, and too early for more food. We set off in the opposite direction from our usual route to Uniserv or BABSEA house from our apartments. Heading toward the mall was not a useful trip, however, as the mall was closed and military personnel were stationed around the area to keep people away (not in a scary way though, mainly just standing in front of pylons used to keep people from the underground parking garage). We decided to try walking in the other direction and after about a ½ mile we came to a sign high on a signpost stating 500 meters to a museum of Insects and Natural Life. I got really excited and insisted we turn down that road, but nothing came of the supposed museum (I couldn’t even find it), but it turns out we turned onto a really nice shopping district of Chiang Mai, Neemanhemin. Since shopping was the entire point of the exercise that was a very good thing. It was fairly late at that point so many shops were closed, but we were able to find some still open and had a good time just walking around, going in to random shops.
At about 7 pm, however, we started to get pretty hungry and decided to look around for a restaurant in the area. As we were looking we spotted Chinda and Lamnleugn walking around too, also looking for a restaurant. We invited them to join us and found a place quickly. I’m so glad we ended up meeting up with them. We all looked at the menu and they helped decide what we would order, for the table instead of individually, and everything was amazing, items that we wouldn’t normally think to order, but really enjoyed. We had some Thai Laap, a Thai soup (that is supposed to be very similar to a soup in Laos), a red coconut curry with chicken, and a SUPER spicy beef stir fry dish that was good, but WAY too spicy for any of us (a three chile rating on the menu, which I will avoid from now on). So, dinner was delicious and I once again made a pig of myself. While we were eating I also experienced my first Thailand torrential downpour. It was so COOL! I have never seen it rain so hard and so much water come down so fast. However, Zenia assures me the rain last Sunday was even harder with more water, an interesting concept and something to look forward to (as long as I’m not out in it without a coat or umbrella!). It smelled so good as it rained and cooled down the air a substantial degree.
We got home in time for curfew and once again there was a lack of internet in our rooms (which I’m sure you all noticed over the last two days as my posts were delayed). For some reason the internet is not working in the rooms at the end of the hallway, but is fine in the rooms nearer the elevator and central corridor. I decided to sit in the hallway so I could update my blog and check emails and soon everyone in the surrounding rooms came out in the hallway too and we had a great internet party. We all sat on the floor of the hall with our computers, chatting, laughing, and surfing. We ended up hanging out for about 3 hours, until midnight. Our conversations ranged from Constitutional comparisons (Australia, the US, and Canada) to nude photo shoots, school loans to invasive species, etc. It was a great experience, talking with such a wide variety of people with so many perspectives on life and the law. If nothing else good comes of my time here, I am glad I came and had the opportunity to meet so many truly amazing people.
*Note: This was actually what happened yesterday, but I didn’t have a chance to post it until today. :)
Political Situation Update:
1. The curfew will be over tomorrow night
2. A cease to all violence and protest in Bangkok has been called and all protesters have returned home
3. Banks have reopened around Thailand and everything seems a lot calmer
Friday, May 21, 2010
Food Bonanza!
I know you are all dying to hear about my fourth day of orientation, the gory and juicy details of every energizer, presentation, game, etc. And let me tell you…I want to relive it, but I have other news to impart. I will just take a moment to say that today my group and I did a great job in our presentation and made up for anything that was lacking in our last attempt.
Orientation ended today at 5 pm. Originally, the other Laos interns and I were told that the directors of the project at which we will be working this summer, VFI, were planning to take us out to eat at a Laos restaurant here. The plan was for us to discuss some of the details about our upcoming work experience, what to expect, and to get a taste of Laos cuisine. Well, it turns out, the ladies who run the program, Kao, Chinda, Kai, and Lamnleugn, do not think the Laos restaurants here in Chiang Mai are very good. They decided, therefore, to cook for us themselves! Mike (if you remember, Mike is the 2L from my school who told me about BABSEA originally) asked us if we wanted to be a part to the entire process from going to the market and cooking to eating. I immediately said yes and the other girl going on the trip, Sam (same Sam previously mentioned) and the guy, Nate, agreed. Therefore, after lessons our troop headed off to the market.
The market we went to was not far from Uniserv (about a 10 minute walk). The market is housed in a large open building (not so much a building as a wide open space with pillars around it to hold up the roof). It is huge and houses too many stalls to count. Everything is sold there from veggies to meat (every kind, including hearts and livers on a stick to chicken legs and breasts), pork rinds (which I bought and are delicious!) to satay, and sticky rice to little mini crabs you cook and eat whole (they would be about one bite each). Some of what I saw looked disgusting, but some of it looked incredible. Sam, Nate, Mike, and I just followed behind Kao and Lamnleugn as they shopped for our dinner. We stopped first in the meat area to buy chicken. It was amazing to watch the woman selling chicken work. As she discussed the meat with Kao, she pulled out a whole chicken and set it on her cutting board. With two quick motions of her cleaver, the legs were off and tossed in with the tray with other legs. Next went the wings, out came the gizzard, the head was chopped off, and the rest sliced cleanly in two. The entire process took her maybe one minute and the whole time she was running a constant conversation with Kao. It was incredible to watch. Sam and I just stood staring in awe at the skill with which she decimated the chicken. What is also amazing is that every part of the chicken is used. No bit of the chicken (except perhaps the head, but I wouldn’t guarantee it) is used in some way and available for sale. Next, in our market journey we went to the veggie area. Kao and Lamnleugn quickly grabbed vegetables and explained to us some of what they were with Mike chiming in on other veggies that were unidentifiable to our Western (except for Sam) eyes. We saw, mini eggplant (looks like peas), large eggplant (about the size of a large pepper and green), lemongrass, some strange leafy green that was purchased for our meal, etc. Once again I was fascinated by the process and how carefully the two women checked the veggies until they had found the best available. After that we moved on to another stall for more veggies, but along the way Sam and I got sidetracked by the mountains of pork rinds everywhere we turned. Neither of us had ever tried them before, although we had both heard of them and seen them previously. We decided to buy a small bag for 20 Baht and make everyone have a taste. After we made our purchase we followed our leaders to our final stall in the market, the sticky rice stall. It was a sight to light up the soul of any true rice lover. A literal mountain of steaming white sticky rice ready to be bagged an eaten. The mountain was constantly replenished by more rice being cooked and never old as it is bought out so fast. We got an entire shopping bag full of rice (think Safeway bag) and were finally deemed ready to leave the market and head to BABSEA house to cook. As we left we took stock of the bags we had accumulated and it looked like enough to feed an army: a small bag full of chicken (probably 5 pounds worth), two big sacks full of veggies and mushrooms, and one large bag of sticky rice. When Mike questioned the amount, since we only planned to feed 12 people, he was told that they planned to make four courses for us. It turns out, however, that this was STILL not enough in their minds and we stopped along the way at a cart to buy two fried and baked, stuffed fish to add to the mix. Finally, we were done and we headed home to cook.
When we arrived at the house we all immediately gulped down some water and sat down. The ladies grabbed the bags, told us to rest for 15 minutes and that they would just take the groceries into the kitchen. 30 seconds later, Mike came in and asked what was going on. We told him what was said and he jumped up and said, “No. They are trying to trick you. They are going to start cooking now so that you don’t have to do anything.” Well, that was not acceptable. We wanted to help and watch them prepare our meal. We all scurried back into the kitchens, therefore, and sure enough, there were the four of them starting to prepare our meal. They tried to tell us not to worry and to go back out and wait, but we insisted and they finally relented, allowing Sam and me to wash veggies and mike to prepare the chicken (aka debone and deskin).
So…the process of washing veggies…you might think you know how to wash veggies, but I am here to tell you that you don’t. Sam and I were told repeatedly that we needed to rewash a particular item (the mint and mushrooms we redone three times and the ginger twice). We dutifully washed and scrubbed until our fingers were pruney and were finally upgraded to chopping status. We were shown how to cut the mushrooms for one dish and then later, taught to cut limes (you have to bang on them first to release the juices), and shown how to slice banana flowers (a job that was immediately taken away from me as they feared I would cut off a finger). It was simply amazing. As we worked, sitting and crouching on the floor of the kitchen with people bustling around us everyone was laughing and chatting. It was such fun. The women were constantly laughing at our efforts, but in a fun way that made us laugh along.
After cutting vegetables for a long time we were finally allowed to do some actual cooking (mostly because I followed them around, leaning over their shoulders and watching until they finally put me to work cooking just to get rid of me). I was in charge of cooking the small ball mushrooms that we had previously sliced into strips. We first put them in a pan with a tiny bit of oil (barely any) and then added water, steaming the mushrooms. I just kept flipping them over and over, turning them so they never stuck to the pan and never burned. When they were finally done, they were put aside in a bowl to await Thida’s (a Cambodian intern) cooking of the garlic, green onion, green chile, etc. concoction. Sam was then in charge of burning some rice (slowly) that was then ground into a powder and added to the Lap we ate (which was sort of the main course I guess you would say). The rest of the time we all flitted around the bustling cooks as they made our dishes.
When the table was finally set (and it was a long table that fit about 14 people as more had added themselves to our group) it looked like a feast, with every inch of the top covered in food and bowls. It was amazing. The main dish, as I said was Laab, which is small bits of cooked chicken (diced) with the shredded banana flower, the rice powder, green onion, cilantro, mint, and chile. You eat it with sticky rice. So…you put a little on your plate and grab a big hunk of sticky rice too. Then you take a bite sized piece of sticky rice and role it into a ball in your hand, then just dab it at the laab and the extremely sticky rice just grabs it up. It is amazing! The second dish was an unidentified green leafy vegetable that was fried in oil much like we would fry spinach for a salad. It was called Hom Pom and it was cooked in garlic and with chiles as well. Those were amazing…maybe also similar to bok choy. The third dish was what I called my dish :)! It was called Jao Het and consisted of the mushrooms I cooked and the other stuff cooked by Teeda. The final dish was the soup, which is called Tom Som Gai (gai meaning chicken) and was incredible. It was so fresh tasting and light. It had onions, tomatoes, chicken, large leafy mushrooms, etc. And the secret ingredient that made it taste so fresh…lemongrass (and some ginger). It was the most refreshing soup I have ever eaten.
So, now that I have described all this food in such loving detail, I am sure you can guess what happened next. I made a COMPLETE pig of myself. We ate everything on the table (literally). Everyone was laughing and joking while we ate and having a fun time. It was such an amazing experience and I know that when I look back on this trip I am going to isolate it as a highlight of it all. And I feel particularly good because at the end Kao and Kai told us that when we come to Laos they want to cook for us again in their homes. It is so amazing to be invited to their homes for food and I can’t wait for that to happen too. While I now feel ready to slip into a food coma, it was all worth it and I would not change a minute of it or a single bite I ate.
In the end, there just can’t be anything more fun than cooking and eating with these amazing people with laughter and joy and the seamless dance of 8 cooks all working together in the complicated dance of Laotian Cuisine.
Orientation ended today at 5 pm. Originally, the other Laos interns and I were told that the directors of the project at which we will be working this summer, VFI, were planning to take us out to eat at a Laos restaurant here. The plan was for us to discuss some of the details about our upcoming work experience, what to expect, and to get a taste of Laos cuisine. Well, it turns out, the ladies who run the program, Kao, Chinda, Kai, and Lamnleugn, do not think the Laos restaurants here in Chiang Mai are very good. They decided, therefore, to cook for us themselves! Mike (if you remember, Mike is the 2L from my school who told me about BABSEA originally) asked us if we wanted to be a part to the entire process from going to the market and cooking to eating. I immediately said yes and the other girl going on the trip, Sam (same Sam previously mentioned) and the guy, Nate, agreed. Therefore, after lessons our troop headed off to the market.
The market we went to was not far from Uniserv (about a 10 minute walk). The market is housed in a large open building (not so much a building as a wide open space with pillars around it to hold up the roof). It is huge and houses too many stalls to count. Everything is sold there from veggies to meat (every kind, including hearts and livers on a stick to chicken legs and breasts), pork rinds (which I bought and are delicious!) to satay, and sticky rice to little mini crabs you cook and eat whole (they would be about one bite each). Some of what I saw looked disgusting, but some of it looked incredible. Sam, Nate, Mike, and I just followed behind Kao and Lamnleugn as they shopped for our dinner. We stopped first in the meat area to buy chicken. It was amazing to watch the woman selling chicken work. As she discussed the meat with Kao, she pulled out a whole chicken and set it on her cutting board. With two quick motions of her cleaver, the legs were off and tossed in with the tray with other legs. Next went the wings, out came the gizzard, the head was chopped off, and the rest sliced cleanly in two. The entire process took her maybe one minute and the whole time she was running a constant conversation with Kao. It was incredible to watch. Sam and I just stood staring in awe at the skill with which she decimated the chicken. What is also amazing is that every part of the chicken is used. No bit of the chicken (except perhaps the head, but I wouldn’t guarantee it) is used in some way and available for sale. Next, in our market journey we went to the veggie area. Kao and Lamnleugn quickly grabbed vegetables and explained to us some of what they were with Mike chiming in on other veggies that were unidentifiable to our Western (except for Sam) eyes. We saw, mini eggplant (looks like peas), large eggplant (about the size of a large pepper and green), lemongrass, some strange leafy green that was purchased for our meal, etc. Once again I was fascinated by the process and how carefully the two women checked the veggies until they had found the best available. After that we moved on to another stall for more veggies, but along the way Sam and I got sidetracked by the mountains of pork rinds everywhere we turned. Neither of us had ever tried them before, although we had both heard of them and seen them previously. We decided to buy a small bag for 20 Baht and make everyone have a taste. After we made our purchase we followed our leaders to our final stall in the market, the sticky rice stall. It was a sight to light up the soul of any true rice lover. A literal mountain of steaming white sticky rice ready to be bagged an eaten. The mountain was constantly replenished by more rice being cooked and never old as it is bought out so fast. We got an entire shopping bag full of rice (think Safeway bag) and were finally deemed ready to leave the market and head to BABSEA house to cook. As we left we took stock of the bags we had accumulated and it looked like enough to feed an army: a small bag full of chicken (probably 5 pounds worth), two big sacks full of veggies and mushrooms, and one large bag of sticky rice. When Mike questioned the amount, since we only planned to feed 12 people, he was told that they planned to make four courses for us. It turns out, however, that this was STILL not enough in their minds and we stopped along the way at a cart to buy two fried and baked, stuffed fish to add to the mix. Finally, we were done and we headed home to cook.
When we arrived at the house we all immediately gulped down some water and sat down. The ladies grabbed the bags, told us to rest for 15 minutes and that they would just take the groceries into the kitchen. 30 seconds later, Mike came in and asked what was going on. We told him what was said and he jumped up and said, “No. They are trying to trick you. They are going to start cooking now so that you don’t have to do anything.” Well, that was not acceptable. We wanted to help and watch them prepare our meal. We all scurried back into the kitchens, therefore, and sure enough, there were the four of them starting to prepare our meal. They tried to tell us not to worry and to go back out and wait, but we insisted and they finally relented, allowing Sam and me to wash veggies and mike to prepare the chicken (aka debone and deskin).
So…the process of washing veggies…you might think you know how to wash veggies, but I am here to tell you that you don’t. Sam and I were told repeatedly that we needed to rewash a particular item (the mint and mushrooms we redone three times and the ginger twice). We dutifully washed and scrubbed until our fingers were pruney and were finally upgraded to chopping status. We were shown how to cut the mushrooms for one dish and then later, taught to cut limes (you have to bang on them first to release the juices), and shown how to slice banana flowers (a job that was immediately taken away from me as they feared I would cut off a finger). It was simply amazing. As we worked, sitting and crouching on the floor of the kitchen with people bustling around us everyone was laughing and chatting. It was such fun. The women were constantly laughing at our efforts, but in a fun way that made us laugh along.
After cutting vegetables for a long time we were finally allowed to do some actual cooking (mostly because I followed them around, leaning over their shoulders and watching until they finally put me to work cooking just to get rid of me). I was in charge of cooking the small ball mushrooms that we had previously sliced into strips. We first put them in a pan with a tiny bit of oil (barely any) and then added water, steaming the mushrooms. I just kept flipping them over and over, turning them so they never stuck to the pan and never burned. When they were finally done, they were put aside in a bowl to await Thida’s (a Cambodian intern) cooking of the garlic, green onion, green chile, etc. concoction. Sam was then in charge of burning some rice (slowly) that was then ground into a powder and added to the Lap we ate (which was sort of the main course I guess you would say). The rest of the time we all flitted around the bustling cooks as they made our dishes.
When the table was finally set (and it was a long table that fit about 14 people as more had added themselves to our group) it looked like a feast, with every inch of the top covered in food and bowls. It was amazing. The main dish, as I said was Laab, which is small bits of cooked chicken (diced) with the shredded banana flower, the rice powder, green onion, cilantro, mint, and chile. You eat it with sticky rice. So…you put a little on your plate and grab a big hunk of sticky rice too. Then you take a bite sized piece of sticky rice and role it into a ball in your hand, then just dab it at the laab and the extremely sticky rice just grabs it up. It is amazing! The second dish was an unidentified green leafy vegetable that was fried in oil much like we would fry spinach for a salad. It was called Hom Pom and it was cooked in garlic and with chiles as well. Those were amazing…maybe also similar to bok choy. The third dish was what I called my dish :)! It was called Jao Het and consisted of the mushrooms I cooked and the other stuff cooked by Teeda. The final dish was the soup, which is called Tom Som Gai (gai meaning chicken) and was incredible. It was so fresh tasting and light. It had onions, tomatoes, chicken, large leafy mushrooms, etc. And the secret ingredient that made it taste so fresh…lemongrass (and some ginger). It was the most refreshing soup I have ever eaten.
So, now that I have described all this food in such loving detail, I am sure you can guess what happened next. I made a COMPLETE pig of myself. We ate everything on the table (literally). Everyone was laughing and joking while we ate and having a fun time. It was such an amazing experience and I know that when I look back on this trip I am going to isolate it as a highlight of it all. And I feel particularly good because at the end Kao and Kai told us that when we come to Laos they want to cook for us again in their homes. It is so amazing to be invited to their homes for food and I can’t wait for that to happen too. While I now feel ready to slip into a food coma, it was all worth it and I would not change a minute of it or a single bite I ate.
In the end, there just can’t be anything more fun than cooking and eating with these amazing people with laughter and joy and the seamless dance of 8 cooks all working together in the complicated dance of Laotian Cuisine.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Interesting Times
It is a truth universally acknowledged...that we live in interesting times. And that statement (a bastardization of a couple great literary quotes to be sure) could not be seen any clearer than here in Thailand. My life has gotten so interesting lately (which shouldn't really be surprising considering the fact that I am residing in a foreign country for the summer). Today was a good day, but certainly a day with ups and downs. We started off as we have done the last two days. Wow, I've only been here for three days (and the first day I had just flown in), but it feels like I've been here forever. We got up a little later today since we didn't have Yoga (that is scheduled for every other day) and got to class at 9 am.
The day was much like the other three, with strange orientation games and lessons. Today was a little different in that we had to give a group presentation on a lesson plan we were supposed to create based on a topic given to us yesterday. We were put into groups of four, which is fine, except for the people I was placed with. The first is a guy named Jerry (asian of some persuasion) who is not part of the legal internship program and introduced himself to the group as an individual not interested in the law and one who thinks the law is stupid. Not a good way to start a partnership. The second guy is Spencer who had just arrived in Chiang Mai and was completely jet lagged. The third member is Chinda, who is from Laos and also not a law student, but a member of the group I will be working for this summer, VFI. She speaks English fairly well and only struggles with the larger words and sometimes getting her concepts completely across. So, that was my group. Now, we did split up the work yesterday (which I mentioned in my last blog), and met earlier in the morning to cement our lesson plan that we would present. Well...our group had to go first and it did not go well. We were...well...the only word for it is: massacred. We were put down because we didn't use the "interactive teaching methods" we were talking about while presenting, our stuff was not specific enough, I took over too much, etc. Basically, it was a 45 minute slaughter of everything we had done. Which was really unfair considering his directions consisted of, "This is your topic, you have all the tools you need, go." That is not really much of a system of rules. In any event, that was horrible and I hope never to experience it again. The trick is obviously to never go first here (the other groups didn't get nearly as much attention [since they used all the time on us] and were able to learn from our commentary [aka decimation]). In any event that is now over and while we have to do another assignment for tomorrow Chinda and I have fully prepped and are ready to come back and blow them all away! ;)
As that horrible event took much longer than was scheduled in our agenda we got out late today and had only an hour and 15 minutes before our Thai language lesson. Zenia and I opted to return to our apartment to get a jump start on our homework research assignment and managed to get a lot done, but soon we were heading back out with a group from PT Res, catching a red truck, and arriving at BABSEA house in time for our language lessons. Tonight's lesson was very exciting, learning all about bargaining in the market and buying! It was so much fun and one of the girls teaching helped me in particular. :) I can now count to ten (and beyond) in Thai, ask to find the bathroom or other things, follow simple directions, and tell a seller that something is overpriced and then ask for a discount. These are the key skills and I now have them! :) It is so exciting. And I'm now actually starting to learn to use it in real situations. For example, tonight I ordered two more glasses for the table! I feel so good now! :) And, it is excellent to note that I already knew some Thai! Hahaha! It turns out those wonderful people at Thai Basil in Berkeley were actually speaking Thai, which is how I learned that "kai" is egg! And it is! So now, to ask for no egg in a dish I say, "Mai sai kai." :) I ordered it that way today and the waiter totally understood me! So exciting.
After language lessons a group of us went out to dinner at a place we are calling The Garden, which is located very close to BABSEA house. The food was delicious and I tried something new! I had a stir fry of asparagus and shitake mushrooms with chicken and rice. I LOVE the food here. I just wish you could all experience it at home.
Now, on to more serious matters. Today some of the issues that have been plaguing Bangkok moved to Chiang Mai. It is still peaceful here for the most part, but some interesting things have been happening in the old section of Chiang Mai, an area far removed from my apartment, BABSEA house, and Uniserv. Tonight there have been some protestors and tire burning, but no violence toward people. It was a little scary when we were told this afternoon that there would be a province wide curfew starting and 12 am and ending 6 am. During that time no one is supposed to be out of their residences. Well, as I mentioned, we went out for a late dinner and finished around 8:45, ready to head back to our apartment. Soon we met with another group that was heading back to BABSEA house. This group told us that the restaurant where they were eating had kicked them out at 8:30 and shut down immediately because “Chiang Mai is a danger zone and curfew starts at 9 pm now.” Well, that news freaked us out. Zenia, Sam (a new girl who just arrived; Korean studying at Harvard), and I speed walked/jogged back to our apartment. I think we must have made the journey in record time and we were inside our apartment by 9 pm. It was strange walking down the streets that early in the night with no other pedestrians out and no cars, just a couple motorbikes here and there (motorbikes are HUGELY popular here and almost everyone uses one). There was one thing that restored my faith in humanity a little though. As we were speed walking (moving close to the speed of light I am sure), a man on a bike (English speaker of some kind, American or Canadian) paused near us and asked if everything was ok and if we had a problem or had someone chasing us. He said he was worried when he saw us because it looked like we were running from someone. When we said no and that we were just trying to get home before curfew he reassured us, asked if we were close (which we were) and offered to accompany us. It was just so nice that someone saw something potentially wrong and asked if he could help. I instantly felt better and I hope the knowledge that there are still good, helpful people out there comforts you too.
To sum up, I am safe and Chiang Mai is still considered a safe place. I will continue to offer updates about the political situation here and will let you all know what is going on.
As I said in the beginning, it is a truth universally acknowledged…that we live in interesting times. At the very least, I certainly am.
The day was much like the other three, with strange orientation games and lessons. Today was a little different in that we had to give a group presentation on a lesson plan we were supposed to create based on a topic given to us yesterday. We were put into groups of four, which is fine, except for the people I was placed with. The first is a guy named Jerry (asian of some persuasion) who is not part of the legal internship program and introduced himself to the group as an individual not interested in the law and one who thinks the law is stupid. Not a good way to start a partnership. The second guy is Spencer who had just arrived in Chiang Mai and was completely jet lagged. The third member is Chinda, who is from Laos and also not a law student, but a member of the group I will be working for this summer, VFI. She speaks English fairly well and only struggles with the larger words and sometimes getting her concepts completely across. So, that was my group. Now, we did split up the work yesterday (which I mentioned in my last blog), and met earlier in the morning to cement our lesson plan that we would present. Well...our group had to go first and it did not go well. We were...well...the only word for it is: massacred. We were put down because we didn't use the "interactive teaching methods" we were talking about while presenting, our stuff was not specific enough, I took over too much, etc. Basically, it was a 45 minute slaughter of everything we had done. Which was really unfair considering his directions consisted of, "This is your topic, you have all the tools you need, go." That is not really much of a system of rules. In any event, that was horrible and I hope never to experience it again. The trick is obviously to never go first here (the other groups didn't get nearly as much attention [since they used all the time on us] and were able to learn from our commentary [aka decimation]). In any event that is now over and while we have to do another assignment for tomorrow Chinda and I have fully prepped and are ready to come back and blow them all away! ;)
As that horrible event took much longer than was scheduled in our agenda we got out late today and had only an hour and 15 minutes before our Thai language lesson. Zenia and I opted to return to our apartment to get a jump start on our homework research assignment and managed to get a lot done, but soon we were heading back out with a group from PT Res, catching a red truck, and arriving at BABSEA house in time for our language lessons. Tonight's lesson was very exciting, learning all about bargaining in the market and buying! It was so much fun and one of the girls teaching helped me in particular. :) I can now count to ten (and beyond) in Thai, ask to find the bathroom or other things, follow simple directions, and tell a seller that something is overpriced and then ask for a discount. These are the key skills and I now have them! :) It is so exciting. And I'm now actually starting to learn to use it in real situations. For example, tonight I ordered two more glasses for the table! I feel so good now! :) And, it is excellent to note that I already knew some Thai! Hahaha! It turns out those wonderful people at Thai Basil in Berkeley were actually speaking Thai, which is how I learned that "kai" is egg! And it is! So now, to ask for no egg in a dish I say, "Mai sai kai." :) I ordered it that way today and the waiter totally understood me! So exciting.
After language lessons a group of us went out to dinner at a place we are calling The Garden, which is located very close to BABSEA house. The food was delicious and I tried something new! I had a stir fry of asparagus and shitake mushrooms with chicken and rice. I LOVE the food here. I just wish you could all experience it at home.
Now, on to more serious matters. Today some of the issues that have been plaguing Bangkok moved to Chiang Mai. It is still peaceful here for the most part, but some interesting things have been happening in the old section of Chiang Mai, an area far removed from my apartment, BABSEA house, and Uniserv. Tonight there have been some protestors and tire burning, but no violence toward people. It was a little scary when we were told this afternoon that there would be a province wide curfew starting and 12 am and ending 6 am. During that time no one is supposed to be out of their residences. Well, as I mentioned, we went out for a late dinner and finished around 8:45, ready to head back to our apartment. Soon we met with another group that was heading back to BABSEA house. This group told us that the restaurant where they were eating had kicked them out at 8:30 and shut down immediately because “Chiang Mai is a danger zone and curfew starts at 9 pm now.” Well, that news freaked us out. Zenia, Sam (a new girl who just arrived; Korean studying at Harvard), and I speed walked/jogged back to our apartment. I think we must have made the journey in record time and we were inside our apartment by 9 pm. It was strange walking down the streets that early in the night with no other pedestrians out and no cars, just a couple motorbikes here and there (motorbikes are HUGELY popular here and almost everyone uses one). There was one thing that restored my faith in humanity a little though. As we were speed walking (moving close to the speed of light I am sure), a man on a bike (English speaker of some kind, American or Canadian) paused near us and asked if everything was ok and if we had a problem or had someone chasing us. He said he was worried when he saw us because it looked like we were running from someone. When we said no and that we were just trying to get home before curfew he reassured us, asked if we were close (which we were) and offered to accompany us. It was just so nice that someone saw something potentially wrong and asked if he could help. I instantly felt better and I hope the knowledge that there are still good, helpful people out there comforts you too.
To sum up, I am safe and Chiang Mai is still considered a safe place. I will continue to offer updates about the political situation here and will let you all know what is going on.
As I said in the beginning, it is a truth universally acknowledged…that we live in interesting times. At the very least, I certainly am.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Weird Clothing Dynamic
Today was my second day in Thailand and BABSEA's second day of orientation. It started out wonderfully and finished the same way. I woke up early in the morning (probably since I went to sleep so early), but I felt so good, having slept like a log that night (from 9 pm until 5:30 am...*sigh*; it was blissful), that I just woke up and wrote a little in my journal (don't worry, all similar things that you get to see here; I'm not leaving you out of anything). Then at 6:45 my roommie and I went downstairs to catch the red taxi-truck owned by BABSEA to take us to the main house. (All the taxis here are red trucks with campers on the back that have long-ish benches along the sides for you to sit and open backs to climb in and out; well...all are red trucks except the tuk-tuks obviously, but those are so expensive nobody uses them.) When we got to house we had a Yoga lesson taught by a French woman. It was great. (And interesting to get Yoga instructions in a French accent.) Now, I have to say that I have been doing Yoga once a week in a class in Portland for about 3 months now and do it on my own at home during the week, and this lesson was technically much easier than those. However, it is hot enough here (even at 7 am) that a light Yoga workout is a HARD workout. But overall it was really fun and quite enjoyable.
After the yoga lesson, we caught a ride back to our apartments (called PT Residence by the way) and took a quick body shower and changed for the day. We spent the whole day at Orientation again (and I finally remembered the name of the building, Uniserv). It was another fun day, which means that you can accept my statement that yesterday was good too; it evidently was not caused by jet lag. We did more icebreakers/silly games to teach us how to teach others (the importance of activities to learn, the importance of rules, etc.). A group of us went to the same restaurant we visited yesterday. Zenia and I wanted to go someplace new, but after looking around we realized there wasn't really anywhere else to eat on that road, so we caved and went to the same place, but got something new. I had a sweet and sour chicken stir fry that was amazing! It made me really happy to have such delicious food (although I do have the sinking suspicion that I will eventually get tired of Asian foods at the end of this trip and just crave Mexican, Italian, American, etc. food when I get home).
Tonight we had Thai lessons again where we learned words for food and ordering. I definitely need to study some more, but it will probably come down to carrying around a little cheat sheet or some index cards with pronunciations written down. After lessons Zenia and I took a taxi to the "mall" (it seems like more of a giant food court to me) where the closest market is located. Since I was starving by this point (probably partially induced by the constant chatter about Thai food during our lessons), I got some food at the market (which was pretty good and very cheap; and as well know the cheapness just makes the food seem tastier). :)
Tonight I also had to do some research online. We were split up into groups today and have to put together a fake lesson plan we will present tomorrow. To create the fake plan (about a topic given to us by Bruce) we had to do a little outside research. Our lesson plan is about how to explain the rule of lawyer confidentiality. Anyway, it's hard to really explain all this (and probably extremely boring to you), so suffice it to say that I had to come home tonight to do some research on Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Malaysian, and Cambodian law. All I could think when we got the assignment was, "But I just finished my first year of law school two days ago! I don't want to do legal research yet!!" Luckily, it was very brief research as we didn't need to know a ton on the topic, just some of the basics (ex. do the countries have rules on confidentiality between lawyers and clients?). Now that that is all done and this blog entry is almost complete I will be ready to head off to bed soon. :) So, goodnight, or rather, good morning to you!
Some More Interesting Notations:
1. You might have thought my hair was curly at home, but it is nothing compared to how extremely curly my hair gets here in this humidity. It is NUTS! The curls are just springing every which way (even the bangs).
2. KFC has invaded Thailand...I've seen it and it depresses me.
3. I'm really nervous about our immersion week with the local family. For example: how will I survive for a week without A/C, particularly at night; what will I do if I don't like the food, but I can't be rude and not eat it; how will I survive for a week without internet (and how will you survive without me and my blog?!)? All very important questions with no answers as of yet.
4. I think I am going to be forced to go out at night with people soon. I managed to skip it yesterday because of jet lag and tonight because Zenia and I have already showered and gotten ready for bed, but those protections will be gone tomorrow. My doom is coming...I see it heading toward me and it looks like a Thai bar and peer pressure.
5. I ate another new fruit today and it was amazing too! It is the color of a plum, has a hard "rind" (peel?) that stains your fingers red if you suck at peeling it (which I do and I suspect all the Thai people are laughing at me). Inside the fruit is white and in little sections like an orange. There isn't much fruit in each one,b but what is is in there is amazingly delicious.
6. I was thinking about it today and aside from the religious element of the region requiring modesty, etc. it is insane to think that here skimpy clothing has never been developed or accepted, but in Western countries (aka the US) we created things like the micro-mini and string bikinis. Now, that is a weird clothing dynamic. After all, how can it make sense that one of the hottest and most humid places on earth insists on wearing T-Shirts at the skimpiest and long pants the majority of the time? It just can't.
7. We heard about two incredible programs today. The first is called Sunflower, which helps local Thai (and other countries') women in crisis (usually by being pregnant or having a young child) and teaches them how to care for their children, gives them prenatal care, health care, and continues their education (wherever it left off) and gets them ready for further education if they want it. The second is called Sustainable Cambodia, which deals with rural Cambodians who have a hard time living in the farming, country areas, but who become dump squatters (people who live in the dump and spend all their time looking through the garbage for their food and items to use/sell) if they move to the city where they can't afford to live and can't get jobs. This program helps the villages become self sufficient by teaching village members about how sustainable farming, helps them create family businesses, and promotes essentials like well digging. It seems like an incredible group that has the potential to help thousands of people.
After the yoga lesson, we caught a ride back to our apartments (called PT Residence by the way) and took a quick body shower and changed for the day. We spent the whole day at Orientation again (and I finally remembered the name of the building, Uniserv). It was another fun day, which means that you can accept my statement that yesterday was good too; it evidently was not caused by jet lag. We did more icebreakers/silly games to teach us how to teach others (the importance of activities to learn, the importance of rules, etc.). A group of us went to the same restaurant we visited yesterday. Zenia and I wanted to go someplace new, but after looking around we realized there wasn't really anywhere else to eat on that road, so we caved and went to the same place, but got something new. I had a sweet and sour chicken stir fry that was amazing! It made me really happy to have such delicious food (although I do have the sinking suspicion that I will eventually get tired of Asian foods at the end of this trip and just crave Mexican, Italian, American, etc. food when I get home).
Tonight we had Thai lessons again where we learned words for food and ordering. I definitely need to study some more, but it will probably come down to carrying around a little cheat sheet or some index cards with pronunciations written down. After lessons Zenia and I took a taxi to the "mall" (it seems like more of a giant food court to me) where the closest market is located. Since I was starving by this point (probably partially induced by the constant chatter about Thai food during our lessons), I got some food at the market (which was pretty good and very cheap; and as well know the cheapness just makes the food seem tastier). :)
Tonight I also had to do some research online. We were split up into groups today and have to put together a fake lesson plan we will present tomorrow. To create the fake plan (about a topic given to us by Bruce) we had to do a little outside research. Our lesson plan is about how to explain the rule of lawyer confidentiality. Anyway, it's hard to really explain all this (and probably extremely boring to you), so suffice it to say that I had to come home tonight to do some research on Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Malaysian, and Cambodian law. All I could think when we got the assignment was, "But I just finished my first year of law school two days ago! I don't want to do legal research yet!!" Luckily, it was very brief research as we didn't need to know a ton on the topic, just some of the basics (ex. do the countries have rules on confidentiality between lawyers and clients?). Now that that is all done and this blog entry is almost complete I will be ready to head off to bed soon. :) So, goodnight, or rather, good morning to you!
Some More Interesting Notations:
1. You might have thought my hair was curly at home, but it is nothing compared to how extremely curly my hair gets here in this humidity. It is NUTS! The curls are just springing every which way (even the bangs).
2. KFC has invaded Thailand...I've seen it and it depresses me.
3. I'm really nervous about our immersion week with the local family. For example: how will I survive for a week without A/C, particularly at night; what will I do if I don't like the food, but I can't be rude and not eat it; how will I survive for a week without internet (and how will you survive without me and my blog?!)? All very important questions with no answers as of yet.
4. I think I am going to be forced to go out at night with people soon. I managed to skip it yesterday because of jet lag and tonight because Zenia and I have already showered and gotten ready for bed, but those protections will be gone tomorrow. My doom is coming...I see it heading toward me and it looks like a Thai bar and peer pressure.
5. I ate another new fruit today and it was amazing too! It is the color of a plum, has a hard "rind" (peel?) that stains your fingers red if you suck at peeling it (which I do and I suspect all the Thai people are laughing at me). Inside the fruit is white and in little sections like an orange. There isn't much fruit in each one,b but what is is in there is amazingly delicious.
6. I was thinking about it today and aside from the religious element of the region requiring modesty, etc. it is insane to think that here skimpy clothing has never been developed or accepted, but in Western countries (aka the US) we created things like the micro-mini and string bikinis. Now, that is a weird clothing dynamic. After all, how can it make sense that one of the hottest and most humid places on earth insists on wearing T-Shirts at the skimpiest and long pants the majority of the time? It just can't.
7. We heard about two incredible programs today. The first is called Sunflower, which helps local Thai (and other countries') women in crisis (usually by being pregnant or having a young child) and teaches them how to care for their children, gives them prenatal care, health care, and continues their education (wherever it left off) and gets them ready for further education if they want it. The second is called Sustainable Cambodia, which deals with rural Cambodians who have a hard time living in the farming, country areas, but who become dump squatters (people who live in the dump and spend all their time looking through the garbage for their food and items to use/sell) if they move to the city where they can't afford to live and can't get jobs. This program helps the villages become self sufficient by teaching village members about how sustainable farming, helps them create family businesses, and promotes essentials like well digging. It seems like an incredible group that has the potential to help thousands of people.
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