ER Thailand

and the borderline motonony was broken. And I have something to write about. OK, so maybe not monotony exactly, but something in some moments akin to boredom. Hmm... though not really because I was bored per se, but three weeks of a near-constant rotation of food, internet, reading and coffee eventually takes its toll on even the most avid eater, web surfer, reader and coffee drinker. Sorry - back to the ER story, which, now that I think about it, is really not nearly as dramatic nor interesting I had thought when beginning this post. So I ended up in the ER after a crazy dog came out of nowhere and - unprovoked - chose to take a healthy little chunk of skin out of the neighboring white girl's leg (mine, as it were). OK, so maybe not a chunk - a small layer at least. I had been assured repeatedly that the inordinate number of stray dogs running around were PERFECTLY HARMLESS and merely barked. Ha. After consuting with my Scottish med-student friend Ian, we decided that a little swing by the ER wouldn't hurt and, despite my utter terror of needles, a rabies shot would be better than my head imploding if the stupid dog was indeed rabid. While not really finding anyone who spoke a word of English around, Ian and I, through an amusing little game of charades and the assistance of the marginally helpful Thai Phrasebook, managed to make the dog bite story clear. As it turned out, I didn't need a rabies shot, though have quite a healthy little bruise as a momento of the evening. Stupid dog.

And, in far happier (though perhaps less entertaining) news, I have a job. That's right. I give a resounding "ha!" to all you nay-sayers out there who thought moving to Thailand with no job, no friends, no place to live, no contacts, no leads to speak of, no real idea of what I was doing besides for a vague desire to work with refugees was not, perhaps, one of my brighter ideas. The crazy, impromtu plan just might work out after all. I have a temporary contract with the UNHCR (United Nations High Committee on Refugees for those a bit out of the int'l loop) that begins on Wednesday, and in the process of negotiating the *real* contract that will begin in January. Anyone who has known me longer than 2 days can imagine how excited I am about this. This does mean, however, that my days of being a woman of leisure (see beginning of paragraph 1) are numbered - to 1.5 to be exact. I have been reading some good books though, for those of you in search of a good read. I just read Bono, in Conversation with Michka Assayas and am currently reading The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins - both of which I highly recommend. And, I have my first Thai class tonight with my new friend Ying who works at the coffee shop. I will be busting out Thai like a local in no time, I'm sure.

Preferred mode of transportation

I met up with an old Peace Corps friend this weekend in Kamphaeng Phet - a town about three hours south of Mae Sot that is home to Buddist ruins dating back to the 14th Century.
We had a fabulous time crawling over ruins, drinking coffee, catching up on Benin, Sri Lanka and Thailand gossip, wandering around the sort of big town that became mysteriously empty at night in an attempt to find food - any kind of food. At least there are always noodles.

Really old Buddahs...

And only one yoga class to my name

"Pray for freedom."

This was the response of the Karen man who sat with his family in the Mae La refugee camp, when asked how The Church could pray for the persecuted of Burma. Visiting the camp was - good and unbearable and exciting and amazing and real. Yes, so very real. I have thought for so long work within a camp is what I felt most called to do, and it was strange to suddenly experience that moment. To see in the flesh what I have dreamed of for years. Less... dramatic I guess and more... tangible. These are very real people who have experienced more than any of us could ever know. And they were standing right in front of me. The camp, sitting a few kilometers from the border, is encased in barbed wire and gates - to protect, but really to contain the people within. The Mae La camp is home to roughly 50,000 refugees - mainly Karen who wait in hopes of someday being able to return to their homeland. Other camps house Karenni and Shan.In the camp, life continues more or less. There is a heaviness to the air; the heaviness of parents who have no idea where their children are, of wives who witnessed the murder of husbands, of children who watched in terror as their mothers were raped before their eyes. The heaviness is attached to a horror very, very real. It was because of this that I left with a very full heart. It did not have the affect on me that seeing poverty for the first time often has. I have seen poverty before. It was the knowledge that these people before me had experienced gross injustices; their lives shattered; their families murdered; their futures forever changed.

I visited an orphanage/children's hostel inside the camp - children who either have no parents or children whose parents are still on the run in Burma, and have sent them out to attend school in the refugee camps. There, I met a father who has been in hiding with his pregnant wife and two small children. They just came out of Burma a few months ago for his wife to deliver the baby (medical care in the jungle for those in hiding is non-existent) and because one of his daughters is very, very ill. The two girls, who appeared to be about 3, came and sat near me. "Are they twins?" I asked, unable to identify the sick one. No, the youngest is three. Sheetja, the sick one, is nearly seven. I stared in disbelief. Leukemia is eating away the very flesh of her body. The family has nowhere to stay, so is sleeping and eating at the children's hostel where they are trying to get Sheetja care before it is too late. Perhaps it is too late already. Sometimes, they are able to drive her into Mae Sot, where Dr. Cynthia's clinic for refugees and migrants (http://www.maetaoclinic.org) gives her blood transfusions. But she needs more than transfusions. The medicine she needs for leukemia is expensive and getting out of the camp to get the medical care is difficult if not impossible. The father, love and concern for his family gleaming from his eyes, is subdued. His daughter is dying. Once his wife delivers, he will return to Burma. Return to hiding. Hope that peace comes soon. Hope that he is making the best decision. None of his options are good.

We drove away from the camp in silence.

And there is still 7-11

Yes, you read correctly. Out in the middle of nowhere Thailand, 5km from the border of nowhere, Burma, there is 7-11 - several of them, to be correct. Large fridges of Coke, chocolate milk, Gatorade. Rows of gum, Chinese chips, Thai candy, and packages of fried seaweed. A supermarket down the street akin to a small WalMart, called "HongLong Mini Mart", where one can buy such essentials as Pantene Pro-V Shampoo, Kellog's Corn Flakes, and ranch dressing.

Mae Sot is far bigger than I first thought. Probably because my first experience in it involved getting lost in the dark of some deserted little neighborhood of teak houses with no lights, scary dogs, not a soul who spoke a word of English around, a random crazy lady who grabbed my arm with slimy fish hands and refused to let go. So crazy girl and I walked together.

Mae Sot is a diverse little trading town (specializing in gems and black market goods to Burma) of Burmese, Thai, Indian, Chinese and Karen. It is certainly an interesting ethnic mix - Burmese men in long sarongs tied in front; Muslim women zipping by on motos, narrow slits in her veil revealing only her eyes; young Thai army rangers with guns slung over slim shoulders; Karen mothers and children with painted white faces in traditional hill-tribe dress. Completely different than Chiang Mai - more grime, less beauty, more haphazard-feeling, less Western, more mysterious, less English, more stares. Oh yes. We are back to staring at the white girl. But... I like it here. It feels more... authentic somehow, even in its grittiness.

I think I will stay. There is an extensive network of NGOs that do aid work in the camps (though the NGO world is tough to break into, from what I've found), so the job prospects are better here. A few such prospects are looking promising - I'm realizing just how much "right place, right time" is worth. A lot.

I went running last night with a new friend down this hazy dirt path at the foot of the mountains. "Watch out for snakes", he told me with a smirk. Weaving between the rice fields in the muggy heat as the sun painted magnificent streaks of pink across the clouds, I realized how lucky I am. I love running out here - it evokes feeling of such freedom and life.

I went to the border of Burma the other day. Saw the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge - an ironic name considering that Thailand and Myanmar aren't friends at all. Thailand doesn't want to deal with the effects of a neighboring military regime that persecutes its own people, leaving them displaced and forced to flee for their lives. With the promise of Thailand - and relative safety - just across the bridge, some brave Karen, Karenni and Shan attempt escape. The lucky make it across. The less fortunate are shot down by Burmese military before they can reach the other side. I wanted to take a picture of Burma, so you could have some image of where I am as you read, but as I furtively tired to whip out my camera, a kid in a uniform with a gun said "no". I put the camera away.

A little Indian restaurant across from the mosque makes the best samosas I have ever had - served with the requisite Thai chilis of course. Food has been a bit more problematic here than in Chiang Mai. Everything is written in Thai or Chinese and no one speaks enough English to offer a translation. Lucky for me "noodles" appears to be quite universal, so I haven't starved. And there is still Diet Coke. So there's that...

Heading off in a few moments to visit a refugee camp with a local NGO. Promises to be an interesting day!

A few observations...

- Men should NEVER wear capris. I don't care if they are cooler and your leg hairs get hot in long pants. Pants, shorts, fine - but please choose one. I don't care if you are European - don't do it.

- The ability of Thai teenage girls to multi-task is quite impressive. She can talk on her cell phone, hold an umbrella and sometimes a small child WHILE driving a moto. And we throw fits about women applying mascara at stoplights...

- There are four Starbucks in Chiang Mai. While I do love my vanilla lattes, I am not that much of a sucker - you can buy the exact same thing (with a dollop of whipped cream on top!) at one of the million little coffee houses for about 75 cents - while Starbucks, proud as ever of their coffee, still charges the equivalent form of $3.78. Come now, outside of the most ridiculously boring yuppy traveler- who does that?! I'm sure the Thai laugh at the ones who do. Starbucks, no surprise, is often abandoned with the bored-looking Thai baristas playing crossword puzzles in the corner.

- The obnoxious number of tourists. It really is quite out of control. Whenever I walk by a small hoard of them (approximately every 11 feet), my eyes inevitably narrow - what are they all DOING here?! In fact, there are so many of them that none of them speak to each other. Striking up a conversation with a foreign-looking passerby would be almost as peculiar as walking up to a random person in a suburban mall. The thing in my favor about all of this is that it allows me to live in relative anonymity - I run in peace, eat in peace, stroll in peace. No marriage proposals, offers to allow me to cook their noodles and/or bear their children, or stupid whiny songs written in my honor (does "yovo, yovo bonsoir" ring a bell to anyone?).
Yes, I am white - and nobody even cares.

- I credit some enterprising Thai for marketing what is truly the greatest invention ever - corn in a cup. Yes, I know it sounds simple, but, seriously, it has nearly changed my life. Tender, sweet corn cooked under a little kiosk with salt and butter and served in a cup with a cute, appropriately-sized pastel spoon and sold for a quarter. Genius, I tell you.

- Respect for the King. Really, I've never seen anything like it. There are huge monuments and multi- story tall images of him with fresh flowers all over town (and, purportedly, the rest of Thailand). Every Thai in Chiang Mai owns and frequently wears a yellow polo shirt with a royal emblem in celebration of his 60th year as reigning monarch. The entire nation adores him and trusts him implicitly. If the king says something one day about his sadness at all the trash littering the streets and the general lack of upkeep in towns, the very next morning you would see everyone out in the streets cleaning and sweeping. It is remarkable, and inspiring really - especially in a time where the climate everywhere else is one of general distrust of politics, politicians and leaders.

I spent an hour last night hanging out with this Thai family on their front porch who wanted to teach me Thai while drinking whiskey :-) I did learn how to say the useful phrase "you only want to teach me Thai because you are wasted" - so I look forward to using that on a regular basis. I think I would like to take a Thai language class. Because it's a tonal language, it has been super difficult to hear and remember words and phrases, but it has been fun to practice the few things I have learned.

I am heading to Mae Sot tomorrow - a town a few hours southwest of here, spitting distance from the Burmese border. I met yesterday with individuals working in the Chiang Mai office of this great organization called Partners, and will meet with their Mae Sot office when I arrive there. Many of the NGOs with whom I would like to work have field offices in Mae Sot (there are a handful of refugee camps nearby), so it will definitely be the place to go to find work/volunteer positions. As beautiful as it is here, I am excited about getting away from Chiang Mai and it's Starbucks and 1.2 million tourists and discovering life in a smaller town.

Why Silkworms Do Not Taste Like Skittles

I ate a bug last night. For real, on purpose. Chewing it up and swallowing. A man with a big hat on a little bicycle tuk tuk came around selling them. The proprietor of the guesthouse bought a small sack of many different varieties and popped handfuls of them down like Skittles. He put them on a small plate and passed them around to a group of us non-bug-eaters. No, I said. I refuse. Imagining the crunchy flesh of a beetle or the leg of grasshopper becoming trapped between my teeth - no. Perhaps it is the crunching that makes the thought of bug eating so repulsive. I have eaten the slippery firmness of an eyeball, the sinewy slickness of a tongue; other organs that I shan't mention here in polite company. But none of them crunched. And friends, I have my limits. The line simply must be drawn somewhere. Eventually, however, I realized that I was in Thailand after all and that I only live once (though what that has to do with anything, I'm not sure). With a sigh of resignation, I wrinkled my nose and chose carefully. The grasshopper? Crunchy with transparent wings? The beetle, toasted with soy sauce? I finally decided on the silkworm, for reasons I cannot explain. It was big. Really big. At least there weren't appendages hanging off that would require crunching or risk the aforementioned fear of becoming lodged between my teeth. The firm shell of the poor little thing barely indented with pressure. I shuddered a few times, braced myself, placed it in my mouth and began chewing as fast as I could. Words cannot describe how it both filled my mouth and completely sucked all moisture out of it. Somehow, the little bugger (heh) expanded. I started jumping around and hollering with my mouth full of partially chewed bug. I couldn't spit it out and I couldn't swallow. I just held it in my mouth, jumping around (me, not the bug) until I could finally wash it down with a healthy swig of beer. Ew.

I've just come from eating banana pancakes. With real syrup. For my fourth morning in a row (correction: I had cinnamon french toast in between) and hilltribe coffee. Every morning I vow to begin eating traditional Thai food for breakfast - soup, noodles, and rice - yet every morning I smell the pancakes at the farang (foreigner) restaurants and think about real maple syrup, and I cave. I actually have my leftover banana pancake sitting beside me in a clear plastic bag, because I couldn't bear to leave it behind.

Met an old Frenchman the other day who works in Java, Indonesia at a school for the deaf and mute and who offered me a job if I can't find anything I want to do here. He might perhaps be crazy, but he understood my French, so we have become friends of sort.

On the advice of Lonely Planet, I headed out yesterday in search of the oldest ruins in Northern Thailand at a placed called Wiam Kum Kum - dating back to the 11th century (and at home we sell WWII era flasks as "antiques"). Five km outside of town, I jumped on the back of a sawthaw (open back truck with 2 benches that serves as a taxi). Because the benches were full, I stood hanging off the back of the truck, squished between three young Thai military guys, who immediately started giggling and poking each other. One finally worked up the courage (after several unintelligible tries) to squeak "Aye lahv yooo!" Ah. The sweet language of love... SO, after a bumpy ride hanging on for dear life and fighting off my would-be suitors, I was dropped off at the nearest village to Wiam Kum Kam and started walking. After awhile, realizing I really had no idea where I was going, I asked a woman hanging laundry, who laughed, promptly put me on the back of her moto and off we went. She dropped me off three km later and I wandered around the ruins and massive temples. It started pouring down rain a few minutes later, so I hung out under a tent with 4 cute Thai women who wanted to know if I would come live with them.

Heading off now to the a nearby mountain, atop of which sits an ancient wat. Apparently you can see all of Chiang Mai and the surrounding towns from the top.

Monks and Markets

One of the wats (temples) I visited today. Visitors are welcome, but must be appropriately dressed - no shorts or bare shoulders welcome here. Once inside, some of the Thai are praying, and monks wander around, praying and blessing visitors. I learned today the reason there are so many 12-year old boys in orange robes running around: it is culturally appropriate to send young boys to study at a wat for a year during their adolescence - almost as a rite of passage. So the young robed lad I saw dutifully sweeping the temple stairs today could have very likely been playing video games in the arcade yesterday.

Inside the wat -

The monk in this picture is speaking a blessing over the visitor by tying a
piece of yarn around his wrist. He spoke a blessing and tied the yarn around my wrist as well, but using much more care - a man who has taken the monastic vows can never touch a woman.




Looking like a dumb tourist in the market...

Happiness is: $3 Massages and Kawh Soi

Seriously. Three dollars for one HOUR! Thai massage is different - your body is pulled and stretched; like passive yoga almost. It was amazing though, and for three bucks, I could definitely get used to it!

So, I am here and all you worriers can stop worrying. After all the explanations, all the goodbyes, all the plans (well, not really the last part I guess), I am here in a little cyber cafe sitting across from a shaved-head orange robe clad monk who looks 12 and is typing furiously away on msn messenger :-) With some Thai Michael Bolton crooning in the background to set the atmosphere.

Chiang Mai was the perfect place to develop first impressions of Thailand - peaceful, amazing food, and ridiculously clean. The people are so gentle and so polite - I stepped out in front of a motorcyle earlier and HE apologized to ME (none of this "doucement" business for you Benin people)! The language itself is very gracious and polite - though because it is tonal, I still have yet to master "hello".

I have made friends already - a once-Floridian- turned-scraggly-spiritualist who changed his name to Peeshta and is here for a month before moving to India to, uh, cleanse and pray with Hindu monks for a year. Then this dude Michael from Vancouver who has been here 8 times before and is returning now to move to a small village in the mountains and write books on yoga or something. Interesting kids - who can pull out these crazy Southern accents from nowhere (though my surprise is apparently unwarranted because, as Michael pointed out, Vancouver is definitely in Southern Canada). Anyway, I shared a taxi from the airport with them and am staying in a little guesthouse down the street from theirs, which made the initial scariness of walking out of the airport by myself a bit easier. While on the topic of my guesthouse, the Thai proprietor's name is... Tyrone. :-)

The food so far is incredible and I learned how to say "no spicy" so my digestion system doesn't go up in flames. Ate this amazing coconut milk and vegetable concoction called kawh soi for lunch and realized how much I have to learn. It feels odd to be so completely out of my element - no idea about custom or language or mannerisms or habits. I love it here. There are beautiful temples everywhere (Chiang Mai alone has over 300), coffee shops, fruit stands and little motos and tuk-tuks zipping in and out of everything. I have decided I'm going to learn how to drive a moto soon. Maybe I'll even buy one.

It has been cool, humid and rainy today and I adore it.

And it begins...

So it's 2:17am the night before (or morning of for you technical types) I head off for my next great adventure. For those of you familiar with packing habits of The Great Procrastinator, I am not - perhaps to your shock and amazement - sitting in the middle of piles on my floor cluttered with unpacked items, looking at pictures or old journals out of sheer overwhelmed-edness. Not this time, my friends. I am happy to announce that two quite-strained-looking duffel bags are sitting upright and nearly completely zipped shut with all my important worldly possessions (and some not so important possessions that may or may not include 2 (two) 8lb dumb bells). In any case, I am quite proud that I am packed and sort of ready to go a whole 12 hours before the trip to the airport. I've finally made some progress in the packing arena it appears.

I am not quite so prepared for what happens once I step off the plane in steamy Chiang Mai and try to figure out exactly what I plan on doing with myself for the next six to twelve months. I do have an informative-looking Lonely Planet that I shall have plenty of time to study during the ridiculously long flights (does anyone have any information about the free wine situation on China Air? :-)) and a list of contact emails, organization names and phone numbers to follow up on when I arrive.

And so I am ready. The bags are packed, the cute taupe sofas sold, the GREs taken (who would have thought that finding the area of a stupid sphere would still be important after all these years?), the stuff scattered in storage units and closets across Oklahoma and North Carolina, the goodbyes ready to be said - it is time to go. I am excited for yet another dream to become a reality. I am reminded of a favorite quote, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. For what the world needs is people who have come alive." It is because of this that I am going - to do the thing that makes me come alive. Because life is too short to live any other way.

Signing off from Oklahoma,
amy