All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy

Tri-Semester Finals, dun-Dun-DUNh!
12 page reflection paper
30 page group paper
2 presentations of research
1 test.

All of us interns hide behind our computers and try not to look up. It was never this difficult in the Africa Program. The students have been working-working-working and the time has come for the house to breathe sighs of relief and transition for the next part of their journey. These two classes have been academically intensive for masters programs, let alone undergrad, and it's been phenomenal watching these girls pump this academic work out in four weeks (their course reader for Exclu. & Expl.--not including their textbooks for the course--is over 1,500 pages of human rights reports, country profiles, and ethnic research). In the beginning even Julia threw looks of concern...Christa, are you crazy? Four weeks. Do you know there's only FOUR weeks? But they have gone above and beyond. Uganda & Rwanda programs, cower in shame.

This weekend all of the students, two interns, and "mom" stuffed into Ajran Marting's scalding trunk bed and rode 15 minutes away to a tiny retreat so the students could have a peaceful environment to have their finals. The interns are only one half because the other two are out gallivanting around VIETNAM (ahem, google image one of their destinations: Halong Bay) for a few more days and won't be back until Wednesday. I don't want to talk about it.

No, no, I love them dearly; it is my wanderlust jealousy which overcomes me. Contender for the 7th wonder of the natural world? Have you seen those Google images? Just......lemmie get some air.

Day one: 6 hours in class for History, Religion and Society of the Mekong Region.
Day two: 2 and 1/2 hours for Exclusion and Exploitation presentations.

Their command of their topic was excellent. Their setup alone looked like Masters Thesis defence. Minus Kiersten's snarley face in photography below. It was only Christa, Anna, Julia and I in the audience but there was a row of chairs in front of us to be a buffer for potential facial criticisms.
Summary: The partnership of national governments and foreign economic powers creates an environment for exploitation of minority peoples. They looked at a couple of instances of land confiscation and ethnic tourism. They conjectured that perhaps this is a new face of colonialism in Southeast Asia, but not in the traditional sense. Because corrupt governments of Cambodia and Laos take the money, the ideas, and environmentally destructive projects of the World Bank without speculation, without concern for their citizens (especially minority hill tribe people), all of their resources and income pay off Western loans/interests and exploit their people for GDP (trekking companies, dam projects, etc).
This reality doesn't allow development to reach the people who need it. In Cambodia's case, most resources don't reach 90% of the people because that ninety-percent still live in what would be considered "Third World" poverty. Cat's part on ethnic tourism in Thailand and Laos was so fascinating--a good sociological expose, to make even the likes of Amy Brainer proud. I learned so much about Bubble tourism, Ethnic tourism and the social psychological detriments of hosting people who can afford to be in "tropical paradise". She should do her dissertation on tourism in the Mekong region. Invisible Children and Acting on AIDS has opened up many opportunities for the Church to be involved in responsible, transformational activism. What could the global church do to bring awareness of the treatment of Hmong in Laos and the Karren in Burma? Could they? Should they?
Classes over, questions asked, tropical fruit consumed, we did something we haven't been able to all do these four weeks.
Resort guests took pictures of our American shrieking jolliness and I took a picture with one of the resort staff to remember the first black person she'd ever seen. She kept on staring intently and her smile stretching from ear to ear, she pointed me out specifically. Photo. She was so awesome, I didn't mind. The girls have one day of glorious down time and Monday will be on their way to their three-week practicum for the 2nd third of the semester.
Beth: Mekong Minority Foundation, General Internship, Chiang Rai, TH
Bianca: Sustainable Agriculture, Systems Research Intern, Chiang Rai, TH
Cat: Bi-vocational Laotian School, Advertising Intern, Laos
Kiersten & Nikki: Garden of Hope, Street Children Research Interns, Chiang Mai, TH

The boys will be home on Wednesday.
I have a Lahu research community visit on Thursday.
And much of my work lays before me.

The P.S.
Dear Passion fruit,
The thing is, I'm in love you. I should have made it official much sooner, we have history in Uganda, but you are my favorite of the fruit variety. I don't mean to be effusive. I just think you make the best juice ever.

Oh, Yeah

my egg rolls have tails.

Happy, Happy

23rd

Anniversaryof Birth, Nikki!

(the 2 pictures directly above taken by Kiersten Shonauer, GoEd student)

The What? The Wat Phra-Thaat

It might have been the curves, g-forces pulling me backward as the songthaew hoisted us higher up Doi Suthep mountain to see The temple of Northern Temples, that made my stomach tighten and rush like after boys whip you around those spinney-metal-go-rounds-of-doom on old playgrounds. It could have been too much of that coke slushy from 7-11 (stores all over Chiang Mai) or that bag of Lays and two bowls of granola/yogurt I inhaled this morning. Jakob, the young, Israeli government official gabbed in front of me, the jungle outside grew higher as the turns became sharper, Cat's eyes were as big as motion-sickness saucers and the blue sky was upon us. The air was colder and thinner up here above the city. He is taking these curves so fast! my brain muttered in between chiding myself for not expecting a spiraling way. "So, Roe, you will be the next Condi-leeeeza Rice" Jakob laughed and I kept my smiling eyes focused on his chin. DRAMAMINE! Don't throw up and everything will be okay.

Oh, Condi.

Wat Doi Suthep was founded in 1383 when it was mythically demarcated as a holy place--a white elephant trumpeted three times from Sugar Elephant Mountain--and this holy place contains a relic of Buddha (think piece of the Cross, St. Paul's Basilica, Italy) while other holy buildings have accrued over the centuries. Up the steps, the temple courts await visitors from all over the world.

The Songthaew stopped and I wanted to be stopped forever. I needed fresh air, a bed, some water, some crackers, something. Just no more movement. I had to sit on the sidewalk to gather my wits, and Jakob bid us adieu until we returned down together. Bianca bubbled around me and I focused on the ground. "Maybe we should move you out of the meat smells" Cat advised, and we moved slowly up the temple tourist stalls so I could sit down. We urged Bianca to go on ahead of us and we sat at the bottom of the 300 temple steps regaining our sea legs. The entry way to Wat Phrathat Doi Sutep was guarded by two fierce Dragons heads, with 7 dragon-headed tongues coming out of its mouth. Their bodies flanked the length of the staircase, their scaley bodies rolling up both sides. Obscuring the temple was lush jungle forest all around us and the air was much fresher up here than it was down in Chiang Mai Valley. Hmong children, or children dressed in Hmong traditional clothing anyway, stood at the bottom trying their best to look adorable so tourists could take pictures with them and pay them for it.

Getting out of the house was just what we had been needing. The 5 looming papers have been dragging the students merrily down, kicking butt, taking names, all that, and what with all that reading to do, HeadQuarters (Julia and Kenny's place) was becoming a little cramped. Our schedule was hedging us in: Breakfast, Songthaew, Class, Lunch, Songthaew, Class, Songthaew, Homework, Dinner, Homework, Sleep, Breakfast, Songhaew. Repeat or {insert Field Trip here} and just before it became too much, the students would be leaving for practicum throughout the Mekong to begin a different month-long adventure. There was still so much of the city to see. And "they" say no one has ever seen Chiang Mai if they don't ever lay eyes on Wat Prathat Doi Suthep.Entering into the court literally felt like entering into a holy place. It didn't really matter that there were tourists snapping photos everywhere or people buying flower/incense offerings over a counter or shoe piles in the corner. There's just something about the color saffron and the twang of Asian instruments that can make anything reverent. On one side of the courts Hmong girls danced their routine and on their other side children played music for the visitors. Monks came and went, and a little line of people started forming. A road, rather. What's going on, a parade at the temple? Is someone important coming?

The line began to get longer and from a helpful Thai man (who's family was all catholic and, he, the only buddhist) much obliged: the Songkhala was coming! The highest rank you could go as a monk. "It's like the pope" he whispered down to Cat. And the monk came and the women and brightly dressed children threw flower petals at his feet and the Songkhala touched peoples heads as they passed. AHH, TOUCHING HEADS! What are you doing?!?! You do not touch anyone's head in Thailand, and just like foreigners touching in public, I repelled but after think-thinking, maybe from such a high ranking person, it's okay. To touch someone's head is to say you're above them but this man is obviously above a normal Thai. Perhaps it's obvious that just to be touched by someone of such esteem is a blessing.

What's strange for me is that I have no idea what to think about Buddhist temples. I'm not Buddhist and so I don't have any desire to give merit, or offering, or pray but the construction of these places are unparalleled. Of this devotion, I simply can't comprehend.The rest of the day consisted of being caught in a downpour under ancient trees, sitting down for (too coffee-y) iced coffee, and seeing the solid gold Chedi in the inner courts. The rain stopped and the sound of temple bells rung by visitors suffused the air. The Europeans complained. The look out to the city, framed in Bougainvillea I'll have you know, was enough to take your breath away. It was so nice up there and inevitably time to leave it. Cat and I took an engagement photo before we left ("Make Sure To Get The Stairs!"). We left, jumping into another songthaew with our Israeli friend and bunch of German globetrotters and wound our precarious (and motionsick) selves back down Sugar Elephant Mountain. Jakob and a middle-aged German couple chatted excitably with each other all the way down. We waved goodbye to "our" friend ("I will see you in guh-varment! You take Condi-leeez-a Ryyce's place!" shaking my hand firmly) and arrived home in time to eat Chicken Joanna and conquer papers.

"This paper is kicking my a_ _." Cat Mungcal.
They're trying here, people.

later--
I called my mother today. I just needed my mother.
I saw this at Doi Suthep. HI, MOM!

Abby: This is for you

Your Best Bet is to Smile

*You know you've been in Thailand for a while when you cringe at Westerners in spaghetti strap tops and frown when foreigners physically touch in public. Stop holding hands! Don't they know people can see them?!
*You know you've been in Thailand for a while when food that doesn't burn the edges of your lips seems bland.
*You know you've been in Thailand for a while when you feel a compulsion to keep the bottom of your feet down or away from others when seated.
*You know you've been in Thailand for a while when a baby elephant climbs out of a truck in the same Down-town parking lot you're in and lumbers past your van.
*You know you've been in Thailand for a while when you're 45 minutes late and your impulse is to say Mai pen rai ka and smile and wai it off to make it seem like it's no big deal.
-------
*It's hard to know what it means to Thais who see you or what they're thinking when you buy something or use chopsticks or greet them but you're best bet is to just smile. They are, no matter what's going on inside of them.
*Friday we had a evening field study of Chiang Mai's Red Light Districts.
*Late in the night, we were spontaneously taken to a back-alley Karaoke brothel for field study, were intimidated by some Thai man who wanted to know what the heck 10 farang were doing walking down a back alley (this ain't no stinkin' tourist attraction), and drank sodas with the owner and her girls for an hour while Kenny sang Thai pop songs loudly.
*A Thai man found his way into the our singing cubicle and was jovial but heavily intoxicated. He kept shaking our hands and toasting us. When asked to leave finally by the owner, he was noticeably upset and pointed his finger at the "Karaoke" girls outside (you do NOT point at someone in Thailand. You do it only when you mean to insult).
*In every guide book I've read, the warning is clear: you will regret making a Thai man upset.
*When Cat, Anna, and I didn't want to be in the karaoke anymore, the angry drunk Thai man spotted us walking back and followed us slowly down the back alley.
*By the time we were at the van, we were nearly running; our driver couldn't understand my trickling English trying to form words of alarm: a man. bad intentions. after us. I wanted him so badly to step in between us and cut off the approaching man.
*The door was opened finally, we jumped in, and breathed a sigh of relief as the man stopped where the road ended and then ducked into the nearest karaoke.
*I was terrified out of my mind, angry that the incident wasn't taken seriously, and felt disappointed in our professor for putting us in a situation she hadn't thought through.
*It's more difficult knowing that everyday women of the red light districts don't have vans to envelope them in safety.
*It's more difficult to know that because of their ethnicity many are forced or impelled economically to haunt those back alleys with men who could care less.
*I've begun to deeply understand that many of their nights are far scarier.
*After prayer and a phone call the next day, I felt much more at peace with what had happened.
*I found out in a lecture @ Payap University on "Racism and Xenophobia in Thailand" why Thais are (scouts honor) afraid of Black people:

• Thailand is a Theravada Buddhist country, yes, but animism seeps into everything they do and believe.
  
• When humans die, they turn black in the decaying process.
• The Thais are incredibly incredibly afraid of spirits and ghosts.
  
• Thais believe that black spirits (Pi-lao) walk around sucking people's blood.
• When an African/African-American walks around, it literally seems like a Pi-lao is roaming and the Thai will recoil back in fear until they realize they are in fact human beings and mean no harm.
• No one has recoiled from me yet; only wondered in subtle amazement, touched my skin when close to me, and commented on the curly softness of my hair.
  

Ryan asked me how I felt about that and I told him at first I was really amused. And when I think about it now--I think I feel tense but the same. At this point, it seems ridiculous to be hurt about something like that--can you blame them if their worldview/religion has no place for a dark-skinned person? You take it for what its worth and try to craft words to tell a funny story about it later. In Thailand, it's best not to let anything bother you too much. You should see all of us parade our new bicycles through Doi Saket with playboy bunnies on the baskets and bright red helmets. If that won't lighten your heart, I don't know what will.

So What Do You Do Again?

Julia's calling me for a meeting, Au Jan Marting is waiting for me at a meeting, and I am rolling the word "meeting" around in my mouth like a fuzzy LEGO piece. I woke up one day and was expected to do adult things.

My inner child is not understanding.
It wagers I will start wanting to have long conversations about the news.

which I do. of course.

But I love what I do, no matter how ambiguous and touch-n-go it is (City: Int'l. Development, Population: every social institution ever) and miraculously things have been falling into place very well. With Au Jan Marting as the man-o-connections, things just go a lot more smoothly than spending all my time trying to make connections myself in Uganda. God, I am awful at networking. I'm serious, I can be charming in conversations but I lack the fairy dust to make business relationships stick past goodbye.

My Position: Teachers Assistant for Social Context of Development
I Answer to: Dr. Dwight Jackson, FH Country Director-Rwanda & Professor. Julia 'Loerep' Miller, Student Life Coordinator and house mom-Mekong

Dwight has never been to Southeast Asia, let alone read much on Southeast Asia, so it's my job to be his mind and feet. I learn about Thai context, geopolitical happenings in this region, and cultural variables that affect development. By context, I mean political/economic/religious/social aspects of Thai life. What does it mean to be Thai? What does it mean to be Thai in Asia? What does it mean to not be Thai? By development, I mean assisting locals or minority groups in anything they'd like done (access to water sanitation/utilities, power to buy land, conflict between minority & majority groups), that sort of thing. Learn about Thailand before I get there and fill me in.

The class teaches the students how to read a community and provide research that NGOs (non-governmental organizations) can use to better serve that community; something to empower the people. My responsibilities are to find that community, learn its story, discover its most pressing issue, figure out how the students can help that situation with descriptive research, and figure out logistics. Where will the students sleep! Who will cook for them? How will transportation work?! How expensive is it?! That sort of thing. Dwight then teaches the hard stuff.

Above these things, I prepare for the class. The textbooks picked are great for Africa but we don't know if they're great for Asia so I read 'em, throw out the weak parts, and create learning aids/recruit speakers to create a better understanding if necessary. I have meetings with Julia to chart my progress, send emails to Dwight and Au Jan Marting acts as my greater boss and my interpreter. Thanks to him, my meeting with the Social & Development unit of the Church of Christ in Thailand was super productive.

Fortunately: I am not evaluated on my use or misuse of commas.
D-Day: November 1st. Jackson steps off the plane for the first time in Asia and will want to be ready to teach this course. (@_@)

The best part of my job: I am learning all the time. And I'm slowly figuring out (by trial. by error) what it means be a critical, compassionate Christian practitioner in world that seems way too harsh most of the time. I simultaneously have a lot of, god-love-you, freedom of movement/schedule. Apart from learning for my own course, I get to attend the field trips and classes with the students. It's really really fun sometimes, like going horseback riding @ the Eubanks' a few days ago (yes.please.), beautiful a lot of times, but GoEd is not supposed to be a vacation, an adventurous story to amaze our audience. Warfare, sexual abuse, and discrimination of tribal people we are regularly faced with chills to the bone. GoEd is to change us.
Classes and my downtime with the everyone are vundaful (we are each others' family for four months) and talking these difficult things out with one another gives me a look into their minds as well as my own. Nouwen says it is impossible to be empathetic for the ones you serve if you have no community to shoulder their burdens too. It is here I've realized all I know how to do is live in community. Thanks College! All 10 of us ride to school together, make jokes together, write our emails together, eat together, learn together, fight ants together and sleep in common bunks, all of this showing us what it means to be human and human beings to others. I'll give up the secret: our blogs are dripping with an agenda to educate. Being informed does things to people. There's nothing like a community coming from different places who are looking in the same direction--care for our earth and a life abundant for the poor and non-poor alike.

Words make my feelings seem sentimental but sentiment doesn't last this long. I think my inner-child is right about death-by-meetings. I'll have to play and be lighthearted and be spontaneous much much more now. Balance, you know.

Ryan is strumming the guitar in the dark, geckos are climbing along the walls, and the Lahu bell will strike tomorrow at 5:30am over the the rice fields. They will sing loudly, making us all curse in our sleep, and I'll have reading to do. The kingdom is near, I do believe.

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The textbooks for my course

• (256pgs): Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development. I recommend this book to every Christian involved in any social development and social work field. Contrary to the ring of it's title, it is not in any way condescending or naive. It is right on.
• (247pgs): Encountering Development: The making and the unmaking of the Third world.
• (238pgs): Promises Not Kept: Poverty and the betrayal of Third world development.
  

The Triangle and the Children From Nowhere

[Disclaimer: I don't call Burma "Myanmar" because the government in power is illegitimate and doesn't have the authority to rename a country it doesn't officially run, right?]
If you ignored the Japanese man in the neon green hat, circa early 90s (oh man, think White Man Can't Jump w/ Wesley Snipes), and kept your eyes level up from the white stone patio to the sky, there was nothing between you and an 80ft wall of lush jungle but floor-length glass. If you refused to move from the museum seat outside to where the man on the balcony stood (that hat!), you would never know there was a convoy of pimped up tour buses holding children with short attention spans and every hue of tourist khaki; group t-shirts. If you didn't move, if you just sat, it felt like the vegetation was the largest natural art exhibit in the world, the wind made it speak, and you could have peace enough to think about how the history of opium had gotten so out of hand.

But you have to move and down below the patio are those extravagant tour buses with anime characters on the side and silver vans that sound like they're taking off into outerspace when they backup but none of that changes the fact that the Hall of Opium was and is one of the most beautiful museums, I believe, has ever been built. The unbelievable part is something so profound is set literally in the middle of tropical nowhere.

If you look up in your handy guide book you bought on Amazon, the Golden Triangle is advertised like the Wild West of Asia [[bang]] where, after you've witnessed a behind the back drug-deal-trafficking-deal, you can conveniently go on a great tour, buy the t-shirt, which is true in a lot of ways but not with such vibrant advertising ink. The Golden Triangle does mark the opium growing regions of Thailand, Laos, and Burma but you wouldn't catch one of those deals. Driving up to Mae Sai for our field trip, four hours from "home", is like driving up to a palace with no palace at the end, the promenade lined with gilded posts in Thai style, not any place where folks smuggle opiates or people. For that matter, within a 35 mile radius outside of that, are only sleepy, quiet houses at the base of a green mountain. The humid environment becomes your every breath. The only business to see is the beggar Akha child trying to hustle 5 baht from you on the bridge between Thailand and Burma. You were going to use that 20 baht for an ice coffee anyway.

On the Burma side, The Burmese "prime minister" tries hard to look intimidating in a large frame in the creepy immigration office and the Thai/Burman men on the other side really really really want to sell you a carton of cigarettes for $4.00. Everything is meager on this side. Aung San Suu Kyi is in there somewhere.

The muddy river cuts between two shores and if you avoid reading any national news or UN reports or trendy social justice magazines, you would have no indication that Hilltribe girls of Burma are forced to swim over its water in the low season and are trafficked throughout Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia by the thousands. They show up in karaoke bars with lots of rouge and flat ironed hair, hand to chest of a French man. The way back is nearly impossible.
Our entry felt like a whirl-wind escapade as all 10 of us were swept up by anticipating tour guides and motorized buggies rushing us to wats! and temples! Akha villages where kids wore blue UNICEF backpacks! and back to Mae Sai gate! with the jerk of their brakes. At the temples we freed birds and I laughed as I bantered with the temple women about my souvenir prices and bought a phenomenal jade bracelet that seems to be permanently attached to my appendage. At the village, we pulled cameras from their holsters, pictures our only proof that we had veni vidi vici-ed, handing out all our snacks to those who weren't hiding one in their hand already. We didn't stop to play or have dinner with their parents. At last, we walk through the Burmese market to be pressed with cigarette cartons (Hell-o! Cigarettes! I sell you 150 baht! Smoking! It is beautiful! I like!).

We were moving, snapping, so fast, how could we feel deeply what was going on in a tumultuous Burma? The next day was the Hall of Opium museum and then a boat ride on the Mekong, murky as the Mi-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i. The bank of orchids and leaves were ravishing and the lunch was arroy mak delicious and the Golden Buddah was gorgeous sitting above the river. Awaiting us on the Laos side were enough souvenirs to amaze the best of our relatives (okay, some not so much) but the hill tribe children still came out from between the stalls, hands open. And as children, I couldn't delude myself to believe it was misfortune or their bad personal choices that put them there. White plates emblazoned THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE and our snapshots (cheeeese!) in the middle waited our purchase on the other Thai bank. We buy some of them because we think they're funny and epic and they are funny and epic.

I want to see these places (tourist) but the companies hoping to profit from my curiosity wreak havoc on our earth of which we are stewards (tourism). And after a great weekend at the Golden Triangle, on the way home, my mind floats back to the boys on the bridge, the 100 ft. no-mans-land that belongs neither to Burma or Thailand or any country. These citizens are Hill Tribe people and therefore have no recognized citizenship. From one perspective they rule themselves but from another they have no protection. The sly boys will continue to run back and forth, the children from nowhere, belonging to no one, demanding drinks that foreigners can't take back through customs; asking for five baht to give to their mothers. Their families will sit on that bridge as long as weather permits, biding their time until either the government or their circumstances claim them first. We take pictures and say we've been there.