tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71336002434944727372024-02-19T07:04:56.742-08:00Mind the GapperThe World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
<br>~St. AugustineLe Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-67216933012404339672009-03-08T06:06:00.001-07:002009-03-08T06:09:56.338-07:00Epically Late, Epically Lengthy and Here For Your Reading Pleasure<p class="MsoNormal">Well. Hello there! </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Yes, yes, I do know what the date is. No, I haven't been in a state of frozen animation for the past three weeks nor was I abducted by aliens (though not for their lack of effort…) The truth is, the absence of a blog post has been due mostly to the fact that we can't use the student laptops for personal projects/watching movies etc this month. The fearless leaders decreed it and it was so. Sadly, the internet here is incredibly slow, I didn't want to hog the one computer in the hostel for three hours, the internet café is open at awkward hours and is, if not as distracting a place to blog as the living room of the hostel where the computer there sits, too distracting for me to make the effort. So, you ask, why is this blog magically appearing now? That's for me to know and you, well, not to. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, if I remember correctly, last episode left off with us about to embark on an epic journey: 59 hours of plane trips and layovers and bus rides on our way from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. There may have been some cliffhanger about how I was going to blog about sustainable agri-something-or-other, but do forgive our producers, sometimes they get overzealous. We've long since moved on to all Public Health all the time.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So how was the 59 hour extravaganza? Well, long, clearly. Two nights sleeping on the floor in airports is always a thrill. But I can inform you that VAT tax refunds are a pain, the Dubai airport is incredibly overairconditioned which makes sleeping on the tile floor next to impossible but that they totally and completely make up for it by being the hub for Emirates Airlines, the clear favorite for World's Best Airlines as far as anyone TBB is concerned. I made a LIST of why Emirates is better than all others. THAT'S how good it was. And I will share it with you now:</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>Each seat has a personal touch screen TV on which you have the option of playing video games, listening to music, getting updated on the flight progress or the latest BBC headlines, watching the plane's surroundings through the forward or downward cameras (nice for those in the section of four middle seats…like me…always) or watching any of probably 200 movies.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>There is a cupholder separate from the tray table AND it has an inner ring that can tilt so that your cup is upright no matter what the angle of the seat in front of you is.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>The ceiling over the aisle is dark with little lights in it that look likes stars.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>Even in Economy, you get a menu for the meal and the meals are quite good.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>There is a place every few seats to plug something in so you can charge whatever electronic device needs to be charged…like, say, an iPod that's been traveling for a day and a half.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>There is also a place to plug in a USB cord. Think of the possibilities. </p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>Internet access, although in Economy this isn't free.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>A little Do Not Disturb type sign that says Wake Me Up For Meals, one that says Wake Me Up For Duty Free and one that says, in fact, Do Not Disturb. </p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-add-space: auto; tab-stops: list .5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbolfont-family:Symbol;" ><span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span>And, get this, a phone in every seat so you can call any other seat for free! You bet we took advantage of that.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">And the other nice thing, which really is more me finally getting good seat luck than anything to do with Emirates airlines other than that they fly a 3am out of Dubai which is, accordingly, not full is that I was, on our 2<sup>nd</sup> Emirates flight, seated in a middle bank of four seats with Dave and, oh wait, no one else! I was exhausted and needed desperately to sleep and it was incredibly comfy and like a gift from the airplane gods. :-) </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Well, now that I've extolled the virtues of a commercial airlines without payment of any sort (where is my business sense?) I'll get on with the featured programming: South Africa. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Ok so here's what's up. We're living in a hostel, not with host families. The girls are all nine to one room of ten bunk beds and one rather large shower, but there is space enough to move around, a table, a desk, a little kitchen with a fridge, a microwave, a sink and a water heater. Surprisingly, the one shower thing isn't too much of an issue and although our room usually looks like some sort of massive natural disaster has taken place and left behind piles of clothing, magazines, the occasional Q-tip, I can deal with that. It's still possible to walk around without stepping on someone's stuff…unlike in the boys room. They're all five in one room too, but is more like a little corridor with beds (and no private bathroom…hahah!) and, as the average TBB male is messier than the average TBB female, it's only possible to get a few steps into the room before crushing someone's already wrinkled shirt. But in general we don't venture into that abyss. We just relish (politely and without rubbing it in) in the fact that Finally the girls have the better room. Yay!</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The hostel has a living room area with very comfy couches, a TV on which we watch movies, a computer with very slooooooooow internet and a table. There is also a KITCHEN!!! And we can use it. Hallelujah! I've already made noodle kugel, challah, French toast and many eggs in addition to the dinner John and I cooked for everyone last Sunday night. (Dinner rotates between ordering in, TBBers cooking and going out…Our menu? A starter of a salad bar and charoses, then honey Dijon chicken breasts, sun dried tomato, pesto and goat cheese chicken rolls and noodle kugel and a desert of snickerdoodles and (store bought) ice cream…The snickerdoodles were too floury but everything else, if I may be so immodest, was really quite yummy). </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">But really, what are we DOING here? Well, I shall explain. We're in Plettenberg Bay working with an NGO called Plett Aid. Part of what Plett Aid does is send Home Based Care workers into the townships surrounding Plett. These are people (all women, at the moment) who have had three months of training in how to care for the sick and who go around on foot from house to house checking up on their assigned patients, changing bandages, taking blood pressure, arranging for clinic visits and if necessary pick ups in one of Plett Aid's two available vehicles. They are also often called on to help with DOTs, that is, Directly Observed Therapy (I don't think the S stands for something…but I'm not positive). DOTs is for patients who sometimes, for whatever reason, can't be trusted to take their meds. A care worker will show up at their house every morning, sometimes very early, and literally watch them swallow their pills because the cost of not completing a course of meds is high not only to the patient, but the everyone around them and, eventually, everyone everywhere. Take Tuberculosis for example. TB is a disease closely assosciated with HIV/AIDS. You or I may have been exposed to TB (this is what they test for at the doctor's office with the little prick on your arm) but we aren't terribly likely to come down with the disease as long as our immune systems are strong and we are otherwise healthy. The TB is dormant and we aren't contagious or sick. Because HIV/AIDS weakens the immune system, it is much easier for TB to become active and very dangerous. But TB is curable. There are all sorts of drugs available (well, ok, availability is an issue, but there are all sorts of drugs) to fight it. The problem arises when a patient starts taking the drugs, but doesn't finish. Then the mutant TB, the few bugs that are resistant to those drugs, can take hold and multiply and the patient, before he or she knows it, has a case of MDR-TB or multiple drug resistant TB. Tuberculosis isn't contagious once you start medication, but otherwise it's highly contagious. This patient can easily spread the MDR-TB and MDR is, for obvious reasons, much harder to cure that your plain old regular TB. Some places around the world are even starting to see something called XDR-TB, or extreme drug resistant TB. It's scary. Anyway, that was a very long explanation for why DOTs is needed in many communities around the world including in the U.S. You want to treat everyone who is ill, but you need them to be responsible about meds and not everyone is…some people need a little encouragement. Hence, DOTs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And THAT was a very long way to get to an explanation of what it is that we're doing here is Plett which is shadowing Plett Aid's Home Based Carers (HBCs).</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">We're working two to a carer from 8am to 1pm. Noah and I (China revisited) are working in a township called Kwanokathula (mostly, that's pronounced how it's spelled except that the "th" is just a "t" sound) as are John and Alexandra. We work with a black woman named Pumza; J and A are with Margaret. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">But before I continue with that train of thought, more explanation is required. Bare with me:</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">South Africa was settled by the Khoi-San people who were mostly conquered by the Zulus who after about 150 years were conquered by the Dutch and then the Dutch by the English. This bit is really complicated and that's all I'm going to go in to. At some point, Indians (from India) were brought over to help with labor. This has resulted in a very mixed racial background for many South Africans, but in the common vernacular there are three options: Black, White, Colored. Black people are, as far as I can tell, direct descendants of the people that lived in South Africa before the Dutch showed up. In the North and East of South Africa this mostly means the Zulus, but here on the Western Cape it means the Xhosa (that's "click + osa" where the click makes you also hear the letter K…they speak Xhosa which is a click language and is so SO much fun to listen to and incredibly hard to mimic…the Zulus speak Zulu etc). Colored people are of a more mixed background: Indian, black, white…it's unclear. They generally have a bit lighter skin and speak Africaans, a derivative of Dutch. White people are of European descent. That one is pretty clear cut. Anyway, there was a lot of racism in the country which eventually, beginning officially in the mid 20<sup>th</sup> century, manifested itself in a legal system called Apartheid from the Africaans for something like "Separatness." Under Apartheid, where people could go, where they could live, what they could do and whom they could marry were all legally restricted. The colored and black people lived in neighborhoods called townships (separate ones) that often had no electricity or running water. They were basically slums. Apartheid began to fall apart around 1990. There was much violence and rioting and much death. It was a scary time according to everyone I've talked to. In 1994, Nelson Mandela, newly released from Robben Island, a prison in which he'd languished for upwards of 20 years, was elected president and Apartheid officially ended. The ANC, the African National Congress, has been the most powerful party since then and it has done many MANY good things in an incredibly difficult period of time. Still, it's run may be ending. As I type, prominent members are splitting off in a splinter party called COPE (Congress of the People). There is also opposition from the Democratic Alliance, or DA. A presidential election will be held later this month where the ANC candidate, Jacob Zuma, is favored to win. In another lovely twist, he's up on trial for charges of rape and his defense can be summarized as "I didn't do it. She wants money." and occasionally "She was sitting provocatively and my Zulu culture required me to have sex with her." The jury is out (not yet literally) on whether or not he's guilty, but the charges don't seem to be interfering with his campaign. I don't really know that much about politics here in South Africa and my summary was rather rudimentary but it's fascinating stuff and I'd love to spend some time looking more closely into it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So today, people still live in the townships but thanks to the ANC most have running water and electricity (at least here in the Western Cape) and there are a lot of small cement government-built houses, although not even close to enough to go around and many people are still living in rudimentary scrap wood and scrap metal shacks called shelters. Many others, however, are better off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">OK. So. Back to where we were before that most recent tangent. I'm working in Kwanokathula which is a primarily black township, although there are colored people. There are also a lot of immigrants from neighboring Zimbabwe which, if U.S. news organizations have been doing their jobs and you've been watching, should not be all that surprising. Anyway, the care worker Noah and I shadow, Pumza, is a 36 year old Xhosa woman who has been living in Kwanokathula for five years now. She has a one year old, Lilita, a five year old son and a fourteen year old daughter. The daughter lives with Pumza's sister in the nearest big city, Port Elizabeth, where she goes to school. Initially, I was shocked that Pumza had a fourteen-year old because I was prepared to guess that she was 24 herself. Age here is really hard to judge, much like in Ban Huay Hee, but in South Africa I find myself always guessing younger whereas in Ban Huay Hee I erred in the other direction. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Pumza has been a careworker for only four weeks and for two of those Noah and I have been with her. Before this she was many things: a housekeeper, a grocery store clerk, a nurse in an elderly home, and she probably won't do HBC for too long. It's hard work and she's already in school for early childhood development. She wants to start a cresh (like a pre-school and kindergarden) or even go to school to be a nurse. Pumza is, in short, really awesome. She can be quiet or commanding. She can be like a big sister or a friend or a mother. She has a slightly mischievous sense of humor and an ear for neighborhood gossip. And she'll stick herself in your business and make it her own – a good quality for someone doing HBC. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">English is the most common second language in South Africa (a country with, I think, eleven official languages) and Pumza learned it in school as did many of the people we run into in Kwanokathula. She mixes up gender pronouns, which is incredibly confusing until you realize what's going on and begin to pay closer attention to the person specified at the beginning of the story. Aunt + he = she. Edward + she = he. She also adds "ne?" the Xhosa version of "you know?" to the ends of her sentences as in "She was very naughty, ne?" I love this. All in all, communication is not that difficult. Particularly after more than three months in Southeast Asia. I find myself picking up little bits of the speech patterns – I don't use contractions and I speak more slowly when talking to Pumza – which makes things easier still. Sometimes I translate from Noahese to Pumzaese, but mostly communication is good all around. Having spent so much time and effort trying to figure out even the littlest things in Ban Huay Hee, I was stunned at first to see how much I could learn about Pumza and Kwanokathula in a matter of hours. I had to retrain myself to ask questions after so much time trying to wonder only about things I could ask about through hand gestures and my rudimentary Chinese or Thai or Bawkinyal. Language, my friends, is a wonderful thing. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So we shadow Pumza. We are also simultaneously supposed to be conducting a survey for Plett Aid about how well their service is doing. Noah and I haven't started yet because the first week was about getting to know the patients and the second week was just incredibly erratic – we didn't really have a normal day of visiting patients, but we'll get right on it next week. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So on to the township and the patients. I'll give a quick rundown of what it is I'm seeing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Kwanokathula is a nicer township than some. Qolweni (that's a different click that also sounds k-ish + "olweni"), the township Lily and Renee work in, is mostly the shacklike shelters. Kwanokathula has some of those, but there are also government-built cement block houses and every now and then some houses that have been built up and added on to so that they are big and nice and comfortable. There are even two or three big brick houses being built. Everything is one story, so big is a relative term…so is nice…but there are houses I wouldn't at all mind living in. And then there are houses that define tiny and stuffy and brittle and ramshackle. Most of the shelter-type housing in Kwanokathula are shacks that have been built on the property of people who live in government houses. Those people rent the shacks out to newcomers. After living in a community for a few years, you're entitled to a government house, but the government can't seem to build them fast enough and people end up in the shelters for decades. Clearly there is a range of housing and what's fascinating is that there aren't good and bad neighborhoods. A nice house with a well-kept garden could stand right next to a shelter (some are standalone and not connected to houses) or to a particularly rundown government issue house. Your home is what you can make of it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Kwanokathula is mostly a residential area, but there are some little stores selling food and salons for doing hair. There are also South Africa's version of Cabinas or places to go to pay and use a phone. Some of these stores are in houses or additions to houses but many, mainly the salons and phone stores, are in those giant metal dumpsters you see outside construction sites in the states. It's pretty ingenious. Apparently, most of the salons are owned by Zimbabwean immigrants. Interesting.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The other thing that it's important to understand is this: much in the same way that within Kwanokathula a nice house will be sandwiched between a small cement cube and a shack, in Plettenberg bay a nicer township will stand directly next to an almost entirely shelter township which will be less than a mile from huge, fancy, state-of-the-art real-estate developments. Plett is a beach town vacation destination for wealthy South Africans and Europeans complete with two polo fields and beachfront property. Those fair-weather visitors can easily choose not to look over the next hill and see the poverty and disease in their temporary backyards and many do. This sort of behavior is easy to condemn on the surface until you realize that pretty much everyone does the same thing. How often do I go to South Central really? What do people say about USC? Yale? Bad neighborhood. But how many people really make it their business to do something about it? Particularly when it's just where they vacation. So I don't describe Plett to condemn any of it's inhabitants. It's just to give an idea of where we are and what it might be like to live in Qolweni and work as a maid in a five star hotel just a few miles away. And maybe to make us all look at our own communities more closely. (Which, incidentally, is exactly what we'll be doing in TWO WEEKS in New York and then DC).</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So now, finally, to some patients.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">After hanging out outside the clinic where we get dropped off in the morning (and where we meet no shortage of interesting people ready to talk about anything from racism to beer), Pumza came to pick us up and we were off. After a 25 minute or so walk to the other side of Kwanokathula we arrive at our first patient's house. (Pumza covers Phase 3 and part of Phase 2, Margaret covers Phase 1 which is where the clinic is. One more sidenote: neighborhoods are named for when they were built, so Phase 1 first, then Phase 2 and then Phase 3. Right now they're building Phase 4. The thing is, though, that it's WHEN and not WHERE so there are three sections of Phase 3 and they aren't all that close to each other…the upshot is we do a LOT of walking). The house is cement and larger than the government issue ones because the left half of it is a store. We walk up the four front steps and Pumza enters. Noah and I hang back, unsure of what we should do. Pumza explains to the woman inside who we are and what we're doing (she calls me Bianca and by the time I realize it's too late to correct her and I sort of like the name anyway) and invites us to sit down in the two metal chairs in the little corner that serves as a kitchen. From a room in the back of the house a large black woman walks out slowly and with much effort using a cane. Pumza talks to her for a few minutes and then we leave. She tells us, after we've left, that that was Julia (Ju-LEE-a). She is on RVDs (this stands for retro-viral drugs, also called ARV's or ART for anti-retro-virals or anti-retroviral-therapy, and Pumza writes it on her diagnosis sheet instead of writing HIV/AIDS in case the paper falls into the wrong hands…there is still a stigma around HIV/AIDS here) and recently had a stroke. A few days ago we went back to her house and made it farther inside. We sat for half and hour or so on a beaten up faux leather couch that serves to divide kitchen from living room. Julia's sister was watching TV and Julia's daughter and the sister's son were playing on the floor. Pumza was sitting next to Julia pulling the clenched fingers on her right hand gently apart, teaching Julia to do that as she watched TV and the like. The stroke affected the entire right side of her body making it difficult for her to speak and walk. Pumza said the stroke was due to the stress of hiding her HIV/AIDS status and that this is fairly common. As strokes go, Julia didn't seem too badly off. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our second patient was Petras. We ran into him on the street, wheeling himself along. One of his legs was amputated after a car accident. His remaining leg, the right one, is a little swollen at the knee and twisted so that his right foot rests on the support intended by the wheelchair manufacturers for the left. He is also HIV positive. He's a very friendly, cheerful guy and Pumza mainly helps organize transportation for him to get to the clinic when he needs to. I always enjoy running into him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Third was Edward. His house, though not particularly nice-looking from the outside is big and airy with big open windows and wispy chiffon curtains and is full of mismatched couches and cabinets and trinkets. Despite all of this though, Edward was dying. He had cancer. From what I gathered, he had prostate cancer, had had surgery, but the cancer had spread anyway – to his kidneys and lymph nodes – and there was nothing more anyone could do. It seemed that he'd had the best medical care he could get almost anywhere. He was 95 years old and it was just his time to go. His daughter, who I originally thought was his wife, was there to take care of him. She was warm and friendly, but obviously under stress and dealing with a lot of emotional pain. When we visited, we'd help her move him from his wheelchair to lying on one couch or another or back to the wheelchair. He was so thin that he weighed almost nothing. He could wrap his hand (which looked overly large compared to his body) all the way around his thigh. Pumza would help feed him to give his daughter a break and once, to give her time to shower, we just sat with him in the living room. Mostly it seemed, Pumza was moral support, more for the daughter than for the father, and that support was incredibly important. Edward died on Thursday the 26<sup>th</sup>, just hours after we saw him for the last time. I could tell he was worse than before. His eyes weren't focusing and his raspy whisper made only one attempt to escape his throat. But he died at the ripe old age of 95 in a perfectly nice house full of light and air with his daughter there to take care of him. This death was not the kind of death you hear about when you talk about people dying in Africa and it certainly isn't the norm, but it was heartening to know that there are people in townships who die with dignity and as much comfort and support as it is possible to have. I tried, once, to imagine what his life must have been like. He was alive before apartheid was institutionalized and after it was dismantled, long before TV and before any township had electricity or running water. I wondered what he thought about his country, about racism, about the future of his grandchildren, about these two foreign students coming into his home. I still wonder and I always will. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Incidentally, Pumza forgot to tell us that he died. I asked about a week later and she said "Oh yes. His memorial service was yesterday." Then Friday, a few days ago, we were shadowing Margaret with John and Alexandra because Pumza had to take her youngest daughter to the doctor (she's been sick for weeks and I'm really worried about her, but if anyone will get her good medical care, it's Pumza) and Margaret said she was going to a funeral later where everyone would dress in black and white and form a giant human cross. Turns out it was Edward's funeral. So while death is sad, this death, from the outside at least, was as unsad as a death could ever be.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our fourth patient was a middle aged man with TB and HIV/AIDS. His leg was painful and he was going to go to the clinic. We've seen him once since then and it seems much the same.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Fifth up was a girl named Nandipa. She is seventeen, has epilepsy and is mentally disabled, the latter probably a result of the former. She speaks mostly nonsense words, drools all over herself and smiles almost all the time. She is like a grown up two year old. Her mother wasn't there the first day, but on the next visit she was (her brother was there on the third visit). Nandipa's mother's name is Eunice. She is a strong woman and cheerful, taking everything life gives her in stride. Still, she told us, she worries about leaving Nandipa home alone but she sometimes must because Nandipa's brother works and Eunice can't be home all the time. Nandipa can't be at school although there is a school for disabled children, because it is only for kids up to fourteen years old. Eunice worries that Nandipa will be raped. She can't know for sure that it hasn't happened already. Nandipa was shaking hands with everyone in the room – her mother, me, Pumza, Beth (who was with us that day) – everyone except for Noah. Her mother said Nandipa is afraid of men. She isn't sure why. She said it so matter-of-factly that it was even more startling. Rape was just one more dangerous fact of life and it's true. In South Africa, one in five men ADMIT to having raped a woman and one in four poor girls can expect their first sexual experience to be "coerced." There isn't really much we do for Nandipa other than check up on her to make sure she's still as OK as she was the time before, but I always enjoy going to see her.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Patient number six was Mandisi, a man probably in his mid thirties with a huge and wonderfully friendly smile. He, too, had TB and HIV/AIDS. He lived in a nicer house although he has since then moved to a shelter in Phase 3. I think he moved because he's gotten well again. Indeed, he never seemed ill when we saw him. He isn't skeletally thin and doesn't cough much. We couldn't find his new house the first time we looked because the address we got had the last two numbers flipped (we got the address from one of the women in the original house who I assume was a sister because he didn't inform HBC that he'd be moving which really annoyed Pumza). We spent thirty minutes looking for XX37 which was just not there…there was a XX36 and a XX38 but no XX37. Then, the next day, we were just walking down the street and he called out to us (from XX73) which was incredibly convenient and coincidental and yet not that surprising with all the walking around Phase 3 that we do. Pumza was literally on the phone with Ann at the HBC central office talking about how she couldn't find him. The shelter he lives in now is stand alone and two rooms. He lives there with another man and woman, maybe a brother and sister-in-law? But as shelters go this one is ritzy. The inside is all white with cabinets and a table and a refrigerator and TV (although the TV isn't the ritzy part…it seems that every house and shelter has one in Kwanokathula because there is electricity). It is neat and impeccably clean and the walls are well-built from sturdier wood, not piecemeal with bits of scrapwood and cardboard and corrugated tin. Still, it's close quarters. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our seventh patient was a thin woman, probably in her mid twenties (but again, me and guessing ages here…) who has HIV/AIDS and TB. She spends most of her day at home sleeping and I don't know much else about her. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our eight patient was a man in a wheelchair, maybe about 55 years old. He was friendly and spoke enough English to have a conversation with us. His wife told us, though, that at night he sometimes wakes up crying because of the pain in his legs. I'm not sure what his diagnosis is. I always enjoy visiting him as well. The first time we went to his house we ran into a large, well-dressed black man who had driven there in his car. It turns out he is the pastor at the local Methodist Church (they have pretty much every possible denomination somewhere around Kwanokatula). He stopped to talk to us for a while. He asked what we were doing and we explained. He said if we were studying health care we should go to Zimbabwe where we were really desperately needed. Then we started to talk about Mugabe. He said he liked Mugabe. He was a true African man – kind of an African's African type sentiment. He said he had been confused about what Mugabe was doing until he recently read something that said that Mugabe wants to step down and let another democratically elected leader take over, but the people around him won't let him because their jobs all depend on his being in power. He didn't seem to blame Mugabe at all for the massive crisis in the country. He was intelligent and articulate and this newspaper he'd read allowed him to understand how a man he admired so much could be President of a country in the middle of such a disaster. I didn't agree with his theory, necessarily, but I truly understand the need for a way to understand what is currently happening in Zimbabwe and I see where that reasoning is appealing. We've seen him around a few times since and he always waves. I love running into people for the second or third time and recognizing them and having them recognize us and feeling like I'm not as much of an outsider as I was a few weeks ago. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Ninth and last for that first day of visits (on any given day since then we've visited a maximum of 5 patients) was Michael. He had a clinic appointment for March 10<sup>th</sup> but he had to work that day so Pumza was going to arrange with Ann to fix the timing. We haven't seen him since then.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our tenth patient is Andile. He wasn't around the first three times we visited his house, but the fourth time's the charm, right? Anyway, Noah and I were prepared to agree that he was about 24 but it turns out he's 42. He's very tall and very thin and is another HIV/AIDS<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and TB patient. We talked to his brother and nephew for a bit when we visited him the second (successful) time. I don't know much more than that. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our eleventh, and currently final (although Pumza just got a few new patients assigned to her I think) patient is Marie. She is a big colored woman (she understands Xhosa but doesn't speak it and Pumza understands Africaans but doesn't speak it so they can still communicate) and lives in a tiny tiny shelter that backs up onto one of the less nice government-issued houses. There are two other shelters on the same property, but her's is the smallest and shabbiest. She lives with at least five other people including a fifteen year-old daughter, a girl of about four and a newborn baby. There are nails and pieces of glass and all sorts of trash on the dirt path that leads to their door (which Pumza cleaned up one day, as well as giving the daughter a couple of dollars to go buy bleach and soap to clean up their house which the daughter first refused because she was too lazy to go to the store which in the end took her about five minutes…there was a huge fight and the woman who owns the main house<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>complained that Marie and her family were bringing disease into her home because they didn't like to wash themselves or their clothes which, while harsh, was probably true…I mentioned to Mandy that Pumza had helped clean and Pumza got a little talking to because she isn't supposed to help clean for patients…I felt bad that I'd gotten Pumza in trouble because she only did it because she couldn't stand to see little children living in such squalor, but at the same time Mandy is right and Pumza isn't a maid she's a home based carer…). The poorly built and slightly leaning house is wallpapered on the inside with cardboard. There is room for a bed against one wall the head and foot of which touch the two adjoining walls and room for about four people to stand close together. There is one small window to let in light and air but it doesn't do either well. Marie has TB as do two of her children. She is still breastfeeding and hasn't been able to walk since her pregnancy. She has no government ID and so can't file for a welfare grant which she desperately needs. We spent all day Wednesday at the Police Station and community center trying to get her one, but to no avail. She needs a relative with an ID to come vouch for her. As if the first visit wasn't enough of an ordeal. We were supposed to go two weeks ago, but the ground outside her shack was too wet for her to walk on so Ann left in the car and said she'd come back the next week. Last Wednesday Mandy came to pick us all up in the car and Marie, Noah and I sqeeeeeeeeeeeezed into the back seat with Pumza in the front and drove the short distance to the Police etc. complex that we'd walked by on the way to Marie's house. It had taken ten minutes for Marie to walk the twenty or so feet from her door to the car so once we got to the station Pumza had Marie walk the ten or so feet to a cement ledge that she could sit on and went inside to get the ID business in order. She came out five minutes later saying that the woman wouldn't come out to talk to Marie; Marie would have to walk down the long path to the office. If we had called, the government service would have sent someone to Marie's house, but since we were there already they wouldn't even bother to send someone outside the complex. Thirty minutes and two breaks later, Marie made it to the office. She and Pumza talked to the woman behind the desk, gave her the form Marie had already filled out and the passport photos she'd had taken and brought in. In addition to needing another person to vouch for her, she needed not only the name and address of the school she'd attended but it's phone number. The problem was that it had long since closed. I hope they'll let this detail slide when we get her father or sister to say Marie is Marie. While she was sitting in her plastic chair by the desk she peed – all over the floor and herself. Pumza and I helped mop it up and no one made a big fuss about it, but I was thinking later about an article I'd read in the NY Times a few weeks ago about a pregnancy complication not uncommon in poorer countries called a fistula. It's more common in younger and thinner women whose hips aren't wide enough to have children, but it causes incontinence and issues with the legs. I can't diagnose Marie and I know nothing about her medical history or much about fistulas but no one seems to know what's wrong with her aside from the TB and it's frustrating. At the very least, next week we should be able to get her an ID and she seems to be getting more motivated to help herself the more we visit her. When we came to pick her up last Wednesday she was dressed and sitting outside of the house as opposed to the first (failed) time when she was still in bed. She's a good person in bad circumstances and HBC is actually making a difference for her.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Alright. That's the end of the patients summary. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">On another note, I haven't taken any pictures in the townships (and pretty few at all until yesterday when we went to monkeyland and birds of eden and a pretty beach) so I don't have anything really to post online (and with the slow internet and no access to student computers for personal use I couldn't anyway). I think sometime next week, our last week (!), I will take some photos of Kwanokathula and ask a few of the patients I feel more comfortable with if I can take their picture. We aren't really supposed to have valuables with us, but honestly Kwanokathula seems pretty safe, especially in broad daylight when we're with Pumza, and some other people have been taking pictures for their media projects. It's been nice not having a camera though because a camera automatically makes you a tourist and that is the very last thing I want anyone to think I am. Still, I want just a few photos to illustrate and remember. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of Birds of Eden…We went yesterday first to Monkeyland to see their free roaming monkeys which were pretty adorable and where we had our first legitimately good and thoroughly intelligible guide of the trip. Then we went across the way to Birds of Eden which is a giant netted enclosure for all sorts of birds. Unexpectedly, this was the most terrifying experience of the entire trip for me. How is that possible you ask? Oh, oh but it is…You see, right when we entered the enclosure, this little colorful parakeet type bird landed on Dave's shoulder. We shooed it away and it went to John. John encouraged it a little, because hey, it's cook to have a little bird on your finger. As we walked on, though, it followed us. I landed on Zach's shoulder, then back to John's. Then it divebombed me, landing in my hair and I shooed it away. I was rattled by the surprise attack, but I regrouped and continued on through this supposed Eden. All was well until, ten minutes later, John and I were separated and left behind by the rest of the group while I tried to take a picture of a pretty teal parrot. Suddenly, the bird divebombed me again. John shooed it off of me and it went to sit calmly on his shoulder. We walked on for a minute or so until it divebombed me again, landing on the right side of my head and biting to hold on to my ear for dear life. John got if off again, but it wouldn't go away. It was only happy sitting on his shoulder and when he tried ot shoo it it would attack me again. We proceeded to move through the exhibit, trying to leave the bird behind every now and then, unsuccessfully, and then rescuing me from its subsequent attack. Finally, John put it on the ground and told me to go ahead, he wanted to leave it there. The path we were on (the only path) led to a bridge which in turn led to a gazebo in the middle of a little pond. John's reasoning was that the bird wouldn't be able to fly over the water. I said it was a bird. He seemed to think this didn't disprove his hypothesis so I agreed and walked to the gazebo, never turning my back on the Killer Attack Bird. It stayed put until I was on the gazebo bit and John turned to leave. Immediately it took flight and at high speed headed right past John straight towards me. I ducked and John ran to get it off of me. The old couple sitting on a bench near us watched, bemused, as I shrieked bloody murder. We continued on to the other side of the pond, me dragging John along (he wanted to look at the birds which were actually pretty cool and I wanted to get to the exit as soon as possible so someone that worked at Birds of Eden could take the bird) and we ran into Beth at a little café where there was also a group of tough-looking tattooed Americans sitting and drinking coffee. John took the bird into the bathroom to try to leave it there, but it followed him back out and again divebombed straight at me. He shooed it off and it flew happily onto the should of one of the tough-looking Americans. I high-tailed it away before it could change its mind. When I got outside to the blessed freedom of NOT Birds of Eden, I found that my ear was bleeding from where the bird bit me (although to be fair, not that badly) so Sandy checked with the woman at the ticket booth who said that all the birds are checked for diseases and so I didn't need to go to the hospital or anything of that sort. Plus I've had all my shots so I'm probably alright. Still, I was thoroughly shaken and I started laughing and crying all at the same time. Then Beth started laughing at me because I had completely fallen to pieces. I was entirely aware of how ridiculous I must look, but I swear the Killer Attack Bird was one of the most terrifying things that has ever happened to me. It just kept attacking and there was literally nothing I could do to make it stop and nowhere to escape to in the immediate vicinity. I don't expect any of you to truly understand the terror of the Killer Attack Bird, but I swear to you that I flinch a little every time I see a small bird or a shadow that moves like one flying overhead. As I type this, the fan in our room keeps moving the flap of a book in the corner of my eye that's sitting right near the door and I'm tensing up. I kid you not. I just saw it again and I looked over and my heart skipped a beat. I've been traumatized. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The last topic I'll address right now is media. I'm a solo group this month and despite the fact that we have peer review tomorrow I'm not yet totally sure what it is I'm doing. I've interviewed the three people I intended to, but I still have to figure out how to put the pieces together because the interviews didn't go exactly as planned and my original formatting idea won't work. We had a grand total of ONE WEEK from start to near finish (peer review requires a "near finished" product) for media this month which was a bit tight and all day yesterday we were out and about on this our only weekend to work on media. Still, it'll be alright. It'll get done. We'll see how well it all turns out.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Some of the media projects from Thailand are up, although mine is not. I did in fact turn it in on time while were were still in Thailand, but Sandy wanted to upload them all at once so she waited until we got to South Africa where, it turns out, the internet connection is not very good and video is too much data to upload despite her best efforts and hours of time. I guess it'll go up in the U.S. When it does I'll let you know. We were pretty proud of our video and think it's interesting so, you know, we would all sort of like people to see it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I'm getting severe bloggers fatigue and the fluttering book is thoroughly freaking me out so I'm going to sign off. Apologies for emails I've not responded to, but I do read them all. It's just that the internet here is so frustrating that I can't deal with it for very long. It should be better for the first two weeks we're in the U.S. (until we head to Virginia and our non-wired retreat for two weeks), but don't take that as an excuse not to email. I still love hearing about what's going on with everyone. I'll be home soon (!!!...well, ish…) and I need to be up to date!</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Much love,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Becca</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-48367627209210624212009-02-14T06:48:00.001-08:002009-02-15T00:46:24.190-08:00Let's Do the Time Warp Again<p class="MsoNormal">Happy Valentine's Day!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Renee just left us each one of those little Valentines you pass out to your class circa third grade complete with temporary tattoos…I got back from cooking class and it was stuck on the door to my room…cute!)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I just saved this document under Blog –February 14<sup>th</sup> and realized the last one was titled Blog – January 30<sup>th</sup> (my creativity is infinite, I know). I have the exact opposite feeling than the one I had the last time I blogged – it seems likes it's been close to no time at all and here I am just over two weeks later. Oops.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, ignoring the time warp I seem to be stuck in, I have quite a lot to recount and expound upon so do bear with me and flex your skimming muscles. Here goes. Captain, enter hyper-speed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I spent most of my last week in Ban Huay Hee working on Alexandra, Katie C. and my media project. Our third and final interview was Monday morning and from there through Friday afternoon all mornings and nights were spent editing editing editing. iMovie HD can put out a reasonably good product (probably one much better than ours will seem as ours isn't very showy) but it is absurdly idiosyncratic. Oh, why be polite? It's stupid. It does things like cut clips without asking and not let you rejoin them or, even better, magically regenerate a clip you're doing your utmost to delete. I have, in the past few weeks, truly seen the magic of Control+Z (or, actually, on a Mac, it's Command+Z which, for those of you less versed in the computer shorthand of my generation, is the undo button). Nevertheless, we had fun, even resurrecting MASH (that other relic from the third grade) while waiting hours for clips to upload and transfer. If anyone wants to look me up in fifteen years or so I will apparently be living in London on a poverty wage (which explains why my home is a shoe) with my one child and husband who is a Russian version of Mr. Darcy. I will be a successful actress. If you think about it, that isn't entirely illogical. Back on topic, though – media. We did eventually finish our project, adding the finishing touches early in our enrichment week, and it should be up on the website any day now. The summary of our core country time in Thailand is also courtesy of yours truly; the Koh Tao summary is courtesy of Alexandra. I highly, HIGHLY encourage everyone to check out all of the media pieces. I quite like ours, but I'm also a big fan of the rest. Our new media project group selection method is vastly superior to any of those previously tried. This is a very clear example of the fact that we first year TBBers are very much guinea pigs for the program. That's alright with me. While it would have been nice to have better this or that to begin with, the way I look at it, I'm learning about starting a business and crafting a curriculum in addition to international development and what not. Plus, Robin and Sandy and Beth really listen to our feedback. What we say will actually have an effect on the way TBB works next year and the year after that and forever onwards which is pretty cool.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hyper-speed apparently cannot be reached without intense tangent interference. Sorry about that. Moving on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much of the rest of the week passed similarly to the previous one. I ate meals mostly with my family, had Thai class and seminar in the afternoons. I sort of stopped paying much attention to Thai the last week or so. I felt a little bad for our instructor, Ajan Danai. I would honestly describe his teaching methods as fun, but even so, attention waned. The problem was that no one in Ban Huay Hee spoke Thai at home or around the village. If they knew it at all it was for tourists and going into town. Learning the words for animals or bodyparts in Thai seemed exceptionally futile when I could just point to them and learn the Bawkinyal term. The thing that surprised me was that I found myself picking up not only words in Bawkinyal but grammar and sentence structure. I always thought that if I wanted to really learn a language, I would have to sit down with my textbook, memorize the grammar and then go for it. That's how I learned Spanish, after all, and it was really quite easy. I was wrong. Without anyone telling me, I figured out that "ah" is a question word and that "lee" means something to the effect of "already." It's a past-tense word. I can pick up languages! How cool is that?! I'm sure it hasn't hurt that I've now had introductions to grammar and structure in both Chinese and Thai, but still, very snazzy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Certain noteworthy things did happen, however, and I shall now turn to an account of those. (One of those things, apparently, is that I have become British and leaped several hundred years backwards in time…an unconscious reaction to the Salinger short stories I'm reading perhaps?)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thursday night at dinner, Fifa was an absolute terror. (My little host brother's name, henceforth, is Fifa. I finally heard several people call him that despite the fact that on direct questioning, my mother gave some other, longer name. Maybe Fifa is a nickname. In Thai culture everyone is given a name and nickname, often an animal, at birth. Or perhaps Fifa is Bawkinyal for Devil Child? I could be cute and call him Rosemary's Baby, but I won't. Now I'm being a little mean. To be fair, he could be cute. If you only saw a photo, you would think he is absolutely adorable.) Anyway, Thursday night he was certainly not cute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was the antithesis of cute. He threw multiple tantrums and peed on the floor. The pee, incidentally, was just left where it was to dry up. Ick. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After dinner, though, he was spirited away on my host father's motorcycle not to return for a day and a half. That left my host mother and I alone with time to chill. I sat with her while she ate her dinner (I always ate first, a guest right up until I left) and we did our best to communicate. Somehow, she brought up that she'd been to Canada. I acted duly surprised. I asked why (a Thai word I know that came in handy!) and she replied with many Thai words that I did not know. Then she made a gesture that vaguely resembled cradling a baby and I thought my idea of her going to Canada for medical care for a child might in fact be correct. When she'd finished eating, we headed home (or, to the other home, the one across the street where we hung out and slept). I though it would be a good time to show her the photos I'd brought with me of family and friends from home. She had the same idea. We both brought out photo albums and spent twenty minutes or so going through them. Her final album was actually a binder functioning as a scrapbook. A scrapbook of her trip to Canada. Finally, questions would be answered! It turns out that she went to Canada to attend the December 2003 National Gathering on Aboriginal Culture and Tourism hosted by the Lil'wat and Squamish First Nations. I guess she was some sort of Karen ambassador. In the age old tradition of answered questions begetting several more, I now wonder how she was picked to go. She was only 21 at the time. Maybe because her Thai was really good? Or she won some sort of contest? Whatever the reason, she clearly had a really good time on her trip. Snow must have seemed incredibly novel. (That scene in The King and I anyone? No?) She even brought out her passport to show me which I could read because it seems all passports are in English. Anyway, mystery solved and bonding initiated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After photo time, there was still over an hour until I was due at the rongrien (school) to work on media. I don't remember who grabbed the cards, but out they came, all 47 of them. She seemed to ask me if I knew a game. Obviously I did, since I'd spent a lot of time the previous week playing cards in the Salaa during our large amounts of down time, but none of those were games I could explain without a common language. Mostly they were games that are difficult to explain <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">with</i> one. So I went to the fallback of all fallback card games: war. She caught on really quickly and we spent the rest of the time flipping over cards and watching our portions of the deck grow and shrink with the rhythm of the game. I got bored after a half hour or so, but on we played, through one game and into the next, which lasted a solid 45 minutes. (Every time I played war, I though of Grandma and how we used to sit outside at my grandparent's house in Rancho Bernardo and play. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how either a small child or an intelligent adult had the attention span to play war over and over again. I had no memory of epic, near hour-long games. I was so baffled that I convinced myself I'd forgotten a rule, that you're only supposed to play once through the deck, but I doubled-checked with another TBBer later and found I'd been correct in my original rules. This leaves the question unanswered.) However bored I might have gotten, we were spending time together, which was really awesome, so on I played. I worried that she was bored too and that neither of us would speak (or gesture) up, but judging by her future suggestions that we play war, she was perfectly entertained and so I was happy to join her in a game. She didn't seem to hang out with the other village women as much as they hung out with each other and I think she really liked having a girl to hang out and play cards with without a screaming two-year-old in her lap. I get that. So we played three or four other times and despite some boredom and stiffness from sitting awkwardly on the floor, it was quite an incredible and rather fun cross-cultural experience. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The last few days in Ban Huay Hee weren't terribly busy and I found myself going back and forth between being ready to leave and wanting very badly to stay. The entire community (which was mostly one giant extended family) was so welcoming and friendly and interesting that I would have been happy to stay. At the same time, I often had nothing to do and felt a little odd about eating meals with my family, maybe playing some cards or spending as much time as I could stand playing with Fifa (up to 2.5 hours) and then heading off to read or play cards with other TBBers. It was almost as if I had to either move in permenantly and become a working member of the community (which, lets be realistic, would never happen…hillside agriculture is just not my cup of tea) or move out. Still, I was sad to go when the time for leaving arrived and all the Mugahs (host mothers, but the word means Aunt in Bawkinyal) were sad to see us go. A few of them cried. My host mother apparently did, but by that time I'd lost her in the little crowd. We'd had a farewell party the night before where they sang, we sang (this time we were prepared!), we each gave thank you speeches to our families that we'd written in Thai with Ajan Danai's help and then we showed them our media pieces and they blessed our journey. It was much like our other farewell parties in structure, but felt much more intimate than the dinner in Kunming, the performance and subsequent singing of I'll Make a Man Out of You in Shaxi and even the fiesta in Bua, although that would be a close second. Our final goodbye, when we were actually loading the trucks, was similar in its difference. All the women and children and some men came out to see us off. In Bua we'd been picked up one by one in the back of Wilson's truck, in Kunming we were dropped off at the University and in Shaxi we were seen off, but we each knew only our own host families. The Ban Huay Hee goodbye was the most meaningful and the best as well as maybe the saddest. The Ban Huay Hee homestay restored my faith in the awesomeness of homestays (particularly after feeling like I wasn't even in Vietnam without a homestay, although that may be for other reasons as well) although if I ever consider doing a homestay again, it will be rural whether I speak the language or not. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so we were off to the Fern resort for our enrichment week. This was spent mostly reading, heading into Mae Hong Son to use the internet and skype and hanging out with the crew. One morning we did go elephant riding, though. I sort of imagined that we'd go to an elephant preserve where elephants were rescued and tourists were welcomed, taught about the plight of elephants and allowed to ride them to raise money for the preserve. This idea had no basis in fact and turned out to be pretty far off. We arrived at the elephant riding start point to find a group of British ex-pat kids from Singapore dismounting the elephants. After they'd all gotten off and settled, we were paired up and put into the little chair things atop the elephants backs and proceeded to take the elephants on the same trail right back where they'd come from. The male elephants wore chains around their necks and the baby elephant that tagged along at the side of the female Katie and I were riding had a chain around its ankle that dragged out behind it. The man sitting on the elephant's head, the driver, so to speak, held a stick of about elbow-to-fingertip length with a slightly curved metal spike at the tip. He would from time to time whack the baby elephant with the spike when it was dawdling. It was pretty sad. As cool a photo op as elephant riding was and as neat as it is to be able to get so close to such majestic animals, it was mostly just depressing. I kept remembering that National Geographic or Discovery Channel special I saw that talked about how elephants mourn and bury their dead. Elephants are incredibly intelligent animals and I'm sure that being chained and forced to walk back and forth on the same trail with three people sitting on my back would not be conducive to a happy life were I an elephant. This prompted pondering on where to draw the line with acceptable captivity. Cows? Ok. Dogs? Ok. Elephants? Maybe not so much. It has something to do with the fact that cows and dogs often depend on humans for their survival. It's almost a mutual thing. Although, of course, they can survive in the wild. Maybe, then, it has more to do with their being kept in accordance with their nature – dogs that herd and cattle that graze. Industrial cattle ranching? Not ok. Keeping a dog in an apartment in a big city? I don't know. It requires some more pondering. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was also a white water rafting expedition, but I skipped out on that. I love rafting, but I needed a break from activities, some time to read up on the news and call home and blog. (See? I did need the time. I didn't even get around to blogging!)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then Friday came the six hour drive to Chiang Mai and an expedition to the night market where many a (bootleg) DVD was purchased as a sort of last hurrah for Southeast Asia. I also got a really really really adorable elephant lamp where the body is made of a coconut and the limbs and head are wood. It's compact and wonderful and will be displayed prominently in my dorm room. Sandy got the same lamp for her baby niece which should, to be clear, be interpreted as a demonstration of the amazingly cultured adult taste of said infant and not in any other way. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today six TBBers and I went to a six course cooking class which was really fun and resulted in very full stomachs and the possession of a yummy Thai cookbook which I intend to open again long before I reach California.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have two more bullet points on my to-tell list: my thoughts on sustainable agriculture and about next month (before our epic 57 hour plane journey begins tomorrow evening) but I'm going to go watch one of my recently purchased DVD's now so that will have to wait.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the meantime, new pictures are up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much love, especially on this, the Hallmark-proclaimed Day of Love,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Becca</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-26357236882931903152009-01-30T19:16:00.001-08:002009-01-30T19:24:08.944-08:00Duhblu(t) and Sawatdee-ka from Mae Hong Son!<p class="MsoNormal">It's been ten days since I've had a bed or a warm shower (or a shower at all, actually…I have had some icy bucket baths, though) or a meal that wasn't mostly white rice, but somehow it feels like much longer. It's not that I'm uncomfortable or unhappy in Ban Huay Hee (the name of the Karen village we're staying in) – not at all – it's just that time has a way of morphing when days move slowly and instead of coming in 24 hours a day, news comes not at all. When I got to a computer today (we came in to town at 7am for our Independent Student Travel weekend) I spent the five minutes it took to load the New York Times website meditating on the fact that half the world could have exploded and I wouldn't have had any idea. It turns out that the world is mostly still around, although apparently North Korea is particularly unhappy with South Korea, Zimbabwe is imploding at an increasing speed and a World Economic Summit is in progress in Davos, Switzerland. Oh, and Obama is president (!!!!!!!) but still has the carpet designed by Laura Bush in the oval office as well as a set of green plates that he doesn't like because he hasn't yet gotten around to redecorating.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some thoughts:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">My instinct, on getting to our hotel room, was to turn on the TV and check BBC news. The first time I heard the words "President Obama" I stopped organizing my tote bag of stuff and did a little hop of joy. Later, Katie C and I (we're rooming together at a hotel with reasonable rooms and a beautiful courtyard area for $6 a night per person) got to watch his inauguration speech which Liz had downloaded to one of the computers. I thought it was pretty good. At one point I actually almost started crying – I think it was out of relief that Bush is out and someone that I personally think is intelligent, logical and practical now has the reins. There were no "nothing to fear but fear itself" lines but I really liked the bit about how the goal should not be to have big government or small government but to have a government that works. I mean, YES. THANK YOU. That should have been too obvious for stating, shouldn't it? Then again, this is all old news to you people. I fully appreciate the awesomeness of being in Thailand, but I would love to be in America following the news constantly during Obama's first few months, political junkie that I've become. Or is everyone sick of hearing about it now? It's when I have to ask things like that (and when the news says "The American state of Ohio") that I feel really far away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On another news topic, Zimbabwe has now switched away from it's currency to using whatever other currencies people can get their hands on. Inflation has apparently reached a point where you're counting zeros to describe it – BBC news said it is 1 with 24 zeros percent. Wow. Sixty THOUSAND people have been stricken with cholera. HALF the people in the country will need food aid just to survive. What I can't figure out is: what is Mugabe thinking? From what I know about him, which is not as much as I should or would like to, I know that he fought for his country's independence and was loved by the people. He was a reasonable leader. He MUST have cared. Does he still care? Is he in denial? Has he been too corrupted by power and money? How can you hear those first statistics and not DO anything? What is going ON? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, to a quick description of Ban Huay Hee because I know that's what you're here for, isn't it? (Be honest, you just skimmed that last bit to see if it had anything at all to do with Thailand didn't you?)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The village is a two hour drive up a mountain into a national forest, but as the crow flies it's not really that far…it's just that the mostly dirt road is pretty carved up so you have to go slowly and by the time you arrive you and all of your bags are a light reddish brown because of all the dust. The village has apparently been in the same general location for 200 years so I think the national forest came second and has thus allowed the Karen to stay. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The villagers practice rotational agriculture which, although it involves burning fields before planting (called "swidden" agriculture) seems pretty darn sustainable. (Remember we're studying sustainable agriculture this month?) They plant a field for one year and let it lie fallow for eight. They can feed themselves off of the food they grow in those fields (which are on the sides of steep mountains and a lot of work to get to and to farm) as well as what they grow in their vegetable gardens (a relatively recent addition to the village food system). Actually, the food distribution in the village is really interesting. It seems mostly communal, as in you help plant and harvest what you will need and give 10% of what you harvest to a community stockpile (from which a few families purchase their food, for example the school teacher whose husband has a job other than farming and so doesn't harvest anything). The Karen in this village converted from their old animist religion to Christianity sometime between 20 and 40 years ago (which is when missionaries, both Thai and American, started to show up in the village) and we wonder if this 10% business is some form of a tithe because it seems the money from purchased stored food goes to the church. Fascinatingly, a man named Pati Saju with whom Robin and Sandy are staying and who speaks some English said that they converted to Christianity because it was much easier than their animist beliefs which required them to go make all sorts of offerings in the fields. Someone else seemed to think that Christianity was better because they didn't have to "make up" new spirits. Huh. Anyway, they have informal church on Wednesday nights and then more formal church (meaning in the church as opposed to someone's house and not meaning that small screaming children are not constantly present) all day on Sundays. My family has among its few possessions a Bawkinyal translation of the bible. (Before you go "Bawkin-what?" just read on a little…I couldn't be bothered to compose and better order this description because everything seems so interconnected and the information you are getting has been gathered in bits and pieces and in no logical order at all…apologies.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Karen, or at least the Karen in Ban Huay Hee because I'm beginning to gather that they aren't a particularly unified ethnic group, speak a language called Bawkinyal or, in Thai, Pasaa Karen which is what I call it because that is what my host mother, Viluhvuh (that's sort of how it sounds and not at all how it's spelled), calls it. The younger Karen speak Thai, but the elders (aka people in their forties and fifties) mostly don't. No one speaks more than a few words of English accept apparently Pati Saju. (I discovered today that the people I've seen a documentary about on the National Geographic Channel or something whose women put metal rings around their throats that weight down their shoulders and elongate their necks are also Karen and live somewhere around here…The documentary said their village has gotten very touristy and I believe it –I discovered that they were near here and Karen because there were a ton of photographs on postcards being sold at a coffee shop we stopped in at and they were called the "Long Neck Karen of Mae Hong Son"…Now I'm really curious about the history of the Karen people…I think they're from Burma originally because their script apparently pretty closely resembles Burmese script… I'll look it up on Wikipedia…)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, to the housing situation. It varies. Most of the houses are made primarily from bamboo with woven bamboo walls and bamboo floors over wooden crossbeams. Not whole, round bamboo, though. It's as if it's been chopped down and cut lengthwise such that it sort of unrolls into a scored sheet that is still connected and then left to dry. Once dry it's laid on the floor or used to weave some walls. It's beautiful and if the houses were spruced up and not located in a rural agricultural village they would be like bungalows at a swanky, secluded hotel. The general common structure is a room or two for sleeping and a room for the kitchen and one for storage. In between the two blocks of rooms is a little covered outdoor area for sitting or working or whatever. All the houses are different, though. One generalization I can make is that they are all raised, although some only a foot and others six or seven feet. My house, of course, doesn't follow the generalization at all. Or, I should say, my houses. Instead of having a kitchen segment and a sleeping segment, my family has a sleeping house and a cooking house across the road from each other (one main "highway" runs through the village, although the houses do go back from the street in one direction and have little side paths etc.) Our sleeping house is two rooms and made entirely from wood with a corrugated tin roof. It's elevated about 6 ½ feet off the ground so that it is basically a second story without a first and is not in any way pretty. Our kitchen house is also a second story without a first. The floor is wood, but the walls are bamboo and the roof is made of dried palm leaves. I have a feeling this house is older and the living one relatively new. The older one is much prettier. Under the kitchen house the family keeps its chickens. (Oh yes, we're back in the land of the 4am rooster crow). There doesn't seem to be a garden, nor does my mother seem to gather firewood so again, I'm living with an anomaly that no one can quite explain. Behind the kitchen house is the bathroom hut. It's a room (on ground level) about the size of a twin bed with a cement floor , bamboo walls and a tin roof. There is a tap to fill a bucket from which you can take bucket baths (there is running water in Ban Huay Hee due to what I think must be a gravity based system built through what I assume was a government project) and a blue porcelain squat toilet in the floor (this I know came from a government project). It's really quite nice. A big step up from my Bua bathroom (although other people in Bua had eco-toilets and so aren't quite as thrilled) although I think I prefer bathing in the Rio to bucket bathing. It's easier, although to be fair it does involve more pesticides and the danger of poisonous snake bites. The only problem with the bathroom is that it is WAY to far away to brave the journey in the middle of the night and that after dark I'm afraid to go in anyway because of the creepy crawlies that come out. The first night I saw a centipede that I think was poisonous (apparently a lot of them here are and they sting and it hurts) and the second night the eight eyes of a giant black spider glinted in the light of my headlamp. Since then, though, it's been alright. My wildlife encounters have been fully manageable. Fingers crossed. (Zach, on the other hand, was attacked by a spider he says was the size of his hand when it fell out of his mosquito net one night as he unfurled it to set up his bed. He finally got it outside of the safe perimeter of the tucked in net and the next night, as he was being tormented by it's skittering around the floor, one of the family cats came out of nowhere, pounced and ate it…so no more spider!)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was given, I'm pretty sure, the room my family normally sleeps in. Most people were, I think. There is a king sized pad on the floor and a king sized square mosquito net (in a dashing bright teal) to go over it. (This square mosquito net thing is GENIOUS! I feel super cozy and protected from creepy crawlies once inside and since I'm sleeping on the floor I can actually tuck it in so that it functions, unlike in Bua…although the bright pink net with wire and mesh butterflies attached that Isabel and I had in Bua may have made the superior bed net fashion statement…seriously though, I kind of want one for college…it makes it feel like you have your own little cozy space. I wonder how I can explain the need for a bednet in Providence…hmm). I keep my stuff mostly in my bags so as to be neat and also because when I arrived I was pretty convinced that I had more stuff in my bags than they have in their two houses combined. Now I don't think that's true – I've seen all the laundry my mother has done – but I still feel better keeping the room at empty looking as possible as that seems to be the aesthetic of all the rooms. Stuff they do have is kept in big plastic bins so that if a bunch of people come over nothing needs to be moved. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So Ban Huay Hee does have running water, but, you ask, does it have electricity? Well, yes, sort of. Each house or building (so the school is included, as is the "salaa," our open air meeting area) is equipped with a solar panel. The government came in and set them up four or five years back because there is no chance that this village will end up on the actual electric grid pretty much ever. Most families use the electricity from the solar panels to put a little fluorescent light in each room and to power a small TV. No one has a refrigerator or an electric stove. In fact, no one has a stove. Cooking over an open fire is still the method du jour. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So that brings us to food. I don't want to give too much away, because one of the media projects this month is a movie about following a meal, but basically all kitchens contain a wok, a pot, a teapot and a stand to put them on under which a fire can be built. The kitchen in my family's house also has a bucket that can be filled with coals and used as a warmer or have a fire built inside so you can cook something over that as well. Most kitchens seem to have the cooking area in the middle over which is a bamboo structure of one or two levels that functions as a shelving unit. In our kitchen, the cooking area is in the corner (the rest of the room is empty) and there is no bamboo shelving. There is a wooden shelf in an adjacent corner and a few plastic bags hanging from nails that function as food storage bins, knife holders or trash bags as the need arises. Meals are basically white rice and a side or two. What happens is this: each person is given their own bowl of white rice and the communal dishes (in my house usually chopped lettuce with some pieces of meat stir fried together or some form of egg – boiled, fried, scrambled, omletted – often including tomato and onion) are placed in the middle. You take one spoonful of a communal dish at a time and eat it with your rice. I mostly eat with my family, although my father was away for several days and my mother would always make me eat first because I'm a guest and then she and my little brother would eat what was left over (which I'd try to make sure was plenty without being insultingly too much). A lot of TBBers, however, are brought together for every meal and served separately from the rest of their families. I've only done that twice and while it's nice to get to sit and talk during a meal instead of sitting in silence with your host mother watching you eat, it is cool that I get to spend most meals as family time. A balance is best, I think, not that I have any control over the matter. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which brings me right to the issue of daily schedules or lack thereof. One of the hardest things for me about living in Ban Huay Hee is that I never know what I'm doing until I've already done it. It didn't take us very long to realize that we wouldn't be doing much farming. At first we were told it was because there were soldiers in the woods because the Queen is coming to Mae Hong Son (which is true) but it turns out that it is the dry season smack in between the November/December harvest and the late February burn during which very little farming is going on. (We have this great article in our reader from our partner program ISDSI about farming in hilltribe villages that talks about how the Karen eat basically just rice and about how in January no one farms…Unfortunately, no one told us about the no farming thing ahead of time…ah well). We did visit the old field, which was neat, but that's about the extent of our farming. (This is, fankly, fine with me…I'm not really in the mood to farm on a steep steep hillside…it just doesn't sound like my kind of thing). So what do we do during the day? Well, one day I went to collect leaves from the forest which we then ate for lunch and another day my mom taught me to string a loom. The Karen are master weavers, but my mom, in another anomaly, doesn't seem to weave nearly as much as other mothers do. Actually, to be fair, it's not really unexplained. I assume it's the presence of a fiendish two-year old son that prevents her weaving. It certainly prevented her teaching me to weave. A lot of people, though, spend the mornings weaving cloth or, in the case of boys, watching girls weave cloth or maybe helping to weave a basket. In the afternoons we have Thai class from 1:30 to 3:00 (although we just lost one of our two teachers to back problems and a dislike for rural areas…you see, initially we'd be going to a village called Meh Ta which apparently is flat not hilly, involves sleeping in beds not on the floor, has all sorts of vehicles going through and even has showers instead of bucket baths…it sounds "rural" along the lines of Shaxi not Ban Huay Hee and while it sounds like a really nice place to be, I'm glad we're in a rural village without the quotation marks because it's somewhere I probably wouldn't have found on my own or stayed in for three weeks…anyway, that is the location Ajan Gope signed up to teach in and so she's not coming back with us to Ban Huay Hee on Sunday)…Wow, tangent, sorry. So we have Thai from 1 to 3 and then seminar until 4:30ish. Dinner is 5:30ish and then I've taken to heading to the salaa and playing cards for an hour or so. Then writing, reading etc and bed. Up at 6. Well, now I get up more like 7ish (it started at 6 because that's what my family told me the first night and I followed orders for about three days before I started shifting to later) and some TBBers get up at 9…it depends on you and on your family. Then again, sometimes I'm up at 4 thanks to the cold and the roosters and some sort of cat fight always seems to wake me up around midnight…Anyway, I like to be up early and head to the kitchen while my mother is there cooking and sit with her and play with the family cat. (This cat, by the way, is orange and white and adorable and I love him. I named him Cat so as not to get too attached and also after the cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's. And I've gotten the family to be substantially less cruel to him mostly because of my involuntary horror at the hitting, kicking and pulling of tails that was going on -mostly on the part of my little brother…still, Cat is no replacement for Mystery and Honey whom I miss dearly.) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, it seems I have yet to actually describe my host family. My mother, Viluhvuh, is, I think, 27 next month. She told me 26 and then 25 but I found her passport in my room and it says her birthday is February 22, 1982. It also says she went to Canada in 2003 which, although it explains the fact that she has a passport, is rather mysterious seeing as it seems that no one else in the village has been as far as Burma. I can't exactly ask her about it, though, because of a, the language issue and b, the fact that I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>probably should not have been looking at her passport in the first place even if she did leave it out in my room. Anyway, her husband, she told me, is 22. He could be 18 he looks so young. He's really sweet and always smiles and he has one of the best smiles in the world as does my little brother. This brings me to my little brother, aka the devil child. You think I'm exaggerating don't you? Oh, oh I am NOT. Other TBBers will confirm that it is entirely possible that this kid is Rosemary's Baby. He hits not only the cat with sticks but his mother. And he kicks her. And he throws tantrums ever 2 seconds when he doesn't get what he wants. And these are calculated tantrums…you can see the thought process. And when he does something bad he smiles mischievously as if he knows he won't be punished. He won't be. And he's filthy and he drools everywhere and he spits on my and put his open mouth full of food on my leg so that I now have a giant spit stain circle on it. And he periodically wets his pants and even when he doesn't he just takes them off because he doesn't seem to much like the idea of pants so that about 50% of the time he's running around half naked. I'm not complaining so much as endeavoring to explain the horror that is my little host brother. Anyway, I couldn't figure out why my host mother let him be such a terror until I interviewed her for my media project (which I'll explain next). The first question was basic. What's your name, how many kids do you have, when were you married etc. She started crying. It turns out, she had another child that died. I don't know how or when (we haven't done the full translation yet but I have a feeling she doesn't say) but the wound seems pretty raw. I think this explains not only her overindulgence of the devil child but also the fact that I don't often end up at meals with other TBBers, that she doesn't eat very much and that she doesn't seem to do anything during the day except for cook and hang out with her son. It may also explain the visit to Canada, although I sort of doubt it since in 2003 her husband was 17 or 18…but then, Katie C's host mom had her first kid at 18 so it's not impossible. Anyway, I've tried to be more tolerant of my little brother, but he was so horrible one night that I think she actually decided that she would make him behave better, at least towards me, and in the last two days he's been infinitely more tolerable. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So media projects. I am a FAN of how we organized them this month. We got ourselves into groups based on ideas for topics and creative use of media so we will come out with 6 projects this month instead of 4. All of the projects sound fabulous. In only a few weeks you'll get to listen to a rap about sustainable agriculture, watch a video tracing a meal in Ban Huay Hee, read a short story about becoming sustainable, hear a song about cultural values while watching a photo montage, view a sort of stop-motion animation project and watch three women from the village tell their own stories. Except the projects are all much much much cooler than my pathetic summary just made them sound. The last one, though, is the one my group (which is me, Katie C. and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Alexandra) is doing. We're interviewing our host mothers about their roles in their homes and in the fields and how the village is changing. So far we're two down, one to go. The interviews with my mom and Katie's mom have been incredible. The last one though, which we're supposed to be doing Monday (although scheduling in Ban Huay Hee is near to impossible), could be the best yet and will definitely be the most difficult. It's Alexandra's mom. She's part of the older generation (aka she's 48) and speaks no Thai (and doesn't read in any language) so we'll have to do a double translation from Bawkinyal to Thai and Thai to English. She's a really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">really</i> cool woman (I've hung out with her and I can tell, despite the fact that neither of us has any idea what the other is actually saying) and we're all really excited. So you all should be excited to see our media projects from this month…I think they'll be the best yet by far. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">A quick aside: this media project really makes me (and Katie and Alexandra too I think) really want to interview my own family so all of you who count yourselves as part of that group had better watch out come May. I may be lurking in your living room with a voice recorder or video camera, armed with a packet of questions…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So we've been studying sustainable agriculture this month which frankly I was not particularly interested in last August and have become increasingly interested in as the year has progressed, particularly this month. I know I already recommended <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Omnivore's Dilemma</i> (read it!) and the documentary called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Future of Food</i> (watch it!) but I'm back to recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Fast Food Nation</i> (the book, although apparently there is also a movie). A few interesting or just plain terrifying facts I've learned from this book (which I've not quite finished yet) include:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Each head of cattle needs 30 acres of pasture for grazing (this sounds extreme to me and I'm not sure what kind of pasture they're referring to or what "need" is…can anyone elaborate?)</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>The suicide rate among ranchers and farmers in the U.S. is three times the national average</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>A 1995 survey showed that the typical "grower" (chicken farmer) had been raising chickens for 15 years, owned 3 poultry houses (each holding 25,000 birds and costing about $150,000 to build), remained deeply in debt and earned about $12,000 a year</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>A medium coke at McDonalds that cost $1.29 (circa I think 2003) contained exactly 9 cents worth of syrup…Soda has the highest profit margin for fast food restaurants</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>The typical U.S. kid spends 21 hours per week watching TV…that's 1 ½ months of the year (!)</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Every month, 90% of American kids between 3 and 9 years old visit a McDonalds.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Every year, roughly ¼ of U.S. meatpacking workers (about 40,000 people) suffer an injury or work-related illness that requires medical attention beyond first aid…and thousands of additional injuries and illnesses go unreported</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Meatpacking plants today process up to 400 cows per hour (that's a cow every 10 seconds) as compared to 175 per hour 20 years ago and 50 per hour in the meatpacking heyday in Chicago closer to the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>The USDA buys the cheapest (and so worst) meat to serve in school lunch programs.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>After an outbreak of E. coli linked to Jack in the Box restaurants in 1993, Dr. Russell Cross, the head of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said, "the presence of bacteria in raw meat, including E. coli 0157:H7 [the particularly harmful and potentially fatal strain], although undesirable, is unavoidable, and not cause for condemnation of the product." </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our seminars have been really interesting this month, too. Talking about organics and whether or not vegetarianism is more sustainable. I fully intended to write about our discussions and my thoughts on them, but this blog has gotten absurdly long and I have to go take advantage of being in a city so I'm not going to, at least right now. Read those books and watch those documentaries and we'll talk when I get back…I think this is a topic I'll be interested in for a long time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">One last thing: Mae Hong Son, while touristy, is really nice. Small, manageable…if you're ever in Thailand you should come here and then spend a night or so in Ban Huay Hee. (I didn't even get around to mentioning the fact that they have a Community Based Tourism industry there so you could absolutely do a homestay).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">That's all for now. Keep keeping me posted on your lives…I read ALL the emails with pleasure :-)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Duhblu(t) and Sawatdee-ka </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Those are both hello and goodbye…)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Becca</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-66109627428437584372009-01-18T06:22:00.000-08:002009-01-18T07:57:37.828-08:00I Slaughtered A Pig Today And Other Stories<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Hey there! This timely update brought to you by the Committee of Neces</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">si</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">ty, as in, I need to write now because I most likely won’t be able to for the next three weeks. So here I am. Let’s get going:</span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">We’ll start with </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">a Thai geography lesson. Below is (if I can get one to upload) a map of Thailand.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Just kidding. I can't. Here's a reasonably good one: </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">http://www.visit-thailand.info/images/maps/road-map-of-thailand.gif</span></span></o:p></p><!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">We started off our time in Thailand on Koh Tao, an island that is, I believe in the mouth of the elephant that is Thailand (a little South of Bangkok) From there we went to Chiang Mai which is in the Northwest of the country (the elephant’s right ear). UHDP, where we are now, is about three hours outside of Chiang Mai – I think to the North. We were going to go do</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> homestays in a village called Mei Ta (I’m SURE that is spelled incorrectly so I wouldn’t try to find it on a map)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> which is an hour and a half outside of Chiang Mai in a different direction. The thing was, we found out last week that since the village was so busy this time of year, we’d be paired up </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">for homestays and there would even be two groups of three (which seems like quite a large burden on a rural family, but that’s how the village wanted it). I was kind of glad to have a homestay sibling – I just feel more comfortable with another foreigner around with whom to exchange looks of confusion or try to put together an intelligible sentence in Thai – but no one else seemed particularly thrilled, least of all our fearless leaders who’d thought we’d all have our own homestay families. Two days ago, an opportunity arose to have homestays in a different village. In this village there are so many families that want us to stay we may have to switch in the middle of our three</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> weeks there…we’ll see. This village is six hours outside of Chiang Mai to the WNW, close to the Burmese border. The nearest big city is Ma</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">e Hong Son which we’ll stopover in tomorrow night to stock up on warm clothes. It’s chilly here! It’s two hours up to the village from there in some sort of off-road vehicle (at least, that’s the impression I got since it’s also faster to get down than to go up…)</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The village, by this point you’ve probably realized that I’m not withholding the name for purposes of suspense so much as that I don’t know what it is, apparently has orchid farms that are in bloom as well as an old weaving culture. We’ll be helping our families on their vegetable farms starting quite early in the morning through lunch, then returning for an hour and a half of Thai class (so far, our teachers are fabulous, fun and I may actually be learning some Thai) and a seminar or other educational activity. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">There are 121 families in the village (or something like that) so we sho</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">uld be fairly close together (they may have been trying to make me feel better about not having a homestay buddy…no one has actually been to this village yet). There’s no electricity, I’ve heard, although we’ll have some solar powered generators to charge camera batteries or computer</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">s (which can be used soley for media project work this month). Ipods are a no go as is, clearly, internet. During our independent student travel weekend, I might go to Mae Hong Son or even Chiang Mai for a warm shower and some contact with the world. Otherwise, you’ll hear from me sometime in early to mid February. We have an epic two day journey from our village to S. Africa. Get this: drive to Chiang Mai, fly to Bangkok, to Delhi, to Mumbai, to Dubai to Capetown to somewhere else in S. Africa and then drive two hours to our final destination. This includes two 7 or 8 hour layovers. Luckily, we’re all fans of layovers (Sandy loves that she gets to say: “Good news! A seven hour layover!”) and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">we have several airplane lovers. Frankly, it’s beginning to feel weird to be out of airports for more than a few</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> weeks at a time. </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The point is, though, that there will likely be internet in those airports and plenty of free time.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">So what have we been up to here at UHDP? What IS UHDP? Why am I asking myself questions? Anyway. U</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">HDP stands for Upland Holistic Development Project. It seems to be basically an organic farming and agroforestry experimentation and outreach center. It was started by an American but has since been handed over and is headed by locals. It works with fourteen villages in the surrounding area, encouraging sustainable agricultural practices. There is a volunteer in ea</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">ch village that will implement UHDP’s newest (pre-tested) ideas and give a demonstration to other community members. The concept seems to be working pretty well.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">We’re staying in one room with a bunch of bunk beds for the girls and one adjoining room of the same size for the boys. Keep in mind there are 5 boys and 9 girls. We’re noticing a trend: the boys get showers and we don’t, they get refrigerators and we don’t…we’re not seriously complaining, but it is rather funny that they care substantially less than we do about things like bathing and keeping cold yogurt in the room and yet get easier access to both :-)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Alright, now some chronological order is called for.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 1 at UHDP: Tour. We walked through the plant nursery, the pig pens and the agroforest. (Unfortunately, I always seem to end up on forest walks with no prior notice and am never appropriately dressed…in Bua I believe I fell flat on my bottom twice—it may have been three</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> times…this time my skirted and flip-flopped self only ate it once—it was less muddy.)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 2: We started the day off (after our 7:30 am breakfast which I think is soon to sound like downright sleeping in) with our first real Thai class. Here’s a crash course in case you get trapped in Thai Town or want to show off at your next cocktail party:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Hello = sawatdee ka (if you, the speaker, are a woman) or sawatdee krap (if you, the speaker, are a man)…the t/d is a common sound, as is the b/p – our teachers notate them as (s)t and (s)p, as in the t or p sound after an s.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Delicious = aroy</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Spicy = pet</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">I’m full = im laew</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Sorry/Excuse me = kaw toat (with this one, you also wai, which is a bow with your hands together in prayer position…there are a seemingly endless variety of wais depending on t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">he situation, but we were told it would be alright for us farangs – foreigners – to stick with one basic bow)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">There you go! Now you too are on your way to speaking Thai. At least you have the important words. </span></span></p><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyzSdTz3h51embdREsuxXz6zZ9AFGYx360XVkSoMdOiEndPYdQDMoRSj_6Mw3naPlDgNy9E4QfFiBuLau21tmEcLN8UGbIHvk_7GaOumJjGYTLNPwh5ec4fG_y-JEhlwF1wgk6xLBdUbM/s320/IMG_3429.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292646694550002338" /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, after class we had a seminar looking at the values our families place on food – there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on convenient and fast. No surprise there.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">In the afternoon we split into two groups. One went to learn about plant propagation and the other went to learn about composting. I was in the composting group. We first chopped down a banana tree (they only give banana’s once and then you have to chop them down to make room for the new upshoots). We carried it over to the composting area and helped to chop it up. Some of the pieces were mixed with molasses and put in a jar to ferment for six days at which time it would be fed to the pigs. (Apparently the fermentations adds 10% more protein). Other pieces were mixed with more molasses and left to ferment for a month. This mixture would be combined with water and added to the compost pile to speed up the decomposition process (it’s basically a bottle of bacteria…there is a commercial organic chemical that is used for the same purpose but made of fermented fruits sold under the name EM, which stands for something micro-organisms)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">. Our next project was collecting dried pig dung to add to dried leaves and old thatch roofs in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">the compost pile. Finally, we made an organic pesticide by chopping up a root related to ginger, cintronella and nim leaves, pounding them together and dipping them in water much like a giant tea bag. Not bad for an afternoon’s work.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMw6jycmp2H9e8GbdfR8VDvxkAvz_5LvXgPHkwVMpgM6zYAOXyIHxZU1WxRmzFuDQ9huWErNiivZi3X6jW5Nfu-zL3ox_p1OtRSs7xR8XwXGHXm8J8DGb7dvVQxoT_fKJkP4yDBe8yJIo/s320/IMG_3456.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292655099934116210" /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 3: We had breakfast, Thai class and seminar (this time on how farming became unsustainable which was very interesting and led to a pretty philosophical discussion that I personally really enjoyed, although I know some people are not such fans of the very abstract). Our afternoon was occupied by a plant identification survey, or rather, a more thorough tour of the agroforest, stopping to identify and discuss about fifteen different plants. It was pretty interesting and quite bitter (I’m referring to taste, as we ate almost every plant we stopped at). It’s strange to think how most people today, especially city-dwellers, really know very little about plants and flowers etc. I can recognize maybe 15 types of flowers, some trees, a few plants and of course some fruit trees and other California agricultural products, but nothing that would allow me to survive in the forest. Then again, as that situation probably won’t present itself any time soon, those are brain cells I could be and am using for something more useful (like how to upload</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> photos or download podcasts).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">After dinner (have I mentioned that the food here I delicious? Well, it is. AND we wash our own dishes which makes it feel kind of homey) we watched a movie called </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The Future of Food</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">. To be fair, it was rather one-sided, but it was fascinating and terrifying and, I think, worth watching (right after you watch The Corporation that is).</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Did you know, for example, that 90% of the vegetable varieties grown in 1900 are extinct? That it is only recently that living things are allowed to be patented? That any farmer’s crops that accidentally incorporate the DNA of genetically modified plants become the property of the company that owns the patent for that plant DNA? Have you considered what will happen if the “terminator gene” (the so-called “suicide gene” that causes plants to produce infertile seeds so that farmers will need to keep buying seeds from see</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">d companies) outcrosses and contaminates other farmers’ crops? I hadn’t. Now I have. Now I’m more than a little freaked out.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 4 – The Day of the Pig Slaughter: After breakfast we headed down to clean the pig pens. We scooped out the poo, swept out the dust, sprayed the floors with a hose, sprinkled on a cleaning chemical, scrubbed it around with a stiff broom and rinsed. When I say we, I mean various individual volunteers – there were only three little pens, after all. After learning a little more about pig feed and how pig farming here works (including the fun fact that the Buddhist communities around here prefer black pigs and black chickens because there is a goddess that favors them so UHDP gives it’s reddish brown piglets (I saw no pink ones) to the Christian communities) we headed to a sunny spot to hear Apat, a member of the Pulong minority who ha</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">s worked at UHDP for 11 years, and a younger worker here, a member of the Lahu minority</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">, explain their communities’</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> respective pig slaughter rituals. I say this a lot, I know, but it was really interesting, particularly the differences between the two cultures. One community slits the pig’s throat, the other hits it on the head and stabs its heart. It seems that pig slaughters are mostly for special occasions. For more minor occasions or religious offerings people tend to kill chickens.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">After lunch, it was time. We went down to an open field behind a cement-floored area with a corrugated tin roof. There was a cage with a really cute sleeping pink pig. It had just arrived; it hadn’t been raised at UHDP. None of the UHDP pigs were of slaughtering age yet (or they were too old). We watched as two men tied rope around each of the pigs hind legs so that it coul</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">dn’t run far when the cage was opened. Ajan Tui (Too-ee…not that I’m spelling it right anyway) instructed Zach in the proper place to stab the pig to get the heart and kill it quickly (Zach was our designated pig slaughterer), then they opened the cage. One man bludgeoned the pig on the head as it ran out. It fell immediately and started twitching violently. It didn’t squeal. I think it had been knocked out and was seizing, but I can’t be sure.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">He hit it two or three more times with a dull thud. I couldn’t watch. The sound of a wooden club on bone was gruesome enough. Four designated pig holders (some TBB students and some drawn from other visitors or interns here) rushed forward to grab the twitching legs and lifted the pig onto the bamboo and wood table </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">where Zach was ready with a knife and Liz with a metal pot for collecting the blood. He stabbed the heart, opening up a slit about four inches long along the pig’s chest, and the blood gushed out and into the waiting pot. After a while, someone grabbed the pig’s hind legs and lifted them in the air, allowing more blood to drain out.</span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">From there the pig was carried over onto the cement floor, covered with a blanket (Ajan Tui: “Go to sleep, little pig”), and bathed in scalding water to loosen the hair and top layer of skin (I think). The body was uncovered, a second large knife or machete was brought out and we began scraping off the hair two by two. After a few more boiling baths and a lot of scraping, the pig was returned to the bamboo table and we were instructed to stand back. A few Thai men grabbed what looked like large dried palm leaves or old pieces of roof thatch, set them on fire and began to bat the pig carcass with them, searing of the extra hair and then burning through a layer or two of skin. Some minutes later, after scraping off the burnt bits and hosing the carcass down, one</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> man cut off a strip of skin and the underlying layer of fat and offered it around to eat. I decided that I would likely not butcher a pig ever again so I should try everything. Seared pig skin? Fatty…a chewy layer and then just fatty. Not my favorite.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, then they began to slit the body open down the center of its stomach. One man pulled out two handfuls of congealed blood that I swear looked exactly like cherry jell-o and then some scoops of more watery blood, all of which went into the blood pot, except, of course, for what we drank. What? Drank? Blood? Oh, yes. Many people cook a dish called Lap with pig’s blood, but you can also drink it fresh and it was offered so, according to my earlier decision, I had to try it. Katie R. and Zach both went for it, scooping out a palmful and sipping from their hands like someone drinking water from a spring. I dipped a finger in and licked off the blood. Several</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> others did as well. Shockingly, it tasted like blood. Salty. Watery. I only had a little, so it was basically like sucking on a bad paper cut.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Once the remaining blood was drained, the innards were collected in a plastic bin (actually, come to think of it, it was exactly like the one I just used to wash my clothes…), the head was cut off and the body chopped into two halves. We were all offered a slice of fresh kidney. It basically tasted like fat. John really liked it. I’m not so much a meat person (read: until this trip hadn’t eaten anything mammalian in six years) so I wasn’t such a fan. The body and head were then carried up towards the kitchen for further butchering. Everyone was told to follow to help chop ribs, cut loin etc. except for three people who should stay to help clean the innards. I volunteered for that job. I figured cutting meat was a much less novel experience than cleaning the small intestine</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> of a freshly killed pig.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">So how does one clean the intestine of a pig? Or any intestine for that matter? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I now know. You cut the small intestine into sections of manageable length, then run water through it to flush out all the gunky fluorescent greeny-yellow liquid inside. (After this you can put it in a pot to boil or throw in on a grill). For the large intestine, you cut it into two or three pieces (as opposed to about eight for the smaller, longer one) and squeeze out the chu</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">nks of what would soon become poo. Then you rinse and, if you’re feeling fancy, turn it inside out and back again to make sure it’s extra clean. This part is really quite fun. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">You think I’m kidding. I’m not.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, when we were done cleaning and grilling the innards, I headed up to catch the end of the chopping…it was choppy. Katie R took to the butcher knife like a fish to water :-) And, in conclusion, f</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">or the last seven meals we have had some form of pork. I’m not a huge pork person, but there is always something else incredibly delicious (like tonight, for example, pumpkin curry…mmm!)</span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0PslFXHXcPgyo5ZnCp1DlMpUeVkHvBFuQDO2vA4UXq970Vxz6AuLXW5KXp3Jd1JbPLirsP0NHIVSqVfH7K4lUFvj82CeVI-v1IQA8WoTBKvc5D0Wk-hvaSP9p3Rm66kITBeANPxFpW-w/s320/IMG_3733.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292650525883395106" /></span></span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 5: Immediately after breakfast we hopped in the backs of two trucks (but they had a sort of shell over them and benches, so it’s half car, half back of truck…the doorway out the back has no door and all the dust still gets in) and headed to a Pulong village about thirty minutes away to attend the wedding of a man who works at UHDP. It was amazing that they allowed 25 foreigners to just show up and join in. We arrived at the bride’s house just as the parade from the groom’s house in the next village over was turning the corner. The costumes reminded me a lot of one of the traditional outfits we saw in Shaxi, I think it was the Yii people, but it may have been the Tibetans, which was really interesting because in China we talked a lot about the ethnic minorities (because half of China’s ethnic minorities live in Yunan, the province we were in and</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> because Sam was really interested in them) and how most of them cross borders between Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Southern China. Anyway, we took off our shoes and moved into the dark main room of the house. It was very crowded, but people eventually moved and most of us got to sit down and watch as the bride and groom had their hands tied together with string and then as guests approached with 20 baht bills (about 66 cents), placed the bill in their joined palms and wrapped the string around once more. Some of us even gave some money and wrapped the string. The bride didn’t look terribly happy, but she may have just been nervous. When she had to grab a bill out of the groom’s mouth with her own she giggled embarrassedly before making an attempt. Although marriages are still sometimes arranged in the community and the bride was 20 while the groom was 30, this marriage, we were told, was a love match. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">After the ceremony, we went back outside to let the local guests have room to eat, but, before we could walk away for our tour of the village, we were told we had t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">o eat something; it’s bad luck for guests to attend a wedding and then not eat anything. Sandy reminded us not to eat too much because there are a lot of us and they probably didn’t prepare enough food for 25 extra people, but the food was delicious and some TBBers couldn’t help themselves. I just had a bite of rice, but I heard that the rest was delicious which bodes well for our homestays.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt83hjw3FTtZSmTW00rVyHK3mxKgO2ZLVgKd2GxPy12BivrQafernXmncKVrNyFRBn-To3cCCE4HvZZnVs7sDA30WlieNr2RfvIDLBmTwz5qkXtDvr4IZbi7Aeln1jDJRdvzckSrfVtz0/s320/IMG_3879.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292655104790345410" /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">After the wedding we took a tour of the tiny village, one of those that UHDP is working with. The entire village has been built on borrowed land. It belongs to the forestry department and when these Pulong fled Burma 35 years ago they were allowed to settle here to plant trees in the surrounding area. Now they must live with the constant threat of being moved away. If the forestry department wants them to leave, they have to leave. Part of what UHDP is trying to help them with is making sure that the people in the village get Thai citizenship. Those living here for more than 30 years or those born here are eligible and citizenship means that, among other things, higher education is free and hospital bills, no matter the actual cost, will always be 30 baht (about $1). Another thing UHDP has been encouraging is the cultivation of vegetable gardens to feed each family to sell surplus at the weekly organic market that began two years ago. They call this “backyard agriculture” and it seemed to be doing pretty well in this village. More than half of the fifty families had implemented the idea. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Day 6: Free day. That’d be today. I’ve been doing laundry, blogging and chillin’ out etc. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Tomorrow we leave early for our 9 or so hour drive to Mae Hong Son, stopping somewhere along the way to do a little last minute shopping. Then we head to our homestays. Important things to remember include: </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">1)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 1) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Check shoes for scorpions before putting them on.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">2)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 2) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">When you happen upon a snake, back away slowly. Their striking distance is not more than half their body length.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">3)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 3) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Dengue mosquitos bite during the day so always wear bug spray. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">4)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 4) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The head is sacred. Don’t touch anyone’s head. (This is harder than you’d think…at the wedding I had to try really hard to stop myself from patting the little boy next to me on the head).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">5)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 5) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The feet are very un-sacred. Don’t point the bottoms of your feet at anyone while sitting. This is a serious insult.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">6)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 6) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Don’t insult the king. Don’t even think about insulting the king. Don’t step on or kick any bills or coins because they depict the king.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">7)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 7) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">When walking by someone who is sitting down, say excuse me and duck.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">8)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 8) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Don’t leave rice on your plate. Try to serve yourself so that you get enough but not too much.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">9)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> 9) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Smile. But remember that Thai people smile to express joy, yes, but also embarrassment, confusion and even disagreement (as in "it's impolite to disagree with you so to save face for both of us I will just smile"). This is somewhat similar to smiling in the U.S., but I think here it's much more culturally ingrained.</span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Incidentally, Katie C. and I watched </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">The King and I </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">last night and it was really entertaining trying to understand the Thai and laughing at the various levels of cultural insensitivity. However, I thought that one of the women was beheaded and no one was, so now I have this vivid memory of a scene in which someone is hanged or beheaded off-screen in some musical that takes place in Asia and I don’t know what it’s from. If this rings a bell, please let me know.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">So, if you’ve made it this far, you may be interested in seeing pictures of UHDP or the pig slaughter or the wedding. Guess what? You’re in luck! I’m really on top of it and have ALREADY uploaded photos to Picasa! I know, right?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, that’s all for now. One more fun fact before I go: It’s now a very high compliment on TBB to tell someone, when they are doing laundry, that their clothes smell wonderful. I’m pretty sure we’re all going to have to readjust our time frame for changing clothes and showering when we get back home…then again, we’re going to college so maybe not :-P. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Signing off for a while (but still email me so that I can return to an inbox full of news!)</span></span></o:p></p><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Much love,</span></span></span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">Becca</span></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-63844829512736201912009-01-12T08:57:00.001-08:002009-01-12T09:16:32.333-08:00Getting Up-To-Speed<p class="MsoNormal">Hi there. Long time no see. My fault, sorry. Time just sort of…flew…<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In case you aren't in a reading mood and are just glancing at this, I'll note that I put up Vietnam pictures weeks ago (I think…but my sense of time has left me almost entirely) and forgot to mention it. That cool armadillo-y animal, since someone already asked me, is called a Pangolin and the photo was taken at an animal rescue center an hour or so outside of Ho Chi Minh. We <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">do</i> do things I don't have time to write about…or am I purposely leaving things out so you'll still want to meet up with me for coffee during my three week back-to-normal-life period in May? Hmmm…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So I'm not currently on the world wide web. I'm writing this in word and thus can't check to see exactly where I left off. I think I was in Quy Nhon, no? Probably before Chirstmas? I'll go from there:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Christmas was lovely. Delicious. Wonderful. All sorts of happy, upbeat, positive adjectives, in fact. We took a bus to a nice hotel about thirty minutes outside of Quy Nhon where there was a yum brunch buffet (waffles, an omelet bar, bread, cheese, and, of course, pho – but very fancy pho…that's pronounced "fuh" by the way…sort of). While we were eating (read: pigging out) Sandy gave us each a mysterious packet of paper tied in a red ribbon. It turns out she had emailed our parents and asked them to gather emails from family and maybe friends. My packet had messages from most everyone I care about (if it didn't have one from you don't be offended…I said MOST everyone now didn't I?) and many people whom I'd had trouble getting to respond to my emails. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Best. Present. Ever. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Seriously.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Incidentally, I'll take this moment for my usual reminder for those less correspondently inclined to please drop a line. Alright, I'm done nagging. You may continue reading.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, we had what may have been a conference room with a lot of chairs and a projector and screen in it to ourselves. It was right on the beach. It wasn't sunny, but hey, it is mid-winter…After eating, the first thing we did was the final installment of Secret Santa. Sandy had gotten gifts for Tram (Chum), Phat (Fat), and Vnang (Vuhnang) since they weren't Secret Santa-ing which was really sweet, and then we got down to business. You got one guess who your SS was and then they revealed themselves and gave their final gift. Then the SS guessed who had them and so on. I don't think I've ever seen so much happy in one room at one time. I would not have been at all surprised if someone opened a bag and out popped a rainbow accompanied by some butterflies and a smattering of flowers. My cheeks ached from smiling. I have the absolute best photos, the kind that make you smile just looking at the joy in them. Cheesy, cheesy, Becca. Moving on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After Secret Santa a bunch of us went outside to utilize our private section of the beach (while a few wandered off to the top in Vietnam spa for massages…their signature treatment involved burying you in the sand…). Some volleyball went down (not very well, but very fun) and then some of one of Beth's games that involved jumping on your partner when I, the humble overlord, called "birdie on a perch" – last pair with one person off the ground was out. There was some shell collecting and sand-castle building (both traditional Christmas activities right up there with building your very own Frosty) and then we went in for a movie. A Christmas classic: Baby Mamma. I've now seen it twice. It's funny, but twice is definitely enough. Happily, it cost me less than a dollar (5 kwai, in fact). </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So we had dinner, pretty darn good, and then, well, that was Christmas. All in all, it could have been a lot worse :-)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next day we got up early and were on the bus back to Ho Chi Minh by 7 or 7:30. This ride was infinitely shorter than the ride TO Quy Nhon. A zippy 15 hours or so. Sadly, my pants did not survive the trip. Sliding over in my seat, the fabric got caught on the seatbelt and, well, not and ideal situation…I did some skillful pants changing (I had a clothing bundle with me as a pillow) and life went on. I sewed the rip on my brown fisherman pants with teal thread (very badly, if I do say so myself) so now they resemble pants that a costumer would give to someone playing a Lost Boy. I think the look rather suits me. (What really is sad is that one of my two pairs of good farming pants, albeit the less good one, would shortly get sent to the laundry in our new guesthouse in Ho Chi Minh and not return…) </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now this is when time really starts to blur, so forgive me if the next section is a little fuzzy. I would refer back to my journal, but as far behind as I am on blogging, my journaling has been an utter disgrace. And I was so GOOD about it for the first two months, too! I finished my first journal exactly as we left Ecuador and began my second on the Inca Trail. That second journal has yet to be entirely filled. I'm quite ashamed…And I'm carrying around a third so it had better get used…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Basically, the weekend after Quy Nhon was Independent Student Travel and the time in which we had to finish media projects. Badly timed, to say the least. Media projects did not go particularly well for anyone this month as far as I can tell. My experience was particularly bad, I think, and has soured me on group projects, possibly forever since I've never been their biggest fan. To be fair though, no friendships were irrevocably harmed in the making of our project.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of our project…what IS it? Well, it's NOT Google Earth, if that's what you're thinking. In fact, it is saved on this computer under "Not Google Earth." I spent quite literally ten hours <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>over a day and a half figuring out how to work the darned program and making a little video where the world spins, focuses on Vietnam which flashes twice, then the borders appear, then disapear, then an outline of Vietnam appears and one by one the areas sprayed with Agent Orange are highlighted in Orange. Then it all disappears, zooms out, and the world spins again. I describe it in detail because no one will ever see it. It's not in our project. Frankly, it doesn't belong in what we ended up doing and I never thought we should put it in – it wasn't very pretty despite my best efforts and my hours spent tracing the Vietnamese border and free-handing the Agent Orange spray areas from maps I'd found online. So I thought I'd regale you all with a story of my hard-work to make myself feel better. And also to discourage any of you from ever EVER deciding Google Earth would be fun to play with. It is not. Do not be fooled. Do not be taken in. This still doesn't answer the original question though. What IS my group's media project? It is, basically, a podcast with visual emphasis. The fourth project, after video, podcast and writing, will be referred to as "mixed media" in the future – we were basically the test run for out-of-the-box media projects. All in all, I think it could have been better, but some bits are pretty cool. Worth watching, at least, and informative I hope. (And if the final anecdote sounds like something I would say it's because I did, but for narration purposes I switched with Renee…Actually, if you find my voice grating you may not want to watch/listen to our piece…Fair warning has been given). </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Did you catch how I said "test run for out-of-the-box media projects?" Of course you did. I know how you're hanging on my every word. Don't lie. Anyway, the idea is that our projects are getting stale. We're doing the same sort of thing every month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Apparently, this is not what our fearless leaders intended or, more likely, it is sort of what they intended but is no longer seeming like a good idea. Some people, like me, enjoy doing projects like this. Most people, however, some would call them "normal people," do not. So, supposedly, we're going to be creative this time around. A photo-essay, a radio-play, a rap song may actually be in the works! (You heard it here first). </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fun Fact: Best Worst Country Song Ever? "Something Like That" by Tim McGraw…I had to look up the name – I have only ever known it as "The Barbeque Stain on My White T-Shirt Song"…enticed now? (Sorry, I got sidetracked when it came on on my shuffle on iTunes…it's on the Top 50 mix I made…that's how wonderfully bad it is :-) We all decided to make Top 50 Song mixes to share…very few have actually gotten made since we decided this in, oh, November, but we have four months left so there's time yet).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There were trials and tribulations, but the media projects did manage to get done before the deadline of our "Student Environmental Conference" and the conference itself was miraculously planned (albeit the day before it was held…not my ideal time frame for this sort of thing). How did the conference go? It depends who you ask, I think. I tend to expect more and be slightly cynical (but you all know me) so I'd say it went. There were no hitches to speak of (after an early scare where the sound on our media project mysteriously would not work to the point where we had to get other speakers) but the overall result was…well, I'm not sure and I guess that's the point. It may have helped the Vietnamese students network. I certainly don't feel like much was really shared beyond the few presentations given by club leaders. My small break-out talk group didn't speak too much English. Someone (I'm not quite sure who) actually came down to us halfway through our 20 minutes to translate which was really helpful, but still, I came away more frustrated than enlightened. Katie C. said something that pretty much summarized it for me, basically: We can't understand them or make ourselves understood by them, so we come away thinking that these really very intelligent, earnest, well-informed Vietnamese college students who care enough about environmental issues to take three hours of their free-time up on New Year's Eve to chat about them don't have much to say…and they probably think the same about us. It's pretty near impossible to express complex socio-economic ecological ideas at what was, at best, a third grade communication level. Too bad, really. But ask someone else and they might not agree. Maybe I'm missing the point entirely. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So that happened. It was New Year's Eve so we went back to our guesthouse (a different one from the one we stayed in the first time in HCMC—which was actually where we held the conference—because, being a government guesthouse, it cancelled our reservations when it found out more important government guests needed the rooms…they weren't too far apart, though, and the second one allowed the girls to be in rooms of three instead of six and to have refrigerators (!!! Yogurt !!! Although, the fridge in my, Katie C. and Isabel's room had the temperature controlling knob broken off and was more like a freezer so I guess the correct parenthetical would be "!!! Frozen Yogurt !!!" which was actually quite good if it wasn't TOO frozen…the milk, though, was less good frozen, and the Diet Pepsi actually exploded, so set your refrigerator to icy at your own risk).). I must apologize for my rampant parentheticals. I did warn your it would be blurry…Images of frozen yogurt get interspersed with PowerPoint slides when you sleep too little…And you get a little snarky which I'm sure you've noticed by now…Sorry.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anway. New Year's Eve. Yes. We went to Rylan and his wife Hao's apartment for some champagne/sparkling juice depending on your preference (New Year's qualified as a "cultural experience" as far as alcohol consumption was concerned). We met a group of students there from St. Olaf's in Minnesota just beginning their time in Vietnam. They were nine girls spending a semester traveling around SE Asia plus their two leaders, a married couple of professors, and their two college aged sons who were joining them for the holiday season. They were all very nice. From there we all walked to a hotel in the touristy area where John and I had canvassed the restaurants. It had a massive buffet in the central courtyard as well as constant entertainment in the truest sense of the word: ballroom dancers, singers, competitive bar-tenders, a clown/magician, a scantily clad fire dancer…they had it all! And after midnight they had a hip-hop troop and four extra-scantily clad women who could really only have been strippers or Fifty Cent's backup dancers. The crowd of little girls watching was mesmerized. There was, however, a sign amongst all this high-end glamour that the financial crisis hit even Vietnam. Apparently this hotel's party usually goes from 9:00pm to 1:30am. This year it was 10:30 to 12:30. So, when the clock struck 12(.5), we mostly headed off with Phat and Tram to my third (count 'em!) Vietnamese club to booty-shake in 2009. Clubs in Vietnam apparently close at 1:30, though this one stayed open until 1:45 at which point we saw fit to head back to the guesthouse and fall into bed (or rather, shower off other people's sweat and THEN fall into bed). Not a bad way to ring in the New Year. We even got rained on by balloons at midnight which we then proceeded to stamp on in a scene oddly reminiscent of the groom stepping on the glass at a wedding. Don't worry though, it hasn't spoiled me for my tradition of late night movie marathons. I'm still a fan of that kind of New Year in-ringing as well :-)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now I have a piece of sad news that I don't quite know how to transition into so I'm just going to go for it. We lost Isabel on January 1<sup>st</sup>. She went home kind of unexpectedly. It's not really my business to share so I think I'll just leave it with the fact that she didn't do anything wrong and we were all very sad to see her go. We wish her the best, will keep in touch and hope to see her soon. Love you Isabel!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">For those of you keeping score, that's three down, one up. I say that only to point out that this year is fun, fascinating, a learning and growing experience, yes, but what it is not is easy. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After Isabel left (and Robin with her for a bit so we were down to sixteen total) we headed off for a week of beachiness in Thailand. We flew to Bangkok, then Koh Samui (a very touristy island off the coast…Liz looked it up and apparently there are 10,000 prostitutes on that ONE island…) where we stayed overnight in a very nice hotel by TBB standards with very, very comfy beds. Up early the next morning, we boarded a ferry to get to our ultimate destination, another island called Koh Tao. The man with the bloody bandage on his head and the guy on the stretcher attached to an IV coming off the boat were not good signs as to the quality of the ride. It lived up (or rather, down) to expectations. I do not get seasick. I really never have. Maybe once. But oh I was no match for this boat. The waves were absurd. I went to sit up top outside but was quickly cold and wet so I slipped into the "VIP" room for 50 baht (about $1.30) because it was close and easy to get to and there were seats available. This may have been my downfall. The tossing was much worse up high than it would have been below. People all around me started throwing up. My headphones had just broken so I couldn't turn my iPod up high – only the left side produced sound. I was fine until suddenly I wasn't. Luckily there was a guy whose job it was to hand out barf bags. I was then fine again. Until I wasn't. After that I just felt pretty gross. It didn't help that my bag got lost on the boat and we went to the hotel without it. My bags get lost so often though that I wasn't too worried. They always seem to find their way back. That boat company's bag system was horrendous though. I don't know the company's name or I would certainly tell you to avoid it. The boat ride back, which we all dreaded, was a different company. It was a single-hulled boat instead of a catamaran which should have made it less stable, especially since the waves were supposedly even worse than when we'd come, yet the ride was MUCH better. Whereas SIX TBBers lost their cookies on the way to Koh Tao, all cookies were thankfully kept on the way back. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We were supposed to get diving certified while on the beach. Our "dive resort" was really all dive and no resort which was a little disappointing, but the beachfront property was not to be argued with. Anyway, Emily and Dave were disqualified due to asthma (apparently honestly on medical forms is not always the best policy…a concept I'm still struggling to accept) and Alexis missed the course due to illness. I started it off and went on a dive the first day. It was fine, not too thrilling. Take it or leave it sort of. I did want to get certified, though. Still, I was so tired that I was just miserable spending all day in classes and on dive boats gearing up and then stripping it all off again, so I decided a day and a half in to our four day course that I would drop out. So there you have it, folks. I am a diving school drop-out (…hanging around the corner store…) Anyway, as much as it would be cool to be certified, for me it was a good decision. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I spent my week doing as little as possible. I read our assigned book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Omnivore's Dilemma</i>, by Michael Pollan, which I really enjoyed and highly recommend. It is, of all things, really WELL WRITTEN!!! Hooray! (I always knew I was picky about writing, but I now realize how thoroughly it affects my ability to enjoy reading something…) I really, REALLY, needed a break. A break from feeling like I need to take advantage of every second and a break from all the people I've been seeing every day and night for the last four months (we just celebrated our four month anniversary or, as it could also be known, our half way point).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As someone said to me, this isn't just a trip, it's our year. Frankly, I am not naturally someone who does best in group situations. I very much enjoy some solitude. I also live on a calmer, more sober emotional plane. Oh sure I get stupidly thrilled about things all the time, little things usually, but I don't generally go around being actively happy or excited all the time…I am very comfortable and content on my quiet emotional plane hanging out with small groups of people and the constant effort to be social and exuberant finally got to me I think. I just needed a break. So I took one. Good decision. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I feel much better, although four more months is still sounding simultaneously like a second and an eternity. I don't really consider myself much the homesick type, and I'm not homesick per se, but I wouldn't mind a week of a familiar neighborhood with familiar people who spoke a language that I understand and ate food I am familiar with. (The food in Thailand, though, is amazing, so I guess I'm ok with that, mostly). Frankly, I'd be happy to have a week in Bua again. Just a week of something like a place where I belong. This year has been a great experience so far and I'm sure I will continue to learn things about the world and myself, but it's getting a little harder for me to jump into new communities and new languages and customs. What's wonderful, though, is that all the hatred I built up associated with school has been relegated to the category where it belongs: Harvard-Westlake's version of school. It turns out, I quite LIKE school, much like I did through 9<sup>th</sup> grade. I miss having classes and books and schedules and extracurriculars or, rather, I miss how I imagine them to be at Brown. Experiential learning is useful and very intense, but I work well with books and I'm excited to get back to them. I feel like I'll fit really well in college. This year, TBB, is an invaluable and unbelievable experience, and I'm loving it, but it isn't something I could do for too much longer than I've signed up for. This is good realization. Now I'm not only excited about "college" but I'm excited again about school. Gap Year Objective 1: Check!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I've got to get on the internet to upload this in the next 8 minutes before they shut it off so I'll give a quick rundown of what I expect for this month.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We're in Thailand. We're studying Sustainable Agriculture (a solution oriented month sounds lovely). We are partnering with a program called ISDSI which, for people interested in serious experiential learning, has a really cool looking semester abroad program. We will adapt one month of that program for ourselves. We will spend the next week in some sort of community/sustainable farming school and then will spend three weeks in a community that has in the last few years switched to sustainable organic farming. We will have homestays there and we will help farm. ISDSI has worked with this community for 10 years and seems really to value some of the key things we decided way back in Costa Rica that NGO's should value but tend to forget. These include seriously partnering with a community instead of "going in" to one as well as the idea that the goal of an NGO should be to put itself out of business. The length of this partnership also means that the homestay experience might be smoother than say, in China. We will have Thai classes daily and should be reasonable communicative by the time we leave. Thai seems difficult. We'll see. I hope so.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, that's about it. Internet access is looking like a no, except possibly this week at the farm school or on weekends if we travel the 1.5 hours into Chiang Mai (which is where we are now, by the way). </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I miss and love you all,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Enjoy the inauguration for me!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">~ Becca</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> p.s. I just spend twenty minutes trying to put a few photos at the beginning of this post to entice you to look at my photos online, but it wouldn't work so, you know, feel enticed anyway?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-46694428439971150062008-12-23T19:57:00.001-08:002008-12-23T20:07:41.772-08:00Xin Chao and Happy Holidays!<p class="MsoNormal">Hello there!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm writing this at midnight in our hotel room in Quy Nhon, hoping to get the chance to upload it in the morning, so I don't have internet access to see where I left off last. I'll approximate. I can't fill everything in anyway; it's been a while and it's all pretty piece-meal. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Basically, this month has been a lot more like a series of field trips than anything else. Any sort of coherent project pretty much fell apart. Plans got changed last minute left and right. (Our plan for this week in Quy Nhon for example was originally to spend about 5 days composting, then 4, then 3, then half of Monday, all of Tuesday and half of Wednesday, then just half of Monday and all of Tuesday and then just Tuesday, at which time we ended up splitting into two groups, one visited a small composting facility in the morning and people resettled by the government away from beach shanty-towns in the afternoon while the other visited a larger composting facility in the morning and two small villages where ENDA, the NGO we're sort of partnered with, has implemented clean water projects in the afternoon.) We've had a lot of interesting environmental lectures, read books and watched documentaries. (I highly recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">An Inconvenient Truth, The Corporation</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Regret to Inform</i> – all documentaries – as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Cradle to Cradle</i> – a quick read, although because it's printed in a generally environmentally friendly way, the book is really expensive and you might want to check it out of a library instead of buying it). We've split our time, I'd say, about 65%-35% between discussions about the environment and the Vietnam war (which occasionally overlap, mind you). It's been worthwhile, if rather different and improvisational. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think, instead of trying to do a play by play which, frankly, is impossible, I'll just hit things that I think of as I'm writing. A general overview of the feeling of the month, though, would be a good start. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It's been a lot of hurry up and wait. We're either busybusybusy all day or we have nothing scheduled for the weekend. I played a lot of guitar in our guesthouse in Ho Chi Minh City (I'm reteaching myself) and had the chance to read several books which I really needed. Malcolm Gladwell's new book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Outliers</i>, is his best yet and a fast read and Rory Stewart's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Places In Between</i> is well-written, fascinating, informative, entertaining and not at all dense. I'm nearly through with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Golden Compass</i> which I have on my iPod and have been listening to on our recent wealth of bus rides. I've read it before, but it's still wonderful. You should read it. All of you. Yes. You. :-) I've also had time to watch a lot of movies (a lot of people have been watching a lot of movies…our group bootleg DVD collection is very impressive…) and spend more time with our TBB crew. Everyone is so different and so interesting – I want to really get to know each person individually. I think the one of the worst things that could happen would be to get home and feel like I wish I'd talked to so and so more. I'm not naturally particularly friendly and outgoing, but I'm determined so watch out. Anyway, tangent, sorry. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ok, here's my random spattering of thoughts and images. And go!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ho Chi Minh City is absurd. I strongly dislike it. There are motorcylcles everywhere and to cross the street you just have to hope they don't hit you. You have to walk in the street most of the time anyway because the sidewalk is taken up by parked motorcycles or these giant stupid trees they've planted in cement squares of dirt in the middles or it's just gone entirely due to construction or lack thereof. The pollution is pretty awful and it's always hotter than is pleasant despite the fact that it is apparently the cold season (it's probably 90 out and there are women in coats not to mention the fact that because of the pollution and the trend dictating that pale skin is desirable, women ride around on motorbikes in shoulder-length gloves, socks and cloths wrapped around their faces). The telephone and electric wires are all one huge tangle at corners. There are quite literally two and a half foot high tangles of black wire clinging to telephone poles every few blocks and then every now and then there are just a couple of wires with naked tips hanging down in the middle of the sidewalk (if you're lucky enough to find one on which you can walk) like vines off a tree in Tarzan. You hope you notice them before you walk into them, but you might not since you have to spend a substantial amount of time looking at the broken up ground making sure you don't trip. Fun story: I was walking to our writer's workshop (something optional that Beth has started and which has been held sporadically) laughing hysterically out of embarrassment because it has just been pointed out to me several times that I talk to myself quite a bit more than I thought I did, when my knees gave out under me as my foot hit a bump and I went straight down to the ground. Most of the TBB group was ahead of me crossing the street and didn't notice, but a group of three or four twenty-something Vietnamese outside of a swanky restaurant pointed and laughed until I staggered up and away, still choking on embarrassed giggles. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rylan did point out the other day that, although none of us much like Ho Chi Minh as far as I have heard and it's much easier to feel useful and part of a community in a rural area, as long as we're studying development, it's probably useful to see one of Asia's growing mega-cities. He's right. As much as Ho Chi Minh has nothing to do with how I imagine Vietnam, it is a part of the country and the region and such cities will only become bigger, more crowded, more polluted, and more relevant. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We've been hearing a lot and talking some about the Vietnam War, or, as they call it, the American War or the War of American Aggression which, really, is probably more accurate. We've been to the War Remnants museum in HCMC, we watched the documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Regret to Inform</i>, we visited the Cu Chi tunnels (a tunnel city built by the Viet Cong about an hour outsided of former Saigon), we met with some families with children affected by agent orange and we visited Son My, the site of the My Lai Massacre. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Things They Carried</i>, one of my favorite books, is also floating around the group and I intend to reread it soon. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It's a pretty big topic. You can look at it from an American perspective, a Vietnamese perspective, a communist perspective, an environmental perspective and a human perspective. Each has its own big questions. What was the real point of the war? What is the point of any war? Does war ever have a place in this world as an answer? When does a war end? How do countries really reconcile? What are a combatant country's responsibilities in a war with regard to civilians and the environment? What about lasting consequences both psychological, physical and environmental? One of our discussions was framed by the question: Who is the enemy in war? Answers ranged from "everyone" to "ourselves" to "ideals and governments" to "greed."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Other questions were raised for me, too. I tend to react to personal stories very strongly, much more than I do to generalizations or statistics. We watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Regret to Inform</i> as I've now said several times. It was a documentary made by an American woman who lost her young husband in Vietnam. She returns to the place where he was killed along with her Vietnamese friend who left her country after the war. Along the way you get not only their stories, but the stories of several other couples from both sides that were broken apart by the conflict. It's heart-wrenching, not unexpectedly, but somehow the thing that struck me most, listening to all those women and seeing the wedding photos and the snapshots of the dead men, was that all of those people were basically my age. Learning about war when you're younger, you think, oh, that's horrible, but those boys are older and stronger and braver. Or maybe you just don't think about it at all. But watching that movie, it hit me really, really hard. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I've said for a long time now that if there were a draft today, we wouldn't still be in Iraq. There are socio-economic inequities in our military that make it so that those families most directly affected by the war tend to have muffled political voices and it's difficult to get really worked up about something that doesn't touch you personally. If there were a constant threat that all of the men you held dear (and possibly women too) could be packed up and shipped off to Iraq at a moments notice, there would be a lot more protesting going on. There would have been ofr a long time and I think the troops would have been pulled. But there has been no draft. (There are a lot of things wrong with our military, actually, don't ask don't tell being near the top of my list (did you know we've discharged 10,000 able-bodied men and are now accepting people with criminal records and mental issues to replace them?))</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After watching the film I looked around the room at our five TBB boys I was horrified. They're all eighteen or nineteen and any of them could have been drafted if this were 1968 and not 2008. Suddenly I saw them all in uniform, shrouded in the jungles of Vietnam, shooting, being shot at, killing and dying. I started sobbing. I love them all and the images were too much and they wouldn't go away. They kept playing themselves over and over in my head. No one should be made to kill or asked to risk their lives for some high ideal in a far away and unfamiliar land. No one is prepared for that and I don't know how anyone can come back from it still whole. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm against the war in Iraq, but I've never gone to a protest. My being against the war has had no bearing at all on anything, really. Like I said, I have trouble connecting to theoretical people, people that I know exist, but that I don't actually know. But this, this is something I feel in my gut. I get it now and I didn't quite before. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We visited the site of the My Lai massacre (a four hour bus ride each way instead of two to touch on plans changing again). The event was abominable and not an entirely isolated occurance. There is no way to apologize for something like that. At the museum on the site (the best museum we've been to in either Cambodia or Vietnam, I think) our tour guide told us about the three American soldier who didn't take part. One shot himself in the foot and the other two rescued a few survivors, pointing the gun of their helicopter at American soldiers to keep them away. We watched a short video in which there was a line that said something to the effect of "My Lai is something that should never happen again and hopefully will not" and another that said "If I were there, I would hope that I would have the courage to do the right thing like Thompson [one of the men in the helicopter]." I also saw, scribbled in the guest book, the idea that those soldiers were bad seeds and that the entire U.S. army should not be judged by their actions. Every army has bad seeds. Those three ideas bothered me. First of all, atrocities like My Lai happen every day in places like Sudan and the Congo. Every day. What are we doing about it? Pitifully little. Second of all, I too would hope to do the right thing in a horrible situtation, but what was it that made all of those soldiers do otherwise? They were certainly not all bad people. They were probably terrified, angry, numb, crazy, drowned in a mob mentality. To live the way they'd been living, they must have had to begin to see the enemy as something not human, the lives they were taking as worth less – how else could you live with yourself having killed another human being you'd never even met? None of these things, of course, in any way excuses their actions. The horrific nature of the massacre is literally beyond my imagination. But what makes good men, boys really, do such horrible things? It reminded me of a study I've heard referenced where college students were divided up into two gropus: prisoners and prison guards. The guards ended up so violent and abusive that the study had to be stopped after just a few days. So what made them do it? War. The whole idea of it, the environment in which they were dropped, unprepared. Yes, I would hope that I would do the right thing. I bet they all would have hoped that too. But would I? Would you? I don't think we can rightly say. I hope I never have to find out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Needless to say, all of this made us think about America. What it is, really, and what it stands for. I've never been a fan of blind patriotism, but I was talking to Emily who said she'd once been told that she didn't have the right to complain about the U.S. because so many other countries had it so much worse, and my views solidified for me. I complain about a lot of things in the U.S. There are a lot of problems to complain about. And I think I should complain. I can pick out the faults and still love my country and appreciate it for its good as well. Ultimately, however, I don't love America as much for what it is, as for what it has the potential to be. I love its ideals, its ability to change and to grow. I don't hate my country when it does something wrong any more than a parent would hate a child who made a mistake. I'm disappointed in my country as that parent would be in his or her child. The most patriotic thing I think I can do is expect a lot from my country and help it to meet my expectations. Or I guess I could just put a flag on my lawn and eat hot dogs on the Fourth of July. Same thing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">One more fun story, to end on a lighter note, and then it's bedtime for Becca. I think I'll call it "Bus Misadventures: The Sequel" or maybe, "Aventura Dos!" Anyway, our drive from HCMC to Quy Nhon was supposed to be eight to ten hours. We charged up the computers, grabbed our ipods, fought to get a solo seat and set off at 6am. About 11ish we pulled over to the side of the road. "Why have we stopped?" asked the voices of the many boys and girls, their groggy heads bobbing up from behind the pleather seats. "Why have we stopped?" asked Robin and Beth, their fearless leaders. They got off the bus and sat in a roadside café in the middle of nowhere, Vietnam. The speediest of them grabbed the ten or so hammocks, the rest settled for plastic stools and chairs. After an hour of napping, reading and cribbage playing (a game in which Lily and Becca dominated Dave and Noah, to the competitive boys' chagrin), it was announced that our bus's radiator had broken beyond repair, another bus was coming from HCMC and would arrive in five hours or so. Five hours?! But wait! Two vans would come for us and take the us next hour and half to our lunch stop, a cavernous and empty Vietnamese restaurant, and then on another ten minutes or so to a beachside motel where we'd rented rooms in which we could stay. Hooray! Broken bus beach detour, not so bad after all. At least we hadn't hit anyone. After lunch, some beach and some dinner, our replacement bus arrived with our luggage stowed underneath. We set off again at 7:40pm. "How much longer?" the students' voices chimed? "About 500 kilmeters," came the answer. "Maybe seven hours." Seven hours? But that would mean the students would not arrive at their destination until 3am! Again, they hunkered down for some sleep or, in the case of the back row, a late night showing of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Fargo </i>on the green computer. (Incidentally, a pretty good but not fabulous movie). On the tired students rode over a bumpy and dug-up rode with a necessarily tired driver until, at 3:30am, they parked on the side of the road and heard a soft "we're here." Bags were collected and hauled up the steps to the fourth floor (also known as the fifth floor, because everyone but Americans counts the ground floor as zero). A good night's sleep was then had by all (but not before room 441, Lily, Liz and I, put up the hammock Christmas tree, the three strings of lights and the small golden menorah to brighten the small, dull room).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The End</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And to All Others a Happy Chanukah</p> <p class="MsoNormal">(we're playing dreidel on Christmas Even night, then watching the Grinch and then having a Christmas party at a schmancy hotel on the 25<sup>th</sup>)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much love and good wishes,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Becca</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">p.s. I think I've not mentioned our biggest plan change of all! We're no longer going to India. After the bombings in Mumbai, TBB determined that it would be too dangerous to take 18 Americans into Northwestern India. It makes sense, as far as decisions go, but no one was happy about it. Our plans had been in limbo until today. We will be going to Thailand instead, still studying sustainable agriculture and getting to do homestays. I was pretty bummed about spending even more time on this peninsula in SE Asia. Yunan was just north, then Cambodia, then Vietnam and now Thailand and for our enrichment week afterwards Laos! I want to see other parts of the world! BUT our plans for Thailand sound really incredible, actually, so I'm getting kind of excited. We'll spend a week in a facility that teaches locals and foreigners about sustainable living and then go live for three weeks in a community that has just switched from chemical to sustainable agriculture. We'll have two language teachers with us the whole time which, in combination with homestays, means I may really learn some Thai. My Vietnamese, incidentally, is abysmal. I can say hello and goodbye<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(sin chao), thank you (cam on), pork, beef, chicken and fish (heo, bo, ga, ca) and iced coffee with milk (café sua da). Sometimes I can count, too, but that's about it. Ah well…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">p.p.s. We've been talking and thinking a lot about environmental stuff too, but I'm rather tired so that will have to wait either for another post or for a coffee date when I get home :-)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">p.p.p.s. I'd just like to remind you all that you get to keep up with my by reading this blog if you so choose, but I require emails to keep up with you…so send them along! It's winter break, kids. I know you've got free time :-)</p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-83733297407201113122008-12-09T01:37:00.001-08:002008-12-09T01:39:10.329-08:00Good Morning (from) Vietnam!<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">How long have I been waiting to use that Blog title? You don't want to know. It's not even that creative.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm getting spotty on blog posts aren't I? I feel like I start off every one with an apology for how long it's been since the last. So, on that note, sorry…<br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Anyway, where did we leave off? Angkor Wat right? Let's see…</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On the third and final day of our Angkor Wat pass I asked one of the people working at the hotel's desk which temples were remote, relatively untouristy and relatively unrestored. He pointed me to a few, but one in particular, which I then looked up in the Tourist Guide I'd grabbed somewhere. I decided to check it out, convinced that it would meet my requirements when I saw it's measely two star rating in the guide. Don't tell, but it was called Ta Nei.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I hopped in a Tuk Tuk (you literally couldn't walk five feet without finding one) and negotiated a plan with the driver. He would take me as far as a Tuk Tuk could (the road apparently would get bad about a mile before the temple and I would have to walk since motorcylcles are not allowed on TBB and I can't ride a bike…) and then meet me back at that point (or, I think, just wait for me) four hours later. So that's what I did. He offered to walk me to the temple so I wouldn't get lost, but it was just one road so I figured I couldn't miss it. Little did I know that the one road forked three or four times and there was only a sign once. I magically chose the right direction every time, though, so it worked out just fine. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ta Nei was pretty much deserted. There were two other women there when I arrived and a biker showed up later. There were also several Cambodian guys chilling out in this thatch-roofed building thing…I'm not sure what they were doing except chilling, but it seemed like that was their job.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I went around taking photos for a while, although the light wasn't ideal (black and white helped a lot with that, actually, if you're wondering why I have so many black and whites…they just look nicer) and then I camped out on a bench outside of the thatch-roofed building and got down to business: postcard writing. Sandy and Robin had us each write about 20 postcards to TBB donors, thanking them for their contribution and letting them know what was going on with us which I thought was a nice idea. It might encourage them to give again before the fiscal year ends (I mean…because of the holiday season…) but either way it's nice to put in a little effort to thank all the people that helped make TBB happen and I think it would be fun, were I a donor, to get a postcard from a TBB student written about their time in China but writing from, say, Angkor Wat.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I journaled some and then on my way out took more photos. I didn't want to do everything over, but the light was much better so I did take some. Too bad I didn't think of that before and save photo-ing time for the end. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The next day…I think…One day, anyway…We went to see the fabled "floating village." We hopped in our TBB sized bus (the tour company had a bus with exactly enough seats to fit us all) and drove out to the lake where we hopped on a boat as our pictures were being snapped by a random Cambodian girl with a camera. Our guide didn't say much as we jetted out past the few homes we saw into open water. We continued on for about an hour and a half with nothing on the horizon. The sky was pretty grey, which made the water pretty grey, which made them sort of blend into each other so that the horizon line was actually pretty hard to distinguish. It was pretty cool. Finally, we got to floating civilization. It was cool, yes, but it was very apparently a very poor community and I felt really strange about being on a boat full of reasonably well-off Americans driving through their village taking pictures. "Oh look at that beautiful tin and decaying wood house!" Snapsnapsnap. We were dropped off at what we were told was a monestary and school, walked into the yard and were promptly accosted by about 10 women selling notebooks. It took us a while to figure out that they wanted us to buy a pack for $5 which we would then give to the school kids. Theoretically, they were going into Siem Reap to buy the books which would then be financed later by tourists. This makes sense, assuming that's what is actually happening. We each bought a pack of notebooks. It was virtually impossible not to. There was nowhere else to go and we were staring at the schoolkids playing in the yard and it sounded like a good cause. We got right back on the boat after that and jetted back where we came from (minus a 20 minute stop at a floating store where we could buy souvenirs and drinks). That was the entire "tour." Our fearless leaders were a little put off. That wasn't exactly what they'd expected the "tour" to be. It wasn't what we had expected either. We all were under the impression that we'd be meeting the people, walking around, getting to know the community. We hadn't realized it was so touristy. (Remember that girl who'd taken our photos when we got on the boat at the beginning? Well, as we were getting off the boat, we were greeted with plates with our faces on them that had somehow been made from those photos in the three hours we'd been gone. I guess some people must buy those or it wouldn't be worthwhile for them. I hope they can reuse the plates because we certainly didn't buy any. Who does? I wonder…) Anyway, because I'd felt to weird about using their village as something resembling a human zoo (at least, that's how it felt to me), I didn't mind so much that we'd been plied for money that may or may not be going to school children (although I very VERY sincerely hope it did go to school children…). It felt like we were using them, so they should be using us too. It evened the playing field. On the whole, though, I do not recommend a floating village tour to any future Cambodia tourists. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We also had our own little TBB Thanksgiving dinner at our hotel. Sandy worked really hard to get the kitchen to make Thanksgivingy food for us and while it wasn't perfect, it was adorable and delicious anyway. Pumpkin soup, some sort of veggie and gravy casserole, mashed sweet potato, chicken and…mango for dessert? We also made hand turkeys thanks to Liz and Katie R who had the foresight to purchase supplies. Then we headed up into the penthouse (where two of our roommate groups had been displaced to due to a booking error by the hotel) and played a game Beth taught us called Celebrity. So. Much. Fun. And then we set up a new game of Gotcha. That game is going much slower than the last. The first winner won only yesterday and we wait until we have three. Robin got me out by getting me to say "space shuttle" which apparently I miraculously avoided saying the first four times he brought it up. It was pretty impressive. I helped Sandy get John to say "sea cucumber" even though he knew the word and who had him by having her forge a messily written letter, part of which said: "…sailing in the Mediterranean sea…cucumber sandwiches were served for lunch…" then stuffing the letter into the package I got and having John help me decipher the handwriting. It was fabulous :-)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That was not exciting travel information was it? Sorry. It does give our group personality doesn't it?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Anyway, from Siem Reap we traveled to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We visited the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum. </span></span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(Short Factual Interlude: Pol Pot, a communist leader, came to power in Cambodia around 1975 and moved all city dwellers to the countryside in an effort to up rice production and create a communal society…Many died on the walk out of the city and many more were killed in his purges as he grew increasingly paranoid that enemies were everywhere plotting against him. Thousands were tortured and forced to confess to things they had not done before they were brutally murdered. Pol Pot was deposed when the Vietnamese invaded (for their own reasons: not wanting a two front war against China and it's ally Cambodia and so pre-emptively striking Cambodia which would be by far the easier adversary). The Killing Fields and Genocide Museum, located at the former torture facility S-21, were opened not long after. If my very cursory summary was not enough, I recommend a book I picked up in Siem Reap called </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Brother Number One</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> which is supposed to be about Soloth Sar (alias Pol Pot) but, as very little is known about him, is actually mostly about the political situation in former French Indochina during the 20</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> century and is pretty informative and not too long. ) </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I d</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">on't want to try to describe the Killing Fields or the Museum here because I couldn't do it justice without getting a little more personal than I'm in the mood to. Needless to say it was horrifying, moving, confusing and upsetting for all of us. Actually, I shouldn't speak for everyone. It was all of those things for me and, judging by our discussion later that night, it was at least one of those things for most everyone. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">From Phnom Penh we flew to Ho Chi Minh city. It was probably the shortest flight of my life. We went up, flattened out for maybe 2 minutes while the stewardesses served drinks and then we prepared for landing and landed all in about 30 minutes. We were greeted at the airport by Rylan, the head of CET Vietnam (another study abroad program and our program contact for this month…he's helping us organize everything including our partnership with another NGO called ENDA) and the three Vietnamese students with whom we'd be living and working. They seem more like program assistants than students in function, but they are all three college students in Ho Chi Minh. Their names are Tram ("Chum"), Vnang ("Vuh-nAng") and Phat (…"Fat"). I'm sorry if I'm spelling those horribly wrong. Then we bussed over to the "Government Guest House" where we're staying. No one seems to really know what that means, but it seems to be a hotel/meeting room facility with a restaurant on the ground floor. The girls are five to a room, the boys two to a room. Tram is in my room along with Alexandra, Liz, Katie C. and Emily. Vnang is next door with the rest of the TBB girls. Noah is rooming with Phat and the other TBB boys are paired up two and two. The boys get rooms with showers and refrigerators and we girls are in giant rooms with five beds (which can break, incidentally, because the legs are miniscule…Emily's is already slanted and mine creaks menacingly when I move), one bedside table, a dresser and four coat-hanger racks. Backwards? I think so! (To be clear, this is joking complaining and not sincere annoyed complaining…a distinction which is difficult to make in a blog…are rooms are perfectly adequate, well air-conditioned and well-lit. Plus, we've decorated them for the holidays. Both rooms have Christmas lights and my room has the lovely addition of the small menorah that was sent to me in a package. The other room made a coat-holder into a Christmas tree by draping it in a green hammock and hanging candy canes on it and put socks – er, Christmas stockings – on another coat-holder and filled them with candy. It's very festive. To extend this tangent: All of Ho Chi Minh city is Christmas obsessed. Every storefront is somehow decorted and walking down the street you hear Christmas jingle remixes blaring out of every third doorway).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ANYway, our itinerary changes daily which can be frustrating, but Robin, Sandy, Beth and Rylan are all being awesome about making the best of every situation and every change. As it stands now, we'll spend most of our time in Ho Chi Minh city save for a daytrip to the Mekong Delta on Saturday (this changed since we got here…it was originally a three or four day trip) and a week long excursion to Quy Nhon ("Kwee Nyon") where we'll be observing a composting facility and driving out to Son My, site of what Americans call the My Lai Massacre. We'll be having our Holiday Party in Quy Nhon, followed by three free days during which we can, if we so choose, do independent student travel. Sadly, Hanoi is a little far to get to by bus, so I think that particular travel destination is out of the question.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We spent our first few days having several lectures which were very interesting, getting two two-hour survival Vietnamese language classes which were great but from which I remember almost nothing (every time I try to say something in Vietnamese it comes out in Mandarin…), meeting with an economist, a guy who studies monkeys and a woman in the foreign service whose very appropriate name is Sunshine at the U.S. Consulate General, watching </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">An Inconvenient Truth</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> which I'd never seen and liked quite a bit, and meeting with ENDA (the NGO). The ENDA meeting was…interesting. A lot of plans changed after that – ours and theirs. It's fascinating to meet so many NGO heads and Americans working abroad. There are a lot of nutty people around. They're well-intentioned and may be doing great work, but they're still nutty. To be clear, we TBBers don't escape my glaring generalization of nuttiness. We aren't all so normal ourselves. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Anyway, as it stands now, we'll be having some sort of "conference" at the end of the month with us and Vietnamese students that Phat, Tram and Vnang will find where we'll be discussing environmental issues in Vietnam. Our media projects will somehow be incorporated into this conference (and so must be finished by then…) We haven't talked a ton about this and it's sort of vague – I don't quite get it – so I'm withholding judgment on whether I like the idea or whether it will work. I hope it does. I hope it's awesome and I'll do my best to make it so. I'm just not sure it will be. Open mind. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">By the way, this conference idea didn't exist last week. I did say things were changing quite a bit. Luckily, our Fearless Leaders along with Rylan are good at rolling with the punches, not easily discouraged and have a wealth of creative plan Bs, Cs and Zs. </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I don't want to make it sound at all like TBB is not meticulously organized. It is. It really, really is. It's just that, as I'm learning, partnering out with international NGO's all headed by other nutty individuals and working in foreign countries with foreign cultures requires an incredibly level of flexibility, diplomacy and cheer. I have a lot of respect for Robin, Sandy and Beth (and Rylan and I bet Chris, too) for working night and day to make this work and to make everything as valuable an experience as possible. If everything were perfectly smooth, we'd be getting a pretty inaccurate picture of how the world works. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">To bring us up to the present, this week is our service learning week in Ho Chi Minh. We've been split into three groups based on our media project groupings (the writing group being split apart and spread among the three). I'm Google Earth this month (the one medium I was not looking forward to and not one that any of our group is very gung ho about…Google Earth is not very intuitive to use and makes our choice of topic difficult because it has to be constantly geographical so that we'll always need a map to explain what we're talking about…still…think positive. Open mind. It may turn out awesome. It totally could. We'll see.) Anyway, my group is working with a guy named Steve who owns a company called Green Energy. We're split into twos and going around cold-calling restaurants trying to raise their awareness about environmental issues, but mainly trying to get them to let us buy their used cooking oil which Green Energy will then use to make bio-diesel. A lot of restaurants already sell their used cooking oil which often gets reused by street vendors (not at all healthy) and thrown in the street (polluting the water and often coming up out of the gutters after a rain). Mostly, restaurant owners and managers (who generally speak English in the area he sent us to because it's touristy and the restaurants are fancy) don't know where their cooking oil is going, although a lot of times the head chef is already selling it. Still, there's a fair amount of interest and most shocking to me, when we go into a restaurant (during off hours, of course) and ask to speak to the owner or manager, we're almost always shown to chairs and sometimes given water or even tea to drink while we talk. Today John and I (my canvassing partner) returned to a restaurant we'd visited yesterday to meet with the owner (who had been absent) and found Steve already there talking to the owner who had already called him at the number we'd left with an information sheet. So we got one, at least :-) The other two groups are doing something with trash collecting and trash sorting.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That's about it for now. I'll update eventually assuming I'm still around. You take your life in your hands every time you walk down the only occasionally existant sidewalk or cross the crazy motorcycle packed streets (where having all vehicles traveling in one direction in any given lane is a quaint notion and nothing more). Supposedly if you walk slowly across the street, everyone will go around you, but I'm not a fan of the putting faith in the fact that everyone else is paying perfect attention and is not drunk idea. Still, there really isn't another option if you want to go anywhere other than around the block. Ah well. We're all still here so far.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Merry Early Christmas and Happy Early Chanukah,</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Becca</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">P.S. Don't worry about us not getting gifts. We're doing Secret Santas over the whole month. Fun!</span></span></p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-22248360291448546952008-12-05T02:44:00.000-08:002008-12-09T01:38:05.736-08:00Things That Are Up:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmRYYF0R6p5jlwZlshxucJT896wqqSMaHaQ_Zw1noEmkDiv_n0mri_osWYLcQzw3UL6pdIZ9ultNjr7qEAOgzfvvKDLjm1LDgxnR2n-glC6xmrUlzQm-vaBpxDYOsnIpgVUvNBYaDgv0/s1600-h/IMG_2179.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmRYYF0R6p5jlwZlshxucJT896wqqSMaHaQ_Zw1noEmkDiv_n0mri_osWYLcQzw3UL6pdIZ9ultNjr7qEAOgzfvvKDLjm1LDgxnR2n-glC6xmrUlzQm-vaBpxDYOsnIpgVUvNBYaDgv0/s320/IMG_2179.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276255899787596290" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>1. The podcast! (And the other media projects) Go to www.thinkingbeyondborders.org then go to "Student Voices" then go to China and, well, you get the point...<div>2. My photos from Shaxi and Cambodia (on picasa)</div><div><br /></div><div>Under the category of Things That Are Not Up I would put, a new informative blog entry. Sorry.</div><div><br /></div><div>~ Becca</div></div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-10421642803114584952008-11-26T06:24:00.001-08:002008-11-26T06:28:17.789-08:00From Kunming to Shaxi (back to Kunming) and then to Siem Reap<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well, it has been a while, I'm sorry. I'll get right to it.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We had our farewell homestay banquet and I headed home to pack and give my family their gift – a Peruvian Chess board. They seemed a little amused by it, but when I explained what it was my host father said his son (my absentee host brother) plays and I suggested he could teach them. Then they wanted a picture with me (so I taught them how to use the automatic timer on their camera) and my email address. I guess they didn't hate me. The next morning on the way to the car to drive to the University where I'd catch our TBB bus my host mother asked me if my parents had been to China, which seemed odd, but really her point was that if my parents ever DO come to China, they're welcome to stay with her (are you listening, parents?). I reciprocated the offer (still listening?) It was really sweet, actually.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So after picking up a last round of the best University street food (a ball of sticky rice with sugar and one of the "Chinese Burritos" – a thin pancake cooked on a flat black slab, covered with a spread around egg, chives, parsley, a crunchy thing and plum sauce (I avoid the picked root and the spicy sauce)) we headed off on our 10 hour bus aventura. (Incidentally, "aventura" has become our word for a potentially less than thrilling adventure…as in "Where's Isabel?" "Oh, she and Sandy went on a hospital aventura" or "What exactly ARE we doing for lunch?" "I'm not quite sure…aventura!") The first 6 or 7 hours passed smoothly. I made my Top 50 Playlist and listened to more of They Came To Baghdad, the Agatha Christie audio book I started on our way out of Bua. (The Top 50 Playlists were, I believe, Katie R's idea…basically each TBBer will make a playlist on their iPod of their 50 favorite songs, or the 50 songs they think everyone should know…mine turned out to be the latter. I can't say that the Lip Gloss song is a favorite of mine, but it would make my life easier if people understood the reference…and I feel like it's awfulness will be fully appreciated by many group members…if you don't know the Lip Gloss song I don't know what to tell you.)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And then suddenly, it really did become an aventura. Brace yourselves. We hit someone with our bus. Yes. Yes we did. Driving to Shaxi mainly consisted of country highways where our driver would honk and make people get out of our way, except this time, the guy on the bike came right at us. Amazingly, our driver veered left enough so that only the corner of the bus hit him. It still didn't sound good, but he ended up under his bike on the side of the bus and not under the bus itself which seems to be the better of the two options. He turned out to be miraculously alright. He also turned out to be drunk which explained why he didn't move and also why he yelled at Yuen and Charles for at least half an hour. Luckily (if you can call it that), Sandy, Robin, Yuen and Sam hit someone with their van last time they drove to Shaxi and they learned a few lessons from the experience. First, people will act injured even if they aren't to get money. Second, you can't just call the police, you have to get someone local to call for you so they don't just look at you as some foreigner whose fault the accident must be. Yuen called a friend to call the police (because even Yuen isn't a local…she's a city-dweller) and the police came, took the guy to the hospital where his drunkenness was confirmed (as was his being otherwise alright) and we continued on our way.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We ate dinner at a restaurant that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere just outside of Shaxi, but by that time it was dark so I can't say for sure. It was lazy Susan family style, as all our meals in China were. Honestly, it's disconcerting to order food individually all of a sudden.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We arrived in Shaxi at about 8pm. Our families were all waiting in the main square to pick us up and take us to our homes. Katie C. came with my host mother/grandmother and me because all the families had been waiting for us for so long that hers had gone home (we were delayed by the biker incident…).</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It turns out that she lived directly across the street from me and we ate nearly every meal together, one day at one house and the next day at the other. Our families may have been related, they may have been really good friends, or they may have found it convenient because they both had host kids at the same time. Who knows? In case anyone has missed this point, I don't speak Chinese and no one in Shaxi spoke much English.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shaxi was not at all like I'd expected, physically speaking. I'd been imagining a Chinese Bua. They had been saying "rural China" an awful lot. I guess it was rural. There was certainly a lot of agriculture going on. But where Bua had one hundred and some families, Shaxi had 4,000. I heard someone say 22,000 people. Only in China, with its largest city of 30 million people, is that a tiny rural village. The roads were paved mainly with cobblestone and there were some trucks and a few cars. There were also a lot of alley-type roads much too narrow for cars or trucks to drive down. There were all sorts of shops selling traditional shoes, food, baked goods, cell phones…in the main square there was a store with a sign out front that said "We Brew Real Coffee." And it did. Shaxi has just started to get more tourists and with tourists, apparently, comes real coffee.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Homes in Shaxi are traditional Chinese style houses. They are square with beautiful carved woodwork and tiling and are centered on a courtyard. (That description reminds me a lot of Spanish-style houses and actually, they have a lot in common with regards to the layout). They were houses in use, in no way well-preserved relics. The barn next to my room had animals in it, the outhouse was an outhouse that ran into the field and the upper balcony was used to store corn cobs and to dry peppers. My family had a TV and DVD player in their living room area along with two worn out couches, a few stools, a chalkboard for my little host brother and a circular metal plate on a stand that held embers and was used as a personal heater. There was a refrigerator in the kitchen and running water from the tap in the courtyard which they boiled for cooking or making tea. I've already mentioned the outhouse. I'm not sure how showering worked, though, because it was very cold and I just decided to be dirty for four days. You weren't there so I'm not apologizing to you :-P</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Families in Shaxi were more traditional than in cities as well. While in Kunming I lived in an apartment with only my host parents (though, granted, my maternal host grandparents lived a three minute walk awa), in Shaxi I lived with a grandmother and grandfather, a girl who I can only guess was their daughter who was about 28 and a little boy who was 7 (which is exactly what I guessed…I'm magic!). Three generations in one house – the way it used to be all over China. Katie had host grandparents, but isn't totally sure that they lived in her house. Her house was bigger than mine so they could have lived in a section she never really saw. She also had two host siblings, a twelve-year-old girl and an eighteen-year-old boy who goes to school in another city and comes home only on weekends. Rural families and minority families are allowed two children, not one, and the families we lived with qualified as both rural and minority (they were Bai).</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(As a side note, Katie and I just talked and are guessing that my host mother/grandmother was her host grandmother's sister or something like that).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My little host brother was adorable and very attached to me. In fact, he didn't like Katie at all, probably because I paid attention to her. We played for hours with little rubber not-so-bouncy balls, kicked around a soccer ball (as I tried in vain to get him to kick with the side of his foot and not his toe), drew on his chalkboard and played hop-scotch, which I taught him and he seemed to like. I also taught him UNO, the card game, which was a little difficult considering the language barrier and the fact that he was only seven. It was entertaining for the hour that we played, though.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The "cultural center" in Shaxi, or rather, the guesthouse owned by Sam and Yuen, was our TBB hub. It was beautiful AND it had wifi. What more could you ask for? Actually, you could ask for a dog with a severe but endearing underbite named Shahu who just had a tiny itty bitty puppy the week before we arrived which we may or may not have named Tabibi (get it? TBB?). Before you get all huffy about me not being in touch, let me say we were pretty booked up in Shaxi. In addition to eating three meals a day with our families, we had seminars, met with the head of the local middle school (which has 1,048 students – there is no local high school), observed English classes at that school one afternoon, taught at that school the next afternoon, watched a movie called Baraka, visited an awesome Buddhist temple with real monkeys and a giant golden Buddha, had a farewell party with traditional music and dance and worked on our media projects (which should be up soon, by the way, although they aren't up yet).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A few of those listed activities deserve elaboration, so here it goes:</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left:21.0pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Middle School: There are about 2,000 kids at all the local elementary schools combined and 1,000 at the middle school, which makes sense sine elementary schools are six years and middle school is three (seventh through ninth grades…sort of). They start learning English in seventh grade and while the teacher seemed like a pretty engaging teacher as far as teachers that must teach to tests go, her English itself was not very good and her accent made me squirm in the back row when she had kids repeating "com-pu-ter game-uhs" (computer games) and "theeze-uh" (these). (Sidestory: they thought that "computer games" was the word for computer…Katie C and I – yes, we were paired as teaching partners, too – tried to remedy that during our lesson but when we had the kids repeat the phrase we'd written on the board, "I play computer games on my computer," they all added an extra "games" to the end of it. I think we did eventually get the point across, though.) The Chinese also call ping-pong paddles "ping-pong bats" for some unknown reason. But hey, they're the ping-pong masters so I guess we should defer to whatever they want to call it. It was a little strange when it was in the lesson we were teaching though. (We just taught the next lesson in the book because that's what the school wanted us to do and we ended up teaching for one day and not two because Friday was randomly declared a school holiday for some reason I can't recall…Dali province something day or something like that…)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:57.0pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">o</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The principal also told us that they have "labor class" at the school where they tend to a hundred acre garden (Hundred Acre Woods anyone?) which I think is really cool. We just read some of Gandhi's "India of My Dreams" and he talked about the importance of honoring manual labor so that kids who go to school don't all think its degrading to be farmers or factory workers or artisans etc which I think it a good point and relevant to Shaxi.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:21.0pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Baraka: It's an hour and a half, no words, all images of the world. Pretty cool and, since humans have a compulsion to link images into some sort of sensical story, pretty interesting. I recommend it to you if that sounds good. If it doesn't sound good, you probably wouldn't like it. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:21.0pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3)</span></span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Buddhist Temple: It was very cool. I didn't have my camera, but everyone else did, so I'll be stealing people's pictures at some point and uploading them. Pictures may be a while, though. Sorry. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:21.0pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Farewell party: There was traditional music and traditional dance (some of which was Tibetan for those of you interested in Tibet, because Tibet borders on Yunan) and when they were done, we joined them in a traditional Bai dance that was 90% the Hora and 10% very similar to the Hora. THEN we had to reciprocate the musical section of the performance which we had not prepared for…so we tried and failed to do the Macarena and ended up singing "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" from Mulan…there were about 8 of us who knew all the words. Probably not the best choice of song for Shaxi, China, but they don't speak English so they'll never know. I believe, too, that there is a video of all this floating around somewhere…I'll let you know.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:21.0pt;mso-add-space:auto; text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style=""><span style="mso-list:Ignore"><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5) </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Media Projects: I'm podcast group this month along with Renee, Katie R. and Alexandra and I am very proud of our final product. There was a bump or two in the road, but generally we were a well-oiled podcasting machine. The recording is seven minutes long, so I know you can find time to listen and when you do, please pay special attention to the balanced volume of all the voices as well as the beautiful fade-in and fade-out of the music at the beginning and the end (both clips of music are from Shaxi). I don't want you to think it was easy though, so I'm going to add that I got 6 hours of collective sleep our last night in Shaxi and our one night in Kunming before heading off to Cambodia.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Which brings us toooooooooooooo: CAMBODIA</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are many wonderful things about Cambodia.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The first has very little to do with being in Cambodia: we get free time! I have </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(among other things) this blog to write (nearly Check!), TONS of journaling to catch up on, postcards to write, photos to upload and organize and our enrichment week book to read (it's called How To Save The World…I haven't started it yet because I'm reading a thinish book I bought called Brother Number One about Pol Pot which so far is very good and quite informative since I knew little to nothing about the Cambodian genocide or Cambodian history in general before getting here).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The second wonderful thing? Mango. Everywhere. They peel and cut them and sell them on the street as snacks. You can buy them at all the fruit markets. There is mango juice at restaurants. Coconut too. Coconuts hacked open on one side make a great drink/bowl. Nature's own design. But mango seriously takes the fruit cake.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The third wonderful thing about Cambodia? No one yells. Everyone speaks relatively quietly (relative to me, not relative to people in China who speak at a constant projecting-to-the-back-of-the-Pantageas volume). More than that, though, people here are seriously nice. It's hard to explain, but it's not just polite, its like a general level of genuine friendliness that's just higher than say, Los Angeles.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The fourth wonderful thing is that Cambodian style art is beautiful (it helps that Cambodian people are generally beautiful so the drawings of them get a leg up to begin with) and it's everywhere. Our bit of Siem Reap is Angkor Wat Tourist Town so they sell elephant and Apsara everything in stores and especially in the main markets (one for day, one for night). Apsaras, by the way, are mystical, mythical dancers that came from the sea of milk as the gods churned it and decorate everything from the temples at Angkor Wat to table runners. This makes gift buying substantially easier than I have found it in the past…Although Peru was pretty good, too…Maybe it's something about enrichment week countries…</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Incidentally, in my Peace Corps ruminations, I had pretty much decided that if I do do Peace Corps (and it's still quite an If, I'm just a big planner…I have plans A through about G right now for after college) I would do Eastern Europe. The two countries I want most to visit/work in are Turkey and Russia, neither of which currently have any Peace Corps volunteers, so Eastern Europe was my next choice. Cambodia, however, because of the second and third wonderful things as well as the fact that I have a feeling that I could be of use here doing something with orphans or landmine victims or just…something…has moved up on my list from, well, from not being on the list at all. Just a thought.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I also ran into a guy when I was coming back from the market my first full day here who was riding a red motorbike and asked my name. I said Becca and made to continue walking, but he keep talking and we were in broad daylight on busy street so I kept responding. I was careful, please no one freak out. It turns out that he works with an NGO that runs an orphanage for children whose parents were killed by landmines (landmines may be one of the more evil things in the world). It's 60km outside of Siem Reap, but he was lent the motorbike to come into town to buy more English books for the kids. They were $1.75 each, he showed me a bunch, and his job was basically to get tourists to donate money. He showed me a several photos of kids and books and volunteers and a paper or two from the NGO. It's legit, so I donated some money and made sure he got my email address and that I got his. I want to look into it and may seriously consider coming back and volunteering to teach English. That's actually what got me started thinking about the whole Cambodia Peace Corps thing – how I would be making a real difference in these kids lives by teaching them English. They would be able to get a job in a tourist related industry, which is huge around here. What an impact compared to teaching a huge class of relatively privileged and test-stressed kids in China. I have been left with a serious urge to teach someone something after that slightly frustrating teaching experience in Kunming. Oddly enough, that turned me more ON to teaching, not off.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We also visited some of the temples at Angkor Wat as a group yesterday and then about half of us went back this morning for sunrise. The number of tourists is staggering and I've become quite skilled at cutting them out of my pictures. Still, I'm much more attracted to the ruined temples than the reconstructed ones and tourists generally flock the other way, so for the final day of our three day pass (before out Thanksgiving meal of course) I'm thinking of getting a TukTuk to somewhere remote. (A bunch of people are biking, but oh wait…) There is something very beautiful about giant trees growing out of ruined but beautifully carved stone. I can't put my finger on it exactly…Maybe something about the transitory nature of seemingly immovable and incredibly important things. Maybe something about the beauty lost and the beauty remaining…the fact that it is possibly more beautiful this way than it was in its full glory. Maybe something about the poignancy of the lives lived and forgotten in that place, the everyday lives of courtiers and servants and the royal lives of the kings and princesses all gone, all equally lost and yet all giving some sort of power to the ruined temples. I love to sit somewhere quiet, close my eyes, and see, smell, feel, the entire place in it's heyday. Then I open my eyes and I still see it (thank you Strasburg sense memory training) and I can sit in the quiet and journal. That sounds like such a good plan. I will try to do that tomorrow morning. Right after I finish up my own petty life's duties and take my dirty laundry somewhere where it can become clean clothing once again.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm taking lots of pictures, Dad, and I may have even gotten you a souvenir :-)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I've really got to skidaddle now. I'm going to watch a movie with Katie C. and Ian and, not to worry you, but I really need to check up on what's going on in Thailand. I heard something about a bombing at the airport and the airport being closed…apparently the coup that's been threatening to happen for months finally has. We're supposed to go there next month, in case you aren't up on the itinerary, so we'll see what happens with that. Aventura! (But don't take my word for any of this news. Check it for yourself like I'm about to…anything I've heard has come from random Cambodians just chatting about it).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As always, I want to be kept posted on all of your goings on!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Much love from Siem Reap,</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Becca</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">P.S. You'll never EVER guess what I happened upon while popping into a convenience store to grab one of these amazing pomegranate green tea drinks I've discovered here: A and W Diet Cream Soda! I know…what? I wasn't even looking because I was SURE I would be seeing that again until May. So. Exciting! Add those two drinks to my list of wonderful things about Cambodia :-)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-79433280967812363872008-11-13T01:25:00.000-08:002008-11-13T01:39:29.732-08:00In Case You Want a Visual...I put up some more photos on picasa (http://picasaweb.google.com/becca.title). Hooray!<div><br /></div><div>We're working hard on our media projects for this month and finishing up teaching here in Kunming. (Incidentally, today Noah and I were absolutely mobbed by kids after class asking for "signs" or "names" and sometimes email..."signs," for those of you not well-versed in Chinglish, are signatures...literally, they wanted out signatures...I signed someone's ping-pong paddle. I was also given a little hand-written note that says, "Dear Becca/I am China girl. Nice to meet you! I welcome you to China. I like your class very much!/A China girl, He Xiangmei" which was very sweet except that I think she spent class writing the note and not actually paying attention -- that class was also the worst class we've had yet. No one paid attention. The teacher never showed up and Grace wasn't there either so no one could translate or stand menacingly in the corner, their mere presence keeping the kids from goofing off...and we teach 7th graders so the translation comes in handy sometimes...so does the presence of actual authority...we felt like no one was paying attention or getting what we were saying and then suddenly, after class, mobbed! Ah well....)</div><div><br /></div><div>The point I was trying to make, however, before that lovely digression, was that we will be leaving Kunming for our 10 hour bus ride to Shaxi ("Sha-shee") Tuesday morning, will come back Saturday night in time for our farewell banquet with Sam, Yuen etc. and then head to the airport Sunday morning to fly to Cambodia! (We say Goodbye to our families Monday night, so there's that farewell banquet, too...Saturday night we'll stay in the university hotel.) Shaxi is rural and we probably won't have much in the way of internet so you may not hear from me for a while since after Shaxi we'll be traveling and settling in somewhere new. I'm pretty excited for Cambodia -- Angkor Watt, relaxing in hammocks (we've been informed that THIS enrichment week we will in fact have time to sleep :-)), the killing fields (back to business). Then off to Vietnam. Also exciting!</div><div><br /></div><div>Keep in touch and remember the photos!</div><div>~Becca</div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-10604592455815804862008-11-08T19:28:00.001-08:002008-11-08T19:29:29.762-08:00Weekend Update: Kunming<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Saturday Night, November 8, 2008</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Hello there, again!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Lucky for my 3 loyal readers that I have a free weekend and a penchant for procrastination :-)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This week was fairly uneventful. Nothing big to report. I didn't teach Wednesday, Thursday or Friday because my school was having exams, so I had a little free time, which was nice. It helped me catch up on the sleep I missed during that crazy Quito/Machu Picchu/Three-day-plane-flight-followed-by-jet-lag period.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I went to something called English Corner on Thursday night. It's a weekly gathering of Chinese teens, 20-somethings and adults who want to practice their English, so finding an American (or Australian or Canadian or Englishman etc…) to talk to is like striking gold for attendees. The only problem is that there are some people I would rather not strike me, but by the time I figured out which people should be avoided it was too late, as you'll hear in a moment. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There were probably 250 people, although it was dark and difficult to really get a good estimate. Most of them are probably very nice and very interesting. A good number want to ask about colleges in the U.S. either out of curiosity or because they want to take a year abroad. One girl specified that she wanted to go to a famous University. Having just gone through the college application process myself, I tried to explain about the value of attending a school that's a "good fit" as opposed to one with a good name brand. She asked about transferring universities (difficult but not impossible, I told her) and about changing majors (not really that difficult at all). In China, you can't really change majors which is too bad because it seems that no one likes the one they've picked. Granted, I've only had the "do you like your major?" conversation with about 4 people, but they were four separate conversations at different times with students at different universities and no one was happy with their choice. The general complaint seemed to be that their major was too difficult, although I have a feeling the underlying issue is that no one had a major that they found interesting enough to make the work go quickly. In the U.S. most of us are lucky enough to get to choose a major because we find it interesting, hence the wealth of "impractical" majors like English (…and theatre…). Students with impractical majors may face the occasional "what are you going to do with </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">that</span></span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">?" but those majors remain popular, nonetheless. I'm not sure how majors are chosen in China, but I would guess that people's parents have a lot of say and that pragmatism reigns supreme. The girl I spoke to at English corner was a business administration major, or something to that effect, and she told me she really disliked math. She had actually been an Arts student in high school (when students enter high school they are either placed on the math/science track or the arts track which is more humanities based). Too bad her major was math based. She asked what my major would be and when I told her I intended to double major in theatre and international relations she perked up. Did I think it was important to be interested in my major? …Well, yes. I told her that I thought I would be much happier if I was interested in my major since I would be spending the rest of university and probably the rest of my life studying or working in that field. She told me that international relations was where her real interest lay. I suggested that there might be a way to work in international business, that she should be creative with her career since just switching her major seemed out of the question, but it appeared that her plan was to go to the U.S. and change over there. All I can say is that that's a long way to go to change a major. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That short conversation reminded me again how thankful I am for the American system of education, with it's emphasis on a broad range of subjects. I spent a few weeks at Oxford during the summer after ninth grade and I fell in love with the city, but even then I knew I would never apply to university there. The British system, in which you choose a major before you even arrive on campus and study basically only that subject for the rest of your time, is just not for me. The Chinese system is not for me either. I like flexibility. I like being able to double major in two subjects that seem wholly unrelated and not entirely practical. I like being able to take a class in philosophy or linguistics or the literature and culture of Southwestern Pakistan just because it sounds interesting. I like it a lot, and I feel very lucky to have that opportunity. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Most of my time at English Corner, however, was spent being lecture by one of those miners you wish had struck gold with someone else. What I meant to say is that I was lectured by a 30ish year old man with one of those protective face masks around his next for a good 45 minutes about food security in China. Any time anyone else in the circle that had formed around me changed the subject (usually to Barack Obama) he would inevitably interrupt and bring the conversation back to food security. Ocassionally he would branch out to food security in the U.S. or even "ecology farming" (which is NOT organic farming and which I still do not really understand). I know very little about food security in the U.S. I know we have the FDA and generally I assume my food is safe. Maybe I should know more about where what I eat comes from. That is a valid point and I'm pretty sure we'll be discussing that when we study sustainable agriculture in India. We'll be reading parts of The Omnivore's Dilemma which I know at least touches on that because I had bits of it read to me by a friend on an airplane last year. However, as valid as that point may have been, I'm not sure that was the point he was trying to make. I have no idea, actually, what point he was trying to make and during that 45 minutes I learned very little about food security anywhere. All I remember is that people worry about it and that people in Kunming really like fresh vegetables and they go to the market every morning to buy them so markets are sold out by noon. Good to know. I finally escaped by telling him I had to go find my friends. (That was actually true because when I finally came up from my underwater lair of food security fears and looked around, all the other TBBers that had been near me were gone. I had an apprehensive minute during which I thought I had been left and tried to mentally walk the route home, but luckily when I stood on a nearby rock to get a better view in the crush of people I saw that Noah and David were still there…thank goodness for tall people, particularly in China. The blonde and the baseball cap didn't hurt either. And so I made it home without incident.)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As I think I mentioned before, we've been reading Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (or POTO, which slips more easily off the tongue). It's dense and I occasionally yearn for a dictionary, but it's very interesting. The big question (at least for me) that came out of our discussion Friday was this: Can one be an effective agent of change without being a martyr? Freire's theory is (I'm trying to summarize here…) that the Oppressors (which would include me because I wouldn't consider myself Oppressed and there is no Door #3) are dehumanizing both the Oppressed and themselves through their oppression, but that any change to the system must come from the Oppressed. An Oppressor can basically defect and be in solidarity with the Oppressed if he or she becomes convinced of the need to liberate the Oppressed (thereby making both the Oppressed and their Oppressors "more fully human" – a term he has yet to clarify and which I find annoyingly vague and hand-wavey), but it seems to be impossible, at least as I'm reading it, to be in solidarity with the Oppressed without cutting oneself off from Oppressor society. It's interesting to think about this in the context of Three Cups of Tea and also in the context of international development or even just community service. Is it possible to help people without being "one of them?" If I want to help the poor do I have to become poor, leaving the trappings of Oppressor society behind me? If I'm unwilling to do that, is there any way I can still help?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I hope I haven't butchered Freire's ideas too terribly in that summary. I'm interested to see what he says in the rest of his book, but I have a feeling it won't answer those questions for me. I think we'll be talking about those questions for a long time…the rest of this year, yes, but even beyond that. Thinking Beyond Borders asks on its website: What does it mean to be a proactive agent of change? No one I know thinks they have the definitive answer to that question. There may not be a definitive answer. But I know a lot of people who are asking and thinking and talking about it. Now maybe you are too :-)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On a lighter note, life with my Chinese homestay family is getting better. I think it's a combination of changing expectations (both on my part and on the part of my homestay parents, whom, after their talk with Charles, have been slightly less overprotective…it's interesting to have gone from effectively being an adult old enough to have two children in Bua to a child who should be studying and living at home with her parents here in Kunming…many of the TBBer's host siblings are in their early to mid twenties, after all) as well as very slight but very useful improvements in my Chinese, their English and my miming skills. I dare you to challenge me in Charades after this year. I dare you.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And, in case you thought China was sounding like all work and no play (we do have Chinese homework, POTO reading, journaling, lesson planning and media projects to work on after all) I thought you might like to know that I've had a chance to watch some of the (bootleg…shhh don't tell!) DVDs I bought last weekend. Last Sunday night I watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, last night I watched Notorious with Isabel (so, SO good…I just love Ingrid Bergman…and Claude Raines…and Cary Grant…) and I'm in the middle of watching Bridge on the River Kwai (which I did not realize was quite as long as it is and may not have time to finish before I turn this computer over to Katie C. in about an hour…bootleg DVD's aren't always entirely accurate on their package movie length estimates, apparently…I should have known better seeing as it's directed by David Lean who also brought us such epics as Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago). I'd just like to point out that I'm risking not getting to finish Bridge on the River Kwai so that I could type up this blog post. Then again, I own it, so I can finish it whenever I can next manage to snag a laptop. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">However, the exciting moment of the day for me (besides getting to chat with the 'rents and Annie, I mean…maybe…) was finding a pair of jeans that pretty nearly fits and has minimal writing, fading, stitching or sequins. I didn't bring jeans on the trip and I have regretted that since we've been in a city and not a rural area. REI pants just don't measure up to the fashion standards of Kunming…or of normal teenagers…but people in China are small and a lot of the jeans are very flashily decorated so I thought a good pair would be pretty hard to come by. I looked a little last week, but today I met with success. Hooray!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I think I'll leave you on that very uplifting note. I know it just made your day :-P</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I would sign off in Chinese if I knew how,</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Becca </span></span></p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-26270418083421742262008-11-05T01:32:00.000-08:002008-11-05T02:01:40.280-08:00A Little Break From The ConcreteStepping back from the main plot line, I have some abstractions and side comments to share from the internet cafe I finally found in the first free time we've really had (thanks to the school I teach at having midterms today, tomorrow and Friday).<br /><br />First of all, in case the news got here first, OBAMA IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT!!!<br /><br />Not being in the U.S. for the last two months (or, more specifically, being in a bubble of rabid Obama supporters) has made my anxiety about the election a little remote. While I consciously knew McCain could win, the danger was theoretical. I didn't feel it in my gut. Still, I'm ohmygoodness so excited. We got to watch a little of the election coverage on broken-up live-streaming from CNN.com and I saw both McCain's and Obama's speeches (or most of them, at least). I thought McCain's was really classy. In fact, I liked him far more during that speech than I did at any point during the campaign and I think he may have been more successful had he struck that conciliatory, hopeful tone during the campaign. Then again, I missed a lot of the campaign so take my opinion there with a grain of salt. (WITH a grain of salt? WORTH a grain of salt? I have the same problem with "speak my PIECE/PEACE..." Which is it?) Obama's speech was pretty good, too, although that was more broken up so it was harder to get the continuity. I did appreciate his story about the 106 year old woman, although I thought there was something in it that he could have hit a little harder...it ended a little flat for me. Still, I teared up while listening, and I know several other TBBers did, too. I think Obama will be great for a lot of reasons, but since I'm traveling I think I'll only touch on internationally relevant ones. Obama is going to be much, much better for our relationships with foreign governments than McCain would. McCain seems to have a 20th century view of the world, where America is the only superpower (since the USSR is gone) and where we can do what we want, generally succeed, and still have the respect of much of the world. We may get that respect back with Obama in office, but I think our superpower days are over and we have to accept that. It isn't really such a bad thing, is it? Additionally, many people I've met seem to think that the racial situation in America is stuck in the '50's. While it is far from perfect, I think we've made progress since then and electing an African American to the highest office in our country sends a message to the world about equality in the U.S. It feels weird for me even to mention that, because while I realize that we've never had a black president (or a female, or any other minority group at all, really), it doesn't feel impossible (and clearly, it isn't). I grew up in a liberal area in a liberal family with a lot of books for little kids telling me that I could grow up to be whatever I wanted to be. I came of voting age at a time when Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson and Barack Obama were all viable presidential candidates and that seemed totally normal. I'll take that to mean we're making a lot of progress. If having a woman and a minority battling it out for the Democratic nomination seems normal, if what I was focusing on was less that they were a female and a black man and more on their policies and, let's be honest, personalities, then maybe presidential races with four protestant white males are really becoming a thing of the past. Let's hope so. (Then again, I really liked John Edwards, so instead of hoping for the downfall of white males in politics, let's hope to move to a point where race and gender become moot because their distribution among politicians mirrors relatively fairly the population of our country).<br /><br />Second, books. We're currently reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is not an easy read, but seems pretty interesting so far. I'll get back to you on that. We have also just finished a lighter book called Three Cups of Tea. The story was fascinating and having read it, I'm glad I did, but I have to warn you that reading it was painful. It is just terribly written. I don't know how it ever got published. Where was the editor with the red pen? There are bad cliches ("Was the glass half full or half empty?"...referring to an actual glass and intending to be deeply metaphorical), overly sappy passages and some very awkward transitions, all of which I found incredibly frustrating. As I read, I felt they took me out of the story (and a lot of my margin notes attest to that...I have many and "ew" or "why would you write that?" scribbled on the side of the page), but having read the book, I remember the story fondly. It was pretty darn interesting despite the writer's best efforts to make me put the book down. I don't know if I recommend it or not. It depends on how picky you are about things like this...but even I am glad I read it.<br /><br />Third, language and homestays. As you might have gathered, my homestay here in Kunming is less than spectacular and it's gotten me thinking about homestays in general. In Bua, it was awesome to be able to communicate with my family well enough to have discussions about politics, environmentalism and life in general. I learned a lot from living and conversing with Germania, Wilson and the other Tsachila. It was also really great to get to practice my Spanish. In Kunming, I am clearly not having those complex and fascinating conversations. I can barely say hello. (I am trying to learn, it's just not that easy!) Other TBBers can communicate, some well enough to have those discussions, but those discussions are always in English because being able to communicate means that the host family speaks some English and not that we speak Chinese. While it's great to have that sort of give an take with people from other cultures whatever the language, something about coming to their country and expecting them to speak our language sits wrong with me. China's government is convinced that English is an international language and so now makes it mandatory to teach English in schools. Still, I would much rather speak Chinese in China. I know I can't speak the language of every country I visit; that would be too much to ask, but for me, at least, it feels important to speak the language when doing a homestay. I'm coming into their home, benefitting from their hospitality and it feels like the least I could do would be to communicate, however badly, in their language.<br /><br />Speaking of benefitting from their hospitality, I'm going to be late for dinner if I don't get home ASAP and that would be rather rude, something I try to avoid being. So I'm signing out for now. Keep me posted on all of your news.<br /><br />With hope for our future,<br />BeccaLe Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-33009269011090110682008-11-03T17:52:00.001-08:002008-11-03T17:53:25.766-08:00A Chinese Epic<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kunming, Yunan, China</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">November 3</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">rd</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, 2008</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(I typed this up at home and am uploading it the next day at the university where we have wireless access…hence the date confusion…and the 16 hour time difference doesn't help either…)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Wow. I don't even know where to begin. I mean…oh my. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well. After my last blog post, we took a train back to Cusco and arrived at our hostel about 10pm (having been up since 4). We all wanted to shower and then fall into bed and sleep for days, but this is TBB so what actually happened was something more like get your bags out of storage, lay everything out on the bed, reorganize, repack, steal a little shuteye. Hopefully everyone found a moment to shower and, fingers crossed, there was hot water left. I went for the early morning (4am…again) shower in the interest of not dozing off standing up with the shampoo still in my hair…the fact that no one else was showering so there was plenty of hot water was a lovely side benefit. After our last breakfast of coca tea we were off to the airport (where I snagged a Peruvian chess board as a gift for my Chinese host family to be…although we've since been told to give them the gift at the end so I still have it). </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We took a short flight to Lima where all did not go quite as smoothly as planned. We couldn't check our bags through to Beijing. Six packs got checked through to L.A. which was the worst case scenario since we would only have an hour and a half layover there and we had to pick up the rest in Lima and recheck them. While at the baggage claim, despite the fact that we piled our bags together as they came off the carousel and stood in a circle around them, we managed to be negligent enough to get Robin's carry-on snagged from right under our noses. By the time we noticed it was gone, it was too late…just barely, which is all the more frustrating. It is not at all difficult to steal a bag in Lima if you're ever in the mood for some theft. You just grab it, walk 100 meters to the front doors and hail a cab. Home free. Unfortunately, Robin's carry-on probably had the most valuables in it, both financially speaking and in a more personal sense – things that the thief wouldn't want anyway but that nonetheless are gone forever. So that was less than ideal, to say the least. From there we flew to San Salvador and then to L.A. We had to go through customs, get our bags and sprint two terminals over. A customs officer complete with a bizarre 1am sense of humor helped us through the immigration line quickly, but we had to wait 20 minutes for our bags so all that initial hurry was for naught. Why U.S.A., why must you make us go through customs on a layover? </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well, we made it through, just barely, and along the way we picked up our new staff member, Beth. She's pretty awesome, although I'm afraid she got a terrible first impression of all of us since we were hot, exhausted and very cranky. I think she's warmed up to us, though. </span></span><span style=""><span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">J</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The next flight was a fifteen hour behemoth to Beijing and from there to Kunming where we ate a quick lunch (aka a HUGE family style Chinese meal at the restaurant of a fancy airport hotel…food here, incidentally, is delicious) and hopped on a private bus for the two hour ride to Tong Hai where we would have orientation. No rest for the weary, we visited "Tong Hai Numba One Middre Schoo" (for those not well-versed in Chinglish, Tong Hai's Number One Middle School) and taught an impromptu twenty minute English Class. From there we visited a private English school for children ages 4 to 12 run by a very jolly Chinese man named Albert. And then: BED. Yay!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Day two, or whatever you call the first full day in China, was October 28</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> 2008, also known as my 18</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> birthday. We ate a traditional Chinese breakfast in our hotel (noodles, chicken soup, fried dough, bread/cake…very good) and then headed to The Hill in Tong Hai for orientation at one of the many, MANY temples situated there. We ate lunch at the temple and had the afternoon off to explore the temples on the hill. I explored for about two hours, arrived back at our hotel intending to do some work, journal, read – something productive, but failed miserably and ended up extending my 30 minute nap into an hour and fifteen minutes until I had to get up to go to dinner. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dinner was at Albert's school. He and his family cooked for all 21 of us. (21? You ask. Why yes. 15 TBB students, Robin and Sandy, Beth, Sam and Yuen, and Charles. Sam, who is originally from Virginia, and his wife Yuen run the SIT program in Kunming (SIT is the School for International Training…they're our partner NGO here in China) and Charles is a twenty-something Chinese guy who is working with them. He's very tech geeky and very adorable…and very helpful and on top of things.) Meals in China, or at least in Yunan province, seem to always be served family style. At restaurants this usually involves a big Lazy Susan laden with so many bowls that we have to stack them by the time they bring the last few (they come slowly with rice sometime near the end because eating rice first is desperate and smacks of poverty) and at a home it involves a lot of reaching and skillful chopstick maneuvering. Again, the food is generally delicious…particularly noodles, dumplings and anything tofu, although I can now say I've tried wild pig (like chopped up beef jerky) and, more exotically, bee. Yes, bee. It was fried and tasted…fried. But I tried it. Aren't you proud of me?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm sorry about all these tangential comments, multiple commas and parentheses within parentheses. There's too much to catch up on to make this cleanly linear. Anyway, Becca's 18</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> birthday dinner was at Albert's. I was having a nice birthday just hanging out with my friends and being in China, but it didn't end there. I got not one cake, but two because Sam and Yuen bought one not knowing that Albert also knew it was my birthday and had purchased a cake. Both were fabulous. One was covered in beautiful orange flowers (and I think tasted good, but it ended up at the other table so I didn't try it) and the other was themed pink, with a frosting horse (because I was born in the year of the horse) and a plastic flower candle (or, candles, rather because it had one on each petal) that bloomed when you lit it…inside it was sponge-cakey and quite yummy. Dayenu, right? But no. I also got a package from the home front containing not one but 28 Obama t-shirts of all varieties and sizes to share with the group (and, apparently, anyone we met on the street willing to risk arrest for too much political expression). I believe it was Alexandra who said it was the best birthday she ever had…and it was not her birthday. It helped that we are all very into the election and also that none of us had any clean clothing left. The Obama shirts were worn many days in a row. </span></span><span style=""><span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">J</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Dayenu. And yet…also planned for that evening (although we all were exhausted…a 15 hour time change close on the heels of Machu Picchu will do that to you) was a concert of traditional Chinese music held just for us. It was pretty cool. I have a (low quality) video of a few songs which may someday make it somewhere where it can be watched. I actually am hoping to figure out how to rip the sound off the video and use it for the podcast I'll be making about China (we have new media groups in each country and this time around I'm in the podcast group). Speaking of media projects, they're all up now…or ¾ of them are. The Google Earth turned Powerpoint will be up soon…the website wasn't formatted to upload Powerpoint because we didn't intend to be making any…but it will be the best Powerpoint you've ever seen. I promise. It's quite good. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The next day we visited the number 2 high school in Tong High and bused ourselves back to Kunming to meet our host families.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We all live in apartments (I don't think there are any single family homes in Kunming), but beyond that there is a huge range of English ability and lifestyle among the host families. Some of the parents are English teachers (meaning their English is passable and they will at least occasionally understand you), some host siblings speak fluent English, some are learning it in school, and a few host families have virtually no English at all. I've also learned that some host families live in moderate apartments (palaces compared to Bua…with warm running water and some form of toilet or porcelain hole in the floor that flushes) and some live in ritzy penthouses (I'm talking 60 inch flat screen TV's, an upstairs with a koi pond and a ping pong table, multiple computers, cushy leather chairs and a banister painted with gold leaf).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My host family lives in one of the moderate middle class apartments (although not one that has been decorated to feel at all homey). We have a shower that will stay the temperature you want it to be as long as you turn on the electric heater an hour ahead of time and a real toilet. My host family does not, however, have any English. It's just me, my host mom and my host dad, neither of whose names I know because I couldn't pronounce them when they told me. They have a son, but he is at university in Beijing. The frustrating thing is that I'm sure he speaks at least some English because you have to in order to pass the university matriculation exam and going to college all the way in Beijing (a three hour plane flight away) is very prestigious. I didn't even have an English/ Chinese dictionary when I arrived and although my parents came armed with a newly purchased Chinese/English dictionary I needed one quite badly. Luckily, on day two, John came to the rescue by lending (/giving…I'm keeping it…) me his phrasebook since his family speaks English well enough to communicate. Since then, we spend every meal with our dictionaries and a pad of paper to write things down. My host mother can't really read pinyin (the phonetic-ish way of writing Chinese words with roman letters) so when my host father isn't home I have to copy down the Chinese characters from the small dictionary in the back of the phrasebook. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm trying very hard to communicate and to be polite, but it's been frustrating. First of all, Chinese people in Yunan speak very loudly, but my family, I've just learned, is from somewhere else where they essentially yell everything. And when they get frustrated they yell louder. Also, I spent an hour and a half Saturday night explaining my plans for Sunday, only to have my family override them twice. I wasn't sure if they didn't understand me (although I was sure they did) or just didn't care that I'd planned to meet friends. I'm getting used to the idea that although we aren't allowed to have cell phones, all the families have phones we can use. Today, after I told Charles about my trying Sunday night (which ended with me in tears for the second time in the last four days….the first time being when I got lost for an hour and a half and finally found two nice although non-English-speaking Chinese boys who could walk me home…and I was half an hours walk away from home so it was all the more amazingly nice of them to take me…I had been getting directions through finger pointing so I thought I was probably close, but no…not even a little…I've since learned my way. I think. I haven't been brave enough to try to get anywhere alone though.) Anyway, when I told Charles, he said I should call him if I ever have trouble communicating and I've already taken him up on that offer. It was helpful, but I don't want to have to go through him every time I need to tell my family something even remotely complicated. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I think what I'm learning from this is that while I'm a little uncomfortable with homestays in general because I never want to be a burden, homestays where you have no common language are just not for me. We do have Chinese class in the mornings for an hour, but I'm not going to become fluent in three days time…and I really need to be at least functional. I'm not. Plus, in addition to the frustrating inability to communicate basic ideas, we certainly can't have any sort of interesting cultural exchange through conversation. While other people have talked to their families about history and politics, I'm excited when I can tell them I'll be home for dinner. And I'm so used to either living in Bua with my 6 host siblings, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and Isabel or in a hostel in a room with 5 other girls that I get very lonely at home here. Luckily we have very busy and structured days so I'm not home much and when I am I have about 5 different kinds of homework I should be doing and am always very behind.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Our daily schedule goes something like this: </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">8:30 – 9:30 Chinese class</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">9:30 – 12:00 Seminars or Lectures</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">12:00 – 1:00 Lunch (in the insane cafeteria or buying food from a cart on the street)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1:00 – 2:00 Teaching help and lesson planning</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2:00 – 5:15 Teaching English at a middle school</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When I say insane cafeteria by the way, I mean it. The three walls are lined with food and you push your way through the masses of people if you see something you like, point at it, have some arbitrary amount scooped into your giant metal mug (you have to bring your own bowl/plate/spoon/chopsticks…they aren't provided), put your meal card on what looks like an electric scale but is actually a scanner and have the price of whatever item you just added to your pot subtracted from your total. Food at the university is government subsidized and so very cheap, but street food is still cheaper. I bought three dumplings today for 1.50 kwai. There are about 7 kwai to a dollar. Yeah.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Teaching English is…interesting. I'm teaching at the private school (as opposed to the ritzy half/half school or the public school which has less technology but also only about 30 students in a class compared to about 60 at the other two schools). We went to observe classes the first day (we intended to observe English classes for two days before teaching) and met with the school's head. She informed us that we would be teaching in art, music or P.E. classes, not English classes, and that we were supposed to begin the next day, Friday, and not Monday as we'd intended. It seems that the school wants us there because it is prestigious to have foreign instructors and because we might be able to motivate the students to learn English as a way to communicate rather than as a way to pass a big test that everyone is given at the end of middle school and high school. However, spoken English is not tested, so they don't want us taking up valuable English class time so they're giving us art and music (and P.E.) which makes those teachers unhappy. They want us to incorporate art and music into our lessons, but we really can't, so we just aren't. They also really want us to teach about "American Culture" which is difficult since it isn't any one thing. It isn't really any one hundred things. But we're trying. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We went into our first day of classes pretty unprepared and generally spent the 45 minute periods on introductions, question time and some pictionary. ("We" is me and Noah, my co-teacher. He's the tall blondish one for any of you looking through photos. Some students are teaching solo because the schools demanded it, but the original idea was to teach in pairs and I'm happy to be part of a duo.) The English abilities of the students vary widely. Some have had a lot of outside tutoring, a select few have lived in the U.S. and many have almost no comprehension. There are 60 students in a class so it's virtually impossible to please them all and the students that don't understand don't speak up (since they can hardly put together a question and also because their classmates are not very supportive of botched attempts at English…this is middle school and it can be pretty brutal) so we end up teaching to what we estimate is the middle level of comprehension. Even for the best students, however, spoken English is very weak. A lot of the kids can conjugate to your heart's content on the blackboard and probably write a reasonable essay, but can't speak to save their lives. Chinese education involves a lot of rote memorization which was very obvious when we went around our first classroom having everyone introduce themselves. Each student would stand up, stare into space and say "Hello. My name is AB. My first name is B. My last name is A. My English name is C." Sometimes they would add "My favorite sport is D. My favorite subject is E." and they would always end with "Nice to meet you." Even when I approached their desks and tried to engage them, they would stare right past me. (Incidentally, some of their English names were quite interesting. There were boys named Amber and Erica as well as Snow and Beer.) Many of the English teachers don't even speak English very well. There's really no hope for the students if their teachers need conversational English lessons too, but then again, it's better than nothing and it would be pretty difficult to get foreign teachers to every English classroom in China. I think maybe the English of the teachers will improve when this generation of students grows up because China is just now instituting curriculum reforms to de-emphasize rote memorization and allow for some creativity…at least I hope so. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There's more to say, of course. Every day here is jam-packed, but I'm really tired, it's 11pm (and I'm ready for bed by 8) and I have other homework so you'll have to wait for my next post or buy me a cup of coffee when I get home. This post is long enough anyway…too long really. I bet 80% of you didn't get this far. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Also, FYI, I don't have much internet access. I don't live in a house with wi-fi or Ethernet as far as I know and my family hasn't offered to let me use the computer I just discovered this morning (or to watch any TV…and most families showed their kids the TV, computer and, as a few of our host siblings have, the playstation or wii the night we arrived…I feel a little unwanted, actually. All we do is eat.) </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, to summarize: the days are cool, but the family situation is less than ideal. It's frustrating and rather lonely. I really wish I had a sibling because he/she would either be old enough to speak at least some English and relate to me or be young enough so that language would be unnecessary and we could just play. I'm the only TBBer without a host sibling, although the host siblings do show varying levels of interest in us…some TBBers get followed everywhere and some have exchanged only a cursory hello so I guess a sibling wouldn't really be a silver bullet to make this experience happier. I do enjoy the days, though, and I'm only in this house for another two weeks so I'll be fine. Maybe it'll get better. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On a lighter note, I purchased quite a few very cheap DVD's here which is very exciting as well as a blue and white striped sweatshirt which is very comfy and wonderful because it can get pretty cold here (and I lost my fleece in transit somewhere between Machu Picchu and Kunming).</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, that's the update. Sorry for the lack of organization and the less than beautiful writing. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Much love, </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Becca</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">P.S. Election TOMORROW!!! (Sort of…we're about 16 hours ahead of California time so it's tomorrow and a half…we get to watch, or try to watch if we can get a good enough internet connection to do any live streaming, election returns on Wednesday morning…nervous time…) Can you believe we're actually having the election after nearly two years of campaigning? It's nuts.</span></span></p>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-15479915097499801122008-10-24T12:44:00.001-07:002008-10-25T17:56:15.414-07:00I Trekked To Machu Pichu And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBjuPTwCTs2eCbj-qHuljItlzUXM40L6KDWYbr49hLYmEgR0R63HWSdEgQrXpuQUCNi_9-Tg6KhE6ptHhlm_DknxGkQTNejRgpPmvQrT12mVMjM3xE4TLQoLr1s-3MCLpHJjkWAPJD5Pw/s1600-h/IMG_0796.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBjuPTwCTs2eCbj-qHuljItlzUXM40L6KDWYbr49hLYmEgR0R63HWSdEgQrXpuQUCNi_9-Tg6KhE6ptHhlm_DknxGkQTNejRgpPmvQrT12mVMjM3xE4TLQoLr1s-3MCLpHJjkWAPJD5Pw/s320/IMG_0796.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261259656045285314" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>...And those memories...And those photos...Oh, and that inability to walk -- but that will go away ;-)<br /><br />I believe we left off the night before we headed out to the Inca Trail to begin our trek. I´ll pick up from there. Well, what with the packing and the stuffing of non-essentials into bags to be stored at our hostel I didn´t get to sleep until 11ish which was a little late considering that I´d gotten about 6 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and we´d be waking up at 5ish. Still, I woke up, showered (gotta be clean to get dirty), ate a lovely breakfast with the traditional coca tea and out we headed.<br /><br />Now for a quick (well, I can´t promise anything) comment on coca. Coca is what most Americans recognize only as the plant from which cocaine is derived. This is true. Cocaine is derived from coca. However, as a popular Latin American slogan says "Coca no es la Cocaina" or, rather, coca is not cocaine any more than poppy seeds are opium or heroin. Coca leaves have medicinal properties and have been used by locals for hundreds and hundreds of years for those properties and not as a narcotic. They help with altitude sickness, give you energy, make your mouth a little numb if you chew the actual leaves and make delicious tea. And candy. On this trip through Peru, I´ve had many litres of coca tea, some coca candy and have even chewed the leaves along with the traditional ash (uck) to enhance the plant´s properties and I can safely say I have not done drugs. Coca, all in all, is pretty awesome and I can see it being really popular in the states as a kind of tea or energy supplement...were it not illegal. There´s the crux. The U.S. crop dusts coca plantations in Colombia so that drug cartels don´t refine it into cocaine, but the people farming the coca are poor peasants, not drug dealers, and they´re growing a crop that´s been grown for centuries. The drug cartels pay the highest price and so the farmers sell them their coca. Who can blame them? Here in Peru, coca is perfectly legal. The Incas even farmed it. But if you´re caught with even the tiniest bit of cocaine, it´s twenty-five years in prison for you. Fine. We <em>can</em> grow poppies in the U.S. and we <em>can´t</em> make them into heroin. Why doesn´t that work with coca? A lot of innocuous or even useful substances can be made into something harmful -- we aren´t allowed to bring more than 3 ounces of liquid on airplanes because you can find out how to make almost anything into a bomb on the interent-- but we don´t demonize the innocuous stuff. No one is outlawing soap. But they are outlawing coca. The idea of a war on drugs in general is a little stupid. We shouldn´t be fighting the drugs. They´re bad, but the problem is the violence that goes with them and the best way to get at the problem is to fix the broken economies in which being a drug mule is a good career option. Crop dusting some coca plants isn´t hurting anyone but the poor farmers who chose to plant coca over potatoes because it sells for a higher price at market. That´s the general idea of what I think, at least. Í´ve been thinking about it a little over the past few days. I was surprised, when I first was served coca tea because I´d always thought that coca was bad, bad and only bad. Live and learn.<br /><br />Anyway...now back to our feature presentation:<br /><br />We took a 1.5 hour bust ride from Cusco (which I´d always thought was spelled with a z...) to Ollantaytambo for a quick shopping stop. I bought two bags of coca candies, a bag of coca leaves, some M&M´s and a walking stick at the guide´s recommendation (all of that...not just the walking stick) and was glad to have all of it along the way (although actually I still have 98% of the coca products...we had tea in the morning and with every meal so I was coca-ed out). We hopped back on the bus to our point of departure, Piskacucho -- 2600 meters (mind you, not feet...that´s 8,530 feet above sea level). Day one was the "easy day." We walked 11km to Wayllabamba("Why-ya-bamba") -- 3,000 meters or 9,842 feet. Sadly, for me it was not easy. I was very, very tired and a little behind. I conked out the second we got to camp, woke up for 5:30 "chocolate time" (hot cocoa, tea or coffee and some crackers or popcorn) and then slept right through dinner. The next day, day two, was the day of death. There were no Inca sites to visit, just miles and miles of up, up, up. At about 7:30am we set out from Wayllabamba (3,000 meters, remember) and walked up to Warmi Wañusca, or "Dead Woman´s Pass," named, supposedly, because it resembles a dead or reclining woman, but really, I´m not so sure. It didn´t look that much like a woman to me...Dead Woman´s Pass is 4215 meters or 13,828 feet above sea level and is only about 6km from Wayllabamba. For those of you who don´t like math, that´s a climb of about 4,000 feet (at altitude) over 3ish miles. Then there ware some steep stairs down to our camp for the night at Pacaymayo (a mere 3,600 meters or 11,811 feet). I was BEAT. I arrived at camp at 4:30 and had missed the late lunch that the other, faster, people had eaten. That´s NINE hours of hiking with no food. Sandy was amazing and hung out with me the whole laborious time...and she was starving. A porter did meet us on the trail with about 30 minutes to go til camp with ham and cheese sandwhiches which had been the snack for the day but which we had both passed up since we either don´t like or don´t eat ham. I didn´t think I was that hungry, but since he brought them I figured I should eat it. Let me just say, that may have been the best sandwhich I have ever or will ever eat in my entire life. I´m sorry Subway, I just don´t think you can beat it. When we finally got to camp on day 2 I was pretty tired, but very, very happy to be done with the dreaded second section. I survived...and I had been dubious as to my odds.<br /><br />A word now about the porters. They are beasts. (I mean that as a complement for those of you who aren´t up on today´s teen slang...which I don´t really use anyway, actually, but there you are). They are all from poor families, as far as I can tell, and get paid 40 soles a day, which works out to about 13 dollars. Their food is included while they´re portering, but still, not a high-paying career choice. I think, though, that it´s pretty decent as far as their other options are concerned. Still, it is no easy feat. Our guide Ruben and our assistant guide Edwin (who are absolutely amazing by the way and if you ever hike the Inca trail you should go with the company we went with -- Qénte -- because it´s locally owned, less expensive, awesome, and has Ruben and Edwin whom you should ask for), said that a porter will trek 5 to 6 times A MONTH. That´s pretty much every day! And, if you haven´t been following closely, it´s not an easy trek. Particularly if it´s your job to carry 20 or 30 kilos (we aren´t clear on the current law, but either way it´s much better than it was even ten years ago) and to run up and down the hills so that you beat your trek group to lunch or camp sites with time to set up tents. While hiking, it´s etiquette to get out of a porter´s way (which is often a welcom 2 or 3 second break) and on the last night of the trek we gave tips. There were, however, 27 porters for our group (because they have to carry our group gear, food, and their things) so it didn´t work out to any spectacular amount. A bunch of us chipped in with whatever soles we had left with us. On a side porter-related note, the cook and assistant cooks were awesome. Everything tastes better hiking, sure, but this was pretty gourmet. We had a big tent with a long table in it and we´d pass around bowls of soup and then plastic casserole dishes from which we served ourselves. I was expecting camp stoves. On the last night, they even made us a cake! At altitude! It tasted sort of like a giant pancake, but it´s the thought that counts and it said "Well Done Chicos" so I like the thought quite a bit :-)<br /><br />Day three was more tough uphill at the beginning to get over a second pass called Rankurakay (3,900 meters or 12,795 feet), but only for an hour or hour and a half. Then it was down, flat or some rolling hills (still not easy once you´re that tired, but so, SO much better than infinite up). And there were some ruins to entertain us along the way -- that is to say nothing of the scenery which, after descending from Dead Woman´s Pass, began to change from Andean brush to Amazonian greenery. Both, however, were beautiful (although right at the bottom at the beginning of day one it looked eerily like driving out of L.A. north on the 5...). I have a TON of photos, believe me, but I´m not sure when I´ll get them posted. I´m still in Aguas Calientes at the bottom of Machu Picchu waiting for the train...we won´t be back at the hostel until late and then we´re heading out early for our 3 day plane fest to China. I´m excited to have some chill time to read and sleep, but a little sad that all my gross comfy clothes from Machu Picchu will remain gross and unwearable until we arrive at our destination on the other side of the world. Anyway, that´s why the photos may not be forthcoming.<br /><br />Today was day four. We woke up at 3:50am (after a bad night´s sleep for me, sadly...after feeling GOOD after the hike on day three -- good enough not to nap before bedtime and to make all meals -- my frustrating and constant runny nose from day two morphed into a full on cold with the sneezing and the dry coughs, or what I like to call "Machu Picch-flu"...I´d rationed my role of toilet paper carefully along the trek, blowing many snot rockets (don´t ask, don´t tell) along the trail instead of using the tp to blow my nose, but the night of day three my tent mate also had runny nose issues and I gave her the remainder of my roll in the hopes that she´d quiet down her snore/moaning...she used up the roll but didn´t really quiet down...ah well)...Anyway, we woke up mega early, had tea for breakfast and headed of to Intipata to watch the sun rise which was awesome. Then there were another 6km of flat, down and rolling hills to get to Intipunku -- the Sun Gate -- and then from there down to Machu Picchu. I suppose it wasn´t too terribly difficult objectively speaking, but I was beat and found it difficult indeed. Still, I made it to Machu Picchu -- I´m not sure exactly what time but I know I was there by 8am. I got my passport and my journal stamped with the Machu Picchu emblem at the checkpoint and headed in...again...because we´d had to head out first to get to the checkpoint where they make you leave your pack and walking stick. We toured around with our guides for another 2 and a half hours, learning some interesting facts and seeing the sights (and moaning every time we got up from a seated position or tried to go down stairs), then it was free time for an hour or so. Four of us (the crazies: Liz, John, Zack and Katie R.) opted to climb on to Waynapicchu ("Little Mountain" as opposed to Machu Picchu which means "Big Mountain"), the rest of us chilled out or wrote in journals and then headed down on the bus into Aguas Calientes for lunch.<br /><br />Ah, lunch. It was a buffet. We were NOT the people that buffet wanted walking in the door. We were RAVENOUS and it was delicious. Much food was eaten and there was much rejoicing. And the bathrooms were BEAUTIFUL. There was soap and toilets and toilet paper and flowers in a bowl of water and potpourri. After lunch, I tried to wipe up a bit and changed into comfy clothes. When it was time to head out and say goodbye to Edwin and Ruben I nearly cried. Honestly. They were just so nice to me. And Edwin particularly was such an interesting guy. He´d be talking to Robin near me for about a hour on day three and wow...he came from a poor family, taught himself English (and still is), picked a career he thought would be lucrative enough but chose not to go into the drug trade and had a lot to say about the importance of education and the importance of self-advancement. And he was so sweet, too. I was too tired to be embarrassed about my lack of hiking speed, but even if I weren´t I might have avoided the sentiment, they were so encouraging. I have both of their emails and I´ll be sending them photos. The thought makes me happy. :-D<br /><br />Anyway, I really wanted to buy a shirt that said "I Survived The Inca Trail." Normally, I´m not much for those touristy shirts, but this one I felt I deserved. But I hadn´t brought much money and had only 2 soles left (and it´s about 3 soles to the dollar). Then, magic happened. I found dollar bills in my pocket that I didn´t know I had!!! And Aguas Calientes is SUPER touristy so I thought they might take them...AND...THEY DID!!! I could have even gotten change in dollars but I got soles to pay for the internet cafe which you should all appreciate. So I am now the proud owner of an odd green colored shirt with a map of the Inca Trail (including altitudes if you look closely), a coca leaf that says "La Hoja Coca No Es Una Droga" and the happy phrase "I Survided The Inca Trail." Hooray!<br /><br />Anyway, you´re pretty much current with me now. I love getting all your emails and wish you all well on the various trips everyone seems to be going on. And if you´re not going for a trip, I wish you well on your staycation or just work as the case may be.<br /><br />I´m off to Cusco and from there to Lima to San Salvador to L.A. to Beijing to Kunming.<br />Keep keeping me posted!<br /><br />Love, your still alive,<br />Becca</div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-5124840488407615182008-10-20T20:13:00.000-07:002008-10-20T20:16:37.040-07:00Welcome To The Jungle<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CHuesped%5CCONFIG%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> <o:pixelsperinch>72</o:PixelsPerInch> <o:targetscreensize>1024x768</o:TargetScreenSize> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:hyphenationzone>21</w:HyphenationZone> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; mso-font-alt:"Calisto MT"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >Hello there!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">Sorry for such a terse last post…this next one doesn’t promise to be too much longer. We’ve been incredibly busy since leaving Bua last Wednesday morning (before which I was incredibly busy being hit on by another drunk Ecuadorian, throwing up for the first time since 3<sup>rd</sup> grade, coaching Isabel to kill a scorpion in our living room (because I was sick and also too afraid to look at it…scorpions are in a scary bug league of their own as far as I’m concerned), and getting cleansed by our host grandfather because our family thought that both Isabel and I were suffering from “mal de ojo” (evil looks) and not, as we suspected, “mal de leche” (evil milk). ) Whew! That was a long and winding parenthetical.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">So, what have we been so very busy with? Media projects! I’m in the text group this month, so we had to write summaries for the website about our time in Costa Rica and Ecuador as well as an article about the history of water resources in Bua. As time consuming as that was and as many late nights as we had, the other three groups had it harder. The Google Earth project group ended up not being able to use Google Earth because, shockingly, the people at Google haven’t yet found it imperative to take satellite pictures of Bua. They also tried to use the GPS map of Bua that some folks at Yanapuma are working on, but they ended up with PowerPoint. Don’t let that deter you though. I’ve seen it and it’s a far cooler presentation than PowerPoint deserves to drag down with its dull name. The podcast group was decimated by illness (Alexis, the only group member with Garage Band experience was out with a parasite and Dave was out with…not a parasite…but something) but managed to overcome that obstacle and their technological difficulties to put together a presentation that I would really love to listen to. I’m sure it’s awesome. I heard a rough version and it sounded pretty interesting. It was the video group, however, that had it the hardest of all. They had a few nights of not going to sleep at all and only finished last night (this morning?) at 2am in the Lima airport. I was up, too, and saw the finished product. I was very impressed and you will be too, but please, for their sakes, multiply your level of wow by 100. It was that hard to put it all together and they deserve the credit.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">So now you’re thinking, “Huh. Those might be interesting. I’d like to learn about water in Bua and see awesome photos from TBB’s time there. I wish Becca had told me how to do that…” (If you are not thinking that, you should be).<span style=""> </span>Well, lucky you, here’s a quick How To: Go to www.thinkingbeyondborders.org. Click on “Student Voices.” Click on Costa Rica for our summary of our time there, or Ecuador for our summary-ette and the media projects. Simple, no? Except…we’ve had some uploading issues so you’ll have to wait until at least October 25<sup>th</sup>…because tomorrow WE’RE GOING TO MACHU PICCHU!!! (And we can’t upload until we get back).</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">Our last few days in Quito weren’t all work and no play, though. Don’t get the wrong idea. I hit up the marketplace and got some very sweet knit hats to keep me warm on our hike and next year at college. We took a fieldtrip to Quito’s largest water treatment plant which was up on a hill so the view was beautiful. Saturday most of the group went on a hike, but I was feeling a little under the weather so I stuck around Quito – took a walk and ran some errands. I even found an English language bookstore (called the Confederate Bookstore…run by a guy from Virginia who bought it six years ago from his friend who was likely also from Virginia) and got <i style="">The Beautiful and the Damned</i>, a two-in-one by Virginia Woolf with <i style="">Jacob’s Room</i> and <i style="">The Waves</i> and some assorted long poems by Auden. Yay!</span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">We left for the airport at 3pm Sunday for our 6pm flight. We arrived in Lima at about 8pm, collected our bags, went through customs and then camped out against a wall until we could check in for our 5am flight to Cusco around 4am. A few people slept. I didn’t really. I did, however, fill out my ballot, catch up on journaling and watch <i style="">Silence of the Lambs</i> which I rather liked (and Anthony Heald, an actor from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is in it and I recognized him right away and it felt like I knew someone in the movie).</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">When we finally arrived in Cusco we had a briefing with our the agency that will guide us up Machu Picchu (I’m terrified, by the way…altitude is TOUGH) and then were left to our own devices. Despite an overwhelming desire to sleep, we all went out and enjoyed the city. I did some major shopping, but since it’s 3.1 soles to the dollar I didn’t do major damage. I got a fabulous llama charm necklace (for some reason I’m attracted to anything llama…it’s my new favorite animal by far), a long pair of wool socks, wool glittens (the glove/mitten combo) and a tealish skirt like the ones the indigenous Peruvians wear around and also kind of like people wore in the ‘50’s.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">However, it is late and I am tired and I’m not quite done packing so I’m going to sign off. If you don’t hear from me ‘til around Halloween, I’m sorry, but immediately after Machu Picchu we get on airplanes for three days and head to China. We arrive late on the 27<sup>th</sup> I believe…</span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">Anyway, remember to check out the media projects! (Oh and also, the video of Correa addressing us at his speech in Santo Domingo is going out with the TBB newsletter and will be on YouTube under TBB).</span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">
<br /></span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">Much love,</span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="EN-US">Becca</span></span></p> Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-52306324185279236602008-10-16T17:49:00.000-07:002008-10-16T17:51:53.781-07:00I Know This Doesn't Really Count As An Update...But I'm super busy and actually slightly stressed out so it must suffice for now.<div><br /></div><div>Left Bua. Great memories. Good stories to tell. Arrived in Quito. Working on media project (as is everyone else). Will try to link to projects, but if I don't they'll be at thinkingbeyondborders.com under the student voices section. Did upload more photos in all three albums, Costa Rica, Quito 1 and Bua/Sua/Bua. Go check them out, please. </div><div><br /></div><div>Love to all.</div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-57599422069474550972008-10-11T12:43:00.001-07:002008-10-12T10:43:41.996-07:00A Miscellaneous Update From El Centro<div dir="ltr"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It's that time again...hello! </span></span></div><div dir="ltr"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I'm in Santo Domingo, spending the day trying to upload photos (I'm really trying, I promise, but it may or may not happen...), blog and print some photos for my host family. I'll probably be back tomorrow doing mostly the same things.</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">So what is Santo Domingo like, you might ask. And where am I exactly? Well, my favorite spot is this internet cafe on the second floor of a building a block and a half away from the one and only shopping center which we TBBers use as our base of operations in the city. There are three clusters of computers, four around a pillar with high stools to sit on while using them. They play some Spanish language music and some English, a lot of Bob Marley. We're 99% sure that the guy who works here, who is very friendly, is a pot dealer by night. The strong smell of incense last time we were here, the guitar hanging from the ceiling with the peace sign painted on it and the spherical light that projects spinning rainbow colors when turned on hanging from the ceiling in one corner all reinforce our hypothesis. But by day it's not sketchy, I swear. Just comfortable and occasionally faster than the speed of a snail. Right now, however, I'm on one of our laptops using wireless which is free, a little faster, and should allow me to upload the pictures I've saved on this computer...or some of them. I've been here for 45 minutes and it's uploaded 10 of 256 MB...</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Actual Santo Domingo, however, outside of this internet cafe, is probably one of the ugliest cities I've ever seen. It's basically cropped up entirely in the last 15 years and now has about 600,000 people in the city proper. It's all dreary cement and worn signs except for near the outskirts where bright green weeds crop up between buildings and through cracks. There are, apparently, no traffic laws; lane lines are mere suggestions. They seem to be pretty nice about pedestrians, though. I haven't seen anyone get hit yet, at least. A strange phenomenon I've noticed in Ecuador is the occasional comandeering of an American brand logo for something completely different. There was a car shop with a big sign of the logo from the computer animated movie "Cars" and down the street from me now is a yogurt/ice cream store with the old rainbow Mac symbol on its storefront. Also, a ton of smaller, hole in the wall type restaurants and shops have signs out front with a CocaCola logo on the left or on both ends and then their name in the remaining white space. It's almost as if a CocaCola representative walked around Ecuador offering to make free signs for anyone who wanted one and printed them up in the back of a truck or something. Very odd. </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Eight TBBers took the opportunity to go to Guayaquil this weekend -- our first opportunity for independent student travel. I was going to go, but then I thought better of it. I had really wanted to go to Otavalo, but nixed the idea because it's proably a six hour bus ride. Then I found out the Guayaquil was also a six hour bus ride. They left yesterday for Santo Domingo on the 3:30 bus, probably arrived about 4:15 and then intended to take the next bus out to Guayaquil. They have to be back Sunday, so they'd only really have one day there. It is Guayaquil's Independence Day Weekend (most big cities here have their own independence holiday) so that should be fun. I, however, surrendered to my long to do list and my desire to stave off total exhaustion and decided to chill in Bua. I'm very glad I did. In addition to all the internet stuff and the photos, I desperately need a new journal. I have a grand total of 7 pages left in mine...And I really need to read through the California voter information guide my mom thoughtfully sent my way because guess what? I GOT MY ABSENTEE BALLOT YESTERDAY!!! I GET TO VOTE!!! SWEET!!!</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Incidentally, props to Connecticut for being the third state to legalize gay marriage and for actually writing a strong opinion in favor of it. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">So, how go our actual projects in Bua? </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Well, the bathrooms at the school are seeing some true progress. They've finished the lower half, where the tanks will sit about 3 meters down (the drop from the level of the school to the level of the field...we've built the bathrooms into a hillside remember), laid the floor and are now building up the walls. The doors are built, say "No Olvides Lavar Los Manos" on them and are being painted with preservative and varnish. We also installed a new sink at the school, the water from which will drain to mix with the urine from the bathrooms and go out to water the trees that will be planted along the perimeter of the field. Giovanni, an engineer working with the agriculture sector of Yanapuma, is creating a compost garden. Isabel and I spent about an hour carrying cement blocks up steep dirt stairs with him (one at a time for each of us, two at time for him), then we helped him shovel a ton of gravel and mix a ton of cement. Hard, hard work. The bathrooms won't be finished by the time we leave, because we're leaving on Wednesday, but they'll be nearly done and Andy, one of the founders of Yanapuma, said he'd send along photos of the finished product. </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Project number 2, the single bano at Freddy's (it's y, not ie as I'd thought...sorry Freddy) is coming along. I've worked on it two days this week, mainly mixing cement and then trying to get it to stick to the cylindrical wire frame we've built. It does not want to stick. The second layer, which we've started, needs to be smooth to look nice, but even so is much easier. It's treacherous work though. The wire is sharp and I don't think anyone has avoided stabbing themselves at least once (I had until yesterday, but alas, I jabbed my finger with the bottom of some wire mesh...thank goodness for tetanus shots). Plus, concrete dries out your hands like nothing else. My hands actually hold up alright and I bought some lotion last Wednesday, but some people get cuts from the sand in the cement and others have lost entire layers of skin. Still, it's actually pretty fun work and not too exhausting. AND we might finish it! We're probably going to work extra long Monday and Tuesday, but we really might be able to do it.</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Project number 3, the well at Shino Pi, is something I've not yet seen. There was a huge rock in their way that they spent 2 days breaking, but they got through. The TBBers helping have been allowed to go down the 12 meter hole and they've come up absolutely covered in dirt. At one point, ants started attacking Zack and there was nothing anyone could really do since he was at the bottom of a soon to be well. I haven't seen the well because I haven't voluteered to work on it. Plenty of people want to, but being lowered on a rope down into a dark and bug infested hole does not sound fun to me. We won't finish the well by Wednesday, but the Tsachila certainly can. They had started it anyway, I sort of feel like we just helped them along a little and arranged for the well digging tools to get to them. </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">By the way, it's now been an hour and a half and only 16 photos uploaded (it stopped about 20 minutes ago...I don't know why) so I went through and just chose some and started again. I'm trying to get you all some pictures, I am! I guess, though, that I won't be using the internet as a backup for them...Good thing I brought that USB drive!</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">So, exciting news for Isabel and I on the home front. On Thursday night (after that really particularly exhausting day of work and a sleepless night the night before...literally we woke up at 12:45 and just stayed up...our light, coincidentally, was still on -- until it went off at 4am...we wonder who was up then and noticed it was still on...) Anyway, on Thursday night, our family found Tilapia! This may not sound particularly exciting -- I do mean the fish and not a person named Tilapia -- but trust me, it is. They've been telling us about this traditional dish where they wrap the fish in leaves for weeks and apparently the fish must be Tilapia and Tilapia has not been easy to find. But they found it! So, instead of going to watch the Gringos vs. Tsachila soccer game with everyone else (an event I must say I'm sad I missed, but there was nothing we could do about the bad timing), we got to hang out with the whole family and have the grandmother teach us how to wrap whole fish in giant leaves. They also wrapped some of the Tsachila skirt fabric around me and made Isabel use her belt to tie one of Kati's skirts on like an apron...I think mainly because they thought it was hilarious. The grandfather also grilled some grub on a wire skewer, but only for himself. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. I was ready to try grilled grub. About a week ago there was one night when several different families served it to their honorary children and a few people said it was actually pretty good -- tasted like bacon. They served it to Robin and Sandy at Shino Pi that night and Robin didn't eat any. Wimp. Then again, I didn't actually have to eat any either. </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">After we set the fish on the grill, it took an hour to cook. We felt a little in the way so we went back to our little casita and hung out until Andy came to get us for an early 6:45 dinner. Normally they put us at a little table facing the wall in the living room and either Germania or Wilson (our mother and father) will eat with use. Recently it's been Wilson all the time. Thursday night, however, they let us into the kitchen to eat with the whole family on the packed dirt floor with no spoon! (A spoon is the utensil of choice in Bua...although we did get a fork yesterday...I didn't know they HAD forks...) We were thrilled! We were like a real part of the family for, oh, 20 minutes. So I have officially picked apart a whole Tilapia with my bare hands and eaten it. I was alright at the whole getting-the-meat-but-not-choking-on-bones thing. Isabel was a mess. Wilson was a pro. He basically left a clean spine, a pile of other bones, the tail, two fins and the head bone. He didn't even leave the eyes! Clearly we have some work to do on our whole-fish-eating skills.</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I have a video of some of the fish grilling as well as the grandmother peeling plantains out back with a spoon. She was just ripping through them; it was very, very impressive. I don't know if any of those videos will ever get to any of you though, since the whole photo uploading thing seems to be slow going.</span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I have, however, uploaded four photos as a separate post below this one for your enjoyment. (Please accept this and don't ask why they aren't part of this one). Hooray! They are, in order: Isabel and I in our Tsachila skirts wrapping fish with our Grandmother, our three host siblings Andy, Magdalena (aka Tatiana aka Lili), and Leo (aka Benicio), the eco toilet we're building at Freddy's circa last Tuesday and a bunch of TBBers sitting on the wall near the beach in Sua...the one standing on the left is not a TBBer but a very awesome Rasta coffeeshop owner -- he makes the only real coffee in Sua and, as far as I can tell, all of Ecuador. Everywhere else it's instant. </span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">That's all for now...I'll work on the photos for a while and if I get some to an album on Picasa I'll be sure to link to it.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">~ Becca</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">p.s. I saw an ad on the side of the New York Times website while I was reading up on the news</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> for a production of the Seagull with Peter Sarsgaard. Will someone in New York *cough* Annie *cough* please enjoy that for me? Because I would LOVE to see it! I miss theatre! (I actually miss fiction of any kind and am going to make finding an English language bookstore number two on my list of things to do in Quito right after finding a laundromat and putting all my clothes through it twice).</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">***EDIT*** I'VE GOT SOME PHOTOS UP!!!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Here: http://picasaweb.google.com/becca.title/BuaSuaBua#</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And Here: http://picasaweb.google.com/becca.title/Quito1#</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The first album is of Bua, Sua and more Bua and the second is of some of our time in Quito before we came out here. (Backwards, sorry). Hooray!!!</span></div> </div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-4319358324483116202008-10-11T11:34:00.000-07:002008-10-11T12:40:17.348-07:00A Few Photos!<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYo0u-keNS8Q-qzGkkg2JMcthUDKu5O-hYto872rFFzS-77YB-IHiOEjocOePc2e7s8j5GtRuvN4m0V3lZFsfS90WKduW1G3gA7wZdYkhqKau4gHEJpCxjk0WKMhlv5tq4RhTThdrmwrg/s1600-h/IMG_0516.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYo0u-keNS8Q-qzGkkg2JMcthUDKu5O-hYto872rFFzS-77YB-IHiOEjocOePc2e7s8j5GtRuvN4m0V3lZFsfS90WKduW1G3gA7wZdYkhqKau4gHEJpCxjk0WKMhlv5tq4RhTThdrmwrg/s320/IMG_0516.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255973901643353362" /></a><br /><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9XQFhmA9sOQ-QcTd0fI9Tz1h4iLKZ9rwImtgUxE43OwsYo5l5WNdBsE-lnuD0SH3_Rj-trZkduwh6pom8bg05x_MM02qo80_Vo2jcN-mnzUBWUcryZBZSV36PqgSVvKHZS1Kg20pab4M/s1600-h/IMG_0501.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9XQFhmA9sOQ-QcTd0fI9Tz1h4iLKZ9rwImtgUxE43OwsYo5l5WNdBsE-lnuD0SH3_Rj-trZkduwh6pom8bg05x_MM02qo80_Vo2jcN-mnzUBWUcryZBZSV36PqgSVvKHZS1Kg20pab4M/s320/IMG_0501.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255973913902205842" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuzr3xA7KbMK7FjO0oXv4BiD1HAdOrwR6LVk_zyWogx12o0pujwvx2D66BIU_Eypt-yPOek_72U47vvJoNRgeyopBhXo4Q-D_Zyis67c073xfnVpf3tj6uyVckKPrioLjvWbZkqEz1TA/s1600-h/IMG_0472.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuzr3xA7KbMK7FjO0oXv4BiD1HAdOrwR6LVk_zyWogx12o0pujwvx2D66BIU_Eypt-yPOek_72U47vvJoNRgeyopBhXo4Q-D_Zyis67c073xfnVpf3tj6uyVckKPrioLjvWbZkqEz1TA/s320/IMG_0472.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255973923008641586" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbvtcWhX5XFhkTUXP9y8R5GqbhNSKdvuIEATpZ3h4ybNc5Iwi-1J4YQqPfQLkPLMm-dCu_ydu3CmzIiJlhrU4DETrKZfxtGwZ7ssXxVNLiHu23TlGJA_5GdwTho4Z6fTP6zkiNwyT4q4/s1600-h/IMG_0464.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbvtcWhX5XFhkTUXP9y8R5GqbhNSKdvuIEATpZ3h4ybNc5Iwi-1J4YQqPfQLkPLMm-dCu_ydu3CmzIiJlhrU4DETrKZfxtGwZ7ssXxVNLiHu23TlGJA_5GdwTho4Z6fTP6zkiNwyT4q4/s320/IMG_0464.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255973927021715458" /></a><br /></div>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-2087512300675065622008-10-08T12:21:00.000-07:002008-10-08T12:40:40.906-07:00This Is Just To SayI have added two new gadgets on the right sidebar!<br /><br />One is called "Want to Subscribe?" and allows you to subscribe to posts on this blog so you don´t have to check to see if it´s been updated-- you´ll just know.<br /><br />The other is called "Want More TBB Blogs?" and will link to the blogs of other TBB students. Right now it only links to one, but I´ll work on that. Promise. I don´t have time to read them, but hey, I get to hang out with these people all the time. They´re pretty awesome and we all have different experiences to share so you might want to check their blogs out. I know that right now, for example, my friend Alexandra, whose blog is the only one I currently link to, is writing about her experience getting cleansed by a shaman last night. I don´t live anywhere near her or the shaman so I wasn´t there, but I´ve heard about it and it´s probably an interesting and entertaining read.<br /><br />Beyond that, I don´t have too many exciting stories to share from the past few days.<br /><br />Sua was a tourist beach town in its off season and probably isn´t a place I´d head back to even when it was warm and sunny, but for a weekend away as a group with showers (icy, but oh so good), toilets, pillows (we don´t have those in Bua either) and some time to bond and relax it was lovely. And they had really good batidos de coco (coconut) and mango (a batido is a fruit juice mixed with milk kind of like a smoothie except so much better).<br /><br />Sunday night we returned to Bua. The bus ride was three hours -- two hours shorter than the ride there. We didn´t make stops, but that doesn´t account for the whole two hours. I think we time warped. Sunday night for dinner we had soup with pieces of something unidentifiable floating in it. First I thought it was really gristly chicken, but our host mother insisted that it wasn´t meat. What was it? Well, it was something they use to put with peanuts and make another dish. Obviously. Duh, sorry. So I tried a bite...and tried TO bite, but I couldn´t. It was like solid rubber. It´s sort of how I imagine the inside of an intestine, with all the villi and what not. I swallowed as much of it as I could, but I must confess I left some in the bowl.<br /><br />After dinner, I walked over to visit our closest TBB neighbors, Liz and Noah. We had nice visit and I walked home about 40 minutes later, expecting Isabel to be in bed (since she hadn´t come with me because she was tired). Nope. She was standing in our doorway talking to six moderately drunk Bua natives. I permiso-ed my way through them and stood next to here in the doorway where she quickly explained that they had come to talk to her when she watched me walk over to Liz and Noah´s (it was dark, so just to be safe) and hadn´t left since. They thought she was my translator, but once they realized I could speak Spanish they were pretty excited. Their leader, who introduced himself as Lider (which translates to leader), said he was proud to talk to me. I was the first foreigner he´d met. I guess Isabel didn´t count. She said he´d told her he thought I was beautiful. She also previously told me that when she lived in Guatemala they thought all blonde people were immediately more attractive and that all people who had not brown eyes and not black hair were considered blonde. So hey, I´m blonde! Anyway, I told him politely that our light would be turned out in 5 minutes (true) and that we had to get in our pajamas because we had to get up early to work. He asked if he could give me a kiss on the cheek goodbye. Sure. My second kiss on the cheek this weekend (a guy trying to convince me to go whale watching in Sua also demanded a kiss goodbye...and I turned my head...note that there are no whales in Sua this time of year).<br /><br />Anyway, I´ve got to go...Sorry about the abrupt ending...But Liz just showed up so I´ll also add a link to her blog!<br /><br />Bye for now,<br />BeccaLe Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-79475730418900034892008-10-03T08:08:00.000-07:002008-10-03T08:57:59.793-07:00It´s been a month! (Week 3 in Bua)<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Hello again out there!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I´m in Santo Domingo again, but we are heading to the coast later today...to Sua, in fact. Much like Bua, but with an S :-P</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">This past week has been awesome, as usual. I´d been feeling a little sick and tired, but I started feeling much much better which is fabulous. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">On Monday I went with Robin and five other TBBers to another Tsachila community about two hours by open bed truck from Bua called Poste (POST-a) to help dig a well there. The idea is that after we finish the well there we can use the equipment to build one at Shino Pi (the cultural center in Bua). Ultimately, it looks like the well-digging in Poste has been postponed until the Missionaries who began it can come back and finish it because at 17 meters deep it´s getting very difficult to dig and they estimate we have another 13 meters to go! Still, on Monday, when I went, we were still dig, dig, digging and so I will do my best to describe the process. (The same process we´ll be working on it in Bua starting Monday.) I have some photos that may be more useful than my attempt at an explanation and I drew a diagram in my journal, but for now this is the best I can do:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Basically, there is about 50 feet of bamboo scaffolding. On one side, about three quarters of the way up is a bamboo platform on which someone stands or sits to guide the tools from above. The four giant vertical pieces of bamboo that primarily make up the scaffolding each sit in a meter deep hole to keep them stable; crossbars of bamboo connect the four main poles and are attached with thin metal wire. The cross bars function mainly as a way to climb up to the bamboo platform. At the top of the scaffolding is a pulley, through which runs a rope. The rope is attached at one end to a long metal pole and at the other hangs loose. At the bottom of the pole is a digging apparatus shaped like two cupped hands attached at the palm near the wrist. It is maybe 8 inches long. To dig, you lower the pole down into the hole and twist is around so that the cuplike apparatus fills with dirt. However, by the time we got to the well, the hole was 15 meters deep, so after lowing the pole until its tip was just above ground level, we had to use monkey wrenches to screw on another equally long (about 50 feet each) metal pole and then lower the whole shebang until it hit bottom and was sticking about four feet out of the hole. It is this second pole that has the wooden handle at its tip that we actually grab on to in order to dig. Then we walk around the pole in circles for 3 to 5 minutes and hope we´ve filled the scooper with dirt. Then it´s time to lift it out. The extra pole has to be unscrewed each time, because leaving them connected would risk breaking the entire thing as together they are much much taller than the scaffolding. Each "scoop" of dirt earned us about 6 inches of depth -- we think -- if it was a good, full scoop. When we hit rock, we had to untie teh pole from the rope and tie on a chisel (a GIANT chisel as long as my arm fro mshoulder to fingertip and very heavy) and drop it down the hole to break through the rock. We kept hitting this rocky wet clay which was maybe worse than rock; the chisel could sort of loosen it, but not break through and it was so sticky that at one point it took three guys pulling for several minutes to unstick it from the depths of the hole. So basically, well digging is slow going! Luckily, the well we´ll be digging at Shino Pi has already been started by hand, meaning that 12 meters (!) down there is room enough for someone to stand so we can start the digging from there and our bamboo scaffolding can be shorter and more stable.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Additionally, while digging at Poste, we met another Peace Corps volunteer named Ryan who had been living there for about 6 months. I asked him for more information about how the PC works, really. I hope we keep meeting volunteers...I´m getting a lot of useful insight and information about how the Peace Corps works that I can store away and use to help me make my decision about possibly applying when the time comes. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I spent the next two days helping to build the six doors for the school´s soon to be new eco toilets -- measuring, sawing, hammering -- I´m going to be downright handy by the time this month is over!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">After work two days this week, some of the neighboring TBBers have come over to visitm, chatting or playing cards for an hour or so in the evening. It´s so incredibly nice to have time to get to know people and just hang out...and it´s fun. We discussed our holiday traditions and I´m going to see if I can get some dreidels and gelt mailed to Vietnam. I´m also learning to play cribbage! (I´m sorry if that is horribly misspelled...) Several people on the program play at home with their grandparents...maybe it´s an East Coast thing? I´d hardly heard of it before last month. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Yesterday, half of us went on a "river walk" with a woman named Tatianna who is an environmental engineering student at the university in Quito and also works with Yanapuma to map out Bua with GPS. She talked a lot about the importance of stopping river pollution and reforesting along its banks...all in Spanish and I understood 99 percent of it! It was very interesting, but I don´t have time to rehash it all here. We did find a lot of trash in the river as well as empty bottles of pesticides and I feel substantially less clean knowing that that is where I´ve been bathing for the past few weeks. Incidentally, Tatianna was standing on the rock we use to wash our clothes when she said that that part of the river was very dirty and she´d hate to have to bathe in it. Oh, and we were told to watch out for the very venemous X snakes that I did not previously know inhabited the river. Sweet. :-P</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Today I came into Santo Domingo with Robin, two Tsachila community leaders Alfonso and Freddie, Andy (the head of Yanapuma) and Guillermo (the director of the school we´re working at) to meet with the representative of the local prefect. She was interested in building similar projects all over if this pilot project proved successful and wanted specific project information and cost analyses to present to the prefecture this afternoon. She seemed to maybe underestimate how difficult it is to convince people of the importance of conservation and the utility of eco toilets, but did at least seem enthusiastic about the idea. I guess it´s easier to talk down expectations than to get her to like the project at all. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">So, that brings me to now, in this internet cafe with Robin. We´ve got to head back to Bua so that we can catch a bus for our 4 hour ride to the coast where we´ll spend the weekend. (Showers!!! And an outlet to charge my iPod!!!)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I didn´t catch the debate last night, but I´ve read about it...I want to see at least one live...I hope we can!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">´sall for now folks,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Becca</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Oh, P.S. I read Brideshead Revisited last weekend...very good. I missed literature! It made me SO happy to read a novel!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-45120690471882243372008-09-27T11:24:00.000-07:002008-09-27T12:08:36.540-07:00Week 2 in Bua: The Cliff Notes VersionHi again to everyone!<br /><br />First I just want to say that even though I don´t really have time to reply individually to everyone´s emails and comments on this muy lento (sloooooooooow) internet connection in Santo Domingo, I love to hear from you all -- anything and everything from politics and the economy to family news or about what you´ve been up to -- so thanks so much for keeping in touch! (Those of you not being in touch take this as a subtle plea for updates on your lives).<br /><br />I don´t know how long it feels like it´s been since I left the U.S., but I´d have to say at least two months...and we´ve just broken 3 weeks I think! But I´m having the time of my life.<br /><br />I think I´m going to depart from the play by play style this blog has adopted in the interest of not spending every Saturday between now and March at internet cafes the world over, but don´t worry, the good stuff will still be here and I´ll have more stories to tell when I get home :-D<br /><br />This past week has been a whirlwind. I´ll start with Monday.<br /><br />Monday: Goodbye to Nina and a Hello from Correa<br />Monday was a rollercoaster of a day. We arrived at work at 8am ready to go. While we were sitting around waiting for our morning seminar (it fluctuates between morning and afternoon...) Lily and John mentioned that their homestay father was going into Santo Domingo to hear Rafael Correa speak. Correa is the current President of Ecuador and has spearheaded the writing of the new constitution. There is a referendum on the constitution tomorrow.<br /><br />We all jumped at the news and started talking about how we should go in and see him speak. Robin went outside for a few minutes to make some arrangements and before we knew it we had plans to head into Santo Domingo at 10 to hear the noon speech.<br /><br />But first, some news. As we sat in a circle, ready for our seminar, Robin said he had some sad news: Nina, the third guide with us other than Robin and Sandy (the married couple and two thirds of the TBB founding team), would be leaving. We recieved as good an explanation as Robin and Sandy could give. Basically, the program just wasn´t a good fit for her. A letter was sent to our parents that probably explained it as honestly and fully as it was explained to us. We were all very surprised, they had all three done a good job of keeping any strife away from the group, and we were all sad. A few tears were shed and there were hugs all around and then a cab came and spirited Nina away. Her bag had been in the room and no one had noticed. We´ll all miss Nina, but we´re all fine and Robin and Sandy have made sure that there will be a third staff member with us at all times until an official replacement hopefully meets us in China.<br /><br />After that, we had an hour long discussion about Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (read it!) and then hopped in the back of our now semi-official group truck with it´s driver, Wilson (not my homestay father), and headed to Santo Domingo. We arrived at about 10:45 and they were still setting up. I ended up sitting next to a Tsachila man from another villiage who was probably about 25. We talked about the government (Correa´s OK...better than the line of corrupt presidents they´ve had in the last ten years), the constitution (he liked some of it and thought it would pass), birthdays (don´t ask), and the American government and the war in Iraq (this seems to come up a lot and mostly people really don´t get it, really want information). At one point I was trying to explain why some American government officials don´t like to talk to other countries and he finished my sentence for me as I searched for the right words in Spanish: they think they´re superior. Yeah...pretty much...good call... Hearteningly, though, all the Ecuadorians I´ve met so far may not be fans of our government, but they have nothing against us as Americans personally. In fact, as you´re about to hear, they rather like the fact that we´re here visiting and helping out.<br /><br />At noon some provincial officials including the governor spoke and a lot of giant checks were given out (some micro loans, I believe). Finally, at 1:30, Correa got up to give his speech. While we´d been sitting around looking at our cartoon pamphlets explaining the new constitution, a woman working for the campaign came up and talked to us, asking who we were, where we were from, what we were doing etc and we ended up being introduced as one of the groups being welcomed which was pretty cool. We thougth that was the end of it, but in the middle of his speech, Correa mentioned that some foreigners were present and then switched into English to welcome us to Ecuador, ask if we were enjoying the country and tell us that they were in the middle of a revolution and needed change. Then he calmly continued on in Spanish. Oh, and I have it all on video thanks to my handy little cannon point and shoot :-D I think Sandy is going to try to put it up on the website at some point!<br /><br />His speech was a little hard to understand because of the microphone feedback, but Isabel translated it for us afterwards. What I did understand though, was a part about change that sounded just like Obama. Voting for the constitution is voting for change, voting no is voting for more of the past. The "past" here is about at popular as it is in the U.S., maybe even less so. As far as delivery goes, Correa is very charismatic and all the women seem to find him muy guapo. (I asked my homestay father how old he is and he guessed 38. ) He speaks fluidly and forcefully without any notes or a teleprompter to guide him and even improvises well in English as we found out. (He is a U.S. educated economist from some college in the midwest I think...I don´t remember exactly where.)<br /><br />Afterwards, we ended up networking with some of the local prefects adn the sister of a prefect ended up visiting our project site in Bua. It would be great if we could get them to work with Yanapuma (the organization we´re partnered with here) and support their efforts. All in all, it was a very sucessful trip.<br /><br />Tuesday through Thursday:<br />We´ve been workign on our project and looking into projects we´ll be starting next week. Most of the trenches we dug the first week ended up being useless. A few of us helped redesign part of the project and it looks like it´s good to go for now. It´s been frustrating, but educational and in the end something good will come of it.<br /><br />My homestay partner, Isabel, has been sick, so I´ve been taking care of her. She finally went into Quito to the hospital yesterday and actually just walked into the internet cafe as I typed that. She´s fine and she´ll get rest and get better. Don´t be alarmed. If anything, feel good knowing that we get good medical care here when we need it. Mostly we´ve all been a little sick on and off...just different food stuff mainly, and an inflamed foot due to an infected bug bite...or an alergic reaction to it...or something.<br /><br />Friday: The Jungle<br />Instead of work on Friday, we took a trip to a forest preserve and walked around with a guide for 3 hours. It was pretty interesting and I got to take lots of fun pictures and play with the macro function on my camera so I was thorougly entertained.<br /><br />Anyway, I´ve been trying to keep up with the news whenever I get internet. I read about the debate today, and Zack and Isabel got to watch it while they were in Quito last night so I have some first hand sources, too. I hear the economy sucks. Sorry about that. The dollar is rockin´here in Ecuador. A bottle of water is 25 cents. Lunch today, crab soup, chicken and juice, was two dollars.<br /><br />Oh and a mini soap opera update...the girl who ran away was actually, as far as I can now gather, my host mother´s niece and is now living with us. She is fifteen, could pass for seventeen on looks but acts younger. She´s happy all the time now and is perfectly nice. Her daughter lives with us on and off...I think she´s next door with the grandparents the rest of the time but I´m not positive. Also, the home she no longer lives in is also a TBB homestay family, but luckily it´s in the area with the four homestays all together so the TBBers assigned there get family time in with "the commune" as we call it. That´s all. Just thought I should finish the story I started.<br /><br />I´m off! I think we´re taking a little trip to the coast next weekend so I don´t know if I´ll have internet...So bye for now and keep in touch!<br /><br />xxooLe Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-71629216195078188332008-09-20T12:15:00.001-07:002008-09-20T13:18:59.773-07:00Sara-Ma Hue From Santo DomingoHey All!<br /><br />I have some internet time today, so I thought I´d try to catch up on blogging (after reading my 40 emails! No, I´m not really THAT popular...half of them were from facebook and the Obama campaign) I have about 20 pages of journaling from the last, what?, five days so we´ll see how this goes. I apologize in advance if this ends in a cliffhanger :-)<br /><br />So, I´ll try my best to go chronologically.<br /><br />September 16<br />We at breakfast in the hostel where we met a British gapper named Ross. He had just arrived in Quito the night before and was planning on staying at the hostel for eight months and teaching English in a school. And traveling, of course. He didnt´know anyone and didn´t really seem to know what he was supposed to be doing, but he seemed excited (although he said his plan was "a little mental, really." Gap year students from England that end up halfway across the world tend to have a bad reputation for not being particularly hard-working because, since so many people in England take gap years, it´s the stereotypical lazy, rich kids that end up in places like Quito. That´s the stereotype we TBBers are fighting against, or so I´ve been informed. Ross seemed nice, though, and I hope to see him when we return to Quito next month to see how it ended up working out for him.<br /><br />After breakfast, we took a van to the public bus station. We´v ebeen warnexd several times about pickpockets and thieves who will slit open our bags, so we were on our guard. We got on our bus, put our big bags in storage, and took our little carry-ons with us, all our valuables in them. I wrapped my bakcpack around my foot and made sure that I knew the people sitting behind me in case it slid that way. Before we left the station, an armed police officer in a kevlar vest boarded the bus and made the guy sitting diagonally behind me get off. I have no idea what he supposedly did wrong, but I doubt it was your normal visa check because the guy seemed to be Ecuadorian (as most everyone at the bus station other than us was).<br /><br />After about an hour on the bus, a movie started playing on teh flat screen TV at the front. It was loud and in English with Spanish subtitles. "What classy movie did they choose to play?" you ask. <em>Superhero Movie</em> of course! For those of you not lucky enough to have seen this cinematic gem, it´s a spiderman spoof along the lines of Scary Movies 1 through 3 or Not Another Teen Movie. Apparently, though, the movies they normally play are incredibly violent, so I guess you could say we got lucky.<br /><br />We got off the bust in Santo Domingo. Alexandra grabbed her carry-on only to find that it had been slit open. Although she´d had her feet on it the whole time, someone in the row behind her managed to slit open the side and grab out her nice camera. Everything else was still there, including the point-and-shoot camera she´d brought which, luckily, had the wrong memory card in it (the one with all her photos, which she´d taken on the nice camera). The guy who likely took teh camera had gotten off at an earlier stop. She´s reported it to the police. That´s about the end of that. You´ve got to be careful, but sometimes things happen and sometimes it sucks.<br /><br />We were met at teh bus stop by a Bua man dressed in dark grey slacks, but with only a red piee of fabric drapd across his chest. He had his hair traditionally done: buzzed on the side and dyed red and flattened out on the top so that it looke das if he´d put a leaf on his head. We alll piled into the back of a truck, the kind with a big flat bed and wooden sides that reached about chest height, and hung on for out 20 minute ride to Bua. That seems to be the preferred method of transportation here, other than motorcylces, which we aren´t allowed to ride. That´s how we got back to Santo Domingo today.<br /><br />Bua is really jsut a lot of houses spaced out along the road tha tcomes from Santo Doingo. Your address is the number of the kilometer your house is on. For example, the school is at kilometer 15 and the cultural center, where we headed first, is at kilometer 21.<br /><br />Once at the center, we ate our bag lunch sandwhiches provided by Yanapuma (the organization we´re working with here in Bua). The had of the center, Alfonso, welcomed us, first in Tsafiki, then in Spanish. He was very emotional and very kind. He looked almos teary thanking us for coming from so far, telling us to be sur eto ask if we needed something, describing his hope for our cultural exchange and expressing pride in his village that has come so far in the last five years. We were shown their small cultural museum and introduced to our homestay fathers. Mine and Isabel´s is Wilson. Initially I thought that our family had sent a son to pick us up, but no, he´s the dad. He could possibly be 28, but at first glance I would have guessed 21. He has already hoste dthree volunteers which is why they put Isabel and I with him. Although we both said we´d eat anything, they had us down as vegetarians and actually, Wilson thought we were vegan. That would be rather difficult in Bua. You would eat a LOT of rice. He was very relieved to find out that we´ll eat mostly anything.<br /><br />After a little hike through their ¨reserva¨ (not easy in flipflops...I fell twice...very gracefully, of course...and picked up about 50 bugbites along the way) we hopped back in the truck and got dropped off at our respective homes. Isabel and I were dropped off first, so we didn´t know where anyone else was living. We, however, are right next to the school, and I have since discovered that Liz and Noah live across the street from the school, two other pairs live down the street, and then the other four groups live in a little family group about a 10 minute walk down the road and then another 10 into the woods.<br /><br />Isabel and I actually have our own house! Our family built it to house volunteers, although at first we were worried we´d kicked them out of one of the family houses. It´s basically a cement block with a corrugated metal roof. There are two bed in little side rooms, but we share a bed so that we can both benefit from the one hot pink, butterfly bed net. There aren´t doors other than to the outside, so when the kids in the family come to play, they get very curious about our stuff. There are 6 different calendars on the walls, one is even a little scadalous, being used as decoration. There are also three or four family photos.<br /><br />When we arrived, Wilson introduced us to his three kids Anderson (almost 8...his birthday, I´ve since found out, is October 23), Magdalena (6) an dBenicio (2), as well as his wife, Germania. They all left us to unpack which took about 1 minute since there arent any drawers or shelves, but soon Andy and Magdalena were back to play. He´s very rambunctious and not particularly talkative; she, on the other hand, seems really smart and talks almost non-stop. She´s that kid that tells you all the awkward family secrets her parents don´t want you to know and in addition to being adorable, that makes here rather useful. (She already let us know that her mom is pregnant, which we found out again from Germania only yesterday). Out front, a volleyball game was going on. It looked like a bunch of 20 year old guys, so I was surprised to realize that Wilson was one of the jugadores. Benicio showed up a little later to hang out and I ended up kicking a soccer ball around with Andy for a few minutes.<br /><br />It´s becoming apparent to me that I will never finish this post in my alotted time since nearly everyone else has vacated the internet cafe and we have to be in groups of four, so I´ll try to hit some high points and summarize.<br /><br />The family speaks Tsafiki among themselves and Spanish to us. Our first night, Wilson spent time with us translating some basic Spanish phrases to Tsafiki and the Grandpa, who I think lives in the family house, teaches us a word every time he sees us. The title of this post, Sara-Ma Hue, means something like ¨good morning¨although I´m sure I´m spelling it wrong.<br /><br />The first night we bathed using water in a little bucket in the back yard because it was already late, but since then we´ve been bathing in the river. It gets about thigh deep at its deepest and it´s a brownish color because of the dirt and moss that gets kicked up, but clean has quickly become a relative term and ¨there is dirt on me¨dirty is preferable to ¨disgusting and sweaty¨dirty.<br /><br />Before dinner our first night, we were talking to the grandmother and she asked us how old we were and if we had boyfriends. We said 18 an no and she asked if we met someone, would we stay in Bua. We tried to explain no, we were on a schedule, and we would only be here for a month anyway. She said that most people have two kids by 18 although I´ve since found out that our host mother is almost 30, so she didn´t have kids until 22. Then again, I think our family may be a little more progressive than most. Wilson helped make breakfast one morning and when Isabel mentioned that she hurt her foot, he rubbed lotion on it and wrapped it in leaves he had Germania warm with a candle before replacing the Ace bandage.<br /><br />We generally eat breakfast at about 7 and head to the school about 7:45. The project has quickly become an interesting lesson in international development. What we´re bascially doing is building six ¨banos secos¨to replace the eight year old septic system at the local school. The problem is twofold. First, the system was built to be used by 70 students and the school has already grown to 250. Secondly, there is no way to clean out septic tanks in Bua. It has already overflowed into the field, although an engineer came last year to put in a pipe so that now it overflows elsewhere. We´re basically manual labor. I have moved dirt from one pile to another and then respread it over the field, I built some stairs out of rocks put into holes we dug in the dirt (becuse the field is about 10 feet below the level of the school), and I dug a trench three feet deep into clay (not alone, but with the group). We get work done really quickly, which is good, but it´s starting to look like this project may only last one more week.<br /><br />The really interesting part though, is the organizational issues we´ve been having. I´ll try to summarize, but before I do, I´d like to say that everyone involved is incredibly generous and well meaning. Basically, the problem is this: Yanapuma is a two year old NGO that has been working in the community for about as long as it´s been in existance. They talked to the director of the school, Guillermo, to see what kind of project he´d like done and he said some toilets would be great. So then Yanapuma called up the Portland chapter of Engineers without Borders (an organization that is itself only about 8 years old) and had them design the project. They sent down an advance team in March and asked good questions (example: Do your cinderblocks have holes in them? Answer: Yes. Problem: It turns out that the wholes don´t go all the way through.) They raised funds and headed down here on accumulated vacation time, making their airfare their donation to the project. When they got here they found that a local construction crew had been hired. Then they began to argue with the crew about materials and design because first of all, Ecuadorian buildign stadards are way more lax than those in teh U.S. and thus much cheaper and secondly, as evidenced by the cinderlbock prolem, the plans had to be changed and no one agreed on exactly how. I´m sure it doesn´t halp that all the engineers sent down here are electronics or water research engineers adn not actually people with construction experience. The engineers seem to be getting frustrated and demoralized because teh constrction crew builds better than they do and even seems to know better regarding some design issues and they expected this to be THEIR project. Also, when Cathy, one of the engineers, introduced herself to us, she said she was project manager and then qualified that with "Ï don´t know what that means, exactly.¨ There is a leadership void which is leading to miscommunication. Yanapuma has one plan, Engineers without borders has another and the construction crew has a third. Then of course there´s TBB. As I said, we´re basically being used as manual labor. Since we move so quickly, it sounds like we might build some wells in this and other Tsachila communities during out last few weeks here.<br /><br />One more fun fact and then I have to go. We´ve dropped into the middle of a family crisis. My host mother´s sister left her husband and child and ran to Santo Domingo. They were looking for her for a few days, but have since found her and she may or may not be the new girl that started living in our house yesterday. She´s supposed to be fifteen and has a 14 month old daughter. The girl looks about our age and has been carrying around a little girl. Ian and Katie are in the family she left. Somehow though, no one seems particularly perturbed. Everyone is happy and nice and apparently very easygoing.<br /><br />Anyway, I´ve got to go. Everyone is waiting.<br /><br />Much love!<br />xxoo<br /><br />P.S. Again, I don´t know when I´ll be back on the internet...Sorry!Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-14458569974668604162008-09-15T19:12:00.000-07:002008-09-15T19:36:26.064-07:00A fond farewell for now...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hi again!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I´m at an internet cafe in Quito, Ecuador that closes in about fifteen minutes, so forgive me if this post is a little short. I´m going to hit the important points first.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We had a lot of orientation today with Yanapuma, the program we´re parterned with here in Ecuador and what I´ve gathered is basically this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">1) We leave for Bua early tomorrow morning. Bua is hot and humid and at sea level, unlike Quito which is at 9,000 feet and for which I broke out the long sleeved shirt and the jacket.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">2) Bua is UBER rural. We will bathe in a river. If we´re lucky a toilet will be a hole in the ground. I´m thinking no internet access...although in Santo Domingo, a town about 45 minutes away (I think) I might get some internet...I can go there on weekends, but if you don´t hear from me for a while, I´m most likely both still alive and totally fine.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">3) My homestay partner is Isabel. She is actually from Guatemala and so is fluent in Spanish. I´m a little sad that I´m not the more advanced Spanish speaker, but on the other hand, she will likely just chat away with our family and the experience will be almost as if we weren´t partnered. Also she´s really nice. Not than I have anything really bad to say about anyone in TBB. Everyone is fascinating, unique and pretty generally friendly and awesome.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">4) Bua is actually a villiage where the majority of the population is from an indigenous tribe called the Tsachila (I think...I don´t have my notes with me) and they speak a language called Tsafiki. I fully intend to learn some Tsafiki while I´m there. The school we´ll be working at is even a bilingual school and I´m pretty sure the two languages are Spanish and Tsafiki.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">5) We will be working to bring sanitary toilets to the local school, and by ¨bring¨I mean build from scratch. It seems there will be a lot of digging and pouring of cement. The toilets we´re building are eco toilets so that all the human waste that goes in will come out either immediately or in six months as some form of fertilizer. Pretty awesome, right?</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">6) The traditional gender roles are apparently pretty strong in Bua, to the point where we girls may not be able to get a lot of digging or carrying in at the beginning without the men offering to help us out. Also, there is apparently no such thing as platonic friendships between men and women so I´m really curious to see what happens in the homestays where we have one girl and one boy. I´m a little sad I´m not in one of those as well, but honestly, I can´t really complain. There is no way this isn´t going to be an amazing experience. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">That pretty much covers the basics. We had a two hour lecture about Ecuador´s history today, followed by a short introduction to Bua by a girl who visited for the first time last weekend, so my information may not be perfectly accurate. Then we had about an hour and a half of Spanish class...I was in an advanced group so we ended up talking about American politics after twenty five minutes of reading on Ecuadorian culture and learning words pertinent to our work in Bua. We were all trying to explain the war in Iraq to our instructor. She was honestly interested, but didn´t really understand why we couldn´t just pull out immediately. We figured out that she thought it was a war medieval style, with two armies charging each other on a field (or basically like that...as opposed to the policing and counter insurgency operation that it is in reality). She also knew a little about Obama and McCain (whom she called McClain). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">What surprised me is that Ecuadorian politics right now is equally as exciting as American. They elected a new president in January of 2007 and he´s been instituting more reforms than any recent past president of Ecuador. Apparently they go through presidents pretty quickly here, with a lot not finishing terms. There is a referendum on a new constitution in two weeks. It would be Ecuador´s twentieth since it´s independence from Spain in 1809! Included are causes legalizing abortion and gay marriage as well as mandating free schools (and that 7.5% of the budget be spent on education) and free health care. The catholic church is against it because of the gay marriage and abortion clauses and the country is ostensibly 95% catholic (supposedly there are more people that practice indigenous religions than will admit it on a census), but most people seem to think it will pass. The question is, where will Ecuador get the money to pay for all this. Supposedly the government will start to tax the rich which it apparently does not do as of now, but with nearly 50% of it´s annual budget going to pay off the INTEREST on loans from the world bank (read: America conned Ecuador into perpetual debt so that it would be under our political thumb...you should really read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) and only 1% of the budget currently allocated for education it still sounds a little far fetched to me. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, the internet cafe is closing, so I´ve got to go pay my seventy cents for the hour. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I´ll see ya when I see ya (but not if you see me first) </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Quick! Name that movie reference!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Love to all,</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Becca</span></span>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-14083547074681831792008-09-13T18:16:00.000-07:002008-09-13T20:05:50.831-07:00Diez Dias en Bahia Ballena<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Hi everybody!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I´m sorry it´s been quite some time. We didn´t have internet in the little town we´ve been in for the past week plus, or at least, I heard a rumor about an internet cafe the day before yesterday but I never found it. I promise when I´m settled in my Ecuadorian homestay I´ll work out internet at least once a week.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">As far as formalities go, I´m alive, just a tad sunburned, a lot bug bitten (picked up some Off Deep Woods in una farmacia today on the way back to San Jose so we´ll see how that goes) and having an amazing time so far. We´re supposed to write in our journal for at least five minutes a day and I´ve been reasonably good...When I write it´s more like forty five minutes...but then I skip some days. I´ll work on it. The journal keeping is good for you all, though, because I have some prerecorded awesome experiences to share. So, on the the details!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">After my last post, we got up the next morning and took what was supposed to be a four hour bus ride (a charter bus, not public) to Bahia Ballena (there´s an accent over the "i" but I´m not good at this computer...I think that will become a common refrain over the next few months). Bahia Ballena is near Playa Uvita if you feel the need to mapquest it. The ride turned into more like 6 hours because we ran into some construction and were stopped dead for about thirty minutes...and we stopped for lunch at this beautiful little restaurant on the side of the road. As a side note, the food here has been consistently good. Breakfast is always yesterday´s rice mixed with yesterday´s black beans and some cilantro and then some scrambled eggs. Lunch and dinner is usually rice, beans, salad, some kind of fresh juice and either chicken, steak, pork or fish. The fish at Bahia Ballena was top notch...really fresh, obviously.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Anyway, we arrived at our hotel and organized three to a room. There were three little cabin looking things with four rooms in each. We were the only people staying at the hotel. The rooms were nice with tile floors and bathrooms in each. Only cold water, but that wasn´t really an issue. We at about three quarters of our meals at the hotel (called Canto de las Ballenas if you want to google it) and, as I said before, very good. The hotel is, I believe, run by a coop of people that live in the town. They were all really nice. Nice is a word I would consistently use to describe people I´ve met thus far. ¨Pura Vida,¨ which translates at ¨pure life¨but really means something like easy going and hang loose, is a Costa Rican motto and outside of San Jose at least, it definitely applies. This results in what I like to call ¨Costa Rican Time¨which results in taxis coming about 30 minutes late and estimates of distance to be between 5 and 30 minutes short, but it doesn´t seem to matter. I´ve got to get to some concrete details, like I promised though, or I never will. Let me grab the journal and start at the beginning with choice exerpts and paraphrases. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Day 2 in BB: Rainforest Hike and Group Constitution</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">After breakfast and some group bonding exercises that I won´t go into we drove a ways to a specific section of the rainforest (with an impromptu safari on the way...¨look! a monkey! look! a sloth! and a toucan! let´s pull over and look!¨) where we hiked down a steep hill with some wooden logs made into rough stairs for about twenty minutes. At the bottom was a little waterfall in part of a river that quite literally looked fake it was so picturesque. We climbed up above the waterfall where there was a little pool and some rocks to jump off of. I did jump, but my ears popped and hurt for the rest of the day. Still, I jumped and I so don´t regret it. I just may never do it again. We had lunch and explored the river and the area for a few hours, then hiked back up. It was quite the hike...very steep. I´m freaking out a little about Macchu Pichu...I´m going to try to find time to go running in Bua (the village we´ll be in in Ecuador). Later that day, back at the hotel, we had one of our typical orientation conversations. This was aobut expectations, both of ourselves and each other. Out of an exercise we did came a group constitution which served to make me and I think all of us feel better about the group. Everyone seemed to share values of being supportive, inclusive, respectful and responsible as well as seeing the importance of keeping a sense of humor. It´s a good group we´ve got here.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Day 3: Reflections, Goals and Bahia Ballena</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">We had a conversation about why we´re each individually here doing TBB. Everyone´s reasons were different, but we each identified with a lot of them. We then set 9 personal goals in the following categories: Personal Challenge, Intellectual Challenge, Service Challenge, Vocational slash Employment Challenge, Spiritual Challenge, Adventure Challenge, Interpersonal Challenge, Creative Challenge and Personal Challenge of Your Choice. My vocational challenge, to use it as an example, is to find some theatre or storytelling in each community and explore it´s value in the culture. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">After lunch we hung out in the pool for a few hours (I didn´t mention this, but we went to the beach the first day and it was beautiful but a good thirty minute muddy walk away). Then we were met by a Peace Corps volunteer named Travis who was originally from San Diego and his Tica (Costa Rican) girlfriend Pilar. He lived and worked in Bahia Ballena for two years and is now taking a third Peace Corps year organizing the Costa Rican contingent from San Jose where he now lives. He plans to stay in Costa Rica when his peace corps time is up. He told us some basic facts about the country that we could easily find on wikipedia and then we all got up and went on a walk through Bahia Ballena. I´ll list some of the things about that afternoon that struck me:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">1) Travis may be from San Diego, but his English is now accented. He is, in fact, more comfortable speaking in Spanish and occasionally would say a word in Spanish when he couldn´t find the English. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">2) The national government is not working particularly well on a local level in Costa Rica. At one point we walked across a long grass strip that is an abandoned or at the very least very rarely used airstripd that the community proposed to turn into housing for the homeless of Bahia Ballena. The government apparently vetoed this idea without much explanation. They seem to have some future plans for the strip, but didn´t disclose them. The Pura Vida attitude means that no is no...no one really fought for it. Another example is the local marine park. It was owned by the community and the revenue went back into them and to the maintenance of the park. Recently the government took over and the income from the park is pooled into a national fund for marine preserves. The locals were furious and burned down the cabin at one entrance to the park, but it seems that the only result was that the cabin was rebuilt. Finally, the government will propose a construction project and get the community to agree by promising something like 500 jobs. Then they bring in 450 workers. But hey, Pura Vida.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Also on day 3 we wrote ourselves letters about what we hope to gain from TBB to be read when we arrive in Virginia in March. Along the same lines, we videotaped ourselves answering six questions posed to us by Robin. We turned on the camera and then read each question off the screen of a lap top and answered it immediately. They were along the lines of ¨Why is there poverty?¨and ¨Will there be world peace in your lifetime?¨Heavy, big picture questions. It will be interesting to see how my opinions change over the course of this year.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">As you might be gathering from the descriptions, a day here so far has felt like a week. But, on to Days 4 and 5. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">On day four our main discussion was ¨How do we define ourselves?¨As you can imagine, it was a sprawling two hour discussion. The kids on this program are ridiculously smart, opinionated and have strong personalities. It was a little intimidating, but very interesting, as all our big picture conversations are. I think as we get into different core countries our discussions will become a little more specific, but this is orientation and it´s been all big picture all the time (when not discussing safety or logistical program details, of course). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">On the morning of the 9th we went kayaking in a mangrove forest. It was pretty chill. We saw a lot of river crabs, some tree snakes and apparently some iguanas, birds and a racoon but even when the guide stopped next to our kayak and pointed them out I couldn´t see them. Talk about good camoflage. I have NO idea how Michael (our guide) spotted them while paddling along. We went back to the hotel, had some lunch, and then we decide to walk back into ¨downtown¨Bahia during our free hour. There was a shop with some sarongs hanging outside that looked interesting. I ended up picked a charm out of a glass case that looked like a semi cylindrical piece of petrified wood wrapped in some metal wire and asking the man working at (and who I think owned) the store if he could put it on a chain. He said he didn´t have one, but he had some string and he made a nifty necklace out of it. I can even adjust the length. He explained how to work it twice because he thought I didn´t get it the first time. It was sweet. He was very patient. Then again, I´m pretty sure that after I left he was thinking "inept americans." While I was looking around, I heard him talking to someone about how he loves chess. He has a teacher and also reads about strategy in books. I think Zack actually played a few games with him, in fact. (Zack is one of the TBBers). As I was walking back, Alexandra (a TBBer...let´s just assume that from now on unless I say otherwise, ok?) asked if I´d noticed the Spanish language Nietzche books stacked in the corner that he´d clearly been reading. I had not, but I was very impressed. I can´t even spell Nietzche. He seemed like a fascinating guy. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">After the afternoon discussion, one of the guys working at our hotel grabbed a bunch of the young coconuts off one of the trees on the property and chopped the tops off with a machete so that we could try the milk. It was delicious! Apparently it´s best when the coconuts are still green, and green they were. Mmm. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Two quick side notes here, while I´m thinking of them: 1) I have not yet posted pictures, but a few kids from TBB have put some on facebook so I know it´s possible. I have pictures of most of the stuff I´ve mentioned so I´ll work on it and try and get some up soon...or in a few weeks...pura vida, right? 2) The first book we´ve been assigned in its entirely is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man which several people recommended to me before I left. I must say, I´m about 230 pages in of about 280 and it´s really fascinating. I highly recommend it. It´s a pretty quick read and relatively well written, too. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">And now for TURTLEING. Oh no, that is not a typo, you read that correctly. I´m going to borrow heavily from my journal entry for this. If you´re even still reading. Sorry this entry is becoming absolutely epic. Perhaps I should have composed a poem. Anyway:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">OK, so last night was awesome. No one knew exactly what we were doing or where we were going, but after a short educational session about turtles while we were waiting for the cabs we hadn´t called ahead because we hadn´t known we´d need them, we endedup driving about fifteen minutes (on Costa Rica´s crazy potholed roads you rarely hit thirty mph so fifteen minutes is not particularly far) to a different beach with our turtleing ¨guide¨Mauricio. I put guide in quotes because he´s a volunteer turtler and what we were really doing was tagging along with him. So we started walking along the dark beach. (We had been told to wear dark clothes, not to bring flashlights or to wear bugspray so I had on long pants, but risked getting my arms bitten up because it was too hot to wear the jacket I´d brought along, even after dark. It remained too hot for the remainder of the night and I woke up with 32 new bites as a result, but as you´ll soon see, it was worth it.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Anyway, we started walking pretty quickly, but Mauricio told us to slow down because it was only a thirty minute walk down the beach and we didn´t want to miss any turtle tracks. It was about 8:30 when we started walking and, as it turns out, ¨thirty minutes¨was a prime example of Costa Rica Time, but walk more slowly we did. I stuck with Mauricio and Emily and listened to their conversation, piping in sometimes if I had a question. About thirty actual minutes later, we stopped at the hatchery. It was a rectangle about 20ft by 10ft that Mauricio had built over the past two months with the help of some locals. The rectangle was defined by big wooden treetrunk poles connected by a strong plastic netting. He said the netting extended a meter into the sand to keep out predators. The sand inside the hatchery was crisscrossed with strings dividing the area into square plots for nests. A stick poked out of each, ready to be used as a marker when eggs were buried beneath. Next to the hatchery was a makeshift shelter, or rather, a shelter in progress. Mauricio said sometimes he´d be woken up in the middle of the night by smelly wild pigs. Still, it seemed kind of nice. Very peaceful and in nature. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">The reason we´d stopped was so that Mauricio could quickly build a door for the hatchery (or, hinge on the door he´d already built--wood frame, mesh center--and attach a lock). Just, you know, casually pause to put up a door. In the dark. A few of us offered to help hand him nails from the bucket he´d brought or whatever, and so he kept talking. Below is a condensed version of all I learned talking with him that night:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Mauricio was from a northern suburb of San Jose. He had attende the national university and studied marine biology. At one point he studied in England (he spoke pretty good English and was already working on French) and he wanted to become a doctor--specifically, a pediatrician, because he loves kids. (Cue: Awwwww). His day job involves whale and dolphin research that he conducts mainly on behalf of whale watching companies or maybe the government with a group of a few other guys. He sleeps, he said, about 4 hours a night, but doesn´t seem to mind much. He was about 25, with a huge heart and a passion for life. He lit up telling me about the work he´s doing to prove that two different populations of humpback whales interbreed during a specific period of time--something rare, but something that would be very good for the genetic diversity of both populations and thus be important for whale conservationists. He talked about reaching out to the community because so few people appreciate the beauty and biodiversity in their own backyard. He hated the turtle egg poachers whom, he said, condescendingly, still believe turtle eggs are aphrodesiacs and endanger the species as a result. He implored us not to purchase anything made from turtle. When asking us about ourselves, I mentioned that I wanted to study acting in college and he said he had ¨the opposeite of a niece¨(nephew) studying that. After talking for a while, he invited us (those of us helping with the door...or watching him build the door, at least) to live in the shelter next summer as a turtleing volunteer. Next summer I´m working at Green Cove, but rigth then I was about ready to sign up for summer 2010. He was an amazing guy and his spirit was contagious. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Anyway, we continued our walk down the beach. We found a poached nest and an intact one. Mauricio took some measure ments of the poached nest, located it with a portable GPS he´d been carrying, and said we´d return for the eggs from the intact nest on our way back. By the time we reached the end of the beach it was 11:00. Half hour walk, right? And in the sand...after a busy day...We were all tired. Robin (one of the TBB founders) hadn´t realized we would also be walking back. He´d thought the taxis would pick us up at this end. Ooops. The group opted to head back and started walking...but the turtleing wasn´t done and Katie R, Isabel and I decided to stick it out along with Sandy, Nina and Chris (TBB founder, first staff member, and TBB founder and parent liason, respectively). Mauricio went a ways back down the beach and we sat together in the dark on a tropical Costa Rican beach recounting memories of ordinary but perfect days. Finally, he signaled to us to walk back to him by flashing his red headlamp a few times. he hadn´t found anything, so we continued on. Five minutes later, we found fresh turtle tracks and followed them up the beach to a turtle in the process of digging her nest. We watched from ten feet back, silent. When they´re about to lay eggs, tutles go into a trance-like state. We crept closer. Mauricio took the turtle´s measurements, then set Katie up with a plastic bag and had her hold it open under the tutle to catch the eggs as they fell into the nest. It was one of those moments that felt almost sacred. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">The turtle finished and, bag in hand, we continued back down the beach, leaving her to cover up her empty nest. We left Isabel, Chris and Sandy to dig up the nest we´d passed by earlier and kept heading to the hatchery. there I put on a rubber glove, kneeled in the sand and slowly, carefully, laid each soft, thing shelled pin pong ball egg into the makeshif nest Mauricio had dug second from teh right on the far side of the hatchery enclosure. It must have taken ten minutes. At its deepest, the nest fit my arm to halfway between my elbow and my shoulder. (The depth affects the temperature which in turn affects teh gender of the babies so Mauricio is careful to honor the size of the mother´s nest). My only focus while placing the eggs in the nest was to count. 91. The bag that had held them for the walk back probably weighed 10 pounds. That is a LOT of eggs. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Isabel returned with the eggs from the other nest (87) and Nina renested them in the hatchery. by this point it was about 1am. We´d gotten up that morning at 5 to go kayaking so we were understandably exhausted (and very thirsty). We walked back to the entrance to the beach and said goodbye and thank you to Mauricio, but he ended up hopping in the cab with us. He said had we not come, he wouldn´t have had gas to get to the beach that evening and may have been too tired to walk or bike. I was especially glad we´d come turtleing that particular night. We finally got back to the hotel at 1:50. In bed at 2:08. It was totally worth it. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">On Thursday the 11th our main event other than discussions was to attend a local soccer game. It was a small turf field covered by a shell roof. They played a few games of 5 on 5. We grabbed some dinner and hung out. Not a ton to report. It was fun though.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I´m pretty sick of typing...It´s been nearly a hour and 45 minutes since I´ve started, but I felt guilty for keeping you all waiting for so long. Tomorrow we´re off to Quito and then two days later to Bua for our first homestay. We´ll be staying in pairs because the homes are pretty remote and working in schools to bring them clean water. This involves something about building toilets, but I can´t say exactly what. I´ll let you know when I know.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I mentioned pictures before. I know for a fact that there are some on facebook and I´m tagged in a couple. I´ll work on pictures in the future.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Say Hi to the States for Me,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Becca</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7133600243494472737.post-35402525130380539682008-09-04T23:41:00.000-07:002008-09-05T06:57:18.578-07:00In The BeginningWell, it´s 12:42am Costa Rica time, so 11:42 L.A. time. We finally arrived, a little late, but all in one piece and one group. We took a small detour to Panama to refuel because it was too foggy to land here (as the flight attendant explained, San Jose is in a valley and it´s been rainy so...) and we´d been circling. Anyway, we´re staying at a hostel called Hostel Pangea in San Jose for tonight. It seems nice. I´m in a room with 5 other girls...bunk beds...But there´s pizza downstairs and I´m hungry (and a little line of us TBBers waiting for the 2 out of 6 computers here that work) so I´m going to sign out. Also, please excuse typos...this is a strange keyboard and it´s dark in here.Le Petit Princehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09738368713988681918noreply@blogger.com5