looking for a fight

I've got a few minutes before I have to meet Sam in the lobby. We're going to go see David's wife's fight. She does Muay Thai, or Thai boxing which is the national sport of Thailand. It's basically like boxing but more vicious because the elbows and knees are used heavily to inflict damage on the opponent. This will be my first fight, so I'm pretty excited.

We went to Tesco this afternoon after work and I picked up SO MUCH STUFF...okay, in actuality it probably only came out to about 60 or 70 bucks but here that's a small fortune, considering that I've been told average monthly salaries hover around $150 Canadian. I've finally picked up a fan for my room, and a kettle to satisfy those late night cravings for instant noodles, among other things.

I still haven't picked up any plants for my balcony but that's next on the list. Sam and Greg were able to find some really cool orchids at the Sunday market yesterday.

All right, I'd better go...don't want to be late for the fight!

home sweet home

I HAVE AN APARTMENT! never been able to say that before....we moved in today. it's far too hot at the moment to give a proper update on what's been going on in the last little while, but hopefully i'll have a chance to update more thoroughly later on tonight after I get home.

i'm willing to take bets on how long it will take me to crack under the heat and turn on the A/C. It's no fun to have to pay for electricity out of your pocket when you're trying to save as much money as possible.

Current Temperature: 31 degrees. Rain in the forecast for the next five days. (It hasn't REALLY rained yet since we've been here...drizzles here and there but nothing major. I'm actually kind of hoping for some soon so I can break out the raincoat. fingers crossed!)

FUNding

currently sitting in a coffee shop with Greg, Sam, David and Bill having a meeting about the AJRC interim report. AJRC is one of the donors for need. Greg's stepped outside for a cigarette but when he gets back we're going to move to another table to discuss plans for the farm. this meeting is giving me a better idea of how an NGO works and what's required to run an organization like this. hoping to be able to post more later on this evening or someday soon because there's so much to be said. still hot, still humid.

15 minutes and counting down...

right, i've got 15 minutes until this net cafe closes so i'm going to have to make this another slapped-together synopsis of a post...or synopsost as i like to call them.

• today was great, went to the experimental farm, met a bunch of the guys who are working there
• NEED is a very complex organization and I definitely understand it better now than I did before, but I will have to post more on that tomorrow because there's not time to go into detail now
• text me
• looking for a place: hit the beat pretty hard today with Sam and Greg and saw a bunch of places ranging from roachy to ritzy...some hard decisions ahead
• went to a korean-bbq style place for dinner...all you can eat meat buffet anyone? I'm the worst ex-vegetarian ever
• tomorrow we sit down with david and Sam and Bill (I'll introduce everyone later when I have more time) to write the NEED progress report, which I wanted to sit in on because it would just give me a better idea of how NEED works and stuff
• learning TONS, even though it's only been 2 days...feels WAY longer
• very VERY excited about what's coming in the future
• it's absolutely beautiful here...i'd never seen rice paddys before until today
• will post more pictures later

night night!

Day 1 in Chiang Mai

Written Tuesday May 20, 2008

I thought I’d take a few very quick notes on the first day in Chiang Mai.

· 12 hour overnight train from Bangkok, good, kind of neat to sleep on the train, but still long. Was up by 6, and the train was noisy. Thai countryside is amazingly beautiful, especially as you get into the mountains to the north

· Arrived in CM, met David Le Blanc, very cool young guy who has sort of been overseeing operations but whose contract is expiring soon and so is looking to be replaced by Sam, who was on the plane with me from Toronto

o Went for lunch/coffee, chatted about NEED as an organization, it was nice

· On a side note, Chiang Mai is awesome. Not nearly the hustle of Bangkok, but still very alive. Huge backpacker presence. Receiving LOTS of stares, starting to feel a tiny bit awkward sometimes (you’ll see what I mean in a minute)

· Went back to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes, then picked up by two of the other guys working at NEED and (I’m TERRIBLE with names I’m familiar with, and am likely going to be hopeless with Burmese and Thai names, but I am doing my best…the only name I remember from today is “Dau” (Pronounced ‘duh’)

· Went to the NEED head office and met some of the students working there (some of them have been trapped in Burma by the cyclone, and others have gone into Burma to do research and have been unable to be able to leave yet because the necessary bribes are still being arranged and hoops jumped through). Though shy, the students seem really nice and I look forward to meeting everyone else at the meeting tomorrow morning

· There just so happened to be a forum/rally at Chiang Mai University for Burmese Hurrican Relief, so we went to that after going to the office. It was really neat, there was a panel of speakers (some of it bilingual thai/English, some of it just thai)

o Incidentally, I also got my picture taken for the Chiang Mai Post, which should be coming out next Tuesday, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for that one...wasn’t expecting to make the newspapers my first day in town.
· After the rally, we went back to the hotel (Greg, Sam and I) and then headed to the mall to pick up cell phones. 32 dollars later I have a phone number! *email me and I'll tell you* I don’t think I have voice mail though. Or at least if I do, I need to know more Thai then I do to set it up. I can receive calls and text messages.

· After the mall we grabbed some food from a parking lot (a note about the food: IT IS CHEAP, DELICIOUS AND EVERYWHERE. I am going to come home fat and gross, but it will be worth the coronary bypass. And not all the food is bad for you. They sell fresh mango, guava and pineapple either whole or cut up all over the place, though I’m more cautious where I eat than most. I tend to stay away from the ones where you see piles of ingredients swarming with flies, no matter how delicious it may smell. Also, thus far I haven’t had any digestive problems, which is a plus.

· Pulled my back again this morning so I’m trying to rest it…it’s harvest season so there will definitely be some planting ahead

· After dinner we went to the night market, which is basically like a regular market but…at night…I feel like I didn’t need to explain that one.

· On the way we happened to pass through Chiang Mai’s red light district accidentally. If I had a nickel for every old white man I saw with a young thai girl, I’d be able to retire tomorrow. It was gross. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but so are a lot of other things…’massage parlors’ and bars that seemed to have copious numbers of waitresses none of which seemed to be waiting on tables lined the street. On top of this, there were all the women that simply stood on the curb, no, LINED the curb in mobs calling out to everyone who passed by. It was a eerie unsettling experience as I was shouted at from both sides while I conjured up images of every STD I’d ever been taught about in school. While I do respect the right of any woman to choose how she makes a living, I was unprepared for the aggressiveness with which they went about their business. I think we were all a little shaken by the experience and I doubt we will be passing through that part of town again, after dark or otherwise. On our way back from the market, Greg suggested we take a different route, and we did.

· We also saw this guy walking a baby elephant down the street. I think it had been working all day up in the foothills because it had empty cloth carrying sacks on either side of it. I think it was just the coolness with which the dude was walking this elephant down the side of the street that got to me though. Truly we are in Thailand.

· Anyway, it was fun, I bought some shorts. I actually ended up feeling really terrible about it because everyone says you should bargain at the markets, so when the lady gave me a price of 290 baht, I skillfully countered with 150. She came back with 250 and the game was on. I came back with 175 and she came down to 220. I said 180 was as high as I was going and she said 215 was already the best deal in town. I said 215 was too much and made to turn away, when she said “sir, please, 200” in a voice that didn’t really seem like she wanted to play anymore and more like she needed me to buy the shorts. She was holding a baby in one arm and (sensing it’s mother’s distress?) it had begun to cry. I stopped. I wondered if maybe I was the only person who had stopped by her cart that evening. I wondered if this woman had a day job from which she’d returned home this evening, exhausted, only to set up her cart in the night market hoping to make some extra cash on the side. I wondered how many other children she had at home. I wonder what she’s going to spend my 200 baht on…Food? School Uniforms? More shorts to keep her shop open and continue to supplement what would likely be considered a pitiably meager income by Canadian standards? Suddenly 200 baht (roughly $6.45 Canadian) didn’t seem like an honest bargain anymore. It seemed criminally low. I paid the money and left with my shorts, but without the elation one might expect to feel after their first successful bargaining experience. As I go to bed tonight I don’t expect to find sleep quickly. I have a lot to think about.

Bangkok, Day 1

Wow….just…just wow. Where to begin. I think Thailand takes the cake so far for the coolest place I’ve ever been. Spending 37 hours getting here wasn’t the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever had to do, but now that we’re here it has definitely made up for it already. This is about all I ended up seeing of Hong Kong because I didnt' realize we could LEAVE THE AIRPORT so I spent 8 hours wandering. Things were super expensive so I didn't bother buying anything but dinner. Fast food in Hong Kong consisted of a bowl of noodles and beef with dumplings on the side. And chopsticks. No fork. And a sprite, which actually tasted a lot better than lame Canadian sprite. When she arrived on her flight from Vancouver after I'd been at the airport 5 hours, Janeen was also able to find Beijing Roast Duck Pizza for dinner. It was....interesting. This was about all I was able to see of Hong Kong (NOTE: Click the pictures to see them full sized), there were high rises and mountains surrounding the airport, but you could hardly see them. On our descent into the airport, I wondered why the clouds we were going through were thick and greenish grey instead of fluffy and white until I realized it was actually the smog. It wasn't foggy there, the smog just meant you could barely see anything.

We arrived around 1 last night, and were picked up at the airport and taken to the hotel. When I say we, I refer to myself, Greg, Sam (who are all going to Chiang Mai to work with NEED) and Janeen who is also from my program at UofT but working in Mai Sariang (next province over) on a different project. We had today to sort of get our bearings and rest off the jet lag in Bangkok and are expected to be at our in country training session tomorrow morning at 10. Janeen, Greg and Sam have all been to Thailand before in different capacities which ended up being a good thing because they knew where to find all the cool things to see on a day in the city. We started off by going to the...(Sathiyap?) weekend market which was really really cool. It’s this MASSIVE outdoor marketplace that springs up every weekend. You could get anything from paintings of the Buddha to pet squirrels to cheap tshirts to food to dress shorts. After getting lost in there for a while we took a taxi to another street (the name of which I’ve forgotten…I’m going to have to work harder to remember these things) which is supposedly one of the central tourist areas in Bangkok. As you can see in the picture it too was lined with tuk-tuks, taxis, motor scooters, shops, restaurants and stalls selling everything and anything. (The taxis are fluorescent pink here instead of yellow...go figure)
After stopping there for a bite of lunch and a few minutes at a net café we wandered over to the Royal Palace, but unfortunately there had been a death in the royal family recently so it was closed to the public. The rest of the day was spent wandering around Bangkok and we ended up at a nice little restaurant in a quiet corner of town for dinner before taking the taxi back to the hotel.

Things here are super super super cheap, and the food (from what I’ve had thus far) is amazing. I tried the pad thai for dinner (it came out to about 1.10 canadian) and it was really tasty. Also, there are food and clothing stalls all over the place, so I’m definitely not going to starve to death. Cooking at home is one of those things I’ve realized isn’t a universal norm. Many of the apartments here don’t come with refrigerators or stoves either.

Thailand is sometimes called the land of a thousand smiles. I’d say that was about accurate. Everybody smiles at you, and you smile back. It’s great. A cheerful ‘sawatdee krab’ (hello) or a ‘sabai dee mai krab’ (how are you?) is easy to come by. Anyway, it’s starting to get late (it’s almost midnight here even though everyone back home is likely about to sit down to lunch). Looking forward to training tomorrow and then taking the overnight train with Sam and Greg to Chiang Mai. Haven’t seen any massive bugs yet, but I hear they’re out there. Wait, I lied, there were two pretty big cockroaches on the street this morning.

Thus far, I think I’m going to like it here in Thailand.

three two one blast-off!

Phew!
Hours of sweat tears and toil later my things are finally packed away. I ended up caving and getting another bag because with bringing the motorcycle helmet (which is MASSIVE...and not just because I have a freakishly large head) there was not a hope in the world of my fitting everything I wanted to into the one backpack.

In just 12 short hours I was able to go from this:

to THIS

Impressive, no? I thought so too.

Now I've got 3 short hours at home before I've got to leave for the airport. I thought it was somewhat important for me to write something before I left, as this will be the last time I write blog 'as of yet completely unchanged' by this experience. I mean, I suppose you could argue that the training and placement preparation seminars probably already changed the way I viewed my placement, but lets not be argumentative, I'm tired.

My gut is filled with a mixture of excitement and fear...and hunger. Dinner was a while ago. I am definitely feeling the pressure of responsibility, even though I am not entirely sure what form those responsibilities will take. I just hope I will be able to handle them when they do come. It will be interesting to see whether I up the independance and step up to the plate in response to essentially moving out of my house for the first time to a country on the other side of the world to do a job I've never done before or whether I crack under the pressure and cry myself to sleep every night. I'm certainly hoping for the former but you gents out there should note that there's nothing wrong with a good cry now and again.

The outpouring of love and support and well-wishes from those close to me has been fantastic and at times almost overwhelming. The number of phone calls and text messages I've received tonight alone has blown me away. I could not ask for better friends/family/loved ones/acquaintances. You are all awesome and don't you ever forget it.

Oh! My itinerary, for those who don't already know is as follows:

I fly out of Toronto at 11AM this morning (Friday May 16) and get comfortable for the 15.5 hour flight to Hong Kong. I'm slated to arrive in HK at 2:45 in the afternoon on Saturday (I'm pretty sure that's their time, not ours) and then have an 8 hour wait for my flight to take off to Bangkok at 10:45PM. The flight takes 2 hours and I arrive in Thailand at 11:55 Saturday night. Please keep in mind that this is the best case scenario. Fortunately I have plenty of wiggle room with the stopover...8 hours to be precise, so I think we should be all right. Also, I'm looking forward to exploring the airport on Hong Kong, it's supposed to be pretty wild. There's supposedly a mall with movie theatres and restaurants and shopping all inside the airport. I don't know how much of what I've been told is actually true, but I certainly intend to find out.

It's 4AM and I'm contemplating forgoing sleep altogether but fear it may be a decision I live to regret. I am definitely going to take a shower before I go to get as clean as I possibly can before heading to the airport, even though air travel somehow always ends up making you feel filthy by the time you arrive at your destination. Oh well.
I should pack my computer away and make sure all the essentials are where they should be. I feel like I should end this with something deeply thought-provoking about standing at this precipice about to take the plunge and praying I learn to swim before the lifeguard has to pull me out looking sheepish. But it looks like I just did. Here goes!

Before I forget, I wanted to post a picture of my classmates. There was a final get together Saturday night to give everyone a chance to say goodbye and good luck. Placement locations range from Burkina Faso to Guatemala to Ghana to Bolivia and everywhere in between. These are the kids I've been fortunate enough to go to school with and get to know over the past 3 years. In the middle we also have Nancy Bradshaw, she was so many things to so many people...program coordinator...shoulder to cry on...mother figure...the list goes on. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for the work she put in to help people find placements this year. The laughter and the memories will not soon be forgotten, and I look forward to stories from them all when we return.

T minus 7 days and counting down...

It's late, but I figured I should post an update before I got too far ahead of myself. School is finished for the summer and placement preparations have definitely kicked into high gear.

I've finally found the time to take a trip to Mountain Equipment Coop downtown to pick up some much needed gear. I had no idea they sold Monsoon Jackets, but I figured with a name like that I couldn't go wrong. I also opted to buy a huge travel backpack instead of going with a duffel bag because I figured that would give me greater flexibility in case I do end up ever doing any backpacking while I'm overseas. I also picked up a swiss army knife because they supposedly come in handy in a million different situations and are indispensable when living overseas.

Water is also going to be an issue in Thailand because I likely won't be able to drink the stuff that comes out of the tap unless I plan on spending extended periods of time time getting intimately acquainted with the nearest washroom. Thus, I decided on a Pristine water purification system, which consists of two convenient little bottles of solution that tag-team to kill the creepy crawlies in the water. This will come in handy if I don't have a kettle at my disposal, because supposedly boiling the water works just as well. The trick will be to remember to wash fruits and vegetables, and to figure out which food stands I can eat from and which to stay away from. I think stomach upset is pretty much going to be an inevitability for me the first while that I'm there (my adventurous culinary nature will likely prove more of a hindrance than anything else), I just aim to minimize the damages.

I have also decided on the malaria medication Doxycycline. It basically means I take these little orange pills every morning at the same time. I've heard mixed reviews about malaria meds. I have a friend who was on placement in Africa and said she got malaria 4 times while taking the anti-malaria drugs every day, at which point she quit the drugs and never got malaria again. Where I am going the malaria is resistant to certain types of preventative drugs so my options were somewhat limited, but this one seemed to have the fewest averse side effects. I decided to begin taking them 4 days ago and have yet to experience any negative side effects (the most common one is nausea). Hope things continue to look up.

I've also taken a trip to the dentist who cleaned my teeth set me up with a bunch of free toothbrushes and dental floss (am I the only one who hates going to the dentist? It's not a fear thing, I just happen to like it better when people don't go poking around my mouth with sharp bits of metal for 45 minutes thank you very much). Fortunately I was once again cavity free, and I received a congratulations on my diligence in flossing. But the joke's on him, 'cause I never floss. I think that's one of the only things I can think of that people will consistently tell you it's okay to lie about. I can't explain why it's so shameful to admit to your dentist that you DON'T floss...maybe it's that reproachful, almost disappointed look he gives you, as if somehow by not flossing you've let him down. Lying's just easier for both of us really. Though in my defense, I am planning to floss diligently from now on because I seriously don't want to have to be visiting a dentist with a cavity overseas. Visiting one here is bad enough.

Right, it's late, I should head off. I am going out to breakfast with some friends tomorrow morning. Went out for dinner with another group of friends this evening.It's tough to organize yourself to spend time with all the people in your life who matter before going away for an extended period of time like this. An exercise in time management indeed. I would also like to try and swing by a bookstore to look for some solid airplane reading material. And get a haircut. And go to school to discuss flight and visa details. And look over the theses of previous IDS students. The days are just packed.