all that and a bag of chips

I'm currently reading about this crazy new plant we're trying to grow at the farm called the moringa. The leaves, flowers, root, seed, fruit, leaves bark and sap all have a number of different nutritional or medicinal uses, and on top of all that, the tree is drought tolerant and fast growing. we're going to try to grow it as a living fence on the farm and then harvest continually. It's also nitrogen fixing, which means it will enrich the soil, AND that the leaves can be mixed into the soil to add further nitrogen to the garden beds.

A dude just walked into the coffee shop and bowed to his associates...these are things you just don't see in Canada.

In other news, I'm not sure if I've posted about this yet, but it sounds like I should be able to wrangle a trip into Burma at some point while I'm here. Janeen said her NGO is going to be organizing an ultimate frisbee tournament in one of the camps in the fall and I'm trying to work it out that I go along as a frisbee specialist of some sort. I'm definitely qualified, the question is will I be able to get a camp pass.

I was talking to one of the students in the program the other day (I was wrong, her name wasn't Thu May Lin, it was something else...she told me again but I forgot. Anyway, I hadn't actually ever thought about it before but it made sense (if you can call it that) when she told me. If you're born in a refugee camp in Burma (or elsewhere I'm assuming), if that camp isn't recognized by the government, you don't get issued a passport. Also, in many of the camps birth records aren't kept. In essence, you aren't a citizen of any country, and aren't recognized as existing by any formal decision-making body. That would make international travel virtually impossible, essentially trapping people in their current unfortunate situation.

The ability to drive/walk/sail/fly/crawl freely across an international border isn't something I appreciated as being a privilege before a few days ago.

My Thai lessons were cancelled on wan ang khan (Tuesday) because my teacher got sick. She said it was her policy that if she cancelled last minute, she would pay the students for their inconvenience, and said that one of my lessons next week would be at no charge to make up for it. She did sound legitimately sick, and said that she was going to be going to the hospital, which was why she couldn't have the lesson that day. I'm kind of up in the air as to how I want to handle this situation. On the one hand, I'm most definitely experiencing the end-of-the-month cash crunch, but on the other...I could likely afford to pay her when it came down to it. It might mean one more peanut butter and banana sandwich dinner instead of going to a restaurant, but I could do it. What would you do?

Speaking of eating in, the fridge is working wonderfully. I had to duke it out with an ant colony before turning it on though. Turns out ants like sugar, and if you keep your sugar in the fridge, ants will set up a nest way in the back behind all your boxes of tea and your bag of cosmetics where you can't see until you go to clear everything out to turn on the fridge. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Anyway, I've switched to eating muselix and soymilk and cut up mango and banana for breakfast instead of going out, and it's just as tasty except you have to make it yourself. Plus I get cold water whenever I want instead of lukewarm. Greg reminded me the other day that we had to pay 3500 of next months rent out of our pocket because we were accidentally overpaid for this month, but I figure I will take that out of next month's salary. Definitely going to try to save more money from now on. I'm going to have to if I hope to do any traveling after my contract here expires.

Went for another Thai massage yesterday, which brings the grand total up to 3. There's a place down the street from our house that does them for the equivalent of about 5 bucks for an hour massage, and not only do they feel good during, but you feel great afterwards as well. There are adverts for massage courses all over the place, and you can get certified fairly easily I think. Maybe I'll have to come home and open my own chain of Thai massage parlors. You need to be careful where you go for a massage here though. The place down the street is totally legit, but you'll want to stay away from the ones with red and blue neon signs and scantily clad women calling out to passers by.

David's in town tonight (former NEED Director), and I think we're all going to go out to a bar in town that has trivia on Thursday nights. I haven't really applied myself to anything overly academic in about a month now, so it might be a good way to get my mind back on the right track before starting my research.