Return to Nonjan

I just got back from a four day homestay in Nonjan, an illegal forest community in the Phu Pa Man National Park. They have no electricity there. It is insanely remote. 15 of us are compiling a human rights report for the village. It was a bit of a guessing game to figure out just what ESCR rights were violated but it was fun. Kind of.

I spent the last couple days nonstop interviewing villagers about their lives in Nonjan. They were evicted in 1986 and then they moved back and then in 1991 during Khor Jor Kor in Thailand they were evicted until 1992 when the program was cancelled. Since then relations with the National Park have vastly improved but they are still illegally residing on National Park land. Right now they can never hold a permanent deed for the land they have lived on for generations.

I lived with Paw Samai who is the Minister of the Forest Temple. The villagers back in 2005 built a new wat and when the park rangers came to stop them the woman of the village surrounded the ranger and kidnapped him.

These villagers are pretty intent on their right to the land. Cortney and I are writing a feature story on the village. The issue of illegal forest communities is huge in Thailand. Millions of people live in National Parks across the country.

I went to a drum circle one of the nights I was there. And by drum circle I mean circle of drunk old men, including the NGO and the headman banging around on water coolers drinking copious amounts of whiskey. Sam sang Sublime and Newsies songs for them.

Amazingly Nonjan was cold and it rained for the third time since I have been in Thailand. One morning P'Dai brought some of us out on a two hour trek through the forest. Most of the community depends on the forest for about 50% of their food and we got to see just what they took from the forest. P'Dai was pretty awesome and the forest was so vast and full of bamboo trees and rock formations and caves and massive red ant nests.

Today we interviewed some National Park rangers, hopefully we will soon get to interview the Royal Forest Department. So basically my life right now is revolving around the feature story and the human rights report. My brain is fried. We've got about a week of really intense writing, editing and such but I am actually pretty excited to produce this thing.

Forbes, Miranda and co.

So this hospital deal is a wee bit annoying. Every time I go (three times so far and an appointment on Wednesday) I pretty much pray that the doctor won't hand me another one of those stupid appointment slips. The first time I assumed I wouldn't get one but they just keep on coming. Do my eyes really need another shot of air? How many times can I read an eye chart while holding a spoon up to my face? And most importantly in how many ways can I say "maime jip daa?"

Anyways the other night on one of our rare days off a bunch of people went to the Pullman, a 5-star hotel downtown. I wasn't originally going to spend the night but then a bunch of people got a hotel room all together so it's only like $15 a person for a kickass room. Not that it's all that expensive anyways, I think if two people shared a room it cost them $40 a pop.

So the hotel has a bar with homebrewed beer. For 300 baht AKA $9 you can get unlimited drinks. That was fun. Post that fun it took a billion hours to find a restaurant (some of us didn't want the ultra expensive AKA $20 buffet at the hotel). We found a place that had ok jey stuff but other than that.. Lisa's chicken sandwich was actually ham.

Thing were pretty chill at the hotel so Becca, Luke and I had the great idea to go to 7/11 and get some booze. And by some booze I mean two bottles of local yokel whiskey, 4 bottles of 22 oz beer and a bottle of 30 cent wineish beer grossness. Things kind of dissipated through out the night and we ended up watching music videos until 1am with some people and then went back to the room to go to bed when things got crazy.

One fateful turn of the channel brought us "Species The Awakening." It's pretty much the most intense, most life changing movie experience ever. So that happened until 4am. We literally could not stop watching, discussing, and truely experiencing this movie. I can't believe the three other people in the room slept through our commentary.

Anyways so Sam came to the room at 4:30am and invited us out to a place where I quote "is a big white room with a dj and lights and thai people and music that goes 'bump bump bump." We said no. He left. 30 seconds later Luke, Becca and I were on our feet meeting him in the lobby with a bottle of whiskey.

Sam's description was freakishly accurate. The club was just full of Thai people on drugs raving. We drank the bottle of whiskey. Danced with the first attractive Thai male I've met thus far. Things were pretty ridiculous. At 6:30am we decided to leave so we could see the sunrise. By the time we got outside it was already bright and sunny very strange feeling.

We ate breakfast and I napped for maybe 30 minutes before I left for KKU cause I spent the day back at the landfill community. From 11-5pm I was at the landfill chilling. It was awesome to see my host brother and my meh. Then I facilitated a check-in meeting for the interest group we created to address some of the issues within the landfill community. Then I ate french fries and banana chocolate sandwiches and blueberry tea with Muriel. Things were good. I slept. That was good.

So that's where I'm at right now. In a couple of days I'll be back in Nongjan the illegal forrest community we spent a night in for the very first homestay. We'll be writing a human rights report on their issues. Should be a quality/busy time.

Also I found granola and my life is significantly better.

Speed blogging take 2

I went to the hospital today. It wasn't a big deal. People around here go to the hospital for super minor things. My eye has been irritated for a couple of days so P'Joi drove me over. We passed the sign for the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and it said really large in English with an arrow pointing to the building "Drug Store."

The hospital isn't all that exciting. I had to put my eyes up to some weird gun looking thing that took individual closeups of my eyes. It felt like a rush of air. The guy before me was a farang from Ohio. He was old and decrepit and refused to learn Thai. He lived in Thailand for 5 months and couldn't say a word because he didn't see the point of learning the language. I wouldn't call Khon Kaen english friendly I don't see how he gets along. I did my eye exam in Thai so he assumed I was some sort of missionary that had lived in the country my entire life. His Thai wife kept asking him if I could learn Thai why can't he.

After he left P'Joi and I made fun of him. So my diagnosis is corneal infilteration. I was given some meds, some of which I don't understand how to take, and it cost 1000 baht. Thanks mom.

Anyways lots has happened in life. I stayed with organic farmers in Yasathorn. I drank too much herbal whiskey at the interns house with some Thai people. I learned how to play the ukalalee. And I earned my first 7 baht playing it outside of a 7-11 (Thanks to Ajaan John placing a cup next to me and the P'Joi throwing in change out of pity).

I watched P'Joi kill a chicken. I went to the Khon Kaen National Museum and saw a skelaton that Mikaela carries around an article on at all times. We couldn't find the restaurant we wanted to eat lunch at so we asked a food vendor who proceeded to hop on his motorcycle and drive us individually over there. I made my own tea at Wangnamcha. I picniced at a dino park on the lake downtown. I ate dinner on a wooden ship restaurant thing on land. I made more tea (lemongrass, ginger green tea to be exact). Randomly asked people how to get home after the song-taos ran, turns out they drive song-taos too so they gave us a ride.

I stayed in a chumchon a-at (packed community aka slum) Theparak 1. Drank beer with the town drunk, weaved baskets, napped, was the pied piper of the village. I took a walk and children followed to the point where there were at times 8 of them trailing me. I walked to the community next door and they still followed until a guy on a motorcycle came and drove them all back.

I stayed in a landfill, the Khombon Noi community. Fell in love with my host family. I am writing a profile of my Pa. I speared a chicken in the landfill accidentally. Found a sick book of bird postcards and old photos. Left it there not on purpose. Gipconggaowed a bit. Rested mostly in the salum. Played with crazy adorable children (except for the devil incarnate child). Waited all day for the ice cream man. Drank beer at a village party and got hit on by my host sister.

Ate dinner with some of the Thai roommates and other CIEE folks. The Thai students have hot plates and rice cookers and they make dinner in the hallway (which is more of an outdoor balcony deal) 4 nights a week. Drank more herbal whiskey last night not on purpose. Had a conversation with my roommate about what it means to be slim in Thailand and what it means to be slim in America.

Phew. So hopefully some of these experiences will be transferred to a column for The Collegian and other such venues. But for now. Goodnight.

Speed blogging take 1

This updating my blog to my life thing is not as easy as it sounds. Things keep happening to me and I can't keep up. So I learned how to do the thriller dance. About 15 of us performed it at a multicultural festival on campus. There were legit hundreds of people watching. I'll attach a video for your viewing pleasure. There's really not much else I can say about it.

After our dance some Thai students represented Spain through a dance that involved pretend fellatio and the female dancers on their heads, legs spread, with the guys pretending to go at it.

"And we were scared to point our toes." -Elizabeth putting it best.

Life is just hectic. I went bowling. It was glow in the dark and on the very last turn of the very last game I broke the thing that brings the pins down. Mikaela stepped on the kings head and we peaced before things got heated. Then we ate Italian food made by an Italian it was pretty epic and strange to eat non Thai food. We also drank homebrewed beer. The dark stuff was pretty light but it was better than the watered down water known as Leo's. Tyler got to drink with some government officials from Bangkok.

I went to a milk bar. Met some Thai's who leave to work at Six Flags Jersey in a month. Drank milk and experienced the Thai tea ice mountain.
I don't know what my life was like before this. I'm not sure I want to remember.

After, we got a tour of the city. Turns out Alex's roommate Toom doesn't have her license so we had a mildly terrifying time avoiding the cop checkpoint. Sarie, Jenny and Sarie's roomie Saxopone were chilling out playing music at the apartment. Saxy sang the Cranberries "Zombie." It was pretty cool.

Ummmmmm.

Crazy farang

This blog is a good two weeks behind in story telling. Josh thinks that's a good thing. I don't think he wants to be overwhelmed by all my awesomeness.

Anyways, Thailand is pretty cool. Hot. Humid. I've gotten in the habit (along with Lukas and occasionally Luke) of wearing a crazy triangle Thai style straw hat whenever I go eat. Well Lukas and I do it when us poor jaes have to eat alone. The amazing thing is, despite the strange hats (Lukas wears a sombrero) Thai's don't even give us a second look. We only get the initial "hey look farang" glance. Nothing more. Nothing less.


Sometimes I feel a bit like a circus act. Like when my second homestay family (in Nonchai) kept telling me to sing. And I when I explained I couldn't they told me to dance. And when I said I couldn't they pointed at the karaoke machine and insisted I sing and dance. A family friend came over one night, she spoke significantly more English than my family, and when she was told I didn't sing or dance she said something along the lines of:

"You must be weird. It's rare to meet a farang that can't do either."

So we have peer tutors and for two hours (after an entire day of class 9-5) they come and sit with us one on one to go over Thai lessons. My tutor, Pang, is pretty chill. Sometimes she accidentally teaches me Chinese and the Ajaans will look at me strange when I repeat it.

We spent an entire tutoring session teaching eachother how to say things like "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood" and some other Thai phrase that when mispronounced can mean something dirty. I find most of the Thai students I hang out with are super friendly. Pang calls me pretty often to hang out. Ying (my roomie) always wants me to go back to Rad bar with her.

Speaking of going out I went to a festival in a neigboring village last week with some other students. P'joy, one of the van drivers (but he is so much more than that) brought us to his house first where we were served kenoms (snacks) and homemade sticky rice wine. Sep mack.

The festival involved monks shooting guns at weird stuffed animals, shiny pieces of paper with numbers where you win a lot of canned mackeral and ramen, a drag show and six-year-olds doing muy thai. Just another village party.

So I can't remember exactly when this occured but there was an Art festival in downtown Khon Kaen that I attended. Sara, Perla and Hannah all went on their roommates motorcycles and I was left to hop on Nongs motorcycle. I had to sit side style cause of my skirt and Nong couldn't speak English that well so he kept trying to tell me that I could hold him.

The ride downtown takes a good half hour. You might think things were awkward. Girls on the program were warned about Thai guys and their different societal norms. Anyways Nong and I had a great, strained, conversation that involved singing Backstreet Boys songs together.

The art fair was amazing it was outside of a wat (the really ornate Thai style temples). There was a sick area where a former Ajaan of the program served really good tea but more about that at a later date. Nong and I reunited back at his motorcycle when it was time to head home.

We rode to the night market. A huge market full of food and clothes that's open all night. Strolled around for about 10 minutes. None of the people we came with were there. Nor did they show up. Apparently there was some kind of miscommunication that resulted in Nong and I alone together taking a leisurely walk around the night market. Anyways we rode back. I told him I was a writer. He told me I must be romantic and sensitive. He dropped me off and I never saw him again.

Ok I will update more later. My goal is to be uptodate before the next homestay.

Kaw tairoob dai mai kah?

Every morning my homestay family and I watched the news. Despite my inability to understand more than one word every 10 minutes, I watched it pretty intensely. The female news anchor was stylish, the male kind of balding and gross. It was a weird dynamic. She mainly smiled and said "kaaaaah," while he blabbered on about something important.

I imagine the conversation went a little like this:

"Millions died when the ice caps melted and flooded all of Europe."

"Kaaaah"

Anyways, that morning there was a particularly graphic video of a group of young men beating a tuk tuk driver to a pulp. The security camera at what I think must have been a 7/11 caught every last detail of this merciless beating. It definitely wasn't something Good Morning America would air it in its entirety.

Champ turned to me, arms raised, hands contorted to replicate guns, "Bang Bang," he shouted cheerfully. My Meh and Paw smiled, Champ pointed at the wall where inbetween glass trinkets and posters of the Royal family was a machine gun hanging idly by a nail. "Bang Bang"

Next up, a photojournalist, Nic Dunlop, guest-lectured my class the other day. Seems like a pretty cool guy. Anyways he taught us a bit about photography and sent us on our merry way. We had four hours to get 5 quality photos of people at work in Khon Kaen.

Myself and Muriel wandered down the road past our apartment. We never really walk down there except to go to the bars on that strip. During the day it vaguely resembles a resort town and you half expect the ocean to be just beyond all the construction sites.

We wandered onto a construction site for luxury apartments. There were four woman crouched around a water jug. Water at the homestays and everywhere pretty much is served in jugs with just one cup perched on top. Everything is communal. I forgot to mention everyone eats on the floor and no one has their own plate. Sticky rice is your utensil and the rest is up for grabs.

Anyways we were interested in these woman because we had never really thought of women as manual laborers in Thailand.

"Kaw tairoob dai mai kah?"

Blank stares followed. Maybe we said "can I take your picture." Maybe we said something else. I'm going with the latter. Before we knew it we were ushered over to a skinny trendy looking Thai woman sitting in an outdoor office. She grabbed some blue prints and beckoned us to follow her further into the construction site.

At some point in this interaction Muriel and I led this woman to believe we really wanted to move into this apartment building ASAP. We got the grand tour, complete with granite counter tops and actual, not squat, toilets.

This apartment was for farang to rent out. The Thai's doing the actual labor could never afford to live in a place like this. Even the secretary was wearing slippers while she showed us around the site. Muriel and I entertained her with questions about rent, availability, size all sorts of apartment related jargon all the while creeping around the construction snapping photos. She must have thought we were out of our minds taking so many pictures of people drilling holes and painting walls. At the very end of our half hour tour she broke out her iphone and asked if she could take a picture. Of us.

Sahbaideemai?

I want to update on everything that has happened on this trip, but it is making me ultra behind in blog posts. Last week I stayed with a family for 5 days. I went to the Nonchai school everyday with my nong-chai Champ to take Thai lessons. The kids at the school were constantly following us farang around, touching our skin, grabbing our cheeks. We were their main source of amusement.

Every morning we sat in lines with the rest of the kids and went through the flag ceremony. There were endless songs and exercises that involved massaging your mouth. After school I'd go back to my families house and play a lot of badminton. We didn't have a court or anything, just a yard where we sat around drinking the juice straight out of the coconut and hitting the badminton around. My family was pretty big, I had a nong-chai, 3 nong-sows- two of them were four-year-old twins and 2 pi-sows and a pi-chai. Along with a ya and my meh and paw.

My family was relatively well off compared to most. They had two houses and four cars. One is where my pi-chai, his girlfriend, my pi-sow and her two kids lived and the other is where my nong-chai, nong-sow and meh and paw lived. I had my own room. My bed was a wooden board, no mattress just a sheet.

The house had a big screen TV, 2 desktop computers and 3 laptops. They didn't have a kitchen, just a rice cooker, fridge and microwave. My meh bought food from the market every day. For some reason Thai's eat unlimited amounts of food, ride their motorcycles to cross the street, and add sweeten condensed milk to everything yet they are insanely skinny.

For some unknown reason every Thai I have met is pretty insistent on constant food consumption. Maybe because farang are naturally bigger so they assume we need more food, I do not know, but it's a full on assault every meal. Im lao kah kop kuhn kaht has become my new mantra. We went out to dinner one night at a place where everyone cooks their food on a burner in the middle of the table. My family brought me big plates of onions rings and french fries. "Gin it's jey gin gin." It was disgusting.

I came back to my house late one night after an exchange with HIV/AIDS patients to find that Champ was out. My pi-chai, his girlfriend and my pi-sow invited me into their house where I proceeded to translate a Budget rental inspection guide. They coerced me onto a motorcycle and dropped me off across the street from a 7-Eleven. I was instructed to get off and they drove away. Mind you not only was I left in a random location with out a cell phone or wallet, I was also shoeless standing outside for 10 minutes unbelievably confused. My pi-sow came back like no big deal. We got some snacks and went back to the house and watched Thai soap operas.

Other than that I discovered the amazingness of the bucket shower. There is just a massive tall tub of freezing cold water and a smaller bucket in the hong nam. You dip the bucket in the water and dump it over your head.

Anyways, I will eventually catch this blog up to present time. Until then... peace.