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.