Confession

I've started tumbling. I know, I know. But, it's a lot more fun that blogging. It's not you, it's tumblr?

RebeccaOnTheInternet.tumblr.com

Man, it's been a while

This blog has fallen into disrepair.

R

The Things They Carried, Going to a Temple Edition

-Four white T-shirts
-Two pairs of white draw-string pants
-An umbrella
-Underwear
-Soap
-Timer for meditation
-Strawberry cookies (possible contraband)

Headed to a temple meditation program for my four day weekend. See you on the other side of enlightenment.

R

Correspondence Pt. II

In recent correspondence

More to come.

R

Field trip to Nepal

With mom on the continent, I took my school up on their offer to let me have some vacay time to travel. Off we went to Katmandu to visit esteemed scholar and dear friend of mine, Shrochis Karki, home from his rigorous studies to carry out his dissertation research.

So, I’m going to narrate this post in the fashion of the lecture I’ve been giving to my more advanced students in a pathetic attempt to reconcile myself with the guilt of an absentee educator. Welcome to my classroom.

“I was so happy to see my friend and his family. Friend and family. Very happy.” Big smile to illustrate happiness.

“I had a lot of fun in Nepal. Fun. It was beautiful. Beautiful.” Accompanied by the large and ambiguous sweeping gestures of my arms that my body insists on making every every time I use a descriptive word.

“Nepalese food…Nepalese food is very delicious. Delicious. We ate with our hands. No chopsticks, no forks, only hands.” I mimic picking up food with my hand several times. My students look skeptical. "You know, my friend's dad is a very good cook. Their kitchen smells like the most amazing spices and we ate curries and mangoes and fresh ox. And homemade yogurt everyday." I'm losing them. I know better than this; digressions are verboten. I mentally reprimand myself and correct course.

“The mountains were so big. I saw the biggest mountain in the world. Biggest mountain in the whole world.” I do my mountain impression, and then my whole world impression, and then my mountain impression again. Everything is crystal clear.

“There are many Hindus in Nepal. Hindus. Cows are very important to Hindus. You cannot eat a cow in Nepal.” I pass on doing my cow impression.



“Hindus and Buddhists go to temples together.”

“However, in Nepal there are many people who have no food or money. Life can be difficult. My friend, my friend is doing research.” Two minute pause while we look up research in the dictionary. “Research on education. He will walk for six hours to a small village. Small village. No electricity, no cars. He will research education there for two months. Two months.” They seem impressed, Shrochis.

“It was a good trip. I learned a lot.”

And then all of my students clap and smile and say, “Oh, we’re so glad we’re learning English so that we can communicate with people all over the world. Thank you for showing us what a useful tool the English language can be!”

And, now that you've lived three minutes in the life of one of my students, but before you resume playing the facebook and twitter, I'd like to publicly thank the most kind hosts I've met on planet earth: Shrochis' family. I'd be a better person if I was one eighteenth as nice or patient as you all.

Next up: live blogging Fulbright's 60th Anniversary Symposium in Bangkok, July 16-17th. Make sure your modem is working because you are not going to want to miss this.

Truly,

R

July 1, 2010

Happy nine month anniversary to me and Thailand!

A V.I.P. HITS THAILAND

NEWSFLASH! Phitsanulok has a new and highly esteemed visitor: my very own mother.

Well, I thought I knew Thai hospitality before this, but lo, I was so wrong. In honor of my mum's arrival, unimaginable heights of kindness have been summitted. My mother spent her first day in Thailand expertly guided by my coworkers around the ruins of the 15th century historical capital of Thailand, in the 100 degree heat. That was only the beginning. My teacher QT is off the charts.

Here's ma, receiving flowers at the departmental party celebrating her arrival.

Ma poses with the kiddies.

I'm so excited about her visit I'm even going to take a little vacay. Reckless, I know, but when you haven't seen family in nine months...

Happily,
Bec

Happy Father's Day

Miss you pops!

Love,
R

How I realized Phitsanulok is home

In The Republic, Socrates introduces an extended metaphor for the city as a human soul. He presents the soul as having three components: eros, thumos, and logos, or, quite roughly, desires/love, spiritedness, and intellect. Thumos corresponds to the warrior class of the city, defending the things we love (including, of course, ourselves). Thumos is our vanity, our pride, our expectations, and even our anger at ourselves for not meeting expectations.

Most relevantly for this post, it's the part of ourselves that irrationally attaches us to things that are our own. As in, of course I liked my high school football team and went to every game even though our record in the four years I attended school must have been about 10-38. Our sports teams, our homes, even our family members: thumos is the part of ourselves that bonds us to those things that, objectively viewed, might not be all that great. Think Cubs fans, the way you like your mom's weird macaroni and cheese, the bizarre dent on your car you strangely take pleasure in. These things are ours, and just that is enough to make them valuable to us.

Last week, I hosted a 23 year-old Italian couch surfer on the floor of my one-room apartment. He was plenty amiable, at the mid-point of a two year journey (by land and boat only; no flights!) from Italy to Australia. He stayed here for a couple of days, taking in the sights and relaxing before hitching-hiking on to the next big town on the highway. I showed him the best P'lok has to offer: the big temple, the night bazaar, the best pad thai in town, the best juice stand, the market, my friends, even aerobics in the park. When he was packing up, I asked him what he thought of the place. He said, "it could be worse," as if this was the most natural observation about the place.

I was a little stunned. Hadn't I shown him the wonderful parts of town? The little secrets it took me months to accumulate? Had he been paying any attention? And that's when I remembered what I'd been struck by when I first got here: the anonymous melange of three-story high dingy store fronts that stretch for blocks and blocks, the unattractive amount of trash, the vague feeling of a town that doesn't matter but wishes it did. The Scranton of Thailand, maybe?

Then I realized, it had happened. Phitsanulok had become a part of me. I'd subsumed it under my umbrella of things that are my own and that thus I love. And so, couch surfers be damned, I am defending this place until the temple bells stop ringing and the giant rooster statue on the highway crumbles down. All I need now is someone at the Phitsanulok tourist office to please, please find me and hire me to write brochures.

Yours,
Rebecca

Housekeeping Pop Quiz

Have you ever put a candle in your refrigerator to eliminate a mysterious smell? Yes. No. Gross.

Knock knock not jokes

Who's there?
Two best friends.
Two best friends who?
Shelley and Sam (in Phitsanulok, vsiting Triamudomsuksa School of the North).

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Teacher.
Teacher who?
Teacher Rebecca, the happiest teacher ever.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
A student, with a question for my friends.
A question for your friends what?
"What do you eat for breakfast to get so beautiful?"
Amen.

Bangkok is no longer burning

Thank goodness.

If you're looking for an short explanation of recent events, I've surprised myself by liking this quick one from Slate. Of course, people are deeply divided in Thailand about the what and why of this violence, so no one brief explanation can really get at it, but this one comes far closer than the "rural poor versus elite" line that's reverberating throughout the foreign media. That description is at best simplistic and omission laden, at worst a complete misrepresentation.

Not residing in a province under curfew,
Rebecca

Back to School, or Institutions and People

Today was the first day of the 2010-2011 academic year at Triam Udom Suksa. Turns out that all the way across the globe, first days of school happen just the same: the same fast chatter, quick enough to retell whole summers in three minutes flat; the same obsession over pens at the neighborhood school supply store (hesitation...and, if you just pick the right one...oh! the possibilities); the same hot, buzzing parking lot after school, familiar yells and analytical sideways glances.

The most unavoidable difference between this day and my own first days of school at LBJ Liberal Arts and Science Academy: people were never being shot in the streets some 300 kilometers south of me. I never boarded the school bus while the international media murmured about the possibility of civil war. I guess there are a few differences, to wit, the legitimacy of the current government is in jeopardy, the economy is paralyzed, and fears are increasing that violence will spread outside of Bangkok. Basic order is uncertain.

At the same time, life goes on. I work at a public school, a state-run institution if there ever was one. Today, even as one arm of the state haltingly engaged in a street battle with citizens, another arm of the the state's lumbering frame opened doors to schools across the country. The teachers came and the students came, and school was school. I assigned homework and my kids took notes in their little pink books. Some students said they were scared or sad, most made jokes ("...no, you can't choose the deposed Prime Minister as your group's mascot"). My coworkers are worried, especially those with friends or family in Bangkok, but they're also lesson planning. A lot of people just don't want to talk about it.

I'm watching live feed from central Bangkok right now and the explosion noises are fairly constant (which is of course all I can gather from the news since I still can't speak Thai...boy, I really have an incentive to learn now). Still, at the moment, the violence is contained to a very small part of the country. Most people want this to be over soon. Let's hope it is. Almost regardless, I'll be at school tomorrow.

Hoping,
Rebecca

In case you just watched the NYTimes slideshow...

Phitsanulok is mostly unaffected by the unrest. There was a little skirmish in April around one of our three military bases. Currently though we've just a few peaceable gatherings of red shirts camped out around televisions.

Please send your prayers/rain dances/merit/warm thoughts towards Bangkok.

Keeping out of trouble and wearing politically neutral shirts,
Rebecca

Almost Home: Bangkok Domestic Airport

Travel maths: 58 days; 28 different places of slumber; 12 flights; 7 night buses, trains, and boats; 1 night in the New Delhi airport; 1 possible base of bed bugs; 7 instances of emesis (confined to 1 day); 0 lost passports or credit cards; 3 countries and 15 cities; 1 pleased as punch little English teacher.

Yessir, that's not just the PhotoBooth camera adding dark circles; I've never been more exhausted in all my 23 years. I am a typing zombie right now. If the next few hours go without catastrophe, I'll be back home sweet home in phitsanulok by nightfall at which point I intend to collapse for about two days of sleep. It's been real.

R

Things got a little hectic in Bangkok

So I split for Vietnam. Also, I've been joined by this mug from home. She looks even better in person. Everyone looks great in the hot season in Vietnam. What about 100 degree heat, sunburn, heavy tropical air, and walking around battlefields doesn't look good on a person?



Now that red, yellow, and multicolored shirt parties are begging to chill the heck out, I think I'll be heading back.

Eating so many baguettes,
Rebecca

Happy Thai New Year!

I've had the pleasure of celebrating three different new year's days in the past four and a half months, and I have to say, in my professional and objective opinion, applying my analytical expertise as a casual cultural ambassador, Thai new year's is absolutely the superior new year's party.

Between the ages of about eight and ten I was engaged in a long-running water gun conflict with my uncle in Louisiana, purchasing larger and larger water guns every time I visited and working out newer and more surreptitious attack plans. Songkran is sort of like my eight-year old self's thrill experienced a million fold for three days straight. Imagine a whole country of children and parents and teenagers and elderly, all filled with the glee that comes from dumping a bucket of water on someone's head. It's a nationwide, three-day water fight, and it's amazing.

Happy Songkran!

Surreptitiously yours,
Rebecca

Namaste to India

We've returned safe and sound from India.

The food, the history, the saris, the cows, it's really all there. Two and a half weeks was such a tease.

A market in Haridwar:


Women in Delhi:


A visit of the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India.


The Golden Temple in Amritsar. Sikhs come here from across India to pray and take a dip in the sacred pool. It turns out we went on a sort of unintentional religious tour of India. We followed a giant Hindu pilgrimage with a visit to the holiest Sikh site, a trip to see the Dalai Lama's home town, another visit to the Ganges in Varanasi, and an excursion to the stupa where Buddha made his first sermon.



Street cow in Varanasi. I had no idea cows were such natural city dwellers until I visited India.


Procession of unknown purpose in Delhi:


Temple in Khajuraho:


Look closer! How tawdry! (I'd make a Kama Sutra joke but that's not really appropriate for a teacher):



And that is my final post on India. Goodbye dear country! Farewell one billion inhabitants! Back to the adopted mother-country and the rest of my vacation.

With fondness,
Rebecca

The best part of traveling

Not the cross-cultural exchange, not the melange of new sights and sounds and smells, not the thrill of chaos and confusion.

The food, right? If you don't agree we probably aren't close friends. Or, in the case that we are, I should warn you I may harbor secret reservations about your character.

Vegetable Thali. After six months of eating pork and rice, pork and noodles, fried pork, pork meatballs, and pork salad, I can't tell you the ripple of sweet bliss that ran through me every time I was asked "veg or non-veg?" before being offered food. The whole town of Haridwar is so holy to Hinduism that meat is completely verboten within city limits. I'm considering converting just for the food.



Delicious chutneys:



Street snack (chaat in Hindi):



A restaurant in Amritsar:



A shy little cook. His father REALLY wanted him to smile for a photo, but this was the best I could get:



Those chapatis are coming out of that hole that is in actuality a brick oven:



We took a cooking class in McLeod Ganj, so hopefully I'll be bringing some mad Indian cooking skills back with me stateside. And while I did love Indian food, I have to admit, I did really miss noodles. The pork, not so much, but the noodles, absolutely.

The only person to gain weight while in India,
Rebecca

The mighty Himalayas

A trip to McLeod Ganj, the home of the exiled Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama.






Here's the Tibetan healer I visited about my sinus infection.



I was given medicine that looked like this:



And tasted like soap mixed with dry tea. I had to chew three before every meal for five days!

Almost finished with post-facto updates.

R

Sacred baths and baba licenses

Well, it turns out that our visit to India overlapped with one of the world's largest religious pilgrimages, so we figured we ought to check it out.

Occuring once every four years, Kumbh Mela is a massive convergence of millions of Hindus from all walks of life: sadhus (devout Hindu holy men who have renounced their material possessions), babas (gurus), phoney babas, and everyday Indian religious tourists. They come to bathe in the sacred Ganges river at this most auspicious of locations.

The experience was unreal. We emerged off of our overnight train and were plunged into the chaotic streets of Haridwar amidst thousands of Hindu holy men.




Bathers at the Ganges.



Bathers drying at a calm spot along the river.


Along with the other visitors to Kumbh Mela, we took a purifying bath in the Ganges.



As you might expect, I learned some lessons about spirituality that day. Circa mid-afternoon, Anna and I were walking along the riverside when we spotted a group of Hindu musicians and sadhus under a tree. We stood watching from behind a small crowd until we were noticed and ushered to sit at the feet of the holiest baba. Resplendent in a WWII era helmet decorated with nut shells and a rhinestone hair barrette, the baba gave us a casual glance. It was right about the time when he took a giant drag from a pipe that we noticed he was fully nude. The baba then picked up a one foot segment of bamboo and started to stand. He proceeded to roll his flaccid penis around the bamboo stick, completing several rotations before coming to a resting position, squatting with the bamboo stick behind his knees. He meditated there for a solid five minutes before releasing his member and returning to lotus position. As we sat, stunned and speechless, he gave us a short lecture. He warned us to always ask for a baba's government issued papers, proudly displaying his own. It wasn't until a group of wandering babas approached and delivered a ten minute oration in Hindi that we finally snuck off.

Some sadhus on horseback.



It was quite a day. We made it out of town on an night train to Amritsar. We shared our car with approximately a million other pilgrims (small exaggeration). It smelled great.

The New York Times recently ran this article on Kumbh Mela. Supposedly 10 million people bathed on the final day (not an exaggeration). Next Kumbh is in 2014, if you're interested in going.

More post-facto updates from India soon.

Yours,
Rebecca

This had to happen

You guys are really no good at this game. I was at the Taj Majal, just miles from the fort where Shah Jahan was tragically imprisoned by his own son. Poor showing. That's like the easiest place in India to guess.

Yours,
Rebecca

Here's the problem

It's really hard to make a Carmen Sandiego style post when you can just google any hint I give you. I guess this will just have to be an honor system thing? And I suppose it doesn't matter that much, since if you are reading this there is a 100% chance you are either my sister or my mother, in which case you already have a detailed itinerary, but:

A crime has occurred! A son of a certain fabulously wealthy ruling family has stolen the throne and locked his father up in the family fort. Unless you come to the rescue ASAP, the father will spend the rest of his days imprisoned and staring at the tomb of his beloved wife. Also, our insider spies report that in the country where this crime occurred the son's name is synonymous with deceit and cunning.

So, gumshoe, where am I? Hurry!

Yours,
R

P.S. My travel companions are currently disowning me over the lameness of this post.

And we've arrived at Baan Yuu Suk

Dearest Reader,

Sorry for the lapse in communication.

We arrived at Ban Yuu Suk last Monday with approximately five pick up trucks full of luggage and art supplies (okay, one truck). Mickey, COSA's founder, opened this place in October for girls who have experienced or are at risk for trafficking or sexual exploitation. The girls are incredible. Sweet and shy to outgoing and sassy: they run the gamut. The environment is positive, warm and open.

Since arriving, we've managed to unload about half our haul in the process of teaching everything from tie-dye to painting to jazz dance. I've absolutely butchered concepts such as perspective and contrast by reducing them into simple English and then translating that English into incoherent Thai, and accompanying that with dizzyingly confusing dry-erase drawings.

We are so grateful to our friends and family back home who have offered us support. Thanks to you, we were able to bring every girl a set of art supplies complete with pencils, charcoal, acrylic paints, and three canvasses. When I walked outside today after morning dance, I found several girls sitting at a picnic table painting in their free time. I managed to hold back the waterworks. That really freaks kids out.

Here are some pictures. If you'd like to read more about COSA or Baan Yuu Suk, check out the website.

First day of art class:


More art:




Yoga class:


Dance class (photo cred. to Ning):


We took the girls into the city for a day of pizza, bowling, and the mall. I mean, what else could a thirteen-year-old want, right?


Around Baan Yuu Suk

P'Fah whips up some fried rice:


Anna and Chelsea do laundry:


The chickens:


Volunteer Finn works on the organic plots:


I harvested my first coconut from this tree! I even climbed that bamboo ladder:


Trying to enjoy the fruits of my labor. It only took about five people showing me how to do everything for me to finally get it right.


Me and Ning in the kitchen:


Just because. Just because Aying is awesome. The most awesome little child ever:

Seriously, when we were in a book store I told her to pick out a book and she picked out a paper back with little black and white portraits of babies in it. Also, she is nine.

Mickey on his patio:


A group shot:



Thanks so much for your time. See you again soon for the next installment! Until next time, chok dee (good luck)!

Yours,
Rebecca