Emily in Thailand :-)

Week 4 – Bits and pieces


As I write, there is a massive storm starting to break around us. It is 2pm in the afternoon, and is darker than it would normally be at 6pm. The sky is a dark grey-brown and the rain is pouring down outside with thunder all around us. This is the first storm we have had here. It is fantastic. “The rains are here!” we’ve been saying to each other... I have been just waiting for rain to come, because everything is so dusty. If you think of what it was like in Sydney after the dust storm, with a fine layer of dust over everything, it is a little like that here. After today, everything will be shining and clean.
This week there has not been much happening.... A lot of us started coming down with the flu. As a result, I have had days with not much happening as I haven’t been up to very much with my intern work.
Last weekend we went to Phu Chi Faa to watch the sunrise over the mountains looking over Laos.

Thai interns
We had Thai interns move in with us into our communal living this week, which has made it a bit squishy (14 in one room). Initially we struggled with the different times people go to bed (they would get up at like 5am, whereas the farang always sleep in til just before breakfast). However we have overcome that initial challenge. They also do not speak much English, and I don’t speak a whole bunch of Thai... Still, I have made some friends over the week! They are so generous. While I was sick, they left presents for me at the end of my bed while I was sleeping. They also shared food with me last night teaching me different foods. Last night, two Thai interns also went on the biggest wild goose chase to pick up our 8 takeaway pizzas by motorbike from the police station closest to us, because the pizza company refused to deliver any further from Chiang Rai town. They were gone an hour in pitch black dark, because the police station had apparently moved! I tried calling the Pizza Company to see if the pizzas had been delivered at all and tried to speak in Thai but they couldn’t understand me and i couldn’t understand them. I got transferred to management in Chiang Mai, where I finally managed to establish that my ‘husband’ Evan had ordered pizzas already. After trying to say ‘friend’ (in English) a couple of times, I gave in to ‘your husband? Your husband evan? Your husband?) And just said... ‘Yes, my husband....’

Teaching English
I taught English two days this week to Goi and Manop, who are from Aja village (an Akha village), and I teach them everyday from 1 -3pm at the kitchen from Tues – Sat. I love teaching them. At the end of each lesson, I make them come and practice their new English phrases with the other volunteers (asassama). The outdoor team plus new volunteers went on a homestay this week (about 20 volunteers) to Baan Jalae (Jalae Village), so there were 5 of us left behind here. As a result, I have semi-joined the indoor team this week, as they have only had 5 to run all the indoor programs teaching English to various groups of people. I taught young people English two days this week, for two hours per time, again up at the kitchen, armed with a whiteboard, coloured paper, my Thai phrase book, and another volunteer! Anne Marie and I taught one lesson about ‘make’ (tham). We asked the students to make buildings out of paper that could hold plastic fruit, and then used the lesson to demonstrate the difference between tall, short, strong, difficult etc. Then we got them to dance with a plastic piece of fruit held between two foreheads. It was pretty funny!
I also taught some women in their thirties one night this week, and taught them about past and future tense of ‘go’. When I teach English, I sometimes explain concepts in Thai so that they can understand, eg. ‘ca’ is inserted before a Thai verb to make it future, and ‘gamlang’ to make it present tense. I use these when I talk about the future and present tense in English, and sometimes write words in Thai on the board. Also attending at this particular lesson was a guy from Bangkok, who decided to join us, about my age. He was talking to the women in Thai quietly for a while, after which one of the women asked me ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guy grinning. ‘May mii,’ I quickly answered. ‘May aw’: “I don’t have one, I don’t want one!’. These women continued to press for him – ‘he could teach you Thai’.
I also helped teach a local guide English this week, topography terms like ‘mountain’, ‘river’, and adjectives to describe the path. We then went for a short walk soon after, describing the path: ‘Is this path narrow? Yes this path is narrow. Is this path steep? Yes! This path is steep!’ The path wasn’t slippery but we were pretending to trip to use the word.

Interning
This week I had a meeting with P’Moo, Salapao (who I work with in anti-human trafficking) and another guy. We talked about the Anti-Human Trafficking Project here, and we had a complex meeting that went for over an hour, with them discussing in Thai (that I couldn’t understand), and then them translating for me into English while I frantically typed on my computer. Essentially, it was a project direction meeting, mapping out the work of the project for the next 2 years, which I will put together into a funding proposal. The Project will engage with local government staff in 15 subdistricts in the first year, educating them about human trafficking, and then also running youth camps for youth from those subdistricts, who will create plans for how to engage with their community in awareness raising campaigns. They will receive funding from the Project in the first year, with an aim for local government to work in partnership for funding in the second year.
In other exciting news, I have found out that this week I will be the sole farang (white person) travelling to Naan province, which is two provinces south of Chiang Rai, while still in the north. I will be going with the hilltribe team, who are all Thai, many of whom do not speak much English. So that will be interesting! I will be possibly writing about what I see and what the hilltribe does and...?(watch this space). Even more interesting, I will be going to see who P’Moo described as the ‘banana leaf people’. (?) I have no idea what this will entail. Tonight we will be watching a documentary about the place where I am going in Thai up at the kitchen, where there is a tiny (the only) TV. People will translate for the program for us.
Apparently the organisation here was on Thai TV recently. Stories about the hilltribes have been coming out on TV. We heard one over breakfast: there was a lady from a hilltribe, who was stateless – she wasn’t a Thai citizen (which is often the case). She developed cancer. However, she couldn’t afford medical treatment – which is more expensive if you are not a citizen. As a result, she didn’t seek medical assistance. Eventually, when she did, the cancer had advanced to such a level, that the cancer was terminal and she was going to die. She also had children she would leave behind.
Such stories tear me apart. I would love to raise awareness about these issues more in Australia. However, for that to happen, I still have so much more to learn. In part, that is why I am looking forward to going to Naan.
Something else that has been really hard this week is other volunteers leaving the organisation and going on the next step of their adventuring. Seven volunteers left this weekend, which was about a third of us. In addition, the three volunteers I was closest to, and were my closest friends here, left this weekend. It was heartbreaking. There were many tears. Because I am here for so long, (most people are here only a month or less), I will eventually have to say goodbye to every single person currently here (but one) and see them leave. And befriend, and say goodbye to the new volunteers that are still to come here. I think that is going to be the hardest part of being here. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
The rain has stopped now. Everything is shining and clean. Even the smoke hanging over the mountains has been washed away.