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April 20, 2010

Last week was so memorable and I will always cherish it as an amazing time with amazing people in an amazing place. About 20 volunteers gathered in the Northern city of Chiang Mai to celebrate Songkran a.k.a Thai New Year. I had been looking forward to this trip as I rarely have or will get time to spend time in this gem of a city because I simply live too far away. In fact the bus ride from there to Ubon is the longest in Thailand. Luckily I was traveling from central Thailand after a visit with my host family from training and had my friend Porscha to make the journey with me.

Songkran is usually a 3-5 day celebration in which everyone one in Thailand takes off from work to go on holiday or to return to their home villages. The days are filled with Thai traditions and culture galore grounded in visits to the temple, blessing elders, and spending time with family while watching traditional dance and song. It has also developed quite the party scene as well. I am reminded of American holidays like Mardi Gras or St. Patrick’s day as Thais embrace their crazy side in funny clothes, hats, sunglasses, you name it and as they hit the bottle. The third and final component to this holiday is that it falls during the hottest part of the year. This makes it perfectly acceptable to douse friends, family and strangers in water! The holiday is basically one giant water fight and Chiang Mai is famous for this fun.

We spent our days in Chiang Mai eating, drinking and spending time with family, our Peace Corps family. My fellow volunteers are some of the most fun loving, accepting, goofy, hilarious, and smart people I have ever met…much like my real family and I was so happy to spend this time with them. Calling it Peace Corps spring break, we “played water” (translation from Thai) for four days straight….of course we also got in a couple nights out on the town.

During the water fight we stationed ourselves by the old moat of the city filling our cheap water guns and buckets with the dirty water beside us. Eventually we smartened up and bought big buckets to fill with water and ice that double as ammunition and a place to keep our beers cold. Dressed in my “I Love Thailand” t-shirt and leopard print rayban shades, I “played water” like I never had before! My favorite part of the whole thing was the camaraderie. Looking out to the slow-moving pickups, some filled with 3 generations of Thais grinning from ear-to-ear, I truly felt the spirit of this fun holiday. All took part and all were happy. It was definitely a special week and a water fight that I will never forget!

April 22, 2010

In a better effort to keep up with friends from home, I took a tip from a fellow Peace Corps volunteer and emailed a few people a random question about their lives. I figured this was way less intimidating than asking for huge life updates on work, relationships, family, gossip, etc. I asked, “what has been your favorite meal in the past week”.

Waking up the following day I felt like a kid on Christmas morning as my inbox loaded with more emails from home than I have seen in awhile. The tactic worked! Not only did I get to hear about delicious food that I am missing but inevitable people wrote more about what was going on in their lives. I’m currently brainstorming a list of more interesting questions to ask!

Also some people chose to ask me some random questions about life here. Always eager to share more on my blog, I ask that you readers follow suit and email me or comment here on what you want to hear more about. The email is sarahd.brooks@yahoo.com….ask away!!

One of my favorite questions was, “What has been your most embarrassing moment so far?”

The reply:

I would have to say the time when I was leading a procession carrying a money tree into the wat (temple). Most anytime I go to the wat I try to get a grasp on what’s going to happen beforehand and dress appropriately (i.e. In a skirt). This time around that was not the case. My host dad had hastily picked me up at my office and we drove around town collecting money to put in the money tree (it’s exactly what it sounds like; just a fake tree with money tied in the branches). Of course being the foreigner I was asked to carry the tree into the wat. Visits to the wat make me really nervous as there are many rules (especially for a female) and customs to follow. Of course I was wearing slacks as I had just come from the office. So I gingerly remove my shoes all while holding the money tree properly and give a nod to the monks as I enter the temple. Just then a woman runs up to me, saying something I don’t understand with her hand headed towards my crotch. That’s right my fly is down…I’m leading a parade…at a temple…in front of monks….and a lady has just announced to everyone that the foreigner’s fly is down and zipped it up for her.

Pretty embarrassing, huh?

For more good stories and interesting posts please email me topics/questions!

April 23, 2010

I raced home through thunder clouds today (yay! Rain!) while those sitting under their porches cheered me on in order to get home before the rain arrived. Arriving home dry, my host mom and I decided to enjoy the cool breeze and remaining time before the rain arrived in the yard. I got my hands on an old, discarded water bottle and we successfully taught Panda (the dog) to play catch! That counts as development work right?? I think I will report it to Peace Corps as my project for the month!

Good Morning, Vietnam!

About two and a half weeks ago, after what felt like my 100^th overnight bus to Bangkok, I set off to the airport with two friends, Heather and Kelsi, for a week-long exploration of Vietnam. As we headed towards the airport we discussed our feelings on leaving Thailand, the place we had called home for over a year now. I couldn’t help but feel those nerves and excitement that I get whenever I travel somewhere new. We arrived to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in time to see the sun set as we traveled by car to our hotel. Once there we found that $30 dollars per night got us a pretty great room in the best part of the city. We headed on to dinner and toasted our vacation with our first sips of Vietnamese beer.

We woke up early (thanks to Heather’s alarm…mine didn’t work) and headed out to explore our area. We visited a church, perused shops, and enjoyed many stops at cafes. Diving right into the conflicted past of Vietnam, we also toured the Reunification Palace, which signifies the North and South coming together. The palace, overrun by tourists, is decorated in full-on 1960s and 70s décor. I loved it!

From there we headed to the War Remnants Museum. Also overrun with tourists, with a broken air-conditioning system, the museum proved to be an interesting experience. Absolutely drenched in sweat, I learned more walking around that museum than I have ever learned in school about the Vietnam War. I discovered the atrocities of “Agent Orange” as I viewed photo after photo of generations of people affected by the toxic chemical. I read quotes from American soldiers describing the horrors of war and what it can do to your mind, and I watched videos of the innocent Vietnamese expressing their sorrow and rage at what happened to their country and specifically their rage at the American contribution for those happenings. It was disturbing, disheartening, and gave me lots to think about.

After a full and tiring day of touring the city, Heather and I woke up early the next morning to take a day trip to explore the Chu Chi tunnels about 50k outside of town. The drive took us through part of the city we had not seen and after two hours in traffic we finally broke out into views of rice fields and quieter living. Seeing these villages we couldn’t help but to compare them to our own in Thailand. Though close geographically, Vietnam and Thailand seem to be very different. Though again a complete tourist attraction, the tunnels gave us yet another glimpse of the War that we had not been exposed to before. The tunnel complex, hundreds of kilometers long, was built to hide and protect the villagers of Chu Chi from American soldiers and the VC. The tunnels consisted of very small crawl-spaces leading to a series of different rooms, including kitchens. After about 2.5 minutes crawling through the tunnels safe for tourists, Heather and I were astounded. The space was so small and so hot we could simply not imagine spending any more time down there. During the tour we also learned of simple traps to keep Americans at bay and saw a destroyed American tanker. The vibe of the tour and its signs, was definitely that the Americans were the bad guys. Being the only Americans in the tour group, Heather and I sheepishly exchanged glances whenever these references came up. It was a very interesting experience.

That evening, reunited with Kelsi, we hopped on a two hour flight north to Hanoi. We landed in rain and were immediately struck with the enormity of the whole place. Seeing the motorcycle traffic for the first time, made me feel like I was on a different planet. The sheer number of motorcycles was enough to make you never want to walk anywhere. We quickly learned that there was a method to this madness and timidly stepped out into the streets to explore. My first instinct was to run screaming across the street with my eyes closed, but turns out this is not the way to do it. One must slowly cross, with eyes open of course, giving the drivers enough time to gauge your speed so that they may just zoom around you. It’s weird, very weird, but it works.

Through misty rain we spent about 2 days exploring the city and trying all kinds of food, Vietnamese and Western. Because of the French influence, the food is an interesting and tasty blend of Asian and Western styles. We saw famous pagodas, spent time drinking coffee in cafes (all the while feeling like we were in Europe) and were able to go to traditional Water Puppet Show. Our last day we took on a full day trip to see the Perfume Pagoda. After 2 hours in the car we got into a small boat for one more hour to the foothills of the mountains where the pagoda was located. It was raining and the mist surrounding the mountains made it feel like we were in one of those traditional paintings of China. It was beautiful…..and cold (especially coming from Thailand). The pagoda complex, was not overrun with tourists but Vietnamese as it was the time of year to make pilgrimage to the site. Traditionally, those without children would go to this complex order to pray for children for the next year. Now Vietnamese, for many reasons, go here to make merit. It was a great day, filled with beautiful sites and a good way to end our trip. By noon the next day we were on our way home, to Thailand.

Now, you are probably thinking that my lack of posting means that I have been very busy and now that I am posting that I have many exciting things to tell you. Sorry, that's not the case. I have been at site for the past 6 weeks or so (the longest I have ever stayed in my village at once) just living life. Not much work, not many projects, and definitely nothing exciting. At times it was excruciating, at times it was fun, at times it was relaxing and at times I really wondered if I could really eat another bite of rice.

During this time I did have the chance to see 1 other American. Yes, one. I had a visit from a Peace Corps trainee. This was fun, refreshing and and gave me a sense of pride about the work that I have done since the time when I was a trainee visiting a current volunteer this time last year.

Things are pretty slow around the village right now. The hot season is here and its almost time for people to start planting rice. The schools will be closing for summer break next week and the favorite Thai holiday of Songkran is in two weeks. Most people are content to just sit around and wait for summer, and that's basically all you can do when its this hot.

Luckily for me I will not be sitting around for much longer. Tomorrow night I'm taking an overnight bus to the training site of the new group of Volunteers. I will spend Friday with some fellow volunteers supervising their VAC election and introducing them to GIGs or the international Peace Corps committees. Following this short assignment I will visit a friend who lives nearby for a girls weekend with some of my best volunteer friends.

Then one week from tomorrow I will board yet another overnight bus to head into Bangkok to catch my flight to Vietnam for a week! I will be visiting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city with two good volunteer friends and simply can't wait! After that I will visit my host family from training for about 2 days and then head up to Northern Thailand for a week of Songkran (Thai new year's festival). Most, if not all, of my PC friends will be up there and I'm thinking its pretty much gonna turn into Peace Corps Spring Break.

In other news, I finally got word that I will be recommended to receive funding for the completion of the recycling bank that will be managed by the youth group. This was my first experience in writing a grant and I'm so glad it seems to be working out. Also my counterpart at the office has been much more honest about what we can work on together and her feelings about the support that the office has been giving me/her (not much!). We know we have a year left and have set a few project goals for ourselves that we are determined to make happen. Knowing my counterpart, and the way projects are completed around here, I think it will definitely take the whole year to make anything happen. Fingers crossed!

Meat

Apparently American eat meat differently from the rest of the world. We cook meat thoroughly, usually disposing of all parts but the meat in the process. This is not so in Thailand, or for that matter many of the other places I have traveled in the world (Africa, Nepal, China, etc.)

Last night we had roasted chicken, with peanut sauce wrapped in lettuce leaves. Sounds delicious right?? BUT, the chicken was served, on the bone (ok i can deal with that) with all its skin, organs and even some hair still on it! I as I watched my Thai family dig right in, I noticed a big difference between us. They were completely comfortable with this whole chicken thing, while I definitely was not.

I definitely think that there are other Americans who would act the same way, had they been in this situation. Now I'm not trying to be a whiny, little you know what....I dug in after a few minutes and enjoyed what little white meat that I could and some unknown parts of the chicken and made my lettuce warps. I just wanted to point out this difference. Ya'll know what I'm saying???

"Let yourself feel it"

I wrote the following in my journal after a hard and frustrating morning at the office. I apologize if it sounds whiny, but it definitely describes how I feel on many days and illustrates my feelings pretty well.

I'm trying to "let myself feel it", as a close volunteer friend of mine says. When you are Peace Corps Volunteer you become well acquainted with the always unpredictable emotional roller coaster. There are many highs and lows that can dictate my moods here. I get strength from acknowledging that I successfully lived abroad for over a year, from having long talks with my host Mom in Thai, and patting myself on the back for surviving having only a bicycle for personal transportation. However, there are many times when I don't feel strong at all.

One of the most common sentiments of a Peace Corps Volunteer is the feeling of not having enough to do. We come to live in a new culture and community with energy, ideas and training but often quickly find that these traits are not always appreciated and some in these communities cannot overcome our "foreigness" and see for the resources that we really are. Also there is not much to do after the sun goes down and volunteers are left bored until its an acceptable hour at which to go to bed.

Though the office I have been assigned to work with refuses to see me as a resource and its workers would rather play on the internet than survey the community, which we all serve, with me, I am lucky enough to have found projects, valuable work, and community members to work with. I should be thanking my lucky stars, as not all volunteers are as...well..lucky. BUT, I still experience the same hardships as anyone in the field of development or living in another culture.

Sometimes I also feel like I am missing out on real life. While some of you may thinking, "What?! Living in rural Thailand is as real as it gets!", sometimes it feels like I am in some sort of parallel universe standing still while the rest of the world keeps on turning. Some of this is because Peace Corps is so time-bound. Not a day goes by when I don't think about how long I have been here or how long I have left in my service. It's not that I want to leave; I can't imagine going back to America right now. However, it does seem that I am constantly looking back into the past or ahead into the future and finding it hard to live in the moment.

When I'm not thinking about the 2 year commitment, I'm always thinking about traveling, either for Peace Corps or for pleasure. Again this is a sign that I'm having trouble living in the moment. I'm sure it has a bit to do with my personality and also the Western thought process. Most Thai people seem to have no problem living in the moment and seem to think, in their words, that I have a "hot heart". This means I am too preoccupied with planning, that I am stressed, that I am constantly looking for something to do. I think it really means that I am just a young American looking to make a difference in my life and those lives around me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am frustrated and trying to work all this out, all while sweating my ass off and riding a damn bicycle everywhere (pardon my language)!

Hope that journal excerpt didn't scare too many of you off. Later this day I hosted the first meeting of the reading club that will meet twice a week. This definitely turned my mood around, so much so that I stopped and visited with those in the community that do appreciate my presence and I was able to live in just the small moment and appreciate their conversations and cool air of the evening breeze.

An Amazing Day

- slept in until 9 am!

- taught for 3 hours

- set up and demonstrated tetherball!

- read to students, made plan to start a reading club using the books from America and the foundation in Bangkok

- went to the city to pick up grant funds for the water project

- scheduled installation of water filter

- bought supplies to make s'mores for the students camping trip on friday

- early evening Lao lesson (local dialect)

- new episodes of 30 Rock before bed

AMAZING DAY!!

I’m sitting in my room, after just having finished a spicy plate of food with the fan directed straight into my face as I try and cool off. That’s right the hot season has returned. This time last year I was living in Lopburi going through training and hardly had a chance to notice the heat. I’m afraid its going to be a little different this year!

Since my last update I have been busy. I made my monthly visit to Bangkok to attend my first HIV/AIDS gig meeting which was extremely productive. We have lots of ideas to serve our fellow volunteers better and I’m excited to be part of this initiative. I also went to my final VAC meeting. This past year I was part of the Volunteer Action Committee and we are now turning over the duties to a new group of elected peers. While in Bangkok, I enjoyed good food, late nights with friends celebrating birthdays, and lots silliness. We even woke up at 5:30(after only two hours of sleep) to head to a BBQ restaurant to watch the superbowl. It was super fun and the food was super delicious. What a great game!

I ended up staying in Bangkok longer than expected because of doctor’s appointment and then headed straight to my friend Eric’s site to help with his English camp. I love visiting other volunteer’s at their sites and this was no exception. We had a great time singing Thai songs, playing Scrabble and hanging out with the locals. The English camp went really well too.

I returned home, exhausted but happy to be back. This week has mostly been about catching up on email, project work and planning the next few months. All is going well. In fact I will travel to the city tomorrow to pick up the funds that will allow us to install the water filtration system this weekend! Very exciting! We should also hear back soon if we are to receive grant money to finish the recycling bank (hopefully within the next 2 weeks). Will keep you updated!