A PCV Wedding

Here is a video of a Thai wedding parade that took place last weekend. Note the music and dancing style, with a few awkward Americans thrown in.

This past weekend I attended the wedding of a fellow volunteer. It was an amazing and surreal time. Lynda, the bride, is a PCV in Isaan, the same region as me. The groom is her boyfriend from before she became a volunteer. He had been to visit several times and the couple felt both at home and loved by the village, so they elected to have a wedding Thai style.

This means several things. It means that the ceremony would be conducted by monks, no English, and that all the planning would be taken completely out of their hands. It means Thai food, Thai music, Thai dance and even a couple of elephants.

The wedding was an amazing experience to be apart of. Spending time with the other volunteers from my group reaffirmed my love for them and the family that we are. Spending time being a part of a Thai wedding revitalized my love for Thai culture, custom and tradition and how I can be at home in it.

We Need Your Help!

As you may know I have been working with the local HIV/AIDS group in my community for over a year now. After many trainings, meetings, and research we are getting a huge project off the ground. And you can help!

By making a donation, you will help one of the 13 families living with HIV/AIDS to start a small agricultural business to be run out of their home. Ten or twenty dollars could go a long way to help in this worth cause.

Here is a description of the project and the link to make donations:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=493-162

Business Development for those Living with HIV/AIDS

The summary below was provided by the Peace Corps Volunteer and the community administering this project.

Map of THAILAND

Members of the Non Khun Person’s Having HIV/AIDS (PHA) Group, “Friends of Non Khun” aspire to start small agricultural-based businesses to operate out of their homes, in order to supplement incomes used to support their families. As adults living with HIV/AIDS, group members face the reality of maintaining good health while combating local social stigmas, spreading awareness, and caring for their families all the while. While recognizing daily responsibilities and obstacles, the group often discusses financial shortcomings, only exacerbated by having HIV/AIDS. In rural Thailand, where livelihood is still commonly labor intensive, the financial burdens of PHA’s are particularly harsh. Since HIV/AIDS persistently weakens the immune system, PHA’s are often not well enough to perform the hard labor of planting, farming and harvesting rice. Therefore, supplemental income through alternate business ventures is necessary for most PHA’s in rural Thailand to subsist and support their families. With additional income provided from small-scale businesses, the PHA’s will able to make a valuable contribution to their families while engaging in relatively simple labor, thus preserving their health.

Participants have chosen their business ideas, written preliminary budgets that were then finalized by the agricultural office, and done the related market research on their products. Businesses will include raising crickets, catfish, and ducks for local sale in the community. All of these businesses can be conducted out of the home and products will be easy to sell in this largely agricultural based community.

Feelings

It's a Monday here in Thailand and I'm feeling sort of weird and anxious. I can't shake the feeling that I have something to do, but in reality all my work is done, for today at least. This feeling probably has something to do with the fact that I am leaving at the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning to go to Bangkok to take the GRE for the second time on Thursday. I took the test last month and my performance was pretty disappointing. I'm this time goes a little better as I am taking the test in the afternoon, by myself, I already know where it is and exactly what to expect. I spent so much time studying before the last test and doing practice problems that I am kind of burnt out. This time around I have been focusing on concepts I need to pay particular attention rather than spending hours and hours doing practice problems.

In addition to taking the standardized test for graduate schools I have been working on applications. As of now I applying to a variety of programs all relating to international development. My first choice seems to change on a daily basis and its really all I can think about at the moment. Again, feeling anxious. I have done all my parts of the applications and am just waiting on transcripts, test score and recommendations. I know I won't feel free from it all until everything is turned in. I need to relax, take a deep breath.

Now despite all of this I haven't forgotten that I am living in Thailand and that I still have work to do here. I am anxiously awaiting approval from PC Washington regarding the grant for the AIDS group. I submitted the application over a week ago so it should appear on the website at any time! Again....anxious. Once the project is up I hope to raise the money in about 10 days so we can start the project as soon as possible.

I am also feeling older these days. Yesterday was my 24th birthday. I spent the day studying, and working on applications, but the evening brought something special. Two of my best Thai friends in the village and their families threw me a great BBQ dinner. The weather has been cool and breezy lately so we were able to eat outside and talk for hours. It was the perfect celebration.

So my current situation is one full of waiting and planning. Once I check all of these things of my to-do list I hope I can sit back, relax and enjoy the ride that I know Thailand has in store for me for my last 4 months as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

A Story

As I pulled into the schoolyard I should have felt out of place. I was riding a road bike, wearing a helmet, sporting a both a brand name backpack and a fashionable eco-friendly bottle full of filtered, pure water. Certainly no one else my tiny Thai village had any of these things and even if they did have a helmet, it was certainly way too hot to be wearing one.

But I wasn’t out of place. The schoolchildren all screamed greetings and rushed along beside me to head into the schoolroom; one of my favorite places in the village that I had called home for the past eighteen months during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. About twenty children and I gathered for our weekly after-school reading club. As I gave my young readers a drawing assignment, I noticed a teacher, members of the youth group, and local government officials meeting on the other side of the room. I eagerly listened in on their conversation, as I had been working with this youth group and teacher for the duration of my service on various projects. Putting my Thai listening comprehension skills to the test, I deduced that the government officials were finally starting to take notice of the good work of the group, and were interested in providing some funding for a small agricultural project to be managed by the group. Those officials were also congratulating some of the youth on a presentation that they made at the provincial level the day before and the award they had won for their recycling initiative that I had helped them start. A wave of feelings rushed over me. I thought, this is great; the group is finally getting the recognition and support that they deserve. But I also felt like I should have been included in that meeting. I wondered why I didn’t know about the presentation and award and why I had not been consulted on the new project idea. For the first time since my beginning months in the village, I felt my identity as an outsider, as a temporary presence seeping through.

As I pedaled home, I tried to sort through my mix of emotions. I was happy for my friends, those involved in the youth group, but I was sad for myself. Finally, I realized that to dwell on that sadness would be a mistake. I realized that the group was standing on their own. They had needed me when they started out. They had needed me to help them write grants to start projects. But they had not needed me to accompany them to an awards ceremony and they had not needed me to consult with the government officials. That work could be done without me. The group was making a transition. They were becoming sustainable. My feelings of sadness were replaced with feelings of accomplishment. In that afternoon I had seen the goals of development come to fruition. I saw a group of disadvantaged people that I had helped, trained, and empowered become a viable and sustainable entity.

Latest Project

If you are interested in what I have been up to lately in terms of projects, please read on!

I have helped another group of villagers to be featured on Appropriate Projects website in order to obtain funding to complete the bathrooms located at the community meeting hall.

To donate, please visit: http://appropriateprojects.com/node/387

Here is the project description:

Lom Yen Community Hall Bathroom Project - Thailand

Location
Lom Yen, Non Khun District, Sisaket Province, Thailand

Community Description
Lom Yen is one of the larger villages in the heart of Non Khun District, Sisaket Province, Northeastern Thailand. The majority of villagers in the community are rice farmers, deriving their income from the harvest once a year and other small business endeavors such as growing and selling fruits and vegetables. The older villagers that have retired from farming spend their days making products such as grass mats, brooms or even weaving silk. The community is close and takes great pride in their work.

The Central Community Meeting Hall in the village is used for a variety of activities including a meeting spot for groups, such as the local youth group and as a place to prepare for important religious activities and festivals. Currently there are no toilets or sinks for people to use.

Project Description
This project is to build bathrooms to serve the Central Community Meeting Hall.

Project funds will be used to purchase materials, such as pipes, toilets, electrical wiring, lighting, and a sink.

Local villagers and health volunteers have taken the steps to complete the plan, collect donations, and construct the free-standing structure next to the hall. They will work together to provide the labor to complete the bathrooms.

Project Impact
The bathrooms at Lom Yen meeting hall will serve all 407 people of Lom Yen village.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Sarah Brooks

Comments
This project arose from the community and proceeded to construction based on community support. Our help will allow the villagers to see the project through to completion, providing sanitation facilities at the hall, serving the entire community.

Peace Corps Volunteer Sarah Brooks has previously undertaken two projects, Non Khun School Water Project - Thailand and Ban Village Meeting Hall Bathroom Project - Thailand. The villagers were inspired by those projects, which led them to undertake the current project.

Summer to Fall

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. There has been stuff going on but it's not super exciting.

Summer 2010 is officially over now that's September and that leaves me with about 6 or 7 months left in my service. I can hardly believe it! The time has flown by and I am finally feeling like I really "live" here. It's hard to explain what I mean by that, but since I have been here for so long, everything seems completely normal to me now. I'm sure I will have a real culture shock when I return to America.

Life at site has been perfectly fine lately. I have been able to see friends every two or three weeks and also spend a lot of time at home in my village. Lately I have been completely focused on studying for the GRE or the test needed to get into graduate school. Since I am thinking about the test I have also been researching schools and degrees. Thus my body is in Thailand, but my mind is in America as I think about whether I want a degree in development practice or international development or whether I want to be in New York or D.C. or maybe even the West Coast or Colorado. Who knows???

In a effort to get my mind re-focused on site and my work here I have set up some meetings with community members and leave time in my schedule that is dominated by studying for writing project plans and grant proposals.

This morning I stopped by the site of the bathroom project mentioned in my previous post. The project has been completely funded and construction is under-way! It should be finished and ready for use by next week. I have two more villages interested in similar projects and will try and get those funded within the next few weeks.

The HIV group and I have been brainstorming even more about their secondary income projects. There are nine families that wish to start a business from their home either raising crickets, ducks, or fish for selling. We have created a preliminary budget and I have a meeting with the group's doctor tomorrow to get more statistics needed for the the project proposal. Hopefully I will have a final draft ready to submit to Peace Corps next week. After Peace Corps approves the project, it will most likely either be submitting to a Thai institution for funding or posted on the Peace Corps website and be funded by donations from America. The project will probably cost just under $2000. I really hope it works out.

Other than that, I am busy planning for this fall. I will continue to teach reading, study Thai and maybe help with a library resource center being built in my community. I have a meeting in Bangkok in a few weeks, then the GRE in Bangkok on October 8. I don't plan on traveling too much after that because I need to save up for the Christmas vacation I am taking for 10 days in December and January! I am headed to the beaches and islands with three friends for some mountain biking, sea kayaking, and of course tanning on the beach.

Will hope to have more updates concerning these projects soon!

Bathroom Project

One of my latest projects was just approved to be a part of a great initiative called Water Charity. Check it out and/or make a donation at: http://appropriateprojects.com/node/317.

Village Meeting Hall Bathroom Project - Thailand

Location
Non Khun District, Sisaket, Thailand

Community Description
Ban Phrong Village is located in the district of Non Khun in Sisaket Province of Northeastern Thailand.

The village has a community meeting hall, which is often used for a variety of events including health talks, government meetings, meetings to prepare for local festivals, and senior group meetings. Most villagers attend a function at the meeting hall at least monthly.

Currently there are no bathrooms in the meeting hall, and people must use the toilets in the surrounding homes, if available.

Project Description
This project will provide two bathrooms, one for men and one for women, in the community meeting hall.

The project will be carried out under the direction of the Non Kor Sub-District Administration Office.

Local villagers and health volunteers have already completed a plan for creating the bathrooms and will work together on the construction.

Project funds will be used for purchasing materials, as the villagers have agreed to undertake the labor themselves.

Project Impact
There are 429 people in the village that will benefit from the project.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Sarah Brooks

Comments
With the bathrooms installed, community groups, including those groups making local products, will be able to meet and work in a clean and safe environment.

This project follows up on the prior project successfully completed by PCV Sarah Brooks, the Non Khun School Water Project – Thailand. The villagers of Ban Phrong were inspired by that project, and decided start one of their own.