sorry that i haven't written anything in a very long time, it is a combination of having absolutely no free time and accomplishing and seeing nothing interesting. the last big event was that we all went out for thanksgiving dinner on the program's tab. it was amazing, even though the only thing that you could stretch to say it was thanksgiving was turkey. we went to the sofitel hotel and it had this absolutely ridiculous buffet that had everything from sushi to turkey to salmon and lobster. i basically ate enough for three days in less than an hour. it was great.
the regular structure of the program is over at this point: we aren't going on any homestays or doing units. this is the part that used to be called "independent study" (and was advertised that way) and is now "group project time." my project is creating a website (basically a wiki) that is for socially active study abroad students. it could be really cool but we probably will only have time to set it up, not to get it running, which kind of sucks. we are also doing a magazine and a discussion forum to sort of go with it. I am also doing a project where we are going around to different communities we have worked with and giving 3 or 4 kids a camera and asking them to take pictures of anything that they would want the world to know about where they live. then we are going to go back and get them to explain why they chose the pictures they did. i don't know yet how we are going to put them all together, what form the display will take, but we have gotten one camera back already and the pictures are really cool and i'm really excited. that's pretty much my life right now, i only take breaks to sleep and we are still falling way behind in the schedule, oh well.
i have to figure out where to go for the week after the program while i'm still here. if you have any ideas let me know.
steph
from the roof of our school
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
asoke continued
ok hey everyone,
sorry about that little whiny bit there, i'll try to control that. I just have a few more points to make about my experience in this buddhist community. the thing is, and please anyone who knows anything about buddhism correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem to match up in general principle and practice. for example, i have a hard time accepting a religion that tells me that the reason i was born a woman is because i was probably a rapist or some other kind of sexual deviant in my previous life and so was born as a lesser, more sexually loose being. however, the general ideas of buddhism make a lot of sense to me. it's a little disheartening and a little freeing because i have absolutely no compulsion to commit to another religion, i just have some good ideas about how i want to approach the world. maybe. at least for this month.
i did have some really good times there though. i got to jump into this huge mud puddle and mix clay with rice husks with my feet for a few hours (think i love lucy) to make a cobb house. we made bricks out of it and felt very useful and sustainable and stuff for a while at least. i also got to play this game called takraw. it's similar to volleyball in a way: the point is to keep the ball from hitting the ground on your side by getting it back over the net. but, you use a small wicker ball and you can only use the parts of your body to play the ball that you would be able to use in soccer. it is really fun and the people who are good at it are just amazing to watch. we were not good at it but we got to play with a few kids from Asoke and with my favorite driver (we have the same 4 drivers wherever we go, they each have their own van and they are all really cool). i also got to spend the afternoon one on one with one of the kids teaching him english. i have to say, i'm a pretty bomb teacher, but that was a lot of fun.
i think that's it for Asoke, i don't think i'll vacation there, but it was a pretty cool experience overall.
listen to "spirit in the night", somehow it has become a part of my consciousness; i haven't been able to get it out of my head for weeks.
steph
sorry about that little whiny bit there, i'll try to control that. I just have a few more points to make about my experience in this buddhist community. the thing is, and please anyone who knows anything about buddhism correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem to match up in general principle and practice. for example, i have a hard time accepting a religion that tells me that the reason i was born a woman is because i was probably a rapist or some other kind of sexual deviant in my previous life and so was born as a lesser, more sexually loose being. however, the general ideas of buddhism make a lot of sense to me. it's a little disheartening and a little freeing because i have absolutely no compulsion to commit to another religion, i just have some good ideas about how i want to approach the world. maybe. at least for this month.
i did have some really good times there though. i got to jump into this huge mud puddle and mix clay with rice husks with my feet for a few hours (think i love lucy) to make a cobb house. we made bricks out of it and felt very useful and sustainable and stuff for a while at least. i also got to play this game called takraw. it's similar to volleyball in a way: the point is to keep the ball from hitting the ground on your side by getting it back over the net. but, you use a small wicker ball and you can only use the parts of your body to play the ball that you would be able to use in soccer. it is really fun and the people who are good at it are just amazing to watch. we were not good at it but we got to play with a few kids from Asoke and with my favorite driver (we have the same 4 drivers wherever we go, they each have their own van and they are all really cool). i also got to spend the afternoon one on one with one of the kids teaching him english. i have to say, i'm a pretty bomb teacher, but that was a lot of fun.
i think that's it for Asoke, i don't think i'll vacation there, but it was a pretty cool experience overall.
listen to "spirit in the night", somehow it has become a part of my consciousness; i haven't been able to get it out of my head for weeks.
steph
Friday, November 16, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
in the biggest transition ever
after the shock to the system that was the red light district, we went totally the other way these last few days. we spent three days in the Asoke Buddhism compound. Asoke is this sort of controversial form of buddhism where they all live together, do all their work together and share all of their wealth. they practice at least the 5 precepts and they only eat at 9am and 5 pm, and then only vegetarian meals. they start with Dharma discussions with the monks at 4am, then follow a strict schedule until 9pm which is official bedtime. no one wears shoes. while we were there we had to observe all of their rules and live as they did. generally i didn't get it and i came away feeling like they were more of a cult than a religion. another strike against that setting in general, aside from the waking up at 3am thing and the no meat thing, was that the entire place was covered in gravel. that hurts. a lot. especially when my spoiled little feet haven't been outdoors without shoes since i was 10.
to be continued when i have some more time.
to be continued when i have some more time.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
no pithy title (a little explicit so hohmanns and other small children skip this one please)
hey hey hey
so we are in the middle of a unit called 'movements and trends' basically it is the unit for all the cool stuff that didn't fit in anywhere else. we had Sulak Sivaraksa come in to talk to us about Engaged Buddhism (basically that being a good buddhist doesn't mean meditating until you are detached from the world, but that instead you should use your enlightenment for positive social change) If it hadn't been for my basic distrust of organized religion because it corrupts the ideas that it is founded upon and makes them into often meaningless practices, a lot more of his speech would have made sense to me.
on an entirely different note we also went to visit SWING (Service Workers in Groups) in the Patpong, red light, district. The group provides support, meals, sexual practice education, and english lessons to male sex workers in that district and in Pattaya (basically prostitute island). we had a really great exchange with them, everyone who works there is a former sex worker, and hearing how they got there was often surprising. most of them had college degrees and just couldn't find work or were discriminated against and fired for being gay or transgendered. They all were extremely open and had a really great sense of humor, not in a sad, oh look how well they're coping way, in the simply funny outgoing way. they gave us a rundown of the practices there, how many sex bars there were, how the owners treated the workers, and how much they made. basically they make nothing, it all goes to the house, so most of them stay way below the poverty line. this leads to a lot of risky behaviors since clients know that they can just pay more for the workers to risk their health. we didn't talk to any street workers, but we were told that, if caught by the police, they are fined 500 baht per condom they have on them. surprisingly, they are not willing to carry them and therefore dont use them regularly.
after their presentation we split up into groups of six and went with one of the SWING workers to see a few sex shows. I am not going to describe what i saw here because i don't know who is reading it, but i have never seen, and i think never will, anything like that. we started at a male gay bar, though the majority of the performers are straight. it was extremely graphic, honestly it sounds silly to even call it graphic, it was out of control. most of the people on stage seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about it, we were ringside so we could hear them talking and see their faces really well. this was not so good when liquids were flying or when they had obvious pain on their faces. luckily for me i was sitting right next to the SWING guy who spoke pretty good english and answered every question i had. i certainly won't forget it anytime soon, and a few very popular songs may forever remind me of some events that i would rather never picture again. although, as i said, they seemed like they were having a good time, and the act included a lot of slapstick and jokes which was a little hard to get used to, the SWING guy was telling me that when he was working he cried every day for the first 3 months.
after an hour or so there we moved on to a women's show. this one was MUCH more tame, it was mostly just strippers, but there were some special acts. there was the pingpong show that thailand is unfortunately so famous for, and also some tricks involving razor blades and beer bottles. the girls that were performing here just looked really disinterested, clearly checked-out most of the time, so that was more depressing. our last stop was a transgender bar and all i have to say about that is that most of the girls there were a heck of a lot hotter than me, it was crazy.
ok i think that's it, don't be surprised if this post keeps getting edited to have more or less content. i can't figure out how to convey what it was like to see this stuff without having seen it. also there were some funny moments that i really can't describe here without being way overly graphic but shoot me an email or something if you want to hear 'em.
think that's it, im sure there will be more soon, tomorrow we have an exchange with the Secretary General of ASEAN and then go to an engaged buddhism wat for a few days, then do a mini HIV/AIDS unit. im sure ill have something to say about most of that.
talk to you soon.
so we are in the middle of a unit called 'movements and trends' basically it is the unit for all the cool stuff that didn't fit in anywhere else. we had Sulak Sivaraksa come in to talk to us about Engaged Buddhism (basically that being a good buddhist doesn't mean meditating until you are detached from the world, but that instead you should use your enlightenment for positive social change) If it hadn't been for my basic distrust of organized religion because it corrupts the ideas that it is founded upon and makes them into often meaningless practices, a lot more of his speech would have made sense to me.
on an entirely different note we also went to visit SWING (Service Workers in Groups) in the Patpong, red light, district. The group provides support, meals, sexual practice education, and english lessons to male sex workers in that district and in Pattaya (basically prostitute island). we had a really great exchange with them, everyone who works there is a former sex worker, and hearing how they got there was often surprising. most of them had college degrees and just couldn't find work or were discriminated against and fired for being gay or transgendered. They all were extremely open and had a really great sense of humor, not in a sad, oh look how well they're coping way, in the simply funny outgoing way. they gave us a rundown of the practices there, how many sex bars there were, how the owners treated the workers, and how much they made. basically they make nothing, it all goes to the house, so most of them stay way below the poverty line. this leads to a lot of risky behaviors since clients know that they can just pay more for the workers to risk their health. we didn't talk to any street workers, but we were told that, if caught by the police, they are fined 500 baht per condom they have on them. surprisingly, they are not willing to carry them and therefore dont use them regularly.
after their presentation we split up into groups of six and went with one of the SWING workers to see a few sex shows. I am not going to describe what i saw here because i don't know who is reading it, but i have never seen, and i think never will, anything like that. we started at a male gay bar, though the majority of the performers are straight. it was extremely graphic, honestly it sounds silly to even call it graphic, it was out of control. most of the people on stage seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about it, we were ringside so we could hear them talking and see their faces really well. this was not so good when liquids were flying or when they had obvious pain on their faces. luckily for me i was sitting right next to the SWING guy who spoke pretty good english and answered every question i had. i certainly won't forget it anytime soon, and a few very popular songs may forever remind me of some events that i would rather never picture again. although, as i said, they seemed like they were having a good time, and the act included a lot of slapstick and jokes which was a little hard to get used to, the SWING guy was telling me that when he was working he cried every day for the first 3 months.
after an hour or so there we moved on to a women's show. this one was MUCH more tame, it was mostly just strippers, but there were some special acts. there was the pingpong show that thailand is unfortunately so famous for, and also some tricks involving razor blades and beer bottles. the girls that were performing here just looked really disinterested, clearly checked-out most of the time, so that was more depressing. our last stop was a transgender bar and all i have to say about that is that most of the girls there were a heck of a lot hotter than me, it was crazy.
ok i think that's it, don't be surprised if this post keeps getting edited to have more or less content. i can't figure out how to convey what it was like to see this stuff without having seen it. also there were some funny moments that i really can't describe here without being way overly graphic but shoot me an email or something if you want to hear 'em.
think that's it, im sure there will be more soon, tomorrow we have an exchange with the Secretary General of ASEAN and then go to an engaged buddhism wat for a few days, then do a mini HIV/AIDS unit. im sure ill have something to say about most of that.
talk to you soon.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
vacay
hey all you kids out there, i decided to suck it up and do another post. this one is not going to be very exciting because all i have done since the last is go on vacation! which was just ridiculously gorgeous. myself and 7 others went to Koh Chang (elephant island), in the gulf of thailand, for a week. not to knock those classy new jersey beaches, but this water was Blue! i couldn't handle it, ocean water is brown, greenish if you are lucky, but surely not blue. not only was it blue but it was a different shade of blue depending where you were, crazy. we went on a 5 island snorkeling trip one day, and though the snorkeling part wasn't so good under the water, the surface of the water was just breathtaking. and where we were was pretty untouched and so some of the islands looked like something king kong or a dinosaur or something would bust out of, i'm really sorry that i am just not talented enough to explain them, but it was the prettiest place i have ever been. i got pretty badly sunburned that day, go figure, and i swear i bruised my tailbone on the the way back to our island because we had a psycho captain and it was about to storm. our boat spent more time in the air then on the water i think.
my other major activity was an elephant ride. my friend and i went out for two hours on an elephants back. it was definitely an experience, it was kind of weird and our elephant was having none of the whole thing. did you know that elephants growl? no, not growl, roar? not that trumpety thing you hear but a sound not much different than a lion. so that is a scary sound. and when you are sitting on the back of a elephant repeatedly making that sound, and you can feel his chest vibrating with it through your feet, it's a pretty terrifying experience. but we survived it, we even got to go bareback on the elephant and swim with it in the river: another slightly scary experience because you never feel like it would be that hard for him to just trample you to death and have less weight to carry on the way back. overall it was a great time and though the whole idea may be questionable from an animal rights standpoint or some crap like that it was fun and no elephants were harmed. at least in front of us. also, an added bonus was that they had 3 baby baby elephants there too and i got to play with one. and by play with i mean feed a banana and have him wrap his little trunk around my arm. it was the cutest thing i've ever seen. mom i want one for christmas.
the rest of the time i just sat around by the pool or on the beach, which was less than 10 steps from our little bungalow and read and got burned. i also scored some minor injuries in a skinny dipping incident that i won't go into, but suffice to say that you should be sure that if you are somewhere where tides change that a) your clothing is nowhere near the water, it may get swept away, and b) be sure that there is water deep enough to swim in that is not mostly coral and/or rocks. just some suggestions that my friend told me.
i feel like there was something else i wanted to say, but i forget it now and it must not have been important anyway.
ps they celebrate halloween in thailand!
have fun with the time change, they don't do that crazy stuff here.
read The Master and Margarita it's some good stuff.
lata gatas
my other major activity was an elephant ride. my friend and i went out for two hours on an elephants back. it was definitely an experience, it was kind of weird and our elephant was having none of the whole thing. did you know that elephants growl? no, not growl, roar? not that trumpety thing you hear but a sound not much different than a lion. so that is a scary sound. and when you are sitting on the back of a elephant repeatedly making that sound, and you can feel his chest vibrating with it through your feet, it's a pretty terrifying experience. but we survived it, we even got to go bareback on the elephant and swim with it in the river: another slightly scary experience because you never feel like it would be that hard for him to just trample you to death and have less weight to carry on the way back. overall it was a great time and though the whole idea may be questionable from an animal rights standpoint or some crap like that it was fun and no elephants were harmed. at least in front of us. also, an added bonus was that they had 3 baby baby elephants there too and i got to play with one. and by play with i mean feed a banana and have him wrap his little trunk around my arm. it was the cutest thing i've ever seen. mom i want one for christmas.
the rest of the time i just sat around by the pool or on the beach, which was less than 10 steps from our little bungalow and read and got burned. i also scored some minor injuries in a skinny dipping incident that i won't go into, but suffice to say that you should be sure that if you are somewhere where tides change that a) your clothing is nowhere near the water, it may get swept away, and b) be sure that there is water deep enough to swim in that is not mostly coral and/or rocks. just some suggestions that my friend told me.
i feel like there was something else i wanted to say, but i forget it now and it must not have been important anyway.
ps they celebrate halloween in thailand!
have fun with the time change, they don't do that crazy stuff here.
read The Master and Margarita it's some good stuff.
lata gatas
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