so my mother knows I'm alive

new blog

2011-05-09T09:52:00.002-05:00

i love this blog, but it served its purpose. my mom always knew i was alive when i was in phayao and only one accident to report! i've started a new blog targeted to my new job and an old theme of this blog -- giving.

start reading here.

☮ ❤ :)

2011-01-25T21:13:00.003-06:00

even though i miss kwan phayao, there is a lake here, too, and it's beautiful. time here has been... time. it's amazing how adventurous and unexpected two months in thailand could be and here in america two months means i've been to a lot of malls. but life changes quickly, here, as well. i am the new executive director of JP's Peace Love & Happiness Foundation -- i'm finally a philanthropist! i will be managing a small family foundation in austin, texas. phillip will continue writing and editing for various businesses.

we're both so fortunate to have jobs, supportive family, and a recent popularization of mobile food trucks nearby, but a teeny tiny part of me wishes i was still in thailand. or india. or the dominican republic. i miss the places i've lived and the people i've met. but i guess that's a function of growing up as much as it is traveling.

the good thing is it's all starting to make more sense to me. all the school, the organizations i've worked for (good and bad), the traveling on buses and planes and trains and boats, the waiting (ohmygosh the WAITING), the awkward cultural transitions (mainly coming back to america), i feel like i'm ready for this opportunity to give money away. i know more about people, more about places and more about what works and doesn't. it's not a formula, but i feel more confident and i know for sure what does NOT work. i may not be where i want (i still have 4 continents to visit!), but i'm precisely where i should be.

sh*t my grandparents say

2011-01-09T11:33:00.000-06:00

the hilarious twitter feed sh*t my dad says has launched a book and, what i imagine to be a totally lame, CBS show. after a few weeks of living with my grandparents in their awesome birdhouse on lake travis, i totally understand the temptation to share the gems overheard while living at home.

wouldn't you hate for your body to be found in a city dump? -gram

kurt: papa, what's your favorite candy bar?

papa: her name was candy bar, and she was a stripper.

con: i saw papa getting out of a car this morning, wondered who he was with. thought it might be a lady.

gram: i would be open to that. i've even offered to trade!

con: gram, are you a swinger?

gram: i talk a good game, anyway.

i would love to have a prairie dog. -gram

it's worth it

2011-01-04T11:33:00.021-06:00

most people ring in a new year wondering what the next twelve months will hold. last week i rang in the new year wondering what i was gonna do on january 1. it was the purest form of new -- no job, no home, no expectations. i liked it.

what i don't like is america... i kid, i kid. i've started a "10 reasons why america sucks" post so many times since arriving here, but i didn't want to alienate my american friends or, uh, citizenship. and really, that's not what i mean. in general, i'm reacting to traffic laws, banal party talk and overpriced cocktails. but some things have been genuinely difficult.

for example, i can count on one hand the number of people who have asked us about our life and work in thailand. instead, it's what are you doing NOW? what are you doing from this point ON? another friend who often travels remarked to me that people in america, even close friends, seem unconcerned with what is going on in her heart and instead focus on what she is doing. phillip and i were blessed by a uniquely compassionate and curious community of expats and thais in thailand, so i feel like we have lived in a cocoon of support. but for many in america, it's always what's next. it's exhausting. in thailand i was most often asked what i ate for lunch. that always annoyed me (because the answer was, invariably, noodles), but now i'm missing the simplicity of it, the fact that it was merely a curiosity without expectation. here, questions are asked with so much expectation, as if people are after information and not simply relating to you.

let's pretend that by now you're asking "gosh, con, how ARE you?" out of fear, if nothing else. the answer is that my heart is breaking a little bit. i miss my home and the trees in my backyard. i miss my friends who understood what i was trying to do with the foundation, even if i never quite got there. i wonder who is telling the older boys to be nice to bas during recess. i wonder if this woman i met on the street in bangkok ever found her 9 year old daughter who disappeared two months ago. i miss the easy laughter that comes in conversations you have with people who don't even speak your language. i miss people who asked how i AM and not what i'm doing.

here in america i am surrounded by people who love me; everyone asking what's next are really trying to be polite and are truly interested, and i get that. but the questions pile on top of each other, day after day, party after party, as if that's what defines me. what are you doing next? damned if i know. but isn't that okay? isn't that enough? aren't i enough? my stories, the memories i have from thailand, my unique perspective? i think i probably just need to chill, but this is my experience over the last few weeks. i am lucky to be an american, lucky to have homes and families here, but i nonetheless find myself craving my life in thailand.

i think part of the reason i was so hesitant to leave thailand was that i was afraid to be seduced by america again. it's so easy to convince yourself that the stuff we see in front of us is worth devoting all of our time and energy to. it's easy to think that this life, this relative wealth, is all there is. it's easy to convince ourselves that streets and stores are supposed to have a homogenous, sterile quality because it keeps us safe and means that we're wealthy. it's easy to look around and see that everyone looks like us and believes like us and implicitly congratulate ourselves for creating our own worlds of relevance. it's easy to believe that what really does matter is what people DO and how successfully they do it. these ideas are so tempting because they impart value to us, they glorify us, and they tell us that we are the center of the universe, that america is the engine that drives the world, not god. i guess this post pretty much amounts to 10 reasons why america sucks, anyway. sorry about that. i don't think everyone in america truly believes that they're the center of the universe, but this is nonetheless how a lot of people here behave because they're tired or jobless or resigned or selfish or whatever.

because i'm afraid of becoming complacent and complicit, i feel the need to promise myself, to promise all of you now that it's worth it. it's worth it to leave. it's worth it it's worth it to meet all new people, to make an ass of yourself learning a language and eating weird bug foods. it's worth it to get sick from eating said weird bug foods. it's worth it to get hit by a bomb, even, if it means that you're completely stripped of what you know and what's familiar. it's worth it to leave the confines of our society and realize that we are not the center, not even a fraction of the universe. it's worth it to know, without a doubt, that god is in control and that i have very little to offer others. it's worth it to know that we aren't what we do, but who we can be. the new is often humbling, surprising, and perhaps even more familiar to us than where we originally began.

the new, the unknown, the unexpected -- it's all worth it. happy new year.

happy new year

2010-12-31T13:14:00.001-06:00

merry christmas from the orchuizens

2010-12-25T15:20:00.000-06:00

2010-12-23T21:40:00.017-06:00

you say you care about the poor. then tell me, what are their names?

-gustavo gutierrez

i come all ye faithful

2010-12-17T13:06:00.001-06:00

this was our first photo taken back in the states:

we pretty much feel the same way today, almost 2 weeks later. america is bewildering -- i'm cold, people have changed, i keep pulling out on the left side of the street, the food tastes kinda bland and there are white people EVERYWHERE. i keep thinking i see people i know, but it turns out that all white people just look the same.

my iphone is my favorite distraction. when people are like "so what are you guys doing now?", i can only say "well, i don't have a job, but i do have an iphone!" it makes me look very professional and important. i have to go find a job now. merry christmas!

zilker tree.

mother loves her new hat.

one of my favorite hill country traditions: people decorating orphan trees.

finally made it home when i made it to taco deli.

thailand friends in AMERICA.

rexalicious.

101 ellie-mations

christmas giving

2010-12-08T12:40:00.003-06:00

the past two years (2008 and 2009) i did christmas gift guides based on the idea that intentional giving can multiply the effect of a simple gift and can transform the lives of the poor. this year, i am traveling and moving countries, but i wanted to get a few ideas out there, even if i've mentioned them before. here's another guide to giving from glamour magazine that i liked. happy giving!

buy back the bombs - for the person in your life who, say has been hit by a bomb and would like to see them abolished, these bracelets are made from recycled bomb parts in laos (did you know the US dropped more bombs on laos than in vietnam during the war? there's a documentary about it that i want to see). living and traveling in southeast asia, i still hear stories of people dying, as recently as last week, from landmines and unexploded bombs in cambodia and laos.

baking for good - a portion of the proceeds from gingerbread men, peppermint brownies and shortbread goes to the charity of your choosing.

heifer project - every year my favorite and always a hit. give a duck, give some bees or even give an ark. animals go to help small farmers sustainably raise agriculture and livestock to feed ther families and communities.

nightlight - jewelry made by women coming out of life in bangkok's sex industry. your purchase provides jobs and new hope for these women.

feed - i mentioned them in 2008, but their bag has been updated enough times to include a full collection. purchase of each bag all provides meals for children through the UNWFP.

sari bari - great blankets made and accessories made from women formerly working in the sex trade in kolkata. i want one so bad.

for real this time

2010-12-05T11:00:00.002-06:00

today is my last day in thailand. yesterday was the king's birthday, which was a celebration i like to think that they held in honor of our going away. it's really beautiful to see the whole country united (if even for a day) and candles make everything seem more peaceful, too.

the last few weeks i have said goodbye to just about everyone i have ever met here and packed everything i own into 50 pound bags. today i will take my 100 pounds of life and no friends with me back to america. why is it that whenever i move i feel like i'm losing all my friends and yet i still have the same damn 50 pounds of stuff i started with?

we are going from bkk -> sfo -> dfw over the next few days and we'll be in austin by next week. i know you're probably as tired of reading about my goodbyes as i am of saying them, so let's all go take a xanax and sleep for the next 24 hours of flights and layovers, shall we?

goodbye ELF

2010-11-30T22:14:00.001-06:00

for my last ELF outing, we took the boys to the kwan. gonna miss them, gonna miss the kwan.

letting go

2010-11-29T11:45:00.001-06:00

i'm having a hard time letting go.

to market

2010-11-28T20:34:00.001-06:00

run for the border

2010-11-27T11:52:00.001-06:00

remember her? i saw her on the bridge between thailand and burma again today, still begging with her little brother. i don't give money -- i gave chocolate milk. phillip and i went on one last trip to renew our visas. i said goodbye to burma's excellent fried food and we shopped -- everything is new and exciting and possibly take-homeable since we're leaving for good. i wanted to buy a jaguar skin for a rug, but phillip said no cause of some dumb animal rights thing. last chance to buy a TIGER SKIN before we go back to america and they're more expensive. he read some dumb article about animal trafficking, which i suppose i am against in principle, if not in practice. and, of course, i couldn't leave thailand without seeing at least one more red shirt protest parade. i'm going to miss this animal-trafficking, violent-protesting place.

black friday

2010-11-26T09:45:00.004-06:00

taking advantages of all the privileges of living in thailand before we go back to the land of regulations and body scanners. like setting things on fire and setting them free. also, a lack of open container laws.

happy thanksgiving

2010-11-25T10:54:00.010-06:00

we went traditional this year.

pocket knife. we classy.

the germans brought the turkey -- which they had never attempted before. honorary americans.

gingerbread island.

teaching thais the tradition of s'mores. like the pilgrims and indians. or something.

to the johns

2010-11-22T20:23:00.000-06:00

to the men who come to thailand to buy sex,

the number of thai women who truly desire to have sex with you for money has got to be infinitesimal. the number of you who will this not to be true tells me that you're subsisting on some type of delusion. i would like to dispel some of the myths about who these women are that you have come to thailand to enjoy. to them, you have become either an enforced burden or an economic necessary evil, but either way, they have to pretend to enjoy your company. i don't say these things to change your mind because your mind is made up, i just want to point out how truly heinous your actions are.

i have heard from some of you that sex workers need work and that you believe you are helping them to support their families. if you are so concerned with the welfare of thailand's women, i invite you to support any number of the microfinance institutions that provide loans to women and families to help themselves get out of poverty. having women rent out their vaginas has never been a path to economic prosperity for any individual or a collective nation. sex work is illegal, anyhow, so profits go untaxed and thailand as a whole doesn't benefit (though taxes do exist in the form of bribes that go to already wealthy and unscrupulous individuals).

now that i've addressed the sex-as-charity myth, there's the issue of women choosing this work of their own volition. many foreign men assert that the women are there of their own free will. thais believe that prostitutes and bar girls are simply victims of their own karma. in this line of thinking, women either chose to be there or deserve to be there, so what's the big deal, right?

sex workers are often immigrants, be they laotian, burmese or cambodian, essentially economic refugees.
almost all are poor and uneducated. you don't go from college to sex work in this country.
many are children. an estimated third of thailand's sex industry is underage.
in one study, 40% of prostitutes had been physically abused as a child
in that same study, 48% had been sexually assaulted

immigrants, poor women, victims of sexual assault and children don't exactly make up an empowered citizen class. i would argue that for these women this work was against their will. even for those girls who willfully enter prostitution, that's not to say that they would still like to remain in the lifestyle.

once in the life of prostitution, it is difficult for many girls to leave. families come to depend on the income and their increased standard of living, debts accrue with bar owners or pimps and the women have few career options available to them. sadly, her life has already been altered past the point of free will. the life of a sex worker is fraught with physical and mental insecurity, violence and addictions that she may never be able to get out of:

in one study, researchers found that 57% of sex workers surveyed had been raped in prostitution
55% of the women were physically assaulted in prostitution
56% suffered past or current homelessness
47% had pornography made of them while they were in prostitution
of that same group surveyed, coping mechanisms like drug and alcohol addiction were rampant (56% and 39%, respectively)
some are HIV+. an estimated 19% of freelance sex workers in bangkok are HIV+ (though it drops considerably for bars girls) once they are HIV+, there's even fewer places for them to find work and acceptance due to social stigma

anecdotally, one of the women i know entered prostitution after being raped while she was homeless, and she is now addicted to alcohol and drugs and suffers from a psychological disorder. she may get up and go to work every day, but this is not the life she chose.

to those of you who act like the women will suffer no consequences in the future, let me share the fate of women in thailand after they've left prostitution:

some of them will have a child (possibly yours) and will probably be unable to care for the child until they have stopped sex work, leaving them with a family member in another province.
some of them will contract HIV either servicing farangs or later when they begin servicing thai men and pass it to their children or husbands.
many will be ostracized from their communities or families because while they are accepted, sex workers are rarely welcomed

another defense is that farang men are but a small part of thailand's sex trade. while there are an estimated 500,000 sex tourists a year in thailand, there are 4.6 million thai men that regularly visit sex workers. this disparity aside, you foreigners are the most visible population abusing women. your presence contributes to the environment of violence against women. your actions are criminal, even though they may not be treated that way by authorities in thailand.

some of you don't possess notions of helping anyone or try to defend your actions at all; you realize how lucky you are to be able to live your extra-legal fantasies in a place like thailand. as one ugly old man said to me, "where else in the world could an old man like me f--- an 18 year old girl?" you're quite right, sir. thailand is a place uniquely set up to host your delusion that it is acceptable to behave the way you do.

i am writing all of this because as i walk around nana, uneasy and slightly sick, i'm unable to think of any recourse. i don't know how to say "shame on you" in arabic or german. me throwing a tantrum at patpong isn't going to help these women. besides, there are so many of you, from australia, from saudi arabia, from nigeria, from the UK and from the US. you are teenagers and businessmen and church going men and vietnam veterans. to all of you, this is what i have to say:

i know these numbers have little effect on you. i know i haven't convinced you of anything. you pay for sex with women because you are pathologically selfish and therefore able to deny the reality that these women are being exploited and abused by you and by their country. these statistics aren't going to penetrate your resolve. to you and your ego, your actions seem isolated and insignificant, but i want you to know that you are a drop in the tide of violence and abuse that has beaten down women in thailand for generations. you may not think you are part of the problem, but you are the problem. please leave.

sincerely,

a woman who came to thailand to keep other women from having to have sex for money

happy loy khratong

2010-11-22T00:39:00.002-06:00

domo arigato

2010-11-20T22:14:00.005-06:00

for my last ceremony with ELF last week, we hosted japanese rotarians who were re-visiting the water projects they funded two years ago in 63 phayao schools. i think they secretly just come back for the thai beer and beautiful phayao scenery. it was a really great day; the kind that when you get home, you can't wait to go through your pictures.

my two main men.

i was so proud of some of our elf club girls who participated in a kick ass muay thai show.

clean, filtered water at baan ka.

water before and after the filter at baan wang khon daeng.

if what i learned from the rotarians can be generalized, japanese men love beer and cigarettes.

i loved going to a new school and meeting kids we help that i've never met. makes it feel like we're doing something good after all. i'm going to miss being a volunteer rock star at these schools.

it's beginning to look a lot like...

2010-11-20T00:02:00.007-06:00

LOY KHRATONG. the last two years we've been in bangkok for loy khratong, so it's exciting to experience the excitement and energy in the north. festivals show off phayao at its best -- the lake is lit up and people are out and about. one week left.

i love you

2010-11-16T02:19:00.006-06:00

i've been cleaning out my desk (i do LOVE the organization that comes with moving -- thrilling.) and came across this picture a kid drew of phillip and me when we visited the compassion international project here in phayao. i, clearly, look much better than this in real life. my ears are not lopsided and my eyes are the same size (this reminds me of my favorite website of all time). the kid really nailed phillip, though. identical.

yikes.

2010-11-15T03:31:00.011-06:00

we leave phayao two weeks from today. i've realized that the most traumatic parts of leaving have less to do with thailand and more to do with the more universal experience of moving away from home -- because thailand is our home. i am ready to leave, but our friends are here. i get my hair done here. who will be able to do my hair like joy does?! less importantly than my hair, my doctor is here. i have to get a new one. how will we move our stuff and how expensive will it be? who will feed the dog that's not ours but we think is ours anyway? and then there's the perhaps less universal and more thai-specific, but my favorite street vendor is here! how will he cope without me and my constant demands for kao pad prik gang?! i had these feelings leaving america -- how will i watch oprah?! where will i find breakfast tacos?! leaving home is hard no matter where you're going.

here are some pictures of friends we'll miss from our weekend trip to chiang rai/ burma for a visa run.

407

2010-11-12T06:53:00.005-06:00

today was my last scholarship ceremony with ELF.

happily ever after

2010-11-10T19:00:00.000-06:00

many of you already know mr. bones; for a look back at his many incarnations, see here.

well, i have a final piece of mr. bones-related news before i pack him up and we head back to america. mr. bones has taken a wife. she arrived on halloween and they are in L-O-V-E. don't you just love a happy ending?

evolution

2010-11-09T23:46:00.002-06:00

it's funny cause it's true

2010-11-09T23:39:00.001-06:00

image.

it's a man's world

2010-11-08T04:07:00.004-06:00

it may be a man's man's man's world, but i'll be damned if women aren't better in it. i only have 4 weeks left of ELF club to push my feminist agenda (she says jokingly) and make sure the girls know how valuable they are (she says desperately). today we talked about being a girl. what makes us different? what can we not do as girls? it's actually more complicated to discuss gender relations in thailand because there's a third gender here (kathoeys) that really blurs the line between what boys and girls can do. i went to a bar the other night and the ladyboys put me to shame in the feminine department. reminder to start wearing makeup. i digress...

i told them that as girls, particularly in their village in which girls are encouraged (explicitly or otherwise) to drop out, to have babies or work in a bar for easy money, they have to work even HARDER to get what they want and to achieve their dreams. and then we talked about what's fun about being a girl and made jewelry and painted our nails. because we get to do that, too.

pomp and circumstances

2010-11-07T02:03:00.002-06:00

while it might seem inconsequential or harmless, elf's commitment to ceremonies is another thing that i think has limited our effectiveness, more in a symbolic than literal way. i have endured ceremonies over and over in torturous repetition. for my job, for teaching in schools, when the government bombed me (if that wasn't bad enough) i had to go to a "sorry we bombed you" ceremony at which television cameras followed me while i tried to limp away. ceremonies always have these things in common:

1) a banner

2) flowers

3) a ribbon cutting

4) hella photo ops

5) VIPs

it's not that i'm against memorializing things or celebrating occasions, but here they have a hollowness to them that i find disingenuous. worst of all, i feel really the attention to ceremonies makes us ceremony-makers instead of change makers. while the staff is focused on making VIP guests comfortable, no one, but no one is engaging the students. i was really disappointed at our first ceremony that the kids were never addressed, but were used as props in photos, basically.

i have a personal vendetta against an unnamed phayao government official -- the guy's a real snooze. he has presided over a few of our events in a monotone voice and has even fallen asleep at one of them. he doesn't address the students or appear to have any enthusiasm at all for what we're doing. the worst was when he opened our Sight for Students event (with a ribbon cutting and photos, see 1,3,4 and 5) and then proceeded to send over every city hall employee to cut in front of our students and get free glasses. the thing is, we have to HONOR him and give him GIFTS. ack.

every fundraiser we've had required a ceremony and VIP guests, to the extent that we've LOST money buying VIP gifts, flowers, banners, etc. to RAISE money. of course, this is more of a general frustration with nonprofit culture and norms than with my organization specifically. it's specific to asian culture with the VIPs and the honor and the respect, but i have been to similar charity "galas" and events that honor celebrity and have nothing to do with the organization's core mission or values. or perhaps it's just my person egalitarian bias. we don't have a ceremony every day, or even every month, but to me they represent misplaced priorities and i'm glad to soon be done with them.

i have 2, count 'em, 2 ceremonies coming up before i leave at the end of november. we have our scholarship ceremony, which i'm going to try to make more about the kids and a ceremony for the japanese rotary's medical project they funded last year. i really wish my time could be spent making sure projects are sustainable and hanging out with kids, but that's the way it is. i hope i can behave myself when i see mr. phayao official. since it's the last time i'll see him, who knows. might get ugly.

sun and sunflowers

2010-11-02T23:50:00.004-06:00

rainy season and flooding has calmed down in thailand, and phayao is suddenly GORGEOUS. the temperatures are in the 70s, meaning of course that thais are freezing and jackets and scarves have emerged from storage. driving down susan road yesterday, i came across fields of sunflowers between the chinese graveyard and phayao's red light district. glorious.

trick and treat

2010-10-31T20:23:00.000-06:00

i was a witch and phillip was a moth (see: MOTH). i thought that a few kids would come, but the turnout was closer to 20. i guess candy is a pretty big draw.

we went "trick and treating" (the only way the kids could say it) at a bar and a motorcycle shop cause that's who my neighbors are and we roll hardcore, anyway.

bobbing for apples was a fun spectacle. more than one kid almost drowned out of sheer dedication.

el espíritu

2010-10-31T09:28:00.003-06:00

i will share the rest of my party shots tomorrow, but this was too good/embarassing so i probably wouldn't include them if i had a night to sleep on it. so phillip made a ghetto garbage bag ghost pinata that was actually quite fun and fabulous. my friend lynnette sent me these photos and i just want you to observe with me:

tonnam did it!

oh! the candy's going everywhere!

aaand... i'm the first one on the scene, even though the candy is not for me. old habits die hard.

i guess this is my honest, distressed reaction to children taking their candy away from me. happy halloween and goodnight.

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

2010-10-27T11:46:00.005-05:00

i think we resemble our lollipops, no?

a little bit magic

2010-10-25T06:05:00.024-05:00

i love living in thailand. our weekend in bangkok is full of reasons why:

1) you haven't experienced true discomfort till you've witnessed your husband and your boss drunkenly karaoke "can't take my eyes off of you" to each other at an office party. (boss not pictured for fear of professional repercussions)

2) for some reason, the opening of krispy kreme at paragon has set off month-long lines, a black market donut market and general sugar hysteria for the thais. lucky for me, our friends michael and heather just happened to have a box they were trying to get rid of.

3) ice skating in bangkok. no really, it's possible! central world, god bless it, re-opened after the disastrous red shirt protests ending in arson had closed the mall for nearly 6 months. how do you get people to come back? why, ice skating, of course. i went with my thai friend linda who had never been ice skating before, which made me feel and look (slightly) superior.

went back and watched video that linda's husband took and i actually was pretty much on par with linda skill wise and i did this weird thing with my arms akimbo that made me look like a crazy pipe-cleaner person ice skating. sense of superiority was (slightly) dulled.

these kinds of things happen every day in america -- karaoke, donuts, skating -- but when you do them in bangkok, it's improbable, fantastical and a little bit magic.

just as i promised...

2010-10-20T03:05:00.005-05:00

i'm following up a serious post with a video of a monkey from bali because i don't want to lose my less reading-inclined followers.

phillip fixing the plumbing from cgd on Vimeo.

school house [doesn't] rock, part II

2010-10-18T23:24:00.002-05:00

i haven't forgotten my followup explanation of the thai education system -- you can read the first part here. part of the reason my work with ELF isn't as good as it could be is because we are partnering with the thai government schools. we are putting all of our money, literally and figuratively, on keeping kids in school. thai schools excel at the arts and while any one of my students is excellent at being in a parade or traditional thai dance, it is rare that any of them respond when you ask "hi. how are you?" in english.

here's a couple of sample test questions from the government english test given to ninth grade students:

A supermarket is________.

A large shop for buying and selling.
A self-service shop selling food and other household goods.
A place of the highest degree of markets.
A shop where we pick up goods and pay ourselves.

"What a lovely ring right!" "__________"

Why don't you let me have some?
When is your birthday?
I hope you like it.
I'll give you yours.

WTF. not only are the questions are nonsensical, but none of my students in grade 9 can even read english! even if they could read it, is this even the best way to teach english reading or comprehension? i was told that the students all failed, but the teachers just kind of told me with a smile because the students aren't allowed to fail. everyone is a winner. my friend eleanor teaches over 500 students a week at a nearby high school; some kids don't come to class and she can't possibly know all their names let alone monitor their progress. even if she has never seen a student in one of her classes, she has to pass them. because if she passes them, they "speak english." if they speak english, the school looks good and the administration looks good. everyone saves face, but no one can actually speak english. it's a self-reinforcing recipe for failure.

my friend sarah who visited recently is an english teacher for international students. she was shocked at how little my students understand and even more so how little the teachers understand. since the entire education system doesn't allow anyone to fail, teachers that don't know english are teaching students. as long as they have a notebook full of english words at the end of a semester, the schools and the districts are satisfied by the appearance of english learning.

i have been surprised by the level of comprehension and listening skills of students in neighboring vietnam and cambodia. the students i have met are far better at at least trying to speak english. it's not like i'm expecting the impossible. also, i don't think that english is thailand's panacea. students could do just fine not learning english at all or learning chinese instead, but if you're going to go to all the trouble of having english classes for all students grades 4-12 and funding teachers and maintaining that all the students speak english, you might as well employ qualified teachers and expect measurable results.

it must be said that the schools are much better in bangkok, but my experience has been in the north of thailand. if i had my way, thailand would have a country-wide english curriculum and students in the north would be competitive with students from bangkok. teachers could be fired and students could fail. most importantly, teachers would actually be expected to teach in front of the classroom instead of slagging off

thailand has all of the hardware to run a really fantastic school system: schools are funded, teachers are paid, in most cases lunches are provided and attendance rates are incredibly high. but once everyone is there, the teachers and the educational system are failing the students. it's the software that's missing; the programs and the educational processes. it took me a long time to figure out what precisely was wrong. i've lived in countries in which children would be lucky to be able to go to school, where having a school book or a teacher would be a real victory. i came here and saw that the kids in thailand have all those opportunities, but i learned that they're only surface level accomplishments if teachers aren't teaching and students aren't being held accountable for what they're learning.

hanoi

2010-10-16T13:00:00.002-05:00

i found the city of hanoi (on the eve of its 1000th birthday) to have a lot of charm. i filmed this video last sunday of people out eating, a tailor, a hair salon, a dentist office and a barber working in the street and men playing checkers. people's lives are filled up with the same tasks and the same desires everywhere you go. everyone wants food, clothes, beauty, teeth that don't fall out and a way to pass the time. it's so lovely to watch the same scenes play out in different countries all over the world.

halong bay

2010-10-14T23:42:00.009-05:00

yesterday i sat at coffee bean in ho chi minh city reading while phillip worked for several hours. travel is not always exciting or exotic. BUT my friends, some things are really super cool. we did a two day package tour to halong bay that really, even as much as i travel, kind of blew my mind. we slept on this boat! in a cabin! in the ocean!

we explored a cave! we went kayaking! we swam in the ocean!

basically, this was a glorified cruise, and i swore to myself i would never go on a cruise cause you're stuck on a boat with the same people and i usually hate people and you don't get to experience places and neverminditdoesn'tmatter. this cruise was awesome.

what the pho

2010-10-13T23:01:00.000-05:00

the internet has been sketchy in vietnam (facebook is blocked because they are selectively communist), so i haven't been able to update you on the amazing food. get ready, you might want to grab a snack...

let's start with the best - cha ca. as you can see below, they bring you a skillet of sizzling fish in a dill sauce, a dish of rice noodles, chili sauce, peanuts and rice noodles. we went back twice. the restaurant - cha ca la vong - has been there since 1871; the street is even called cha ca.

springs rolls are available everywhere. you can find them stuffed with basil, crab, chicken, or shrimp and served fresh, fried or from a pineapple, naturally.

i have no idea what this is. i thought it was tofu, then squid, and now i've settled on some kind of rice something set in an egg with scallions, shredded green papaya and chilis. mystery street food is the best.

banana flower salad. the vietnamese use more mint whereas the thais use more sweet basil. this salad is a bed of mint with banana flowers and carrots and sesame seeds. it's served with a sesame flatbread. this was one of my favorites. would someone please check and seee if whole foods sells banana flowers?

bahn my. traditional vietnamese sandwich on a baguette (sometimes i'm very grateful for colonialism).

pho. the classic. mine is vegetarian and delicious.

restore tour

2010-10-09T23:45:00.000-05:00

my wonderfully talented and just plain wonderful friend esther havens let me know about the watoto tour coming to austin next week. the musical and dramatic production gives former child soldiers a platform to tell their stories and let their voices be heard. so many times people contact me asking what they can do, how they can help make the world a better/safer/freer place. sometimes it's the simplest act, merely showing up to listen and lend and just being, on the most basic level, human to one another.

crustacean killing

2010-10-08T23:11:00.009-05:00

i'm a vegetarian of sorts -- i scoff at people for their dead animal consumption, their evolutionary dependence on the food chain and their murderous, pollution-inducing meat addictions. however, if given the chance, i would kill and eat every lobster, crab and shrimp in existence, dip them in butter sauce and sigh contentedly while licking my fingers. go figure. i have a murder exception for crustaceans. the seafood here has been AMAZING thus far. no pho for me, only crabs.

when we were at the beach, we plucked our crab from the water and it tried to escape:

but we were victorious.

when you're in the city, there's an ingenious way to find crabs. there's a woman just sitting in the street with baskets of seafood to choose from. you point, pull up a tiny stool (much to phillip's sad and contorted disappointment), and she hands you a bowl of spicy sauce, a beer and a silver cracker thing. our crab cost 100,000 dong, around $5 USD. god bless crabs.

bombiversary 2

2010-10-07T05:33:00.005-05:00

2 years ago today this happened. today i woke up on a boat in and then rode a bike in vietnam. suck on that, bomb (um, sometimes i still talk to the bomb like it was a really mean person). i'm still so grateful for the doctors and all the people who cared for me and prayed for me during that really weird time. as our time in thailand comes to a close, i feel like i'm ready to say goodbye to the bomb and even bombiversaries. it doesn't really have a hold on me anymore. i'll even try to stop talking to it. goodbye, bomb.

first impressions

2010-10-04T12:05:00.009-05:00

that initial taxi ride away from the airport is my favorite part of visiting a new country. everything is new and somehow familiar. you compare it to other places, your most immediate familiar association. for example, phillip has said about almost every place we've visited that it's just like northern california. there's always the small fear that you don't know the language, don't know the city and someone could totally shank you and take your bag and you'd be lost to the world forever, but that's just a passing worry, really. the hopes far outweigh the anxieties.

we arrived in hanoi during the festivities for the city's 1000th birthday: balloons, cotton candy and girls asking me to take photos with them. a welcome to vietnam party! also, i saw the man below cleaning a chicken and had to take a photo.

guest post: sarah

2010-10-03T09:40:00.008-05:00

here is sarah's guest post from her last 3 weeks in thailand. her highlights were mainly of the riding and hugging animal variety, but she also helped me get through my last weeks teaching english without crying. sarah teaches english to international students back home in south carolina, so she was able to give me some guidance and assess my students objectively. i would tell my kids "bye! i will miss you!" and they would say "i am fine, thank you, and you?" i was obviously an amazing teacher. anyway. i was grateful to have her input and her encouragement. here's sarah's top 10.

I have had a great trip in Thailand and a great time with Constance. Some of my favorite things were:

1. the baby tiger - i want one

2. the elephants

3. riding an ostrich

4. going to burma for the day

5. shopping - amazing malls and markets!
6. the food - fried rice, red curry, green curry, pad thai, salt fish, som tam
7. beautiful, cheap orchids

8. spending time with constance (and kicking her ass in speed) : )

and the not so good things about thailand:

9. the education system. from what i saw and heard from other english teachers the education system is lacking. the kids take english from the beginning of primary school, but are not able to answer basic questions such as, 'how are you'. the thai teachers teaching english cannot even speak the language they are supposed to be teaching! another problem is that the kids pass the class no matter what grade they get - they cannot speak or understand a lick of english yet the teacher will pass them.
10. prostitution. you hear about prostitution in thailand, but they're only stories that don't affect you and it's hard to believe things like that really happen. it does. i was shocked when we went down to the red light district and saw girls lined up with men picking them up. there was no hiding it; there was no shame. since being here it has become more apparent to me the depravity of man.

look what i found!

2010-10-02T05:44:00.001-05:00

a bar in jatujak market in bangkok, of all places.

bat-tastic

2010-09-30T23:24:00.002-05:00

mr. bones is ready for halloween -- are you? my favorite holiday is almost here.

tessaban one

2010-09-30T01:40:00.007-05:00

today was my last day teaching at tessaban one. i taught grades 4, 5 and 6 for a few hours each week for the last two schoolyears. in true thai style, they held a ceremony for me with lots of gratitude, bowing and gifts. seriously, check out the gifts -- this is like 4 dykhuizen christmases worth of presents. i will miss my students and their daily adulation. to them, i am a hero. a super tall, white girl hero.

my boys

2010-09-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

not everything has been a disappointment; some of it was pretty great.

the real deal

2010-09-27T23:34:00.003-05:00

there's a lot i haven't said on this blog about the nature of my work. since i'm wrapping up, i feel like it's time to share. i wasn't trying to keep this from you all to make it seem like i was doing awesome, uncomplicated work, but i didn't want the blog to turn into a negative, complain-y space where i whine a lot. i also wanted to give my work a chance and learn as much as i could before publishing authoritative opinions on thailand, my organization and trafficking prevention. well, we're reaching the end of my time here and i ain't gonna learn that much more, so it's time to share my thoughts. on more thing: it's really easy to post about food or elephant riding. people in america go crazy for weird food or animals, but engaging people about the realities of trafficking or the necessary and unglamorous steps to take for prevention is a less popular topic on my blog and in my conversations.

here's the deal: development work sucks. trafficking prevention sucks. there, i said it. my organization, in particular, despite my best hopes, never really rose to the occasion. part of the reason i'm leaving is because i would love to work for an organization committed to discussion and self-examination. no organization is perfect, and unfortunately humility is not a very common trait in nonprofits anywhere. there's the ever-popular defense of "we're just trying to help!" that insulates nonprofits from legitimate criticisms. good intentions aside, nonprofits are taking money from people and should be committed to transparency and generally accepted accounting principles. my organization fails on both levels, and that's why i never directly raised money for our cause. there you have it.

it seems that particularly among my generation, we think that all a nonprofit needs is a great graphic designer and a desire to help. snazzy emails and campaigns engage people, which is great, but really there's a hollowness to many of these trendy nonprofits. helping the poor and balancing social inequalities is dirty, dull and takes generations. i think we have to ask ourselves as twenty-something do-gooders if we are really committed to that type of work. for me, i could not commit to living in phayao for the next ten years. it wasn't feasible for my life with phillip or for my sanity, but that's what it takes. that's what phayao needs and that's what my girls deserve. i have planted seeds in my students' minds about what is possible, but i know it would take years to really develop those relationships and nurture those ideas. frankly, i'm just not confident enough in my organization and i don't want to live in the middle of nowhere anymore.

all this to say, i am aware that my organization is imperfect. i've tried not to represent that we are ending trafficking or are even particularly wonderful. we have done some basic things that do enhance the quality of life for schoolchildren in phayao, but there is so much more that needs to be done. we can offer very little in terms of emotional support, which is so much more important than any scholarship. i am working on more posts about what my work has really been like, the successes, the failures and the things we were never able to do. i believe so strongly in social awareness, giving to the poor and education, but i even more strongly believe in humility in development work. we have to admit when we're wrong, when we're not helping or when something is irretrievably broken.

with my blog i've tried to highlight what life is like here in thailand and what people all over the world are doing to promote the rights and improve the livelihoods of women and children. i don't know if anyone will read because i didn't attach a picture of a monkey to it, but i still have a lot of those to post, too, so don't worry.

bridge

2010-09-27T08:19:00.003-05:00

girl effect

2010-09-23T12:02:00.001-05:00

the girl effect is back! the original campaign, sponsored by nike, made me cry. these new videos are more direct challenges to participate in promoting, enabling and encouraging the girl effect. visit their website for more videos, information on how to multiply the girl effect through advocacy, twitter, merchandise and much, much more.

why i love my mother

2010-09-23T01:25:00.000-05:00

i guess i would be a pretty superficial person if i loved my mother because she bought me stuff. well, this is nevertheless where i find myself. it's not the only reason, though. for the past two years, my dear mother has kept me supplied with the latest vogue magazines, my favorite toffee and tea and, most recently, a giant supply of halloween goodies. thanks, mother, for keeping me close to home. and for the cool bat shirt.

don't buy sex.

2010-09-22T00:05:00.002-05:00

***i found this post in my files from almost a year ago, but it never got posted. i've alluded to it, but it's still worthwhile, i think.

i think we need a global don't buy sex campaign. something akin to real men don't pay for sex. in south africa they had a real men don't rape campaign featuring by charlize theron that was quickly shut down. why are societies so afraid to target men and call them out for their responsibility in the driving up the demand for trafficked women? i think prevention/education campaigns along with prosecution are sorely needed. all the education in the world for women won't do anything to curb the demand created by men.

this guardian article about a study of 700 men that frequent prostitutes reveals that men who pay for sex have rarely fall into a distinct profile. there seems to be only one pattern among men who visit prostitutes: they have a penis. so, um, why don't we target men more often? why aren't there more prosecutions?

"When asked what would end prostitution, one interviewee laughed and said, "Kill all the girls." Paul told me that it would take "all the men to be locked up". But most of them told the researchers that they would be easily deterred if the current laws were implemented. Fines, public exposure, employers being informed, being issued with an Asbo or the risk of a criminal record would stop most of the men from continuing to pay for sex. Discovering the women were trafficked, pimped or otherwise coerced would appear not to be so effective."

i really can't offer any constructive solutions, but you should read the article. it's chilling.

the old, the new

2010-09-21T02:10:00.002-05:00

living overseas for two years now, sometimes i get jaded and a little know-it-all-y. for example... what's that? oh, that's just a monkey riding a bicycle. again.

having visitors here is a great way to remind yourself that things you experience really are out of the ordinary, unusual or amazing. my friend sarah who i lived with in india in 2004 is visiting. this is the second country she's visited me in (she came to the DR, too). she wins the friend of the century award.

in addition to re-discovering old things, i'm still constantly finding new things that make me really excited to be here and not quite ready to go to the U.S. meeting new people, going down the wrong road and trying new things can lead to a brand new totally awesome, or possibly totally miserable experience. why not try?

never gets old: getting a massage at the women's prison.

lotus flowers

new night market find: BANANA CARAMEL WAFFLES. jeez, do i only smile in food pictures? i guess so.

beautiful faces - no two are ever the same

a mosaic i never noticed at a temple i've been to like a dozen times.

CHURROS. same night market. when am i going to be able to spend $2 and bliss out on churros and waffles? the answer is never again.

beautiful, glorious avocados are never not a reason to celebrate.

i will never get tired of being able to buy amazing, gorgeous flowers for a few dollars. i have gardenias in a vase by my bed -- THAT is the epitome of luxury.

no joke

2010-09-19T09:00:00.006-05:00

they're baaaaaa-ack. today is the 4 year anniversary of the coup here in thailand that ousted prime minister thaksin shinawatra. and what do thais do to celebrate? why, they protest, of course! i got caught behind a red shirt parade of dancing, singing, proselytizing redshirts in chiang mai today while driving my red truck. it's like my destiny is to be a part of the thailand protests whether i want to or not. hopefully this is just an anniversary party and not a redoubling of their efforts.

pumpkin

2010-09-18T06:54:00.010-05:00

though i don't write about food as often as i would like, you must know that it is never far from my mind... or my lips. my current food obsession is fall foods; today i had a pumpkin chocolate chip cake with cream cheese icing. i die.

phillip and i have had a regular place that we eat at at least twice every time we come to chiang mai. the restaurant, prego, is italian/thai, and we choose to eat the thai food and then get tiramisu for dessert. they use a lot of fresh vegetables and brown rice and it's just a great place to get lighter thai fare. anticipating the loss of their pumpkin red curry in my life, i asked the chef/owner (a thai guy with really great arms) if he would share the recipe with me. even better yet, he offered to give me a cooking demonstration. recipe is below. enjoy the hell out of it, my friends.

red curry with pumpkin

boil 200 g. cubed pumpkin for 4 minutes, set aside.
heat 1 T. soya oil, 1 tsp. red curry, 1 crushed garlic cloves.
add desired vegetables and tofu (eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, mushrooms) and cook for 2 minutes.
add 1 c. water, 1 c. coconut milk, 1 T soya sauce, 1 T. oyster sauce, 1/2 t. sugar, 2 kaffir lime leaves. simmer.
pour into a bowl over thai sweet basil. finish soup with chili oil and sliced red chiles.

the best saddest place in the world

2010-09-14T01:34:00.009-05:00

you know how it is -- zoos are terrible places full of abuse of animals and a misunderstanding of animals' true desire to be free. but then again they're also the best place in the world because you get to PLAY WITH THEM. like i said, moral dilemma. we visited what we optimistically referred to as a rescue zoo (it's totally not) in chiang rai this weekend. there's a local assortment of seemingly random animals: porcupines, jaguars, bears and many monkeys. the also had myna birds that could make a sounds like a motorcycle revving and they said sawatdeekhap to us. if we left all these animals alone in the wild, how would they bring us joy and say hello to us?

an island with a handful of rabbits, a few ducks and exactly one monkey.

september 11

2010-09-10T23:15:00.001-05:00

this quote from really thoughtful article by george freidman of stratfor* really stood out to me. i went to policy school, after all.

Let me state a more radical thesis: The threat of terrorism cannot become the singular focus of the United States. Let me push it further: The United States cannot subordinate its grand strategy to simply fighting terrorism even if there will be occasional terrorist attacks on the United States. Three thousand people died in the 9/11 attack. That is a tragedy, but in a nation of over 300 million, 3,000 deaths cannot be permitted to define the totality of national strategy. Certainly, resources must be devoted to combating the threat and, to the extent possible, disrupting it. But it must also be recognized that terrorism cannot always be blocked, that terrorist attacks will occur and that the world's only global power cannot be captive to this single threat.

* i applied for an unpaid internship at stratfor once. after a disastrous group interview in which my fellow candidates began speaking russian and discussing their experiences doing research in the caucus mountains, i was never asked back. you best believe that if i knew russian, i would find a way to get PAID.

trafficking in the US

2010-09-08T23:33:00.001-05:00

trafficking happens in the US, we all know this. there was a big trafficking ring busted this week in north dakota. if you see suspicious activity or fear that trafficking has taken place in any capacity (labor, sex), call the national human trafficking hotline at 888-373-7888.

frivolity

2010-09-08T01:52:00.010-05:00

one of my goals in my last few months here is to enjoy things more, have more parties and stop spending so much time on the internet. to that end, we celebrated with our friend eleanor for her birthday last night in phayao. phayao can be pretty fun when it wants to be. gotta love expat parties -- we dined on thai frog (i tried it, really), south african red wine and then a french guy showed up straight from the plane with a wheel of french melt-in-your-mouth-it-ain't-kraft-singles camembert cheese that we all went nuts for. also, thanks, marie for all the birthday stuff you've sent that we've recycled over and over. we should all try to have more parties, i think.

happy weekend

2010-09-03T02:14:00.007-05:00

an elephant dance party complete with kazoos and hula hoops because... why the hell not? i have a ton of photos and videos of our two years in thailand that i'll be going through and putting before we go -- get excited.

we're on our way to bangkok for the weekend for an ELF bowling fundraiser. woo hoo! enjoy your long weekend.

september campaign

2010-09-02T02:33:00.004-05:00

charity:water is 4 this year. they have brought so much water to so many people in such a short time and now their september birthday campaign continues.

2 years

2010-09-01T04:24:00.009-05:00

i just realized that today is our two year anniversary of living in thailand, which is a perfect time to tell you that... we're leaving! it's been the plan all along, really, but our departure is starting to loom ambiguously and i thought it deserved a proper announcement. when we go back to the states for christmas we'll be packing all our stuff - not just some of it - and heading off to a new adventure. what adventure i can't exactly tell you because i don't have a new job and phillip isn't sure if he'll continue to freelance or what. we don't know where we're headed, either. this is kind of a non-announcement, i guess.

it must be said that i love thailand, our friends and my students. it's just time for different challenges. hell, i've mastered driving stick with my left hand. i can pretty much retire... i do want to say one thing, though. to me, thailand doesn't have definitive story line in our lives with a beginning and end. so many people ask "when are you moving back?" in part with the expectation that thailand was an experiment, a blip, a nice-but-seriously-when-are-you-gonna-get-real-and-settle-down-in-AMERICA kinda thing. i don't mean to be overly defensive or oh-so-bohemian, but this is my life. i'm blessed that thailand has been a part of my life, and i want to continue to seek out experiences that enliven and challenge and allow me to meet new people wherever that may be. thailand isn't over and we're not running back to the US. there are people here we love and we will return.

as for the future, i'm open to the living and working in the US or possibly overseas again. just please, god, not a place with a language as impossible to learn as thai. and no more bombs. a peaceful english or spanish speaking country with a wider availability of tacos and only a $300 flight away from my family, please. living in america seems really attractive when i'm doing my laundry in 4 stages or want pancakes at 2 in the morning (i miss you, kerbey lane), but sometimes convenience seems insipid and even atrophic. america makes me feel slightly lazy and entitled. maybe not for everyone, but for me. the challenge, excitement and even stress of living overseas can be addictive, too. bring it on taxi driver trying to charge me too much to get to the airport -- I WILL END YOU. okay, so living overseas can make you a little crazy, too.

to be honest, we're going with the first job to offer us health insurance, so i don't mean to sound overly noble. life is a journey blah blah blah, but how much does it pay? i am excited to continue working with nonprofits or businesses to advance the rights and expand the opportunities of women and children and the poor. sadly, that could take me anywhere in the world. i'm stoked about these last few months in thailand (and a trip to vietnam) and i'm anxious/holy crap what are we gonna do/excited for what's next. delicious ambiguity.

so christi's mom knows she's alive. and having fun.

2010-08-26T04:43:00.011-05:00

today i have a very special guest post from christi finley to memorialize her month-long stay. she leaves tomorrow; thailand won't be the same without her. here are her thailand trip top tens:

BEST
10. laying in bean bags watching rain storm roll in from kiosk coffee shop @ emporium, bangkok
9. bangkok art and culture center, both collections and community vibe = superb.8. OUTDOOR showering @ naga hill bungalow, chang rai
7. pad krapow moo gai dao, mango sticky rice, coconut water, bacardi breezers, garlic & pepper fish = newly discovered favorites.
6. embarrassing constance regularly.
5. GINGER and jazz club playing latin music in chang mai
4. juice box cocktails AND mosquito net dance parties (& lounge parties) in swankiest, most UNFATHOMABLE hotel ever.

3. FREAKING ELEPHANTS MAN! (watching them bathe/show off and petting/feeding them)

2. falling in love with, getting dominated in badminton by, and making disciples of the ELF club boys.

1. evenings at kwan phayao watching older adults dance under a maypole at sunset and consuming fresh seafood with my best friends.

WORST
(there are actually only 8... and it was a stretch to even think of that many!)
8. HORRIBLE pop music on buses blaring at 5am.

7. threat of dengue considering obscene amount of mosquito bites received.
6. waterfall falls being closed for rainy season.
5. ostrich riding not working out
4. becoming an addict of a stupid-ass show about vampires (could also be filed in best category, when we are ready to be honest).

3. watching western men unabashedly flaunt around their purchased "date" for the night/week.
2. learning of the many layers of prostitution and trafficking- not just how tragic it can be, but also the ways society is either encouraging or forcing this lifestyle through umbalanced gender roles/value, hopeless poverty, and lack of options for these women and children in thailand and many parts of asia.
1. having to go home.

i gotta be me

2010-08-24T02:12:00.001-05:00

koh lanta

2010-08-23T03:01:00.000-05:00

we are HERE. it is pretty much my dream hotel -- luxe minimalism that incorporates its natural surroundings. i am going to build my beach farm like this someday. lest you all think i live beyond my means, let me share some travel secrets with you:

1. it's off season and we got a discount.

2. we make our own cocktails (with juice boxes).

3. we took 2 night buses, 1 minibus and 2 ferries (totaling 25 hours) to get here from phayao.

4. be disappointed so many times that you know when to spurge and when to save.

best friends.

2010-08-22T07:12:00.004-05:00

christi looks like she teaches kindergarten at a montessori school. in other words, she looks fun.

i can rarely be seen wearing more than two colors at a time. in other words, i look sane.

christi's bag is full of crafts and jewelry and games. my bag is waterproof. we're very different people, but we've enjoyed each other's company oh so very much. we've even been on buses for 22 of the last 48 hours, and we STILL like each other. her time is almost up so we're off to the beach!

floating market

2010-08-20T11:03:00.009-05:00

warhol, meet phayao

2010-08-18T03:40:00.002-05:00

this week at ELF club i showed the girls art from da vinci to banksy. i could teach english all day long, but i really enjoy introducing them to new things or things they may not ever see. i had them copy their favorite paintings. check it.

min and her warhol

kao and her van gogh

ploy and her van gogh

girl whose name i can't remember and warhol's marilyn

rainy season

2010-08-17T00:35:00.004-05:00

everything here is verdant and lovely. also, wet. that's all.

the great commission

2010-08-12T10:16:00.008-05:00

after being a part of ELF club for only 2 short weeks, christi has made disciples. of herself.

ALL christi ALL the time

2010-08-09T22:32:00.017-05:00

our car is identical to public transportation -- song taos. people try to flag us down.

phillip works a lot. even at the tiger farm.

christi loved it. joey was a bit stressed.

orchid and butterfly farm.

tuk tuk. only way to travel. except for perhaps elephants.

MUGATAW! thai-style barbecue.

self explanatory.

we were at chiang mai's walking street market and got caught in the rain and got SOAKED.

but a strawberry basil martini made things better.

tigers: a tale of even more extreme bravery

2010-08-09T21:30:00.005-05:00

i kissed a tiger on the FACE! so did christi, but it lunged at her and i dropped the camera.

elephants: a tale of bravery

2010-08-09T12:41:00.006-05:00

it makes me happy.

2010-08-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

art.

christi finley in phayao.

teaching geography to kids who can't find their own country on a map. now they can (they better).

japanese chocolate.

new earrings from afghanistan via jatujak market

new havaianas and new nail polish.

ELF club

prajwala

2010-08-04T02:59:00.006-05:00

i've mentioned dr. sunitha krishnan before for her remarkable TED talk about her fight to not only prevent trafficking but garner acceptance for ex-sex workers returning to the workforce. i found out about her organization prajwala's new ad campaign on osocio, a great blog to follow to learn about social media campaigns. they have developed what i think is an amazing tag line for their campaign:

a prostitute only becomes one when you hire her.

so many times sex workers are labeled by their profession in an extremely damaging, permanent way. the words "prostitute" and "whore" have no male equivalent for the men initiating and funding the sex. even the male-associated "pimp" has become a cool, hip word while women are slandered as "prostitutes" and seen as sinful, unclean, low caste, cursed or defective. in thailand in particular, an estimated 90%* of thai men visit prostitutes. there is no derogatory term for them, there is no social outrage against them and they are not penalized in job interviews or by their community or forced to care for children born from the sex they paid for. women who have exchanged sex for money are not any more permanently dirty or sinful than the men who visit them. changing the way society views sex workers is a seemingly impossible thing, but this campaign defies the idea that it will be done gently. the realities described are ugly, but they become the lives for thousands or trafficked and enslaved women in india and around the world. i encourage you to check out prajwala's website for more information.

* in the book sex slaves

S-E-X

2010-08-03T01:35:00.008-05:00

got your attention? we sure had the attention of every girl in ELF club yesterday when we passed around condoms and tampons. christi is a nurse in seattle (well, almost) and i asked her to talk to my girls about being a girl and sex and all that. i stand firmly in the camp of letting girls know their options and making them feel in control of sex. i made sure to reiterate that it's a decision only they could make for themselves, christi made sure to reiterate the anatomy (the girls had no idea what a period really was or what it meant) and tung (my roommate) was the best, least awkward translator ever. no matter where you are geographically, it's good to reassure girls that no one can make the decision to have sex but them. no boys who say they love you, no boys who say they'll take care of your baby, NO BOYS can tell you what to do with your body or force you to do something you don't want to do. thai women don't get this message from society, from their peers or even from health teachers (they don't even have health teachers). the girls were kind of embarrassed at first, but were later fascinated by christi, by tampons and by the fact that adults were treating them like adults by talking to them about sex.

i believe it's really important that we teach about how to stay healthy and explain safe sex options because the girls get virtually no information from schools or their parents. sadly, if a girl gets pregnant in thailand she is not allowed to return to school, ultimately ending her economic opportunities and possibly pushing her into exploitative working conditions such as prostitution. it seems really unfair to not tell a girl how to not get pregnant and then penalize her for doing so. abstinence is foolproof. abstinence-only education is not.

puppies with giant heads

2010-07-31T12:00:00.001-05:00

christi chronicles

2010-07-30T20:16:00.003-05:00

hong kong: the food

2010-07-30T05:19:00.001-05:00

and now for everyone's favorite... FOOD. even the food in hong kong comes with views. click here to read about the illustrious history of the tribute vegetable, my side dish at lunch. only in china can your side dish come with a 2000 year old story.

it's back, BABY. i found my favorite street food from beijing - sugar coated strawberries- at the dragon boat festival. be still my saccharine-coated heart.

vegetarian dumplings and noodles. not doughy or heavy, but light and perfect. also, the owner of the restaurant got in a fight with the kitchen staff, so the dish came with entertainment.

rice paper for vietnamese food and views of the harbor. oh, and a banana souffle with caramel ice cream. i die.

our drinks- a violet martini and a beer and LOBSTER GRILLED CHEESE at the peninsula.

my airport toffee pecan cookie. goodbye hong kong.

hong kong: the sights

2010-07-29T05:08:00.001-05:00

a friend of mine told me that people make the mistake of coming to hong kong expecting to find a chinese city when in fact it's an international city. this distinction is important because it informs what you will be eating and what language you'll be speaking. he was right; i didn't find much of the chinese-ness i was expecting. i could have been eating and shopping and subwaying pretty much anywhere in the world, but no place other than hong kong has the amazing views of victoria harbor.

dragon boat races! also, get out of our picture LADY.

lorne wanted to shop for nikes forEVER, prompting phillip to lose his mind and motor skills.

our super luxurious hotel room! which is exactly as wide as phillip is tall!

who stands in line for an hour to spend $1000 on a handbag? sad, sad people. the consumerism really is shocking, even as an american. i think if i lived there i would start shoplifting to keep up with all the pressure to shop and wear labels. i stopped counting at 10 super luxury malls.

hong kong: art

2010-07-28T05:02:00.004-05:00

enjoying urbanity, art, dumplings and squally rain. more to come.

this is just to say

2010-07-22T03:10:00.007-05:00

i've been home for less than a week now, and we're off again to hong kong to meet lorne. needless to say, i am super excited about the food, shopping and beaches in hong kong. did you know they have beaches? well, they do.

when i get back my best, blondest, most colorful, funniest, most superlative friend, christi, is coming to bangkok and will be staying with me for a whole month. hooray! these are heady times, what with seeing 2 friends two weeks in a row. we haven't had this much social interaction in a long time -- since, oh, since we lived in america. lorne and christi were the two virtual attendants at our wedding, too, so it's a reunion of sorts.

it's rained all week in phayao (finally, we've had the driest rainy season ever), and i've been trying to both relax at home and get lots of work done since i'm leaving again. both ELF clubs are doing well; the kids show up at our house after school, eager to be entertained. the burden falls mainly on phillip since the group consists of mainly boys that find him to be the most irresistibly awesome human climbing wall. last weekend we took a rainy roadtrip to the burma border and i found plums at the market, which are my favorite and which i never get. so i will leave you with this...

This is Just To Say 
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in 
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving 
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet 
and so cold

aloha (the goodbye one this time)

2010-07-14T00:34:00.003-05:00

bye, family. it was good to have a week with you in america. well, america's fantasy land.

for gram

2010-07-11T03:33:00.010-05:00

scenes from our house, the waterfalls, farmer's market, beaches, snow cone stands and canyons in kauai.

2010-07-09T02:20:00.000-05:00

turning japanese

2010-07-06T03:53:00.010-05:00

i'm chilling in the tokyo airport for a few hours, waiting for my connection to hawaii. adventure! living in asia for the last two years i've been very aware that japan is considered the pinnacle of asian society. japan is home to the best boy bands, the best electronics, the latest fashions and the most money. i've always written the hierarchy off as undemocratic and unattractive, but i fear that i've caught japan fever. i'm just in the airport and i'm fascinated by the shops, i've had amazing sushi and drank several teas from vending machines (which somehow seem magical and foreign) and get excited when i see hello kitty and sake. i hope my southeast asian inferiority complex is reversible. i can't wait to visit the actual country, but the airport is proving overstimulating as it is for a jetlagged girl coming from rural thailand.

ps- it took 5 seconds for each picture to upload as opposed to 2-3 minutes in thailand. MAGIC!

wasabi kit kats. ever since i heard this story on NPR, i've wanted to try them.

aloha

2010-07-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

i leave for hawaii early tomorrow morning to meet my family for their summer vacation! i made a playlist we'll be rocking to all week long that reminds me of kauai -- the waterfalls, the sunsets, the volcanoes, and the beach. click here to listen and it will be like you're there. sort of.

make her say - kid cudi

dance, dance, dance - lykke li

boy lilikoi - jónsi

dreams - passion pit

om nashi me - edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros

inaudible melodies - jack johnson

little bit - lykke li

hengilás - jónsi

photo from here.

pancakes > school

2010-07-02T00:46:00.007-05:00

my days are filled with trying to entertain children. i'm supposed to be educating, i suppose, but i gotta be honest, i'm not an educator. my role is closer to glorified babysitter or trained helper monkey. here are some of the kids playing a game at the school i teach at 3 times a week:

i've also been trying to create more student activities and supplemental education opportunities for our scholarship students since their schools just aren't cutting it. i started an after school program at our house and for weeks no one would show up. i was pretty upset until yesterday 3 boys showed up and we watched harry potter, played games and painted. hooray!

it went so well, in fact, that a boy who came yesterday skipped school today to come finish harry potter. he's currently eating phillip's chocolate chip pancakes. not exactly what i was going for, but i'll take it.

USA! USA! USoh. nevermind.

2010-06-28T13:52:00.003-05:00

watching the world cup games has been an unexpected thrill. unexpected because i've never watched soccer, and in general i hate sports. even my two-sizes-too-small heart has been warmed by the universality of "football." it's also probably a million times more fun to watch the games in other countries in which people actually enjoy football and know stuff about it. TVs have magically appeared in the wooden sheds and restaurants in our neighborhood. driving through town at night, when the games are broadcast here, you can see green glows of the screen and hear people cheering (and those damned vuvuzelas), even though thailand has no team.

i remember watching the last world cup in cuba, where you don't feel like you're in the modern world at all, and yet it managed to make cuba part of things through spectatorship. football is the great equalizer. that's our new roommate, tung, by the way, who moved in a few weeks ago to work for ELF. she's cool and has been teaching us about football. the US lost, but still loving having games to watch every night. i do have a bunch of US stickers left, though, if anyone wants them.

i live in the wrong asian country

2010-06-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

catchafire.org

2010-06-25T22:53:00.000-05:00

i HATE it when an idea that i totally have had/came close to acting on becomes an actual thing. but, you know, good for the people that did it and i'm glad that mankind can now benefit from it. at catchafire.org (i totally would have come up with an awesomer name) an individual can sign up to volunteer what they're good at. in turn, a nonprofit can sign up for what they need. this way an organization doesn't get a lot of well-meaning idiots standing around, completely unqualified for the task at hand. and individuals can make the most out of their volunteering hours so that they're not like making copies if they have an engineering degree. genius. i would have called it help and help alike. or don't just stand there, do what youre good at. catchy, huh?

so if you're looking to volunteer or you have a nonprofit looking for qualified volunteers, give it a try and let me know what you think. i doubt the network expands to phayao.

2010-06-25T03:01:00.002-05:00

In our society that's so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other! You'll get more satisfaction from having improved your neighborhood, your town, your state, your country, and your fellow human beings than you'll ever get from your figure, your car, your house, or your credit rating.

-Sargeant Shriver

lovebirds

2010-06-23T22:02:00.001-05:00

i'm not obsessed. promise. it's just that these are too good not to share. especially the part when the bird almost collapses when phillip gets on.

2010 TIP Report

2010-06-23T02:20:00.007-05:00

READ THIS: the US department of state's trafficking in persons report was recently released, and i was of course interested to see how thailand fared. interestingly, the US ranked itself for the first time in this 10th annual report with a Tier 1 status (like an A). thailand, unsurprisingly, faired only a Tier 2 WL, meaning they're trying, but not really. thailand's not even party to the UN TIP protocol, meaning they have not even agreed to try to improve standards minimally. way to go guys. i totally just copied and pasted the whole thailand section because i find it all so interesting, but you may not. to see the short list of how all the ranked countries did, go here. even poor (literally) little cambodia fared better than thailand.

in thailand, the concept of saving face is very important, but they've ignored/profited from this problem for so long that i doubt they will respond to the reproach of this 2 WL grade and mentions of police corruption. while we were watching the world cup the other night, phillip found this story about how the thai national team, amazingly and obviously, TRIED TO LOSE a 1998 ASEAN football championship game against indonesia so that they could next play an easier team since they were already guaranteed advancement. evidently only thailand gets to decide when thailand loses face.

OPTIONAL:
THAILAND (Tier 2 Watch List)

Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Individuals from neighboring countries and from as far away as Russia and Fiji migrate to Thailand fleeing conditions of poverty. Migrants from Burma, who make up the bulk of migrants in Thailand, seek economic opportunity and escape from military repression. The majority of trafficking victims identified within Thailand are migrants who have been forced, coerced, or defrauded into forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking victims within Thailand were found employed in maritime fishing, seafood processing, low-end garment production, and domestic work. In particular, Burmese, Cambodian, and Thai men were found trafficked onto Thai fishing boats that traveled throughout Southeast Asia, and who remained at sea for up to several years, did not receive pay, and were threatened and physically beaten. Observers noted that traffickers (including labor brokers) who bring foreign victims into Thailand generally work as individuals or in unorganized groups, while those who enslave Thai victims abroad tend to be more organized. Migrants, ethnic minorities, and stateless people in Thailand are at a greater risk of being trafficked than Thai nationals. Undocumented migrants remain particularly vulnerable to trafficking, due to their economic status, education level, language barriers, and lack of understanding of their rights under Thai law. Some children from neighboring countries have been forced to sell flowers, beg, or work in domestic service in urban areas. Most Thai trafficking victims abroad who were repatriated back to Thailand with assistance from the Thai government had been exploited in Bahrain, Malaysia, the Maldives, and Singapore. Some Thai men who migrate for low-skilled contract work in Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Israel, the United States, and Gulf States are subjected to conditions of forced labor and debt bondage. During the year, Thai workers were subjected to conditions of forced labor in Sweden, Poland, and the United States for work in slaughterhouses, on construction sites, and on farms. Men are generally trafficked within Thailand for the purpose of labor, although women and children are also trafficked in labor cases. Commercial sexual exploitation and forced prostitution generally involve victims who are women and girls. Sex tourism has historically been a significant problem in Thailand, and likely is a factor in trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.

The Government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government continued implementation of its comprehensive anti-human trafficking law that came into force in 2008, continued training on the law, and conducted awareness-raising activities on human trafficking. Despite these significant efforts, the government’s overall effort to address forced labor and forced prostitution of foreign migrants and Thai citizens did not make adequate progress; therefore Thailand is placed on Tier 2 Watch List. The Thai government made limited efforts to identify trafficking victims, but reports and confirmed cases of large numbers of trafficking victims exploited within the country and Thai citizens exploited in other countries persisted. While corruption is believed to be widespread within the Thai law enforcement community, the government did not report investigations into any trafficking-related cases. Given the significant scope and magnitude of trafficking in Thailand, there were a low number of convictions for both sex and labor trafficking, and of victims identified among vulnerable populations.

Recommendations for Thailand: Improve efforts to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, in particular undocumented migrants; increase efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict both sex and labor trafficking offenders; improve efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict officials engaged in trafficking-related corruption; ensure that offenders of fraudulent labor recruitment and exploitation of forced labor receive stringent criminal penalties; improve labor inspection standards and procedures to better detect workplace violations, including instances of trafficking; allow all adult trafficking victims to travel, work, and reside outside of shelters; provide legal alternatives to the removal of trafficking victims to countries in which they would face retribution or hardship; develop and implement mechanisms to allow adult foreign trafficking victims to reside in Thailand, as well as to seek and find employment outside shelters; ensure complaint mechanisms such as hotlines are staffed by personnel conversant in migrants’ languages; make greater efforts to educate migrant workers on their rights, their employers’ obligations to them, legal recourse available to victims of trafficking, and how to seek remedies against traffickers; and increase anti-trafficking awareness efforts directed at employers and clients of the sex trade.

Prosecution
The Thai government made limited progress in its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts during the reporting period. The Royal Thai Police reported investigating 134 trafficking cases from June 2008 to November 2009, but was unable to provide any details regarding cases it reported to involve trafficking during the year. The Office of the Attorney General reported that prosecutors initiated 17 trafficking-related prosecutions in 2009 and eight in the first two months of 2010. Thailand’s 2008 anti-trafficking law criminally prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes penalties from four to ten years’ imprisonment – penalties that are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious offenses, such as rape. At least eight trafficking-related convictions were handed down in 2009, including five in labor-trafficking related cases. Sentences for offenders convicted in 2009 in trafficking-related cases ranged from two years to death, though some convicted offenders were released pending appeal. Frequent personnel changes hampered the government’s ability to make greater progress on anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. The government did not report investigating or prosecuting any registered Thai labor brokers involved in the trafficking of Thai workers abroad during the year. The justice system remained slow in its handling of criminal cases, including trafficking cases. The government has not yet tried a 2006 case involving forced labor of Burmese workers in a shrimp processing factory. In November 2009, Thai courts convicted two Thai citizens for subjecting Burmese migrants to forced labor in their Samut Sakhon shrimp processing factory and sentenced them to five and eight years’ imprisonment, the first human trafficking conviction involving Thailand’s problematic fisheries-related industries. In November 2009, authorities, in partnership with NGOs, rescued 51 Burmese workers from a locked room near a fishing port, where it is believed they would have been sent as laborers on fishing vessels. A court convicted one individual in this case and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment; the case reportedly remains under investigation. Authorities have not arrested any offenders involved in the July 2006 case of 39 deaths on a fleet of six fishing vessels from conditions of malnutrition due to the captains’ failure to provide food and freedom to the seafarers. Corruption remained widespread among Thai law enforcement personnel, and there were reports that local police, including some who have taken anti-trafficking training, protected brothels, other commercial sex venues, and seafood and sweatshop facilities from raids or inspections. There was no information indicating that there was any tolerance for trafficking at an institutional level. Nonetheless, the government did not report investigations or prosecutions of Thai officials for trafficking-related corruption.

Protection
The Thai government demonstrated mixed efforts to protect foreign and Thai victims of trafficking. Thai immigration authorities reported identifying at least 60 victims of trafficking in 2009, although observers asserted improved efforts are needed to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, including among thousands of foreigners deported for immigration violations each month. The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) reported 530 foreign trafficking victims identified and assisted in 2009, most of whom were victims of forced labor, as well as 79 Thai citizens who were repatriated after being trafficked abroad. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported assisting and repatriating 309 Thai nationals classified as trafficking victims. Thai law protects identified victims from being prosecuted for acts committed as a result of being trafficked. However, adult trafficking victims identified by authorities were sometimes detained in government shelters for up to several years. Foreign victims could not opt to reside outside of shelters or leave before Thai authorities were prepared to repatriate them. The Thai government opened three additional trafficking shelters for men, who were recognized under Thai law in 2008 as potential victims. The government refers victims of trafficking to one of nine long-stay regional shelters run by the MSDHS, where they receive psychological counseling, food, board, medical care, and legal assistance. Foreign trafficking victims are not offered legal alternatives to their removal to countries where the victims may face hardship or retribution. Though Thailand’s 2008 trafficking law contains a provision for granting foreign victims the right to seek employment while awaiting conclusion of legal processes, the Thai government does not appear to have provided victims with this right. As such, foreign victims of trafficking are not provided the same opportunities as other foreign nationals who seek and receive permission to work in Thailand. During the year, the government revised and redistributed systematic trafficking victim screening procedures to guide law enforcement and other front line responders in the process of victim identification.

The formal repatriation process between Thai and foreign authorities was often lengthy, sometimes causing victims to remain in government shelters for up to several years. This resulted in attempts by some victims to escape from government shelters. The government provided limited incentives for victims to participate in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers, including reported efforts to help victims receive compensatory damages from employers in forced labor cases, but reports indicate that the government did not systematically make victims aware of this option. Long stays in shelters in some cases acted as disincentives to doing so. Language barriers, fear of traffickers, distrust of government officials, slow legal processes, and the inability to earn income during trial proceedings all played a role in the decision of some victims to not participate in the Thai legal process, including criminal prosecutions. During the year, the Thai government implemented the Nationality Verification and Granting an Amnesty to Remain in the Kingdom of Thailand to Alien Workers program to register and protect undocumented migrants (who are more vulnerable to trafficking) by bringing them into the formal labor market and providing them with related benefits. However, observers reported concerns that Burmese migrants are vulnerable to exploitation, including trafficking, due to unique provisions of the program.

Prevention
The Thai government made limited efforts to prevent human trafficking, including awareness raising activities by the Prime Minister and other senior officials. At times partnering with international organizations and NGOs, the government conducted various activities that targeted potential victims in high-risk groups and/or aimed to prevent and eliminate child labor and forced labor. The government did not sufficiently address some structural vulnerabilities to trafficking created by its migrant policies, namely the travel requirements and fees associated with its “nationality verification” process that increase vulnerability to debt bondage and trafficking. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported spending $185,000 on trafficking protection and prevention activities throughout the year. The government implemented a trafficking awareness campaign targeted at youth in Thailand. It also partnered with NGOs to host awareness raising events, and worked with an international organization on efforts to prevent child and forced labor. The MSDHS organized several anti-trafficking awareness sessions for government officials and civil society representatives. The Thai government cooperated in the extradition of several foreign child sex tourists, but made limited efforts to reduce the domestic demand for commercial sex acts. Thai authorities worked with NGOs in occasional police raids to shut down brothels and conducted awareness-raising campaigns targeting tourists’ demand for child sex tourism. In 2009, Thai and Burmese authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in human trafficking. The Thai government also developed plans of actions under other existing agreements with Laos and Vietnam. Thailand is not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

last city you're welcome

2010-06-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

tesco lotus is our big walmart-like store in phayao where i buy diet coke, imported produce and awesomely hilarious tshirts. when lorne was here last year he bought like 20 (perhaps you remember run gangster rapper?). i found these yesterday when i was standing in line and bought "national explorer" for phillip and "i like to party on the beach" for my brother since we are in fact going to the beach and indeed like to party there. the best ones are completely illogical, nonsensical and make you look like a fool. i want to meet the designer or design team behind these shirts and kiss them on the face.

redlight

2010-06-21T12:00:00.002-05:00

i've posted a dozen times and will probably post a dozen more about the wonderful things somaly mam has done. redlight, a new documentary, chronicles somaly mam and mu sochua's work in cambodia to free captive women and heal their hearts. worth knowing, worth watching

malaysia: kuala lumpur

2010-06-20T22:50:00.002-05:00

don't do drugs. no really.

islamic arts museum (best and prettiest)

malaysia textile museum

masjid jamek

world refugee day

2010-06-19T22:02:00.002-05:00

today is not only father's day, but also world refugee day, a day to remember and promote the rights of internally displaced people, asylum seekers and refugees. according to the most recent report from the UNHCR, there are currently more than 42 million displaced peoples worldwide. staggering, yes, but there are SO many great opportunities to help refugees and immigrants, particularly in texas, which is a popular resettlement destination. there's caritas, AAIM's refugee school and english at work in austin and the refugee services of texas can help you find opportunities to volunteer or give elsewhere in the state.

i recommend dave eggers's what is the what or the film lost boys of sudan to learn more about the lives of refugees re-settling in the US.

world cup

2010-06-19T05:21:00.005-05:00

last night we watched the USA play slovenia at egypt cafe in kuala lumpur. the world is great.

malaysia: eating

2010-06-17T12:13:00.000-05:00

we've been to penang, malaysia before, so coming to KL i was really excited about exploring the food again. malaysia is THE most diverse place i've ever been to and it manifests in the food as well. traditional chinese noodle shops, south indian vegetarian lunch stops, malay chicken served on banana leaves, moroccan tagines and some krispy kreme donuts thrown in for good measure. this is a typical sign in malaysia:

that's like 5 languges -- imagine the food possibilities! here in KL, about 30% of women wear abayas or headscarves, some people are speaking hindi, others arabic, there's a large chinese population and quite a few people have said "sawatdeeka" to me (that's thai). there are mosques (with the requisite calls to prayer), chinese temples, hindu temples and a large methodist schools. love love LOVE the food a culture like this produces. the goal is to have as many different cuisines a day as you can. and... go!

we followed a lot of the NY Times' 36 hours in KL. they recommended this chinese/malay place on jalan alor for the "world's best" chicken wings.

one of the best things about living in asia is that you can get crabs whenever you want cause they're not prohibitively expensive. if you giggled at that, get your mind out of the gutter. we're talking black pepper crabs here. from the same place as above.

grilled mackerel and stingray at a malay lunch stop. both delicious.

barbecued tofu. phillip wants me to learn how to make this at home.

chinatown! hoikken-style noodles with seafood. this was just in 2 days people! we had even more great drinks, from fresh mango lassis to chai to moroccan mint tea to phillip's favorite belgian beer. political history would tell you that this many cultures cannot co-exist peacefully. my theory is that all the ethnic groups in malaysia keep the peace by sharing their food with one another. a salaam alaykum.