Homework? What's that?

So it's my second week of classes and I already feel myself drowning in work! I knew that this semester would be academically challenging, but so far it's A LOT more than I expected!

I am LOVING my gender class, and I'm preparing a presentation for Thursday about some specific gender and feminism theories. I feel pretty comfortable because I am very familiar with the material. It's nice to feel somewhat 'in my element' when everything else is so foreign!

I'm also learning how to meditate in my Buddhism class. It's been very cool because I didn't realize how many misconceptions I had about meditating. A lot of people believe that meditation is about thinking about nothing, but so far in my experiences I'm learning that thinking in a focused and concentrated way is actually okay. It's very difficult, but I've been practicing every day so it's getting a little bit easier. Slowly but surely. 

Tonight, Tim and Lisa and I went to a Starbucks to get some work done. We had to pay for internet (bummer) but I ended up getting a lot of work done in a short amount of time. I think that getting away from campus for a bit helped me focus and tackle the beast.

I'm getting excited for this weekend because Saturday is Community Outreach Day. The international programs coordinates volunteerism projects all over Chiang Mai. I think that I'll be going to an organization called Agape, which is a home for orphans who are HIV positive. A lot of children are abandoned if they are discovered to be HIV positive, and there are a few organizations locally that take int he kids, get them the medicine and give them the love they need to survive.

More after this crazy week!

First Week of Classes and Weekend Retreat

Hi Everyone!

I've finally recovered from that long post about Mae Chaem! What a week Ive had! I started classes last Monday and I have 20 hours of class every week! That's almost twice as many hours as I have at St. Lawrence, so needless to say it's been a little hectic trying to adjust. I have to cram a semester's worth of knowledge into 7 weeks of classes before I go to Cambodia!

My Schedule is as follows:
Monday: Buddhism and Thai Society from 10am-Noon; Gender and Sexuality in Transition in Thailand from 1pm-3pm
Tuesday: Buddhism again, followed by Thai Language from 1-2:30pm and Southeast Asian Dance and Performance from 3-5pm
Wednesday: Required class for Cambodia from 10am-Noon (Economic Development in Southeast Asia: The Case of Thailand and Cambodia), then a huge chunk of free time until Dance at 3pm.
Thursday: Same as Monday
Friday: Thai Language from 1-2:30 pm

I haven't had classes on Friday since my Freshman year...say goodbye to three day weekends!
Each of my classes is very different and very interesting. In Buddhism, we are learning about the Buddha and his journey to becoming the Buddha, as well as foundation principles and theories. We will be practicing some Buddhist rituals as well as learning how to mediate and visiting different sacred Wats throughout the local area.
In Gender, we're learning about how sex, sexuality, and gender identity are shaped in Thailand as conseqeuences of globalization and neo-colonialism in the country. It's really interesting to see how politics, economics, and sex all collide here. Thailand is sometimes known as "the sex capital of the world" despite the government's official outlawing of prostitution in the 1960's. Our professor is a pretty well-known scholar and he's published a ton of work. He's an interesting guy and I'm really excited for the class!
In dance class, we're learning the different steps and hand motions to different Lanna dances (the traditional Northern Thailand dance), as well as how dance and performance are significant in different parts of Southeast Asia. I am finding that it is VERY difficult, but it is a fantastic way to try and connect with parts of Thai culture that feel so foreign to me. I'm not much of a dancer, but I figured Id try it because I'd never have such an opportunity! I just found this quick clip of the Fingernail Dance (which I'll be learning!)
My required class for Cambodia will be pretty dry, but definitely important in my preparations for the next segment of my trip. My professor is 80 years old and has been everywhere and done everything. Ever. He's a pretty cool guy, but he talks very slowly and puts me to sleep...

On Thursday night I started feeling pretty sick (bummer...) and was running a temperature by Friday morning. I stayed in bed all day, didn't go to class, and slept. I felt pretty crummy but was better by Saturday morning. A few other kids in the program experienced the same thing, so I suppose it's safe to assume we all ate something whose microbes did not agree with our American bodies. It was bound to happen!

I was relieved to be feeling better by Saturday morning as I had signed up for a 'retreat' of sorts with the International Student Union here at Payap. The ISU runs events and programs for the international students at the university, and they planned a camp at a 'resort.' I say 'resort' because it wasn't exactly a 4 star experience like I was expecting, but it was WONDERFUl regardless. We stayed in these bungalow rooms with AC (a luxury here) and hot water (an even greater luxury!). We stayed all day in the pool and had a huge barbeque for dinner. On Sunday morning, we checked out and traveled to a near by reservoir for a relaxing boat tour. It was BEAUTIFUL! Check it out:

My friends Nathan and Gina on the boat

Now it's getting late and I have to be up for a rigorous day of intellectual activity! Plus I have about 50 more pages of reading to do before I get to sleep. Studying habits don't seem to change no matter where in the world you go!

Back from the Hills

Hello again! I have finally returned from my blogging hiatus! The trip was amazing, and I want to make sure I let y'all know every wonderful detail of my stay in Mae Chaem (pronounced 'Ma-jem')! This might be a super-duper long post but bear with me :)

Monday (8/23): All of us on the Thai Studies program, plus a group of our 'Thai Buddies' loaded into three gigantic vans and made the 3 hour drive over and around the mountains to the small village of Ban Yang Luang in the heart of the Mae Chaem district. Villages in Northern Thailand are clumped together into sub districts and districts. In Mae Chaem, there are 7 sub-districts, and 85 villages divided between those sub-districts. We arrives around noon to the village and were greeted by local families with warm smiles. We were all a little nervous because very few people in the village could read Thai, let alone speak English. I was assigned to stay with a family who lived in the eastern part of the village, right along the rice fields. I bunked with my friends Anna and Burgundy. Our host mother ('Mae,' which means Mother in Thai) lead us to our room and we got settled before lunch at the temple.

Lunch was a communally produced and shared experience. Many people from the village brought food and we all sat and chatted. The food was duh-lish-us -- I have finally learned to stop asking what something is, and just eat it. I can tell you, it made my eating experiences that much more enjoyable. Most of the time you don't want to know what you're eating! Lunch was provided to us by the villagers every day, which only speaks to the sense of community, openness and friendly-ness of the people in the village. We had Thai langauge class with Loong Gai and Ajan (professor) Jenjit until around 4pm. The rest of the night we were left to explore our village and enjoy time with our new families. I walked out into the rice paddies for about a mile, and I was completely overwhelmed by the astounding beauty all around me. What amazed me the most was the intense shades of green; the grasses and trees are so lush, as it is the rainy season. I chose not to take any pictures during this walk because no photo could ever capture what I saw, and instead I created a memory so vivid and clear that I know I will remember it forever.

As far as I could tell, my family seemed reasonably financially comfortable. As in any town or city or village, there is definitely a scale of socioeconomic status. My Mae worked in the rice fields and I have no idea what my Pa did. All I know is that he had to drive a blue truck to get to and from work, so I assumed he worked outside the village. Both of my oldest two host sisters graduated from University, and my two younger sisters went to school at the district school. We also had a baby brother named Fohd, who was adorable...perhaps I can find a picture of him somewhere...
Here are some photos of my home and the important settings for the week.

Our front porch...the tiles were incredibly beautiful!

Our sleeping arrangements, where we were quite comfortably protected from bugs!

On the left is our kitchen and on the right is the door inside to the living room and bed rooms

Our classroom!

Surrounding rice paddies for hundreds of miles

Wat Ban Yang Luang, the social, spiritual, and cultural center of the village

Tuesday (8/24): We woke up around 8 and I had my first experience 'showering' without a shower. Our bathroom was a whole stone building with a squatting toilet, washing machine, and stone basin for bathing water. This was a curious experience, pouring freezing cold water over myself with a bucket and lathering up. I couldn't get my hair wet enough for shampoo, so Anna had to help me. I'm sure our host family thought we were crazy, but by Wednesday's shower I had figured out a system. We had breakfast in the living room, as our family had already been awake for so long and had eaten breakfast an hour earlier. We went to class at 9 and learned more about our village and Norther Thai customs. We also practiced introducing ourselves in Thai:
Di chan cheu Skylar, le di chan cheu-len Fah. Di chan maa jaak pra-thed Amerika!
Translation: My name is Skylar, and my nickname is Fah ('Sky' or 'Blue'). I am from the country America

It's very hard to type transliterated Thai into English because I don't have any keys to indicate tones! Anyway, I'm starting to get pretty good. My friend Anne says I pronounce Thai like a Thai person (which is an EXTREME boost of confidence!)

After lunch, our relationships with Northen Thai food got even more serious. We were lead into a neighborhood where five women had set up stations at their homes to teach us how to cook traditional Mae Chaem fare. We split into groups and rotated around the village, cooking and sampling new things.

Learning how to make 'gaeng khae,' spicy vegetable soup

Ingredients for 'gaeng khae:' tamarind, shrimp paste, leafy greens and salt/sugar

Bupe chopping up a whole chicken for the soup

Pope grinding chilies!

 Counter-clockwise from the blue drink: a sort of tea or juice made from blue flowers soaked in sugar water. Adding a lime wedge turns the color from blue to purple; ME learning how to shave a coconut; my new Thai friend Natacha cooking 'kha no'm tong yong' (rice flour grilled with cococut, palm sugar, sesame seeds, and nuts).

We returned home to our village only to be greeted with more food at dinner time. It was quite a feast of a day! I learned how to eat an entire fish without choking on small bones and avoiding eyeballs and other weird organs. After dinner, Burgundy and I took our books to the temple to read, as we had to wake up very early on Wednesday. While we were in the temple, a monk wandered over to us and sat with us for over an hour, teaching us how to count and how to say different parts of the body. We counted to 250 (song-roi-ha-sip) and the monk was growing increasingly frustrated with me as I cannot roll my r's. The 'r' in 'roi' (which is 'hundred') is rolled. I failed at every number after 99. He laughed at our flat American accents and we just giggled and tried our best. I also noticed that his Northern dialect was much different from what I had heard in Chiang Mai. This was an incredible experience as it is rare to spend intimate face time with a monk.

Wednesday (8/25): Wednesday started bright an early at 6am, as we were expected at the Temple by 6:20 to participate in the food offering ceremony for the monks. This, along with other ceremonies and celebration, happen once a month during the full moon. We sleepily got ourselves to the temple, but Anna, Burgundy and I did not know that we were supposed to bring food from our Mae! We couldn't really participate in the ceremony, which was a bummer, but it was amazing to watch how the community comes together to sustain the monks. The ceremony consists of a series of blessings of bowls of food from the villagers, and then the food is collected together and brought into the Wat for the monks. Each villager brings a bowl of rice and places a small amount into twenty or so bowls, so each of the offering bowls fills up with small handfuls of the villagers' rice. We had to sit and hold our hands in wai for a very long time, listening to chants in a language we would not understand. It was frustrating because I did not know about the traditions, so I found it difficult to relate and participate. Regardless, it was beautiful to watch how all of the people in Ban Yang Luang come together as a collective group and serve each other. The sense of family and community goal-making is apparent in every aspect of village life. Every person lives for each other; individual needs are trumped by collective needs.

After classes and lunch, we went on an incredible sight-seeing tour of Mae Chaem region.
Our first stop was just a few miles down the road to the house of a couple who make and sell local crafts. The old man is one of the last two people in the province who is trained in making brass hair pins, a tradition which has been lost as the villages become more and more developed. His wife weaves cotton bags; I bought 3 of them because they were so beautiful and unique.

Next, we visted two Wats: Wat Buddha-En and Wat Gong Gaan. Wat Buddha-En has a very interesting story: it is believed that on his trip around Asia teaching his dharma, the Buddha stopped at Wat Buddha-En as he was thirsty and tired. Here, the monks offered him water from the spring and he blessed the water. To this day, scientists cannot explain why the water at Wat Buddha-En is so clean; it is pure enough to take a drink straight from the spring. When you drink the water, you are blessed. Obviously, I had to try this out because it is impossible to find such clean water anywhere in Thailand.

 Wat Gong Gaan:

After Wat Gong Gaan, we wandered through corn fields to a rickety old bridge which we had to cross to access what Pi Neung called 'a great surprise.' It was terrifying, but the view from the top of the hill made the journey worth it:

Later on Wednesday night, we participated in another traditional ceremony which celebrates offering robes to the monks. Our Mae dressed us in the traditional sarongs and we met the other students and families for a parade throughout the town. Some of the American boys were designated to carry the money offering tree throughout the town, as part of the tradition seeks donations from the villagers. We danced and sang and celebrated as we paraded down the dirt roads, eventually ending up back at the temple. We paraded around the temple three times (*The number 3 in Buddhism is significant as it marks recognition and respect for 1. The Buddha, 2. His Teachings (Dharma), and 3. His followers (monks)). We presented the money and robes to the temple and then had a wonderful feast!

Thursday (8/26): Thursday was a much more calm and quiet day for us; I was thankful to have some time off from all the busy activities of the week. We had classes in the morning and lunch in the temple, followed by a long nap. Around 1pm, we were divided into three groups and went around our neighborhood to see what sorts of crafts people did for a living.

In the temple, my host grandfather taught us how to weave coconut leaves into different shapes like crocodiles and lattices.

At the next station, we learned how to make "crab-paste," a Mae Chaem delicacy which is sort of like a dip for vegetables and a sauce for meat. We were lead out into the rice paddies to catch the crabs. We teetered out into the fields and had to dig our hands into the mud and find a crab. The trick is to go into a hole like you aren't afraid because a crab can sense your hesitation and will SNAP at you. I couldn't find any, but my Mae gave me a crab to hold. She showed me how to hold its pinchers down so that it doesn't get your fingers! We collected buckets of crabs and brought them back to the house, where Mae dumped about 30 of them into a giant mortar and pestal. We very quickly found out what we had to do with them. No one would step up to do it, so I volunteered. I had to crush those poor little crabs up until they were mashed to a pulp (not very good for my karma I suppose?). Eventually, the crushed crabs are boiled down and it becomes a thick black liquid that smells and tastes extremely unpleasant. 

The third station was at a house whose residents were expert weavers. In the far back of the property, there was an outside work station set up. A very old woman was making scarves and explained, in Thai to our professor, that she could make about 8 scarves in a day! That's pretty incredible considering it's all done by hand on a loom. This woman worked in collective efforts with two other women to sell the goods; the other two bought the materials, the weaver weaves the goods, and then the other two sell them. I bought a few scarves to bring home as gifts!

Later that night, our entire group, Americans and Thais alike, gathered in a rice paddy under the full moon and told stories and took shots of rice whiskey. It was pretty awesome to just hang out in the middle of nowhere. We didn't even need flashlights or a candle because it was so light out.

Friday (8/27): Friday was a special day because we got to travel around Mae Chaem even further than we had on Wednesday. We visited the Raks Thai Foundation, an NGO working in rural areas of Thailand to help communities adjust to increasing introductions of development. They assist villages  in developing projects which support the community and provide jobs for individuals who are struggling. We visited sites for the teen-involvement programs, which gathers together groups of local kids and helps them plant trees around their neighborhoods to prevent erosion from deforestation. Deforestation is a huge problem in Thailand (as in most parts of the world), but it's very powerful to know that small groups are doing small acts to help combat the environmental damage. We also saw many trees that had special protections: they had been ordained as monks. Trees can be protected from deforestation if they are spiritually ordained as Buddhist Monks. They receive 'robes' of saffron (pieces of cloth tied around their trunks) and they stand for many years, safe in their homes. It's a very beautiful tradition:

Later int he evening, we participated in a special celebration for our honor! We gathered at the temple for another huge feast and then were called into a local traditional ceremony which gives protection to those who are about to depart from Ban Yang Luang. We, dressed once more in the traditional clothes on Mae Chaem, gathered in a circle and each held onto part of a string that wrapped around the whole circle. The head of the village and another local leader said prayers and mantras to 'keep in our 32 kwans.' "Kwans" are good spirits that reside in your head, and they can leave your body if you don't put in place the proper protections. Kwans protect you from evil and ensure good health and good luck as you go on your journey away from the village. After the prayers, our Mae's cut off pieces of the string and tied one around each wrist. We also received blessing bracelets from the Abbot (head monk); one is pink and one is white. They are blessings for good health and good fortune. Needless to say, I am very blessed and protected after this adventure!

 After the ceremony, the international students and the villagers had a chance to perform and share different dances, songs, or traditions from our cultures. We watched the village children perform a series of Lanna dances, and a group of Americans lead the villagers in different songs and dances. It was a wonderful way to close our trip with cross-cultural understanding and bonds. 

Here is Tyler, getting very excited about performing in another student's traditional dance from Bolivia

 

 Saturday (8/27): We awoke around 8am and took our last bucket shower before we packed up. We had breakfast with Mae and she presented Anna, Burgundy and I with scarves from the village. We said our goodbyes and made the way home to Chiang Mai. I was so sad to leave; I feel like I grew more in that week than I have in the past year. I tried so many new things and kept my mind wide open to receiving and processing new experiences. I am really proud of myself for this commitment to openness. There were lots of times when it was difficult, but I feel like I really got a lot out of my five days there. I hope someday to go back and see Mae!

p.s. I found a picture of my baby brother Fohd:

More soon after I recover from writing this entry (it took me 2 days!)

Elephant Ride!

Yesterday, I completed one of my bucket list tasks -- riding an elephant! A big group of 20 students trekked out to Maetaman Elephant Camp, about 20 kilometers north of Chiang Mai. A guide from the camp came to pick us up at 8:30am and we got a ride out to the camp (included in the price!)

When we arrived, we were first escorted to take a river ride on a bamboo raft. We floated down the river for about 40 minutes, taking in the incredible sights of the jungle. Since it's the rainy season in Thailand, everything is lush and so green. We even saw a crocodile floating in the water! It was peaceful and quiet, and it was an amazing way to see the mountains!

After our bamboo raft ride, we were bused back up the river to the camp. We watched the elephants show off their tricks and they came to the side of the cage to meet us! It was really amazing to touch one -- they are so big and tough feeling. Their size can feel intimidating, but they are very gentle.

After the show, it was time to climb on! We were seated in two's on top of each elephant, in little baskets with ralings for safety. There was a 'driver' of sorts sitting on the elephant's head. We walked through the camp, up the mountain, an down into a valley. It started to rain, but it felt nice because it was so hot. The landscapes were breathtaking -- it seems as though the world looks that much more beautiful when you are on top of an elephant.

Elephants 'holding hands'

After the elephant ride, we arrived in a small Lisu (hill-tribe) village where we had an opportunity to buy local goods. I got a deal on a beautiful silver bracelet (90 baht, just under $3). The next leg of the journey began as we mounted carts pulled by oxen. We rode in the rickety carts until we got back to the camp, where we ate a delicious buffet lunch. The whole day cost me 650 baht, just around $20. What a deal!

Last night, the whole group of Americans plus about 10 of our new Thai friends went out for one of the St. Lawrence student's birthdays. We had a great night and I didn't get home until 4:15 am! That's the latest I've ever stayed out. I slept most of today, which was okay because it rained most of the afternoon. This evening, Champ took out KK and me to a restaurant called "Riverside," which overlooked the Ping river that runs through the center of Chiang Mai. We had him order, and I was glad because he chose delicious things! We ate a spicy shrimp soup called Tom Yum Gung, an entire steamed white fish with lemongrass and garlic, some green vegetable that has no translatable English counterpart, and of course plenty of rice. It was amazing. I must say that eating is one thing I've been doing quite well here, despite my fears of getting sick. I've adjusted remarkably well!

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Mae Chaem -- a mountain village three hours outside of Chiang Mai. We'll be staying with families in the village, and we'll be learning all sorts of cool things like traditional cooking, farming, and cotton weaving. I'll be taking my Thai language class inside of a temple! As I won't have my computer or internet, I won't be able to blog until next Saturday or Sunday so stay tuned for a nice long summary of my week's adventures in the hills!