Landfills, slums, and old friends.

So last unit, we learned where all of our food comes from. This unit, we learned where our food goes when we're done with it.

First in the urban unit, the group visited Kham Bon landfill right here in Khon Kaen. Many of our Thai friends don't even know where the landfill is, as it's tucked away off of a highway in the middle of seemingly nowhere. But here we were, standing on, quite literally, mountains of trash.

As soon as I got out of the van, the stench of rotting food and something I can only describe as just yucky attacked my nostrils. I looked up and towering over me was tons upon tons of waste. After putting on some fisherman's boots, the villagers said that we would have to walk down the road to get to the entrance of the landfill. But apparently, the dumptrucks got lazy one day and just dumped all their trash in the road. So we would have to walk on a road of trash to get to the mountains of trash. Great.

About 3 minutes into the trek, my friend walking in front of me stepped on something and half-rotted tomato and some questionable vomit-looking substance spewed on my left leg. That made for quite an interesting walk around the landfill for the rest of the day for sure. We ended up climbing a mountain of trash, and I stood on top of it feeling like the king of the mountain. You know, that game that we played as elementary school kids. Remember? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. As I looked down on my kingdom of trash, I saw a green field which was... a field of sugarcane and cassava, it seemed. I'm sure the rainwater mixed with the most likely toxic and, again, yucky substances doesn't do those plants justice. Or so I thought until our tour guide decided to pick up a Thai melon off its vine on the ground. He said the melon grew thanks to the water right beside the landfill.

Oh. Okay. Makes total sense.

We then went back to the entrance to the landfill to look at the incinerator which looked pretty dangerous... You know, not to mention the blood vials that were haphazardly strewn around it.

Picture thanks to one of our program facilitators. I was too creeped out to take one.

Then, the villagers explained that lots of hospital waste was dumped there, too. As we walked along the trail, we couldn't help but notice all the catheters that were either visible under the flimsy piece of red plastic that the villagers used to mark the hospital waste or obviously poking out of the ground. We climbed a smaller mountain of trash when my right boot got caught in a boot trap. Yes, that meant that my boot fell off into the trash, and I took one careless step in the pile of... well, I don't know what. That was also extremely uncomfortable, to say the least.

We finally got to our host families' houses. There, the smell of the landfill was gone! Living arrangements weren't bad either. And Sam, my roommate for the urban unit, is a vegetarian like me, so we had super delicious food there, surprisingly, including the best som tum I've ever had. Other students got to eat some grasshoppers and veggies that the families found in the landfill.

Oh, didn't I mention that? Our families were all scavengers, meaning they rake through ALL of the trash that comes into the landfill looking for plastic bottles, aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastic bags, copper wire, and whatever else can be sold to be recycled. So the next day, we all helped our families scavenge. Sam was absolutely incredible at tearing the bags open to find even the smallest bits of plastic as well as adept at using the two-pronged rake-looking thing to easily move away food waste, dirty diapers, and other things that were just distractions to finding the good stuff. I, on the other hand, worked for about two out of the 5 total hours and spent the last 3 hours gagging and trying not to vomit. I know, I'm weaksauce. But during the time that I did work, I felt like I was really straining myself. Whenever a new garbage truck came by, tens of villagers flocked behind it and crazily raked through the fresh grossness. Some of the students found huge red, poisonous centipedes, and others of us just found dirty diapers and maggots everywhere. I fell into the latter category. Even enduring the sweltering heat and unbearable smell all day and night, these villagers take shifts; some scavenge during the day, and some do the deed at night. And to think that these people do this every day? I couldn't even imagine.

Sadly, we only spent 2.5 days with this community. I really wanted to stay longer, I really did. But my stomach was telling me otherwise. So we moved on and spent the other half of the day exchanging with the villagers in the Nong Waeng Slum community. Slums can be defined by the fact that the residents don't technically own the land but reside on the premises. In this particular community, no one owned the land, and it was built around railroad tracks. Now, the railway company "needs" to build a high-speed railway, so they are evicting the residents, who couldn't get a lease on the land. Though the government is helping them find new land, many are bitter that they have to leave the place that they've always called home. Here are some pictaurz.

Last, we spent 2 days and a night in the slum community close-by called Theparak-1. Though I'm not sure why it's a slum because many of the residents owned the land. I stayed with a woman who singlehandedly supports a family of 2 daughters and 1 granddaughter through cooking and selling at a local market. Oh, yeah, and she's also a public health representative who goes around her community to see if children need any immunizations or if the elderly need any special medicines. Then, she delivers super detailed reports to the government. Oh, yeah, and did I mention that she only has a 4th grade education? Basically, homegirl was a badass. Freaking. Badass.

Sam and I got to help her at the market. And guess who else came? Our homestay kids from Suan Sanuk school! YEAAAAH. It was certainly nice to have them around! They helped out a lot with the families, too, even though they didn't have to. Love the kids. More pictures!

The slum community.

Host mom doin' her thang. Took these for a photo essay assignment.

Crazy kids. Pictures belong to Brett and Sam respectively.

Next unit is human rights. IN BANGKOK. Sadly, I won't have much free time in the city, but it should be fun nonetheless!

14 again: First homestay, part 2

At some point, we visited Wat Nong Wang, which is jokingly called the Eiffel Tower of Khon Kaen. I was able to take two pictures, so here they are!

The next day (Wednesday) was probably my favorite day this week.

N'Tha and I arrived at school via sawng tao as normal again, and we participated in a flag-raising ceremony that apparently happens every morning before school starts. All the kids gathered in the courtyard and did marching band/military-esque lineups, sang the Thai national anthem, and recited some stuff I couldn't understand. Then, we all had to stand in the front of the entire student body and introduce ourselves. There were some fun moments here, but I'll get to them later. So, the schedule said that we had, "Thai Fun Activity I" for 3 hours that morning. Hmm, suspicious.

I met with the rest of the group, and we were led up to a pretty large classroom within the, "Mini English Program," building at Suan Sanuk. About 50 kids filed in through the sliding glass doors, all in the same uniform, signifying that they were all in the same grade. All of our host brothers and sisters were there, as well as representatives from the Urban Youth Organization in Khon Kaen (3 really chipper 20somethings, 2 girls, 1 dude). We started out with some ridiculous hand-holding, get-in-touch-with-your-feelings activities, and we of course did some simple ice breakers. We also did some fun drawing activities in small groups of about 10 people (2 of us CIEE people and 8 kids) where we had to draw a picture of something that represented us. I was drawing some mountains and a lake representing Western NC and Lake Michigan respectively, and my friend's host brother, N'Dong, was drawing a river with, like, a green log on it or something. This kid literally had me rolling on the ground laughing the entire time; he told a bunch of jokes/puns that would only make sense in Thai all while making fun of how badly I speak Thai. Seriously, this kid was awesome.

We ended the session with building boats out of posterboard, a few sheets of paper, some string, some oil pastels, and pingpong balls. It was like OM all over again. Then, we had to name our boats in the form of a 6-syllable rhyme. I don't really remember what my group's was, but it had to do with food. And another group's had the phrase paht fuck in it, like, 3 times. The phrase means to cook or stir-fry a kind of bitter melon, but it obviously sounds, y'know, obscene. We then played a game where each of us said part of a sentence which, in English, goes like, "Sink a ship! Load the gunpowder! Pull the trigger! Bang! Boom! Bang! I want to sink the ship, 'Whatever the name of the opposing group's ship was.'" Out of five groups, my group made it to 3rd place because I messed up; my phrase was, "load the gunpowder!" but it's tongue-twister-y in Thai, so I let my team down. :( But afterwards, we reflected on everything, and these kids were so mature and said so many wise-sounding statements about our time together.

The whole time, I was just surprised at how well these 14-15 year olds accepted this alternative form of education. These activities were meant to teach us that there are other forms of communication other than language (okay, I obviously cheated on this one; I spoke in Thai with the kids the entire time...), though I felt that we were doing it in the most elementary ways possible; for example, when I was in the eighth grade, I don't think I would have wanted to draw and hold hands and share my feelings for 3 hours. Yet these kids stuck it out and really seemed to enjoy our presence and our companionship. Brought tears to my eyes, it did.

Afterwards, we had a 3 hour session with just the CIEE kids, and I went to the hospital. My feet were still swollen and bug bite-infested that I thought I should get it checked out. Thankfully, the doctor said that it was just an allergic reaction and that it might be slightly infected. So she gave me some ointment with antibiotics and steroids so all is well. Mosquitoes are still biting me like crazy, but I've learned to not itch things that itch and to instead slather on some Golden Cup balm or the ointment.

My lifesaver.

N'Tha and I then went to this lake called Bueng Kaen Nakhon and rode bikes. We actually met up with her sister (!!!) and her best friend. Her sister, er, my other host sister, is still my nong, so she went by N'Nam. So, that was weird. Here's a picture of the lake!

That night, nothing particularly exciting happened. The next day, the CIEE group had to attend an exchange with members of TNP+, a nonprofit organization that caters to individuals living with HIV through support and lobbying (for better access to medicine, etc.) efforts. It was a tear-jerking and extremely educational experience. Ask me if you would like to know more.

The next day, we had to leave our host families. :( At Suan Sanuk, there were kids crying and taking pictures and asking for email addresses. They really, really didn't want us to go, for reasons I'll go into later. Baww. :( At Thai that day, though, Ajaan Maliwan gave me some Vietnamese coffee, and it was literally the most delicious thing I've ever had. Ever. And some people in my group decided to go to Central again because one of the girls had to get some sea salt to clean out her new nose piercing that she had gotten at a night market. So I decided to finally get my ears pierced for like, $5. It was a deal, I tell you. A deal.

Today, we went to the Forest Temple for some meditation and group bonding. I know, I know, it's like the forest temple in the Legend of Zelda... But not. Here are some pictures!

So a few more things about Thailand.

You may have been familiar with motorcycles. Thus far, I've been on one with two other teenage girls, wearing a helmet. I've also been on one with my language ajaan, without a helmet. And lastly, I've been on one with 2 17 year old girls and 1 14 year old girl without a helmet. The whole time, I was absolutely terrified. In my mind, I kept picturing the headlines of a Thai newspaper or in my Google Reader, "4 girls die in tragic motorcycle accident, was their own fault."

Also, I mentioned the sawng tao before, the pickup truck that functions as a bus. Not only have I sat in one, but I have also stood on the edge of one before, with cars tailing the truck and almost touching my backside or backpack or what have you.

I've also been in a tuk-tuk going down the highway. Did I mention that the only traffic rules that I've seen has been 1) stop at red lights, and 2) drive on the left side of the road? Yeah. And taxis and most cars don't have seatbelts. D:

Additionally, five things that Thailand should adopt are:

1. Toilet paper,

2. Tissues/napkins

3. Trashcans

4. Easy-to-locate recycling areas

5. Normal toilets. Like, not squat-toilets, which are prevalent in homes around here. I don't want to feel like I'm going to slip and fall butt-first into the toilet if my feet or toilet seat are slightly moist, okay?

Last, if there's anything I've found that are similar about kids in Thailand, it's that they're just as hormonal and ridiculous as teenage girls in the US. At Suan Sanuk, girls were going absolutely CRAZY over my friend Alex, who apparently bears a slight resemblance to Robert Pattinson, but I don't get it. And they also went fangirl-style crazy over the other guys for similar reasons. For example, the first time we had to introduce ourselves during the flag ceremony, Alex goes, "Pom chuh Alex," which means, "My name is Alex," and literally every girl in the courtyard squealed. And they always rushed to take pictures with him and the other guys. Plus, the girls liked to pet one of the other girls on my program's hair, mostly because it was blonde. This is one of the only times where I'm GLAD to finally fit into a society; only some of the kids I was close to wanted pictures with me, and if you know me, I'm totally okay with that and only that. However, N'Dong, who I mentioned before, definitely asked me for my address in the US, my phone number in Thailand and the US, my email address, and... asked me if I had a boyfriend. Yes, a 15-16 year old boy asked me this. I kind of headdesk'd myself when that happened and told him that I wasn't going to pedo over him, but I didn't really communicate it well in Thai. Mostly because I don't know the word for pedo in Thai.

Anyway, tomorrow is filled with Thai class and other random classes. I MISS YOU ALLLLL.

14 again: First homestay, part 1.

Wow. Each week seems longer and longer... It's ridiculous.

Anyway, since I last wrote, I did a whole bunch of things. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries on the first day away from KKU, and I didn't bring my charger... So, I took, like, zero pictures. Sorry. :/ So on Monday, I finally took a tour of the city of Khon Kaen with the rest of my group. We then went to Suan Sanuk Municipal School right here in Khon Kaen to meet our first homestay families! The school, from what I gather, caters to kindergarten-age kids to 15-16 year olds.. I should probably look up the whole Thai education system at some point. Anyway, here's a few pictures provided by their website, since I failed at bringing my camera charger.

The front of the school!

Courtyard area where the kids have recess.

Classrooms, another view of the recess area.

So we awkwardly found our host brothers and sisters through a long process of introducing ourselves in Thai in front of a crowd of chattering children and having our respective family members come up to the front and introduce themselves to us in English. My little sister ended up being the most adorable girl EVER; her nickname was "Tha" which, I'm assuming, comes from the fact that her eyes are gigantic ("tha" is "eye" in Thai. Or grandfather. So yeah). She stood at a height of maybe 4'0", even though she told me that she was 14 years old. In fact, all of the host sisters looked way, way younger than their counterparts in the US, I think. We then took a van ride to their homes, which varied in distance from a short drive to a 1+ hour excursion into the forest. For example, my sister lived in a urban-y area that was a 15-ish minute drive away from the school, whereas the family of another guy in my group lived on a farm on the outskirts of town, and it took him about an hour and a half to get there.

My first night at N'Tha's house was... awkward, to say the least. She told me that she lived with her aunt, uncle, and older sister. For the rest of the afternoon, we watched some awesome Thai dramas and gameshows, and I found KBS World! So she and I watched the episode of "Invincible Youth" (SUBBED IN ENGLISH), while I attempted to summarize what was happening in my broken Thai. It was quite an adventure, to say the least. Then, we decided to do something easy for dinner and cook some ramen (I'm assuming at this point that her aunt and uncle worked late or something). Finally, after taking a shower (okay, it was kind of a shower and kind of a bucket bath, where I had to fill up a bucket full of cold water and pour it on myself. Yeesh), my host aunt and uncle come in. I greeted both of them with a wai and my friendliest "Sawatdee, ka!" and got... nothing. My aunt asked N'Tha who I was and the uncle just walked upstairs without a word. I awkwardly stood there, and then N'Tha told me that she had to do her homework upstairs. I followed her, and then while doing my Thai homework, she asked me to help me with her English homework. Her class was apparently working on superheroes, so I had to try to explain what "invisibility" and "walk through walls" was in Thai to her. But my crowning moment came when I had to explain "burst into flames." I asked if she knew what Pokemon was, to which she replied with an enthusiastic nod of her head. Then, I said, "Charmander. Flamethrower attack," and she went, "OHHHH," and proceeds to write the phrase, "burst into fire" in Thai beside the phrase "burst into flames."

After watching a particularly intense drama (it dealt with the gruesome murder of some ridiculously skinny, pretty woman in skimpy clothes and how her best friend was the one who murdered her. Or something), we decided to go to sleep. On the floor At 9 PM. And we woke up at 6 AM. Hm, I forgot what it was like to be a middle school student. Anyway, I woke up and saw a random girl sleeping in the bed while N'Tha and I slept on the floor. Apparently, this was random 17 year old older sister.

We took a sawng tao into school, which is basically a pickup truck with two rows of seats on either side of it. It functions as a bus here, and here's what one looks like.

Dangerous.

I promptly had to get into the CIEE van after arriving at the school because I had a Thai lesson with another professor, Ajaan Maliwan. She's the official Thai as a Second Language (TSL, f yeah!) professor at the university and usually works with students studying abroad from China. And she's probably the kindest, most warm-hearted people I've ever met. EVER. She told me not to worry about my broken Thai and to just speak, even if it's wrong... And I guess my biggest fear is speaking incorrectly, so in the past, I just never spoke Thai in order to save face. But she told me a story about when she was studying abroad in Australia (SUP BILLIE.) and accidentally asked like, 5 people in her dorm, "Excuse me, where is the chicken room?" when she meant to ask, "Excuse me, where is the kitchen?" You can see how that made me loosen up a little bit. Then, before we even began the lesson, she bought me some kanom, or treats! One was a sushi-shaped paste made out of taro and topped with some gelatinized coconut milk, all wrapped in strips of banana leaves. The other was some fried dough with some filling on the inside that I wasn't able to quite identify. It was absolutely delicious, though. She then told me that her lesson plan was based on listening and speaking, since those would be most practical; so for 3 hours, we spoke in Thai, and if I didn't know a word, she would write it up on the board in Thai, and I would copy it to study later. She even wrote up the karaoke spellings so I would know how to pronounce the words, too! :D

After the lesson, I went back to meet with the rest of the group and had a 5 hour meeting. We all then returned to our homestays, and I actually talked to my host aunt for a bit! That night, she explained that she worked at a nearby open-air market and thus woke up early and came home late at night. The uncle is some sort of businessman, but I didn't catch what exactly he did. Keep in mind that I still haven't met the 17 year old sister that supposedly lived there.

Anyway, this is getting super long. I'll continue it in another post!

Phurua, Loei!

So, here's the resort! The place we stayed at was called Phu Rua, and above are pictures of the resort. As you can see, it was beautiful! It was definitely in the middle of nowhere, and I felt super isolated from civilization. On the bright side, there was a balcony outside our hotel room, and we had a view of a gorgeous [manmade...] waterfall! YEAH. I'm not sure what river the waterfall flowed into, but the views were to die for.

On Sunday, I had my first Thai lesson. It was a whopping 4 hours long! To top it all off, I am THE ONLY one in the intermediate Thai class. So I will have an ajaan all to myself all semester! Auuuugh. My book is mainly meant for 1st graders, and the story features about a boy named ฦูผา, a baby boy elephant named ใบโบก, and a baby girl elephant named ใบบัว. So far, they've gone to play soccer, take a bath, and had a scary encounter with a snake. Anyway, the first class was mainly a gauge of how well I know Thai. After that, the whole group had discussions on how the rest of the classes and stuff would work. We also had a horrible "bonding" game that featured a tiny cloth that my entire group of 10 people was supposed to both fit onto and flip over while

we were all on the cloth. Please, please don't ask me to elaborate on this. I still have nightmares about it.

On Monday, we had lots of workshops and lectures about NGOs, social justice, human rights, and the Isaan area.We also had a culture + etiquette workshop where the girls and I got pa toongs and the guys got sarongs to wear in the villages. They're basically skirt-y thingies that we're supposed to wear to bathe, sleep, and put on in order to go to the bathroom and stuff. We all also got elephant bags! There were a few with giraffes on them, but I didn't realize it until i saw someone take the last one. Sorry Caroline!

Khon Kaen University notebook, check. Bright pink pa toong, check. Elephant bag, also check.

On Tuesday, there were super boring workshops and Thai lessons. The only different thing was a Thai number BINGO, in which I won some awesome prizes. Woop woop.

On Wednesday, we did a lot of the same workshops and Thai lessons. My Thai lesson was supposed to consist ofwatching a Thai drama (lakorn) and summarizing it in English. But my ajaan accidentally downloaded the episode ofthe lakorn with English subtitles so... That was a no-go. Instead, I had to watch gifs of hilarious situations and describe what happened in Thai into a tape recorder, which my language ajaan at KKU will apparently listen to.Scary. But the gifs were funny; the most notable gifs consisted of a guy skateboarding down a ramp, falling, and then allowing the skateboard to come back and hit him in the nuts; 4 elderly people sitting at a picnic bench, also falling due to the picnic table breaking, and rolling a little while down a hill; and a fat kid (no joke; the caption was "dek ooahn"; fat child) trying to sit in an inner tube that was in the ocean and then falling right into the water. We also had our "Buddha Buddies" assigned, in which the program staff matched each of us up with our complete opposite in order for us to find a way to find a "middle path." Mine is an awesome guy named Brett, and we're definitely, definitely opposites. We kind of clued them in during a discussion of our goals, in which one of my goals

was, "Participate more in discussions," whereas his was, "Speak less during discussions." So our Buddha Buddy time should be full of funtimez. Then, we had a campfire with the rest of the ajaans and program facilitators. We ate American-ish food for the first time since we had been back in the states, and most of us shared a few beers with the ajaans. We call the local beer, "Leo," by a loving nickname, "Ajaan Leo," thanks to Ajaan Jeab. Basically means Professor Leo, but it's a beer, so that's why it's funny. Yeah.

Thursday, I would really like to forget. We had to do an activity that consisted of lifting each person one at a time up and through a tiny hole in a net that was about 4 feet off the ground. I disapproved for so many reasons.

And Friday and Saturday, we spent the night at Baw Kaew Protest village, which is about 2 hours away from Khon Kaen. The village was built last year in a eucalyptus forest that the government built. The reason why the government built it was to create more paper, but in turn, it seized all of the land of the villagers, evicted them, and threatened to jail them if they didn't leave. During an exchange with the villagers, they revealed that the government even charged the villagers with "creating global warming," by living on the same land that their ancestors have lived on and farmed on for centuries. So we got to learn a lot about their struggle in that village. We were also able to eat with the villagers, so we had lots of sticky rice (cao niew), som tum (both Thai and Lao), kai jiew (fried eggs), and other traditional Isaan food. And of course we ate with our hands!

So Saturday, we finally reached Khon Kaen. Next entry!