Elephant Camp

I went with the children on the Sunday outing to an elephant camp, I had read about this and it was already on my list of things I wanted to see while I was here in Thailand. My first impression was that this is just a place where tourists go and spend money, but I was wrong. The elephants were all well taken care of, other than that these elephants eat too much junk food - bananas and sugar cane sticks that people can purchase for 30 baht ($0.75) and feed to the elephants up close. I would recommend bringing your own bananas if anyone visits the camp because a bunch of bananas for 30 baht is a rip off. You can get bunches of bananas for free by picking them yourself from a tree on the side of the road anywhere in Thailand, and at the market a bunch of bananas only costs 5 baht ($0.13). I assume the money goes towards maintaining the camp, feeding the elephants good food and paying the wages. Other than the expensive bananas, the show we saw was great, it is difficult to describe and is much better in person than words can say, but the saying is true that “an elephant never forgets.” I have never seen elephants perform such amazing tricks. They were able to ring a bell and raise a flag, kick a soccer ball into a goal with their feet, dunk a basketball with their trunks, do all sorts of acrobatic tricks and paint with color on paper and t-shirts that people can buy later. You might think all elephants in Thailand perform in these types of shows, but this comes from months of training. Elephants in Thailand were originally used for pulling the logs of teak wood out of the jungles after they were cut down. Today, the Thai government has outlawed all logging of teak, so the elephants have become more of a symbol of how important they are in Thai society. The current Thai king uses an elephant as a symbol of his nobility on his red and yellow flags that are flown everywhere in Thailand. At the elephant camp there was also a place to ride the elephants, but since half the kids were too scared to even touch the elephants with their hands when the elephant reached its trunk over to the audience to get bananas and sugar cane sticks, there was no riding the elephants this day. This was one of the most exciting outings I have gone on with the kids yet.

A Change in My Schedule

I have heard that in the Peace Corps, an individual can live within a community for two years, but it is only in the second year that the individual will get anything concrete started because the first year is just spent getting to know the customs, the language and getting used to the whole idea of not being in an industrialized area of the world. I have felt like it has been my first year in the Peace Corps but it has only been one month since I arrived. I thought I would be teaching math and English to Thai children everyday. To my amazement, nothing like this has really happened, and it probably will not happen. After using the first month to learn all the children’s names and a little Thai (one or two word phrases is all I know), I have found my little niche where I can be useful in the school. Upon my arrival at the school, I found the children were, to put it mildly, lacking in the area of discipline. I do not believe the saying “that it is easy to teach a child because all they want to do is learn” because if the child has no discipline then you might as well teach the wall. I saw this as a problem and I knew that I could help get the children to become more focused on their studying rather than on seeing how loud they could cry, yell or roll around on the ground during class time. I feel as though I have some expertise in the disciplinary actions that need to be taken with children to get them focused, not to say anything bad about my little brother, but I felt that by having to be the “mean big brother” sometimes, I was able to help him become a better person in the long run. With good consistent disciplinary actions and the help of the teacher who created a “Good Boy and Good Girl of the Week” award that includes a candy treat to the winner; the children went from a level 3 behavior to a level 7 behavior (10 being very good behavior) in only one week. No matter how many times I had to remove a child from the classroom because of bad behavior or crying (removing the child, I learned from another school, is good Montessori practice) or for some children, having to wait three days until they were able to but a Starfish stick into their half cut milk carton at the end of the day (positive reward system), creating good behavior and focus is possible. Though it may seem that I have turned into the Starfish drill sergeant; the children still like me, but with a better understanding of when it is time to work and when it is time to play.
Other than working with behavioral problems, I have also been one of the playground engineers working with Lawson. Together we have managed to put up a swing in one day and we are going back to the drawing boards to design more playground equipment that we can build. For anyone who might be building a playground in the area that they live in, keep in mind that the playground does not need to be made only from metal, plastic or wood because bamboo and rope work just fine. The swing that we made was made by lashing four pieces of bamboo measured at 15 feet (we use American units when building, but 15 feet is 4.5 meters) and the seat was made with two other smaller bamboo pieces and thick rope (the swing part can be made with your own imagination). I am also the creator and painter of new Montessori teaching tools. I have been painting with oil base paint, but I have convinced people that I should be using water base (Latex) because it does not have all the harmful chemicals that go into painting the wood and cleaning the brushes. I have more painting to finish, but I have plans next week to begin to design and make eight wooden boxes that will be used to hold math materials. I hope to get the children more involved in helping me make the boxes because I have seen that some children are amazing at building out of Legos, so wood might be the next step up for these children. I will continue to find areas that I am needed and report back on my accomplishments. I remind myself that sometimes you have to go out and look for work because it will not always come to you.

Responsibility, Reliability and Accessibility

Day One

After taking a trip to Maesai in northern Thailand, the three words, responsibility, reliability and accessibility developed new meaning for me as I put these concepts into context as I saw them on my trip. I was invited by Richard Haugland to go on a trip to Maesai for two days where two people in the group needed to renew their visas, and the rest of the group planned to visit other Montessori schools in the area. Not knowing what to expect, and without even being aware of the whole itinerary other than what was on the sheet that was given to me, I was, as always, over packed and excited. We arrived at the resort where we were staying and I was given my own room overlooking a small pond that I thought looked like more of a place for mosquitoes to lay their eggs than anything else. We all dropped off our baggage and loaded back up into the van to go to our first location to visit.
Our first visit was to a small one-room day care center for the local hill tribe village children. The daycare center costs the parents 10 baht ($0.25) a day and was simple, yet served an important purpose. For many of the parents this daycare is a place where the children are looked after, fed and taught a little so the parents can work that day without having to worry about their children. The daycare center is partially funded by The Richard Haugland Foundation, which provides the teachers’ wages as well as some of the supplies for the school. Upon our arrival, we happened to wake the children up from their afternoon nap, but it didn’t seem that bothered them much because they were given Oreos, milk and a new small electronic piano that we brought with us. I personally thought that with the poor condition of the many of the children’s teeth, a snack with a little less sugar would have been better. One important note regarding the poor dental condition of many Thai people, especially in the more poverty-stricken areas, is that there seems to be a lack of basic dental education. I assume that for many families, buying toothpaste and a toothbrush may be out of the budget, but I hope that some day the government will make it possible for people to more easily get adequate dental care. The daycare center was very simple, but it is important to understand that it is not so much what the daycare has, but more important what its purpose is.
After leaving the daycare center, we drove to Maesai, a town in Thailand on the border of Burma, where two people crossed into Burma in order to renew their visas. In Maesai, I visited a drop in center that is also funded by Haugland. This drop in center serves as a place where children, mainly Burmese children because Burma is only a stone’s throw across a river, can come and get clean clothes, food, shelter, education (a strong focus is child abuse and what they can do to prevent it), but mostly it is a safe place with a very friendly staff. Since it was late January and going on February when the tourist season is high, the border patrol in Thailand and Burma were preventing the children from entering or exiting either country because most of children are used as beggars for their parents. The drop in center can serve approximately twenty to thirty children but the children were not able to get to the center because of the closed borders, so the staff was bringing food to the children by crossing the border themselves. Also at this center there was an older girl of about age 14 and five boys ages 5 to 6 who were all Burmese and had been living at the drop in center for various reasons. The girl had lived with her mother who had paid for her education until the mother found a new boyfriend who was into drugs and the mother became addicted to drugs as well, so the mother had no money to send the girl to school any longer. Since the girl did not feel safe at home, she felt that living at the drop in center was safer. The boys were at the drop in center because they did not want to go home for various similar reasons; drugs, abuse or the parents did not care where they were.
After leaving the drop in center I walked around Maesai and was able to get a bite to eat, bananas in coconut sauce, which settled my stomach. Everyone later met up and headed back to the resort for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Since the day was mostly spent driving, I had a lot of extra energy that I used to adjust the antenna on the television, and to my luck, I was able to get one channel to come into focus. After lying on my bed watching the television with a blanket over me I began to feel something crawling on my legs. Throwing the blanket off, I saw ants crawling on me with more coming towards me. Brushing them off, but figuring that they might come back, I decided that I would just sleep on top of the blankets, but having been awakened because it was too cold, I decided that the ants and I were just going to have to learn to sleep together.

Day Two

Waking up at 7 AM after a night filled with bed bugs, I knew it would be a long day. After eating breakfast, everyone in the group loaded up into the van to go to the Doi Tung Royal Project. I had no idea what the project was, other than it had a couple of Montessori schools that we were going to visit. Arriving at the school, I was able to look inside the classrooms and see the children actively engaged in the material. The younger children were playing with play-doh and blowing bubbles, while the older children were working on the Thai alphabet and understanding the concept of length from red rods cut into different lengths. The Montessori teaching method was easily observed and the children were well behaved. I asked the individual who invited us, Tony, about the school’s origin. Tony told me that the school was part of the Doi Tung Royal Project, and, as the name says, the Thai royal family provides support for the project. The Doi Tung Royal Project helps the hill tribes that live in this area to begin to have a sustainable economy and to get rid of the opium poppies that the hill tribe people were forced to grow by the Chinese, as well as because opium was their only source of income. The project has been in place for over 15 years now, and within these years the hill tribe village has had a large production of coffee beans, corn and other crops. The project also produces textiles such as ceramic pottery, tiles and clothing (I bought a bag and a tie for myself). The project is a place that many tourist groups visit because of the gardens, the coffee, the food and the shopping, all are ways to bring tourism to the hill tribes, and also to help the local economy. The coffee shop where I ordered an iced coffee has started to spread to Chiang mai in hopes that it might become the Starbucks of Thailand.
After visiting the school, the small day care and the main street where the coffee, food and shopping was located we loaded into the van to venture to another area of the project with more villages that can only be visited with proper identification cards. Along the road leading to these villages, I could see the different crops and places of production, but after about 30 minutes of driving we were stopped at a security gate and Tony, who was showing us the area, showed his ID card and we were all let through. The reason for the security is to prevent drug trafficking; deter the Burmese immigrants that want to come into Thailand, and also to prevent just anyone from traveling on the road to other parts of the project’s villages. The road that we were driving on separates Burma and Thailand. The road is on the top of a mountain ridge and to climb it would take a good part of the day and a lot of water. Approaching the school that we were going to visit next, we passed a few villages that had homes on either side of the street, one little market and a small central area where I saw people hanging out. The villages that we were passing through are where many of the children live that go to the school that we visited next. All the children walk to school and for some, a handful of Burmese children that live in a nearby village in Burma and are allowed to attend the school, the children have to walk two and half hours from their homes to the school and back again everyday.
We arrived at the school while the younger children were taking a nap and the older boys and girls were attending Scouts. All schools in Thailand require a uniform, to prevent the poorer children from looking different than the wealthier children. Once a week the children wear gym clothes, and once a week, the older children, in this case 13+ years old, wear their Scout uniform. Thailand requires that both boys and girls be involved in Scouts because of the skills that are taught. When I walked over to the Scout meeting, the boys and girls were working on geography (orienteering), exercises in their books, and 30 minutes later they were working with knots (though I’m an Eagle Scout, a few of these Scouts knew their knots better than I do, this gives me an area of improvement). The school has only four buildings, a playground, volleyball net, and hard dirt ground that is used by the children to etch drawings into with sticks and rocks. Besides being a very simple school, the view surrounding the school was breathtaking. The school sat on a mountainside overlooking both smaller and larger mountains surrounded by jungle. The fog had still not lifted since fog tends to settle onto valley floors and it was a cooler day so my pictures turned out to be a little cloudy, but I will not forget the view.
Leaving the project, we headed back to Starfish Country Home School where I was able to spend time thinking about how I could sum up this whole experience and the three words that I thought of were responsibility, reliability and accessibility. All three words are steps that need to be taken to build a strong community with sustainability, work and schools. Responsibility means that everyone within the community needs to be doing something useful, such as have a job or task (assuming that it is not growing and selling drugs). The parents go to work, the grandparents help raise the younger children and the older children go to school. Reliability means that everyone needs to have trust in one another. The government needs to be trusted by the people, and the people need to trust one another. The trust that is needed needs to be focused around everyone doing what is best for the community as a whole. Finally, accessibility is important so that after everyone is working and actively engaged and a feeling of trust is formed, the community needs the opportunity to grow by having food, clean water, and good health to become sustainable. Though for others the trip may have brought up different feelings and understandings, I have learned how to create a picture of how things can change for the better when there is responsibility, reliability and accessibility within a community.

Lice in My Hair

I thought before I came to Thailand that I had received all the vaccination shots I needed and enough medication for anything that might occur while I was here as per the recommendations of the Travel Department at Palo Alto Medical, but to my surprise, the one thing that I could not have protected myself against was lice. I have contracted lice, probably from the children and there is little I can do about it. I could get medicine, but a week later I would have lice again. In Thailand, lice in the hair is just another thing that I must learn to deal with, and I have begun to think of them as my pets (that was a bad joke!) The girl who was teaching at Starfish Country Home School before me also had to learn to deal with them, and she said that she bought a lice comb that helped to keep the number of lice in her hair under control. It is strange to think that the government does nothing about this. I can remember in elementary school when one student contracted lice they were sent home for several days and everyone that came into contact with the individual had their hair searched for lice. Oh well, I will just have to wait to get back to the Untied States before I can get rid of them because I’m not about to shave my hair.

Assignments in the Classroom

Since being here I have been given several projects. The first was to record the weight, height and how fast each child could run a distance of 50 meters onto a chart and later into an Excel worksheet. The chart with the data is for the teachers and kids to see their progress over the next three months. The concept of graphing is difficult for many children to understand, but I think that when they graph their data a second time they will begin to see the change. A long-term project while I’m here is to take math curriculum books that Richard Haugland, the owner of Starfish Country Home School, wrote and convert them into a digital format with clip art rather than dots. The final project is making an evaluation chart of the progress each child has made since being here at the Starfish School for four months. The evaluation chart will have several boxes next to the child’s name, and when the child either completes the requirement or partially completes the requirement I will record the data with a sticker or color in half the box. The different requirements are skills such as counting from “1 to 10”, “1 to 20” and “1 to 100” in both English and in Thai. I have become a pretty good counter myself in Thai, so I might give myself a sticker. Other requirements will be reciting the alphabet in English and Thai, and also being able to describe a picture in both Thai and English (i.e. upon being shown a picture of a monkey the student will need to say “monkey” and “ling”). I hope this will motivate the children to aspire to excel in school, and this will also be a visual guide for the teacher as to what skills they need the children to work on in the classroom. There will be more assignments in the future, but I think for now my plate is almost full with the amount of daylight that I have.

Umbrella Festival and Som-Tom (Papaya Salad) Recipe

On Sunday was the Umbrella Festival and I was able to go and see it with the children and maa-daan, mother in Thai, in the village of Bosang. Bosang is where the famous umbrellas that look similar to the ones that you might find in fruit cocktail glasses in the United States are from, except the umbrellas in Bosang are much larger. I will venture back to Bosang later to do more shopping, but today I just played tourist. I was able to see a children’s Thai band play on stage, and also some very beautiful Thai women perform a couple of traditional dances. To my amazement many of the dance moves were similar to the ones the children and myself now do in the morning as exercises. I hope that with a few more times performing the dance moves I will be pretty proficient at Thai dancing. After leaving the festival we went to lunch at a restaurant, and the owner was so kind, he let the children eat for free (the adults had to pay). Expecting we would then go back to the school we loaded back up in the cars but drove instead to the hot springs in the village of Sanpatong, east of the city of Chiang mai. Other than the hot springs being too hot to go in or having to pay 200 baht for the day to swim in cooler ones, I decided I would spend only 20 baht ($0.50) for four eggs in a basket that I was able to hang on the side of the hot springs pool and have boiled eggs to eat in 12 minutes. I could not believe that the water was hot enough to boil eggs until I tried it for myself. I ate three myself and gave the fourth to Izume who replied after eating the egg, “only in amazing Thailand.” Back to how hot it was at the hot springs, in Sanpatong you can expect to find every little market stand selling two things - eggs to boil and ice cream to eat. Before leaving, the children and adults all treated ourselves to ice cream, mine was cappuccino. Though the ice cream was good it did little to cool me off, it was not until I got back to the car and the A/C was turned on high for 10 minutes that I began to feel my body temperature lower. I guess the heat will get to you when you decide to wear jeans and a t-shirt to the hot springs! When we arrived back at the school it was going to be the children’s turn to make dinner, but after 10 minutes the children lost interest and the adults ended up doing most of the work with the exception of a couple of the girls, Gong-gwan and Ami who peeled a lot of the papayas. The meal the children were to cook was called som-tam, which translates to “papaya salad” in English. This traditional Thai dish was somewhat familiar to me because there is a song that we sing every day that has to do with making som-tam; I can even teach you the words (Thai of course) and the hand motions to go along. I have listed the instructions with the ingredients below to make som-tam on your own.

Som-Tam (Papaya Salad)

1) Take a stone bowl, grinder, and spoon. Put 4 Thai chilies (or as much as you can handle!), 4 pieces of fresh chopped garlic, and 2 teaspoons of fish oil into the stone bowl, then grind all the ingredients with the grinder softly while turning the ingredients with a spoon every few grinds for a few minutes.
2) Next, take a 1/2 handful of long green beans cut in 1” lengths, squeeze 1/2 a lime, put 1 spoonful of peanuts (not salted), 1 spoonful of shrimp (optional), 1 side of the legs of a sand crab (optional), 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (melted or not melted is okay, we used melted), a pinch of salt, and 4 slices of tomatoes, then again grind all the ingredients together with the grinder softly while turning the ingredients with a spoon every few grinds for a few minutes.
3) Finally, put two handfuls of sliced, peeled papaya slices and grind all the ingredients together with the grinder softly while turning the ingredients with a spoon every few grinds for a few minutes.

The som-tom should be served next to or on top of cooked rice (sticky rice is preferred). DO NOT feel like you must use a fork or a spoon, just use your hands to eat and enjoy!

NOTE: The amount of each ingredient needed was recommended, but if you like one ingredient more than another then just add the amount that will taste best to you.

The Flower Festival

Today was Saturday, the day we take the children out somewhere for the day, and this Saturday we were going to the Flower Festival at Mageo University. You can imagine the Flower Festival as equivalent to the Rose Parade in Pasadena. There are over 1000 species of orchids in Thailand, and before this, I never thought there was a difference between one orchid and another, other than the color, but apparently there are many differences. I was able to see the first, second and third places of several species of orchids at the festival. After spending an hour or two at the festival looking at the flowers, taking pictures, filming and taking a free tram ride around the university we left to go to an all you can eat Thai restaurant. The best part about an all you can eat restaurant for me is not the amount of food I eat, but the fact that I am able to try several Thai dishes without having to order them one by one; I highly recommend going to an all you can eat place just to get a better understanding of the many different Thai dishes. Just when I thought the day could have ended because a nap was needed, the children were off to the hospital for hearing and eye tests. It took 3.5 hours to get all the kids tested, and it took me two trips down the street to get coffee and ice cream. At the end of the day though, I always feel that there is never a minute wasted, because I am constantly learning something new about the children and staff, or going to see a new place, or trying new food, or having to communicate with someone, or having another person stare at me; I love the people I work with and Thailand.

Muay Thai Training

Before coming to Thailand I read that the Thai people loved watching and betting money at one sport more than anything, Thai Boxing but in Thai it is called muay-thai. If I ever had the opportunity to take lessons I planned to say yes, and luckily, I was offered lessons at an outside gym only 1km (.5 miles) away from the Starfish Country Home School. Monday through Saturday at five o’clock I run to muay-thai for a two-hour lesson. Since I have watched American boxing I thought they might be similar, but I was wrong. First off you can do just about anything that you want to your opponent other than head butting them, so kicking the body, kneeing the person’s head, or elbowing in the eye are all legal. Before I would be able to perform the moves for five 3-minute rounds, I was going to need a lot of training. My two hours of training starts with bouncing back and forth on a tire that is five feet in diameter for 10 minutes, and then I jump rope for another 10 minutes. After resting for only 1 minute I enter the ring, but before I can do anything I must bow with my hands in front, to the picture of the king and queen that are above the ring. After that I hit pads that my trainer holds for15 minutes at a time with 1 minute breaks in between. Doing this for about one and half hours is pretty tiring, but I still have to do fifty sit-ups and twenty push-ups, and finish by doing as many pull-ups as possible (I can only do five at this point in time). I then run back to the school, were I eat dinner and take a shower before I have no other choice, but to fall asleep. What a work out, but I have not felt this fit in my life in a very long time.

My First Time in the City of Chiang Mai

I made a trip into Chiang mai, but this time it was not by the school vehicles. I rode in what is called a White Song Toa because it is only the white ones that drive outside Chiang mai’s city limit. The flat rate from Mae Tang, the village that the school is in, to Chiang mai is 24 baht ($0.60). The Song Toas are pick-up trucks with two seats on either side of the flat bed and a cover that has windows that can be opened and closed. I climbed in through a little opening in back and found a seat closest to the front. The White Song Toa will stop for anyone on the side the of the road who waves them down, or in some cases the driver will stop himself to pick up that day’s paper and a drink. The ride was about an hour long, 29km (18 miles), into the inner city of Chiang mai. I was traveling with the younger teacher and the writing translator for the school, Gap. We got off at the corner and instantly I saw the Song Toas change from white to red. I learned that the Red Song Toas are for riding within the city limit, and they can cost anywhere from 10 to 20 baht ($0.25 to $0.50) depending on where you want to go. If they know you are a furan who does not know the going rate or is not willing to bargain then they will charge you double rate 40 baht ($1.00). After arriving in the city, all three of us went to eat at a nice restaurant where the food was very good. The chicken salad was vegetables with a chicken leg on the side, but as my main course, I had noodles and pork covered in a sweet and sour sauce. One thing I have learned about Thai food is that they put sugar in everything; it might explain why some Thais have horrible teeth.
After eating I went with Gap to see the University of Chiang Mai or CMU. It is written as CMU because in Thai the adjective is placed after the noun. University of Chiang mai is a large university approximately 5km (3 miles) from one end to the other. It is similar to most any university; the grounds are well taken care of and while I was there they were busy planting flowers because of graduation this month. The university has different colleges (i.e. math, veterinary, biology, etc.), a mess hall were you can get a full meal for 10 baht ($0.25), and dormitories. The dormitories are separated by sex; a road separates the women’s and men’s dormitories, and members of the opposite sex cannot be in the other sex’s dormitory after 10PM everyday. I found it interesting that the only exception to the 10PM rule is during final exam week. Another major difference was the student body government at CMU. The student body government is not a three party system like universities in the United States, the student body at the University of Chiang mai is run by a parliamentary government. Just the pervious week, there had been elections where each party had a camp set up on a big grassy field where they were able to gain support. The whole school gets involved during the election time.
After leaving the University of Chiang mai, Gap left me, but first he helped me catch another Red Song Toa to the market where I was able to find my favorite fruit, Logan, in Thai it is called lam-yai. The fruit is naturally sugary and has a flavor that lasts a long time in your mouth. After realizing I had forgotten my map back at the school I ventured out for another map and found one in a short amount of time. I then walked all over exploring shops and found the Roof Top Bar that I read about in a book where I went to get a drink and enjoyed looking at the market from above ground. The best part of the Rooftop Bar was watching the sun set over the mountains surrounding Chiang mai. Around 7 PM it was time to head back to the Starfish Country Home School, and I found that doing it on my own for the first time was an experience I will remember. I first had to take a Red Song Toa to the Chiang Puak bus station, but where the driver dropped me off was 100 yards from the bus stop, which I did not know. I was able to orientate myself on the map and after figuring out what direction I needed to walk in, and I was able to get to the bus stop to pick up a White Song Toa. This is when the trip became memorable; I was, of course, the last person to be dropped off from the White Song Toa. It was about 8:45PM when I arrived at Mae Tang, and the pay phone that I was supposed to use to call someone at the school to pick me up was broken. Trying not to fret, I decided to just walk the 5km (3 miles) uphill towards the Starfish Country Home School. Now I know I was told never to get a ride from strangers, but when I passed the police station on my way I could hear them speaking Thai and probably laughing at me. Since Thai people are so friendly, one of the policemen offered me a ride the next 3 km (2 miles) to the school. I will forever be thankful to the policeman who was able to bring me back to the school by 10:30 PM. What a day it was!

Living in the Internet Stone Age

The Internet is slow, but it is very impressive to someone like me. I had never had the opportunity to use satellite Internet until I arrived at the Starfish Country Home School. The only downside to the satellite is that sending pictures and attached files can take up to ten minutes per email that has 6 megabytes of attachments. As for surfing the web and using the wireless Internet on my laptop it has caused me no problems. When the Internet does go down though, the person who installed the Internet says it has to be unplugged for an hour before plugging it back in. I find this hard to believe, but luckily, the Internet has only stopped working once for me. Fast Internet access is one thing I do miss a lot here, but at least it is free to me although the actual cost to the school is about 1,800 baht ($45.00) a month.

Taking a Dip to Cool Off

When the day is very warm, around 80°F (27°C) and very dry, the best part of the day is swimming in the afternoon. The children run to the pool leaving behind a path of their clothes as they strip off each article of clothing right down to their underwear. Myself, I am a little less daring or should I say more self conscious, so I head to my room first to change into my bathing suit before I make the run to the pool. I have spent some time teaching the children how to dive and some elementary swimming strokes. I’m trying to get the children away from having to “dog paddle” everywhere around the pool. There are three kids Ahbe, Ahtit, and Gong-gwan that have become excellent swimmers, not to say that they are the best, but they have really excelled. I have come to believe that the real reason they have improved so much is that these three spend the most amount of time in the water. For more than half the children the water is cold because it does not stay hot long enough for them to heat the pool during the day, and most of the children are thin-skinned. Besides me, the other male volunteer, Lawson, who is also a University of Oregon student, and the owner of the school, Richard Haugland, all find the pool a great place to cool off and also a place to see the children laughing and playing. Haugland says that by March, one of the hottest months of the year, the water will be warmer for the children to go swimming, and there are hopes that the kiddy pool will be a fun place for the younger 3 and 4 year old children who are not yet ready for the big pool. I am always excited to be swimming and think of this as a time to get reenergized.

Thai Funerals with a Different Feeling

Less than a week since I arrived and I have already gone to a funeral. The Thai funeral is not just a family and friends thing, but the entire community is welcomed to come to talk, laugh and pay respect to the deceased. The funeral was for an older woman that passed away who was well known in the community and the village of Mae Tang. The gathering began around 9PM at what is like a community center, and there were at least 100+ people of all ages there. I went with a group that included Izume and Lawson, the other two UO volunteers and two house moms for the children. We found a seat at a table among people the house moms knew. We were served food, sticky rice, water and chocolate crackers. After this night, the sticky rice has become one of my favorite meals because of its flavor and also what it is cooked in. Sticky rice can be cooked in a banana leaf or in bamboo, as it was at the funeral, it is then cooked over an open fire. I do not know how it works, but all you do when it is finished cooking is peel back the bamboo and tear off a piece of the sticky rice; it is one food that does live up to its name. Other than the food being very good, the whole idea behind a Thai funeral is that it gives the family of the deceased a chance to mourn their relative. The events go on for about five to seven days, and the number of people that help put this on is at least 40 because while some are cooking the meal, others are serving everyone, some are cleaning up and then it starts all over again. After the eating and socializing is all finished, people pay respect to a shrine every night by lighting incense and saying a prayer. The shrine can be large or small depending on the wealth of the family and the family also pays for a gift, in this case, fifty fold up chairs, as merit to the monks at the temple that the shrine will be taken to and later burned. The merit is from the Buddhist religion, by giving merit you or other family members will come back as something higher in your next life. Unique only to northern Thailand was a cloth or flag that has a cloth ladder sewn on to help guide the sprits to heaven. We spent about three hours at the Thai funeral where we paid our respects and said our goodbyes. Even though I did not know the deceased I was able to meet new people that welcomed me into their community as one of their own.

A Little Different Taste of Coffee

Being a coffee drinker in the morning has been a little different in Thailand than at home in the United States. The difference is not only because I get up at 6:30AM when the children are up having breakfast out on the patio in front of my room. The difference is that the coffee is not brewed but rather it is made from instant coffee. The amount of coffee that is actually in the instant coffee I mix together with hot water is only about 11% coffee, the rest of the ingredients are about 48% sugar and 41% creamer. For the past few days I thought it was the coffee that was waking me up, but I was wrong, it is the sugar that wakes me up! The three in one instant coffee is still good, and the best part of it now is that the children have so much fun stirring the water and coffee mix that I no longer have to make coffee for myself. Remember, the best part of waking up, is someone else making coffee for you.

My First Few Days at School

The weekend that I arrived I was already given the two days off for the simple reason that there is no school on the weekends. I was taken out to lunch where the meal was a Thai buffet, and I was able to try a wide variety of foods and desserts. Sunday afternoon was spent in the park playing games and kicking the soccer ball around. After a few hours of fun time we pulled out a blanket and had a picnic dinner at the park. The fun and games ended that day when on Monday classes started again. In the mornings all the older and younger kids get together to have morning flag ceremony, which includes singing the Thai National Anthem. I learned that the king himself who just had his birthday on December 5th wrote the National Anthem. It is very interesting to see all the ways that the Thai people honor him because he is so liked for all the good things he has done for all the people here. Following the flag ceremony there were morning exercises and off to class; I chose to go with the younger children today because I figured they might be more understanding of my Thai. The highlight of class was when the teacher (I’m still learning names) taught the children about brushing their hair, putting lotion on their hands and baby powder on their faces. The boys in the class chose to cake their faces completely with baby powder and put lotion on their hands and arms. The girls decided they had had enough and went on to more learning lessons, but the boys decided that they were having too much fun. After lunch I went with the older kids who had art class for the first time today. They learned about the primary colors and also what happens when you mix the three of them with one another. I led afternoon activities where we did some ball dribbling; balancing books on our head, and finished up with steal the bacon. I then had some free time and with a few minutes left of activities I handed out Air Heads (an American candy) to the children, but they each had to say their name before I would give them their choice of color and flavor. The names are very hard for me to remember but I feel that out of the 22 children I have about six or seven names memorized (that is very good percentage, approximately 32%!). I hope by the end of the week I will have them all memorized. The food here is wonderful, in fact it is some of the most tasteful food I have ever had. The cook here does a wonderful job preparing the food not to mention she makes more than enough; the kids are really encouraged to have at least two helpings. They always ask one another if they have had two helpings by saying, “two, two” and showing two fingers.

So far, the nights are the lonely times because the children are in bed by 8:00 PM, but it is nice to have some time to myself along with also going to bed early. You need to keep in mind that when it gets dark two things happen: 1) the mosquitoes come out to feast, and 2) most people are not fortunate to have electricity so why not go to bed and have an earlier start in the morning. Soon, I hope to venture out more into the nearby villages; I have some people that are willing to show me around for the first time.

Living at Club Med

It is like a Club Med here at the Starfish School with two pools, a garden full of vegetables, two fishponds, an individual room to myself (the biggest room I have ever had) and enough food to feed an army. The school was formerly a resort called Riverine Point Resort; I know this because we drink from the glassware that was left behind by the resort owners. My only question to the former owner would be, why here? The locals have also been wondering this about the furans, a French word that describes the white people in Thailand. After you walk down by the river, which is muddy, smells badly, and is only twenty feet wide, what would you do next? The local village is not a tourist attraction, so I would assume that you would eat, drink, sleep and swim all day long; it is no wonder the resort went bankrupt. Haugland bought it and has turned it into one of the nicest schools I have seen. There are hot water heaters, cold water to drink near every building, fans in the rooms, refrigerators, flush toilets and a computer room that doubles as a classroom, and washing machines to do laundry. The school hopes to be able to harvest their food from the quarter acre garden, and the two fish ponds will also be a food source as well as a place for afternoon fishing for the children. The school is located about 45km (28 miles) north of Chiang mai off highway 107 past Maetang on the River Ping, so it is not too far to get cheap supplies that the nearby but smaller village, Mae Tang does not have. The school will be a wonderful and safe place for these children and staff for many years to come. There is hope that the river will not cause more flood damage as it did this past rainy season in August when there was local flooding for the first time in 40 years.

Plane Flight to Thailand

Thirty-six hours later I have arrived at my final destination, Chiang-mai, Thailand. The trip began with a twelve-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo. The flight was easy and comfortable, thanks to having airline passes from my uncle and with some "luck of the Irish" I got the last ticket for business class. After a three-hour layover in Tokyo I had to prepare for another flight to the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Again, I was lucky and received one of the last tickets for the flight to Bangkok, though this time my seat was in the middle (always fun to ask for permission to get up and go to the bathroom), but I struck up a conversation to help pass the time with the older gentleman who shared the other middle seat next to me. The gentleman told me all about Thailand's business practices and the economy. I found it interesting that the individual who owns Thailand's largest airline business, Asian Air, and telecommunication company is also the Prime Minister of Thailand, sounds familiar, Dick Cheney? Having made the flight to Bangkok, my original plan to stay the night in a Bangkok hotel changed when I decided I would spend the next four hours waiting in the Bangkok airport for my third and final plane flight to Chiang-mai. A movie on my laptop and several walks around pushing my luggage cart made the time pass quickly. Now this brings up an important lesson for international travelers that I learned the hard way. By no means should your one carry on bag weigh more than your two check in bags combined; I welcomed the free push carts for your bags with open arms when I arrived in Thailand. As soon as the ticket office opened, I booked a flight on Thai Air to Chiang-mai. Now for those who are planning trips I do highly recommend taking the Thai Air Flight #100 costing 2,777 baht ($70.00), but I’m pretty sure you get it cheaper if you book it twenty-three hours in advance on the internet at www.thaiairways.com . It is a flight that is about one hour; I received a full meal, the best dried fruit I have ever had (Logan, a major economic crop of Lamphun Province, Thailand), beautiful stewardesses, and a whole row of seats to myself. I now sit in the Chiang-mai International Airport for another five hours until I get a car ride to the Starfish Country Home School. I have found this nice restaurant on the 2nd floor in the airport where I can charge my laptop (International converter is required to charge the laptop), and I’m rocking out to Thai pop/rock music. I only have a few short remarks about the trip so far that I want to share for my own personal notes and for other travelers:

1) I have found that Thai people can sometimes be pushy because while I’m in line waiting to get something, a Thai man or women will completely ignore the fact that there is a line and go straight to the front. It has only happened to me three times, twice at the two different coffee shops and once while in line to get the Thai Air plane ticket.

2) The phone card situation is sometimes troubling. I cannot get it to work for calls within Thailand; it only wants to work when I’m calling the United States (it is an MCI International Rechargeable Prepaid Phone Card from Costco). I have little to worry about though because it seems that everyone has a cell phone (the nice GMS phones), and so far two people have voluntarily offered me their cell phones to use. I only borrowed one person's because the first person was someone that was also trying to get me to buy his taxi services (I was forewarned about the taxi drivers who will stop at nothing to get you into their taxi, and it is true!).

So far I’m still healthy and have a lot of things to look forward to. You should know that my Thai speaking is still not close to par, but I’m eager to learn some because it will make my life here a whole lot easier.