August 12 is the queen's birthday, and as she is considered the mother of the country, the country takes the day off and celebrates everyone's mother.
Speaking of women, I would like to urge everyone to learn more about the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA). It was re-introduced to the 111th US congress in February 2010 by bipartisan teams in both the House and Senate, and is the first comprehensive piece of US legislation aimed at ending violence against women around the world by incorporating solutions into US foreign assistance.
You can e-mail your representatives using this link to Human Rights Watch:
http://www.kintera.org/c.nlIWIgN2JwE/b.4567395/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx
and sign the petition using this link to Women Thrive Worldwide: www.womenthrive.org/vday
I'm ridiculously behind on my current events (I welcome any and all e-mails with updates and links to articles!), but I was so pleased to learn that the US recently passed the Tribal Law and Order Act, which improves coordination between tribal, local, state, and federal law enforcement and specifically addresses the disturbing rates of acts of sexual violence committed with impunity against American Indian and Alaska Native women.
You can read more with this link to Amnesty International:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/landmark-us-legislation-addresses-sexual-violence-against-native-women-2010-07-23
It has been a fun and challenging first month in Chiang Mai, but no where near as difficult as it would have been if this way my first time in Thailand, and for that, I'm most thankful!
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I've been squatting the whole time with my dear friend Denali in her single room, but I'm proud to announce that as of this morning I will be renting a small house in the old city from a large Thai family who have two houses in the same compound. It's lovely to have them so near because it offsets the heavy backpacker and guesthouse scene in that area of the city. It will also be a great way to work on my Thai! More on the house later, after I'm officially moved in, but I'm so excited about it!
July 1 I started work for The Life Skills Development Foundation, more commonly known as "Rak Dek" in Thai. Rak Dek is a Thai non-profit coordinating health and education projects for under-served communities of ethnic minorities and tribal peoples in northern Thailand. I will be their "international intern" for the next year, which primarily entails visiting project sites in Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, and Lamphun provinces and working with project coordinators to write their English funding reports and proposals for international non-profit and corporate sponsors such as UNICEF and Johnson & Johnson.
The same week I rather unexpectedly started taking a Thai class at a local university. I went into the language office earlier that week expecting to be placed in the level 2 conversation class. Unfortunately, that class wasn't going to be offered because their weren't enough people signed up. Level 3, which included reading and writing, was currently being taught with level 4 offered next. I interviewed with the teacher and because I could read a little bit (and at this point I began to think him a little crazy) he suggested that I come to the last week of level 3 classes, catch up with all their reading a writing skills, and prepare to start level 4 the following week!
With Thai class for 3 hours in the morning Monday through Friday, I've been working part-time at Rak Dek in the afternoons. Very full days with a couple of hours of Thai homework in the evenings as well. Working on the computer all afternoon at Rak Dek has made it difficult to keep up on blogs and e-mails too. I often don't even want to look at my computer once I leave work! However, my Thai class finished on Wednesday before the holiday (I passed with a B+!), so I will have more time to space out my computer work in the office and no homework to compete with keeping in touch in the evenings.
Now for a summary of the last month in pictures...
During my second week of work, which was a conveniently also a break between Thai classes, all Rak Dek staff headed up to a lovely resort in the mountains for a training on the UN convention on the rights of the child. A bit overwhelming because the training was mostly in Thai, but a really good opportunity to get to know my co-workers more, learn about child rights programming, and familiarize myself with Rak Dek's various projects.
At Rak Dek my nickname is "Tee," started probably because it is how I sign most of my e-mails. In the old city, however, my nickname is "Luk wa," given to me early on by P' Pui, who works at Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures (CMRCA) where I boulder during the week. Luk wa is a small purple Thai fruit a lot like a cranberry.
The next week was the World Cup final and the Dutch were decked out in all their orange glory but left the streets of Chiang Mai deflated.
The following weekend I went paint-ball-ing for the first time in celebration of a friend's birthday. It was intense but fun, and I was happy to leave without nearly as many bruises as most others. The next day Denali, Jess, and I went for a hike up Doi Suthep, the mountain nearest Chiang Mai. It is famous for the lovely wat at the top where we stopped to view the city below and rest for a bit.
Our hike down took us past the largest strangler fig tree in Thailand. A magnificent tree we have decided to try climbing at some point using threads as protection to set up a proper belay. Further down we passed several beautiful waterfalls where we stopped to slide a couple times.
July 26 and 27 were another Thai holiday called "Khao Pan Shaa" or Buddhist lent. Traditionally it marked period of time when monks could not leave the monasteries to collect food because heavy rains drive small creatures up onto the walk ways and the monks might accidentally kill some. So lay Buddhist would start bringing all their offerings to the temples during and after this holiday until the end of the rainy season. Most modern monks can still be seen wandering the city these days despite the rains though... along with their cell phones!
The holiday created a 4 day weekend, so I left town with 4 other ladies for a motorbike trip through the mountains of Mae Hong Son province to the west of Chiang Mai. These signs pepper the mountain roads and very accurately depict what driving through the mountains was like.
In Pai, where we started our journey we drove through the countryside and visited what very well may be my dream house... This guesthouse outfit offered rooms in a tree house! The rooms were quaint, complete with mosquito nets, and the house even had toilet and shower facilities!
On our way to Pang Mapha we stopped to watch the mist descend from the mountains into the jungle filled valleys, and my lovely companions posed in their rain gear. It was a total of about 45 km from Pai to Pang Mapha.
From left to right: Lauren, Riley, Ellen, and Vera.
There was quite a bit of rain our first evening and second day, so we stayed in Pang Mapha to explore the three largest caves in the area.
We were able to walk in and around each cave but had to take boats to get from one cave to the next.
These caves are famous as "spirit caves" because they contain the remains of ancient coffins placed by the Shan, one of the indigenous tribal groups, .
That evening it was relatively dry, so we walked over to the mouth of one cave as dusk to watch an estimated 500,000 swifts return to roost in the caves. It was getting rainy and dark, so we headed back towards our guesthouse before the birds finished and the bats started exiting the cave for the night.
Our third day started dry and progressed into a beautiful sunny day, so we drove the remaining 65km from Pang Mapha to Mae Hong Son, the provincial capital.
We arrived in Mae Hong Son in time to get lunch, relax at a cafe, and explore the city before walking around the lake and visiting the Shan style wat at sunset.
We got dinner at the local night market and enjoyed the beauty of the wat lit up at night.
I returned back to Pai and then Chiang Mai the next day with Lauren and Ellen because we had to work on Wednesday, while Riley and Vera continued on to complete the loop ending in Chiang Mai. However, the next day I work I found out that I would be returning to Pai on Thursday for an Early Childhood Development (ECD) project meeting! So it was back up the winding mountain roads, but this time in a truck which unfortunately resulted in a bit of motion sickness.
Above is my boss, KK, the director of Rak Dek, and Kwan, the coordinator for ECD. I will profile each of the projects I'm providing English support to in later posts and I'll endeavor to complete my posts on Cambodia, Vietnam, and South Korea soon too!
