Jungle Trek

This past weekend we headed off on motorbikes towards Tak and stayed overnight at the National Park. We had this awesome bungalow that had a balcony overlooking the mountains. Beautiful. We started with a hike through the jungle to see a Tall tree and a mini waterfall. The tree was actually big, the biggest I've ever seen. We were just a person short to make a human chain around the base (there were 9 of us). The waterfall was fun to cool off in. There was even a little rock slide. On the way out we picked a different way and got detoured and had to off-roaded for a bit because of a bunch of fallen trees. Ben ended up finding 6 leeches on his feet and another friend, Matt had one, but it was big and made him bleed everywhere.That night we hung out on the balcony watching the stars.
There was this crescent moon black bear at the park. You could get right up to it's cage and feed it food. The gate was lacked with a cheap lock. The bear came down and just hung out with us for company for a bit. When we went to go home the bear got all rilled up and began pacing the tree and standing up (I think it saw a rabbit).
There was a pickled baby bear in the visitor center on display and some really really large beetles.
The next day we stopped at this roadside market and then tried to find a natural rock bridge. We got side tracked by a cow herder and ended up at this cool cave temple complete with file cabinets. Just what every cave temple needs. The guy at the temple motorbiked us to the rock bridge entrance up and down these steep dirt paths. It was a bit difficult to communicate with him, but ended up finding a local man who spoke a little English. He got a group of children to be our guides. It was a good thing we had this troupe of children leading us through the jungle because it ended up being confusing, unmarked (except for a tiny piece of paper cut into a 2 stapled to a trunk of a random tree), and steep. The children were like little men. They saw myself and a couple others struggling with some of the slippery parts. So a few of the boys stayed back moving leaves off the path so it would be less slippery, holding banana leaves out of the way for us (but throwing them in Matt's face hehe), and even stopping at the creek and reminding us to wash our faces to cool off. They jumped around the trail in their flip flops and bare feet as if it was nothing. Many of them had red hair dye or had bleached their hair in patterns. At one point we got to this flat spot with lots of bamboo trees and windy vines. The boys attacked it and climbed on it like a "jungle gym." The jungle truly is their playground.
The rock bridge ended up being really cool. There were all these mini caves around the rocks and fun rock slides. We did not want to leave, but rather wanted to camp out for the night.
The journey back was easier (they took us a different route) and we saw some women farming the mountain hills. They must have massive thigh muscles. There were lots of banana and avocado trees. It felt a bit like we were at a place most people don't see.
The boys were just amazing. They were so polite and kind and they taught us how to shoot slingshots.
The ride home to Mae Sot was also beautiful. The sun was setting over these huge mountain peaks. It was a beautiful peaceful ride, all but the dog that jumped down from the median in front of our bike as we passed (what is up with these dogs!)

Steff's Work 2

So this has defiantly been a learning experience for me. One that I was not looking for or had the skills for but I'm trying. My role here has really been to be more of a community developer and a massive scale change agent rather than just a counselor. I came with the expectation that the community was seeking help with their children and improving their understanding of mental health, and they are. However, the process to do this is incredible. It is kind of similar to what it may have been like in the US in the 50's in regards to child rights, when health and life skills classes were first being introduced as important as reading and math classes and finding their way into the schools, increasing the understanding and acceptance of counseling, combating mental health stigma, reducing corporal punishment and route learning etc. Also, the same struggles we have today in schools with sex education and even the psych social groups we have in schools today: like grief support and ethnic or gay pride groups.
It has been difficult to be here and see so many needs and to try SO many things and to really not have too many things actually come to actualization. I wanted an end product, and I have gotten few of those, but mostly what I have done is to be an agent of change. To help move people along a little further than they were when I arrived to help them reach a place where they can accept the help they request and then the hope is they can use some of these suggestions to increase their ability to utilize the next volunteer's time and experience here more effectively.
patience for change has never been my strong suit, but I've been able to think creatively about how to maneuver around road blocks and to use the strengths the community have to address these too. I also of course have met some absolutely wonderful people and love them to death.

One of the biggest barriers I've faced is not having a Burmese counselor involved with me when trying to make these changes. I've tried many strategies for this (trying to help the MTC counseling clinic see the benefit in addressing the community and children's needs, but not much luck with that) instead I asked for a translator, no luck with that either... Ok not to worry I then asked some of the high school students who have shown a huge interest in learning English to come with me and help translate during their summer holiday. Win win situation! yeah...
The boarding house staff are kind of forced to due what MTC clinic ask due to this huge grant the clinic has received to distribute amongst a few choice migrant schools. So there is this really friendly manner I have been received and a really sincere desire to increase awareness of child development, trauma, and helping the children who are having difficulties emotionally and due to disabilities; however, these people are EXTREME over worked and the actual practice of incorporating these ideas are difficult to do for anyone.

The next barriers I have faced is that the schools or boarding houses do not want anything to do with this stuff during their school year. They operate under the assumption that this is extra stuff hat would be good to address, but these kids have to focus on their basics. I am trying to build the understanding that addressing these issues will help the kids learn better to increase the possibility that someday in the future CDC will be able to develop their psych social health curriculum and implement it into their class schedules. In the mean time I am also working on introducing the idea of having a group after school at CDC or on Saturdays at the counseling center for some of the children who have been effected by the cyclone. Unfortunately when April came around, many of the children and staff have gone on holiday to Burma to visit family or other places (understandably it is their summer break). However, this has also put another kink in the plan to do trainings with the staff at the boarding house or to do a lot of activities with the kids, but hey self care is number one, so it's a good barrier.

Besides I have two awesome students from CDC who are helping to transcribe and translate in the boarding houses now!!! Yeah. I buy them lunch (one of the boys lives at a boarding house and only eats one meal a day I discovered) they get to practice

There are issues of child protection (nothing is formally done here and it is mostly just raising awareness at the smaller schools about the need of a child to be protected and to help staff, teachers, and neighbors take ownership for this protection. I have one particular child in mind. He is abused at home by an alcoholic father and asked staff to stay at the boarding house, but his father will not let him. I've been trying to encourage and suggest that the teachers/ boarding house responsibility is to address the father, village leader, and others in the community who can help. (This mind you is done with my lovely Karen family where one adolescent speaks a tiny bit of English. A lot of this stuff has been done over days of having something written and than translated for each other off site).

I've been able to work with World Education and Cope, all funded through Unicef during the last couple months. This has been exciting and fun to see a bigger side of the migrant community. Plus it is a much more organized agency, so it just felt nice to have this difference. For instance this location is just on the edge of town in a gated community in an air conditioned house... I met with Liberty, Mia, and Kelly along with Lou and his wife (Lou helped kind of take me under his wing and steer me in their direction after the difficulties I was having with the counseling center). So I ended up contributing behavioral management ideas to them as an alternative to corporal punishment or other forms I've heard of (making kids pull down their pants and underwear and run around their friends, whipping them for each low mark they got on their report card, or standing and holding a tree for hours-- gives a whole new meaning to tree hugger). I've been able to add this and some other suggestions to their cope training manual they give to all the migrant school teachers along the border.

Most recently I've gotten a little involved with the youth center on the other side of town which houses the adolescent reproductive health center. It is basically community center that also doubles as a family planning facility. I'm mostly acting as a consultant for their curriculum and intimated presenting this information to the boarding houses around MTC.

So the migrant community. Boy, it is a tough one. One of the boarding house masters I was working with just up and left to Burma the other day. Many of the staffing issues at MTC are due to the migrant nature of people .No one plans to stick around for too long. People are trying to relocate. The community has on;y a few options for work opportunities: medic, teacher, another MTC job, store owner, construction, farmer, or factory worker. I'm trying to introduce the idea that they could begin to recent graduated from CDC high school who speak good English and employ them to be translators around the clinic: for the med students, for volunteer, etc. This way they can practice English better, have employment, and can also free up the trained medics or counselors to continue to treat patients. (Often a medic does not speak English well, or if so then the volunteer is not helping much due to two doctors are seeing one patient). The ideal is for these translator to be interested in what ever things they are translating so they are getting double the benefits and eventually could be trained in the other area also.

Most people who have seen change happen have stayed in Mae Sot for years, some have stayed for five years.
This experience has lead me to want more skills in community development and has also lead me to know politics is not fun for me yuck. I like hands on with kids :)

Burning Monk

A well known Burmese Buddhist monk died between "three and six" years ago, everyone has a different opinion on when he actually died. The "burning monk" ceremony, began 2 weeks ago with the construction of a paper and styrofoam temple. For the week leading up to the cremation there was a festival like atmosphere at the temple with performances, games, food, and unbelievably loud music that we could hear from our bedrooms until two in the morning. The night of the burning, what seemed like the entire town gathered at the temple. The temple itself was festooned in bright colors and lights. There were also streamers made of 20 and 100 bhat bills. As we entered the temple we saw the "guest of honor." He was encased in a glass fixture surrounded by neon lights, and on closer inspection he was actually covered gold. People stood in line to approach the golden monk to pay their and watch. The golden burning monk was an amazing respects by burning incense and offering prayers. At first, only the other monks were allowed inside the temple as they set him ablaze. Then they allowed all of us to come into the paper temple, and none of us had ever seen a cremation before. The smoke was beginning to get thick filling the temple. All of us will carry a little bit of the monk with us...(in our lungs)

Biking Butt Bite

Steff tricked me into biking 90 km (56 miles). She mentioned there was a waterfall and national park "just up the road." After setting out for a couple km, I saw a huge sign advertising the national park saying waterfall 50km ahead. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at Stephanie. "50km?!" She answers, "ya ba day" Burmese for "no worries." and she biked on. With a sigh (thinking to myself it is the Thai hot season, in the mid-day sun, with Steff's bike that constantly falls apart) I pedaled after her.
At the base of the mountain, leading to the National Park, we came upon a Thai police check point. They just laughed at us when they heard we were planning to bike the remaining 9km (vertical mind you) up the mountain to the waterfall. Anyone that knows Steff, knows she is stubborn as a mule and when she has a goal in her head there is no dissuading her. They refilled our bottles with ice cold water and with laughter and good wishes they sent us on our way. We made it just around the first bend out of sight of the Thai police and had to get off our bikes and begin walking. Steff kept saying we're only a few km away from swimming next to a nice beautiful waterfall and reminded us that we summited Mt Kili and how we could not let this "little mountain" get in our way. Two km later, with me getting dizzy and nearing heat exhaustion and even Steff admitting she was a little tired, we decided to postpone it for another day- perhaps taking a motorbike instead. Coming down the windy mountain was much more fun even though Steff's brakes were almost nonexistent. As we pedaled by the Thai police we tried to avoid their "I told you so looks."
We refueled at a roasted chicken stand on the side of the road and had some nice watermelon from a local farmer. As we set off for home, it was getting dark and the wind picked up. We were a few km from home along the freeway and as we passed a home two dogs (steff described them as looking like two scheming teenagers) gave a knowing glance to each other and darted out after her. She managed to keep her balance on her wobbly bike and not fall into the freeway traffic, but could not avoid one of the dogs latching on to her left butt check. Ouch. I yelled at the dogs scaring them away, but the damage had already been done. Steff's butt was already so sore from the bike ride she did not even know if it was a serious bite or not, she just knew it hurt.
She tried to get out of going to the doctor (she had heard when she was a kid you had to get many shots in your stomach and it was really painful), but eventually decided to go. The doctors and nurses were really nice and the translation process went ok. She ended up with a couple shots of tetanus, and a few rabies vaccine shots in her butt. (the four other shots she needs to get over month are just in the arm). On the way home from the hospital, I asked "So was biking 90 km and getting a butt bite worth it?" She turned to me and without flinching said, "Yes!"

Bangkok and the Island of Koh Samui

After 20+ hours in a plane, my family; mom (Leslie), dad (David), and brother (Chris) arrived in Bangkok. We had checked into the hotel and immediately went to the pool (which had a bar you swam up to). They were all a little out of it from the time change but were excited to be in an exotic city. As mom went to bed early Steff, Chris, Dad and I took a walk down the street to check out Bangkok. Along the sidewalk was an endless row of tourist s vendors selling clothes, paintings, sculptures, and the usual stuff, but also more exotic items like stun guns, rifle scopes and every bootleg DVD you can think of. Aside from the wares being sold on the sidewalks, it is not unusual to find an elephant walking down the busy city streets. For 10 thai baht you can feed the elephants sugar cane stalks and get some pretty cool photos, this is something truly unique to Bangkok. Some other things we saw while walking around Bangkok included African transvestites they call “Chocolate boys” and a Muslim woman wearing a full burka and what appeared to be a metal muzzle over her mouth. We got about a block from the hotel when we decided to duck into a random bar for a beer. As we walked in we noticed that the bar consisted of mostly girls all standing shoulder to shoulder in a line around the bar. It took us a minute before we realized we were in a brothel! We all started giggling at the spectacle and said what the heck, let’s order a beer. As we drank our beer we observed the weird scene of prostitutes standing silently around the bar, waiting for their next customer. Then we decided to head up the block and only a short distance later we were approached by a man saying he could take us to a “special show”. I was curious so I asked what kind of show? His reply was the “ping pong show”! The next few hours are a little hazy. The next day we hit the typical tourist trail and saw all the amazing temples and shrines in Bangkok. The grand Palace was huge and used an endless amount of broken teacups from China to decorate the outside of one of the temples with porcelain flowers. Also, there was a temple surrounded with statues of demons and monkeys. The guide said you could tell the monkeys from the demons by their smiles and that they were not wearing shoes. The monkeys pretended to hold up the temple with the demons, but were really tricking them to hold all the weight. Anyone who knows my father knows he poses for every picture flexing his arm. This is not a joke, he actually poses for every picture flexing his arm. While walking through the palace, we saw a statue of an ancient Chinese warrior making the same pose. Dad had found his true ancestor. On our way back we got into a couple of Bangkok’s famous “tuk tuks”. These are three wheeled motorcycle taxis that drive like a bat out of hell through Bangkok’s insane traffic. Weaving through cars and observing little to no rules of the road we arrived back at our hotel in record time, but with white knuckles and a dramatic increase in blood pressure.


The following day we took a ride out of the city to visit a floating market, where the entire market is in boats along a canal. It was pretty interesting, especially the part where we all had giant live pythons draped around our necks. Dad was screaming like a little girl, but managed to have the python on him long enough for a couple of pictures.

Later that night we saw some Thia boxing at Lumpini Stadium. The first fighters we saw were around 13-years-old. The had a lived band who played the same painfully monotonous line of music throughout the whole night. The trainers and their fans really got into the fight. Their 'locker room" was right next to the public bathrooms and soda stand, so we got to observe them before their fights.

Our next stop was the island of Koh Samui. Steff, Chris, and I went out on a boat trip for some island hopping. We soon found out that the water stings. This sounds weird, but apparently there are what we think are sea lice, which bite you when in the water. Quite surprising. We did a little snorkeling and saw some colorful fish and found a little cave to hang out in. For dinner we saw some Thai dancing next to the beach and Mom organized a surprise birthday song and cake for Stephanie. A nice birthday surprise! Then the three of us (Steff,Chris, Ben) went to the island next door for the full moon party. This party has been built up as the biggest beach party in the world and we were all looking forward to going thinking it would be bonfires and hippies with a laid back atmosphere, it would be special because it was also steff’s birthday. When we arrived it was more like a giant techno club on the sand, with thousands of drunk Europeans dancing and drinking liquor out of buckets and peeing in the ocean. There was a pretty cool fire show on the beach with fire dancers and someone had brought out a huge jump rope that was lit on fire and people were taking turns jumping in. Of course I went in for a try and jumped it fine three or four times until a group of people decided to join me and they tripped on the fire rope. As we were leaving Steff and I got separated from Chris, so I turn around to go back into the thickest part of the crowd to find where we saw him last. I looked around for about 10 to 15 min. before giving up and as I came out of the crowd I notice that someone had picked my video camera right out of my pocket. We had been warned about this type of thing from many sources, but I never thought will happen. Apparently there is an army of pickpockets at the full moon party.

One day Dad decides we should rent a car and explore the island ourselves. This seems like a good idea until you think about how the steering wheel is on the right side of the car and they drive on the left side of the road. Not to mention Thai drivers are not like those found in America, they drive like mad men, passing cars in front of them on blind corners, disobeying all common sense rules, etc. As dad had little experience with this style of driving we came close to hitting every bystander and car along the side of the road as we passed. One pedestrian actually had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit by us. Dad, of course, was oblivious to all of this and accused us of being scared little girls. To give him credit, we did make it through the entire day without hitting anyone or anything, although we came very, very, very close on a number of occasions. We stopped off for an elephant ride and also we passed a sign saying “Deadly Cobra Show”, and decided to have a look. It was one of the coolest shows ever. A lady called the scorpion queen came out and put over a dozen scorpions on her face, and let a giant centipede biter her arm, apparently over the years she has developed and immunity to the stings. Then they brought out the Cobras. A man came out and was playing with three of them at a time and even gave one a kiss on the head. “There was an older Thai man narrating the show with a funny voice. He’d say, “welcome my friend, deadly cobra show, most deadly snake in Thailand,. C-O-B-R-A and make a heart beat sound through the microphone as the trainer kissed the snake on the head.” It was pretty amazing.

Back on the mainland we decided to take our last trip to a town called Lop Buri, also known as “monkey town”. The people of this town believe that the monkeys who share the town with them are princes of former Kings. They believe the monkeys should be treated with respect, even going so far as to pile feasts of fruits onto tables and letting the monkeys dig in. The tourism the monkeys bring in helps them to feel a little less annoying also. The monkeys would climb all over you and even dig into your pockets taking anything that was in there. They were known to take cameras, bags, sunglasses, and anything not tied onto your body. We spent a few hours in the sun just playing with the monkeys, but could have spent a week it was so much fun. At one point a small monkey was sitting behind Steff picking at her skirt and moved up to her hair, even pulling it at one point. The monkey was grooming her like she was one of their own (few can argue that she is not). A local boy who “helps” the tourist quickly latched onto our family and was happy to help us take pictures or get the monkeys to do tricks, with the unstated understanding that we would give him a tip. At one point the local Thai boy pointed to a very fat monkey and said “big!”, he then pointed to Chris and said “big too!” we all started laughing very hard, because Chris has gained a lot of weight over the past few months and we had all been letting him know this (it was all in good fun). But now even the locals were having a laugh at Christopher’s chubby disposition. Mom had caught every one of us sleeping at some point during the trip and documented this with a photograph; mom finds this game extremely amusing especially because she has never been caught herself. Until that day….(haha gotcha mom).