After sorting things out in Jordan and spending 7 hours in the Bahrain airport, I arrived in humid Bangkok during the early afternoon of August 18th. My thoughts on Bangkok? It's huge. I felt like I was in the LA of the southeast.
We were only in Bangkok for two days and then we went to a resort in the mountains of Leoi. The only downside to the resort was the fact that it rained multiple times a day, every day. Other than that, it was amazing. Most of my days were spent in 4 hour Thai classes and various group processing sessions. This program is all about planning and group processing. At times it seems like too much, but hearing the stories of past participants, I keep reminding myself to trust the process. If nothing else, I'm going to leave this program with amazing planning skills and the tools to effectively communicate in a group. Not to mention, amazing first hand experiences throughout rural Thailand.
Although, all of that comes at a price. My program follows an "alternative education model." Basically that means all lessons are based on experience. Instead of lectures we do some background reading, go experience things, and then discuss them. Lectures are sometimes utilized but usually they come in the form of exchanges with NGOs and villagers. Consequently, class never really ends or begins, every moment is an "educational opportunity." In nonoptimistic terms, that means I have class seven days a week, usually for about 10 hours, but sometimes as long as 14. Free time comes in the form of "personal days" and there are about 17 of them for the entire semester. Now you know why it's taken me so long to write.
Orientation was followed by moving to Khon Kaen. My apartment is in a very convenient location. The CIEE offices were my classes are held, is about a block from my apartment. Just behind the apartment is a cafeteria and about 5 different restaurants. In another direction, walk five minutes and you are surrounded by bars, nightclubs and more restaurants. I couldn't have asked for a better location.
My roommate is Thai and her name is Mook. She's an electrical engineer and sleeps during the day because all of her classes are in the evening. She loves basketball, so once I get my membership to the gym, we're going to go play basketball every morning before classes.
About 3 days after we arrived on campus we did our first homestay. Each of us was paired with a freshman at a local high school. My kid's name was Noon. She and her older brother and younger sister and brother all live with their aunt. The first night was difficult because no one really talked to me. The second night, everyone wanted to know about me so I talked about what I study and my family. On the last two nights we just watched tv together. My favorite part was the fact that the aunt watched tv with her sunglasses on. She had regular glasses but she always put her sunglasses on when we turned on the tv.
This past week has been a series of lectures about Thailand. I think the most mind blowing thing I've learned is the fact that "Thai Culture and Identity" is a forced social construct of the government. Thai isn't even a real word! It's a word that was adapted from Tai which refers to a language with speakers throughout Asia, even as far as China. People here are living under a false identity and most don't even know it! But onto other things.
Yesterday we had a writing workshop with a foreign correspondent. For 3 hours we learned about writing theory and techniques and then we spent the next 5 hours putting the theory into practice. First we did an interview and then we practiced writing a profile. It was a bit long but very helpful and I really like this idea of learning through experience. Hopefully the tips I learned will begin to emerge here.
Today we did a photo workshop with photographer and writer Nic Dunlop. He wrote a book called The Lost Executioner which portrays how he found and brought to justice, Comrade Duch. Comrade Duch's trial was in July and he was sentenced to 32 years but he will only be serving 19. And I spent the day with the guy that found him! In addition to that, he's also an amazing photographer and all day he was at our disposal. After a couple hours of introduction, he gave us an assignment. Find a human subject and take pictures of them. We had the specific instruction of "Getting in someone's face." We were all really nervous about the idea of just walking up to someone and taking their picture. Getting in their face was a different issue. However, after a little encouraging I just did it and surprisingly it wasn't difficult at all. I walked up, asked for photos and spent the next hour just hanging out and taking photos. It was an amazing experience. In addition to learning to experiment with photos and angles, the purpose of the exercise was to build our confidence and that definitely worked with me. I don't believe I'm a great photographer but I'm a lot more confident about simply going out to take photos.
It's been a great three weeks. I know in the coming weeks the work will get tougher and I'll have less free time, but I'm going to work on updating more often.
Continuing to engage in adventures . . .
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