Reflection on Vacation: Always Learning

With Bi Si (welcoming and goodbye ceremony strings in which locals bless you) strings on my left hand and an ocean to my right, how do I even begin reflecting on this experience?  I am sitting on the beach in Koh Tao, staring out at the beautiful water forgetting that I am in Thailand still.  It is the brief interactions with locals and long conversations with vendors in Thai that remind me of my experience.  Or the exported food items on the menu that make me wonder how far they had to travel.  It is the memories of my host families and the villages that come flooding back when I see bedding or mats.  These are just a few of the moments that make this experience real.  Otherwise it feels like a dream.  A dream that I can’t forget in the morning, a dream whose lessons I must keep with me.

I am traveling with four of my friends from the program and we often find ourselves talking about goals for going home or how to explain our program in relatable terms.  The list of 55 buzz words work well when talking to another group member, but to anyone else, space just means space.  It does not make you laugh, cringe, or cry.  I am struggling with how to explain my tears when someone says that word, or explain my frustrations and successes with “challenging appropriately”.  However, this experience would not be meaningful if I could not take it back with me, if I could not implement the lessons I have learned.

So what will I do?  For starters, write down my lessons, quotes from NGOs and exchangees and post them around my room.  Keep a constant reminder of my growth and new knowledge.  And for that knowledge, bring it back to UR.  Not just the content, but my new outlook of what education means.  We turned it into a joke here, the basis of our education model, “Took kawn ben ajaan.”  Every person is a teacher.  This program put it in the structure, we learned from each other as facilitators, villagers about their lives and development, journalists about politics, and everyone we encountered.  I hope to share that lesson.  One can learn a lot from the experts, but experience is unmatched.  Lets just hope this plays out well in VA and NJ.   

So, as for my first question prior to leaving… how do you say “no worries” in Thai?  It’s mai pen rai.  Meaning no problem, don’t worry about it.  And just like I thought, its more than a saying here—it’s a lifestyle.  It is a lifestyle I have now understood and adapted to.  So adjustment will surely be difficult, but mai pen rai, its all a learning expereience.

(pictured is the sunset on the roof of my dorm in Khon Kaen)

The Spirit of Collaboration: Grassroots Movements

On an alternative education program, it is not final exams that we have but rather final projects.  After working with communities all semester long, learning about their struggles, successes, and current projects we as students finally get to be a part of it.  When I initially came I was confused what out projects were.  I did not understand the process; that process is collaboration.  My final project is unlike anything I have ever worked on because I am not only working with a group of five other students, but with an entire community.  And these people not only want but need it to be perfect and how they want it, because it changes their livelihoods.  (Also, everything has to be translated into Thai.)

For my project, I am working with the Rasi Salai community as they begin the very early stages of starting a Green Market, or an organic market.  We created surveys and the conducted them both in the city with consumers and on potential producers’ farms.  After collecting our data, we returned to Khon Kaen to analyze our data, create an educational pamphlet on organic food, and prepare for our annual Human Rights Festival.  What a crazy two weeks it has been!  So now, as it nears an end, I finally have clarity on what it means to collaborate with a community, and I have a better idea of what grassroots movements really are.  I came into this program thinking their needed to be outside involvement, but after having worked with a community that has been organizing for 17 years, I understand that motivation and passion are what drives movements, not power or money.  A dam was built in the community, and rather than giving up, they fight (“sou sou!”)  In this case, that means working within their situation, and making it better.  So currently, that means an organic market.  I know it is early stages, but I am really looking forward to years from now when I return to Thailand and go to the Wetlands Peoples’ Green Market.

As for now, well its wind down time.  (No, that doesn’t mean free time).  We will have the Human Rights Festival, which is a gathering of many communities and NGOs presenting their issues and networking together.  Then off to the retreat to reform the program structure and reflect on my experience.  It is hard to believe that its all coming to an end, but nice to know I have a community at Richmond to come home to.

Time for Harvest, Time for Projects

Harvest time means that all the green fields from the beginning of my journey have turned golden yellow.  It is a physical representation of truly how much time has passed.  Pretty cool though because just as the rice has changed through process, so have I through our group process.

This last unit before final projects was based in mining, and it brought in everything we have learned so far.  Water gets poisoned, land rights are violated, and of course, the farmland is destroyed.  What was most interesting about this unit though was its complexity.  I, as an American consumer, contribute to the issue.  At our reading discussion, we had to take everything that had mined products in it and put it at our feet.  Jewelry, electronics from our backpacks, notebooks, pens, everything was sitting at our feet.  It was a scary realization.  Then off to the communities and there they too use products that have been mined.  Its really a “not in my backyard argument”, but it needs to happen in our current economy, so whose backyard do we put it in?  More importantly, how do we ensure that those people have a say, because that seems to be one of the biggest problems here in the Northeast.  The villagers simply are not heard when the proposed projects will change their livelihood for ever.

Despite all the work that was due, two friends and I decided to take our personal days and return back to the organic village.  What an adventure it was.  I could not stay with my host family, so I stayed with my friends and Paw Wan.  Paw is the local rice varieties expert, so it was cool harvesting rice in his farm.  It wasn’t just Jasmine105 or Gaw Kaw 6, we were harvesting black rice, and then for dinner had the most delicious red sticky rice.   (Which doesn’t mean the rice is sticky, it is a different kind of rice that is eaten in this region.)  The trip back was where the adventure came in.  A driver brought us to the city nearby, then we got on an open air bus to take us to the bus station, and then there was only standing room on the four hour bus ride.  Also, the air conditioning was broken.  I found myself sitting on the floor (because it was cooler) scrunched between my friends, and just hoping time would pass quickly.

We got home safe and sound as always, appreciating the adventure and impressed with our language skills.  It is now time for final projects, so off to the village to survey to assess the feasibility of a Green Market.  But more on that soon…