fabulous comeuppance

a retrospective glance at life since my last update:

*i stayed in chiang mai, thailand until march 2010 teaching english and working for a burmese education non-profit organization. after having been there for more than 18 months, i started to feel like i was losing sight of my purpose. i'd originally gone to thailand in an effort to figure out what the hell i wanted to do with my life - teach english? health professional? anthropologist? masters student?!?! i met many amazing people, made loads of beautiful friends, ate some incredible food, was blown away by larger-than-life landscapes...but at the end of the day, i was not any closer to realizing my destiny than i was when i first stepped off the plane in 2008.

i'd decided it might be time for me to return to the U.S. - not totally a failure, but with a sense of defeat that i wasn't quite comfortable with. then something amazing happened. a group that i was volunteering with asked me if i would come to their office, because they wanted to introduce me to a couple of people. they would often ask me to come by to meet their songwriter friends to help them edit their songs that they wanted to perform in english; or teach their friends who wanted to open a restaurant catering to tourists how to make western food. so figuring this was another one of those scenarios, i gladly threw on a pair of cut-off shorts and a halter top, hopped on my motorbike and headed over to the office.

when i arrived, i was greeted by two american women, who were introduced to me as the leadership team of clear

path international, an international ngo that supports victims of landmines. they were the primary funders of this organization that i was volunteering with and had asked the group if they knew anyone who would like to help them out with some of their projects in se asia. apparently i fit the bill, but as they scanned me up and down - with my backpacker attire and empty-handed (no CV, or even a pen), i feared they had doubts. but then again, so did i. of course i wouldn't want to interview and be considered for a job that would keep me in asia. i'd already failed at developing a strategic plan for myself, and had wasted two years of my life in the process. screw you guys, i'm going home. or so i thought.

over the next few hours i spent chatting with these brilliant, compassionate women i was won over by their stories and hopes for the organization. i found myself then praying that they would accept me into their ranks. ah, but money. they didn't have a budget to fund my position, so told me that they would try to secure some grant money to bring me on, but in the time being just to hang out

a little while and just wait. yea, sure. i live in freaking asia, how many times had i heard that before? from tuk tuk drivers telling me that their vehicle was tired and i needed to just wait a little while...4 hours later we're still stuck in the middle of the jungle with hungry, fanged beasts scurrying around our feet. or the restaurant owner telling me that my dish will be out soon, just wait a little while. 2 hours later i'm passed out in the floor in a near diabetic fit. hellz no, i don't wait for anyone in asia anymore. but they persisted, and 7 months later, i received an email informing me that they'd received funding for my position, and they wanted me to start working immediately. so with that, i bid thailand and all my gorgeous memories farewell, for the time being. holla!

*during that 7 month period after thailand i lived in burma, an experience i'll cover in subsequent blogs. i'm realizing i'm a much better blogger when i write about the events retrospectively, after i've had time to reflect and see how things were actually pieced together through the end.

a good day

i've been extremely reticent to update this blog lately. the idea of living "abroad" is often synonymous with exoticism, newness and trailblazing that leads one to the greater depths of incite, self-awareness, and unbridled epiphanies. and while my time in thailand has, at one point or another, inspired such moments of awakening, after living here for now a year, that kind of stuff has taken a backseat to the realities of everyday life...laundry, lesson plans, seasonal colds, etc. so out of the fear of imposing boredom on anyone who might happen across this page, and fear of disappointing those who were curious to know what was going on in my "wild & crazy" life, i've consistently opted for the silent treatment.

but today, i had a really good day. in fact, i could characterize most of my days as really good. but there's something about this day that made me realize that i miss sharing those mundane details of my life that, collectively, are a greater testament to my current situation than any transcendental story ever could be. so without further explanation, this is what's really up in my life...

i woke up at 6 something this morning in a coughing fit. unable to fall back asleep i hopped online and the first thing that caught my eye was an article proclaiming that, contrary to popular speculation, the world is not about to end. fast-forward a few clicks...and for the next hour i'm captivated by Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds. i close my computer, humored and cough-free. i fall back asleep for a few more hours, wake up, shower, have my favorite morning meal (corn rice porridge) and set off to my first class - a volunteer lesson with a group of people from myanmar. this is always a refreshing, uplifting class because these students have fled from their homes, left their families behind, and come to thailand to gain skills that they may, one day, take back to their countries to empower those left behind...unlike the majority of my students who are just rich brats whose parents want them to learn english for the sole purpose of getting into the best international schools or making more money for the family business.

after a great lesson, i headed to a volunteer meeting with an organization that i'm now working for...my newest job is to recruit teachers to serve in myanmar, a daunting but important responsibility that gives me a renewed sense of purpose here everyday.

following that meeting, i drove to the opposite end of the city on a near empty tank of gas (this detail will be important later) to a private teaching lesson. my student? one of the aforementioned privileged brats who mock my very existence as a teacher. i arrive to class, ready to teach the same dull grammar points i'm accustomed to, but to my surprise, she's holding a dr. seuss book and asks if we can take turns reading. we spend the next hour reading "the sneetches" stories...and by the end of the lesson we're sprawled out on beanbags leaning on one another's shoulders laughing, making funny sounds and voices to imitate the characters, and working on the pronunciation of many of dr. seuss many important make-believe words. by far the most brilliant lesson i've had with this stubborn little brat yet.

i leave the school, and on my way home, still on empty, i stop at the gas station, the workplace of my biggest, and only, crush. for all that thailand has blessed me with in the past year, it has failed to provide my with any leads in the love department. thus, i have been resigned to having fleeting crushes on various service workers: a 7-11 employee here, a food cart sous chef there, and now...a gas station attendant. our conversation, in what broken thai i'm capable of muttering, went a little like this:

me: hello

him: hello. what kind of gas?

me: 95 octane, please.

him: how much?

me: 100 baht.

him: so, have you had dinner yet? (contrary to what this might translate to in a western context, this is merely a polite greeting in thailand. he was not, unfortunately, asking me out to dinner.)

me: no. i'm very hungry. and you?

him: yes. i had rice.

me: thank you.

him: thank you.

at this point, his eyes light up in a manner that can only imply that he's smiling. unfortunately, because of the nature of his work, he must constantly wear a surgical mask so i never actually know if he's smiling, or for that matter, i don't actually know what his entire face looks like...but...i'm pretty sure it bears a smile when we chat. so i drive off and he waves, and with butterflies in my stomach, i forge ahead until the next time i'm low on 95 octane.

next i meet some friends for mexican and maragaritas...festive times as usual with great friends.

then two of my gay male friends and i head to a new gay bar/entertainment venue where we watch gay boys and transsexuals do stimulating renditions of Dreamgirls, Cher and, of course, Akon. for me the show was entertaining, but for them it renewed for them a sense that gay pride is alive in a town that is seemingly open to, but also skeptical of, queer lifestyles. and seeing them embracing and living this moment without fear of judgment or shame made me all the more happy to share the experience with them.

after the show i dropped my friend off and, on my way home, passed by a little bar that i'd only been to once but had impressed me more than any other bar in chiang mai because of the amazing live music and laid back atmosphere that many bars here fall short of actually maintaining. i rarely go places alone, especially bars, but as i drove by, the owner of the bar waved at me so i decided to pop in for a nightcap. as i approached the door, there was a man who i'd never seen before sitting behind the sound booth strumming a guitar, yelling in thai to the delight of the 50 or so patrons. as i step up from the sidewalk into the bar he points to me and instructs me to join him in the sound booth. i quickly grab a seat in an effort to avoid the attention and embarrassment of a public display. unfortunately being one of maybe 3 black girls permanently residing in chiang mai, everyone thinks that i'm a soul or r&b singer, so i was forced into the booth by a mob of excited thai strangers in need of a good tune. but for anyone who knows me, you know that my inability to carry a tune is my ultimate downfall, and my retention of popular song lyrics is even moreso. but against my will i enter the booth. i try to explain to the guy that i can't sing and don't know any songs, but he says the chocolate lady must just be acting shy, so he starts playing a melody. to my surprise, he's playing "The Show", by Lenka, a song i only know because my annoyingly bratty student i mentioned earlier is obsessed with that song and insists that we start every class with a sing-a-long of it. over the months i'd grown to hate the song because of its redundancy and cutesiness being drilled into my head day in and day out. but tonight, this song saved my life. with confidence i belted out the song on the mic to a raucous response from the crowd, which thankfully masked my sporadic tone deafness. i then sat down with the owner of the bar, chatted for a while about his new business ventures, and did a few magic tricks with him.

as i drove home, i reflected on the events of the day and couldn't help but smile about my life here. as boring, mundane, or uneventful as it may be to some, i think i've carved out a good space for myself in this place, and it's days like this which make it hard to think about uprooting. big or small, profound or not, it's always a good day and a good life here.

People's Socialist Republic of Thailand

thailand's political structure is officially a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy. but anyone who's ever visited and/or lived in thailand and spent any time outside of bangkok and the southern resorts has undoubtedly realized that this country functions under a more socialist guise than anything.

i came to this conclusion after several encounters, all related to money. my musings about the socialist nature of thailand began when i got my nose here pierced for 20 baht (about 60 cents in the U.S.), which included the jewelry. until that point i had never considered getting a nose piercing, but i was bored one afternoon and it seemed like a good deal. the thing is-thailand is full of good deals. but when you look closely, you realize that what you're witnessing is not a deal in the sense that we perceive of it in the West. no, it's sharing, it's fairness, it's honesty, it's wealth aversion...it's fiscal socialism. since then i've had countless 20 baht (60 cents) meals, 100 baht ($3) tire replacements, a maid who gets paid 200 baht ($6) to clean our 3 bedroom house, dozens of refusals to accept tips, and a store clerk who chased me 3 blocks on foot in 100+ degree heat while i drove away on my motorcycle to give me 3 baht (9 cents) that she overcharged me for a 2-course 17 baht (51 cents) lunch. this isn't cheap...again, it's socialism.

the majority of thai people are hard-working individuals who value kindness, fairness and equality. it might be genetic, or have something to do with thailand being a buddhist country and most people abiding by the laws of karma...but regardless of why, the fact is most people do not indulge in cheating, stealing, thwarting, over-charging, taking advantage, deceiving, outdoing, or lying (unless you consider ghreng jai to be lying out of benevolence and respect). 

point being, the thais are good people who do good things. they want everyone to be happy and prosperous, so sharing and fairness is a natural extension of that philosophy. if a meal costs a cook 15 baht to make, they charge 20 to cover their expenses and have some left over to take care of their family. you don't consider your profit margin; you just want to make ends meet. i'd say 80% of thai people live in this manner. i reckon the other 20% is split evenly between the financially  disenfranchised and the privileged...all others are equal, in terms of their wealth. as such, the disparity in wealth is marginal. 

as a result, their is a sense of commonality here in thailand unlike anywhere else i've lived (especially south africa and boulder colorado, where the disproportionate distribution of wealth is sickeningly blatant and, to some degree, lauded). but when there is a discrepancy in wealth in thailand, it is often solved by income sharing, where a group of people will pool their income and distribute it evenly over the course of several years so that no one goes without necessities. 

many might disagree with my people's socialist theory, so i remind you that this is only one person's skewed view of a culture that i've only been acquainted with for roughly 7 months. further, this is no anti-capitalist, liberal decree - it's merely my mind wanting to explain/justify a set of common observations. i do, afterall, understand the concepts of gouging, interest, competition, inflation, profit, etc...but while i understand it, i don't always agree with it. what i do agree with is fairness, justness and health. and that, in a nutshell, is why i never want to leave thailand.

c

honk if you love buddha

i realize an update is way overdue, but please give me an opportunity to explain myself:

when i first arrived in thailand, i had no idea what to expect and held very few expectations, so as not to be disappointed. nevertheless, i was shocked when i arrived. but it wasn't culture shock that i was experiencing so much as a shock from the lack of (culture) shock. things were too easy. aside from not speaking thai (which isn't a problem here because every thai person knows at least 'nit noi' English), i encountered very few differences. yea, you might have a squatter instead of a toilet sometimes, and you have to get used to constantly being confronted by unique smells...but that's about it. i figured i would get here and be blown away by the difference, so that lack of that experience dealt me somewhat of a blow. i wanted exotic, exciting, inspiring, life changing, adventurous, surreal. but what i was met with was just a more humid version of home.

but about 2 months ago i realized that if change and difference is what i want, then - as cheesy and cliche as this sounds - it has to come from within. i started looking at things differently, embracing more and ignoring less, being creative, learning Thai, bought a motorcycle, and all around just opening myself up to the new potential for new experiences that drove me here in the first place. with this mindshift my world became bigger. and i can truly say that, as it were, i've never been happier in my life. i keep reminding myself that we all get jaded at times, and that's ok, but it's up to ourselves to actively combat such a mindset less it become a lifeset.

so basically, my silence over the last couple of months was merely just a pause in an attempt to sort out my heart and better understand my story so that i could share it with you.

and with that, i leave you with an absurd video from my last teaching experience at a nursing college.

love & bless,
cresa

rock climbing: woes and whoa!'s

feeling a bit underadventurous recently in my role as english teacher, i decided to shake things up a bit today and go rock climbing. i'd heard that thailand's offerings have developed a strong reputation throughout the international climbing community so i figured i'd see what all the buzz was about.

a bit of personal background:
(1) i have no prior rock climbing experience. i'd been indoor bouldering a couple of times when i lived in colorado, but the landscape, techniques, courses, gear, etc. are unique to each sport.
(2) i don't particularly enjoy heights. i'm far from being acrophobic, but very seldom do i voluntarily find myself in situations hundreds of feet above ground with only a rope and a man with whom i can barely communicate keeping me alive.
(3) i think nature is cute. onward...

i arrive at the rock climbing center at 8:15 a.m. and pile into the back of a pick-up truck with several other eager climbers. after a beautiful drive through the mountains and rice paddies we arrive at crazy horse buttress. we unpack our gear and proceed to prepare both mentally and physically for what's ahead of us today. i find a quiet spot on a nearby rock to visually map out the easiest courses while attempting to achieve the perfect equilibrium of hydration and energy with a bottle of water and cashews. i check and double check the security of my harness, helmet, shoes, belay devices, etc. i peak over at my instructor/guide to see how his own preparation ritual is going - he's scurrying up the face of the mountain setting the route with his bare feet, no helmet, and chain smoking a pack of marlboro reds. where did i go wrong?

we set off on our great adventure and i can honestly say that i've never in such a short period of time experienced so many incredibly exhilarating highs and, conversely, so many utterly death-defying, gut-wrenching lows. or, what i would like to refer to as my woes and whoa!'s:

whoa! - unabandoned, uninhibited, blissfully explicit exposure to nature. you're dangling...literally floating in the middle of nature. no people, traffic, smog, waste. nothing but the mountain, the trees, the birds, and the wind surround you. and the breathtaking view that is your reward for reaching the top.
woe - as you're climbing, sticking your hand into a crevice of the mountain to balance your weight only to realize you've stuck your hand into a finely nestled beehive.


woe - having your guide realize that your ATC (the device that essentially ensures you don't plummet to a bloody, rocky death) has a crack in it just as you step off the cliff.
whoa! - having a back-up ATC, a chain-smoking guide with quick reflexes, and faith


woe - hiking 200 ft up the side of the mountain to realize that the only way back down is to rappel through the mouth of a perceivably bottomless cave
whoa! - realizing that there is, in fact, a bottom to said cave, reaching it, and realizing "hey, i'm standing at the bottom of a 200 ft deep cave!!!"


whoa.

the transition to normal

i've re-entered the real world...sorta. for the first 5 weeks that i was here i was pretty much in vacation/tourist mode. i was spending most of my time exploring, discovering, getting lost, wandering, napping, carousing, etc. but since my teaching course ended about 3 weeks ago, life's taken on a different feel. i'm feeling settled and more at home each day, and feeling less and less like a visitor.

i've been on a relentless pursuit of employment and am happy to report that i've landed a full-time position in a highly respected language school, work permit included. it's strange to know that people are paying to hear me talk and watch me dance, but i suppose that's what teaching is about. i imagined when i first decided to move to thailand to teach english that i'd be spending my time sitting on the floor surrounded by kindergarteners teaching them their ABC's. i imagined doing arts and crafts all day with them, and getting sporadic hugs, and being doused with glue, and couldn't imagine anything better. and while i've done some of that, i have to say that my most rewarding teaching experience thus far came today - a 1-on-1 lesson with a 32 year old doctor. she wanted to improve her english speaking skills so that she could better communicate with her patients. after the experience i wrote about in my last blog i couldn't have been more excited to help her. at one point during the lesson i was trying to demonstrate the difference between the sounds 'd' and 't', and explained that it lies in the placement of the tongue relative to the teeth. in her quest to master these sounds she proceeded to bring her eyeball up to my mouth as if she were looking into a telescope and hold my lower lip down to better understand where my tongue was landing. we laughed at her inability to verbally differentiate between 'vowel' and 'bowel'. this is a very important distinction to know in a country where everyone always has diahrrea. at the end she told me that i had made her comfortable during the lesson and had taken away her shame, which is probably the best thing i could have heard as a new teacher.

other stuff:
my living situation is amazing at the moment. a woman with whom i studied during the teaching course has a house with her son (who has lived in thailand for 4 years) and his girlfriend. i'd visited them one weekend when i was still living in the hotel several weeks ago and felt just so at home and at peace with them, and in the house. they're one of the most generous, thoughtful, and fun families around and i feel so blessed to have fallen into such a wonderful situation. home-cooked meals, family game nights, the rent is cheap and the love runs high around here.

i saw a cart the other day at a festival that was selling ice cream sandwiches. it was a hot day, i'd been walking around the city for hours, and nothing sounded better at the moment than ice cream squished between two soft chocolate cookies. i ordered and what i received instead was an ice cream sandwich taken way too literally - ice cream in between two pieces of white bread.

during the final day of the stand-off between thailand's anti-government rebels and pro-government supporters that shut down the country's two major airports, i was walking home from the market and it seemed as if i was walking upon a concert. there was a stage and people shouting. but as i got closer and saw that the 'fans' were all holding baseball bats and wearing bandanas over their faces i soon realized this was no concert, it was a protest. luckily it happened to be non-violent at that moment.


there's a captivatingly enormous and beautiful statue of buddha near my house and i watched the king's birthday fireworks from his feet last week.

I seem to be living a mundane Thai experience. But I'm living a Thai experience and that's far enough from mundanity for me i suppose.

TIT

last week a mole on my shoulder started changing color and shape, and was starting to become uncomfortable. i'd heard that if that happens, it's best to get it checked out, as that could be an indicator of skin cancer. i didn't know of any skin/dermatology clinics in the area, so i decided just to go to the nearest hospital and have someone take a look at it. i arrive at the hospital, head to the admissions desk, and explain that i have a "changing mole." no one at the desk seems to know enough english to understand my situation, so i show them the mole and try to explain the concept of color and shape to them and they just look at each other with puzzled looks. as a last resort, i point to the mole and scream "OUCH!!!" they just laugh hysterically. finally a nurse comes to my rescue, sits me down, takes my weight, temperature and blood pressure and asks me to explain my condition. i point, scream "OUCH!!!" once more, and receive the same response, but this time she points me in the opposite direction and says "sit at 7." i look down and there are about two dozen doors lining either side of a corridor with patients of varying conditions sitting down the middle. i proceed to walk down the corridor and start to realize why my situation was met with laughter...during the walk to door 7 i pass several unresponsive individuals lying on stretchers, a man bleeding from his head, and a crying woman holding a limp child in her arms. and then there's me...with a mole about the size of a grain of rice that's causing me discomfort.

i sit in front of door 7 and after about 5 minutes my name is called and i'm ushered inside room 7 (general practice). i sit in front of a man wearing a lab coat - presumably the doctor - and he asks me "what's your problem?" unsure of his level of english, i go through the same pointing & screaming process. but this time the reaction is different - a look of sheer horror and disbelief sweeps over his face and he begins to speak to the nurse in thai. she, in turn, now has the same horrified look on her face and begins scribbling on her notepad. the doctor turns back to me and starts spewing a blend of thai-english to me in a very frantic manner. the only words that i'm able to grasp are "surgery", "extraction", "malignant", "cancer", "stitches", "suture" and "next wednesday." so basically they want to operate on this mole that appears to be cancerous the following wednesday? i don't really feel comfortable with the lack of information about the procedure i'm receiving, but i figure i have about a week to decide whether or not to go through with it, and i can always cancel the appointment, so i say ok. great, so the nurse escorts me out and tells me to sit in front of door 22. i assume door 22 is the place one goes to make future appointments...so i go.

after about 3 minutes of waiting, the nurse comes to me, grabs my hand, and leads me inside room 22. instead of the anticipated reception/appointment desk, there's an operating table. i try to explain to the nurse that there must be some mistake...my appointment is not until NEXT wednesday. she responds by handing me a gown, helping me onto the table and putting on her gloves. at this point i start panicking, trying to think about how to escape from the situation, but by this point the surgeon and 6 other nurses/aides had made their way into the room. i tell the surgeon that my surgery appointment is next wednesday, my final attempt at freedom, but he explains that next wednesday is when i will get my stitches out and my biopsy report. the surgery is now. at this point i'm crying because of the reality that the first surgical procedure (as small as it may be) is being done in a developing country by people with whom i can't communicate about a condition i'm not sure they fully understand given the range of responses i'd received.

one nurse preps the area, another preps the instruments, another holds my gown closed, another handles the anesthesia, and two others seemed to just be standing there gawking. the 7th nurse grabs my hand and i soon realize that her only role during the procedure is to hold my hand and give me comfort. for this i'm grateful. soon the tears stop flowing and i just prepare for the worst, while praying for the best. the surgeon injects the anesthesia and soon after he lifts the scalpel. i turn my head in the opposite direction and look toward my nurse-friend who's holding my hand for support. i find comfort in her eyes and touch...until she lets out an uneasy scream at the sight of what's going on on the other side of my body, and squeezes my hand as if she's the one undergoing the procedure. her only job is to comfort me and that's how she handled it. minutes later the surgeon announces the procedure is over, stitches me up, and sends me on my way. i felt no pain and it seemed like everything went according to plan. i went to the check-out counter, got a bag of prescription pain killers, and settled my bill. the damaged - including the dr.'s consultation, surgical procedure, and prescription - came to roughly $30. i'd been in the hospital about 45 minutes.

i went back this past wednesday, got the results of the biopsy back - benign, and had my stitches removed. the scar has nearly faded and the pain and worry from the mole is no longer present. this experience taught me a lot - about the hidden bias i have toward western, 'developed' medicine, about the inflated nature of western healthcare (time, efficiency, expense), etc. but all in all it made me appreciate and trust my new home all the more. i can't really explain it, but there's something about lying beneath a scalpel that's held by a man who you don't understand, and who doesn't understand you, with a screaming nurse squeezing your hand that just gives you a little faith once you've made it to the other side.

there's an expression that's thrown around here quite often - 'this is thailand', or TIT. it's typically used in response to a ridiculous or surreal experience one has that's uniquely thai. walking out of the doors of that hospital, i was hard pressed to rationalize what i'd just gone through in western terms, but found great solace in the TIT idiom. i welcome many more, just hopefully more non-invasive ones.