Monday, August 29, 2011

Thailand - Journal #4


On building roads and petting tigers and everything in-between. . .
OK, so when last I wrote it was last Tuesday night, after our second day of laying large stone in the road leading to the farm. On Wednesday when we arrived we were told we would be taking the back way into the farm and that the first loads of gravel were coming in. Everyone was so excited. We arrived the same time as the dump truck. The truck made it in to the farm alright but it tried to turn around in the freshly tilled corn field, which was not only soft soil but was very wet from all the rains. It got stuck! Very very stuck. So it emptied a lot of its load there in the corn field and we set out throwing gravel under the wheels. Eventually it made it out and delivered what was left of its load to the area we actually wanted it delivered - to the portion of the road that was completely underwater.

After the truck dumped the gravel we started using hoes and buckets to level out the pile and spread it out further into the submerged portions of the road. We leveled two loads of gravel then broke for lunch. In the afternoon four of us returned and leveled a whole other load. Hard work. I don't think I have ever worked that hard on any other day in my life. But being tired from hard physical labor is a good kind of tired.
On Thursday we started in again on leveling piles gravel. We were taking a water break while the dump truck unloaded a new load when we looked up and saw the most b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l site imaginable: a rusty tractor with a front bucket coming to the rescue. We cheered and applauded. In no time at all that tractor leveled out the newest load of gravel saving us backbreaking hours. At first, as I'm often want to do, I worried that there'd be nothing for us to do - a laughable thought of course. The tractor leveled the center of the pile/road leaving piles of good rock on the sides that were being wasted. Our new task was to hoe the rock up from the sides and fill buckets so they could be delivered to the end of the road to work on extending it more. So that's the work we did on both Thursday and Friday.

On Friday the temps were cooler, which is technically a good thing, but they were cooler because the rains were coming. We were caught in a torrential downpour. We saw the rains coming, the thunder was clapping all around us so we hastily loaded our stuff and jumped in the back of the old pickup - just not soon enough. Pedrito chased off to get the van and meet up with us to spare us getting wet - and he'd told us to wait under a tree but I'm not convinced that would have saved us from the torrential deluge we found ourselves in. The raindrops in Thailand are the biggest I've ever seen - the rains heavier than any I've ever seen - AND I LIVE IN OREGON! I should be used to the rain, but seriously, tropical rain storms are not like anything that falls in Oregon. We were SOAKED. I left my sense of humor back on the gravel pile. Don't think I handled this too well. I was hot, tired, and already soaked from the work, now I was soaked from the rain and it had cut into our work time. My attitude needed a little adjusting at this point. Keeping quiet during these times is my best course of action. Some food and a nap would make everything better - I got both and got back in the spirit of things a couple hours later.
On Saturday we traveled to a remote village where the university's nursing students have been working. They set up a mobile health clinic for the day bringing in a doctor, dentist, and eye doctor. I was a little nervous about what this experience would be like. After all, it was a HEALTH clinic - this could easily entail blood and other assorted sights that I might not be able to handle (I have been known to pass out just hearing about medical procedures). The team dispersed on arrival and just tried to find places to be of assistance. We have one nurse on our team and she was able to quickly find nursing things to do - I think she was testing people's blood sugars. I lucked out, the head nurse let me help take people's measurements. I could do that! No needles. No blood. I was good to go. Though not as easy as it might sound - finding people's waists can be harder than you might think.

After processing the village people through the clinic everyone met under a tent. A very generous Indian business man from Bangkok who runs a school there comes out to these clinics when they are held and hands out school supplies, blankets, clothing, and money. This is where I really had fun as he handed me stacks of brand new 20 baht bills and let me hand one to each child who passed through and later to each adult that was present - including all the staff, nurses, etc. THAT was fun - hard not to smile when you're handing out money to people who really need it. 20 baht is not a lot really, but it goes pretty far here.

We were served lunch, which we finished just as the rains arrived. It was time for us to leave anyway so we loaded up the van and headed out. It POURED all the way back to the university. We had a couple hours to pack up after getting back to the school, then we loaded up two vans and headed for Kanchanaburi, which was four hours away. Kanchanaburi is where the bridge over the River Kwai is located. This was a significant bridge during WWII and a movie was made about it, which I remember watching with my dad when I was much younger. We stayed at an interesting hotel. To get to your bathroom you step outside your room into an open-air area with a sink, off that is a teeny tiny room with a toilet and shower. Everyone's biggest challenge was just figuring out how to get water to the toilets so they would flush. Well, that and finding where in each room the toilet paper was hidden.

Early early early Sun
day morning we arose to go to the Tiger Temple. But first we were encouraged to go to the roof of the hotel and watch the sunrise over the River Kwai. It was a pretty view but since it was cloudy there wasn't much of a sunrise. I started waking up from 3:30 in the morning, fearful that I would oversleep and miss what I hoped would be one of the best days of my life. I've been waiting for this one day for over three years, when Pedrito first discovered this amazing place.

The Tiger Temple is an outdoor Buddhist monastery dedicated to rehabilitating and protecting wounded and abused tigers - and to keeping up the tiger population. The monastery is set inside a rock canyon in a beautiful location. My biggest prayer of the day was that there would be no rain - and I was so immensely grateful that it did not rain on us at all until we were on our way home.

In the mornings the monks go out into the community collecting alms. Alms come in the form of food donations which the monks and their staff use for meals each day. The food arrives in trucks and is set out on trays on a row of tables. Each serving of food is in an individual plastic bag. To digress just a moment...we have strict dress and behavior requirements while around monks and while in the monastery. Women must have their shoulders and knees covered. No one must set higher or on the same level as a monk, only a level below. Women are not to speak to or touch a monk (someday I'd like to learn more about why women are such an evil presence). To return to my story...each of us took a position behind a tray of food and as each monk passed we took a bag of food with both hands and placed it inside a pot that the monk was holding. Each monk was accompanied by a staff member carrying a large bag. When the monk's pot was full he would hand food to the staff member who would put it in the bag. After handing each monk their food we formed the Y (placing hands together in front of the chin) and then fill the next monk's pot. We were to say nothing to them and our shoes had to be off during this time as a sign of respect.
When this was done we were escorted inside the gates of the monastery to an open-air temple. Inside here is where we got our first glimpse of the tiger cubs. From this moment on I'm pretty sure I never stopped smiling for the rest of the day. We were stationed with one or two tiger cubs and then given the opportunity to bottle feed them. Quite simply an amazing experience. The cubs range in age and size, the very large tigers might only be a few months old but are huge and still given a bottle. I had a couple junior-size cubs both of whom were quite hungry and eager to eat. There were two cubs who were only six-weeks old and they just stole everyone's heart. But these two could really make a fuss if they were being held and wanted to be put down. What lungs these little guys have. I was fortunate enough to get to hold one when he was calm - best photos of my life. Priceless.

After feeding the cubs the monks gathered on a raised platform and began chanting.
The temple was respectfully quiet. I committed a faux pax by not crossing my legs but a staff member kindly corrected me for which I was grateful. Showing the bottom of one's foot is a sign of disrespect in Thailand. Feet are considered dirty. Shoes are not to be worn inside most buildings - though it seems stores now make exceptions. After the monks got their breakfast, we were invited to partake of the food brought in earlier that morning, along with the staff. The staff are very aggressive about getting to this food. They want to get to the best of it as I'm guessing it's the only food they'll get all day. I felt so bad that I was eating any of it - and not recognizing most of it I ate very little of it. Just a small spoon of rice and a tiny piece of chicken and part of a piece of fruit. But I was OK with that because all I wanted to do was play with the TIGERS!

After breakfast we each got to walk a tiger cub to the play area. Along the way wild pig
s and deer distracted the tigers who acted like stubborn children. They did not want to go where they were supposed to when there were creatures to chase, and sometimes mine would just stubbornly sit down and not want to move. Kinda funny. Inside the play area we had big bamboo poles with bags and bottles on the end for the cubs to play with. They're really no different than house cats, if something moves they're gonna pounce on it.

After play time was over these cubs went off somewhere to rest and we moved on to the bathing area. The tigers were now getting progressively bigger. I can't believe I was sudsing and hosing off a tiger, but I was and it was awesome.




Next we went down in
to a canyon where there was a large pool and we humans were then put inside a cage while the big tigers were brought into the canyon for their playtime - sans chains. And what a show they put on for us as the handlers exercised and played with them in the water and the tigers played with each other. They're very agile despite their humongous size. After this show we went to another area where two large tiger brothers were resting in the shade. They were sleepy so we spent some time getting pictures taken with them. That ended the morning portion of our day. We spent extra money to get to enjoy this experience and it was worth every penny. We could never enjoy something like this in the states where everything is so regulated and people sue over every little thing. You have to travel to other parts of the world to be able to experience something like this.

In the afternoon we went back in to spend more time with the cats. This is when the bulk of tourists come to visit so it
was much more crowded whereas there'd been fewer than 20 of us during the morning program. This is the tigers' nap time in the hot afternoon so its when its safest to mingle with them and get their photos. We did a lot of posing with sleeping tigers then escorted them to the canyon for the real photo ops. It was here that I got to sit with a big tiger and have pictures taken with his head in my lap. I'm telling you life does not get any better than it was at that precise moment - except maybe when I was holding the six-week-old cub earlier in the day. I just think that tigers are the most magnificent creatures on the face of the earth. I love all cats, big and small, wild and tame, but there's something about the tiger that captures my fascination most of all. To mingle with them without them being in cages, to pet them, play with them, feed them, hold them, it was truly the experience of a lifetime. Its hard to put it into words when you get a day you always dreamed of and it finally happens and its everything you hoped for. It really was a perfect day. One of those experiences that transcend time and space, that take you to a level of joy that you can't put into words. Everyone should get to have at least one perfect day in life. For some it's their wedding day or the birth of their child, for me, my perfect day was a day spent with the most magnificent and majestic creatures on earth. I will have other experiences in life that bring me joy and happiness, but there will be few if any days that will bring me the same level of perfect happiness that I had on this day with the tigers.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thailand - Journal #3

Monday, August 22 - Tuesday, August 23

We are at the end of our second work day. We are exhausted but still going strong.

To give our work some context, a brief explanation is in order. The farm we're working on is located about 15 minutes from Asia-Pacific International University. Some members of the university "adopted" this farmer ("Uncle" Prasarn) and his wife (Nang) and over the years have helped them with their housing, farm, and various other needs. Some time ago Uncle Prasarn was run over by a train and lost both his legs. Since then its been up to his wife to run this very large farm. She does so with some help from her sister-in-law, but its been very challenging. For the last four or five years Pedrito's groups have worked on the farm doing whatever needs to be done - be it harvesting, weeding, building a shelter, installing a new water pump etc. Our project on this trip is to rebuild some of the roads on the farm.

The rains in Tha
iland have been especially bad this year, and over the last few years they've wreaked havoc with the roads throughout the farm making it nearly impossible for Nang to access her crops. The corn is nearly ready to harvest and she needs to be able to get her little old tractor to where the corn is before its too late. So we are working to make the roads passable.






What we do first i
s take the truck down the road to a place that cuts rock and has a pile of leftover pieces of rock that they're letting Nang take for free. These will be used to build up the road where the ruts are the worst.

From there we take a very bumpy ride back to the farm where we unload the rock to fill in muddy areas and mud puddles -- some of which are over 6 inches deep.







If we get a couple more days without rain then we'll be able to bring in some truck loads of smaller gravel and spread it over the big pieces of filler rock that we've laid. It's good hard physical labor and we're making progress. But it is HOT and HUMID. Yesterday some of the group wanted to return for the afternoon - we have some young and energetic people on this trip!!! I too was excited to return, even though I was so tired from the morning work I could hardly move. However yesterday was overcast and slightly cooler, which helped. We got two more loads done by returning for a couple hours in the afternoon. Today however we only worked in the morning, and I don't know that I could have returned in the afternoon. It was in the low 90s and the sun was blaring down on us. I don't know that I could have stood it again this afternoon, but that was a mute point for today as we had other appointments to keep.

After a quick lunch (french fries and a smoothie - which I discovered I can have sans milk or yogurt!) we showered, changed, and headed out to a local school. Our team divided into four groups of three and each of us took a classroom. I teamed up with Vie & Pedrito (though they proved to be of no help at all) and we headed for the fifth-grade classroom. I suddenly found myself a teacher with no preparation at all. But it turned out OK. The purpose of our time there was to help the students with their English. They seldom get to work with native English-speaking people and although our time is short it gives them a chance to really work with their English. So I interacted with them getting them to tell me their name, their favorite animal (and the corresponding animal sounds), and then I tried to teach them to tell time. Well THAT was certainly a more complicated concept than I'd anticipated. I was just wanting to work with the big and little hands and numbers but they'd didn't know how to tell time yet. It just was not working to get them to understand half-past the hour (i.e. 12:30). But then I realized they didn't know about an hour having 60 minutes. I didn't realize that time would be such a difficult concept to grasp. But it's challenging to explain to someone who speaks a completely different language than you. We muddled through though and just worked with the top and the bottom of the hour. Then we played Simon Says for a bit and that went well.

Following our time in the classrooms some of the children performed traditional Thai music for us using some instruments I've never seen before. Eastern music is so different from Western. Different tones and sounds than what I'm accustomed to. But the children did very well and I appreciated it.

After finishing up at the school we headed back to the university for a quick dinner then headed back into Muak Lek to an Adventist Center where kids can come in every night and work on their English. We'll be at the center Monday through Thursday nights to work with the kids. The team members organize games and activities to interact with the children and encourage them to practice their English. I'm afraid I haven't participated much in this program these last two nights. I'm so exhausted by evening I can hardly think straight. I'm not sure how much help I'll be in the evenings. I'm definitely NOT twenty something anymore!

Note: I'm too tired to read this blog through for grammatical or spelling errors. I can hardly keep my eyes open so I'm just offering this up as a way of explaining any possible errors that may show up.

My pictures from this trip are available in their entirety at this site (they're posted with the most recent ones first): http://www.wallawalla.edu/campus-life/spiritual-life/gallery/lorraine_photos_thailand_2011?page=1


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Thailand - Journal #2





Friday, August 19 -- Sunday, August 21
Friday was technically a "slower" day - that's all relative on this trip of course and I do use the term lightly! Having not gotten to bed/sleep until after 4:00 a.m. one would think I would have slept all day - I would have liked to! We did get a little rest though as our first scheduled event wasn't until 1:00 p.m. when we had to meet for a brief orientation. But before that we needed some lunch so we all went to the cafeteria. Sadly, as much as I love it, food is the bane of my very existence!

Now, I really really do love food but I face some serious challenges in this part of my life - even in the states. First of all - I eat very few foods that are white (rice, frosting (yes, it IS a food), ice-cream, and potatoes are glaring exceptions to this "rule"). Mostly this means no spoiled dairy products such as sour cream or yogurt. The mother of all unedible foods is the dreaded COTTAGE CHEESE! (shudder). When it comes to a lot of other foods I'm actually afraid of if I can't quickly deduce what the basic ingredients are. I'm a real ball of fun at picnics, potlucks, and ethnic restaurants (don't get me started on Greek food for instance - double shudder). All this is to preface that, aside from the geckos, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, lizards, and the humidity, the thing I struggle with the most in Thailand is the food. Now, no offense to the lovely people at the cafeteria here at the university, but they make, hands down, the most unusual foods I've ever seen (or tasted - aside from the aforementioned Greek food). All this to say that it was of little surprise to me when I went to the cafeteria and surveyed the food and found that I had NO IDEA WHAT I was looking at it. And if I don't know what it is I'm soooooo not going to eat it. I recognized a plate of vegetables and some watermelon - so that was my lunch. (FYI - after several hours of not having enough food I do tend to get cranky - thus it is always best to play it safe and keep me fed every few hours).
OK, enough of that - after our orientation we headed to Tesco Lotus. What, you ask, is a Tesco Lotus? It's Thailand's answer to Walmart! We stocked up on some supplies here - especially for me who needs an alternative when I don't recognize the cafeteria food. There are challenges to food shopping in Thailand. Baked goods are not really eaten here - I suppose that's a good thing. So finding things like whole-grained breads is not really possible. But we make do with the bread we can find, which is slightly better than Wonder Bread. A little PB&J and I'm good for my breakfasts. Things are very very inexpensive here, which makes any kind of shopping, food or otherwise, a lot of fun!

After shopping we had dinner at The Pizza Company. One of the best pizzas I've ever eaten. Then over to Swenson's for ice-cream. We partook of something called an earthquake. Eight different scoops of ice-cream that eight people share. I'll digress here just long enough to point out that I'm a bit of a germophobe, because without that little bit of info you can't possibly appreciate how brave it was of me to share a bowl of ice-cream with eight other people -- most of whom I'd only known for a few hours.
From Tesco Lotus we dashed home, changed, and went to vespers. That brought the day to an end.

Saturday morning we went to church, which was followed by a potluck. Then we drove out to the farm where we'll be working for the next two weeks. We had a brief worship service with the farmer and some students from the university who come out to spend time with him every weekend. We surveyed the damaged roads on the farm to see what we'll be working on the next two weeks. The heavy rains have literally damaged the roads around the farm beyond repair. The wife does all the work on the farm and her small tractor can no longer maneuver the deep, water-filled ruts. Being unable to access much of the farm means that their corn crop is in danger of not being harvested. The rains have already damaged the crops so they need to be able to harvest anything the can. It really is a bad situation and I'm so glad we can be here to help out. Monday morning we'll start hauling rock and building new roads to allow the tractor to get to the corn crops.

From the farm we headed to the White Buddha. A huge statute built on the side of the mountain. To get to the Buddha requires climbing several hundred stairs straight up the side of a mountain. And we did this feat on what was the most humid day I've ever experienced. It was exhausting!!!! The view is almost worth it though. It is spectacular. My legs may never be the same again (although they did finally recuperate from my experience climbing this same mountain three years ago).

You'd think that would be the end of a very long day - but NOOOOO. No, we still needed to drive into Bangkok and meet the students who'd been forced to delay their flights in order to get visas. So at 9:00 we headed to Bangkok - a 2.5 hour drive. Our driver got very lost trying to get home so it was about 2:30 a.m. before that adventure was over.

A mere seven hours later and we were up and on our way to the wildlife refuge. Beautiful scenery but it seemed that was all there was going to be. Mostly this is a wildlife refuge that you drive through looking for wildlife. There are various watch towers and campgrounds throughout the park. However, the sign that read "Cobra Crossing" was enough to convince me I would NOT be venturing off the main road if and when I were to get outta the car. However, I did brave a brief venture in the area around the visitors' center. This included a walk across a rope bridge and a short hike to a small waterfall. Along that little sojourn I picked up my first leech. I would note that prior to this moment the forest was alive with the sounds of unseen monkeys and exotic birds. After my discovering the leech on my ankle the forest went very strangely quiet. I guess the forest wildlife found my hysterical screaming a bit much and fled for a quieter section of the refuge.

We saw a couple deer and a kimono water dragon but it seemed as if that were to be it. I was certain, however, that we would see something before getting out of the park, and sure enough just a couple miles from the entrance we finally encountered a large group of monkeys. Sooooo exciting.






From there we went to a place where we could ride elephants through the forest and through the river. Vie got to ride on the elephant's head and steer him through the river. We had a stubborn teenage elephant who had a mind of his own -- it was hysterical. But not near as hysterical as when the lead elephant directly in front of us decided to release some of his pent-up gas. I'm amazed that I'm still alive to write this story!



After stopping at a wonderful little fruit stand we finally arrived home. I was starving!!!! The food at the little vendors where we stopped was more than I could bear so I didn't eat any of it. I set to making a big batch of Kraft Mac & Cheese with tuna (all of which I'd brought with me). Then we finally got a chance to just stop and catch our breath. Tomorrow we start working at rebuilding the farm roads. Looking forward to the work but the day starts early.

To be continued. . . .

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Thailand - Journal #1


This week has seemed like one very long day that just never ended. My journey to Thailand started Monday morning. I travelled with my two closest friends, Pedrito & Vie. We headed for PDX at 9:30 Monday morning to catch a 2:20 p.m. flight from PDX to Japan. That was Plan A. Plan A stopped working around 1:30 Monday afternoon when we discovered there were mechanical problems with our plane. These ultimately resulted in a 3-hour delay, thus we didn’t take off from Portland until nearly 5:30. This was the beginning of the domino effect. The delay in Portland meant we missed our connecting flight in Japan. With that being the last flight from Japan to Bangkok we also missed our next flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Somewhere along the way we crossed the international date line. Apparently I never will live the day that was Tuesday, August 16, 2011. It could have been the best day of my life but now we’ll never know!


At some point, I honestly don’t know if it was Monday or Tuesday, we spent the night at the Radisson in Narika, Japan. A lovely hotel. Amusing though to see the size of the beds. The Japanese are considerably smaller in size than your average American – this is evident when you see the size of the beds. A bed for two people is not much larger than our American twin-size bed. We got a free breakfast the next morning then headed back to the airport.


When we arrived in Bangkok it was evidently now Wednesday. I don’t remember much about Bangkok, we hadn’t had much sleep at this point. We grabbed a room at a hotel quite some distance from the airport. It was in a very run-down area but the hotel was quite nice. They’d moved P&V’s reservation to the next day (because of the delayed flight) but nobody realized my name was also on the reservation so my room had been cancelled, but thankfully they just put the three of us up in a room for the night. There wasn’t much sleep to be had though. Pedrito’s phone started ringing around 2:00 a.m. because there was a problem with 2 members of our group. (By way of explanation – this is a group of volunteers from Walla Walla University, mostly students, who will be spending three weeks doing various projects in Thailand). It seems that one student had a Mexican passport. Although the travel agent had checked with the Thai consulate and been told that no visa was required for this student, when she got to PDX she was denied entry to the flight and told she needed a visa first. The other student was from El Salvador and nobody noticed that fact on his passport and he too needed a visa. All that is getting worked out and they’ll join our group this weekend. Thankfully Delta cooperated and rebooked their tickets.


Anyway, from 2:00 a.m. on there were e-mails and phone calls flying back and forth trying to get everything worked out so that these 2 students had a place to stay while in Portland, transportation to get to the consulate, the airport, etc., rebooked tickets, and a host of other arrangements. We got maybe another hour of sleep then had to get up at 5:00 to get back to the airport to catch an early morning flight to Chiang Mai. We were able to leave all our bags at the hotel, which enabled us to travel light for the quick trip to Chiang Mai.

Once in Chiang Mai we were met at the airport by a Rotarian from the area. He’s a retired president of an area university. Pedrito is active in Rotary and has worked hard to get his local Rotary to be more involved in international service projects. That Rotary has since taken on two long-term projects in Chiang Mai, Thailand so Pedrito needed to make a good-will visit and check on the progress of the projects. We met up with Allan & Joan Eubanks at a great little restaurant in C.M. Allan & Joan have worked as missionaries in Thailand for 50 years come this October. They’re Texans through and through. Joan was considered one of Broadway’s most promising young stars 50 years ago, but she met Allan and they got married and moved to Thailand shortly thereafter. Joan is one of the most lovely and gracious women you will ever meet. She’s fascinating and just a pure joy to talk with. Their son-in-law owned the restaurant. Not what you’d expect to find in Thailand – a refurbished two story-building with an eclectic collection of 1950s memorabilia and old Hollywood movie posters. The menu was American fair – amazing HUGE buttermilk pancakes, eggs, etc. Great ambiance and delicious food.


We jumped in the car after breakfast and traveled to a youth hostel on the outskirts of the city. I’ve been there two other times and watched it develop. They’ve done a lot of work here thanks to Rotary dollars – including a computer lab, a library, and modern plumbing. This project gives young people from the Wa tribe a chance to have an education and encourages them to go on to university after graduation. Rotary provides annual scholarships to help some of these students further their education. We were served fruit and a group of the high-school age children performed a musical number for us.


Then we jumped back in the car and headed to Chiang Mai Academy. Here is where I did my first volunteer project in Thailand. And here is where I met Komchan. This adorable little boy won my heart seven years ago when I first met him. Both his parents had died during the previous two years and he was living with an aunt. He was a very sad little boy with the most worried look on his face. I decided to sponsor him so he could stay at the academy and have been doing so ever since. This is my third trip to see him – he’s now 14 years old. He was on a field trip for the day so P&V and myself spent a little time touring the academy campus and seeing the new building projects. Then we ate with the school administrator and his wife (but we were still stuffed from the Texas-size pancakes we’d had for breakfast). Then jumped in the car and went back into the city to meet up with Komchan. We took him and a friend out for ice-cream then we went back to the airport where we caught an evening flight back to Bangkok.


Once in Bangkok we had to catch a shuttle back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and race back to the airport. Then we waited for the students to arrive. They landed around 11:00 but by the time they cleared customs and immigration it was well after midnight before we loaded the vans and headed for Muak Lek and Asia-Pacific International University where we’ll be staying for the rest of our time in Thailand. When P&V and I FINALLY got to our guest rooms at the university it was well after 3:00 a.m. I no longer remember the last time I’d had any sleep.

To be continued….

Friday, August 12, 2011

Good News Friday - August 12, 2011


It seems the only events that make the news are the negative ones. But I believe there has to be some positive news out there. So Friday's news blogs are going to be devoted to finding upbeat, uplifting stories.

CNN posted a heart-warming story about 83-year-old twin sisters who run the Love Kitchen in Knoxville, Tennessee. Since 1986 they have provided over one million free meals to people in need. They serve people they refer to as the five Hs: the hungry, the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless and the homebound. Nearly 2,000 meals are distributed each week. About 1,500 of those are delivered to those who are house-bound, the rest are served to people who come into the kitchen to dine. Founding sister, Helen Ashe, says the motto she lives by is "We work for what we got, and we share what we get." See their full story at www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/11/cnnheroes.ashe.love.kitchen/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

Fox News tells the story of a young girl in Seattle who wanted to raise $300 for clean water in Africa. Just before her 9th birthday on June 12 she'd nearly reached her goal so she closed down her Web site. On July 20 she was injured in a 13-car pileup and didn't survive. An area pastor got the Web site put back up and since then over 26,000 donations have resulted in nearly $1 million being raised. See the story at www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/13/donations-in-honor-dead-girls-charity-top-1m.

Positive stories in the news may be hard to come by, but they're out there and worth reading because they encourage and inspire and we could all use a little encouragement and inspiration now and then - especially at the end of a long hard week.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

On This Day - August 10, 2011

ON THIS DAY - HEADLINES

News Item #1 - 3 siblings that had been on a crime spree around the United States were finally captured in Colorado today. They range in age from 21 to 29. One sibling has 5 felonies on her record - three of them hit-and-runs. One sibling has had 14 felony convictions since 2007. Together these three robbed a bank in Georgia, tried to kill an officer in Florida, and shot numerous times at police during a 20-mile high-speed chase in Colorado before finally being captured. Its good that they are captured. It's good that they are not shooting randomly at innocent people. But the question on my mind is this: WHAT happened during these three people's childhoods that was so bad that all three ended up turning to lives of crime? What kind of nightmares did they endure that would lead them to this lifestyle? How did their parents, their community, their schools fail them? Is this what happens when damaged children fall through the cracks? Or, did they have perfect childhoods, and if they did then what caused all three of them to make these decisions? While everyone will be focused on their crimes and their punishments, I hope someone will ask about their pasts.

News Item #2 - Summary
At 8:53 tonight, CNN had 18 items listed under their "Latest News" section. The list included one item on Syria, the crime-spree siblings, the sentencing of a murderer, a story about an Adventist school teacher murdered by a student, half a dozen items that barely qualified as "news" and the rest of the list consisted of telling us that Sarah Palin is driving her bus to the Iowa State Fair, J Lo is going to be a judge on Idol, someone is joining the cast of a TV series, and one item asking if a new fall TV series is too racy.

I went to Foxnews.com to see what the other side was covering. Their "Latest News" section contained 16 items. Two of these items were news polls, one headline announced that Apple is now a more valuable company than Exxon, Sesame Street is apparently going to allow Bert & Ernie to get married, some woman in Pennsylvania let her 6-yr old niece drive, the arrest of the Florida siblings, a couple political stories, and oh horrors, sex education is now a mandatory subject in NYC schools.

Really? This is NEWS? Children are starving to death in Somalia, women are being treated inhumanely in Afghanistan, human suffering still rages in Darfur, people continue to die in Iraq and we see nothing about it unless you dig through several layers of web pages to intentionally look for them. We in this country are so oblivious to what's happening in the rest of the world - its as if the rest of the world really doesn't matter. It's as if the news organizations don't believe we'll read the stories if they cover them. If the "news" organizations spent half as much time informing us about the rest of the world as they do creating fake news about rich people behaving badly, or trying to create controversy over things that don't really matter, we might actually pull our heads out of the sand and see what's happening around us and maybe even find ways to get involved and try to change the world for the better. But we have to care enough to want to know what's happening outside our borders. If all we want is the fake news that's all they'll continue to feed us.

ON THIS DAY - HISTORICAL EVENTS

On August 10, 1945, one day after we dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki, Japan announced its willingness to surrender - as long as their emperor retained his status.

On this day in 1988, President Reagan signed a measure that provided $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans who were interned by the U.S. government during World War II.

The bombs we dropped on Japan resulted in 90,000–166,000 deaths in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 deaths in Nagasaki. Here in the U.S. we sent over 110,000 people of Japanese heritage to internment camps where they were forced to remain from 1942 to 1945, some as late as 1946. As they were released each internee was given $25 and a train ticket home.






Tuesday, August 9, 2011

On This Day - August 9, 2011

ON THIS DAY - HEADLINES

News Item #1 - "Somalia's transitional government has offered a general amnesty to insurgent fighters in Mogadishu who surrender and promise to renounce violence." (Courtesy CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/07/somalia.insurgent.amnesty/index.html?hpt=hp_t2).

What does this all mean? Somalia is one of those situations in the world that we all know is bad - but do we know why? Do we really know what goes on there? We see the headlines that Somalia is having a horrible famine, that there are refugee camps and violence, but what is behind it all? How does one start to understand the basic problems in this country? Due to time and space constraints, news reports seldom give a full history of an issue in situations like this that have been developing for years. Thus it can be a daunting task to even know how to begin to understand a complex situation such as Somalia. Its difficult to decide to just start reading news reports on Somalia one day and hope to gradually figure it all out along the way. Understanding Somalia requires understanding its history, its geography, it's people, its religion, and its politics. Thankfully I live in the high-speed information age so answers truly are available at the click of a button. So, I'm going to attempt to learn a simplified historical background to the current situation in this ravaged country.

First, where is Somalia. This small country is located on the East coast of Africa along the area known as the horn of Africa.

Much of the country is desert and it suffers from heat and dust storms, which contributes to the country's famines. Only 13% of the land is arable and of that only about 2% is actually cultivated. Somalia has some natural resources but most remain untapped.

According to the U.S. State Department, in 2009 there were roughly 9.8 million people living in the Somalia. The workforce is only 3.4 million - mostly unskilled labor. 60% of the population is nomadic.

Second, what is the history of this small country? The BBC offers a simplified timeline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1072611.stm) and the U.S. State Department (www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2863.htm) offers a more detailed account of the events that have made Somalia the hotbed of violence and suffering that is its chronic state. The following paragraphs provide a rough outline of historical events.
  • In the 600s Arab tribes established the sultanate (country ruled by a sultan) of Aden along the Gulf of Aden (see map). By the 1500s the sultanate had broken up into a number of smaller states.
  • In the 1800s several European countries had their eye on the Somali coast line. Trading with various African nations had increased and the British in particular wanted protected harbors along Somali's coast. Treaties were entered into between Britain and the sultan of Tarjura and between Britain and various Somali tribal chiefs. Egypt and France also established themselves in numerous areas along Somali's coast. Then in 1889 Italy came on the scene and established a protectorate in central Somali.
  • Between 1897 and 1908 Italy negotiated with Ethiopia and Britain and established boundaries of what became Italian Somaliland. By 1936 Italian Somaliland combined with Somali-speaking parts of Ethiopia to form a province of Italian East Africa.
  • In 1940 Italy occupied British Somaliland. In 1941 Britain occupied Italian Somalia.











  • In 1950 Italian Somaliland became a UN trust territory but remained under Italian control. In 1956 it was renamed Somalia and granted internal autonomy. By 1960 the British and Italian parts of Somalia became independent and merged forming the United Republic of Somalia.
  • The independent country did not stay peaceful for long though. In 1963 it was in a border dispute with Kenya and then in a border dispute with Ethiopia in 1964 which escalated into violence.
  • Then things really turned bad for this small country. In 1969 the president was assassinated and Muhammad Siad Barre took power following a coup. He declared Somalia a socialist state and nationalized most of the economy. So here's where complex politics comes in. When Barre took power a 20-member Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) was established that combined the executive and legislative branches of power. According to the U.S. State Department, the SRC centralized control over information, reduced political freedoms, and used military force to seize and redistribute rich farmlands in the southern part of Somalia. Barre used force and terror to consolidate his power.
  • Ethiopia and Somalia were border enemies for years. Tensions heated up again in 1972. After the Ethiopian government was overthrown in 1975, Somalia invaded that country to regain a territory known as Ogaden, where a large Somali population lived (see first map). But the new Ethiopian government had formed an alliance with the Soviet Union who provided Ethiopia with Cuban troops and Soviet military advisors. Ultimately Somalia was defeated.
  • In 1974-75 Somalia suffered a devastating drought that cased mass starvation.
  • After being defeated by Ethiopia, Somalia abandoned socialism and began looking to the West for international support and economic aid. The U.S. began helping in 1978 and two years later entered into an agreement that gave U.S. forces access to military facilities at the port of Berbera in the NW portion of Somalia. When Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 1982, U.S. forces provided two emergency airlifts to help the Somalians defend their territory. Somalia was considered a U.S. ally for a number of years and Somali officers were trained in U.S. military schools.
  • Barre bore down heavy on his people and quickly crushed any uprising or opposition using violence to suppress his people. By the 1980s Somalia was engulfed in a civil war.
  • Civil war continued throughout the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled to neighboring countries to escape the violence. Barre's government robbed the treasury. The country was in ruins. The Somali army disintegrated and the military joined their clan militia. Barre was finally driven out in 1991 and the central government collapsed. Barre later died in exile in Nigeria.
  • Throughout the 1990s different clans and groups tried to gain control and fought battles with each other. At various times the United States, international organizations, and a number of neighboring countries tried to help bring peace and aid to the war-torn country, without success.
  • In 2000 the country of Djibouti hosted a major reconciliation conference (the 13th such effort by outsiders). This resulted in the creation of the Transitional National Government (TNG). But that mandate expired in 2003. Then a 14th conference was held that resulted in the establishment of a Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
  • In 2006 and 2009 Ethiopia invaded again.
  • An organization known as al-Shabaab (labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S.) launched an insurgency and gained considerable power by effectively fighting off the Ethiopians, using intimidation tactics, and implementing shari'a law.
  • An anti-al-Shabaab offensive begain in the western regions of southern Somalia in early 2011 and has seen some success. But al-Shabaab's violent attacks limit the TFG's ability to provide public services and prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid while the country undergoes yet another severe famine.
Whew! What a history!!! Al-Shabaab allegedly has links to al Qaeda. They've been waging war against the transitional government since 2006. On Saturday they retreated from the capital, Mogadishu. Today the transitional government offered them amnesty if they will simply stop the violence so humanitarian aid can get through. Unfortunately a spokesman for al-Shabaab says they merely retreated to review and revise their war tactics.

Over 12 MILLION people living in the region of the horn of Africa are suffering from starvation due to the famine. Somlia has been hit the hardest. Today's offer of amnesty was one more effort by the transitional government to stop the violence so food can be delivered to those dying from starvation. Sadly, according to news reports, al-Shabaab thinks this is just an excuse to justify occupation. And so the people continue to starve, and while we here have more food than we know what to do with, there people are literally dying everyday because they have no food and no water - and no help.

ON THIS DAY - IN HISTORY

On August 9, 1678, American Indians sold the Bronx to Jonas Bronck for 400 beads.

On this day in 1902, Edward VII was crowned king of England after the death of Queen Victoria.

In 1936 on August 9, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics. He was the first American to win four medals in one Olympics.

Smokey the Bear was created on this date in 1944.

On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb - this time on n Nagasaki, Japan. This was just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. Over 74,000 people were killed.

On this day in 1974, President Nixon resigned. The American people have never fully recovered the respect they lost for the office of the President during this scandal. Gerald Ford was sworn in as the nation's 38th president.


Monday, August 8, 2011

On this day - August 8, 2011

I've been trying to come up with an idea that would get me to blog more often. Today I finally had an idea (the jury is out on whether it will be a good idea or not). I'm a historian at heart and can be a news junkie at times, and love politics, and am looking for a way to get myself to understand more about current events in the world around me (the WHOLE world around me - not just my little corner of it). So, why not blog on the historical events of the day - my day - and maybe matters of significance occurring on this date in years gone by. Today I love the idea. Tomorrow maybe not so much. We'll see where this takes me. I'm hoping to learn a lot on the way.

ON THIS DAY:
News Item 1 - Mark O. Hatfield dies. Before today all I knew about Mark Hatfield was that he was a senator from Oregon and that the library at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon was named after him. But today I learned that not only did he serve in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1997 (serving eight years as chair of the Appropriations Committee) but he was also Oregon's youngest secretary of state and its youngest governor. He was described as a liberal conservative and was very outspoken against war.

News Item 2 - The Economy. This past Friday, Standard & Poors downgraded the United States from an AAA to an AA+. Evidently this is a big deal. There are 3 agencies/companies that grade companies and governments and the other two did not downgrade us. Now there's a debate over whether Standard & Poors even matters because apparently they gave AAA gradings to the very companies that ended up causing much of this country's economic mess in the first place. Interesting. Initially, S&P overestimated the U.S.'s debt by over $2 trillion causing the government to protest S&P's downgrade. S&P did a slight revision of its numbers in the final draft but stuck with its downgrade.

The S&P report states that "the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011." (The report is available online at www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/us-rating-action/en/us/.) The report goes on to state that since the April 18 "negative outlook," S&P changed its "view of the difficulties in bridging the
gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon."

So basically they downgraded us because the two major political parties in this country are unable to get along, compromise, or work together in any fashion for the good of this nation. While each side blames the other and picks away at this report they both fail to see the chief underlying cause of this downgrade - its not whether there should have been more cuts or more taxes - its that the two sides are unable and unwilling to work together to solve the nation's economic problems.

This morning the stock market fell to its lowest point since 2008.

News Item 3 - London riots. London has experienced two days of violent rioting as people take to the streets to protest the police shooting of a young black man in a predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighborhood (Tottenham). The man was the father of four small children and was shot while sitting in his cab. There were peaceful protests at first but they quickly turned violent. The result has been burnt homes and business and over 300 arrests plus numerous injuries to protesters and police alike. A similar incident happened in Tottenham in 1985 and also resulted in riots.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
On August 8, 1876, Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph. The mimeograph was a "method of preparing autographic stencils for printing." And on this day in 1899 the refrigerator was patented by A.T. Marshall.

On August 8, 1911, one hundred years ago, the number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives was established at 435. I wonder if they cooperated and compromised better in 1911 then they have in 2011.

On this day in 1945, President Truman signed the United Nations charter. The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. (Facts courtesy Wikipedia.) With war going on in Afghanistan and Iraq and major conflicts in Somalia and Syria, to mention just a few, I wonder if anyone would be able to consider this project a success yet.