Can I be Honest with You?

What I REALLY love about this country/my site:

- The hospitality

- The people in my community

- The children

- The fruit

- The History/the temples

Things that I don’t understand/frustrates me (both important and perhaps not-so-important points)

- The hierarchy in the office/age/women-men

- How you can be the mayor of a town without an undergraduate degree; what happened to education???

- Lack of communication between everybody!

- Lack of expression of real emotions: people don’t talk about things, feelings, show that they are upset or sad

- And with that lack of real emotions; there is a lack of consideration for how people might feel/think. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a kid being called “ fat, ugly…” Even with me, people ask how much I weight, how ugly/pretty I look on different days of the week…etc And they will schedule meetings, ask you to teach on weekends, without thinking about you and your day off. You can be telling people that you are actually really tired and they will say “ OK I’ll pick you up at 2, so you can teach”

- How many times I have been told “ Oh she doesn’t look American” I swear I think 80% of the time, people that I newly meet think that I am straight out lying to them.

- How drinking is acceptable during any hours of the day

- You cannot break the face of anyone who is higher than you no matter what they say or do; they can be bullshitting to the max; and everybody has to sit there and agree with it

- How hot it can get; I understand that I’m in Southeast Asia but it is frustrating when you are the only person sweating like a pig. Plus my mayor does not allow the staff to turn on the A.C until it is 10 am while his room is as cold as a fridge.

- How 90% of food has to be extremely fried, over salted or over sugared; I liked Thai food A LOT more when I could have it once in a while in the States; right now, I can SO do without it

- Lack of accountability

- How the head of the office (mayor and deputy executive) can go on trips (as Thai’s call it Du Ngan – see work) with the Office budget then tell everyone else “we have no money”….

- Any project can be EXTREMELY inefficient as long as it looks good on paper and it is nicely decorated

- Half of the time, I have no idea what the students are learning here; maybe it is the lack of staff and the fact that it is a poor school but; come one, these students have to learn! You cannot just accept that 80% of the kids are not going to continue pass 6^th grade so why not just screw them?!?!?

- When I go workout, I LOVE it that the staff thinks it is perfectly OK to have unplugged elliptical and bikes. .. The plug is seriously nowhere to be found and I have come to realize that, that’s how people work out – without plugging it in.

So other than points of 'frustration" I REALLY love this country :)

Rollercoaster of Emotions

The past couple days has been pretty difficult; primarily because all of a sudden I had days lined up full of activities, work visits, and 'roller coaster of emotions'. On 08/30/2010 I took a trip with the Public Health Officer and the health volunteers to a Drug Rehabilitation Center and Center for patients of HIV/AIDS.

The primarily treatment at the drug rehab center is through a " daily vomit routine" ... I know sounds pretty disgusting and TRUST ME, it was not a pretty imagine to watch either. We had a tour by one of the Monks that manage the center and the tour included a demonstration of how the patients detoxed. The center makes a kind of medicine that is supposed to detox your body (which I had the pleasure to taste just a little). It tasted REALLY bitter and apparently it helps you vomit... not that I was about to try that. Any how, I was not expecting this at all BUT, the patients were lined up in a row sitting knee down. I thought " oh nice, they probably meditate together as part of their routine " OH no, the next thing I knew they were drinking the bitter liquid, and sticking their fingers in their mouth to throw up everything and anything they could. and we were JUST STANDING THERE WATCHING THIS HAPPEN. Honestly, I did not know how to feel a. part of me was like , " wait is it a good lesson like YEH THIS IS WHAT YOU GET IF YOU DO DRUGS " or " I don't think it should be appropriate to watch people throw their face out? " ... who knows anyways, it was out of my control ....I also met a guy from Ireland who was detoxing from Heroine and I got to the translator between him and my staff.

Second place we visited was the center for people living with HIV/AIDS; where we visited a room full of corpses, took a tour of the community and watched a traditional Thai dance by girls living with HIV/AIDS... one of whom was 20 years old. While walking around, one of the staff asked me " Are you scared?" I answered exactly how I felt " Scared of what? we all are dying someday ". I enjoyed watching the girls' dance a lot. Two of the girls were females and the other two were "ladyboys" who got the disease from their partners. I could not stop but to admire them for their strengths and courage to be able to wake up with a smile everyday, get on a stage, and tell whoever comes their story. Inside, they are probably crying, hurting and regretting; especially to know that one day they might go to sleep and be too weak to wake up the next morning....

After all that, we visited the nearby dam , took a beautiful ride to a big Buddha and went home. Here is the part that pissed me off the most, the bus ride home included loud a*ss Karaoke, and half of my staff either singing or drinking alcohol. I know Thai culture has become to a point where they are sort of " confused" ; not knowing how to mesh Thai traditional culture with modern Thai culture. And that 's where things get a little messy. Everyday, anytime time can be a party with alcohol. BUT you would think at least for today, they would think about everything that they saw and put aside the alcohol AT LEAST FOR ONE DAY!!! it pissed me off so much and I lost so much respect for people that I see as my supervisor!