Thailand..the land of many skies.

Good morning Thailand.

Hello rain.

Best rainbow ever.

Goodnight everyone.

Insert. Process. Regurgitate.

After spending my first week in Chiang Mai I feel that I should take some time to emit the things I have been processing during these 7 days.

Where to begin? The good or the bad?...let's start with the bad and end on a happy note.

Burma.

My heart is has been ripped out by a breast ripper and placed on a rack to be stretched and torn apart into billions of pieces. I'm in emotional pain for the people of Burma and most of all the Karen hill tribe. It's not fair. Living on less than $2 a day is not fair. Running for your life is not fair. People being destroyed by land mines is not fair. Watching your children skinned is not fair. Seeing your mother and father killed before your innocent eyes is not fair. Mothers, sisters, daughters, and children are being raped and it's not fair. Being told you are not a citizen of the country where your greatest of great grandfather was born and lived until his death is not fair. 50 years of war is not fair. Living in fear of your government is not fair.

I am paralyzed and it's not fair.

Mekong Region. (Burma, Thailand, Souther China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia)

Why is it that my education is revolved around other people's atrocities.

At the age of 12 years old a Burmese girl was brought to "work" in Thailand. When she was told that she had to sell her body she thought it meant that she would have to cut off parts of her body and sell them for money. She quickly found that selling her body meant being raped by

6-10 men a night. In a years time she had 1,000 customers...she was stuck in prostitution for 6 years. She could not figure out how many customers she was forced to sleep with since she was never able to go to school. For those of you who haven't been able to attend school either, the number is 6,000 men. At one point in those 6 years she found out she was 6 months pregnant. She begged for the doctor to take the baby out..to get rid of it. The doctor told her he couldn't because she didn't have the money. When she returned to the brothel she took pills until she blacked out and woke up in the hospital. When she touched her stomach the bump was gone. She was successful in killing her child. She rather take her unborn daughter's life than to have her grow up to be sold as a prostitute.

These are the realities of the people of the Mekong Region.

These are becoming my reality.

On a happier note...

There are wonderful things about Thailand that have made me fall in love with the place. The citizens of Thailand are magnificent. The land is simply magical. and the food is mind-blowing! I have found a piece of my home. Chicago to me has not felt like home for probably about 4-5 years now...I have found that there are multiple locations for my home. Thailand is just a slice of it.

My home is where the majority of language spoken is not English. Where the people work as one. The weather is warm. Where there is no t.v. The internet is slow. Where rice is served with most meals. Where there is sand, lakes, oceans, and mountains. My home is where I can help the oppressed. Where I am friends with those who have no one left.

Our House

Living with 10 other people has opened up a whole other learning experience for me. Books, films, technologies, opinions etc. have been revealed to me. I was worried about living with 10 other people because for the majority of my life I have been alone. I enjoy my solitude more than I do groups, but these people I am experiencing life with isn't so bad after all. I'm enjoying watching movies with them, reading next to them, sleeping in the same room as them, showering side by side with them, eating my meals with them, and learning the difficult subject matter with them. We are our own community here in Doi Saket and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Frustrated.

Frustrated for...

things I cannot control.

people I cannot help.

connections I cannot feel at home or abroad.

..more on this later.

Final Draft.

Before coming to Thailand I set specific goals that I wanted to complete before the end of my stay...I believe I had about 12-15. Well, after being here for 5 days I have come to realize that accomplishing all of these goals may not be as feasible as I anticipated.

So here is the updated final list:

1. Run at least 2 times a week

2. Yoga 2-3 times a week

3. Take a Muay Thai fighting class/attend a Muay Thai class

4. Finish the 7 books I brought...plus all the reading for my classes

5. Learn to use my digital camera

6. Learn to cook Thai food

7. Go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia

8. Physically, Spiritually, and Emotionally grow

9. Journal everyday

10. Ride a motor bike...preferably while looking like a badass.

I would add waking up at dawn every morning because that was my top goal, but so far that has not been an issue...the Lahu students wake up to a clamoring bell every morning at 5 am..before the sunrise.

We all smile in the same language.

I have finally made it to the magical land of the Thai.

Where do I even begin?

Well, after the eventful 17 hour flight to Bangkok and another hour up to Chiang Mai the adventure finally began. (I slept at-least 15 1/2 hours of the flight). It all started at the bank. We were all patiently waiting to exchange our U.S. dollars to Baht, while intently watching another American make a fool out of himself and our country.

Picture a white man about 6' 2..." 6'3 ish" garbed in what looked to be safari attire...you know the khaki greenish pants that zip off into shorts that are entirely too short and show a little more than too much man thigh, with a tan shirt that has so many pockets you're waiting for a kangaroo to hop out of one of them. Boots, grayed ponytail and all. This man towered over the 4 foot something Thai women informing her that "the U.S. does not use Baht!" She eventually makes a phone call from the cell phone for this man to talk to someone else about the currency rates. As she is about to hand the phone to him he begins to scream "I can't touch that! I'm allergic to micro-waves! You need to put it on speaker phone! Get it away from me!"

So the women politely puts the phone on speaker phone and he leans in towards it...she moves the phone closer to him and no joke at all he falls to the floor in fetal position screaming "I TOLD YOU I WAS ALLERGIC TO MICRO-WAVES! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" She pulls the phone away and he runs out still screaming. A nervous confused laughter filled the bank.... Welcome to Thailand.

We ate food, drove around, and spent the rest of the afternoon sweating to death. But my favorite part of the day was tonight's dinner and event. The campus that we are living on is TLCC, a school for about 50 Lahu (La-hoo). The Lahu are a hill tribe from Tibet that migrated their way to Thailand some time ago. They are very shy, gentle spirited people and tonight they shared their song and dance with us. It was absolutely beautiful. Before we met with them for dinner we were told how happy they are that we are here..how excited they are to try their English with us..and to have Americans staying with them. I don't think I've ever been so honored or humbled as I was tonight. I sat there with a smile on my face and thought to myself, "these are my new friends." It will take some time to pull them from their shells, but when we do it will be the start of very good friendship. We are our own little community here in Doi Suket. I couldn't be filled with any more gratitude and contentment for where I am.

Thailand is simply breath taking and I can't wait to spend the next few months here.

...how could I forget! While we were listening to this beautiful music a bat flew in the chapel and almost flew into more than one person. I couldn't stop laughing..I almost peed my pants. ...did I also mention the Thai do not show emotion...I don't make a very good Thai so far.

While there are so many aspects that I love about Thailand there are many things I must get used to such as....

-bugs crawling all over me and my computer as I try to type right now

-earthquakes

-not telling parents their children are cute (they don't want the spirits to take notice of that)

-not touching people on the head

-not pointing my feet at anyone

-dressing extremely modest...no tank tops on campus even though it's a million degrees out and the humidity makes it even worse

-the humidity

-the slow drip from the shower faucet

-ants crawling on the toilet seat, lizards climbing behind the toilet seat

While these are things to adjust to they are already becoming things that I love most about this place. They keep life from getting dull and they certainly won't let me fall into cruise control. These things wake me up and remind me that I'm living...I gotta take a look around.

Relationships.

When I think of the word relationship I for some reason imagine a young boyfriend and girlfriend who are not that committed to one another and stay together just because. It's like a middle school love or when you hear a guy say, "Oh yea so I'm in this relationship..."in a very negative tone..that's what I picture. I'm not sure why this is, but my false idea of what a true relationship is has impacted my real relationships. I rarely ever think of relationships as me and my family, me and my boyfriend, me and my friends, me and acquaintances, or me and a stranger.

The topic of relationships has come up quite often in the past few weeks. It seems to be the underlying theme of August. In church- "You must reconcile your relationships." In Orientation for Food for the Hungry- "the relationships we have are the most important things and the best way to learn and grow is to have strong relationships." "Poverty is the result of broken relationships." In Flagstaff-My sister Melissa and I had about a 3+ hour conversation on relationships with boyfriends, husbands, families.

As these connections with people I care about reveal themselves as relationships I have realized that I am not doing a very good job at maintaining them.

I have not been as honest as I should be with the people I deeply love.

I have not been trying hard enough to see the people I care about.

I have not been listening attentively to the people I meet.

I have not been forgiving the people who have been close to me since I was young.

..the list could go on..

Over the course of these 4 months I have set a list of goals for myself (the final list is coming soon) and reconciling, maintaining, and creating strong relationships has just been added to the list.

Everyone I meet is a relationship, whether I know their last name or not, therefore I will treat every person with the same love, attentiveness, and compassion. I'm done starting to sew a relationship and leaving it after the third stitch. I'm done leaving empty holes in relationships where there should be forgiveness to repair them. And I'm done unraveling the ones that are holding on by a thread.

Majestic.

How do I even begin to describe the beauty of Marble Canyon?

The mountains are painted in hues of reds and pinks. The sky is illuminated with more stars than I have ever seen in my life. The fields are colored with greens and yellows. The only sound is the wind. And the only word I can think of that comes even close to describing it is majestic.

There is something about the enormity of the mountains...the way they make you feel so minuscule, but in a comforting way. I'd like to say that it is similar to how I feel next to the skyscrapers of the city, but it can't even compare. Yes, I feel very small and insignificant up against the vertical towers, uneasy and contained. These buildings have come from the hands of men and evoke a feeling of power and control. They tower over me saying, "you are teeny tiny and I can stomp on you." The mountains, however, are massive beings that are natural and envelop me in a way that makes me never want to leave. They make me feel small, but very significant. I have a purpose. These mountains have been made by they hands of something much greater than those of men. They say, "Come, sit awhile, enjoy being teeny tiny."

5:30 am

Sunrise

Sunset