Last night there was a rainstorm in Mae Sai that wreaked havoc over the site. It totally came out of nowhere and within seconds of the storm starting, the power went out, the dorms and radio studio started flooding and all of the equipment went up in sparks and got completely destroyed. This is also a pretty superstitious culture and everyone, even grownups, is afraid of ghosts. Some of the kids are convinced that the deaths of people they know were caused by ghosts and so this spooky, torrential rainstorm didn't do much to curb their fears. A lot of them were really upset. Here's some pictures of the destruction and the studio, which no longer has any equipment inside of it:






It's not even rain season! I dont' really understand how the dorms and studio flooded so easily. After all, this region does have a rain season, where it pours every day for about 3 months. It must have been pretty strong I guess, even for Thailand. Those poor kids. I feel bad enough that they didn't have dry mattresses to sleep on last night, but ultimately, I think it's worse that the radio studio got destroyed. For one hour of the day, the station is in English, but for all other hours of the day, different kids got to broadcast whatever they wanted. It really was a large source of entertainment for them and now it's gone.

I bent the wire input for the power adaptor of my computer. I've actually managed to do this 3 times over the course of the last 5 years, but let's not get into that. The point is, this gave me an excuse to visit Chiang Mai this weekend, because it has an Apple center. For a little more than 36 hours, I've felt like I've been in an amusement park. Sure, I visited the zoo where they had racoons on display, but then walking into two different malls made me feel like I was on another planet. I even watched a movie in a theatre...The Pink Panther with Thai subtitles... a dumb movie, but still, a movie in a movie theatre. Such different stimulation from what I'm used to in Mae Sai.

Of course, I walked into 2 malls yesterday, and neither of them were the ones that had the Apple center (one of them had an Apple "corner" which meant they only sold ipods). So I'm off to visit my final mall in Chiang Mai today before hopping on a bus back to Mae Sai.....Internet's also way more expensive here than back North, so I'm gonna cut this short. Another entry due soon!

Everyone loses weight when they go to a developing country for an extended period of time. Except me. Yup, despite being in the company of malnourished children most of the time, my double chin has grown larger and my stomach has expanded. Normally I wouldn't care about this sortof thing, as no one would really bring this to my attention back home (at least to the extent that I've atually gained weight), but here, it's different. One of my punk students that always cuts my low level English class walked behind me and grabbed my love handles during lunch the other day and made the comment, "aaaw, yaaiii!" (wow, big!). I didn't take it too personally because this is the same kid that gave himself his own tatoo, then a week later, decided he didn't want it anymore and then ended up having to go ot the hospital for a self inflicted third degree burn. The tatoo's still there, in case you were wondering.

Then yesterday some government officials came to visit our site to discuss some "serious issues" and we were all sitting at a conference table. I was slouched over, I suppose and my rolls were particularly noticable, evidently because the woman sitting across from me interrupted the discussion and made the comment, "Pi Jamie! You look like you have a baby!" And motioned her hands across her own stomach to demonstrate my apparant metamorphosis from the last three months. I smiled not caring too much, feeling like it was probably a bigger deal that she interrupted the meeting than my having gained weight. Then I looked up and saw one of the members of the directing team chuckling and nodding her head, coz apparantly, yup! It's loud and clear. I've gotten noticably fatter in the last couple of months.

Other volunteers have called this culture shock and maybe that's the case. Nonetheless, I've always had a really high metabolism and there's been absolutely no alcohol or marijuana in my life to explain this recent phenomenon. I've been pretty busy and I've rewarded myself with food and iced coffee (2% coffee, 98% sugar and cream around these parts) with most of the free time I've had. I also never walk anymore because I have this motorbike that I take everywhere. I went to the gym after that meeting and ran 2 kilometers and then I felt like I wanted to die. I suppose I'm out of practice but it's also starting to get really hot around here. And no, there's no airconditioning in the gym.



The Teseban Test
Unfortunately, of my two students that took the scholarship test, neither of them passed. Not just the English section though. The Thai, Science and Math sections too; all of them. The students from Doi Luang failed as well. They seemed ok about it. They said that they're happy to continue studying here at their regular school and with me from 7-8:30. The directing team is working on getting me a copy of this year's test to see what we could have done more to improve their performance. I'd say I feel completely responsible....but really, I'm not sure how much language development is even possible in three weeks, no matter what kindof vigorous teaching is done. I'm just happy they don't feel so discouraged as to drop studying the language all together. I wish things could have worked out better for them, but that's how it goes, I guess.

By the way, for those of you who have been reading and commenting about wanting to help or contribute to this organization: They are always looking for help here. Volunteers and monatary donations, these are all really important and a little bit of cash in the states goes a long way here. If you want to know more, email me jameswood924@yahoo.com and I'll gladly tell you the name of the organization and ways you can help.

Graduation ceremony.
This is a photograph of a ritual performed during a graduation ceremony. There are these pieces of thread that elders and teachers wrap around the wrists of the graduates. I think they represent the diploma and the process of tying the string around their wrists is supposed to be the rite of passage into adulthood.



Sadly, a good chunck of my students have "graduated" from the organization's program and have left in the last few days, or will leave in the next couple of weeks. This wasn't a conventional graduation for a few reasons. I had flashbacks of my own highschool graduation before coming to this one. Mine was pretty chipper as far as occasions go. I got to hear my own dad speak about happy things like icecream and having fun and most everyone was smiling and having a good time. Graduation here in Thailand on this site was way different. The speaker was a director of the program and instead of a sortof, "Oh, the Places You'll Go" speech, she gave a "Life stops being fun NOW," kind of speech. I could see fear building up in the eyes of these kids, 15, 16, to 19 years old. To be fair, this entire speech was done in Thai, and if there were words of encouragment, I missed them entirely. The point is, the atmosphere definitely wasn't light like a graduation in the States would be.

As all of these kids from this class have finished, they've all gone to their respective homes for an abbreviated period of time before embarking upon the next project: vocational school, continued studies, work, whatever it might be. I saw girl last night still walking around campus and I asked her, "Are you going home?" And she smiled and said, "I don't have a home. This is my home!" She explained to me that both of her parents had died and she didn't have anywhere to go. She seemed fine explaining this to me last night, but this morning she came to my office saying she wanted to study English with me later on (She was one of the kids from that crash course that didn't end up taking the test). Then she paused and said to me, "I miss my friends." and she started to cry. What a life. You'd never know she'd come from a broken home by how much she laughs and smiles with her friends. Her friends became her sense of security; the only kindof family she'd have left. Now that was taken away from her too as far as she was concerned. I didn't really know what to do and I asked her if she had any pictures of her friends to remember them by when she missed them. On the office screensaver, there was a picture of her with her friends and she asked me to print it out. Once it was printed, she took it in her hands and walked away just staring onto the piece of paper as if she couldn't remove her eyes from it.

It's strange that at age 16 she's supposed to have figured out what she's supposed to do with her life when I haven't figured out my life yet at 22. It's also strange how for some people, an hour long bus ride away might as well be the other side of the planet... whereas for me, thanks to the internet and cell phone's, the other side of the world feels like next door...so, so, so lucky.

Yesterday my fast track students took that scholarship test. All two of them. This was brand new information for me two days ago. I was working on the computer in the office when Lek walked in to get some water. I asked her, "Are you nervous about tomorrow's test?" and she said, "Tomorrow I don't take a test." And I paused for a few seconds, thinking she just maybe forgot. "The Teseban test, the test you've been studying for every night?" And she paused for a few seconds, taking a sip of water, "Ohhhh, nonono, I no-I don't take Teseban test, only R.A and Khuan." I really didn't understand, and I looked out the window to see a member of the directing team on her motorbike about to leave the center. Before she could take off, I got her attention and asked her what was going on. And apparently, Lek was right. Only two of my students are even elligible to take that test because none of the other students are the right age for the program; they're too old.

There were a few things runnning through my head within the first hour that this was brought to my attention. Mainly, why didn't anyone tell me this a long time ago? For the last three weeks, especially this last week, I've been running this language class a little bit like a dictator. Three days ago, I made them take an 11 paged test that took an 80 minutes to complete, thinking this was a good exercise before the real deal, two days later. I'm relieved that the two students taking the test know what they're doing and have been on top of their work from the beginning.

At the same time, had I known it was going to be just those two, I would have changed how I ran that whole circus. I would have given those two more personal attention after every class and I wouldn't have subjected everyone else to my nazi-esque regime for the last week. From the very beginning, I know a few of those kids really had their hearts set on that scholarship and I hope they weren't dissapointed when they found out that they weren't elligible. Lek said to me, "It's ok because to study it's important." About six of these students want to keep studying English at night, scholarship or not. It's encouraging to know that they actually want to learn and that no one is making them do it. The night classes aren't ending, but now they're going to be a bit more lax. Now I'll be able to focus on more than just grammar: maybe even read a book with them.

I drank centipede whiskey. You might expect me to say that I was tied down, my head was tilted back and my mouth was forced open...but actually, it was just put in front of me and I drank it. I haven't had time to go to the internet cafe to upload pictures of my Saturday night camping in Mae Salong where I went horseback riding and drank said whiskey. So for now, I'll just have to describe the bottle. When I was told it was centipede whiskey, I was expecting a 3 inch critter to be sunk at the bottom of the bottle. Instead, a few round of shots later with my friends, and I see that the bottle is tangled with many centipedes, all roughly the size of Gray's Papaya hot dogs. If you scroll down a little bit, you'll see the snake whiskey I saw in Laos, which, in my opinion is much more freaky than the faceless centipedes...but equally gross nonetheless.
I'm coming towards the end of my fast track night course. They take their test for the scholarship on Sunday. I've been pushing them really hard and I'm worried they might be wiped, but a lot of them have been consistently positive, determined and succesful keeping up with me. I have these memories from when I was younger of my mom being really nervous for me before my violin recitals; grimacing and biting her nails incessantly until the final note was played. I finally understand. Now I know exactly where she was coming from.

Another volunteer on site, Maggie, was asked to move to Doi Luang for 3 weeks to prepare six students for the same test my night students are taking (part of the same organization, butit's a different branch). Doi Luang is about an hour away by motorbike, just a little further east of the Golden Triangle. Since Maggie's class only meets at night, she's often left on her lonesome during the day in Doi Luang (which is much more of a barn than Mae Sai is), so I decided to visit her on Wednesday after the radio show, while I'd have 6 hours before I'd have to go home for the night class.



I met up with Maggie at the Golden Triangle, where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet up. You can take a small boat over to Laos and there are a series of small markets and a few caged animals on display.




Maggie makes fun of me for disputing the fact that this is a bear. No really, what the hell is this?
You first look at this animal and from a distance, it looks like a bear. Then it looks up to you and it's got non-bear like features. Some cross between a pig and a lemur perhaps? It also pants the way my family dog, Tony, used to pant when he was still around. Then, this bear-like creature gets up on his hind legs and reaches ontop of his cage and wraps his FINGERS around the top. Not his paws, and not just his claws, his fingers. I'm telling you. Someone out there has to know. Tell me: What IS this guy? Docile enough to let us pet him, in any case. He's fed juice boxes of soy milk. That's pretty much all that's in his cage. It doesn't look like he gets out much, if at all. We wanted to take him on the boat with us, but we figured we'd be causing problems for all parties involved....except for maybe the monkey-bear.




This, by the way, is a bottle of whiskey with a real dead snake in it. ya know how people put worms in their tequila? People put amphibians in their whiskey in Laos. Geckos and centipedes too. We could sample whiskey that had one of those bigger sized snakes, but I just wasn't compelled to do shots at 10am on Wednesday morning...or to drink snake juice.