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i just wrote this in an email to someone:
i should be asleep right now since it's almost two in the morning, i.e. late'o'clock. but the rain, which i find usually has a lulling effect, woke me up. to be more specific, it is raining on me.
the past week, mae sot, along with most of thailand (with the notable exception of bangkok. yikes.) and burma, celebrated their new year by what else, dowsing each other with an obscene amount of water.
when i asked why here is the explanation i got: "now it is very hot. it can make the dirty and everything make the dusty. so we pour the water to make cool and also not dirty and no more for the dusty."
makes sense to me.
i was hoping to find a quiet and dry place to witness said festivities, but as they (and by they, specifically i mean oglethorpe from aqua teen hunger force) say, "plans are for fools."
the first group of people who came unannounced to pick me up for a water-filled fun time was my old students. surprise!
we are all soaked here. we drove around town splashing people and getting really really water-logged.
here we are filling our ammunition back up.
i really wish i could have taken more pictures. tons of people were in the streets dancing and throwing water and rubbing colored powder on each other. there was music playing and a lot of screaming and laughing. it was fun. however, had i had my camera out, the camera would certainly be no more as they were literally dumping whole buckets of water on you.
my school dropped me off sopping wet, and i was just about to get in the shower to clean off when a truck full of people from kdhw (one of the health groups i work with) came to pick up me and my friend tyler, who was working downstairs. the director, eh kalu, said he wouldn't take no for an answer, and so we went.
these people were even more serious about it. one of the data girls i work with who's super demure and shy was pegging people right and left. they were dancing in the truck and singing. they even took their water up a notch to include a huge blocks of ice. it was so cold!
i can safely say that i definitely feel life is fuller having stood in the back of a pickup truck, with a bunch of people fighting for the health of burma's ethnic minorities, holding on for dear life and splashing the hell out of people in what was the largest water fight i've ever seen.
after exhausting our water supply, eh kalu annouced that we were going to the hot springs, where we cooked eggs (pictured below and which i did not eat. eww.), ate ice cream, and had lunch before returning home.
number of days without sunburn: approximately 12.
it is late at night and i'm analyzing data for our donor reports - not the most exciting reason to be looking at numbers, but informative nonetheless.
in the last few months we helped start a feeding program for malnourished children. the program screens children for malnutrition and then referrs them into the feeding programs if they are deemed moderate or severe. one of the areas the program operates in is called ei tu ta, which is an idp camp on the burmese side of the border. the camp was set up a few years ago for a maximum of 1,000 burmese people that had to flee their villages, and now houses over 4,000.
this number isn't necessarily reflective of the general population because the screening wasn't randomly selected. rather, people came to the clinic for screening and thus there's likely some self-selection bias at hand. HOWEVER, nearly 9% of the children under five that showed up were malnourished.
children under five year old malnourished, going to bed hungry every night, for the sole reason that their government denies them access to food supplies, burns their crops, and forces them to flee to overcrowded camps where there aren't enough resources to go around. burma used to be the world's largest exporter rice for chrissakes.
my idealism levels are particularly low right now... on to the reproductive health data.
"Family of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged by his country's rulers in 1995, take oil giant to court in New York.
Ken Saro-Wiwa swore that one day Shell, the oil giant, would answer for his death in a court of law. Next month, 14 years after his execution, the Nigerian environmental activist's dying wish is to be fulfilled.
In a New York federal court, Shell and one of its senior executives are to face charges that in the early 1990s in Nigeria they were complicit in human rights abuses, including summary execution and torture.
The Anglo-Dutch company, if found liable, could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in damages. No multinational has ever been found guilty of human rights abuses, although two previous cases saw major claims settled outside court.
Saro-Wiwa became famous as a campaigner on behalf of the Ogoni people, leading peaceful protests against the environmental damage caused by oil companies in the Niger Delta. There was worldwide condemnation when, along with eight other activists, he was hanged by the Nigerian military government in 1995 after being charged with incitement to murder after the death of four Ogoni elders. Many of the prosecution witnesses later admitted that they had been bribed to give evidence against Saro-Wiwa, who was a respected television writer and businessman."
keep reading here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/05/shell-saro-wiwa-execution-charges/print
i saw this late, as i unfortunately see a lot of news these days. it was worth the wait! for those of you who have not seen, here is the president's council on women and girls:
thanks for sending, cath!
one of my friends just told me this crazy story today.
last week she went to myawaddy to see a friend of hers. they stayed with her friend's sister whose husband is in the army. they are very poor and live on a base in the forest.
everyday there is an announcement over a loudspeaker that calls all of the soldier's wives to get up very early in the morning and report to the office. the recording tells them that if they are late, they will be in serious trouble. all day the women must do manual labor. sometimes they must look after highranking officer's wives if they are sick and tend their children. a few times a week they are forced to attend military training where they learn combat skills. earlier this month they made the women compete in compulsary games against other battalion's wives.
the women are not allowed to leave the base, and their husbands are not allowed to leave the army after their original contracted term of duty; they are now told they must serve until they are 60 years old. they all have an agreement that they will not leave, because they've been told the entire base will be punished.
the women are scared they will be forced to fight, which seems like a pretty reasonable fear. why else would they spend time and resources training them? they are also scared since the new rumors are that they will start training the children next. they feel stuck and afraid and voiceless, even though they want to speak out.
my friend is also afraid to make a report about what she saw. i told her that since she saw these things first-hand, she could tell people who document human rights abuses. she will be resettled sometime in the near future, and i asked her to consider doing it a few days before she leaves.
in honor of the semester ending and one of their other volunteer teachers returning home to canada, my old school decided to have a farewell ceremony. that morning i got a call that it included me as well. surprise! it was adorable. they gave speeches (so did i, in fact. here's how i was informed: "and now, teacher jenn will give an encouraging speech!"), gave me little presents, prepared entertainment, and had delicious food. it was a ton of fun, and i was super glad i had brought my camera.
this is two of my favorite students doing a funny traditional dance in our classroom. i've seen it performed on several different occasions, though this was the first performance i'd seen involving drag. note aye aye in the back laughing. it was hilarious.
dance, teacher jenn, dance! this is a picture of me being forced to dance. several of the girl students wove that scarf for me.
two minutes after this was taken the boy students, as a warm-up to water festival, decided to drench all the girls with water. i was soaked for pretty much the rest of the day.
and of course, there was food. this is a potato curry with some roti, and the requisite sugary drink of choice for the day, orange soda.
i had a busy work week this week filled with analyzing a lot of program data for donor reports, spending three hours teaching one person what a percent was, building a database for a new program we have to feed malnourished children, and getting pumped for information by a spy.
(please note: if you're related to me, no need to worry. it was interesting more than anything else.)
"spies" are known to be pretty common in mae sot (junta's spies active among ethnic, exiled groups) and i think most people who stay here long enough eventually run into them. they're not scary and they're not interested in hurting you. what typically happens is that the spdc will put out bounties on certain information, causing people who otherwise have nothing to do with the government to become interested in the information too.
spies come in two main flavors, the first being actual spies. their english is typically very good, they often operate alone (which is very abnormal in burmese culture - people typically don't do social things, like hang out in a restaurant by themselves), and they typically probe you for information, which is not very subtle. the other group of people, often desperate for money and food, fall more under the category of "informers." these people are just normal, everyday people who "overhear" information and report it to earn a few extra dollars.
i'm pretty sure the guy that i ran into was a spy, though there's really no way to prove it. i was meeting with a coworker at a cafe by my house when a guy who spoke english really well came over and started asking us a ton of questions about what we were doing in mae sot, who we worked for, and if his "friend" could intern with us. in other words, it was sketchy. my friend was really standoffish, but proceeded to give him her phone number. (???) i on the other hand thought it was better to be friendly, and smiled a lot, but gave him no information.
we both immediately thought he was a spy. true to form he called my friend several times from different numbers. classic spy behavior. i learned two things, the first being that i need to be more careful about where i'm discussing things. the second is to have a tailor made story to give out. i'm thinking of saying i'm doing mission work and that my church sent me here. seems pretty benign to me.
earlier this evening i was in the hong long market (think: target's thai cousin who's much smaller and crazier) where i saw that they had gotten in four toaster ovens. they will not last long. they cost 990 baht each. this is a little over 28 u.s. dollars.
should i purchase one? yes or no.
i would like to start a new feature, if you will, on the blog entitled, "things i never dreamed i would think." it has recently come to my attention that my brain has been normalizing some very odd thoughts, and i would like to keep track of these developments.
this is not about lessons learned. for instance, "don't give spies real information" (post to follow) doesn't count. it's also not about moderately contrived thoughts like "as payment for a warm, gooey, soft, fresh-baked cookie, i think i would be willing to give up one of my less important digits." no, no. this is for things that are so random and repeated that i've become inured to them:
"there's a gecko in the silverware again."
and thus concludes the amazing cathy and jenn 2009 trip and my (almost) month of travel. i am now back in mae sot and thus buried under a pile of work again.
i would like to close with a few pictures i've been saving as they're not place-specific yet offer just a glimpse into some of the hilarious things in this country.
amazing baby sandwiches, yum! also, the small print says: a shady island in a see of rice! (note to self: if ever writing something in a foreign language, make sure to check on secondary word meanings.) so funny.
yes that is gasoline being sold on the side of the road out of whisky bottles.
shrink-wrapped buddhas!
blandness girl and benign girl. can they have these labels in the u.s., please?
they gave us this as a snack on the bus. we were on a win tour. win!
many years ago - somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 or so - sukhothai was the capital of thailand. now it basically exists as a historical park filled with a ton of beautiful ruins.
and now for something completely different: pictures! but this time in black and white. i'm so full of crazy surprises. 
for the continued adventure of cathy and jenn's thailand adventure, you will next follow us down to mae sot... where i forgot to take many pictures. we ate burmese food, went to the day markets, visited my old school, and hung out in my apartment (which cathy nicely referred to as "rustic" haha). it was nice to have a low key day and a half especially since the lower half of my person was still not entirely thrilled about its new toasty state.
it was really great to have someone close to me understand what it is i'm doing a bit more. i pointed out the organizations i work with, gave her a tour of mae tao clinic, she met people and saw where i live. this somehow makes it seem more real.
the adventure picked up again however on the bus ride to our next destination: sukhothai. i took a picture from inside the minivan:
this was one of the most eventful rides i have had thus far (note me holding on to the seat in front of me). the crazy driving the driver was engaging in really wasn't the noteworthy part. (getting around this country is a daily exercise in the study of incompetent vehicle operations.)
it was more our fellow passengers and their propensity for carsickness that made it memorable? the strangest was the woman sitting in front of us. first i would like to point out that she had on a t-shirt that on the back said, "DINOSAUR!" the shirt was however covered with cartoon teddy bears wearing neon pink sneakers. i wish you could see this in the picture.
she seemed to take the whole tip in stride and, in fact, even appeared to be sleeping through almost all the driving. it wasn't until we'd stop that, without fail, she would lose it. weird.
after koh chang, cathy and i traveled to the north of thailand. we stopped for a few days in chiang mai where, much to my surprise, cathy took an immediate interest in something entitled, "jungle flight: the best adventure in chiang mai."
as i've mentioned in previous posts, i am decidedly a land-person. (i would say land-lover or land-dweller, but those things make me think of pirates, and while pirates are hilarious, it undermines the seriousness of my assertion.) i don't really like the water - an unfortunate fact for someone who grew up on the coast of florida - and i don't particularly enjoy being high off the ground, either. i am embarrassed to say how many times i had to be rescued from the rope ladder at shamu's happy play land as a kid before i accepted facts.
the "best adventure in chiang mai" was fine by me though. i had faith that it would be pretty, a bit cooler than in the city, and best of all, i had found the new copy of THE ECONOMIST. i love magazines with a passion. they're portable, full of fascinating articles you can read without high levels of investment, and in chiang mai, you can get them in ENGLISH. this is particularly special since in thailand they like to print the covers of magazines in english for some reason. this leads you to think, "ohhhhh, a magazine, yay," only to have your hopes dashed when you pick it up and realize the inside is in thai. needlless to say, i considered this akin to the find of the century. i figured i'd just go along for the ride, enjoy the scenery, and get in some reading.
however once we got there, and i made my plans known, the serious peer pressure from the other zippers started. "but i brought the economist...," wasn't even the beginning of a valid excuse and before i knew it, i was strapped into a harness, had a helmet on my head and was headed up a path for the first tree.
cathy zipping.
we had to zip to this contraption, climb down those windy stairs and then cross the longest rocky wooden bridge i've ever seen. it took a good twenty minutes for my stomach to recover.
this was how we were attached to the tree (once we made it there). apparently it was up to "french standards." i question those standards.
cathy decided to go parasailing while we were on the island. i, being a land-person, was not so inclined.
as she was up there i had three main thoughts:
1. it's a cathykite! hahahaha.
2. she kind of looks like an astronaut. rad.
3. i am so glad i am on the ground right now.
the beach.
a spirit house on the beach.
we went to see a waterfall.
house on stilts near the beach.
added benefit to the relaxation and beauty of koh chang: my friend katherine and her husband andy were there! many friends for the price of one = aces.
it was awesome to see you all. please come back to thailand! and if you're reading this and haven't made the trek, come to thailand! i can promise you good times.
for more about why katherine and i are standing beside a random gnome picture, read her account of the incident here:
http://lewandakman.blogspot.com/2009/04/mystery-of-gnome.html
what are you doin? i'm kayakin. (or as its called in thailand, tri-akin.)
ohhh, a deserted island!
four layers of sunscreen = not enough! it's rough being albino.
(see previous grand palace post for albino explanation.)
seriously though, after this point in the trip my lower extremities - no joke - remained swollen from the sunburn to between two and three times their normal size. it lasted for over a week until after receiving advice from my friend katherine's husband (who is a doctor), i got it checked out in a hospital in bangkok. which, p.s., if you ever get sick, try to do so in bangkok. that hospital was insane! crazy lounge/reception areas, efficiency like none other, and they put your medicine in a goody bag! anyhow the next day back in mae sot, i remained as horizontal as possible and peed with incredible frequency from the diuretic i was prescribed. i'm happy to report that all my limbs are now back to their usual state.
cathy and i stayed in a small (read: tiny) basic (read: thank god there was a mosquito net to protect us from all the bugs) hut just yards from the beach. it was great!
the bathroom was outside! it was hot enough that it didn't matter so much that there was no hot water and if you didn't look too close there weren't so many bugs.
a rare appearance by jenn who, as official blog photographer, has little evidence that she's been anywhere. seriously, i could be making all this stuff up. p.s. that is the sink of the outside bathroom.
next we headed to an island not too far off the coast called koh chang. beaches have never really been my thing - i'm afraid of the water, i look at the sun and it burns me, and i'm not a huge fan of beach clothing. but i have to say, this was one of the most beautiful places i have ever been. must to go back now, please. 
this is a picture of koh chang taken on the ferry to the island. i like this picture because it reminds me of a less than or equal to sign.
this is the beach where we stayed, called kai bae beach. it was only mildly overrun with tourism. thankfully high season is ending and we went during the week, so it was actually quite laid back.
this is the coast line of kai bae, complete with a fishing boat.
speaking of tour guides, this was ours at the grand palace. he was really interesting and had a fairly progressive take on gender politics that he randomly decided to share with me, probably because i'm female. he also identified cathy and i as something else which was a tiny bit incorrect. and that was as albinos. while explaining to the group that in thailand albino elephants are revered and taken to live at the king's palace, he kept looking over at us and giggling. i picked up on this quite quickly since i'm already used to thai accents by now, and cathy wasn't far behind - it was not subtle - which of course caused us to giggle in response, and only fueled his fire. at one point he left the group while we went in to see a buddha made entirely of emerald, exclaiming in our direction, "i will go get a picture to show you!" the result is the above picture.
on the left are three large spires made in different styles - the first is sri lankan, the second thai, and the third khmer.
this is an up-close shot of one of the buildings. our tour guide told us that everything was covered in 24 carat gold. i'll believe that. 
these scary looking guards are gigantic and menacing looking.
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