Roman: By the way, I got pulled into an internship meeting today about the budget proposal.
Me: What budget proposal?
Roman: Exactly.

So just as Roman, Ari, and I are on our way to actually completing a task for our internship with the Thai Seeka Association, we are told to drop everything. We are to write a funding proposal, to no one in particular, for a project about sustainable agriculture and waste.
Problem 1: We don't know what the sustainable agriculture and waste project is.
Problem 2: Neither do they.
Problem 3: We are to create a vision statement, a project description, a set of 16 activities in three phases; a set of specific objectives, and a set of indicators to measure success of each objective; a project timeline, and a budget. This was supposed to be started that night and finished the next day, which of course it was not. Today, Saturday, class went from 9 am to 6pm, at which point I had a two-hour meeting. Tomorrow we do have a day off, but we also have 150 pages or more to read for class. Less sleep, says Ajaan Dave. Less sleep.

I am really excited about interning with Thai Seeka. It is an alternative education model, more or less an extension of CIEE into Khon Kaen local schools. And I have come to realize that it is a veritable model for sustainable development: bringing stakeholders together to create projects that address social and environmental sustainability directly, while empowering communities to work together to solve their most pressing problems, decreasing the distance between decision-makers and the people who are affected by those decisions. I have even considered that I might write a senior thesis, using Thai Seeka as a case study for sustainable development.
Moreover, the template of educational projects that we have been working on is something I can use in the Peace Corps, if I choose to do environmental education. Writing a grant proposal, from scratch, is difficult, but definitely a worthwhile learning process. And contributing to both the writing and realization of the organizational vision is of a lot of interest to me. We are truly expected to become Board members of an NGO for three months. And we can go wherever we'd like with it.

But how am I supposed to handle all this work, and all this freedom? Making up the agriculture project as we go. . . Defining our own roles in an organization we don't understand. . . Can't you just give me a box to sit in? I have no context in which to work. It is supposed to give us ownership of the work we do, but that requires a slow and arduous process of trial and error. And we don't have time! We are leaving again for "Land Unit" trips on Monday, then our next trip will be to Bangkok. . . And we need to have our funding proposal done by then, so we can present to potential donors while we're in the city!

Ahh, sleep. How I miss you.

River boat across the Mekong to Laos! -- the Pak Moon Dam:( -- and a meditation hut

View from the Pak Moon Dam; Some of our peeps at the Thai Bahn Research Center;

A painting by the Mae Moon river people

Anger grows against coup in Thailand:
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=53830

Stayed in a village in the latter part of this week that was near the Hua Na Dam, which is not yet in operation. When they do close the gates, their farmland will be underwater. Some in the village had led a protest movement; some thought the dam was beautiful; my grandma didn't know what a dam is. Only 5 people from thevillage have actually seen the dam. Back in Khon Kaen now and five others and I have to run a 3-hour class tomorrow. We did one before we left too. We're "facilitators" for the water unit. Ready to be done with that. Coup hasn't changed anything here except the willingness of some of the NGOs we were speaking with to be particularly vocal. Hate to see that.

Glad to hear from everyone at home. Sounds like a lot of interesting things are going on at CU with sutainable energy forums and climate stuff. Heard that California sued all the biggest automakers for damages from greenhouse gases. Heard that my good ole' boss, Councilman Richard Polk, has been arrested for driving under the influence of drugs..... oh, how I miss home sometimes.

9/23/06 WATER UNIT

Just finished speaking with some villagers who are organizers of the protests against the Pak Mun Dam. We stayed at the Thai Baan Research Center, which is working to document the ecological and other effects of the dam, as well as the local wisdom of the river people. Our exchange was very interesting this morning--I can only wonder if there is a place for these landless, self-sustaining people in the modern world; if 'old' and 'new' ways of life can be reconciled.

My bias has often been anti-development, but I am trying to see all sides of the issue. And frankly, I expected to travel to the developing world and witness development that truly makes people's lives better. I have seen nothing of the sort. The government and the private Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand have followed the Western development model to a "T." But they simply don't have the wisdom to do it right.

When we spoke with EGAT yesterday, we asked how they would have altered their design, had they known that they would have to open the dam's gates for 4 months/year to accommodate fish migrations. They responded: "Dams are beneficial for irrigation and people's well-being." We asked if they were looking into different sources of power, and they dutifully answered, "dams are effective in solving issues of flooding and droughts."

The Pak Mun Dam was intended to provide 136 MW of electricity, but it yields only about 40. It is built at the mouth of the Mun River, a short distance from the confluence with the mighty Mekong. The mouth of the river is the most fertile. Said Paw Somgiat at the research center, "When you close the mouth of the river, it's like you zip the mouth of the Isaan people; it's like you close the gate to Indochina. Moreover, the Mekong seasonally floods, meaning that the height differential above and below the Pak Mun dam isn't high enough to produce electricity.

The reservoir's irrigation canals go unused; farmers in the region rely on rainwater, and reservoir water is too salty. A fish ladder was installed based on those used for salmon in Washington state- but Mekong fish don't jump. And even the electricity the dam produces is unnecessary: the region already gets power from Laos.

But EGAT and the government persist, in homage to the global current of progress. Meanwhile, 7-8,000 families are displaced by this one dam among many in the Kong-Chi-Mun mega project. They have no more resources and no means of survival, so they are willing to die for the destruction of the dam. They have dedicated the last 10 years to their protests, and they have sometimes been violently repressed--their village burned and their brothers and sisters beaten. The children go to Bangkok for wage labor jobs, and families and communities are left broken. "We can't rely on politicians," they explained. "The only thing we can rely on is Nature."

I would expect that development would have winners and losers. But this dam is a clear and total failure. The World Commission on Dams has identified 6 dams in the world that should be deconstructed, and the (relatively new) Pak Mun is one of them. "We want the government to return our capital," said the villagers, referring to their natural resources. "We have wisdom; we know how to develop ourselves." But the power is not in their hands. I want so intensely to provide a forum for constructive dialogue between the decision makers and the people who they affect.

These trips helped me realize what the term "over-rapid develpoment" means. I think that development can be good--insofar as it represents the needs of people. When, in the rush to develop, we skip that step, when we fail to set up structures for communication, we fail to progress as a society. In fact, we step backwards.

For all those interested in learning more about the complexities of the new political situation in Thailand, this is a great, albeit long, article. Particularly interesting, I think, is the part about the downfalls of the "Thaksin out at all costs" strategy. Sound familiar?

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=11054

Hey everyone-

If you haven't heard, there has been a military coup in Bangkok. Email me if you want to know more; all critical news reporting has been banned. I don't know how soon or how well I will be able to respond, but I will try.
Until then, please know that I am safe and class here continues (more or less) unhindered.

Much love,
Darren

I have learned that there is a countercurrent to globalization. It is called self-sufficient agriculture, and it is supported at all levels in Thailand, from rural communities to the King. This discovery was a surprising one, given the status quo assumption in the West that the process of global economic integration is inevitable in the name of progress. On the contrary, many communities are converging on an alternative conclusion: that organic, subsistence agriculture is more conducive to food security, community integrity, and human and ecological health than is export-driven industrialization and specialization.

Additionally, I have learned that community development policies are most effective when they arise from a grassroots level. The well-intentioned efforts of the government of Surin province to foster a transition toward organic farming, for example, appear to be a political maneuver that is merely responsive to the groundswell of support among the people. One has only to speak with the organizer of a Green Market to learn that the government’s policies “cannot reach farmers in the area”—that they produce few concrete results. Similarly, there was a Minister for Yasotorn Province who failed to secure compensation for his people whose lives were displaced by the construction of a dam. He, therefore, retired from government and joined the Assembly of the Poor, where he was empowered to do more for the disadvantaged than from his position as a decision-maker in the central government. This is likely not the fault of those in government; it is rather a manifestation of the fact that, for the success of initiatives that will change they way people live, “villagers need to be able to manage these programs themselves.” In short, “bottom-up” social programs are more sustainable than “top-down” decrees.

These discoveries are important for me for a couple of reasons. First, my perception has been that globalization is a force that can be harnessed for the benefit of environmental and social activists in the future, through partnerships among business, government, and civil society. This notion is underscored by the assumption that interconnectivity is an important theme in any system, from ecology to economics to human rights and social change. As a result of this assumption, I have been slow to question the inherent value of market liberalization. However, as the Thai-Australia Free Trade Agreement has shown, such negotiations tend to exclude the opinions of all but a very few, very powerful stakeholders. Two or three families, each of whom serve in the present government, now reap profit from the sale of car parts and certain technologies to Australia—while thousands of Thai beef farmers, beverages producers, others were undermined by the influx of foreign imports. There should be exchange among people; but that exchange should be fair.

Second, I have recently considered the idea that if I can enter elected government, I can leverage my authority and connectivity to better represent the public interest. This week, I have been forced to reconsider this assumption, in light of the success I have seen among community organizers around Northeast Thailand that look inward, to the resources of one’s own community, to build a model of sustainable living.

It would appear logical that social capital, such as the knowledge of agricultural techniques and species that are suitable for local conditions, would be better preserved through local action than through centralized management. I am therefore committed to taking a serious new look at career choices.

Education that brings children closer to their communities, that gives them the skills to work and live within that community and to craft and follow through with a vision—these things must surely be more sustainable than an education that prepares a generation for a global service economy.

What if I were to attempt to create a self-sustainable organic farm later in my life? There are many other things I wish to do and see before I would be ready to commit to a lifestyle so tied to the land. But I can recognize that such a connection might be the most fulfilling thing that one could do—and indeed, it has been a goal of mine for many years to be able to live off of the fruits of the land, in accordance with and not exceeding nature’s ability to replenish itself.

Moreover, I believe that by doing so, I could continue to be a leader. I have come to this conclusion through observation, by seeing the energy with which organic farmer, activist, and politician P’Bamrung Kayotha infuses his community with a transformative vision and model for sustainable living.

It is, appropriately, through the slow and difficult process of observation that I would have to learn how to create a sustainable organic farm in the United States. The local knowledge required for a successful integrated farm in the American Southwest is inherently different than that which P’Bamrung has drawn upon for his own venture. Perhaps I could look to the communities of indigenous peoples that are abundant, if relentlessly abused and scattered, in that region. It is a challenge of significant magnitude, but one that I can actually picture myself doing because it may be the first and most important step toward a sustainable future for the Earth and its people.

FOOD UNIT

September 8
Met with the Vice Governor of Surin Province, one of the poorest in Thailand, to hear all about their efforts to foster a transition to self-sufficient, organic agriculture. They have declared themselves a "Green Province."

September 9
Met with the organizer of a Green Market, who informed us that the government of Surin is not very cooperative in the movement toward self-sufficient, organic agriculture. Interesting. Regardless of the government's effectiveness, the things we saw in this province were decades ahead of American thinking about food security, health, and community life. Here is a picture from the green market.

September 11
Left Don Leng Tai village. Played show-and-tell (read: acted as the objects of show-and-tell) at a new school where CIEE has stationed a "community intern." Phin (his name is Phil, but Thais can't pronounce a final "l" sound) is helping to launch an organic farm at Nakudsim primary school, complete with rice, veggies, fruit trees, a fish pond, and a curriculum that incorporates self-sufficient agriculture into science, math, foreign language, and technology lessons.
Stayed with a mother who is an English as a second language teacher (sounds vaguely familiar...) and was shuttled back and forth between that house and the grandfather's, with whom we took shots of whiskey. Spent the most confusing hour of my life with a toothless Thai grandmother on hallucinogens. Finally, I came back to the house where I would sleep, which had a TV. On it was a caption in English, which read, "at this moment in 2001, the first plane flew into the WTC towers." I had forgotten all about 9/11, and this was a sobering re-discovery that made me think of home.

September 13
Visited P'Bamrung Kayotha's organic farm today. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever known; and he is a vibrant leader in his community, roughly the equivalent of a county commissioner right now. When we came to his house to learn from him, so did about 20 neighbors. His house is built over water, and he has a whole system of fish ponds accessible by narrow, shaded walkways covered by 40 varieties of trees. He grows his own food to eat, and he raises cows, pigs, ducks, peacocks, porcupines, snakes, cats.... He roped in what must have been a 30-lb fish for dinner. Not only is his home stunningly beautiful, but it is a model for his initiative that the region move toward self-sufficient organic agriculture. It is incredible to see such a countercurrent to globalization, to see that people are moving unequivocally away from global integration. And that their health, their finances, and the structure of their communities is that much better. I am inspired by his example and can only wonder of it could work in the States. Certainly it would look a lot different, because it is a different climate that requires different local knowledge: the plants that complement each other's growth, that can be grown at a particular time of year, and that can be used for herbal medicines in all types of situations. If this local knowledge still exists in the United States, it must lie largely withing Native American reservations and the few remaining family farms. I want to learn it all before the knowledge is really gone. And what a 180 it would be to see American communities looking inward, toward subsistence farming, community development, and rural vitality.

I want to give you a better understanding of a Thai bathroom. On your left is a toilet. You flush it by pouring water down it with the pink bucket. Toilet paper does not exist--again, you use water. On your right, you will see a separate large container, which is the shower. Sometimes there are fish in it to help keep it clean. Everything drains through a whole in the floor, which generally leads outside. Only the bathrooms that are inside someone's home, and therefore have a shower bucket, actually contain soap. Washing hands thus happens only during showers; fortunately, Thai people are quite fond of showers.

Last week, I stayed at a home in rural Surin Province that had no electricity or running water. The bathroom you see here is more high-tech. It was a great home, though, situated on a rice farm of 20 rai (maybe 8 acres?) I got to help a little with working in the field and trying to round up some cows that broke out of their pen. I didn't know cows could run like that. I got to partake in some Buddhist chants before bed--about 45 minutes' worth of not understanding anything. I got to see a number of beautiful scorpions, including a small red one in the bedroom and a 4 or 5 inch black one on the lunch table. Tastes like exoskeleton.

Look at the monkey!!!! Look at the monkey!!!!

Sept. 8
Spent the morning at the ruins of a Khmer temple in Bururim Province; they are a small-scale likeness of the Ankor Wat (where Tomb Raider was filmed) ruins in Cambodia.

This is me in the last homestay, in the slum community of Mitrapap. Tomorrow morning, we are leaving for another trip into the rice fields. We will be putting together 13 different community exhanges with the villagers, the coordinators of an organic market, the governor of Surin province... We will also be doing a little work of our own in the rice fields. And if there is anywhere one could ride an elephant and/or a buffalo, it sounds like this will be the place!!! This is our "Food" unit, and the next will be "water," for which I will facilitate a lot of the discussions and workshops.

This new internship of mine is moving very quickly, and it has me excited. I had another meeting tonight, with one of the association's key advisors. He is the leader of the network of NGOs in the Northeast, NGO-CORD. The Thai Seeka Association's mission is "to provide and promote a participatory, community inspired, action-oriented education model for Thai people to share knowledge and solve pressing problems." I feel like if I decide to do environmental education in the Peace Corps, this experience will be really valuable for me.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me an email or a phone call--and particularly for Bryn or Paul, if you are reading this, come visit me!!!!! The staff here are willing and able to help you both, and I would love to show you around Khon Kaen!

I'll be away for a while, but if you are reading this, please send me a note to let me know how you are doing!

sketchiest stairs ever

A typical lunch


A tube of sticky rice
that my host family gave me

Bangkok- view from hotel

Class was much more engaging yesterday, as we learned about human rights and development. Immediately after class, a group of kids decided that they would revisit the slum communities we stayed in last week and use the UN's Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as a framework for helping the community build its case. I thought it was amazing to see how people are willing to move--to take what they learn and do something with it.

Yesterday I made the decision to drop the Buddhism and Thai Society class. I really don't know what made me think that I would enjoy learning about religious history, but I tried. Instead, I am now doing an internship along with the two kids who are in the Intermediate Thai class, Roman and Arianne. A number of CIEE Thailand staff are involved in creating an NGO called the Thai Seeka ("Learning for Freedom") Association, which seeks to implement the kind of alternative and holistic education model we use at CIEE into teachers' curriculums and schools' and communities' strategic planning. A lot of the projects they are helping with are very much about sustainability, including a community garden in Srithan, the first community I stayed in at orientation. They are trying to get funding for a community center that would be a model for green construction and a place for education about sustainability. And they are working with the Environmental Club at a high school in Khon Kaen. I decided I would do this internship yesterday evening, and at 10pm we had a meeting with some of the TSA committee members. The ball is rolling quickly and I'm excited to see where it will go; I am just happy that I can contribute to something meaningful instead of learning about Buddhism and going nowhere productive with it! I think I will learn more Thai by working with the intermediate kids, and learn about strategies for building an NGO from scratch!

Last week was spent at a second homestay in the slum communities adjacent to the railroad that runs through Khon Kaen. No one is technically allowed to live within 20m of the tracks, but people from my community (Mitrapap) were forced off their land nearby 30 years ago and have lived there since. Hundreds of other families have since migrated into a number of adjacent slums, and it continues to develop.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in Mitrapap a lot. Kids EVERYWHERE. I played soccer and pingpong with the older kids and took on the role of airport for the small kids--for at least an hour and a half each day. At which point they followed me back to my house and cried when I went inside. People are outside together at all hours, and anyone could literally sit down in any house to have dinner. The food was amazing, and ironically, my house was actually a lot nicer than my first house in Srithan. I stayed at the house of the community leader, Paw-O, who advocates on behalf of the 216 families in Mitrapap. I later found out that he has been accused of taking money from a World Bank fund allocated to the 4-slum network. That might explain the tile floors. He had been sure to communicate to me that he was the first to build a permanent house in Mitrapap, so as to set and example for the others that they will be safe there. I won't jump to any conclusions though.

The rest of the family was interesting, too. My host mother was a wonderful cook and did my laundry and bought me some shorts and woke me up a couple of mornings so I could give food to some monks with her. A 29 year-old son at my house wanted very much to help me learn Thai, so he spent a few hours flipping through the dictionary and teaching me words such as "behavior," "consonant," and "explanation." Needless to say, I remember none of them. I do, however, remember being hit on by a 17-year-old meanwhile. Other words looked up in the dictionary for me include "phone number," "slave," and something that translated as "a go-between who arranges marriage." Awkward enough, you might say, until I found out that this individual was a "gatoy"--a cross-dressing man.

On Thursday night, we organized a community exchange, in which we had a couple of hours to ask questions about their community (via an interpreter) and try to find the themes that linked it to the slums that other students were staying in. There were eight of us in Mitrapap. We sort of divided into pairs, and each pair tried to steer the discussion to find out about something different about the community. May and I, for example, asked about education and job opportunities, while other people tried to get info about health. It was a cool structure and a very interesting exchange.

On Friday night, there was a party at the interns' house, and we also had free reign to paint on their walls. I wrote a quote from a book I pulled off their shelf called Thoughts and Meditations, which I would like to write here so I can remember it:
"He who does not use revolution,
to strip his dry leaves,
will slowly perish."

Orientation ended yesterday and the semester really started today. Everything we have done so far has been amazing, especially the community stays. Had I tried to do a self-designed semester in Brazil, there is no way I would have had experiences like these. Today, however, I stumbled upon the painful reality that we have real class. This morning was a 3-hour lecture about the history of Buddhism, from which I learned nothing except that monks have cell phones and digital video cameras, with which they can choose to take extensive footage of American students sitting in chairs. This afternoon was a 3-hour lecture about gender, from which I learned... nothing. Tomorrow is about human rights theory and development theory, which I am more excited for. But we have probably 400-500 pages of reading for this week alone, and no time to do it. It is really an absurd volume (not to mention resoundingly liberal--even from my point of view). I was already so tired this afternoon that I fell asleep at 4, woke up at 7:15, and was then certain that it was 7:15 in the morning. I began to get dressed to go to class again before my roommate managed to explain to me that it is still Monday. It was a very confusing conversation.

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You can call me and leave a message at this number for the next three months:
(303) 800-5762. If you're lucky, I will even call you.
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