The Condom Hiest!

By Fiz

This post is a bit T.M.I but because the story is so weird we have to tell you.

This morning I left the used condom and lube next to our bed but inside our mosquito net, and went to breakfast.  Two hours later we went back to our room to find a swarm of red ants clambering all over the mosquito net trying to find a way to the lube, or so we thought.  So I sprayed a little bug repellant and they ran off, I quickly grabbed the condom and lube and bagged up the lube and left the condom in the wrapper on the floor. 

We then went to a small celebration in the village and when we returned two hours later the ants had surrounded the condom in straight lines radiating outwards from the condom.  The lube, despite a hole in its bag, was left forlorn.

We ate lunch and hung out for a bit, after another two hours or so I went to change out of my only clean clothes to the work clothes I have been wearing, and to my great surprise I found the ants had pulled the condom out of the wrapper and were hauling it across the floor.  A comparatively small group of ants were surrounding a puddle of some liquid that was leading from the condom (semen or lube, you decide).  I pick up the condom with a Qui-tip and threw it towards the corner of the dorm where tree branches touch the dorm.

We come back to our room after an afternoon’s hard work laying down the foundation for a cistern and putting some final touches on the first section of the composting toilet we’re working on, and discover the puddle was significantly smaller, with much fewer ants around it. Stranger still the condom had been pulled all the way to the wall and half of it had been pulled though a very large crack.

The whole experience was very surreal. We have been theorizing as to what was so damn appealing about the used condom to these red ants. Sugars? Proteins? Condom worship? All I could picture was these red ants dancing and singing around this condom in an ant hall filled with ant tiki-torches and drums. The jungle is a strange place. 

On The Farm

By Kathleen

Since Monday we have been up in the hills around Chiang Mai at a permaculture farm called the Panya Project.  There is an abundance of three things here, bananas, mosquitoes (dubbed mozzies) and people who care about sustainability.

We are up here for a 16 day Permaculture workshop, designing and building a compost toilet and a water tank. It’s been a real adventure. We are pretty far North in Thailand and the nights are chilly. It’s the rainy season and we’ve been working in between bursts of rain and clouds.

It’s been amazing to meet people from all over the world and talk about permaculture, environmentalism, and sustainability. For me personally it’s a nice shift from writing, getting your hands dirty and really making a structure, is deeply gratifying though exhausting.I confess however that I’ll be glad to get back to toilets that sit level and don’t require me to add dry rice husks to help compost. (I know I’m a terrible greenie preferring my flush toilets….only more reason to find a compromise between comfort and sustainability.)

There are people here from all over the world, the UK, New Zealand, China, Japan, Sweden, Spain, it’s a little UN convention. So wonderful to see how these ideas are spreading, slowly change is happening.

This morning we laid down seven courses of adobe bricks on the compost toilet, after building a stone and cement foundation earlier this week. We structured in a wattle and cob panel so that the compost can be removed later. In the afternoon we began a big heaping pile of 18-day compost ( Yum!) layering green ( nitrogen) and brown(carbon) material so that we can produce a healthy garden compost. Then we made compost tea from older compost. This can be sprayed onto veggie and plant beds to add extra microbes for better soil health. Sorta like drinking probiotics for intestinal wellness.

Tomorrow we begin work on a ferro-cement water tank. This is particularly interesting to Fiz and I because it would be a great addition to a future greenhouse we want to have. Also it’s essential any design to have a water source.

My only major issue is the wickedness of the mozzies, my legs are chewed up and it’s a real struggle not to itch constantly. The jungle is full of creepy crawlies, from giant centipedes to red fire ants and vinagaroos. It has been determined that we are in fact not jungle people and have been fantasizing about our temperate climate…. And lack of giant bugs all week.

However, there is one bug that I can’t help but be amazed by; butterflies. I have never seen such abundance and variety as I have seen over the last four days, black, blue, poka-dotted, yellow and pink. Such lovely creatures, little bits of magic.

Death Is Life's Change Agent

There are few people in my lifetime who have had as much influence as Steve Jobs.  When I heard of his death today I thought of the amazing changes that have been brought about as a result of this one man.  In fact just about every part of my life has been impacted by his creativity and chances are the same is true for you as well.

His Iphone and Ipad inventions sparked a revolution in mobile technology that have forever changed the way we communicate to one another and receive and dispense information.   What is remarkable about these changes is not just the immensity of their impact, but the speed with which they occur.  Subsequent inventions occur in such rapid succession it seems like technological advance is no longer measured in decades but in months and weeks.   He didn't just bring about new ideas, he unleashed a connectivity that greatly accelerates new invention and so has made change a way of life.

And yet Jobs himself made the observation a few years ago that one of the most important and helpful tools he had received in his life was not something he could hold in his hand or read on a screen- but an emotional and psychological awareness of his own mortality.    Here is an excerpt from his Stanford University commencement address in 2005:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.  About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. 

The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.  I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:  No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. 

Although Jobs religious perspective was apparently quite different from my own biblical worldview, there are some things in his observations that ring true for the believer.  For instance, Paul the Apostle wrote this:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.   (2 Corinthians 5:1-3) 

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  (Romans 8:18)

As Christians we believe that our knowledge and understanding of how this life will end only enhances and invigorates how we embrace life in the right now.  So tonight as I pray for the family of Steve Jobs and think about what this amazing change agent has brought to my life, I am reminded that no matter how great that influence has been, it does not even begin to compare to the One whose life and death has brought about ultimate change.  And although I could indeed go a lifetime without any one of his amazing inventions, I could not go a day without the hope and knowledge of the One who transforms earthly tents into heavenly dwellings.  In this sense I agree with his fascinating perspective on death.  It has become for me a knowledge and an awareness that is more important than all of life's inventions.  

Master Burrito

By Kathleen

Many people come to Thailand for the food. I am not one of them,  I know I must be crazy right? Well, I can’t stomach most sea-food (literally) and the smell of fish sauce just reminds me of long nights in dirty bathrooms so I stay away. That and I’ll admit it, I like my food a bit hardier than Thais do. I like to feel full at the end of a meal and rice noodles just don’t do it for me. In short I’m more of a beans and rice kind of girl. That being said it’s ridiculously hard to find good Mexican food while abroad.

Do Mexicans not travel? Do they not emigrate to other countries? Or do they just not open restaurants? Whatever the case it leads to a depressing lack of burritos and in Asia the issue is compounded.

Chiang Mai does not suffer from this problem. Chiang Mai has burritos, burritos that are giant, filled with goodness and smothered in sour cream and cheese. They also have corn chips salsa and the holy grail….. guacamole.

The spot we found was just called “Burritos” it had one page for a menu and was beyond delicious. Maybe I’m just starved for a good burrito but I was in heaven. The meal was completed by a fantastic frothy mint and lime shake, political posters and classic rock. For the first time in almost two months I couldn’t finish because I was so full.  (those who have traveled to SEA will know what I mean).

So yes, I just wrote a blog post about a burrito. I am such a farang.

Protest Thoughts

By Kathleen

By far one of the strangest things about traveling is that you are so removed from things at home. Even in this day and age of instant communication and trans-Pacific flights you can still feel a world away from important events. Twice in six weeks I have felt like I’m missing something. The first was the hurricane, worst to hit the Northeast in decades and now the protests.

From here it is hard to tell the scope of these protests, from my own experience protesting the war in Iraq in 2003 I know that the media is often silent about these things and when they do report the numbers are often skewed, heavily, towards the smaller side.

While I cannot gauge the scale of these protests I can say that I am glad they are taking place. There are too many serious issues hanging over my generation to be borne in silence anymore.

The NYTimes says that the protests are “an expression of anger over a financial system that they [the protestors] say favors the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary citizens. (September 17, 2011, 4:26 pm)” 

The protests are an expression of not just anger but frustration and disappointment in a country and system that has failed to address some of the most serious problems facing not only our economy and our generation but of our planet.

The protesters have been accused of lacking any central talking points, of rallying without cohesive demands.  What are their concerns, what do they want?

Traveling I have heard many grievances too many to name I have been told, by friends, by strangers by people I have met at home an abroad. If you don’t know what we are angry about then you haven’t been paying attention to the state of our times.

This is not a post about what we don’t want, but about what we do. The list is long to be sure. There are things I have left out, but we need to be focusing on the positive. If not we will end up being a reaction not an action and a reaction cannot create, only destroy. Our country is becoming more volatile every year. The cracks between rich and poor, between young and old and blue and red have widened into gaps that no one seems willing to cross.

War has torn us apart. The economy has ruined many. If we hope to change anything, to really change we need to overcome the hate, the mistrust and the anger that the media wants us to hold onto and instead come together over common goals.

The United Sates of America, in spite of our foreign policy, our corporate greed, our destruction of the environment  is still to me the best country on Earth. Everywhere I go I have met wonderful Americans, from every walk of life, from every political side, from many religions.

They are by far some of the most optimistic, outgoing and polite people in the world. We get a bad rap it’s true but we try to fix it, one by one with our smiles and our curiosity. We Americans, we the people are what makes our country so great.

We as Americans try, we really do, we try to believe, we try to get along and we try to make the best out of bad and awkward situations. It’s not until you leave the country and travel to other places that you being to see the genius vision that our founding fathers had, a vision of equality and freedom that is yet to be matched anywhere.

That being said, it is often yet to be matched at home.

All we as a generation want is for our futures to be as bright as our parents and grandparents and for our children and grandchildren to be able to stand on good clean earth, eat good clean food, drink good clean water and be proud to be citizens of such a diverse and wonderful country.

We want jobs that fully utilize our talents and our minds, that don’t condemn us to a life of minimum wage and juggling part time shifts. We want freedom from the fear of poverty, we want the opportunity to use our degrees in productive and creative ways.

We want our environment to be respected, to be looked after and to be healthy. We want the long term sustainability of the Earth to be more important that the bottom line. We want our water to be clean of contaminates, our soil clean from chemicals that makes us sick.

We want there to be fish in the sea in 10, 30, 400 years. We want there to be trees and clean air. We want to find innovative ways of living with the environment. We want to change our lifestyles and balance our desires for comfort and our need for sustainability. We want to do it now.

We want our families to be healthy, and to be able to receive quality affordable healthcare regardless of where and if we work. We want the U.S to join other industrialized nations in offering comprehensive national healthcare and parental leave time.

We want schools to be centers of learning not a political fighting ground. We want teachers to be able to teach without fear of losing their jobs because of ever changing testing benchmarks that limit, not measure, children’s ability to learn. A free country stands on the education of its public and we are committed to free quality public education at all levels of learning.

We want people to be people and business to be businesses. Corporations should not have legal personhood, period. We want to close the gap between rich and poor. We want to be relived fully or partially of the incredible burden of student loan debt which shackles so many young Americans and cripples their ability to create a life for themselves and contribute to the economy.

We want people, legislators and politicians to be held accountable for their actions. Wealth should not be a barrier to justice and greed should not be an acceptable reason to look the other way.

We want people of all religions and all colors to be respected. We want all citizens to be free to worship or not worship what and who they want without fear of persecution, suspicion of general mistrust. We want citizens of every ethnic background to be respected as Americans, equally and wholly without division into greater and lesser sub categories of such.

Caring about the environment is not political, we all live here. Caring about our jobs is not political, we all need and want to earn a living. Caring about equality and tolerance is not political, it is what makes us American.

What we want as a generation is simple, it is not hard to accomplish and it is not expensive. The only thing required to make it happen is that we as Americans try. Try to rise above our differences in politics, in religion, in race and come together to create something for the greater good.

Back Alley Opera

By Fiz

Sept 26 marked the first day of the Kin Jay Festival, the Chinese vegetarian festival.  The streets of Chinatown are overflowing with food carts vending everything from vegetarian pork buns (that tasted identical to the original), to tofu shrimp stir fry to whole potatoes, spiral cut, fried on a stick.

And I am sitting in my hostel with a bowl of cream of mushroom soup and a basket of French fries.  Though to be fair I did buy a taro root ‘pancake’ and a bowl of deep-fried orchids for lunch.  They were delicious!

On Monday, the first day of the festival we spent a good deal of the evening wandering around, getting handed free samples of God only knows what and loving all of it.  Each vendor jovially attempted to convey what they were handing us consisted of.

We walked for about an hour before our feet started to protest and our bellies were satiated.  We decided to walk through a couple of packed alleys before calling it a night. The first was filled with wholesale dried mushrooms of all sorts, curries, and buckets of tofu shrimp and salmon.  The second was all desserts. Then towards the middle the sounds of gongs and cymbals touched our ears.

Following our ears we wandered around a corner and the narrow alley got steadily more crowded, then we beheld a glorious sight.  A small stage tucked into the courtyard of a small temple. On the stage were the actors with the glamorous makeup and extravagant costumes of a Chinese Opera.

We were definitely the only farangs at the performance, and this did not go unnoticed in the crowd.  First we stood at the back of the audience, then we got ushered forward onto stools, then an older man who looked uncannily like my idea of the laughing Buddha with hair started talking to us. Asking where we were from, what we were doing in Thailand, if we knew what the festival was about.  He then described it for us in good detail with a thick accent.  Telling us it was a time when all the devotees gave up meat and ate like monks for nine days. One day for each of the Gods that come down from heaven to absolve the sins of the faithful.

The first act drew to a close, and all the actors, in costume walked through the audience and into the sanctuary of the temple, getting blessed with holy water on the way.  As each group of actors walked by we were told who they were, some were the Gods, others soldiers, concubines, and one was the Yellow Emperor.

Before they made their way back to the stage for act two he gestured for us to join him in the two empty seats next to him.  And while we waited he translated peoples questions, and our answers in return.  Contrary to the rest of Thailand, we found out, the Chinese hold Indians very close to their heart because India is where Buddha came from.  Which made me feel a bit better, the discrete racism here is becoming a bit grating.

When the curtain rose he began narrating to us the best he could what was happening.  Before he gave up learned that the scene was the Yellow Emperor being blessed by a small group of Gods with a son. We were then asked repeatedly if we had a son, and when we said no, were told to pray to the Gods of the Sky and Sun.  We were also assured he would do the same for us, so we could really be happy.

Thanks Sky God, we’ll take a rain check.

Back in the BKK

By Kathleen

Success! We now both have one more piece of paper to our names and are officially qualified to teach English. Ha! That makes me laugh a little when I think about how we talk to each other and our friends. Just goes to show you…

We have returned to Bangkok TESOL Certificates in hand, not really sure what we are doing here aside form killing time and spending money we can’t afford to spend. We are not looking for jobs in BKK, we are instead planning to head north of Chaing Mai to an Eco-Village by the name of Panya Project where we are taking a 16-day permaculture course. I’m really excited. I’ve been dreaming of visiting eco-village worldwide for a couple of years and now I’m getting the chance. There will probably be more on that dream later.

It’s strange being back in Bangkok. The city hasn’t changed hardly at all to my eyes, the tourist haunts are still open and bright, the shops still hawk the same wares, other than a change of soundtrack (from Lady Gaga to Justine Beiber) you would never know that time has passed.

And yet things are different, almost imperceptibly but nevertheless certainly changed. It’s me of course. I’m in such a different place than last time I was here. It hasn’t even been two years but much of my life is different in ways I wasn’t aware of until coming back.

Travel can be strange like that, a place can hold a piece of you suspend din time, waiting for you to return and remember or reclaim or discard it. Like a favorite sweatshirt forgotten for months at a good friends house, once returned feels strange in your hands.

We are traveling with friends from our course, keeping them company while they settle in or leave or o whatever is next in their lives. It’s interesting watching their reactions to the city, every much like my own two years ago. They are the same age that I was then, fresh out of college, trying to find their footing in the world.

It is only looking at them that I realize that I have found some footing. Or perhaps that I have become more comfortable with having not ground beneath my feet.

Last time staying in hostels I was envious of the single girls traveling solo, I wished I could be like them. Now I don’t envy them at all. I have come to love the sharing of experiences and the connection of being married. I no longer feel like the idea of being married takes something away from me but rather gives much back.

I have much to say in the way of commentary on TESOL courses, or at least our course, but it will have to wait for anther day when my computer’s battery is longer lived. I hope to be posting more frequently now that my days are not overwhelmed with ESL information.