Days Five and Six and Seven

The day for the closing ceremonies was now here, we all couldn't believe how fast the time flew by.  We arrived at the school around 8am as some of us still had last minute activities to complete prior to the ceremony related to our workshops.  My team printed out pictures at the mall the night before of each Thai delegate and we taped it to a window in the room for all delegates to pick up.  The purpose was so they could put their pictures on the cover of the book that they made during our workshops.

 

The American delegates then quickly devised and practiced a five motions skit, which we performed at the beginning of the closing ceremony.  I think it was well-received once the students understood the point of five motions.  Then Alim got up and made a few remarks, the team leaders followed suit, then each Thai delegate was invited to get up and explain what they learned during the workshops.  I think it was gratifying for all of us to see that wow, they did all learn something, especially when they named specific activities that we did in our workshops.

 

It was a little disappointing to leave because we were all just beginning to bond and then it was time to leave.  I know the Thai delegates were very sad to see us leave, it was emotional for us to leave as well.  One thing they kept saying was that even though we are leaving now in 2008, that is ok because we will be back in 2009.  The ceremony wrapped up with everyone exchanging gifts as is custom.  Alim gave the director and principal a framed picture of the American delegates.  Each Thai delegate received a t-shirt with the GRO logo on it, and they gave each American delegates a cool lantern with different designs.

 

After the ceremony, we headed straight for the Bangkok airport where we caught a flight to Phuket. Once we arrived there, the teams split up to have dinner on their own as well as provide feedback for one another.  My team ate at a place called Rock Star which was an interesting atmosphere with a stage set up for bands.  Even though we walked there, we elected to catch a taxi back due to the pouring rain.  All, except Peter, who decided to run back in the rain.  (he beat us to the hotel too!). We had a GRO moment at 9PM where we all met for drinks except Greg who was sick.  One by one,  the American delegates are getting sick :(  Not sure why, maybe traveller's sickness?

 

The next day, most of us woke up around 7:30 and Alim somehow got 11 motobikes and drivers to take us around Phuket on a tour. It was nothing short of awesome.  I think I had a smile plastered on my face the whole time.  We went over mountains, we saw the water, the drivers took us up to several vista points where we could see the trees below, as well as the water, and the city.  We even went to a lighthouse where we were able to climb to the top to see more amazing views. It was well worth the 500 bahts that we each paid!

 

After that, we took a very SLOW van ride to the ferry, a moment of panic came when we arrived to find that half the team was missing.  Their van left before ours, so we thought for sure they would be there already. Luckily, they arrived around 10 minutes later. Because the van ride was very hot and all of us were crammed in there and the driver was anal about the AC, I elcted to sit down below on the ferry with the AC.  I only intended to stay down there long enough to cool off, but then the next thing I knew, I fell asleep and we had arrived at Phi Phi island already!

 

Phi Phi island is beautiful!!  It has no motorized vehicles, so people from our hotel met us and toted all of our luggage on carts back to the hotel.  The locals get around by foot or on bicycles!  The hotel itself is a series of bungalows that are detached and free-standing.  Very quaint and cute.  I will definitely come back here again in the future!  Once we all got to our hotel, we very quickly changed and jumped into the pool.  It was sooo refreshing!  Then some of us began researching boat trips and excursions for the next day.  We all met up for dinner and a GRO moment at a tree top restaurant called Carpe Diem.  You climb up to the top of a tree where there is a platform and it overlooks the water and the beach.  Very pretty.  You also take off your shoes at the entrance and sit on pillows on the floor, so we all had a lot of fun there.  Unfortunately, some GRO members continue to not feel well, so we all felt bad about that and wished them all a speedy recovery!

 

After dinner, we all split up.  Some went back to sleep, some shopped a bit, and some elected to see the fire show at Carpe Diem.  I caught a bit of the fire show until I became so tired that I decided to call it a night.

 

I slept in for quite awhile today, I know some of you may be thinking "how can you sleep in paradise?!" but everyone here is just tired.  Those who didn't sleep in either took a nap later on or passed out while at the beach.  The week is catching up with us all, I believe.  We split up again today with some of us going on a boat ride, some of us staying at the beach for most of the day, and some of us shopping.  As for me, it was nice to lay out on the beach, read, and relax.  I also got an odd start to my tan with only my arms becoming red and not the rest of my body.  Ah well, I have two more days to even it out.  The weather here on the island has been a bit rainy, as I speak it is raining right now. It was really rainy this morning too.  I think we are all on our own for dinner tonight, I might join some people on a boating excursion tomorrow.  See see.

 

So, it is Friday March 7th at 6:12PM as I write this.  I cannot believe the week has gone by so fast!  We leave Phi Phi island Sunday morning to go back to Phuket, from where we will go straight to the airport to catch a flight back to Bangkok, where some of us will fly back to America on Monday morning.  9 of us are scheduled to stay another week here in Southeast Asia, however, plans aren't final as far as what we will do with that second week.  I think we are all playing it by ear.

 

I close for now.  I apologize for lagging on my updates, and for cramming three days in this update as well! Hope everyone is doing well!

 

KT

Day Four

The second and final day of our workshops went beautifully. We were all in sync, all kinks were worked out, and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

We were able to relax more and interact more with the students. I'm sure we all wish we could have had our 3rd workshop for the 1st and 2nd group of students.

We also had a lot more time to socialize with the students and we met some of the younger students as well. During our workshops, the younger ones' faces are almost always plastered to the windows so that they can see what's going on. I wish we could include them all but unfortunately we're limited with resources and people. We don't want to make our workshop groups so big that it doesn't have much of an impact on anyone. As it is, the 36 students we did have was a bit too much. It still went good though

During the afternoon, Alim and Adrienne hosted an art workshop inspired by the Indian movie "Taare Zameenpar". Anthony, Alim, Avi, Kelly, and I all watched it together in Rochester before coming to Thailand. That workshop was great - even the GRO delegates and Sethsanian school teachers got into the act of creating artwork. When we return to America - there will be a gallery showing all of the artwork and all profits will be donated to the school. All of us were impressed with the drawing skills of the Thai students.

Off the point but Thai Sign Language or TSL is interesting. I still can't get over their sign for Converse. I wore my Converse shoes yesterday and a student came up to me and showed me the sign for Converse in TSL and asked me for the ASL equivalent, I admitted that we didn't have a sign for it. He was aghast, "Well how do you say it then?" I laughed and said we fingerspelled it and his eyes widened, "long word, you fingerspell all the time?! Crazy!" I told him I'd bring the sign back to America as I loved it hah.

We met some local deaf college students for dinner at a Pizza Hut at the MBK mall. This mall is so big that I saw 3 McDonald's on our way to the 7th floor. Yes, 7 floors, all accessible by escalators, which is a bit scary once you get to the top few floors and look down!

It was great eating dinner with the college students. Two were actually deaf teachers that teach deaf history, linguisitics, and statistics to both deaf and hearing students at the university. There were some interpreters there as well, and Pat (I hope I'm getting the name right) even helped to create a TSL dictionary. We all enjoyed ourselves and wished we could have had more time with them.

After dinner, we all split up. The boys went to see a movie that was apparently so scary that as soon as I got back to the hotel, Anthony announced he was sleeping with me that night as he and Greg had bonded enough by holding onto one another during the movie. Rachel, Shabby, and Kari went to Khao San road to do some shopping and to get massages. Adrienne, Anita, Mia, Anne, and I (Ali joined us later) went to Patpong market for some serious shopping.

Regarding Adrienne, that girl can negotiate!!! Anne was blown away by her skills. We all lost track of one another so we ended up meeting up at the hotel. We did our GRO moments then the team leaders had a lonnggggg meeting with Alim to discuss feedback, thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc on GRO, the workshops, each other, etc. It was very constructive and I'm glad we had that opportunity to sit down and talk. Meanwhile, the other delegates met to come up with a skit for the closing ceremony.

Arriving back in our room at 1:30am, I realized with a groan that we still had to pack as we were slated to fly to Phuket the next day. We would have to go straight to the airport from the school. So imagine 3 sleepy team leaders grudgingly packing up a room that looked like a tornando hit it after 3 days of occupation. Nonetheless we got it done and got some sleep.

I will update y'all on day 5 once it ends :) it is only Wednesday afternoon here in Thailand! :)

Until next time.
KT
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Day 3

Wow, an update on the actual day for me, a rarity!

After staying up much of the night with the other delegates finalizing our workshops, we finally crashed around 1am only to wake up at 6-7am. We left at 8 to go to the Sethsenian school for the deaf to meet our peers.

First impressions were: wow! I think we all instantly fell in love with the students. There were several schools that came and Greg, Anthony, and I rotated giving workshops to different groups. We gave 2 workshops today and will give 1 tomorrow (Tuesday).

The first workshop was a learning experience for all as it allowed us to truly try out our workshop on the Thai delegates. From there, we were able to make adjustments as needed, often on the fly. I do have to say that 3 months of weekly meetings and intensive preparations paid off as every member of my team (and others as well) were well prepared. Not only that, but they also had the learned skills to overcome any obstacles. Most of all, they knew what to expect - the communication barriers, the interruptions for tea & snacks, and so on.

Unfortunately, we were not able to stay long after school due to having to get back to our hotel to change into nice clothes. Alim surprised us all with dinner and a show called Siam Niramit. This place has a sign claiming to have the world's highest stage according to the guiness book of world records. It was a Cirque de Soliel type of show. This show was awesome! What impressed me most was the river of water on the stage! At first I thought it was fake until I saw an actor actually dive into the water on the stage and swim in it. Then boats were floating on it. It was truly one of the most amazing stage productions I've ever seen. One of our delegates, Rachel, was called from the audience to place a lantern on the river onstage. This show elicited a lot of audience participation, music, visual effects, and it showed a concise history of Siam in an interesting way. Did you all know that Thailand used to be called Siam? Well, if you didn't, now you do! :)

Despite the coolness of this show, some of us kept nodding off due to being tired and everything catching up to us. Myself included. I'm just glad I didn't miss much of the show because it really was cool and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who visits Thailand in the future.

After our hour-long ride back (where everyone passed out, ofc) we arrived at our hotel. Before turning in for thr night, we stopped at a nearby bar mere meters from our hotel to have some soda and reminscise about our day. Most delegates remarked they fell in love with the students, were impressed by what they saw, had their expectations exceeded, and etc. I think we are all ready to give our third and final workshop tomorrow!

Before I forget, I should explain the team themes. My team theme is "Identity". ie who are you? What makes you different? What makes you the same? We had some skits, hands on activities, and a couple ice breaker and games, as well as a presentation by Rachel and Nicole. A glitch in our first workshop was the lack of translation from English to Thai for the book that we made with questions for students to fill in answers. We had a heck of a time trying to gesture, what were rather abstract, English ideas. For example, a question was, "Who is the boldest person that you know?". However, the principal, Apron, saved the day by coming in to translate for us. She then translated everything on paper for us and we were able to put that up in the wall for the 2nd workshop students' benefits. It made a HUGE difference! Despite all of the glitches, I think everyone pulled off their workshops quite well!

Greg's team focused on community development and Anthony's team on dreams, but I will let their bloggers blog about that. I'm no thunder-stealer!

Now, bed beckons! Good morning to you all in America!

KT
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Day Two

An early morning made for an interesting van ride to the floating market. Why interesting? I got to see more of the Thai countryside with oxen plowing the fields, billboards, references to royalty everywhere, their traffic system, and so on.

Once we arrived, we got on a low-lying motor boat that didn't feel stable at all! Anita and I kept worriedly shifting our weight whenever we saw the boat leaning or whenever Alim stood up to take a picture of us.

The city where the floating market is, Damnernsaduak, is comprised of interconnected canals and the water looked pretty dirty. We were all shocked when Alim told us that locals bathe, do their laundry in, and drink that water. Despite this, it really is an idyllic village, people everywhere were smiling, the canal banks have wooden sidewalks and platforms that we saw families crossing on single motorcycles. We are talking about sidewalks a couple feet wide and rather rickety with the water mere inches from the edge. Talk about daring! But it is a way of life for them.

While going there, other people on our boat saw two snakes in the water which did not please me but I forced myself to go on the wooden paddle boats once we arrived. My rationale was... What are the odds that a snake would attack ME out of all the people on the water. The odds were in my favor :-D. All kidding aside, I just told myself to get over my fear and get on the boats for it was an once in a lifetime thing to see the floating market.

I felt like we were Huck Finn paddling down the Mississippi river, it was serene and the perfect way to spend a Sunday morning. The boat traffic jam amused me as well. Imagine dozens of boats just bottlenecked at popular canal locations and motor boats powering their way through the jam much to the charaign of everyone else. All of us had to keep our body parts inside lest we lose a finger or elbow! Some of us were poked by boat bows and all boats had grooved/roughed up sides. Testaments to the boat rage that we saw occur!

I bought a cool Thai monk picture that I negotiated down to 700 bahts from 1900. (30 Thai bahts equals about 1 U.S. dollar). While we were on the boat we just kept eating different foods. We tried coconut milk (a nay from KT on that one), grilled chicken on a stick, pineapples, mangoes, baby bananas, spring rolls, and my favorite: the lost apple. The lost apple looks like sort of a shrunken red pepper and it tastes like a cross between an apple and grape. The story goes that they didn't know what to call the fruit when they found it so it earned the moniker of the lost apple. (Who "they" is, I do not know. I would presume that "they" are apple finders of some sort.)

Once we got off the boat, I tried some spicy Vietnamese fish soup on the banks of the canal. This had squid, tofu, pork of some sort, and was super spicy. It wasn't bad but I quickly lost my taste for it/was full after awhile. So I browsed the canal bank markets some while waiting for the others and bought a turtle to add to my collection (they're my lucky charms!), and grabbed some delicious spring rolls before leaving.

Its funny, I'm not fond of egg rolls in America. Nor do I like Indian food much in America - same goes for Thai food. I could take it or leave it really. It is so different when you're abroad because the food tastes much better. Of course, this requires some open mindedness and willingness to try things on your part. Ok, family and friends of mine, you may pick up your jaw off of the floor now -- despite all that I said above, I know I can still be a very picky eater but I have improved!!

Another 2 hour van ride brought us to the Erewan National Park with seven tiers of waterfalls. It was beautful walking under all the teak trees and the trail was challenging. We really didn't have much time to get to the top before it closed at 5pm. I think only 2 or 3 of us made it to the very top only to be turned around (despite the fact they practically ran there!) The rest of us had to stop between the 4-6th level. While I was at the 4th level waiting for everyone, I was people watching as always. The waterfall on this level had two huge boulders that the water was cascading over and you could see two black grooves that had been worn smooth by generations of Thai children sliding down it into the pool below. There was also an overhanging branch/rope from a tree overhead that cantilevered above the water and people kept leaping from rocks in vain attempts to grasp the rope to swing from it.

Once everyone came down, we played at the level 2 waterfall & pool. The pool had huge fishes and I asked a Thai local if the fishes bite and she shook her head in the negative. So I was sitting on a very slippery tree branch and put my feet in the water to cool off, wouldn't you know it, I felt a chomp!

I flailed myself (and my feet!) out of the water quick as a flash, nearly knocking myself backwards off the tree branch in the process. Everyone found this quite funny, including myself. I turned to the same Thai local and said, "I thought you said they don't bite?!" She said, "No bite, it is a kiss." Interesting how they interpret things differently. The others arrived and Alim was finally coaxed into the water to swim with the fishes to the watefall where most of us had gone already. We stood there under the waterfall and let it beat down on our heads/necks/backs and the water was surprisingly not that cold at all.

While Alim was swimming to the waterfall, Anthony said, "ahh! There's a fish right by you Alim!" And I've never seen a man scramble out of the water so fast.

Adrienne, being deliciously evil, signed to Alim from the shore that there was a shark in the water. He was like shit! I'm not swimming back now! We were like it's a baby shark, it's ok! It won't hurt much if it bites you! A freaked out Alim jumped into the water and swam as fast as he could with his little arms and legs and the rest of us under the waterfall and on shore about fell down from laughing so hard. We still heart Alim and we know he hearts us too!

Most of us passed out on the 3 hour van ride back because we were and are all exhausted. We arrived at a restaurant called Cabbages & Condoms. A unique restaurant that donates some of its profits to various women's programs, tsunami relief, HIV/AIDS projects, and so on. The restaurant itself is mostly outdoor in a courtyard with Bali tree curtains drizzling down over the whole courtyard. Soft twinkling lights added to the atmosphere as did the fish in the wall-long fountain and the goblets of lights covered in colorful condoms. I wish we had more unique restaurants like this in America.

The food was delicious, I sat with Anthony, Erin, Rachel, and Shabby which turned out to be a lot of fun. We all apparently love shrimp and kept doing rock, paper, and scissors to fight over each individual piece. Things like that keep things light hearted and fun which we need when we are running low on energy.

Our day wasn't over yet after that as most of us realized with a groan that we had to prepare for the next day's workshops still. We got back around 11 and got to work right away. I was glad to see that nobody was whining about it and set about to do what needed to be done and to help one another. We really have a good group of delegates on this trip! :)

We finally finished around 1:30am after which I hit the showers to wash the waters of Erewan falls off of me and to save time in getting ready the next morning.

Sorry my blogs are so late in coming, it is really a different experience being a team leader, I have a lot less time for one. I'm not complaining though, I enjoy every minute of it and I love watching the delegates grow right alongside with me and make their plans a success as I will elaborate more in my next blog.

Stay tuned!
KT
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Day One

My apologies for the delay in this blog. I was rather dead on my feet after a long day yesterday. I'll post day one right now and then will do day two later tonight (or later in the afternoon for you guys!)

Where to start? Our arrival. We arrived in Bangkok Friday night around 11pm. After walking off the plane, the first thing we noticed was the 'international smell'. This isn't a negative thing - rather, its frequently a combination of the heat, the humidity and the country. I wonder if America smells differently too for a foreigner at first?

Customs and immigration was fast. The airport was one of the nicest I had ever seen. Greg and Anthony got on their knees and kissed the dirty sidewalk that thousands of people walk on daily - symbolic of kissing Thai soil. However, I must add that I do think it would have been much cleaner to have actually kissed Thai dirt! :)

The ride to our hotel was long yet short. I could see all the delegates looking at everything and soaking it all up. The thing I noticed most was boy, the guidebooks were not kidding when they said that Thais really look up to the royal family. The streets, bouldevards and everywhere is just plastered with pictures of the King and Queen. Bouldvards were painted yellow with 15-20 feet tall framed pictures of the royals.

Even some streets had old black and white pitures of, what I presume to be, royalty signing papers or shaking hands or engaging in political work. As if they emphasize and want to keep a record of their work. It would be like having a huge picture of President Bush hanging in every school or pictures on our streets of Bush signing acts into law or shaking hands or kissing babies' cheeks. '

Since most of us slept on the plane, we were wide awake when we got to the hotel. After assigning rooms (the Team Leaders - Greg, Anthony, and I are roomies and Alim & Adrienne are just around the corner from us) to everyone all except one of us went to one of Alim's favorite restaurants. This is his fifth visit to Thailand so he knows the area pretty good! Khao San road was hopping even at 3am. There are 7-11s everywhere! The hotel location reminded me of where both teams stayed at in Delhi but the name of the street fails me at the moment. (Help me out here Monsoon Riders and Mumbai Moos!) I remember Sarah and Tamer remarking that the place looked like Khao San road.

I had watermelon juice, pad thai and a coke. By the time we got back we only had enough time to nap for a hour before meeting at 7:45 for the amazing race. Since us wonderful team leaders procrastinated on finishing the amazing race, we were unable to sleep due to needing to finish preparations.

We weren't too tired anyways so it was all good. Come 7:30, we ate the hotel's complimentary breakfast (I had banana pancakes) and left to begin our amazing race. The cooridor leading from the hotel to khao san road smelled so much better (or we just got used to it). The night before it smelled like pee, beer, sweat, and body odors. How romantic.

While the delegates were exchanging money they began to get harrassed by tuk tuk drivers and shop keepers. I felt bad for them but at the same time, its all part of their learning process and we all went through that while travelling.

We walked to the Chao Phrya river and took a boat to the Grand Palace. Words cannot describe this place, just imagine everything made of gold with pretty gems, tiles, mosiacs and incredible attention to detail as well as intricate art work covering every square inch of this palace.

We visited the temple of the emerald buddha (which is actually green jade). The place was a great room with wooden beams covered in red murals depicting Thai history. There was a grand golden pyramid inside with so much painstaking attention to detail that it overwhelmed me to even look at one corner of the pyramid. I felt stupid because we all took our shoes off, walked inside and sat down with our feet facing away from the Buddha and there was a man ushering everyone inside to be seated. I saw the domineering pyramid but also saw a limestone stage of sorts so I thought that once the man seated everyone, they would bring out the emerald buddha and we would all ooh and ahh over it.

Imagine my surprise when people started getting up tp leave. "Wait!" I said to Alim, "where's the emerald buddha?!" He pointed to the very top of the pyramid where there was a gold box with glass walls and inside of that was the emerald buddha. I had to squint to see it and even then it was like trying to see my cat's facial expression from down the block of my home.

However, once we visited the Wat Po or the reclining buddha (wat is Thai for temple) I was simply amazed. It is 46 meters long and 15 meters tall) which translates to about 153 feet long and 50 feet tall. We all had to crane our neclks to see it and its made out of gold (I don't know if its real or not). It gave me chills, just because its so big, its such an important part of Thai religion and culture, and it was a holy place too. The reclining buddha represents the passing of buddha into nirvana.

We also visited Wat In with a large standing image of buddha and Wat Arun, the temple of the dawn. We couldn't stay for long at both places. My team consisted of Rachel, Erin, and Mia. We mixed up the teams for the amazing race and I had a lot of fun with them. I couldn't help them as iw as just there to watch, make sure everything went smoothly, etc. When we met up for dinner at the Mango tree, everyone had funny stories to share and it was great.

All in all, it was a great day. Eveyrone was just exhausted from the heat, jet lag, and the excitement no doubt. I wish we had more time to explore Bangkok. But I'm happy for the taste we got and I loved riding the river boat.

That's all for now, look for an update on day two soon!

KT
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