ill learn you some english- a year in Nai Soi

Here's a link to my new blog:

http://emmettk.wordpress.com

I've been in England for a few days and it's been pretty wild. I'm in Loughborough. Take a look at this here map:


yeah its right there in the middle. This isn't the best picture, but you can see London down below and Manchester and Liverpool up north. We're in the middle is the main idea. Did you notice that Lufbra is in between Nottingham and Leicester? Yeah exactly. I'm told that I have to make a choice in supporting one or the other's soccer squad.

I'm staying with a couchsurfing.com family. They're one of the best CS experiences I've had so far. Great people and the kids are awesome. They're so smiley! I'm going to the younger's soccer game tomorrow morning.

Loughborough Uni is well known for its sport, and this is apparent from the number of meat heads around campus. Part of that is great- there was a soccer game(from now on football match) going on yesterday and I was in a group of confused and amused onlookers watching as about 70 people would storm the field after their side scored a goal. We couldn't quite figure out who the teams were or what was going on, but the mad cheering and energy was great. On the other hand, seeing dozens of rugby jocks stomping around and swearing with the same gelled-up shmohawk hair cuts kind of sucks. It'll all work out I guess.



I've found a place. I'm looking to buy a bike. I have my orientation/1st day of class on Monday. Great, things are great.

I've just arrived in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.  I've been invited to partake in a water quality and access survery in the beautiful city of Leon.  Six years ago I was here as a senior at Fairfield and its great to be back.  The team is coming together here and after we have everyone we'll move up to Leon!

I'm so pumped.  I still don't really know what I'll do everyday or how I'll really be able to contribute to the project but I've just been handed some literature and have begun talking about the project and the water issues around here.  It's going to be quite an exercise mentally- I'm excited for that.  I was invited by Dina -my econ professor for my whole Freshman year and my facilitator in my senior seminar 'Justice and the Developing World' which took a group of us to Leon.  She'll be here in two weeks, in the mean time we've got another FU econ prof, William Vasquez, running the show.  He just told me and Jenn, who graduated from FU yesterday, that because we're both bound for grad school he'll take time with us each night after our surveying to work with us to do groundwork and build a foundation to be awesome.  I don't know what these sessions will be all about but it's really cool of him to do and hopefully it will contribute to the project... wait a second, maybe he's just going to make us do lots of his work for him and call it 'training.' 

Also on board so far are Eddie from Fenwick who came straight from the bar after his graduation, and Magda, a Nicaraguan girl who's studying here and wants to get a scholarsihp to the US or Canada to study Environmental Engineering.

We slept on Elma's floor in Kuala Lumpur on Dec 31st-Jan 1. Yup, CouchSurfing. She's hosted about 250 people in two years. Awesome family, pictured.

I've got some food poisoning. I thought that it was just a 24 hour deal but found out early this morning that it hadn't left yet. So there I am in class 1 thinking that I'm a champ for getting into class again and the kids tell me that Wanna was bitten by a scorpion last night! She didn't look too good. I've been outdone.

One of our students just returned from the ref camp and played the video of the departure for everyone here. It is so strange and crazy. I saw Oo Reh saying goodbye to his brother and other relatives. When will they see each other again? Nobody knows. Will he see them again?

Julia was my student when I taught here in Sept-Oct of 2005. Like a lot of the girls in Rosy's class she was smart, sweet, and made teaching easy. She's a joker, a laugher. Since coming back I've seen her around Nai Soi quite a bit and since her mother's death last year she's been staying with the family of a former student of mine, Neh Nea. I've been seeing Julia more and more in the time leading up to her big day. I've been lucky to have spent a lot of time with her in the past weeks. We put a resume together. We talked about life in the United States. What do I know about life as a refugee in Buffalo? What information can she ask me for now that will actually help her once she is there? We talked and sighed. I spoke in painful generalities, qualifying statements, adding conditions, admitting ignorance, doing what I could. Luckily for her she's not going alone. She's going with Neh Nae's brother.

I realized almost too late that I was actually in a network of people who might actually be up for helping Julia in Buffalo. I won't get into the wonders and beauty of couchsurfing.com but I sent out urgent requests last week and found a handful of great people who are ready to help Julia with anything. One woman named Maura, a restaurateur, and her husband jumped out from the generous pack as the nicest and most up for it. Maura already has a job for her. I told Julia about Maura and she was a bit shocked. She wasn't shocked that I used some website to find friends for her, but shocked that this woman's name is Maura. Julia's grandma used to call her Maura. I hope Maura the restaurateur can ease Maura the granddaughter's transition.

At the last minute I found a pair of couples in Houston that are excited to help Oo Reh. Of this group of friends there is an ESL teacher and a man from Burma. I got to talk to Oo Reh about this on Sunday afternoon. He bought me two beers and an energy drink- much better than those stupid apples other teachers get. Oo Reh's a tough guy and a leader amongst the students here. Unlike Julia he's traveling alone. He is also so much more shy, reserved, and not as comfortable in his English that I imagine he'll have a tougher time than Julia.

It feels nice to imagine that I have some control over things. I feel so much better seeing Julia and Oo Reh off into the care of these folks than into the dark unknown of these US cities. It's my country, they're my students, I feel desperate to help them. Now here's the video of Oo Reh in the back of the truck, shaking hands with his brother and his classmates, it's on. The most difficult, disorienting and lonely year of his life has just begun.

In the group of kids around the video camera replay tonight there were four or maybe five who will be off on their own journeys within a few weeks or months. This resettlement process has been happening for so long, with so many little steps and procedures along the way. Well, the departure are. Time to leave your life behind and begin a new one.

Good Luck.

I'm getting into my final days here in Nai Soi, Mae Hong Son, and Thailand but it doesn't feel like it's anywhere near finished yet. I've been busy teaching, working with our new volunteer, preparing for coming volunteers, preparing for next year's teachers, organizing my application to a masters program in the UK, and enjoying the coffee that was sent over by my family. While I'm doing work for my post-CLC life and thinking about those details a lot, I'm still living the same laid back life that I've known and loved for nearly two years, so everything feels pretty normal. Most days I'm thinking about tomorrow's classes or what didn't work in today's classes. But we've just decided the date of our MHS departure. The date for my flight out of Thailand is almost set. Getting that flight booked always drives the stake down and begins the build up of anticipation. I've had that happen, excitement growing, for all of my visits home but this time it will be the expectations in the closing of this time here, the see you laters', the 'thank you teacher see you… next time' that will grow and build as the days fly.

It was awesome. It is awesome. It has been awesome. It will be awesome. I'm done teaching English. I have loved it; my time here in 05-06, Japan, these two years. Still I've come to the end of the rope for loud group repeat-after-mes "go-went, eat-ate, drink-drank…." I have been one of those lucky spoiled teachers whose students try to learn, want to learn, and make teaching the best job ever.

I'll miss a lot about life here, but with no doubt it is the students that I'll feel the most without once I'm gone.


Volunteerism…
At times our website can go for weeks without an email but in the last few months we've had a flood of requests to teach at the CLC. Some people are already in Thailand and want to begin immediately. One girl is in the UK and wants to come in the fall of 2010.

So we quickly booked the most qualified that we could find for CLC and with the overflow I've become a volunteer placement hobbyist. I've sent a German girl into the hills and haven't heard back yet, which I think is good because she's still alive there… British guy who sold his business and is traveling, American girl who will get university credits for whatever work she does… wherever I can send her, French duo who said they were coming last month, didn't email again and just emailed me to tell me that they're going to think about it for 1-2 months and get back to me. It's madness but I've been able to hook up some cool organizations and schools with eager volunteers.

There's an orphanage in MHS that has an agreement with a certain web-company to place volunteers. The volunteers simply have to pay hundreds(many hundreds, thousands) of dollars to this company and the company will connect them with a volunteer opportunity, the orphanage. The company will give a fraction of the money to the orphanage and keep the rest. The volunteer business! There are a ton of these companies operating and it's mad! Imagine the founder of that company, soaking it up on a beach somewhere. I'll be the first to volunteer to cold water on that person.

Tonight Koz and I are enjoying the last evening of our vacation. We've been to Singapore and several places in Malaysia. Right now we're in the internet room of our guesthouse enjoying duty-free beers and getting to some long overdue internetting.

It's funny that I haven't really blogged lately but now having traveled and seen new things I'm excited to do so. Actually I think that the last blog was about Angkor Wat, so that was travel too. I started this blog to keep people posted on the different and interesting things that I expected to encounter living abroad. Naturally after some time I got used to life in these places and it was more difficult to see the things that were blog-worthy. I remember first arriving in Mae Hong Son and seeing children monks, cute little monks! I was so excited to get pictures of them and then surely put them up on the blog. Now the idea seems stupid to me to take a picture of a little monk and put up a blog post, 'look at this little monk!!'

Anyhow with only three months left at the Ban Nai Soi Community Learning Centre I'm going to do my best to blog. There are a few topics that I deem blog-worthy- the most interesting to me is the resettlement process of refugees from Nai Soi to the United States. One of my first students at CLC, a smart girl named Julia, will be going somewhere in the US in the spring. A couple of my students at CLC now may be on their way this spring too, with many more to follow in the next few years. Depending on where they are place I may be asking favors of my friends in the US to help them 'resettle' in the US.

But first of all Koz and my trip to the Malay peninsula is of concern here, as soon as I can post pictures I'll begin to recount the delicious foods and glorious sights that we saw.

Al Franken a US senator? Hilarious.

We went to Angkor and had a blast. How beautiful are these temples?

Taxi to Siem Reap






To the temples


Jordan rules


Tree



Monks gotta smoke too


Fellow gawkers







A Mantis made of mostly AK-47s and M-16s


Awesome


Geek Squad?


Friendly folks and timid babies



The temples were just amazing, as you could see.

9 weeks later. Here are some recent pics;


Koz giving pants to the cute girl at Friend House



Apo, our school's baby, enjoying his new toy



Elephants=Awesome



Pai Canyon



Couldn't tell you














Buddy's puppies



The proud mother



BANGKOK

The Neverending Story






Joe Sixpack, Joe the plummer, a hockey mom and a soccer mom



The King



A shop full of only pictures of the King



A yellow building, upside down, taken from our cab



BKK traffic jam