i apologize for all the run on sentences...
anyways we went to the bar and i think every other american who isnt involved with the study abroad program i work with was also there. it seems odd because this bar isnt in the city at all and is pretty far out and not that easy to get to. its a really great bar though and i used to go there when i was a student but they closed it to do some renovations and they just opened it back up a few weeks ago. theres lots of fun art and theres always bands playing- usually ska or reggae- but the energy they bring is so refreshing that i will take what i can get, even ska. so anyways last night this guy i always see around campus and smile at was there. i was pretty excited to meet and talk with him. apparently he has lived in thailand for 4 years teaching english, 2 of which has been in khon kaen. the music was loud so we went outside to talk and by that i mean we went outside so that he could talk and i could listen to him talk. for about 30 minutes. we walked back in the bar and he commented on how he just told me his whole life story but he didnt know anything about me and how that must mean im a really good listener and how being a good listener means your really good at conversations. right. awesome. what about him? i mean honestly i feel like this shit happens to me so many times when i am talking to men. its like i am invisible and it makes me want to scream. i like being a good listener and i genuinely enjoy hearing about people- their stories and their experiences- but what does it say about a person when they can go for a whole 30 minute conversation and not ask once, "what about you?" all i have to say is eww, gross.
so i talked to a few other people and was equally dissapointed by all but one. am i really that judgemental? is there something wrong with me? or, is it wrong to want (expect?) something more from people?
i was kind of on fire last night and i also got into an argument with my room mate. there has been some tension there for awhile and ive been racking my brain trying to think of how to make it better. i will admit that i can be quite snappy with her at times but i just can figure out why. sometimes i feel like she is really nit-picky and has to bring up every little annoyance or thing that bothers her and i guess i think its counterproductive. i dont bring up every little thing that bothers or annoys me because as it turns out THEY DONT NORMALLY ACTUALLY MATTER, and why bring things up if they dont matter. i feel like i leave all of our arguments/disagreements feeling like the bad person and im not sure why that is. the students are figuring out how to work as a group but so are we. i know we will talk about it work it out. i think i just needed to get my feelings out and i dont feel like there are many other places to do that.
i miss my everyone terribly. sometimes some of this feels so far away from everyone i care about that its not even worth reaching out to anoyone because it would take more time than its worth to explain all of it (the context) so i just dont bother. i dont think i realized any of this until right this second but its actually pretty hard. im lucky i have miles, josh, and sarah because they really are my family here- but sometimes i crave my other family (all of you) too.
sometimes im a real roller coaster of everything. am i volatile? or am i more stable than that? im not sure sometimes. and actually even if i am volatile im not going to apologize for it. i like seeing things (most things) through an emotional lens because thats how i know i am really experiencing it. that i am still alive.
maybe this seems alarming but recently ive been feeling like some people thing it is bad, or even a weakness of mine. that when im up, im really up and can bring others up, but when i am down i have the ability to bring others down. i guess some of this has come up recently. at the end of unit 2 i was in a pretty bad place, a dark place. i felt so burnt out on the students. i had been working with them and trying to organize them for orientation, unit 1, and unit 2- so basically 2 months straight and i was about to have a meltdown. unit 2 really put me over the edge because it was right in the middle of day 45- day 60, which is statistically known as the point in which groups fall apart. and they did. they were homesick, and they hated the program- and just a few peoples negativity spread through out the whole group. and it spread to me too. i heard all those non stop complaints and i felt like punching bag. i actually cried a lot. i think i would have had a full blown freak out except i had a really awesome day where i re-read my intern guide book. it kind of saved me. even on page one they talked about how this is a really hard job, and how in the middle of the semester when everything seems to be falling apart, how important it is to step back and look at the bigger picture, and remember your personal purpose and goals for coming here.
i guess im pretty empathetic and most of the time my mood is largely dependent on the student groups mood. and no matter what when i am working with them i put my feelings aside (unless it would help move them by sharing) and i get my job done. and i do it well. but when i come back into my office i talk about my feelings and where i am at with the other interns because we are supposed to have a safe space where we can share those things. one of them said that maybe when i am down it rubs off on him. im pretty upset about this and i feel pretty silenced. the only way for me to remain sane sometimes is by sharing my feelings and i dont want people to make me feel bad about that.
so anyways things arent as bad as i am making them sound. it probably wasnt the best idea to update this on one of my few bad days. the truth is i wake up everyday excited to go to work and i love what i am doing here more then anything i have ever done- even though it is also the most challenging thing as well.
there are some pretty exciting things going on around here- one is the possible formation of a southeast asian human rights youth network and another is like my dream project which just kinda fell into my lap. so ive already talked about how last years students wrote human rights reports with a bunch of the communities and some of the students wanted to continue looking at issues from a hr perspective- specifically an economic social and cultural rights (ESCR) perspective when they returned to the united states and so they started working with a community in kentucky that has been affected by mountain top removal. they built trust and closer relationships with community members and with kentuckians for the commonwealth (KFTC- the org that works with the communities) and just finished a draft of a human rights report on a community in floyd county, kentucky, citing the rights with in the ESCR framework that were violated. i was one of the first people to visit one of the communities when this project was still in the dreaming phase and so its really cool to see it develop into this really awesome and thoughtful report. once they finish the final draft i will post a copy on here. it might seem silly to do ESCR/human rights stuff in the united states because the united states hasnt singed on to the international covenant on economic social and cultural rights but i think that just talking about human rights or talking about problems in terms of your human rights being violated is really powerful. it has the capability to organize and bring people together to fight, so i think it can work even back home.
anyways there are so many parallels between the communities in kentucky and the community here in thailand that has been affected by the gold mine. some of the students visited the gold mine community recently for a collaborative community consultation. in short, the community consultations were in 3 communities: pak mun, rasi salai, and na nong bong. the students visited the communites and got updates about where they were right now in terms of the their fights, what their next steps were, and how could student work together with villagers and communities to support them. we are hoping some collaborative, responsive, and well thought out final projects emerge from these meetings. sometimes students come up with pretty cooky final projects that arent very responsive or what communities actually need, but once they get it in their head it is hard to get them to see that it might not be the best idea, so we are starting those conversations earlier. anyways the students visited na nong bong and came back all fired up and wanted to write an article damning the mine, but they cant actually do that because there was no environmental impact assessments done in these areas before they built the mine so now there isnt an easy or clear way to directly blame the mine for all the problems villagers are experiencing even thought DUH it is because of the mine. the students wanted to write an article indirectly blaming the mine by citing other international examples of cases in which the mine was blamed. they thought maybe that was the case in kentucky and wanted to pick a representative to talk with one of the former students who wrote the hr report in kentucky. i set up the phone call and met with the student to make goals and set up a plan for the call. it turns out kentucky hasnt been able to make the direct link to the mine either, but we started thinking about how it would be really interesting for students to talk to some of KFTCs organizers about how they are getting people involved so that students can share that with community members in na nong bong when they go back next week. the former student, mariela talked to one of the head organizers about it and he agreed, but he also thought it would be interesting to have a telephone conversation between na nong bong community members and floyd co. community members about what is going on in their communities and what they are doing to fight, and having it broadcasted at appalshops radio station (http://appalshop.org/). i got really excited about this and i talked to my boss, the director of the program and he got really excited about this also, and we talked about trying to get NPR involved and we even started to dream big about what it would mean to have a series of conversations like this between communities here in thailand that are fighting and parallel communities in the united states. i have to make this happen. working for NPR would maybe be my dream job so it would be really cool to make some connections there and (probably very loosely) work with them on a project. THIS IS SO EXCITING! anyways these are all pretty rough ideas/dreams but i just wanted to share them with you.
it is the students 4 day break right now and we are heading down to bangkok tonight. one of my friends who i worked with on the landfill photo project is there and so we are going to get together. also, my co-worker miles is going to help me learn how to network by setting up some dinners with some human rights people in bangkok to talk about this southeast asian human rights youth network that we are hoping to have a big BIG meeting/workshop thing for in april or may.
i think that is everything for me. PLEASE tell me what you think about anything and everything.
i love you always always always,
shayne

