Food for thought

I know it's been over two months since my last "proper" entry - partly just laziness I'm afraid, but also quite a few happenings at work. My assignment is galloping to an end; I have mixed feelings about this, but I'll share those after today. This afternoon senior country management is coming to "address our concerns", so the possibilities are that tomorrow I will be either a) feeling much more refreshed and happy, with my faith restored in the good hearts of the people at the top of the NGO power tree, or b) even more deeply mired in cynicism. I'm thinking the latter is more likely, sadly.

And it's not just me - check out some of the artwork that was done recently by camp students here:



It's sad that those at the top don't see these things, but of course they don't. Because - God forbid - that would involve actually going into camp and they might have to talk to camp people. May Hell freeze over first.

Anyway - not everything is bad. I have wonderful friends at work, in camp, around town. I have a great time. The refugees don't want me to leave. That makes me feel really good. In fact, leaving is going to be nigh on impossible. But I'll share some of those reflections when next I write.

Free Burma!

This is what is happening

Well, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks. Be warned, this post is long!

“It will make you strong like a tiger…and you not get fat.”

(So sayeth a general from the Wa National Army, about an enormous bowl of green vegetables placed before me)

I got back yesterday from a weekend in Ban Rak Thai (literally “Thai-loving village”) with a group of friends. Astra, who works at a children’s NGO here in Mae Hong Son, had to go there to interview a family about some children who had applied for places in the shelter where she works; Lu, her assistant, is from there and was going to see his parents; and a bunch of students from the Community Learning Centre in Nai Soi (about 30 minutes out of MHS, on the way to Camp 1) were going home there for the week, so we made a group excursion of it.

Rak Thai is right on the Burmese border, and there is a new Shan/Wa village that is being erected on the other side, with a Wa military camp at the top of a hill nearby. Lu’s father is a general in the Wa National Army (not to be confused with the other Wa militia which is in ceasefire with the SPDC, the Burmese military junta – WNA is definitely NOT in ceasefire with the SPDC) and with these handy connections we were able to go into the new village. There are 18 houses in the village at the moment, and they have applied for permission for more families to move there, as well as being in the process of putting together an application for a new water supply. We spent the day eating, talking and walking with the village head and several of the senior WNA commanders and generals, chatting about war and politics, making jokes, drinking tea, relaxing at the small military camp. From there we could see an SPDC camp a couple of peaks away; it felt kind of odd, seeing such a tangible reminder that “the situation” in Burma really does exist and that it is close – very close.

It’s intriguing to listen to the militia men talk about the conflict. One of the senior men put it like this (roughly paraphrased, of course!): “War is easier than diplomacy. When we fight all we have to do is plan our local strategy, how to protect ourselves, where to go and how to move to achieve our goal. Politics is just so much more complex.”

I confess that up to now, I’ve known very little about the Wa situation. There are so many cultural groups fighting the SPDC that I guess it’s been a little hard to get a grasp on the full extent of the situation. Anyway, my project for the week is to read as much as I can and try and get a better idea of what it’s all about.

Birds, ducks and rats

As I posted last time, we had a situation in Camp 2 a couple of weeks ago with a potential bird flu outbreak. It turned out that in fact the ducks had duck cholera and the chickens had chicken smallpox. It was an instructive experience in that a) it showed me exactly how much of a disorganised flap a large NGO can get into when an actual emergency occur, and b) that the Thai media is just as much of a large gossip machine as any other. We read all sorts of things in Thai newspapers that week – that there were human cases (untrue), apparently 2 people in the camp had died (untrue), over a hundred thousand ducks and chickens had been culled (untrue), and eventually, that the samples sent had tested negative for H5N1 (true). This latter fact I found out from Jen, who had read it in the Bangkok Post in Chiang Mai. Given that I was supposedly the “focal doctor” for “potential human cases”, I would have thought it was reasonable to expect that someone – my boss, perhaps? – might have informed me of the test result. Clearly I expected too much!

Anyway, so we don’t have avian flu and all seems to be well in Camp 2 now. Unfortunately, someone forgot to ram it into the heads of the powers that be (or just my boss, really), and so they are continuing to panic about bird flu stuff whilst the people who actually work IN the camps (including me) are trying to deal with the outbreak of leptospirosis that we currently have in Camp 1.

Border crossing

Before that bird flu stuff (or rather – “not bird flu stuff”) happened I headed up to the Burmese border at Mae Sai (northernmost point of Thailand) to renew my visa.

Mae Sai was a really weird place; a big town (60,000 people, I think) that is basically organised around one enormous, broad road that runs across the border into Tachileik, the Burmese border town. Everyone I’ve talked to about Mae Sai and how weird the atmosphere has said the same thing: “Oh, well it’s a border town, you know”. I guess that’s probably it. It has a weird feeling of transience about it and whilst the people are friendly, it feels much less permanent, much less safe and much less “homey” than everywhere else I have been in Thailand.

The border crossing itself was pretty uneventful. I shopped in the market in Tachileik for a couple of hours while it poured and poured with rain, then I headed back, got my stamp, and hopped back on the bus for the 5 hour trip back to Chiang Mai.

What followed were 3 blissful days in Chiang Mai with the usual suspects, but I won’t write too much about that because there weren’t really any notable stories to tell.

Thoughts on resettlement and opportunity

(NB I don’t think that my views on this have changed at all – more just that they’ve crystallised a little more now that I have the chance to see things first-hand.)

On that first trip I made to Camp 2 a few weeks ago, I spent quite a bit of time sitting with medics (both in the clinic and at the house where I stayed), talking about resettlement. A lot of Camp 2 people have resettled to Finland recently and there are a whole heap of them now waiting for resettlement to Australia.

They all asked me about life in Australia, and what it was like. One of the younger medics – perhaps in his late twenties and very sharp – asked me whether life in Australia was as “sanuk” (translates as fun/enjoyable) as here (or rather, in Camp 2). It’s funny how our first instinct is to say of course life in Australia is better, of course it will be good for you; I think the real answer, however, is that life is NOT as fun, NOT as enjoyable in Australia in many ways. These people will leave their lives behind when they go; they will lose their communities, their status in those communities, their work, their lifestyle and above all, many of them will lose their family and friends. Once a person leaves the camp for resettlement, the chances of them seeing those left behind are pretty much zero, unless those people follow them to the same country. They gain freedom but the trade-off is that they lose so many of the things that fundamentally define who they are – they become displaced all over again.

In the end, resettlement isn’t about “all the refugees going to a better life”, it’s about giving their children back the potential that being refugees takes from them. One thing that has stayed with me and which I still think about, is a chat I had with one of the senior medics. He and his wife are both medics, both very skilled and extremely clever. They have 3 daughters and a baby on the way. We talked about Australia for a while and he seemed a bit apprehensive and conflicted about it all. He paused for a while, and then he said this: “I want to go but I feel very sad. I know that life in Australia will be much harder for my wife and for me. I don’t want to leave my family. But I think it will be good for my children. In Australia, maybe one day my daughters can grow up to be like you.”

The halfway mark

It occurred to me this morning that I’m now halfway through my 7 months in Thailand. I finally feel like I am putting out proper roots in Mae Hong Son, finding friends who have nothing to do with work and give me a welcome respite from the “issews” that plague the work environment here. I’ve already put my work departure date in writing to my boss
(December 21st will be my last day) and I’ve begun to plan what I’ll do over Christmas and New Year. I have my roster for 2008 and I’ve got at least one study buddy for next year (hopefully at some stage soon it will sink in that I actually have to DO this bloody exam).

It’s weird to reflect and realise that more than 8 months of this year have already passed; in some ways I guess that I feel like my year only really started around May, when I began to get myself back on my feet after the difficulties of the first half of the year, and before I knew it – shazam! I landed in Thailand!

I wonder sometimes whether this time here is really going to be the seminal experience that I – and everyone else – thought it would be. I don’t think the lessons that I’m learning are necessarily the ones I thought I would – if anything, those ones I think I perhaps knew already. The moments that stick in my mind are kind of random – for instance, seeing a chicken being hit by a car on the road (the first time I’d ever seen anything killed violently); those kids laughing and walking under an umbrella (see a couple of posts ago); conversations like the one I had with those medics in Camp 2 (see above); the fury and frustration I feel when I see that my boss spent 11,000 baht for “rest and relaxation” whilst at a conference about refugees and aid; sitting at a table on top of a mountain talking to militia generals about war. I guess it will take a while for everything to be integrated into whatever it is my mind will make of it. I do wonder what I’ll remember of these 7 months when I look back in 10 years time.

Above all, I hope that the whole thing makes me…I don’t know, BETTER somehow. It’s kind of foggy at the moment.

And lastly…

This post was brought to you by: “KOALA YUMMIES!”

Hysteria

This morning I arrived at the office at 8am after having been away for 5 days.

Turns out that while I was away, 50 ducks and 100 chickens unexpectedly died in one section of Camp 2.

[Cue general hysteria and hyperventilation]

It's going to be a busy week. Oh - and we have a big leptospirosis breakout in Camp 1.

Fitter, happier, more productive?

If there is a bit of sarcasm and scorn in this post, apologies. It has been a tough couple of weeks in the office!

Sweet relief

So I toddled off to Chiang Mai a couple of Fridays ago at lunchtime, not a moment too soon (had been singing "St Petersburg" by Supergrass to myself all week - "...in three days I'll be outta here, and it's not a day too soon..." with time frame modified daily/hourly). I hopped in a taxi and headed straight to Jen and Dave's place; I confess that I spent most of the ride in a flush of excitement and sentimental "ohhh"-ing. So good to be back!









Some desperately needed wine and cheese in Chiang Mai; reunited with Jen and Zach (at the Kate/Seamus/Tyler farewell)
Below: Jen borrowing the gorgeous (and growing) Tyler

Anyway, spent the weekend eating, drinking, shopping and kind of just hanging out with Jen and Zach most of the time. I didn't realise how much work stress had been getting to me - it's not even the stress of the work itself, more of the things going on around work and the general feeling of having spent WAY too much time in the office over the last few weeks. It was great to get away, do some fun stuff, and generally have a relaxing time with people around whom I feel really comfortable.

Now I just have to make said people come to visit me in MHS.


Like a pig in a cage on antibiotics (otherwise known as the office)

Unexpected obstacles continue to pop up at work. Now the other doctor on the team has casually dropped the bombshell that even though he is contracted until May next year, he thinks he might leave late September. Of course, he didn't think to tell us. Brilliant. Perfect timing. 5 weeks into the our intensive 6 month medic training. I pointed out that perhaps in the interests of working in a team and communicating effectively he might have volunteered the information without being asked (I asked him) but the health coordinator (about whom many of you know) went all conciliatory and pacifist and told him it was okay. Now, treating people with respect is one thing, but condoning the shirking of responsibility - I don't know about anyone else, but I think it's really just not on. Sometimes I'm not sure what plane of reality some of the people here live on. There's talk of hiring doctors more or less purely because they speak Burmese, so that "they can translate" - what is the point of hiring a doctor then? hire a translator, sunshine! - trying to make other team members translate in a variety of situations (never mind that they are highly skilled and already work 10 and 11 hour days in their primary jobs, because "we can change their job description")...

I don't know. I really don't know! It just seems that we're not allowed to have valid issues in this office - if someone tries to bring up a problem then the problem must be THEIRS, they must have culture shock or be breaching the code of conduct or have personal problems with others. God forbid there should ever be anything that needs to be fixed or that there should ever be any responsibility or accountability taken for problems. Crazy.

Anyway, despite the cracks that keep appearing, the rest of our little team is going just fine. The workload is pretty huge, but we work well together and I think it'll be okay. Now we're just waiting for news of hopefully 2 more doctors coming sometime in the next 2 months. The sooner the better. Or I hope so, anyway. I guess you never know what sort of people you'll end up with in these situations. I helped to interview a few candidates and it all seemed a bit iffy, but apparently my erstwhile manager plans to employ them nonetheless (when asked about this, all he was able to produce was a lot of mumbling and something about "...and they can help translate." I give up.). I guess all I can do is shrug and get on with it.

In an unexpected cloud/silver lining situation, the disorganisation here looks to be about to work in my favour! Before coming here I was told that my visa renewals would be organised by my local employer. As it turns out, they just haven't quite got it together to do so - so I have to do a border crossing. That is a bit of a pain, but it looks like out of the pain also comes a free trip to Chiang Mai! Hooray!









I cooked this soup in the kettle (the rest of the meal too, but I ate it before having the presence of mind to photograph it) - the first properly Vietnamese food I have eaten since arriving in Thailand; at the local karaoke place all the videos are of Australian scenes (why? who knows?)

Camp 2 is my new true love

Camp work is still good. I did some neonatal training a couple of weeks ago for the midwives which was really good fun, and also involved some highly entertaining lunchtime table tennis matches. I have had a bit more time to just sit and watch camp life go by too (usually when waiting for the trucks to come and pick us up at the end of the day). My favourite time of day is around 4 or 5 in the late afternoon/early evening - it's when all the kids are out running around, playing sport, generally making mischief and reminding me that camp life is exactly that - life. And the more I realise how pragmatic and "get on with it" these people are, and I realise the lengths they have gone to to protect themselves and their family, the more my commitment grows to help them make the best of the situation.


I got back yesterday from my first ever trip to Camp 2 (got my pass last week and went for 2 days) - and baby, I am in LOVE. The surrounds are breathtaking - jungle, jungle, jungle and mountains, streams and creeks, little waterfalls... 2 of the 3 hours it takes to get to the camp is through dense jungle. The road isn't so much unsealed as non-existent - true 4WD territory, lots of driving through river beds (or rivers), over rocks and across creeks. The camp itself is essentially like any other hilltribe village; compared to Camp 1 there is much more space, facilities are better, and it lacks the internal political tension of camp 1 (which has 5 times more people and a different ethnic makeup). "Sabaay, sabaay"... It was a blissful sojourn, really - the medics were so excited, I spent the first day seeing patients they'd been "saving up" for me and on the second day I taught them about skin stuff. They asked heaps of questions, were really interested and enthusiastic. With a cynical eye (me? cynical? about NGOs?) it kind of could be interpreted that where there is less intervention from my employer, the camp functions better. In any case - they love what they are doing, they want to do the best by their community and they are hungry for knowledge.

It's just a pity that the powers that be seem to care a lot less. As long as they meet their donor indicators, right?




























These kids were playing at the Camp 2 checkpoint - clearly checkpoints are serious business ;)

Football

Today there was a football tournament in Camp 1 (the big one). One team made up of people from the office, 3 teams of refugees. Looking at all 4 teams lining up next to each other in their colours, it was pretty easy to tell the difference between the refugees and the office boys - the refugees were all much fitter, cooler and generally had it all sorted somehow.

Anyway, so the office boys got beaten 3-1. Hardly surprising.

















That's me in the truck, firmly ensconced in my role of ice chest bitch/drinks waitress/barracker (but for the refugees, not for the office team)

















Some of the kids who piled in to watch the match

















The office boys are in the blue and the refugees in the red. The reds won 3-1 and I believe the office team's single goal may have been scored by the chicken (complete with chick) in the foreground

















Me with some of the reproductive health trainees - the girls on either side of me are my table tennis buddies and have come up from a camp on the border in Tak Province

The Dutch phenomenon, and other musings

Time for the weekly missive...

Work

Work's not bad. Did a week-long intensive block of medic training last week - for the medical nerds amongst you, I taught a full day of skin/hair/nails (by the end of which everyone in the room felt itchy) and a day of heart stuff and heart failure. It's actually really fun teaching the medics - relaxed and interactive. They did well in my exam questions too so it's nice to see that some of the information sticks!















I spent one day out with community health workers doing home visits. Along the way I happened to see a baby (strapped to its mother like all good Karenni babies) who looked like perhaps it wasn't doing all the things it was supposed to do. Probed a bit further - turns out the baby (who is 1 year old now) had a severe bout of something septic when it was one month old. Seems that the doctors in town didn't think to tell the mother of the permanent neurological sequelae and she has been dutifully (and beautifully) - and completely independently - been caring for a baby with severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy for the last 11 months. I know that a lot of the differences in medical care and communication in Asia are down to cultural differences, but this one I just cannot fathom. Surely cultural differences are not enough to obviate the need to give parents this type of news?

We (well, me and Komsak, who is now the lynchpin of the clinical health team) can feel a new disability clinic coming on.

The office is - well, it's the office. I haven't been spending much time in it, which is not a bad thing at all. Trying to let the political arrows fly around me is a difficult thing ("What?", you say? "Q finding it difficult to keep her mouth shut? Never!") but disengaging is a fine art that I need to learn. Preferably around now.

Goodbyes
After a week of dancing, eating, laughter and friends, Marlene (ace boss) left last Wednesday.

Marvellous Marlene and medics from camp

We (clinical health team, friends, "adopted family") were all desperately sorry to see her go - the refugees felt it perhaps even more acutely than they did. I hope there are consequences (however karmic) to large organisations in not heeding the requests of the refugees and placing faith in their knowledge of what is best for them.

Stir-crazy

The last week has been good but I'm still itching to get out of town - so Chiang Mai, here I come! I can't wait to see my CM mates, walk down the street without seeing people from work, go out to hilarious clubs (where I can drink something "on the rock"), go shopping, eat whatever I food I want at any time of day or night, hit the night markets, hang out for a few beers... Is two trips in the space of 2 1/2 weeks gratuitous? I think it's just about right, really!

Random musings

I live out the back of a hotel/resort place (see pics of my little bungalow on a lotus pond) and yesterday I braved the resort pool for the first time. I am not exaggerating when I say that there was me, and then there were 30 or 40 Dutch people. That was it. I imagine they must be travelling in a big tour group but I confess it was kind of intimidating. I felt distinctly...not Dutch.









Home, sweet home

It got me thinking about the Dutch tourist thing. I don't think I've ever been somewhere overseas where I haven't met Dutch tourists, generally in groups. The population of the Netherlands isn't that big...so does that mean that about half of its population is travelling at any one time? Or that there is just a core of very very hardcore Dutch travellers? If the latter is true, surely some of the people I'm meeting are people I've met before?

I actually met (as in had a conversation with) a Dutch guy last night. I was sitting in one of the little pavilions over the lake, watching Wat Jong Khum (temple - see pics) all lit up for the start of Buddhist Lent. It was an interesting conversation (only one point of conjecture, which was to do with whether Muslim men in Holland should be expected to shake hands with women in a show of assimilation - I thought not, he thought yes) but the real point of interest was the temple itself - just beautiful!

Wat Jong Khum, lit up for the beginning of Buddhist Lent

There have been several times on this trip when I have wished that I were Buddhist. Sounds kind of simplistic, I know, but true. Last night was another one of those times, as I sat there and watched all the monks and townspeople walking around the perimeter of the temple with their candles and offerings. Of course, the full moon only added to the atmosphere...

Does the dust really settle?

It's been a while since I last posted, I know. I bet heaps of people have stopped checking for new posts just because they don't appear - that's okay.

Town life


I've been in MHS for nearly 3 weeks now. It's lovely - mountains and lush greenery, pretty lake and friendly people. Having said that, the small town thing has started to wear a bit. I guess when there are fewer than 8000 people in a town, it's to be expected that walking down the street, I run into people I know all the time. Everybody is somehow connected to someone who knows somebody who used to have lunch with another person whose daughter is the wife of someone from work. Fortunately since my last post I've moved out of the revolting place where I was being accommodated by my employer, and into a snug little bungalow on a lotus pond further from town. To be sure, it's part of the largest hotel/resort in MHS, but it's actually pretty secluded and gives me a definite sense of being not at work. Which, given recent events (as well as the hours I've been putting in), is definitely a positive.

People

There is a certain phenomenon amongst travellers that I have come to really despise - the expat pack mentality. What is it about being in a foreign country that automatically means that you are BESTBESTFRIENDS with people you would never have had a 3 line conversation with back home, makes people eat together every day and have the same conversations over and over again, makes it a kind of social default that deadens the brain and numbs the senses? What is it that makes it okay - even funny, sometimes - that a person can have lived or stayed in a country for months and yet be unable to order food in the local language?

Needless to say, I am not a fan.

It isn't all doom and gloom though. I have made a handful of friends who I think are fabulous people, people that I would be friends with back home. They make discovering a new place more of a joy and provide endless stimulating conversations. After the amazingness of my time and my friends in Chiang Mai I wondered if I would meet other like-minded people here. I think I will.

Camp

I got my camp pass about a week and a half ago and have already started training medics and midwives there. The camp looks more or less like a massive hilltribe village, but more cramped and a lot larger (19,000-ish people). Amazing concentration of beautiful babies and children, colours and life and laughter and a general feel of getting on with things. The men play real sport in the camp too - proper, athletic, boisterous sport, not this somewhat affected, don't-mess-up-my hair sport that Thai boys have a tendency to play. That is a generalisation, yes - but not an entirely unfounded one!


















Anyway, I got good feedback from my first teaching sessions so hopefully that augurs well for the next 5 months of teaching and training. Even from the limited chances I've had so far to really have a detailed look into the way things go, there's clearly a lot of work to be done on health. I hope I'll be able to get a few things moving and help out.

Desk life is not for me, and some restrained reflections

I've been chained to my desk for the last 4 days. There has been an unexpected - and very unwelcome - shakeup in my team here and suddenly, without notice, we are picking up the pieces after a badly handled situation arose. I'm trying to get the stuff together to do extra trainings next week, and also trying to organise myself to pick up some new and unexpected responsibilities. I guess this was what they meant by telling us we needed to be "flexible". Well, for me and my remaining team members at the moment, "flexible" kind of just means "more work". Oh well.

My team colleagues are fabulous, clever people - perfect examples of great capacity building. It's just a pity that it turns out that internal politics are far more of a problem than cross-border politics where I work, and that amazing success stories such as my talented workmates seem rare. I have some pretty strong views about this, but I won't unleash the diatribe here. Suffice it to say that I am trying valiantly to remember that it is the people in the camp that we are really working for. Organisations are a means by which to get to them. This is all stuff that I knew before coming here, but having it laid bare "in real life" is somewhat different. Potentially pretty disillusioning, but I think trying to stay focused will make it seem less important.

Anyway, I have a new admiration for those out there who work in an office every day. I am going so stir-crazy that I think I might explode. I'm in a bit of a surly mood today and this post probably reflects that. It has been a frustrating and difficult week; as of next week I'll be in the camp most of the time, though, so I think that will be a good thing. And a good few hours of sitting alone by the lake with a good book will definitely help. Thank goodness for the weekend!

Getting used to being useful again

I've been here a week now and fortunately it didn't take too long to find things to do. Without a camp pass I can't do anything hands-on (frustrating but hopefully very temporary) but I've been writing neonatal management guidelines for the training I'll do later on, talking to reproductive health about what I should be training the midwives to do, and I'm now waiting for community health to tell me what exactly it is that they do so that I can add stuff. Hopefully I'll have a temporary camp pass by Tuesday. People tell me not to hold my breath though. Blah.

My desk at work - I share an office with about 15 others

Other than that, I have been getting to know MHS - not too hard as it's not very big! My digs are not exactly salubrious (in fact, they kind of suck) so I've just started looking for something more permanent. It'll be a relief when all the practical stuff is done and I can just get on with things work-wise.

Dried fishy delicacies at the Sunday Market

In terms of social life - there are lots of Thais, lots of Burmese, lots of hilltribe people and LOADS of expats working here. I'm trying not to fall into the expat pack mentality which pervades most places - in the long run it is just frustrating and creates barriers to getting to know local people and customs properly. It's a delicate balance - I'll have to see how it goes. One thing is for certain though - I have to be really strict about practising my Thai as I already feel that it's slipping a bit.

Marlene, me, Naomi, Inbal

We (ace boss, ace reproductive health boss, ace new friend) went karaoke-ing on Friday night. The bar was outstandingly 80s. It looked like something from an early Tom Cruise movie, complete with veneered bar, chrome fittings and red disco ball. We had a Thai vs English (language) karaoke-off with 3 locals who were there - it was just us and them. I'm thinking that my rendition of "Have I told you lately that I love you" probably didn't help our cause, although "Love is all around" complete with backing vocals and whoas may have redeemed us a bit.

80s extraordinaire tacky karaoke bar (rivals on right hand side)

The week ahead, with luck, will involve me starting to train people in the camps, finding permanent accommodation, and getting generally set up. I'll keep you posted.

The next new start

I spent Saturday on Doi Pui (nearby mountain) near a Hmong hilltribe, planting trees with Jenny’s workmates and a few of our mates. It was pretty big – about 10,000 seedlings and scores of journalists. Picturesque setting too – high up on a mountain ridge with mountains and forest all around. It probably would have been even better had we not all gone out the night before and finished up with massive greasy burgers (my first in months) at 1am. The subsequent 7:30am start was character-building. Right?

Fish in the pond/pool thing at Warm Up (bar); Zach and Jen

"Kraff" of wine, anyone? Or perhaps something "on the rock"?


Me and Leah; Zach's enormous "cheesy mushroom double burger", consumed at 1am

Anyway, after the tree-planting I stayed at Benchawan’s, met her husband and two terrific sons, ate loads of food and gossiped. The next morning they dropped me at the airport, and thus ended my blissful 5 weeks in Chiang Mai.

The view from our tree-planting site was really not bad

So here I am in Mae Hong Son, where it is sunny and pouring with rain in equal measures. It’s a lovely little place – I live about 100 metres from the lake, which is a pretty tranquil spot with a beautiful temple overlooking it. There are thickly forested mountains around the perimeter of town, and in the mornings the mist weaves its way between the peaks, the lake and temple sort of glimmer, and it’s all a bit magical, really. The town itself has just under 8000 people, so it’s not exactly your buzzing metropolis, but there’s a bit going on. Everything is within walking distance and I have found the essentials – food places, roti trolleys, soy milk vendors and market – already.

Yesterday I started work and it was all a bit of a boggle! In the morning Aor, who is the new pharmacy supervisor, and I were introduced to about 50 people (it’s a very crowded headquarters!) in about oh, 20 minutes. The staff are a mix of Thai, Burmese, Karenni/Karen and expats. They’re very keen on three letter acronyms – GBV, VCT, LAC, something something something. Most of the jobs have the sort of titles that make you say, “Oh right!” but then 3 seconds later think, “…but what does that MEAN?”. I’m sure there is a system to it all, though.

Anyway I had a lengthy meeting with my boss, Marlene, and the other doctor who works there (who is Burmese) and we nutted out some more details of what has been going on and what Marlene is hoping I’ll be able to do while I’m here.

The real details are very different from the extremely vague job description that has been bandied around for the last 6 months, and is sooooooo much better! My title is “medical trainer” and to that end I will certainly be doing some block training for a new crop of refugee medics coming up. The exciting part, however, is that Marlene would like my main project to be to devise a system of integrated assessment and management of paediatric patients, from birth onwards. It’s quite a task – we administer the health care for 2 camps, one of which has 19,000 refugees and the other nearly 4000. There are 2 main clinics in the larger camp and one in the smaller one; reproductive health is currently entirely separate (and as such the babies who are unwell at birth do not come to the attention of our doctors and medics until much later, if they are transferred to town); there is no organised liaison with the paediatric services in town; and community health, which does a lot of the public health, case finding and surveillance, is sort of…well, apparently it’s hard to know WHAT they’re doing!

So this looks like being my job. I am so stoked with it – I never thought it would turn into something so tailored to my interest. I’m hoping it’ll be the perfect combination of paeds, refugee health and public health. But we’ll see – there is plenty of politics to contend with by the sounds of things, and I haven’t even started yet!

(Well, I started writing congenital heart disease and neonatal jaundice guidelines today. But that’s barely a start – plus I am still waiting for my camp pass.)

Anyway, so I emailed uni about all of this and they reckon I should write a 15,000 word project for 4 subjects’ worth of credit. Bonus!

Last days in Chiang Mai

Since the last time I posted,

• Gordon Brown has become England's new Prime Minister
• Robert Mugabe has made more crazy threats, this time to seize foreign firms in Zimbabwe
• Dave not only got out of bed before 9am, but made it to breakfast with me and Zach at 20 past 7
• I have discovered that I will actually, rooly, trooly have a proper job, and that it sounds super duper exciting and busy

Chiang Mai clouds at sunset

After all the months of wondering exactly what I would be doing in Thailand, I met my new boss on Tuesday night. We had a long discussion about work and the situation, and where nebulousness reigned before, excitement now prevails! It looks like I will get a major project for my MPH out of this as well (now I just have to apply, find a supervisor, write a research proposal - blah) and to boot I am really hoping - and am now optimistic that - I will be able to do some work which will continue to bring some returns after I have left, and provide a base for others to follow. I'll write a bit more about the specifics once we have nutted them out a little more - probably over the next few weeks.

This morning I had my Thai end-of-course exam. It was supposed to take 3 hours but I finished by 10 so we spent the rest of the morning fine-tuning the lesson notes for next weeks' new intake of students and then went out for massive luxe buffet lunch. I am really sorry to be leaving the language centre - I have had such a good time with them over the last 5 weeks, I'd forgotten what a joy it is to learn a new language and all the girls there are so much fun. I'm hopeless at goodbyes so I kind of just slipped out after thanking everyone quickly and hoped that nobody would be offended.

Tonight we're going out and then tomorrow I'll be in a hilltribe village somewhere planting trees. Tomorrow night I'm staying at Benjawan's, and then that's it - Sunday is the big move!

I'm so glad that I managed to meet my boss before going; when I last posted I was just feeling sad about leaving Chiang Mai, and it was hard to get excited about the next step when I had no idea what it was about. Now that I know a bit more, I'm looking forward to this next chapter for whatever it is to bring, and it's kind of revitalised my commitment and passion in what I came here to do.

Who knows? Maybe sometime soon I might have something interesting to say!

Life in Thailand, part 2: Bangkok

My flight landed at Suvarnabhumi (pronounced, "Soo-ahn-a-poom") Airport about 30 minutes late, and I was left rueing that I hadn't listened to the dodgy looking middle-aged farang-who-lives-in-Thailand guy who told me, in the check-in line, to try and just take my small suitcase on the plane as hand luggage. It took 55 minutes for the first bag to appear on the carousel. Apparently (that word again!) Suvarnabhumi is notorious for that. Store it away for next time.

On the way to Chiang Mai airport I had been pretty stoked, because I had my most successful exchange in Thai EVER. The taxi driver and I chatted quite merrily for the whole 20 minutes and I didn't lapse into English once. Good, right? I don't know what happened to my brain during that 1 hour flight though, because during the 20 minute ride to my hotel in Bangkok, I struggled to understand anything the driver said in his thick Southern accent.

I've never been to Bangkok before. In fact, it's been a long time since I was in a truly modern, fully industrialised Asian city - maybe not since China, and that was nearly 10 years ago. Bangkok is a massive, pulsing metropolis, with tangled expressways cutting swathes across endless twinkling lights, impressive traffic jams and equally impressive smog.











The view from my hotel room; the Skytrain pulling into the station

My digs were pretty plush. I'm not used to staying in such places and to be honest I'm not sure that I felt comfortable about it (Thais opening doors for me, pressing lift buttons for me, bringing things to my room, etc) but it was nice. Spacious room, cable TV, plus I managed to dodge paying exhorbitant prices for the hotel wireless network and found free WiFi through my mobile phone company.

I headed out after breakfast on Saturday, crossed the road, and found myself in a big square slap bang in the centre of the highest concentration of massive shopping malls I have ever seen! Heaven. Amazingly, even earlyish on a Saturday morning, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper with the usual Thai traffic chaos being controlled (with variable effect) by shouting traffic police. The central Skytrain station is right near here so there is activity everywhere - above, below, around. Lots of sensory stimulation.

I like cities.

Spent the day with my friend Gam (my roommate at a conference back in 2000) and a bunch of her friends. Whilst wandering on my own for a while in the afternoon, I stumbled across what appears to have been a huge highschool scrabble tournament. Also saw lots of Thai popstars performing at stages in and around the shopping malls. I didn't know who they were, but I squealed along with all the other girls, just for fun. On Sunday we went to Chatuchak Market, which is impressive in both size and also for being one of the hottest places I have ever been. Melting.

Embarrassing "Q is an idiot" story for the week: I'd bought a dress on the Saturday at a small boutique in Siam, and was wearing it at Chatuchak. We found the stall where the designer sells a few of her things on weekends, where it was pointed out by the girl working there that I was wearing the dress back to front. Niiiiiiiiiiice.

Anyway, overall my Thai shopping vocabulary ("Lot iik daay may? Phaeng maak maak!" - semi-weird phonetic spelling, nobody knows how to romanise Thai, Thais included) has improved immensely and I've got to know just a little bit of the big city. I'll have to go back there sometime.

So that was my little taste of Bangkok. Or rather, Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit. Unsurprisingly, Thais shorten it to "Krung Thep" ("City of Angels"). Whatever you want to call it, it was like a different planet.

The most surprising thing - and it felt kind of odd - was what happened when I arrived back in Chiang Mai. I was sitting in the taxi, chatting to the driver, and I had this funny feeling in my stomach; I realised that it felt like I was coming home. In the evening I headed out to the Sunday "walking street" (night market) for the last time with Zach and Jenny, and ambling along those crowded streets with all the lights, the laughter and the banter, made me realise that even though I've only been here for a month (a month tomorrow!) I am already beginning to leave things that I love behind. And I have been here long enough now to realise that Chiang Mai is not about the Night Bazaar or the elephant shows or the rooftop bars near Tha Phae Gate or the cooking schools. It's about the easygoing people, chatting with random vendors, the relaxed feel, the balmy nights, the crazily varied food, walking for 10 minutes and being in the forest, quiet afternoons in airy, spacious temples, buying soy milk at the same trolley every night, the insane motorbike drivers, the feeling that even though things are changing, this is still a place with a soul.

Ugh - so soppy!










View of the walking street from atop Tha Phae Gate; a random truck full of dragonfruit

Clearly, I'm feeling pretty reluctant to leave next weekend. But I'm here to start a job, and I really am excited about doing that. Tonight I have a meeting with the doctor I'll be working with - she has a whole host of projects and work she'd like me to consider. It's nice that others have given it so much thought.