Asymptomatic

Yesterday Tom (who is 7) came for his violin lesson with lots of questions about what I'm doing and where I'm going. We talked about what refugees are, why they have to run away from their homes, and why sometimes they can't return even after a long time. He also wanted to see where I was going, and in fact this is a question I've been asked quite a lot. So here is a map:

(Pic from TBBC website - http://www.tbbc.org)

The northernmost province is Mae Hong Son Province, and there are two camps there - Mae Surin and Ban Mai Nai Soi (red dots). I'll be based in Mae Hong Son (the town) and will be training refugee health workers from both those camps. Here are some pictures of MHS and the surrounding north-west hills region for you to peruse:











Pretty green and lush, hey? I'm told it's one of the most beautiful areas in Thailand. It's also one of the most malarious areas - obviously my friend Anopheles likes lush greenery too. I've been on planes quite a bit recently (as some of you would know) and each time it's been really striking just how brown everything is. So MHS will be a nice change. Rainy, too.

I'm just in the process of tying up some loose ends in Melbourne, then next week I'll be off interstate again to work a few last hurrah shifts (and to check out Orange Nat's plumped lips). By the time I get back there will possibly be just a handful of days until Ernie (pending the Feds), of which half will be pre-departure briefing (although I'm still hoping to get to the MSO Prokofiev Sinfonia-Concertante/Mahler 4 concert). So even though it feels like time is dragging and that I'm not getting anywhere, in reality it's passing pretty quickly and probably before I know it, I'll be getting off a plane in Thailand and stepping into the great unknown.

Someone much wiser than I told me today that the way I'm feeling about it (talking about it a lot but feeling like it's happening to someone else) is not uncommon for people who are stepping into a situation which is largely unknown. He drew the analogy (for all you medical types) of disease vs. illness - disease being the abstract fact and illness being the experience of the disease. He said it was just like having subclinical disease and said, "Quynh - you're asymptomatic of going away!"

What I am symptomatic of is getting ever older. How did I ever pull all-nighters in my whippersnapper days? A couple of big nights over the weekend and my whole musculoskeletal system protests for days and I end up with a cold. Ugh. Youth, do not forsake me yet! Please tell me this happens to you, too.

I finished Where We Have Hope today (for people who haven't read my old posts, it's a journalist's memoir of 23 years spent living and working in Zimbabwe) - I thoroughly recommend it! I have read quite a few books in the last couple of months and it was by far the most gripping, inspiring and illuminating. I've started another journalist's memoir now - by a Norwegian journo in Iraq. Will report back once I've read enough to have an opinion.