It's amazing how many ways you can make a countdown. First, it was 16 days from August 1st. Yesterday was one week til I leave the US. Today is one week til I arrive in Chiang Mai. Today my mom asked me if I'd started packing and figuring out what suitcase I am taking. Yesterday my brother asked to eat at a certain restaurant for our family lunch on Sunday, but mom responded that it'll be my choice because it'll be "my last meal out." These are the little things that make leaving really start to set in!
Basically, I'm really really close to time to leave. I'll be leaving Springfield on the Tuesday to drive to Chicago. I fly out Wednesday the 17th, have a layover in Seoul, and arrive in Chiang Mai late on the 18th. Most other people in the program arrive on the 19th, and the next day we'll meet our host families to go stay with them for the weekend.
Before we start learning Thai. Should be quite the weekend.. can't wait to be the fumbling American kid unable to communicate and trying to remember to do all the cultural things I read about. But having to actually own up to that may be one of the best parts of my initial culture shock. Despite the fact that I generally critique and criticize American culture and try to project myself as open, educated, and multicultural... at the end of the day I'm part of it too. A bit of humble American pie will do me good.
After that, we jump right into the program. Monday morning starts off with our intensive Thai language class, orientation, and getting acquainted with Chiang Mai. We spend the first month learning Thai and about Thai culture and from there, our schedule follows a general pattern. The first week of every month is spent in Chiang Mai in the classroom at ISDSI. Not quite sure what "in the classroom" entails since most of the program is out of the classroom, but we'll be reading and prepping for our next excursion. The rest of each month is a Field Experience Program spent traveling through different parts of Thailand to different landscapes and ecosystems to interact with different groups of people. We begin with in the forests of the northern hills, staying in villages of different ethnic minority tribes. In the second program we stay on a sustainable farm, and in the third we visit islands in the tropical south with different amounts of tourist development . We have a few weeks for travel in the region over Christmas break, and then do an independent research project during our last month.
I've heard a lot about the program from friends who went to Thailand in previous years. I've heard many stories, seen a lot of pictures, and been told innumerable times that "this program is perfect for you!" In my my mind, I feel like I know what to expect and the kinds of lessons I'll take away... about the uneven benefits of development, ecological degradation, needs of different groups of people, and so forth. But that's my perspective now, from the safety and comfort of my air conditioned, upper-middle class home in a subdivision in suburbia.
But I'm tired of that perspective. I'm tired of sitting here, reading and learning and critiquing what is happening in the US and the world. I'm ready to be made uncomfortable and to be stretched. I want my perspectives to be challenged by the reality of people and places. I want to see and learn and do things that I did not expect. Throughout much of this year I've been I've been utterly dismayed by what's going on in the world and really disheartened by our inability to respond (or the ways that power, money, and poor governance make responses to issues even more detrimental). This summer, those feelings have become so strong they're like a sadness, a burden. Put simply, I'm mad as hell and I just can't take it anymore.* I'm ready to go.
*Network quote anyone?
No comments:
Post a Comment