June 3, 2006

I’m not sure how I feel about blogging. I feel like I need to be purposefully vague about certain things, so I end up talking about the mostly mundane. Things like yogurt. The cereal bean and lotus nut yoghurt is pretty good. Kind of like yogurt with corn and kidney beans. Just returned from watching some movie with my colleagues about the Texas Longhorns cheerleading team and some guy who’s playing the assistant cheerleading coach, but is really there to protect the cheerleading team from something. Tommy Lee Jones, I think. It was on HBO with Thai subtitles, so it was good, clean, understandable fun for everyone. The past few days have been filled more than anticipated. As part of my two week project, I’m interviewing a couple of people who have been working with my organization for quite some time to get a sense of the effective strategies they use when negotiating rights for labourers (who to contact, how to navigate the government system, how to deal with different government and non-government organizations, etc.) Went to a coffee shop for the interview (just for fun to get out of the office… that’s worth noting… there are so many coffee shops… they are definitely the hip thing in Chiang Mai) and had the interview, but then just ended up chatting. She’s only a couple years older than me and I was quite impressed by her passion for labour rights and ability to navigate a purposefully complicated system. One point that came up was the need to get a sense from workers in the factory about what exactly is going on inside so that it can be documented. I was confused as to how this happens. Cell phones. Technology is amazing. Especially as it becomes affordable for everyone, even migrant workers inside of factories that are not up to code. We ended up chatting for awhile. It started to pour, we were there for another hour. I’d forgotten to leave my helmet appropriately perched on the motorcycle, so it was filled with water when we finally left to meet the director and an American guy who works for another labour organization here for drinks. The national beer is mediocre (as it usually is). It was open mic night and one guy went crazy with things like “Dust in the Wind,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Landslide.”
I intended to get up really early this morning, but ended up getting up late (still having funky sleep patterns). I took an exceptionally long walk around town, which took all day. Bought a good map of town, a SIM card for my loaner cell phone (I have a phone!), and a towel (I forgot a towel, a raincoat, and an umbrella… all very important things when it rains at least daily). I had a nice time people-watching as I walked. I was walking and noticed a couple my age walking towards me laughing. The guy was dramatically swinging his arms and walking quite quickly. Then I realized that I was dramatically swinging my arms and walking quite quickly. I slowed down and laughed. They realized I’d figured out their joke and laughed as well. Things I like: the parks that are plentiful and well-used, the coffee shops (some of them are really creative), used book shops, lots of families spending time together, funky fruit I’ve never seen before, and the museum of world insects. Things I don’t like: traffic (it’s tough to cross the street… it never stops… imagine new york with the same number of cars plus 2 times as many motorbikes and no crosswalks) and fat, old white guys with their attractive, young Thai girlfriends. This evening some new friends / colleagues and I walked around, grabbed dinner (we are near the university, so there are a lot of great little cheap food stands nearby), chatted and watched the fabulous piece of American cinema I began by telling you about.

For the public health / legal / rather frustrated with the US international policy contingent: My organization had to decline funding because they couldn’t sign the US Anti-prostitution clause. So frustrating (and embarrassing) to be from a place where our leaders can’t see the connection between economics, prostitution, and the health of a population.