Going on 36 hours in this lovely and HOT country. The program is so well organized: after a delay in getting picked up from the airport (at least I didn't miss my flight like one girl did!) things have been very smooth. I'm bunking in a room with five other women and we have our own bathroom, then there are three other similar sized rooms. The house is beautiful and, even more importantly, has air con!
Yesterday morning we were sent out on what amounted to a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood, learning to navigate and negotiate with very little or no Thai. The neighborhood (part of the Bangsue district in north-central Bangkok) is very Thai--when we took the Skytrain downtown in the afternoon we realized how few tourists we saw in Bangsue compared with downtown. We spent the afternoon traveling by subway, skytrain (made me miss the El in Chicago, although it's WAY cleaner here) and river taxi, then saw Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn) before a course after course dinner. Some people finished the night by going to a pingpong show....
My strongest Macalester-bred instincts had something serious to say about what is, in my opinion, dangerously close to sex tourism and I had to work pretty hard to keep my mouth shut and stay off my soap box re: women's rights, opression via exploitation, responsible tourism, etc. etc. etc. I think i managed not to come off as a huge prude, but obviously did not go. Instead I went out to a little bar near the house with a few other people and mostly chilled out and chatted. It's really an interesting group of people, but that's a topic for another entry.
Love from Thailand.
3 comments:
So I'm old and naive. I'm pretty sure that pingpong is a game with a little white ball and some paddles. Apparently, I'm ill informed. Ahh me.
I love you.
So here is my story. (And don't think for a second that I am comparing the importance of this to sex tourism, but I just about DIED. I honestly had to restrain myself from cursing at a pastor. Which, actually, I can totally picture myself doing, let's be real.)
So I went to a wedding yesterday. I was a little nervous because they are VERY hardcore Christian. So first they exchanged purity rings and talked about what an honor it was to have waited for each other. (Which, let's review, their wedding night must've been a HUGE disappointment. That's what happens when you build up sex that much and then realize that the first time isn't going to be good.)But aside from that, my favorite moment of the service was when the pastor gave them "charges" of things that they should do in their marriage. Not part of the wedding vows, but the same "Repeat after me" format, and the bride and the groom are repeating the same things. EXCEPT for one part, when the pastor had the groom say, "I will have love and devotion to my wife for the rest of our lives," and then had the bride say, "I will have love for and SUBMISSION TO MY HUSBAND for the rest of our lives." I almost puked all over the people sitting in front of me.
So that was a really long story, and now all of your friends/family are wondering who this horrible person is that knows you, but hey. I hope that you were amused ;-) Glad to hear that things seem to be going well!
Emily! I just remembered today that you have this blog thing... it sounds like you're having a good time? You haven't actually written about any volunteering yet, has that started already?
Also, I'm not sure I approve of the phrase "air con".
Hope you are doing well! Love,Caitlin
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