Frogs in my bathroom!!!

Editor’s Note. Katherine McC. was a volunteer in GSC’s Buddhist Immersion Program in April and May of 2007. Here’s a retroactive post of some of here experiences while teaching English to novice monks, learning how to drink Pepsi out of a plastic bag and ride a bike at the same time, and sharing her bathroom with frogs. Thanks for the post Katherine.

Today was an exciting day, as far as this 2nd week in the middle of Inburi in a rice field pretty much, in a road not even on a map (in a town barely on the map) can be. I was sick this morning so I didn’t teach the 9:00 class as usual. Most days I go teach class at 9:00 with novice monks and novice monks-to-be (I think their ordination is next week), hang out with the senior monks, speak English with them and have lunch, then work on lesson plans and such for the 1:00 class. After the 1:00 class (which is mostly the same students as the morning), I have a little Thai alphabet lesson with Pra (title for Monk) Soom-Pop. Then I come “home” around 3, and maybe read, or watch a movie, or study Thai, or work on more lesson plans. There is a little ice cream store and random road stands on pretty much every road, so you can go get a pep-SEE (Pepsi). They recycle a lot around here, probably to make up for the mass amounts of garbage littering the countryside, so you have to pay extra if you want to keep the glass bottle from the Pepsi (they don’t use plastic bottles because so much of them are used for water because you can’t drink tap water, same in India). So instead, they give you your Pepsi in a little plastic bag with ice and a straw, and you go on your merry way. I’ve almost mastered riding a bike with a backpack and a bag of peps in the other hand. I can also get ice cream (everything here is Nestle) from a little freezer, but if you get ice cream from a road stand it’s bound to have something strange in it – dried up mango bits, or even rice (rice cream). I think I’m getting enough rice that I don’t need it in my dessert. BLechk. Luckily I’m not getting too many mosquito bites with the amount of bugs around, but I’ve resigned to the fact that almost anything I eat is bound to have small ants in it. I don’t mind it as long as I don’t actually see them crawl in. As soon as you open a jar of peanut butter 5 ants manage to crawl into it.

Here’s What a Buddhist Immersion Volunteer had to Say

Katrina H. volunteered with GSC over the past summer and in between teaching English to novice monks and teaching her host Mom how to knit was able to find some time to post to her myspace blog. Click the title of this post get to read all about it and see some great pictures. Thanks, Katrina.
Brian

Sweatier Than Lindsay at a Wisconsin Football Game

Editor’s Note. Dan G. is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Before departing for Thailand, Dan spent four months as an intern in the GSC office in San Francisco. Although we miss him and his hard work in the office, we are happy that he is now experiencing everything that Thailand has to offer. Dan is participating in the International Health Internship. He is spending the first part of his program shadowing Thai doctors and nurses at Lopburi Hospital and will finish his program teaching HIV/AIDS education and prevention to Thai secondary school students. We hope that this is the first of many posts from Dan chronicling his experiences.

Sa-watdee Krup Friends and Family!

I am sorry that I have not written all of you until now. Since I left Bangkok earlier this week, my Internet availability has been very limited…for better or for worse. I am now in Singburi, Thailand (central), and finding a wireless Internet café here is like finding George Bush at a gay rights rally…its just not going to happen. So, as much as I would like to send personal emails to my friends and family at home, I do not think it will be possible. Yesterday, I was at an Internet café in an attempt to write this email to everyone. However, the café was filled with about 50 Thai teenage boys, all playing each other in the same military computer game, screaming at
each other in Thai. That, on top of the Thai-labeled keyboard, made it very difficult to write an email. So, now I am sitting on a beautiful porch, with beautiful weather and a nice breeze, writing you this email…
Just a warning…this email is long and I will not be offended if you only read parts. However, I may have written something about you, so you may want to read it all.

After 22 hours of flights, and a total time change of 36 hours, I arrived in Bangkok last Sunday, October 28th. My program did not start until Sunday night, so I spent the day at the huge MBK mall, right next to my hotel. For those of you who know my priorities, youwouldn’t be surprised that the first thing I bought was a cell phone…a sweet nokia from 1992, I’m guessing. Next, I decided to take after my friend David Lorber, and got a haircut. I was handed a book with
different men’s haircuts, clearly cutouts from magazines. I considered going monk-style, but settled on some guy from the book. Not a bad haircut for 60baht, or about $2. Later that night, I met Chan, the In-country coordinator and Heather, another girl on my program, at the
hotel. Chan is a local Thai, who works with my organization, Global Service Corps. He has been with us (Heather and I) this past week, running the entire orientation. It has been really nice to have someone ordering for me, telling cab drivers where to go and explaining the history of everywhere we go. He really has been our own personal tour guide. Such great treatment!

Welcome to Thailand…sort of

Sawat dii, Krap.

This is the inaugural posting to the freshly minted ‘The Global Corps Experience Told By You’ blog. I know it’s a painfully long name, so I am open to suggestions. Or, we can just begin by starting to call it ‘TGSCETBY’. It just rolls right off the tongue.

Just for a little bit of background, I coordinated the GSC Thailand program in Singburi for the past year. Month after month I would make the obligatory pilgrimage down to Suvarmabumi Airport in Bangkok to pick up the new groups. I wouldn’t know too much about the volunteers prior to their arrival and there was always a little twinge of nervousness because you just never know who is going to step off that plane. I would have a little background as I would frequently check people out on myspace or Facebook to try to get a better picture of who was coming. Yes, I did check out volunteers on myspace. Why wouldn’t I?

Following the pick up, we’d spend a fews days in Bangkok before heading up to the orientation center in Singburi. Throughout these first days of the program, I’d often felt that I had a big tattoo on my forehead that said, ‘Ask me any question, no matter how ridiculous .’ Granted, a huge part of my job was to answer volunteers questions, point them in the right direction, and generally just help them in adjusting to their new surroundings. But, I must admit, I was always a little suprised at some of questions that were asked and would think to myself, ‘Shouldn’t they know that???’

That is primarily the reason why I wanted to start to this blog. I want to get stories out there from past volunteers in order to give future volunteers the information they’ll need and what to expect when coming to Thailand. There is always some degree of culture shock when arriving in a new country and experiencing a totally new culture. I believe that the quicker you get over this culture shock, the quicker you’ll settle into your new life, and the quicker you’ll start to gain from the rich culture of Thailand.

I’ll be periodically posting to this blog my own stories and adventures over the past year, my reflections, and my observations. But, this purpose of this blog is not me, it’s the volunteers. I want to this to be a forum and space to bring together all the unique stories of the people who make up Global Service Corps: the volunteers. So, I encourage all volunteers, past and present to submit their writings about life in Thailand.

Brian