Pictures of the Day

Please be kind...

and offer your seat to those wearing orange, to children holding hands,
to a woman who has eaten way too much pad thai,
and to a man with the world's skinniest cane.

"The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist." ~Russell Baker

Well, on a lighter note....since I can't be in the south doing good samaritan work....guess I can be a tourist again!!! In one day, Sunday, I rode a train, long-tail boat, tuk tuk, 2 motorcycles, taxi and the subway. I was pretty impressed with my adventure. I walked across the bridge over the river Kwai and learned about its tragic history. I found out I can eat just about anything as long as I didn't see where it came from ( i.e. swimming in a bucket of strange juices on the sidewalk next to the preparer's dirty bare feet) I further solidified that my sense of direction is impeccable. And continued to demonstrate that my comprehension for(of) this language will never be. Oh, and the King of Thailand has a glass eye!

Same, Same, but different. Very different.

I have been in Thailand for some time now and I just now fully able to understand the complex ramifications surrounding the phrase "Thai-time." A phrase that has been uttered all too often on this trip thus far. It has paralyzed my hopes for this trip and it is something that I have had to come to terms with. Thai-time is the total opposite of the idiom, "in a New York minute." I am comfortable with "a New York minute" and I can function under its implied constraints. Here, in Thailand, the expression of time is much more loose. Appointment times are more like approximations, no one is ever on time and "later" can mean NEVER.

My uncle, our driver, Yott, and myself were supposed to leave the day after Christmas for the south. However, our trip was postponed everyday leading up to departure and the time we wanted to spend there truncated from five days to one. We then received news that our scheduled driver was M.I.A. and that there was no one else that could drive us the 11 hours south. My knee-jerk reaction to this news was to just take control, get on an overnight bus and make it happen. But I am having to learn (maybe this is the whole reason for this trip) to step back and let some things go. It's hard. I have such a short amount of time here and my hopes for this trip were/are bigger than the backpack I brought with me. It's hard right now to not be cynical. And it was really hard to fight back the tears.

I have continued to work on the web site and presentations for GSM. But I have also hit some roadblocks in this domain. There seems to be a deep cultural trait in Thailand of playing one's cards close to the chest. And the word "transparency," which is a must in US business these days, is not so popular here. I am having a hard time getting all the facts and information needed to populate both the web and presentation. Which is another reason the cancellation of our trip to the south is such a heartbreak. If we had gone, we could have seen one of the projects firsthand. So, I continue to design in a vacuum and hope that the information requested will materialize and the rest of the planned trip will come to fruition.

“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.” ~ W. T. Ellis

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

~ Dr. Seuss

Without snow, without garland, without a single Christmas treat, I can still feel the Christmas spirit from my head to my feet. A special thank you to all who sent the warmest of wishes, may your holiday be filled with cheer and lots of holiday kisses.

Pictures of the Day

No time like the present.

Today, I have started the first phase of my volunteer work here in Thailand. I am helping brainstorm, design and build a website for the GSM, Good Samaritan Ministries, in Thailand. This website will help generate more visibility for the projects Ame and her team already had or have going, like the HIV Orphanage and the Tsunami Relief. As well as, bring awareness to future projects, like the tapioca farm that has gained approval from the King and a very generous donation from a wealthy Indonesian man. I am also going to create/design two presentations that will be used to further communicate the mission, vision, and opportunities of GSM Thailand. No pressure....