Camping trip

Two pictures from our camping trip a few weeks back. This is at Khao Yai ("Big Mountain") Nat'l park in the NE of Thailand. On the left we are crossing one of the more stable bridges along our hikes. The waterfall on the right is the one that Leo D. jumped off of in The Beaches movie, filmed mostly down south in Thailand.

October is Bit Term (bit means off), which translates to VACATION!! No school in October. I started the month meeting up w peace corps friends in Bangkok for a little GAD (Gender and Development) meeting. We get together once a quarter to discuss gender in Thailand. Where to begin... The culture of gender is quite different than in the states. I could write a book about it, but in a desire not to bore you, I will simply tell you one story that was mentioned at the meeting. A man had given his wife HIV after contrcating it from visiting a prostitute. Her response: "I am sorry I didn't satisfy you and you had to go to a prositute." Don't read any sarcasm in that, because she meant none. I told this story to some other Peace Corps volunteers who have been in the country about 9 months. Unfortunately none were surprised by her response. This story is representative because a) it is common and acceptable for men to visit prostitutes, b)condom use and HIV prevention is LOW c)women are often second class citizens.

After the GAD meeting, at which I became an offical board member and now will be planning a confrence for other PC Volunteers on Life Skills development, I took a train up north w Tara. Most of the way we had the train alll to ourselves, untill HUNDREDS of teenage girls packed in on their way to a girls scout trip. They great thing about traveling in Thailand is hardly anyone can understand English, so we could go on with our conversation as if in total private.

Tara and I were headed to the NE of Thailand to meet up w 20 other volunteers, each with a counterpart from their local community. The focus of the confrence was HIV/AIDS development. There was lots of activities focusing on AIDS facts and sharing information, and lots of time to work on developing projects back at our sites.

My counterpart Khun Siweporn and I planned a confrence in which we'd like to train 30 local health volunteers to go back to their communities and do HIV prevention workshops. It is a big project, but should be great if we can get it done.

After this HIV/AIDS confrence I headed to Khao Yai national park with Kevin, Dana, Chris, Dave, and Tom. It is a really great National Park with all sorts of wildlife. We went on a 4 hour hike where the guide brought a machete because the train was so overgrown. At one point we saw a family of 5 or 6 monkeys playing in the trees right by us for a while. We saw some big spiders. No Elephants, but some tracks and droppings. And we saw billions of leeches. Not the big thick kind, but little squirmy guys that like to suck your blood. We wore these big sock booties that tie at your knees to stop the leeches. Mostly it just have us time to flick them off before they made their way to skin. They move fast.