The March 2013 One Hundred Baht Challenge

I read this essay to a group of fellow volunteers and PC staff at a conference this week. The first few paragraphs are excerpted from a previous post but the rest is new.

I'd like to thank my PCV friend, Mike Hamby for his editing help.

I'm taking an online course on global poverty offered by MIT through EdX, one of those free online class websites. The professors, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banjeree are rock stars of sorts in the economic development world. They're renowned for their groundbreaking and often surprising poverty research. One of the lectures topics for the class was on nutrition. Some of the presented material was particularly unexpected to me, until I considered my own life as a broke Peace Corps Volunteer.

Duflo and Banjeree found that when families living below the poverty line were given an additional expenditure for food, they did not buy more food. Instead they bought tastier food. That is to say poor people, rather than bridging their caloric gap with low-cost staple items, bought junk food.

The world's poor are rational agents and I don't mean to make light of their nutrition challenges but I will use this economic paradox to shed light on my own silly Peace Corps-kind of poverty.

A fellow Thailand PCV, also taking the class, pointed out that this is exactly how a PCV behaves when she gets a similar injection of capital in the form of pay day. I’ve been known to eat Mama, Thai instant noodles, twice a day all month long, then go to Bangkok with my pay day surplus and eat only things with cheese.

At site, I may spend one or two dollars per day (well, not this month), but while on bpai-tiao, vacation, I spend like I'm still an entry level accounting assisting living at home, basically I make it rain.

100 Baht, All I Had to My Name

This counter-intuitive consumption pattern came into sharp focus this past month. The events leading up to my self-imposed “March 2013 One Baht Challenge" are something I don’t care to relive, but suffice to say at the beginning of last month, after bpai-tiao in a quaint Northeastern province on the 
Lao border, I still owed several months’ rent and my bank account was tapped out – if the University of Wisconsin could see my bank statements they'd take away my economics degree. I found myself with 100 baht to last until Pay Day- for those of you following along stateside, that's about 3.22 USD.

The "One Hundred Baht Challenge" became the "One Hundred and Fifty Baht Challenge" on a Sunday when I cleaned my house and found an additional fifty baht ($1.60) in change. In a classic poverty trap maneuver I proceeded to go out and spend the fifty baht on my favorite food and frequent topic of conversation, Som Tam, Spicy Papaya Salad.

Could I make it the month on roughly three USD? Would the money last till Pay Day in a Hanukkah-esque miracle? I was lucky Thailand has such a wide offering of instant noodles.

Ill now add the disclaimer that several people offered to bail me out Wall Street-style, including the Bank of Sharon and Elton Langland with its very favorable rates. But I've gotten a number of bailout packages in the past and I felt ready to learn some lesson. So, this is what I had to work with:

1/3 Jar of Peanut Butter
12 Packages of Mama Noodles 
1 Box of Kraft Macaroni
1/2 Bag of Wild Rice
1 Box of Quinoa
2 Bars of Dark Chocolate
1/2 Bag of Sweethearts
6 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 Bottle of Hot Sauce
1 lb. Coffee
1/2 Oyster Sauce
3 Packs M&Ms
1 Roll of Thin Mints

It was clear I would need to supplement this inventory by adding the generosity of the Thai people to my list.  I was  on the hunt for free food. And in unexpected ways this selfish quest changed my life at site for the better.

As most of you know I started out my service in Sukhothai, a Northern province that served as Thailand's first capital in the 13th-15th centuries, and as most of you know I'm no longer there. Security concerns triggered by aggressive overtures from the Nayoke, mayor, meant I would be move to Isan, the culturally Lao Northeastern region. The Safety and Security Officer, Phanuthat, and I took a road trip and I arrived in Nakhon Ratchasima with a van full of stuff and more emotional baggage than I had planned on bringing along.

In Sukhothai I had a very caring relationship with the women of my sub-district office. In the aftermath of the security incident I thought my Tessaban ladies would have my back, in a way the hierarchical political structure didn't allow. In hindsight, I can understand many of the cultural constraints on my relationship with these women, but I left Sukhothai feeling burned.

The incident, in my mind, really highlighted my status as an outsider and caused me to turn inwards instead of out to my community when searching for stability at my new site. I sought to be highly self-sufficient, hoping my “healthy boundaries” would endear me to my colleagues and neighbors in my new sub-district, Takhob. I knew they would appreciate how well I could make it on my own. I never asked for rides. I came and went without fanfare. I did all my own cooking. I spent lots more time cultivating relationships with other PCVs.

But after a few months of feeling increasingly isolated, I began to wonder if one man’s "healthy boundaries" are a Thai man’s unnecessary emotional walls.  My attempts to stay an emotional arm’s length may have been seen as disinterest in my community.

I had trapped myself in a negative feedback loop. As I projected “okayness” to my community members, they rightly assumed I was “okay” and reached out less. Un-ironically the less they reached out the less “okay” I was.

This destructive cycle might have continued had I not completely run out of money, and in a surprise twist, came to my senses.

Now, let me now disclaim, if things had gotten "that bad," someone would have sent me money. But after taking stock of my meagerly stocked house, I realized if I really wanted to turn my humiliating tale of poverty into a heroic one, I would need to rely on the people I had assumed I should not to rely on.

Sharing a meal

The very gracious teachers and karatchagan, civil servants, at my schools and Tessaban respectively, always offer to share lunch with me. Typically, I wouldn't take them up on it, in an effort to not be a mooch. In March, having no money to speak of, how could I refuse their generosity?

Civil Servants having lunch at the Tessaban

Kuhn Yai, the grandmother, across the street called out nearly every day for me to join her family for dinner. I had previously erred on the side of self-reliance, but now thought it was as good a time as any to sit down to a meal with my favorite Yai.

Kuhn Yai Dancing at a Monk Ordination

When passing a monk ordination or a wedding on my bike and I would smile yell, "sawatdi ka," hello, and keep riding, basically ignoring calls to join in the festivities. During the challenge month,  hunger coupled with  no pretense of anything better to do, led me to stop and partake in the food and dancing.

Now, I would like to point out the I'm not a complete monster. I absolutely planned on replaying at least a little of the generosity. When I got paid I would really doll out the kanoms, sweet Thai snacks.

A new feedback loop started to take shape, this time a positive one. The more I sat down with my coworkers, neighbors, and fellow party-goers, the more comfortable it was. I felt better about sharing and enjoying the abundance in my tight-knit farming community. I reached out, not because I had to but because I wanted to.

I can't help but be reminded of the familiar "Rom Com" trope: boy using girl or girl using boy for some ulterior motives before the rouse turns into real love. This is the plot for half of all movies.

My integration attempts may have started out with, albeit benign, ulterior motives but they became as genuine as a Hypothetical Male Lead’s contrite confessions.

Maybe unsurprisingly to you the reader, when I started reaching out instead of in, things began to change. Not only did my community endear itself to me through their generosity and kindness, but...

In my efforts to radiate self-sufficiency, I neglected to realize that it's not highly valued here. There are a few English phrases that almost everyone here knows and uses with some frequency. One is: "take care." That "taking care" is one of the primary ideas Thailand would like to convey to the English-speaking world tells you a lot about its culture of generosity.  This didn't manifest itself to me until I began to let them do just that, "take care". I realized I needed taking care of and many people jumped into to do just that. And completely surprising to me, they seemed to enjoy it. They showed me nam jai, generosity, and I learned just how powerful and genuine this core Thai belief is. Literally, nam jai means water heart or the essence of the heart, but it's more encompassing definition of generosity, thoughtfulness, hospitality, and charitableness is reflected in every aspect of the social sphere. Letting my friends, neighbors, and coworkers "take care" and show me nam jai was letting them share a part of their culture I had thus far neglected to appreciate.

By the kindness of neighbors, my sad-sack self ended the month with a few servings of quinoa and two cloves of garlic, then behaved exactly like the economists predicted by going out and spending a bunch of money on junk food at Tesco Lotus, Thailand's answer to Walmart. I survived the self-inflicted poverty but the lion’s share of credit goes to my Chumchon Takhob, community for showing me the nam jai I finally learned to accept.
  

Notes from Below the Poverty Line

I'm taking an online course on global poverty offered by MIT through a website called EdX. The professors, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banjeree are rock stars of sorts in the economic development world. They're renowned for their  groundbreaking and often surprising poverty research. Last week's class was on nutrition and one of their findings presented in the lecture was particularly unexpected to me until I considered my own life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Duflo and Banjeree found that when families living below the poverty line were given an additional expenditure for food, did not buy more food. Instead they bought tastier food. That us to say poor people, rather than bridging their caloric gap with low-cost staple items just bought junk food.

The world's poor are rational agents and I don't mean to make light of their nutrition challenges but I will use this economic paradox to shed light on my own silly Peace Corps-kind of poverty.

My friend, Sarah, pointed out that this is exactly how a PCV behaves when she gets a similar injection of capital in the form of pay day. Sarah and I have been known to eat ramen noodle soup two meals a day all month long, then go to Bangkok with our pay day surplus and eat nothing but pizza and McDonald's (one of the great ironies of my service is how much more often I eat McDonald's in Thailand than I do in the States).

I make roughly $310 US per month (for those of you following along at home that's about $3600 per year- which makes my parents happy because they can still claim me as a dependent this year), but I don't spend $10 per day. It's feast or famine or me. I've often said that if the University of Wisconsin could see my bank statements they'd take away my economics degree. At site I may spend one or two dollars per day, but on vacation bpai-tiao, vacation,  I spend like I'm still an entry level accounting assisting living with her parents; basically I make it rain.

This counter-intuitive consumption pattern is particularly accurate for me this month, having already blown through most of my monthly $310. Paying three different month's rent this week has left me high and dry.

I have 100 baht to get me through till March 25th. Can I make through the month on three dollars? I'll keep you posted. Lets just say, I'm glad Thailand has so many available flavored of ramen.

If I make it, one day Ill be telling my children (and probably my grandchildren) about the time I lived on $3 for 21 days, then proceeded to spend a hundred dollars on pizza over the course of a weekend in Bangkok.

Thai'm

"If I had a minute for every hour I wasted, I'd be doing fine on time."
             -Jack Johnson

I haven't blogged in a while because Peace Corps gives me low-grade depression...and well, depression isn't funny. So I've spared you, the reader, from the last month of my life, which can be described in a word as a bummer (Though I have high hopes for February).

But in an effort to both look on the bright side and prove to all of us that I haven't fallen off the map, I've decided to blog about all the free time I have.

In my real life I would never waste my time with origami. This isn't because I'm so busy and productive it's just that I can find better ways to waste time. In the wifi-wasteland that is my one-room concrete apartment, origami is one way I keep my brain from falling out.

I've also stepped up my podcast game. Economic broadcasting is my bitch. And shout out to Ira Glass for recording 485 hours of on-demand radio gold. Ira, if you are reading this and planning an episode on time-wasting, I can be reached for interviews in between the hours of 11 pm and 4 am EST.

After sliding through both high school and college without actually reading an entire book besides Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I am proud to announce in the last year, I've read twenty-three. Thanks you, Nook. Confession time: if at any time in the previous seven years of my life, I compared notes with you on a book, I probably just skimmed  and/or Spark Note'd it. Someday in 2014, Stateside, let's you and I have a real convo about books, now that I'm a bonafide reader.

Books are great, especially for waiting in train stations, but that bulk of my awake time (when I'm not eating mangoes, of course) i spent watching illegally-downloaded TV on my laptop.  I've powered through some quality dramas like West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, but a lot of what I watch is mindless girl-power comedy. After a long day of speaking Thai and writing proposals for organic farming seminars no one attend, it's time to live vicariously through Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Zooey Deschanel. I watch HBO's Girls, for the opposite reason: to feel better about not being young and single in the city.

In the Peace Corps I also have time to list things. So here is a non-exhaustive list of time-killing things I do in Thailand.

1. Origami. This aforementioned activity is my primary creative outlet
2. Digital Scrap-booking. My second creative outlet is spending hundreds of hours (not figuratively) photo-archiving my life and presenting it in a way that makes it look like I enjoy my time here.
3. Reading New York Times Best-Sellers. The Help was better than I anticipated.
4. Watching the movie version of books I just read. Again, The Help, better than average.
5. Making paper beads that I'll never turn into jewelry. I don't even count this as creative.
6. Eating unripe fruit. In the States, I just buy ripe fruit, but here munching on unripe papayas dipped in sugar with the office ladies is a good way to kill an afternoon.
7. Yoga. I hate yoga, 'nuff said.
8. Talking on the phone. Why talk when you can text? I'll tell you why: Starvation for English-language interaction.
9. Mall Walking. There's air-conditioning!
10. Making spreadsheets. I'm not going to pretend this is a new thing for me. But rating each day of Peace Corps on a scale from one to ten and then graphing it is extreme even for me.
11. Blogging. Please read my blog!

Legacy

There's this really funny story the ladies at my Tessaban, office, tell me during lunch at least once a week. It's hilarious. Ready? Here it is:

One time Shelby cooked lunch for us. She made vegetable stir-fry. She put all the different kinds of vegetables in it. The end. 

First you should know, Shelby is my Peace Corps predecessor. She served in my village, Takhob from 2010-2011. And then you should know how much the Tessaban  raconteurs love this story. They can't spit it all out before breaking into raucous laughter. It's apparently comical and a little scandalous. And though I can't tell you definitively why this is a funny, much less scandalous story,  I will say outside-of-the-box cooking is not a thing here. Adding all the vegetables, unheard of. Ergo hilarious?

What strikes me most about Vegetablegate, is that it's Shelby's Takhob legacy. This is how she is remembered.  Shelby herself told me she worked on water buffalo diary, solid water disposal, and environmental education. But what does our community remember? The time she cooked pak tuk yang, all the vegetables. 

This has got me thinking of my own Peace Corps legacy. I'm approaching the one-year mark and "How will they remember me?" is the burning question. I like to think I'll be remembered for my ground-breaking community development projects. But if no one remembers Shelby's cool projects, the chances they'll remember my composting efforts are remote.

Still, I'm sure when I'm gone they will still mention their second favorite farang from time to time. The only clue I have, as to how I will be remembered by my T-ban, is the "stories" they currently share about me with the same raucous laughter. Here are some candidates for my legacy:

This is our farang, El. She puts a whole spoon of chili peppers in her noodle soup.

El's parents send chocolate for American holidays. Oh man, we love that chocolate. 

El wears her shoes in the house. She is such a silly farang.

The farang made spaghetti one time. It was not spicy.

Our farang is beautiful like a Thai person, she has many Thai shirts. But her hair is not like a Thai person's. 

El has a weird purse she got in Cambodia made out of trash. I bet it only cost one baht.

Look what happened to El when she was at the beach! She is much uglier now that her skin is black.

El loves to have fun. She smiles a lot too.

I hope it's the last one. If I can't be remembered for my work as a volunteer, maybe I can be remembered for being nice.

Weekend Vignettes

You know you both complain and text too much when your texting buddy, after not hearing from you for 24 hours, thinks you’ve early terminated your Peace Corps service. Thanks for being there, Joel. Sorry my phone was dead.

Today I went to Thailand’s answer to the box store, Big C. They had a sale on electric fly zappers. I thought about it and seemed kind of wanton to zap all the flies. Now at home I’m swarmed by flies and zapping them seems like a nobler pursuit.

The furniture count is at two. I bought a table this weekend! I have a table; I am officially a real adult.

My corner neighbor teaches the neighborhood children English every Saturday and Sunday. When parents drive by to pick-up/drop-off their kids, they probably notice the lazy Farang, napping in plain sight, not teaching English. They probably wonder what good it is having a pet white person if she isn’t even going to teach English.

Caged Wisdom

Serving a "light treason" sentence in federal prison, George Bluth -the patriarch in my all time favorite TV show, Arrested Development- has a vision of the Star of David and converts to his understanding of Judaism. He then markets his new-found Judaic wisdom in a series of self-help video tapes. These Caged Wisdom tapes urge viewers to learn to be alone, among other things.

Before joining the Peace Corps, “aloneness” was my primary fear. There's nothing more horrifying then being alone with my thoughts. Actually, in my Peace Corps interview, when asked if I had any country preferences, I said I would go anywhere I didn't have to live alone.

And yet, here I am sixteen months later, relishing living alone in my panic room of an apartment. I've developed a variety of coping mechanisms. I watch hours of illegally-downloaded American television; I tame my inner monologue by framing it all blog posts and Facebook statuses.  It’s still overwhelming to have so much"self-reflection" time, but while staring out at an army of gregarious Thai neighbors, solitude is no longer my number one fear.

I’m still learning to cohabitate with my thoughts My thoughts are beginning to seem more like a friend who must be reigned in from time to time and less like an enemy that must be dominated through constant activity and social interaction.  I’m making peace with my brain.

Tequila! or why this Post is not about What You Think it is About

In 6^th grade after getting as good as I'd ever be at the violin without practicing, I decided to try my unpracticing hand at the French horn. In the first week of 6^th grade band I learned to play Hot Crossed Buns. By Winter Concert I could play Hot Cross Buns and the few measures of the 1958 hit, Tequila! (I wouldn’t understand the exclamation after Tequila for several more years).

Tequila! Was the first song in the set.  I played a few bars and sat back to pretend to play for the rest of the concert. Actually, sitting back might have been my first mistake, as this is not the proper posture for French Horn playing. I would press the keys and inflate my cheeks unconvincingly. While pretending to play I’d be distracted by the unlit scoreboard or a sneezing parent.  Then I’d go back to making chipmunk cheeks for a few bars until I started fantasizing about the trumpeter I had a crush on. My first visit to Sukhothai was a lot like my first French Horn concert.

In Sukhothai, my soon-to-be coworkers drove me around in a government van to meet every dignitary (and I use this word loosely) in town.  At each office, after I flashed a big toothy Thai smile and wai’d like a pro, the Tequila! charade would begin.  My three minute Thai introduction was much like the first few notes of the song, well-rehearsed but hard to listen to. My Thai elevator speech prompted each administrator to turn to my counterpart for a Thai-to-Thai translation. From then on I was bypassed in all my conversations. I sat back and listened as the more competent people played the songs…I mean spoke Thai.

I would try to pay attention. There was a lot to be gleaned from the 40% of my own resume I understood. Luckily I’m more motivated to learn Thai than I was brass instruments. But there were so many things to look at, things much more interesting than anything in the Sandburg Middle School gym.

For one, in the early stages of reading Thai, every word is like a puzzle I must solve. It won’t surprise you to learn that I dig puzzles. For me, all of Thailand is covered in the New York Times Friday Crossword (Friday because I can only get about a third of it). I dare you to conduct an interview in a room wall-papered in crosswords.

Strange Mountains in Sukhothai

Then in the conversation I catch the word “gaan-ga-seet.” Oh okay, I know this one…agriculture. I’m going to be working in agriculture. I focused my attention on whichever unfortunate low-ranking official I was meeting with, smile and repeat, “gaan-ga-seet.”

Suddenly I’m in fine sixth grade form, puffing my cheeks like a pro, feigning comprehension and interest. I fix my attention on the Director of Informal Education but just behind are these weird round mountains that just demand attention.

I think my PC Training Manager worried I might lack concentration because during me Placement Interview she asked me if I get bored easily. I wouldn't say bored. My own thoughts scare me but they never bore me. I told her no. 

My band director probably worried the same thing but playing in the band never bored me either, I had plenty of thoughts to keep me busy while my classmates played instruments. 

I've gotten a little better at covering my tracks. In 6th grade when everybody stood up to yell, "Tequila!" at the end of the song, (is this appropriate for middle school?) I just sat there stupidly realizing much too late I missed my cue. At the Office of Agriculture I zoned in just in time to give another wai and thank the officer very much for his time. And my character has developed some too. After the winter concert I quit band so I would never have to play in a concert again. After Sukhothai I went back to Sing Buri to work my ass off learning Thai so I will rock all future interviews.

Thai-cycle

Bike-riding or cycling, as the pros call it, is an integral part of Peace Corps Thailand. Today's training was devoted to the sport.

In the states I'm really not much of a biker, so I may have exaggerated my enthusiasm for biking to the Peace Corps when they asked if I would be willing to bike 10-15 miles/day. But today I was glad I did. Today's 18 km trail ride was just the stimulant I needed as when beginning a three-month home-stay.

Our trek took us through our village, Bang Rachan's scenic riverways and Thai-style residences. We also passed rice paddies, temples, cows, and a couple dozen horny dogs. My home-stay anxiety was replaced by excitement for living in such a beautiful place surrounded by gracious people who came out to wave at our parade of farangs.

After the biking was a bike maintenance. This was a buzz kill. And on a side note, I saw a monkey walking on a power line yesterday.

Irreplaceable

Thursday December 22^nd in my last day at Polypro, but I may still be answering my cell phone with "Polypro International, El speaking," for a while. I was hired as a temporary accounting assistant after graduation, but managed to earn my keep while the Peace Corps toyed with my emotions for several months. My departure has been inevitable since day one so it shouldn’t bother me that I’m being replaced.

As we speak, my superiors are interviewing a ginger named Stephanie with an actual accounting background. It's a good thing you can't see my face from the conference room, because I'm seething. 

Polypro and I have had a good working relationship. Despite having to field the occasional call from Halliburton, I've enjoyed counting money there. And I think Polypro likes me back. We're amicably parting ways as I go off to chase my dreams in Asia. I guess I’m happy that Polypro and Stephanie found each other. But honestly, I can't bear the possibility that they may not miss me.

I can hear Stephanie making our comptroller laugh. I’m quietly growling. Now the logistics person is chuckling. My ego can’t bear it.

So what if Stephanie ends up being a better accountant. I just don’t want her to be funnier than me.

Losing My Religion

This isn't me, but I wish it were.

I had a sneaking suspicion Huy Fong Sriracha sauce wasn’t actually Thai. I guess I should have known all along. First clue:  the label is in Vietnamese. Second clue:  I never ate it or saw anyone eating it while I was in Thailand. Wikipedia, however, assured me that it’s an authentic Thai condiment named after the industrial seaport, Si Racha, I once drove through.

Before my suspicions were confirmed, it had felt fitting that the Peace Corps should send me to the home of my favorite food. I believed the Hot Sauce gods were rewarding me for once eating a whole spoonful of Rooster Sauce on a dare. “You are a true disciple,” the gods would tell me in a dream, “You belong in a PC country where you can continue to damage your esophagus with very spicy food.” Hot sauce is my religion-hot sauce and Star Wars.

Then I got the bad news. There is nothing like Huy Fong Sriracha in Thailand. According to some current volunteers, there may or may not be some other red chili sauce the masquerades as Sriracha, but it’s not like Huy Fong Brand bottled joy.

Now I have no choice but to fill every spare inch of my Thailand luggage with fake Thai hot sauce. #Paradox

This is so real.

Pan-Asia

As the holidays grow near, anxiety has replaced just a tiny bit of my unbridled Peace Corps enthusiasm. Missing two Christmases with my family- known throughout the upper Midwest for its strict adherence to Holiday traditions- is sad for me. Among other things, I will dearly miss the Langland Family Trim-the-Tree party, a trip downtown Minneapolis for Holiday dining and a parade, and Christmas day with relatives in Chicagoland.

To curb the sense of loss, I’m choosing to spend my “free time” at Polypro (my heart’s just not in guar gum these days) not thinking about the holidays but instead pumping myself up for Thailand. I’m making a list of all the places in South and Southeast Asia I want to visit. I mean, I also day dream about all the development goals I will realize as a Community-Based Organizational Development worker, but when I really want to get stoked I think about travel.

At the risk of sounded jaded, “Ugh, I’ve already seen everything good in Thailand.” Kidding. Any more excitement about returning to Thailand would probably make my heart stop.  But still, most of the sites on my Asia hit-list are elsewhere on the continent. 

Unfortunately after taking a Quantitative Methods class, I can’t even muse over travel without organizing my thoughts in Excel. So I made a spreadsheet with my top ten travel destinations. Then I put them here. 

1. Cambodia.

            Angkor Wat. The world's largest religious structure? Meh, sounds alright.

2. Indonesia.

           Bali. A must if you like sunsets and long walks on the beach.

           Komodo Island. I want to feed the komodos a flamingo.

3. India.

          Delhi. My aunt is moving here. I suppose I should visit while I'm in the neighborhood.

          The Himalayas. So far the Andes are my favorite place on earth. These mountains could top

          them. Pun intended.   

          The Taj Mahal. A classic Bucket List destination.

4. Vietnam.

         Halong Bay. I realized I wanted go here when I read it will be on a new list of Seven Natural 

         Wonders.

5. Sri Lanka. Hella exotic.

6. China.

        Beijing. I want to go to there.

        The Great Wall. Come with me, and bring a large memory card for your camera.

7. Philippines.

        Puerto Princesa Cave. So many of the new Seven Wonders are in Asia!

8. The Maldives. See them before they're gone.

9. Laos. 

         Buddha Park. I went to the fake Buddha Park in Thailand it was spectacular. Can't wait to see

         the real deal.

10. Singapore. I will miss chewing gum but it'll be worth it.         

       

Fellow volunteers and potential visitors, sign up here on my 
spreadsheet if you want to visit these places with me ;)

Inappropriate Emotional Outbursts

I think my first read will be The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo.Everyone else is reading it
and I think I will too

Leading up to Thanksgiving I played the whole leaving-the-country-for-two-years thing pretty cool. When people would ask if I was nervous, I’d let them know, “Primarily I’m excited. My job is boring and Minnesota is cold.”

Then Thanksgiving happened. Once again the Duffy Family wowed me with their love and generosity. My Grandma, aunts, uncles, and eight or so cousins all chipped in for the perfect Peace Corps companion, an e-reader, plus a compilation of their favorite books (it's like they knew I would need suggestions for books that don't have, "economics" in the title).

As my friend Alisa once pointed out, I’m a bad present-receiver. My snarky, insincere voice makes it hard to show appreciation even when I really dig a gift. So when I started sobbing on Thanksgiving, it may have been my first-ever convincing display of gratitude.

The whole incident, while heart-warming, has been bad for my street cred. The teary out-pouring pushed open opened my ocular flood gates and I’ve been crying off and on ever since. I cried when we decorated the Christmas tree, I cried when I heard the insufferable Elvis rendition of Blue Christmas, and I sniffled a little at work today while I added dates to a 2012 calendar. Odds are that I will cry many more times before January 8^th. And the worst part is I tell people, “Oh yeah, I’m not really a crier.”

Eating Cheesesteak Next to the Liberty Bell

Apparently I was in Philadelphia in 1992.  I don’t remember it, so I was really looking forward to a brief sojourn in Ben Franklin’s home town  while the Peace Corps shot me up with the typhoid vaccine. I made a  Philly "hits list" and then preceded to tell everyone I know that on January 6^th (or 7th) I would eat my first ever Philly Cheesesteak on the steps of Independence Hall, basking in the copper glory of the Liberty Bell. If my last US meal was a greasy meat sandwich next to a beloved American bell, I could die happy, or at least leave for Bangkok happy. Then, if I got around to it I would go see the fictional site of Paddy’s Pub.

I was very sure that staging was in Philadelphia. My mind’s eye had seen it written all over the place. It was clearly noted in my invitation packet and written on the walls of PC Mecca, Peace Corps Wiki.

So in a “Classic El” move I shared with the other volunteers that staging was in Philadelphia. I think they were jealous that the Peace Corps chose me as the sole recipient of this knowledge.

I’m kidding, because as you may have guessed the news wasn’t broken on any of those sources. Nowhere does it say where Group 124 has staging. Last year’s group went through Philly. So I guess I read that and “over-connected” the dots.

Already being the laughing-stock of PC Thailand I can deal with but I’m struggling with the cheesesteak insecurity. Not being a beef fan, they may look better than they taste. But dammit, they’re as American as the Liberty Bell and that’s good enough for me.

Siam I Am

After weeks of cursing the words "Peace" and "Corps," I was contacted by the Agriculture Placement Specialist who asked if I would be okay serving Asia. Ready to accept any kind of certainty, I gave him an emphatic, "Yes!"

Almost immediately I began brainstorming names for my future blog.  There were so many good ones it was hard to decide ;) I like naming blogs almost as much as I like naming my hypothetical band.

My departure to Philadelphia is set for January 6th, with departure to Thailand two days later. I am thrilled to begin work in my field, agribusiness ( I knew that Economic Development in SE Asia course would pay off one day) and thrilled to be returning to the Land of Smiles.

I look forward to your feedback and comments on this blog.