My new favorite item from Seven. Red Bean Panbread.
It's amazing how fast you can adjust to a place. We are starting to actually understand the area around us, and are even improving our Thai fairly quickly! We are constantly doing activities or classes... I think it is to distract us from feeling homesick. We have had a lot of group building activities, as the Development & Globalization program is highly group oriented. We will be doing all of our journalism, photography, interviews, newspapers, projects, etc. together! An activity I particularly enjoyed was called Elements, where we each explored which Thai Element we most identified with: Air, Water, Fire, or Earth. We discussed the strengths and weaknesses of our elements (mine is Air), then matched up with other Elements to discuss different points of view. We also met one of the students who was arrested for holding up the illegal Mockingjay 3 finger salute from the HungerGames (this is illegal in Thailand, as it shows dissent against the military coup). A student activist group came to talk with us, and we will be working closely with them throughout the semester. They also enter communities and investigate issues that are often disregarded here in Isaan (the Northeast region).
We are learning how to properly understand the communities we will be a part of. It reminds me of a “Humans of New York How To 101”... (the popular blog Humans of New York investigates people's life stories through photo journalism). We must consider their geo-social influences (areas of the community that are important and serve specific functions), geneological relationships, community history (harvesting, holidays, migrations, etc), medical beliefs/practices, and personal life narratives. We are learning how to do this ourselves, and will proceed to do features on community members that we talk to (with the help of our wonderful translator Ajaan John). We will be investigating issues of land, agriculture, development, sustainability, mining, politics, environment, and more.
Today we officially became KKU students and registered with the university, after meeting the President and painfully introducing ourselves in Thai! Here, most people have Thai nicknames, and I have actually gotten one! It is yim with a rising tone, or “Smiley”!
Today we also got our first city tour, which was certainly exciting. We are in class from 8 to 5 (or later) every day, and we haven't completely gotten a chance to explore on our own. The city is full of opportunity and beauty!
We even went to a temple today where it is customary to receive your fortune for 1 baht (3 cents). You shake a can of plastic rods, each with a number. You must shake it in such a way that only one rod falls out. Then you can read the fortune of the number fated for you! If it is not a good one (which mine was not particularly), you can leave it with the sacred trees and not carry it with you, and it will be resolved!
This weekend I will be going on a meditation retreat at the home of a monk, and I am really looking forward to it. We will also be starting our first homestay on Monday, where we will be staying in the slum community here in Khon Kaen.
Posing with the (horrifying) KKU graduation mannequins