ICB Retreat

Earlier this month we spent a weekend out of Bangkok on a church retreat. Along with people from Jamaica, The Congo, Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, Australia, England and other countries from around the world, we feel blessed to call International Church of Bangkok our home church in Thailand. Here's a video a member made of weekend highlights- we just happen to be the opening shot.  Enjoy!

Protest Season

Political protests in Thailand are nothing new, especially in the capitol city of Bangkok.  In recent decades there has been a pattern of major political protests every few years, often resulting in a change of government.  Some of you might recall that there were major protests in Bangkok in 2010 shortly before we moved to Thailand the first time.

Once again, there are major political protests going in Bangkok. Some of the recent political protests in Bangkok have escalated into violence and have started to make international news, so we thought we should at least acknowledge them here on our blog.  Thus far the direct impact to us has been minimal, but we are staying alert.

Here's how things have affected us thus far:

• We've spent a lot more time on local news websites, particularly Twitter, to make sure we know any areas in the city to avoid.
• Traffic.  At times a number of major roads have been blocked by protests.  The result is everyone thinks traffic in central Bangkok will be terrible.  The reality is many people avoid the city and traffic has been remarkably light.
• Some of the half day pre-school kids at Mary's school had to be picked up late from school a few days due to lunch hour protests in the area.  Fortunately the protesters were business people that needed to head back to the office after lunch and things cleared up in the early afternoon.

I'm not a political analyst, so I won't even try to explain the complexity of Thai politics here.  If you're interested in that sort of thing, this link below provides a reasonably concise summary of the current political landscape in Thailand.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1064867

More major protests are planned for this week.  So far our neighborhood has not been directly impacted by any of the current protests, but we are paying close attention to what is going on.  During the 2010 protests and ensuing government crackdown our neighborhood was briefly turned into a battle zone as the protesters were driven out of the city center. The link below is to a photo-essay of the government crackdown on the 2010 protests.  Many of the pictures were taken in the street in front of our condo.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/protests_turn_deadly_in_thaila.html

We don't expect a repeat of 2010, but it does serve as a reminder of why it's best to stay alert when protests are going on.

Super Typhoon Haiyan

While the headlines out of the Philippines may have dwindled, the damage of Typhoon Haiyan is still very real.  Six days after the storm hit, my school had the regional director of Childfund (non-profit that has helped over 408,000 children in the Philippines over the past 40 years) do a short presentation for our staff. His children attend my school. After hearing how three of our Filipino staff’s families were spared their lives and not much else; he wanted to educate us on what was happening on the ground. The facts I state in this post are from his presentation.

The logistics of getting help to the people who need it are a nightmare. The Philippines are made up of 7000 islands, 2000 of those inhabited. 36 provinces were devastated by the category 5 storm. It was possibly the worse storm ever recorded. They are not prepared with earth moving equipment to clear roads and getting the right equipment in is expensive, plus it takes time.  I hadn't thought of this before, but the water and wind damaged not only the infrastructure above ground- schools, homes, health faculties- it also ruined all infrastructure below ground fuel reservoirs, sewer pipes, water pipes, and  the electrical system

My school has many Filipinos on staff. Three related staff has been praying for their families ever since Haiyan, locally called Yolanda, hit their homes. My school immediately formed a committee to help raise funds to give them to send to their families. So far between donations, a bake sale, and causal for a cause Fridays we've raised over 100,000 Thai Baht, around $3,300 USD.

My co-worker Noren works in the classroom right next to me and has been willing to share with me how her family is doing.  All the photos on this post came from her sister in the past two weeks. They have been able to get money to the Philippines and it has been used to buy rice, propane for cooking, water, and other canned goods. Her family believes they have found a good resource for obtaining the basic necessities. However, they are concerned about a young baby in the family. At the time of storm, there were over 200,000 pregnant woman and 135,000 lactating women. Young children have a high risk of malnutrition during a time of crisis. The community in which my co-workers family lives have come together to live in structures still standing. Everyone is taking care of everyone.

My school’s committee leading the fundraising efforts is made up of parents and teachers. Their plan is to set up appeal efforts throughout the next two terms and into the next school year. Noren and her family plan on using the money to help rebuild their community and take care of themselves. As she told me, “They can only trust that God will provide.”

If you are out and about Christmas shopping and don’t quite know what to get someone, consider giving a gift towards helping Noren and her family in the Philippines.  If you’re interested, please send me an email, mary.k.macleod@gmail.com and I can give you the details. Otherwise, please continue to keep the Philippines and their people in your prayers. 

Kanchanaburi

It's been a few weeks since we've managed to escape the city for a weekend, but we finally managed to get away on Saturday and Sunday to the mountains in the nearby province of Kanchanaburi (about a 3 hour drive)

Our resort was along the River Kwai Noi, not far from the boarder with Myanmar.  It was quite close to the Sai Yok Noi waterfall.  We've been to this waterfall before, about 3 years ago, but it was during the dry season and there wasn't any water.  Seeing it again after the recent rains was much better.  The Thai people in the pictures are our friends Nun and Yo who we were traveling with.  Nun is featured in the top middle picture below shortly before she took an unintended bath.

Just a typical Sunday riding elephants around the mountains:

On the way back to Bangkok we made a short side trip to the Sri Nakharin Dam.  We may need to make another weekend trip here sometime for kayaking and fishing.

We're back to the city for now; refreshed and looking forward to the next time we can get out and explore more of Thailand.

Lost in Translation

We are lucky to live in an SE Asia city that caters to the tourists and expats. When going to restaurants in downtown and in the Bangkok area, there is usually a menu in English. We can usually tell immediately if they just used Google translator or had a person/company help them accurately put the Thai into English.

When you happen upon a restaurant using a word-by-word translation method you can end up with some... let's say unique... menu items.

Here is a list of menu items all from one Thai restaurant that was located in the neighborhood we stayed when we first came back in July. Some of them you can figure out... some of them you just have no idea!

• Prison Break Trailer
• Topping
• New Octopus Garden
• I hope the Lemon
• Plaza Forum
• A Golden Needle Mushroom Butter
• Stir in Spagetthi Drunk
• Dip Fish Balls Roughly
• Ancient Fish
• New Items in the Chicken

Slum Fires

One of the unfortunate realities of life in Bangkok is the threat of slum fires.  Bangkok's shanty town slums are tightly packed with makeshift houses allowing fires to spread rapidly.  The lack of streets through the shanty towns also makes it difficult for emergency vehicles to access these areas.  Recently there have been two different slum fires close to our condo.  Those affected by the fires are some of the poorest people in Bangkok to begin with, and many people lost their homes and all their belongings in the these fires. Fortunately nobody was killed.

The first set of pictures is from the Pai Sing Toh slum fire.  This is about a 15 minute walk from our condo.

The second fire was in the Rum Gao area of the Khlong Toey slums.  This was a much larger fire, but was also farther away from our condo.  The close up photos are from Coconuts Bangkok news site while the distant photos are taken from our condo.

Keep those affected by these devastating fires in your prayers.

Eid Al-Adha

One of the inquiry themes for the Year 1 students at AISB is Celebrations. Instead of taking 6-8 weeks to learn about different world/religion/family traditions in isolation, we take them as we come and make it an integrated part of our year.  At Meet the Teacher Night, I encouraged parents to let me know when their families would be celebrating different holidays or events. Today was the first day someone has taken me up on it.

Today was the Muslim Holy Day, Eid-Al-Adha. One of my Muslim student's mom thought it was important for her daughter to understand about the day in her own setting. The giving of gifts is very common as part of this celebration as well as a shared meal so, we had a special Eid-Al-Adha cake for lunch. It was a teachable moment for me for a few reasons: 1) I was able to explain that it was not a birthday cake, but a cake to celebrate an important day. 2) Celebrating Eid-Al-Adha fit right into our week's theme of studying Egypt, where today is a national holiday. 

 My student was quite proud to share about the day and I think her mom deserves credit for helping her celebrate at school. 

Our Cake
Eid Mubarak is the traditional greeting for today. It translates as, "Have a blessed Eid"

Here is a good article I found that helps explain how this day is celebrated and why. Link

However, the celebration did not stop there. At the end of the day I was brought a special treat of Beef Curry for Greg and I to have for dinner. She explained that this would be on the table for their big celebration tonight with friends. She also explained that in Muslim areas that there is no beef, camel meat is a good substitution. Can't say I've had Camel Curry before. I confirmed this was beef.

Greg and I served it on top of rice, along side string beans with bacon and street food sweet corn. It was amazing! I'm hoping that the mom bought it from a local restaurant (as opposed to making it homemade) because Greg and I would love to have it again.

To any Muslims reading this blog, Eid Mubarak.