First Home Visit

My volunteer placement is with Christian AIDS Ministry (CAM), which works on HIV/AIDS awareness, education, and prevention in Chiang Mai. As part of their mission, they also conduct home visits to local villages in the northern districts to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS receive the care and access to medicines that they need. After a week or so of reading materials and getting up to speed on their work, I had my first experience out "in the field".

We began by visiting a slum area here in the city where about 300 people live. The minister and director of CAM was doing a home visit to a woman living with HIV. Since there were a few of us foreigners with him, the woman agreed to tell us her story. A member of a local hill tribe family, she was sold to a brothel near the northern border at the age of 11. Since she spoke Lahu (rather than Thai), whenever she met a man who spoke her language, she would tell him about her situation and ask for his help in escaping. One man finally did help her get out, but the brothel owner found her and sent her to a brothel down south. She escaped again and found her way to Chiang Mai. She now lives in a "home" she put together out of plywood. She has HIV, but is not open about her status out of fear of discrimination. She has taken in a younger woman who is a refugee and also has HIV. They live in the one-room home and make a living from selling items or giving back massages on the street. They use water from a hole for cooking and relieve themselves outside.

We sat there listening to their stories and trying to imagine how they live. As undocumented ethnic minorities and refugees, they don't qualify for healthcare benefits like Thai citizens do. CAM helps women like this get anti-retro viral meds that prolong their lives. The minister offered to pray with the women and asked them what they need. One woman asked for a new home and the other wanted a toilet. We sat around them in a circle, joined hands and prayed with them.

The next morning I arrived at work to find the minister hauling a toilet in the back of his truck to bring to the women. -Rachel

Loi Kratong Festival

Hey folks: I realize Rachel and I haven't (quite) lived up to the "new postings daily" commitment, but I wanted to get some images up to let you know we're still here. The pics below are from the Loi Kratong Festival, a three-day festival held throughout Thailand each year, generally in November. The festival marks a few different things, including letting go of one's grudges and giving thanks to the Goddess of Water. It's also an occasion to set off as many fireworks as conceivably possible, sometimes in the middle of large crowds of people. That part is a little nerve-wracking.

This is a floating lantern called a "khom fai" (please correct me if I have the spelling wrong). It's basically a flaming chunk of banana tree (I think) connected to a thin paper lantern - basically a mini-hot air balloon. During Loi Kratong festival-goers launch thousands of these into the sky. I'll try to post some better pics when I have a chance - seeing them all at once is a pretty amazing sight.

Another part of Loi Kratong: beauty pageants and floats. Some of the floats are sponsored by companies and government agencies and are actually anchored in the Ping River nearby for judging. The floats actually...float. Anyway, the pic above is from the two-day parade to show off all the floats and various beauty pageant winners.

This guy (from a Japanese-themed float) is posing as some kind of devil-guy. Not a pageant winner, but still a cool shot.

We'll be posting more soon, specifically with some info on our volunteer work here in Chiang Mai. Check back soon!

Trick-or-Treat...with an Elephant

So, we ran into this guy on our way to a Halloween party last night.

Yes, that's a real elephant. I'm telling you, this kind of thing just happens in Chiang Mai. So we were like, "Wanna hang out?," and he was like, "Pff, sure." For 20 baht (about 70 cents), we fed him a couple of bamboo sticks, which was like a Snickers or a Baby Ruth for him. Then we headed down the street to our party, which was a blast.

Here he's going for my wallet.

The Chiang Mai crew. (Left to right: Guy, Jodi, Rachel, Jen, Jodi's friend. That's not her real hair color, though.) Good times all around. Getting up for work at 7:30 this morning was, uh, challenging.

Some shots from Chiang Mai...

Happiness is a massive open-air night market.

Wat Prathap Doi Suthep, a famous Buddhist temple on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. (Getting a little touch-up right now...)

Little kids love it when random foreigners take pictures of them.

When you come to Thailand, don't be like these two...

At the Great Wall

Here's us at the Great Wall (with just a couple of friends...)

Hello from Chiang Mai!

For all our friends and family who have been wondering why we dropped off the face of the earth in the last month, Rachel and I are launching the Sawat-Dee Blog to keep everyone posted on our (much-delayed) honeymoon. (Sawat-dee is the Thai expression for "Hello.")



We've been in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for about two weeks now. We'll be here until early January volunteering for a pair of human rights / AIDS-awareness NGO's, then traveling all over southeast Asia and India until the end of March.



We started our trip off with a ten-day visit to Beijing, where we spent time with my Dad, his wife Dolly and my youngest brother, Roger. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time, and we'll be posting more of our experiences from China as we develop the blog further. Dad and Dolly - thanks again for your hospitality while we were there!



We plan to post to the blog every day, both to keep in touch with all of you and as a way to keep a journal of our adventure. We would love to hear from you in the comments pages - and if you have ideas on where we should go in SE Asia, that would be great, too! Take care, and thanks for checking up on us.