SP#18

I know I've been deplorably lazy when it comes to the Self Portrait series. It's always, "I'll wait until things calm down," or "...until I've got firmer footing." I'm now starting to think that it's not about gaining a secure foothold, but learning to move WITHOUT one. Life is unpredictable, things are always changing. People coming, people going, what seems like your happy place 10 minutes ago is now your hell, what you thought was a great job is no longer tolerable...Life is in a constant flux and if you're always waiting for the right time to move, well my friend, the time is now! So here is to the old and the new, what was and what will be. Here is to looking ahead even when the ground is shaky. Here's to looking towards the future and letting the sun set on the past! 

Check out Inge Kathleen's new SP#22! 

This land smells of sweet sweet flowers. I first noticed it while zooming home thro the rice fields on my motorbike one evening, singing happily to myself while watching loose lanterns scale into the sky to join the stars. At first it reminded me of the sickly sweet, poignant smell of death and the flowers that lined my grand mother's coffin. But now it will forever remind me of warm Thai evenings, of laying on my back watching Loy Kathong lanterns travel across the sky and setting banana boats free on the ping river.

Thailand just celebrated the gorgeous Loy Kathong festival. We were invited to the local elementary school where the small children rolled out mats and showed us the art of folding banana leaves to decorate our floating banana boats. The boy scouts all practiced lighting and releasing the lanterns into the sky, which is far more difficult than you might think. After three attempts that the lanterns crashed and burned, the children finally hit pay day and off floated their white lantern into the afternoon sky. The children raced after it, running and jumping in excitement!

In the evening, we all made our way to the Ping riverside in Chiang Mai where we stashed prayers on our little banana boats and lit their candles and incense then set them free to sail down the river, far far away. I tied all my fears and worries to a Loy Kathong lantern and sent it sailing to the moon. It was a beautiful moment of bidding farewell to the past and opening my arms wide open to the future. :)

This past few weeks have been jam packed full of incredible things! One of which is the English Camp Travel-to-Teach volunteers put on at the local Buddhist temple, Wat Doi Saket. I've always been a little scared of monks in Thailand, mainly because if a female touches them they have to say a gazillion prayers to be purified again or do penance or something crazy like that. Either way it's bad news bears. But after a week with these baby monks or "novices," it's pretty clear to see that these are just rowdy boys dressed in orange. Here are a few of my favorites from the past week, more to come soon! xx

Introducing...

The wild Travel to Teach volunteers!!

After a long day exploring Chiang Mai on our motorbikes, we cooled off at a beautiful waterfall on the way up to Doi Suthep. The place was absolutely stunning with a natural slide and monks splashing in the water. After a fun time of chasing each other to the top and riding the water down, the boys decided to hop off a cliff into the falls and decided I had to do it with them...and like a crazy person I agreed. I made them go twice before I would go and then I stood there for literally 10minutes staring down and trying to swallow my fear. I had to jump over a rope tire swing and aim for the waterfall's V, the deepest portion of the pool. I had been dared to do cliff jumping once before while up in the boundary waters only from an even greater height and I chickened out. But this time I was determined...I told everyone if I died it was their fault, took a running step, and hopped off. When I came up my body was still humming from the adrenaline rush and I was smiling SO big and SO proud of myself!

I like to keep my quota of firsts pretty high as it makes life loads more interesting and in one day I managed to do TWO firsts: jump off a cliff into a waterfall and munch bugs...

This is the story of how I convinces a group of innocent volunteers to eat the biggest, ugliest bug at the Chiang Mai Sunday market...

After a day of motorbike explorations, we sat in a small cafe near Thapae Gate sipping fruity smoothies and cooling down. On my second sip I had an epiphany, "Let's eat bugs today!" Every Sunday a sweet little Thai lady gathers all her dead, partially dead, or soon to be dead bugs and heads to the market place to show her munchable friends to oogling foreigners and bug loving Thais. I had been waiting for just the right moment to dare a group of people (preferably males) to a bug munching competition and the time was exactly right, we were all suffering from an adrenaline overload from jumping off a cliff into a waterfall and extremely hungry. To my surprise Kyle responded with a very serious face, "Today is the day we eat bugs."

So we went in search of the bug lady...She had big bugs, small bugs and in between bugs...Nick got a weird glint in his eye and said it would be lame if we didn't eat the BIGGEST bug there ever was...with a falling feeling in my stomach, I told him I'd munch anything he munched... Kyle tried desperately to talk us out of our decision, he couldn't be shown up by a girl...but to no avail. We left the bug lady with our arms full of plastic baggies full of cooked buggies. We found a quiet table to set out our wares with coke chasers and convenient shadows to run to if our stomachs weren't as stupid as our brains...

First, Kyle eyed Mr. Massive Bug...

And Mr, Massive Bug eyed him back...

We finally convinced Nick to go first (he decided to play with the bug a little bit before giving it a good munch)...

And then we watched closely to see if he died...

He didn't, but Anna and Kyle nearly did...

Guess what?! We survived! We were so proud of ourselves we pranced around the the market place. For proof check out this FB video.

The world doesn't look quite the same after you've eaten the biggest bug you've ever seen. On the way home a cockroach tried to surprise us (Like they always do) by running out of a hole on the sidewalk right under our feet...not one of us blinked, we kept walked unimpressed muttering, "We've EATEN bugs bigger than you buddy...*sniff*"

Goodbyes

Never feel good...
This sweet little man has taken a piece of my heart with his soulful eyes and beautiful smile. It always surprises me how hard leaving can be and it's never the people you would initially expect. I never got the chance to tell this little guy in Thai that I was leaving, but he seemed to know clinging to me like a monkey, legs and arms wrapped around me for the entire workshop. When anyone else would work with him he would always reach back for me, and I took him for rides while he guided my steps. To the fence so that we could pick little flowers and take them back to the home or to the sink to wash our hands. He took my hands in his and scrubbed them with soap like a little grown up, tsking over my cut and wiping it so clean it hurt. When it was time to finally say goodbye, his eyes welled up with tears and he kissed both my cheeks and forehead. As we headed to the van, he stood by the fence looking so sad and desolate I had to go back to give his salty cheeks one last kiss. There is no easy way to say goodbye.

Photogrpahy Workshop

Last week we gave the neighborhood Burmese refugee and hill tribes children cameras and sent them home with the assignment to tell the story of their life in photographs. A big project for little tykes, yes? Some of them came back with cameras full of unused film and others fully used and reluctant to give back their new toy. After developing the roles of film, the REAL fun began! As I opened each folder I got to peek into their lives, to see the faces of their mother, father, sisters and brothers. I got to see little girls playing dress up in princess clothes and where they sleep on the floor at night. Below is the pieced together story of 11 children's lives. 11 children whose families came to Chiang Mai to escape poverty, cruelty and abuse and who started a new life in this city. These series of photographs give us a rare peek into their personal lives from the perspective of a child. Enjoy!

On Thursday, we held our weekly Young Lions workshop with the neighborhood refugee and hill tribe kids. We gave them each a film camera to take home for a week of snapping fun! After teaching them some simple photography rules, we let them go wild in the yard on a photo scavenger hunt. Every time they saw me put my camera to my face to take a photo of them they would do the same to me...I suppose that's fair play. ;)

Introducing the beautiful mammas at Wildflower Home! Each week we head 30mins out of Chiang Mai, down a long pot-holed road (that's usually flooded during the rainy season) to spend some lovely time with these young single mothers to teach them in-come generating workshops. So far we've helped in the leaf printing and seed card production and are continuing with fabric flowers and copper jewelry making! They are phenomenal to work with usually by the end of the day we are holding one of their happy, rolipoly munchkins in our arms!

Hope Home

As Art Director and Volunteer Coordinator at ARI, I get the wonderful opportunity to work with loads of volunteers coming to us from all over the world. Each one brings with them unique skills, talents, ideas and their own special perspective of the world. What fascinates me is the transformation that each one of the volunteers goes through while working with the children at Hope Home. 

Hope Home is a foster home for Thai children with severe Cerebral Palsy. In Thailand, disabilities are largely misunderstood due to the lack of education. Many times the child's inability to walk or talk or interact with the world "normally" only goes to reinforce the believe that they are less than human. 

Each week I watch as our volunteers walk through the Hope Home gates and see these small children largely immobile and silent staring back at them with the most expressive eyes. When we take them into our arms and lean them against our chests so that they can feel the vibrations of our singing and encourage them to move their arms and legs to the songs, their faces break out into the biggest, most beautiful smiles. 

I watch each volunteer transform in their own small way as well, as they work with the children. From fear and uncertainty to love and enjoyment, they walk out with a new love and respect for the endearing spirits of these bright and loving children. With each painting, each art piece, we demonstrate that these children are just as human as you and me. That they feel happiness, sadness, hurt and pain. That a small touch or a song can brighten their worlds and that love goes a long long way!

Let me introduce you to these amazing children!