audio credo

mountain trip: (part 4) waterfalls and superstars

nobody@vox.com(John Kaczmarek) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:43:13 +0700

our team took a trip to the mae hong son, a small village in the mountains of northern thailand, to put on an english camp for the local children. it's been a long wait (seriously all of this happened like a month ago, my apologizes) but it's finally here, the conclusion of our trip. we've finished the english camp part of the program and now the kids are going to take us to a nearby water fall.

after we changed clothes the children led us down the road out of town, across a small bridge, along cow paths through dried out rice fields to a trail that made its way along a small stream. the scenery really brought me back to my time exploring the woods of middle tenessee (only a bit more bamboo this time and small thai children leading the way instead of my cousins). eventually we came to a waterfall and spent a few hours swimming in the cold water, drew, tum, and i jumping of the rocks to show how brave we were. again i was amazed by the beauty that just seemed to be so typical in thailand. it’s like a story i heard once (maybe from traci wilson) about a foreigner who came to america and was so shocked that every restaurant had sugar on the table and not only that but it was free! where he came from sugar was a delicacy, a special treat usually only enjoyed by the wealthy and here we offer it at no cost in every eating establishment. it’s expected. the norm. that’s how it is for me and this country everything is so beautiful or so exotic that i’m afraid i’ll go back to the states and be depressed by my environs. (i don’t really think that, but it is helping me to see how fortunate i am and how great our god is. i hope that this is something that will be carried with me even after my time here)

after the waterfall we trailed back to the village for dinner with the families we would all be staying with. a few of the kids stopped to climb a tree for some fruit (i can’t remember the name now but its thin brown pods with a thin hard shell and orangish-sourish-gummyish fruit) and they shared it with us. dinner was nice and after we had arranged our sleeping areas we headed back to the school to put on a show for the towns people. now skit shows are no stranger to a former afcer (woah i just said “former” weird), but doing them as foreigners on the other side of the world in front a large group of people none of whom understand much english is a little different of a challenge. so i was kind of nervous on how this would pan out. we stuck with some of the basics that we thought would be entertaining and tried to focus on things that didn’t require the dialogue to carry it. however the real gem of the performance was a skit that i had never done before (i hadn’t even seen it done or heard anyone describe it). it was called the princess skit. basically it has five characters in it all of whom are played by drew and myself (on a side note we’ve actually added a 6^th character which we’ve yet to reveal to anyone. fun stuff). the basic idea is that a knight (drew) comes to a castle to ask for a princess’s hand in marriage. the butler (myself) informs the knight that he will tell the king (drew) who in turn must tell the queen (me again) who then goes to the princess herself (drew) to ask for her answer. essentially the skit is the two of us running around changing into different costumes and doing different voices. we had old women rolling in the aisles. one lady in particular loved drew and kept requesting that he go up and do more things (like sing). so we finally gave in (and by that i mean he dragged me up with him) and we did an interpretive dance while three of the other guys sang and played guitar. i’m pretty sure we clearly communicated at least one thing, we are insane. so that’s how we became superstars in a small northern thai village.

we retired for the night after a short post-show devo and woke up the next morning for church. we had church on the same little platform we had entertained on the night before. it was awesome. after services we said our goodbyes and made our way back down the mountain to mae hong son. robert ended up not traveling back to chiang mai with us because he felt ill (actually he was just starting to have another flare up of pancreatitis, not pretty at all. it gave us all a pretty big scare and he is still kind of recovering from it. ) the bus ride was a lot better in the day time but seemed just as long. that fact was not helped by the fact that we had a random one hour stop at some town along the way. (this was actually a very bad stop. i decided i would walk around instead of hang with the group by the bus. you know stretch the legs see the sights. i ended up stopping at a street vendor lady and ordering to items wrapped in leaves. i knew from a previous meal on the trip that they were a kind of desert rice thing. i ate both of them and a sleeve of strawberry icing oreos… ya i’d never heard of them either… before getting back on the bus. i got really sick and the thought of the sweet custardish rice things still makes me queasy… no joke i’m stopping writing right now)

wow that was a longer break than i meant it to be (about a week…. yikes) never the less our trip was a very inspiring one. i think after we got back a really began to start to find my groove here, to at home. since then there has been a lot going on; more trips and english camps, lessons in thai and classes in english, learning to drive better and get around the city, parties, preaching, equipping times, and planning for our big trip to cambodia coming up in march. i’ll do my best to catch everyone up on everything. God bless you all and thanks for continuing to read my words.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

mountain trip: (part 3) the cow says, "maw?"

nobody@vox.com(John Kaczmarek) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:04:50 +0700

our team took a trip to the mae hong son, a small village in the mountains of northern thailand, to put on an english camp for the local children. i’ve been really busy but here is the long awaited part three of our story in a multi-post series telling about our trip and the things we did. we've just arrived at the guard post were we left the truck as we took boat rides up and down a small river in northern thailand to visit a few villages.

loading into the back of the truck again we headed further up the mountain. eventually we came to a temple. monks with shaved heads and orange robes roamed around as temple goers offered incense. we did what tourist do best.... took pictures. this time i didn't feel like a dirty tourist though. the peacefulness of the place gave off a calm quite disposition that left one in a good state of mind to appreciate the beauty of the mountains and the town nestled in the valley far below. my third cornetto of the day probably added to my harmonious mood. (ice cream is good for peace and quiet joy. the world would be a better place if ice cream was more plentiful… at least it wouldn’t hurt.) it was strange to be in the face of another religion in such a real way. looking back it leads me to think about how other religions or non-religious people see christians. what do they see? i saw people carrying out rituals, nothing too strange there. burning incense. offering a silent prayer to something unseen. is that what others see when they look at christians? waking up early on sundays. singing songs. praying. ceremonies. traditions. customs. rituals. is there not something deeper? i believe there is. do others see it though? interesting thoughts. we just took pictures.

that night we slept in a hotel owned by jenny’s parents called ban farang (“honkie house”?, if i haven’t yet explained farang or falang let me do so. farang is the name of a guava i think. it’s a white guava so it also refers white foreigners. so it’s kind of like saying honkie or cracker… but in kind of a nice way.) we slept well that night, (but not without get my fourth cornetto of the day) our first true full rest since the bus ride. we woke early to travel to the village we were having the camp at. the road this time was possibly more winding than the bus trip (although more upward than rollercoaster-esque) but it was during the day and not packed into a bus seat. the road slowly went from paved to paved and overgrown to dirt and then all of a sudden we stopped. rains had washed the road out in some parts and a truck was stuck in one of the grooves carved out by the rain. the driver of our rot dang (reminder: “red auto”, the taxis of thailand) was very protective of his vehicle. not peculiar due to the care it looked like he had put into it but definitely not the norm for professional drivers required to navigate the chaotic streets of this country. never the less he was not excited about the trip so far and although we thought he could bypass the automotive obstacle he was unwilling to budge until the owner had relocated the entrenched truck. this was not pleasing news since we were all anxious to get to the village and begin (we did have a schedule to uphold). eventually we were able to manhandle the small truck far enough over that our driver attempted to pass. we made it through but not without a small scrap on the canvas of his truck’s camper-top (oops).

our church had been to this village before but last time the town’s people did not have electricity. since that previous visit poles had been erected and power lines hung. despite this modern amenity the village still seemed quaint. we meet the student, all of them very shy, and started to play games and sing songs together. then came the whole teaching english part. we broke into four stations each of which would teach different words and had a different game for the kids to play. adelina (one of the one month interns) and i had a station that was to teach different types of animals. robert had told all of us that our goal was to help the kids become more comfortable around foreigners and help them to be more confident with english just as much as it was to actually teach then new words and phrases. after teaching each group about 15 english names for animals that group would then play a family feud style game of 5 on 5. there purpose of the game was for me to act/sound out the animal and then the first person to “slap” in and get the name correct earned their team a point (or vice versa I say the name and they had to act it out). some animals have obvious actions associated with them (ie a chicken or and elephant) other animals you have to rely more on the sounds they make (ie a pig’s snort, unless you want to roll around on the ground with your finger squishing your nose back). however, we found out before the camp that animals in thailand apparently don’t sound the same as they do in america. for instance a duck doesn’t say “quack-quack”, it says “gap-gap”. pigs don’t say “oink-oink” they say “oot-oot”. the rooster cries “ehkie-ehkie-ehk-ehk” and a cow say “maw”. (we actually heard a rooster while we were there and i tried to argue the point of cock-a-doodle-doo, but alas it was hopeless). the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves and before too long it was time to break for lunch.

during lunch we saw a small (albeit noisy) procession make its way past us as we dined. apparently, a wedding was coming up soon and the bride, lead by some music playing family members and half a large pig carried on a stick of bamboo between two men, was making her way to her husband-to-be’s house. quite a sight indeed. after we ate we played some more group games with the kids in the heat of the mid-day sun. the really cool part about it was that a lot of these things we had to come up with on the spot. it was a really nice way of having to work as a team and think on our feet. after games we took a short break before or next planned adventure. i’ll finish the story in my next post and tell all about the waterfall and how drew and i became superstars.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

mountain trip: (part 1) the long bus ride

nobody@vox.com(John Kaczmarek) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:32:13 +0700

our team took a trip to the mae hong son, a small village in the mountains of northern thailand, to put on an english camp for the local children. this is the first of a multi-post series telling about our trip and the things we did. it’s thursday night right after cell group and we are all packed into the back of the joaw ford scrambling to get to the bus station. we barely make it and as we file on to the small bus everyone stares.

ok so we were on this bus ride up to the mountains. it was eight hours long in this little cramped seat that was not exactly what i call sleep friendly. this was an overnight bus ride by the way (8pm-4am). adding insult to injury the road up to the mountains was a combination of the road to camp of the hills and a roller-coaster. anyway drew and i were crammed in this two seat row, knees squeezed behind the chair and he's not feeling well either. eventually some people get off (did i mention we were constantly starting and stopping), so i moved to a three seat row with one other thai guy to let drew stretch out some (however, one stop later a thai guy, possibly drunk, sat next to him in the spot i moved from). the funny part though is that the thai guy (let's call him bob) that was next to me pulled down his bag and put it in the window seat. so i'm in the aisle seat, bob's in the middle, and his bag is in the far seat. smart move for bob, he could now protect his bag and use it to support him as he slept... nope. bob fell asleep alright, but he did so on me. at first it was no biggie. he just did the kind of leaning thing, which i could ignore. then his head dropped to my shoulder. i couldn't take it anymore. it was too funny. i had to show julie who was on the other side of the aisle from me. she started to crack up. this of course led me to start to snicker... but i didn't want to wake bob up for fear of being rude and making things awkward. i couldn't help it. my shoulders started to bounce as i tried to constrain my laughter. then i let it slip, a shoulder heaving chuckle. bob jolted. still trying to hold in laughter i stared straight ahead hoping he would just readjust himself towards his bag and go back to sleep. bob did go back to sleep (almost immediately) but he forgot to lean on his bag. within minutes bob was snuggling up to me again, head drooping on my shoulder. i mustered all my strength to hold in the laughter, hoping i could use the insane curves to gently push bob back towards his bag. no luck. somehow we seemed to be making only right hand turns... i couldn't help it. i tried, really i did, but all my compressed laughter shifted from my mouth and my gut to my shoulders. uncontrollably they began to gyrate up and down at the speed of laughter. bob's head bounced up from the shoulder blow.

now before i continue there are two things i need to paint clearly in your mind. first off, i have very bony shoulders. i mean seriously whatever those two long skinny bones that go across your chest are called they basically come out to make spikes on the place that bob's temples were resting. secondly, this may be unknown to those who have not had a class with a cadet from the corp at texas a&m university but there is a strange phenomena that happens sometimes when someone is sleep deprived but forced to sit upright. i don't know the medical term for it but basically as the head starts to drift slowly downward it picks up speed due to the increased torque provided by the direction of gravity and the increasing angle of the neck. at a given point the pull becomes too great and tension forces suddenly fail. for the unconscious sleeper this means a rapid downward jerk. the spike in acceleration instantly wakes up the body and allows for a last instant recovery flinging the head back upwards, allowing renewed vertical repositioning. unfortunately this instantaneous jolt of down and up motion is not able to revive the sleeper longer than a few seconds so the process repeats. the resulting effect is a human bobble head. (now that i think about it that might be the scientific term "bobble-head syndrome". on a side note this is made even more hilarious when the sleeping corp member is in a chair that has a bending back. imagine a backwards bobble-"upper body" effect on the front row of class as a professor is giving a lecture.)

but now back to bob. so out of some freak coincidence the frequency of my shoulder gyrations and bob's... bobbling matched perfectly with a 180 degree phase shift. in other words my shoulder would spike bob's head up in the air and as his head went up my shoulder would go down and as his head came back down my shoulder would be heaving up to meet his head. this probably happened a handful of times but the utter ridiculousness of it made it seem like it lasted for a good minute. eventually the blunt trauma was enough to wake bob up to slightly reposition as i continued to hold in my laughter (i assumed it wasn't polite to laugh uproariously on a bus full of sleeping thais). then the spinning cogs in my mind came to a brilliant conclusion. how could i solve the problem of bob's bobbling? i would just lean forward slightly, resting my head on the back of the seat in front of me and then as he slid my direction on the next big curve nothing would be there to catch him and he would be forced to come up with a less socially awkward sleeping arrangement. i don't know if the curve was just not big enough or if the muscles in bob's slumbering body were just strong enough to resist the forces, but the quick slide into nothingness plan i had devised was less than successful. instead bob had gently drifted from a mostly upright position to a mostly prone position behind me. that's right my plan to avoid an uncomfortable situation resulted in a short thai man lounging across my back at 3 in the morning in a dark bus with the top of his head just barely peaking into the aisle. i signaled julie again and she almost died. at this point my laughter was quelled by the total unease i felt. bob eventually woke up, but didn't say anything to me. we both just pretended nothing had happened. i knew that i was called to be a bridge and a magnet to the thai people but i didn’t expect that role to be played out so… literally. and that is how our trip to the mountains started.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend