Week 1 Journal

You'll notice I am now in Uganda Africa. I will be updating this blog with my journal entries as I am able to and as the internet allows here in Uganda. This post begins from the coclusion of my week in Thailand after arriving in Germany;

I am actually writing from Frankfurt Germany, where I arrived yesterday, and not Thailand. The administration at FIU decided that it was not safe for students to stay in Thailand and they got us all tickets out of the country ASAP. However, There was no immediate danger and everything in the North East part of the country (Isaan) was calm. There were however, serious issues in Bangkok, where several people lost their lives. This was incredibly disheartening and very stressful initially, because in the short week that we were there, everyone from our mentors to our translators, to the regional hospital staff was very warm, kind, friendly and knowledgeable. We were able to settle in to our apartments, get orientation to Khon Kaen University, and visit the village of Lumhin for 1 and a half days.
After the very exhausting trip from Miami and sleeping very uncomfortably on the planes and seats in the airports we arrived in Khon Kaen in the afternoon where Dr Darunee, Erico, and Mei welcomed us and brought us to our new apartments. Dr Darunee is a professor in the school of Nursing and owns the apartments where we had been staying. Erico is the husband of another faculty member and works in computers and English language editing. Mei is Dr. Siriporns secretary. After we unpacked Erico and Mei came back to show us around the area. Not to far from our apartments was an area where there were several restaurants, food and fruit carts, and ofcourse a 7-11 Store. After our orientations in the mornings our translators took us around the campus, which is much like a city in size and complexity, and the Khon Kaen area. They took us to eat Thai food and began to show us how to communicate. The days were long, usually getting back our apartments after 8pm, but everyone was excited to get to know our new friends and community.
The research project that Veronica and I were assigned to was an ethnographic study of the villiage of Lumhin about 30 mins by car from Khon Kaen. Lumhin means place with holes. It has been established for about 50 years and was initially the site of surface mining for materials used for making concrete. The name comes from the very large and deep holes created around the village by this mining. People settled here to work in this industry and have stayed, although there is no longer work due to the use of machines that currently continue mining in the area. The village is very poor compared to others in the area and is mostly composed of grandparents who care for their grandkids, while their mothers and less commonly their fathers are away working in either Khon Kaen or Bangkok. We were told by our mentors that there is a very large gap in classes in Thailand. It’s clearly evident in some neighborhoods where you see very elaborate homes next to homes that are very basic. In Lumhin the majority of the village is extremely poor and the entire village is marginalized. This village has been blamed for all sorts of crimes and problems by surrounding villages . We were only able to begin to update the physical mapping with Pinan, a nurse assigned to this community, before we had to pack up and go. An interesting aspect of nursing in Thailand is that nurses are required to participate in community health nursing at leat 2 days per week. Pinan works three days in the ER and 2 days in the community.
Before we left we felt it was important to go back to the village and say good bye, thank them, and get some closure. We were able to visit the Khon Kaen Sancturary before arriving at the village to say good bye. It was very impressive and ornate. Interestingly had some fun aspects as well, like a rotating Monk sculpture with pots that opened and closed for throwing donations into. There were also stands with representations of the Chinese calendar animals that played a recording of a Monks prayers according to your animal sign.
Dr Siriporn and our translators accompanied us to the airport when we departed and were all very sad to see us go. I think that all of us would return to Thailand without hesitation.
We're now waiting to find out from other sites if they will be able to take us on another