A Fearless Weekend

Standing tall

Last weekend I spend 2 nights and 3 days on a field trip with 150 15-18 year-olds from my community. Plus 10 other chaperons. It wasn't the usual field trip either. We visited a nearby army base in attempts to teach these hoodlums some discipline...actually, they're not really hoodlums, they're mostly good kids. In fact, I've noticed that when comparing Thai teenagers to American teenagers, general similarities aside, Thais tend to be more responsive and appeasing than American teenagers.

Yet, truth be told, there have been some lingering problems with teenage boys among villages. Last month, almost serendipitous with the red shirt conflicts, two groups of teenage boys from separate villages had a confrontation with small firearms, one setting off, and allegedly killing one boy. Though I never saw any evidence of this with my own eyes, I heard it through the grape vine and I knew it was serious. It's too bad something like that has to happen before action is taken. I'm learning time and time again, it's much easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up. Clearly preventative is better than curative measure.

At any rate, the community leaders quickly concocted a project to target the teenage- debauchery conundrum. What better a solution than a lesson in discipline from soldiers. Calling it a youth leadership training, they rounded up youth from each village (10-15 from each) to take part in a joint training.

I can't help but wonder if the English Club I was supposed to help lead--unsuccessful because of funds, lack of planning, lack of support--could have helped prevent the confrontation from happening. We'll never know.

So it came to this. Soldiers in black uniforms and purple bandannas around their necks in heavy combat boots, came in 2's and 4's to round up the kids in their army trucks. Talk about a hands-on experience. (see below)



At the camp, everything was orderly, everyone was behaved. Not a slouch or a snicker. Soldiers really have an authoritative affect on teenagers. Throughout 3 days of sessions, activities included: marching and drills, practicing the national anthem and the King's song in perfect unison, team-building activities, safe sex and STI education, Thai history lessons, respect for parents and elders strategies, a change or accept activity, and physical activities such as rappelling. Observing most session, I became very impressed by how well the youngsters were responding to the demands required by them and how they kept their energy and attention up. It made me feel very proud to be part of their community.


At the chopper







A Fearless Weekend of My Own

In terms of my personal experience, the weekend was loaded with one intrepid encounter after the other. First of all, I was surrounded (bombarded to be exact) by many new faces, all too eager to ask me questions and at times, heckle me. Soldiers (some, not all) are often more forward than the normal Thai civilian, especially when surrounded by their comrades. To be frank, I'm an easy target. Clearly foreign, young, female. Need I say more? Only someone who's already been here for a year and gone through many like experiences can really handle such a situation. I dealt calm and collected, every now and then having to adjust a potential air of annoyance especially when the questions took absurd turns like... aren't Thai men handsome? Aren't you lonely without a man? How can you live here alone? How much do you get paid? You name it, they asked it. Later on it subsided some and I could sit quietly at certain intervals.

Secondly, I was expected to lead a session with the kids. Now, I'll be the first one to say that I'm not a natural in front of a crowd, not to mention kids. Sure, I can handle a well-organized English camp with other trainers wherein I show up and play the role of the fun farang. But, otherwise, I usually have to put a lot of time into planning a presentation and concentrate hard on warding off the nerves in the pit of my stomach. This session was not well planned. I put it together the Thursday before and for some reason thought it would just work out--kind of like every last minute thing I do here. Audacious as I was to get up there and attempt explaining the activity in Thai, I'll admit, it was a disaster. The activity, 'Accept or Change' was meant to get kids to think about the things they had the ability to change in their lives and the things they should accept. (ie: I should accept my nose the way it looks, but I can change my relationship with my peers and others, I can change my attitude...etc.) Turns out, nobody, not even the adults, really got the point of this exercise. They seemed to think you can change your nose... My only saving grace was an empathetic soldier who interrupted to get the kids in order and proceeded to try to do explain the activity while intermittently talking at them. In the end, we did the worksheet as a big group and well, all I can say is, I gave it a shot! Maybe somebody, somewhere got it.



Lastly, I went rappelling. Actually I don't know what they call it but the only word I know to describe strapping a harness to someone, putting a helmet on them, and dropping them 20 meters is rappelling...or zip-lining... right...? Even though, that's probably not right, that's what I'm calling it for the time being. I didn't even really want to go. I went zip-lining through the jungle back in January in Chiang Mai and I was kind of over the whole suspending and flying through the air thing. The whole morning people were badgering me to go. "C'mon, it will be fun, don't be scared, the kids look up to you". After I saw the 53 year-old village headwoman do it, I decided I had to. Why not just continue on with the fearless trend? It was just a drop followed by a breezy zip-line.
Before I knew it, I was squinting over the 20 meter drop and faintly listening for the 1-2-3-GO!. The drop was fine. What happened when I reeled back from the drop is where it all went wrong. Somewhere between the drop and the zip-line, my neck strained unnaturally out of it's shell and I felt an instant shooting strain.

My 2 seconds of heroism were followed by 3 subsequent days of neck spasms. I spend the latter part of Monday at the District hospital and the following days comforting on pain killers and muscle relaxers. Apparently, farang bodies are not made for Thai rappelling army gear. Who knew?