Birthday Party

My Birthday Party!!!

 This weekend I was lucky enough to celebrate my birthday with an amazing group of people:  My Rotary scholarship host Ateeb, and his lovely family.  I was truly honored and incredibly grateful to have such an amazing dinner in Bangkok.  I have been around colleagues between the ages of 23 and 40 for the past few weeks and discussed nothing but academics, theory, homework (entirely complaints!), and the fear of floods.  I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to sit down with a family and hear about their stories and day to day lives.  I heard all about Rose’s field trips from school, and what International School teaches here in Thailand.  I learned how to make paper cranes out of our dinner napkins (although I got SERIOUS help with mine…) and ate delicious Japanese cuisine which was a nice change-up from my previous all-Thai diet. 

I had a wonderful time and I am very thankful for my new friends and family!

Crocodiles, Snakes and Centipedes…Oh MY!

This would NOT be something I would want to run into while avoiding the floods in Thailand...

As Thailand battles the worst floods it's seen in decades, a few new threats have emerged: snakes, crocodiles and poisonous insects. 

News reports say that more than 100 crocs have escaped from a flooded farm in Thailand's Utai Thai province, though government officials say people shouldn't worry too much as they're not as fierce as wild ones -- a suggestion many find laughable. 

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health has reported a rise in the number of snake bites since the floods began in July. 

In response to the all these dangerous and poisonous creatures spotted in and out of the waters, from centipedes to scorpions, the Bangkok Post has called on a few experts to offer some tips on how to protect oneself against them. 

Eek!

Warning: they're not the kind of tips that are going to ease your mind. 

Read more from CNN

For example: "Noise can alert crocodiles to attack. Therefore stay quiet if you spot one. When attacked by the beast, try to stick in a wooden wedge before it is able to lock its jaws on you. It is a very difficult thing to do, but it is better than doing nothing to save your own life." 

ARE THEY SERIOUS?!

Volunteering with the Red Cross for Flood Victims

Waiting for a new truck to load with supplies

 Today I went with two friends from Chula…to volunteer at the Red Cross.  The political disagreements over what should be done regarding the flood inundated northern-regions versus the anticipation of Bangkok underwater, have not progressed, and, as a result, NGOs are quick to react and come to action to help those in the North!  The Red Cross is just one of many organizations that have begun to ask for donations, organize containers, and plan for air-drops and truck shipments.

We had no instructions or volunteer forms – we just showed up.  We didn’t speak the language, and that didn’t matter.  People were happy we were there to help, and showed us what we could do.  We loaded truck after truck of supplies.  We stacked boxes upon boxes of water.  And we hauled potato sacks of canned goods.  One of the most interesting assignments of the day: was that we separated the pork packaged noodles (similar to a Cup-O-Noodle item) from the other shrimp and chicken ones – because one particular container was going to a Muslim village, and they cannot eat pork…

After passing over 100 boxes down the assembly line, we were successful!

 

This was an incredibly memorable experience I will never forget.  The most moving part of the entire experience, were the people volunteering.  They were from all ages and backgrounds and came from all areas of the city – one woman had her KFC uniform on and explained she was here on her lunch break, another man was in a suit and tie carrying life boats who said he didn’t feel right working when he knew people were suffering up North…and there were a TON of high school boys who were on their spring break and showed up, each and every morning, to help.  I stood between these people in an assembly line, and we together packaged, stacked and loaded trucks that soon-after departed for the North.  It was very moving to see people from all walks of life crowded around the same truck, helping for the same cause.

Loading life boats into the trucks...

With our Thoughts, We make our World

 One thing I would like to add here, is that although I have gone to several more grocery stores since the time I wrote this in preparation for the floods and had the same bad luck in obtaining food, I have noticed a drastic difference from the United States that cannot go without mention.  In my hunt for food and water, I came down another empty aisle that had a few dried noodle soups left on one shelf.  One older woman helped herself to the final few cups of noodles, placing them in her shopping cart, when two younger boys ran up to try to grab some of the last few.  As they turned around defeated, she said something in Thai, and handed them each one of her soup bowls.  One other young woman was also at the scene, and this old woman offered her another soup bowl.  She started off with three soup bowls, one of the only items of food in the ENTIRE store, and ended up walking away with none.  

I have never, in my life, seen such generosity and overall caring for others.  It is truly remarkable.  This is not the only example I have witnessed – just yesterday, when I was walking home from the BTS (Skytrain), an old man was trying to mortar and lay bricks together to build a wall around his small shop in preparation for the floods.  Two men who exited the train with me (one was wearing a suit!), took the mortar shovel from the old man, and knelt down to help him.  Within a few minutes, they were finished with the entire wall, grabbed their briefcases that they had left at their side, and continued walking home - two total strangers.  I stood there the entire time like an idiot, unable to process what had just happened. 

There are two quotes in Buddhism that I think help to explain what I witnessed.  The first, I have already introduced, at the beginning of this segment.  "If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path."  The second is below:

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.”

Today – I saw how we truly can make our world. 

Floods: Triple Threat and the Race Against Time

So this is what I have learned in the last few days from reading the news…

Thailand is racing against time to shore-up protective floodwalls in Bangkok with sandbags and mud to stop the country's devastating floods from engulfing parts of the capital.  Thailand has been hit by its worst floods in five decades and all of the newspapers are warning that the worst is still to come. 

So far, 281 people have been killed with more missing in Thailand.  Some 61 of the country's 76 provinces have so far been affected, impacting more than 8.2 million people.

More than 500,000 square kilometers -- an area the size of Spain -- are affected by the floods in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, the UNESCO-listed Ayutthaya historical park (with temples over 400 years old), has been submerged for over a week now.  There is incredible concern that if the site is under water for more than 30 days it may cause serious damage.  Ayutthaya is just 40 miles NE of Bangkok.

"Between seven and eight billion cubic meters of water a day is being released from the Bhumibol dam in the north of the country, which is heavily affecting provinces like Nahkon Sawan and Ayutthaya." (Government official Wim Rungwattanajinda told CNN)

"From that, about one to 1.2 billion cubic meters of water is reaching Bangkok every day.”

One quote that caught me a little off guard:  “It's a race against time, as Bangkok is only two meters above sea level." (CNN's Paula Hancocks).  Whoa – I don’t think I knew/thought about how close Bangkok is to sea level…yikes.

They are now calling it the Triple Threat:  Waters are coming down from the north which may merge with predicted high tides from the south, and further floodwater from the east, expected to drastically worsen from Friday onwards.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is warning residents in Bangkok to prepare to be directly affected by the country's worst floods in decades.  What makes matters worse is that the rain just isn’t letting up, and continues to pour all night long.  

Political Issue:  There are a few political issues surrounding this flood.  One interesting dilemma (that is directly connected to what I am now studying at Chula in development!) is impact and how you justify making decisions that affect many people.  Areas upstream of Bangkok are flooded to depths of more than three meters, but the government is refusing to open floodgates blocking the path of the water as it attempts to protect the capital, which houses 12 million people.  People in the north are incredibly upset, with some villages over 3 meters underwater, that Bangkok is refusing to help them, and instead, pours more money into protecting the city – building trenches, canals and sandbag walls.

Bangkok Bracing for Floods

 

I was avoiding my hundreds of pages of reading and procrastinating on Facebook one night, when I suddenly received a new post from one of my classmates in our Chula student group.  I figured this would be another great way to procrastinate a little longer and decided to click on her attached news article.  The headline read: "BANGKOK BRACES FOR WORST FLOODS IN OVER 50 YEARS.”

Wait, WHAT?!  As I frantically scrolled to find the date and time the article was written, my mouth dropped when I saw today’s date and time written in the corner.  Published by the Bangkok Post, a reliable English newspaper here in Thailand, I knew this was no joke.  I began frantically researching more websites and news articles to see what this was all about…

I decided not to over-panic and went to class tomorrow, thinking this was another Hurricane Irene situation which to this day I swear was Mother Nature’s way of ruining my last weekend in New York.  New Yorkers panicked, overreacted, and we watched TROPICAL STORM Irene come and go without much damage.  I thought this was nothing more than an over dramatization of the media.

I explained my flawless theory of media frenzy to one of my Thai friends in class.  She said, “Unlike your country, here, we tend to downplay situations, because Thai people are very superstitious and panic easily.”  Oh.  Shit.  Right, ok.  So I guess I should go shopping after class and buy some food and water just to be safe?  

This is what happened when I went that afternoon, directly after class, to the store.  These aren’t tiny mini-marts, these are Wal-Mart-sized mega stores.  I went to four different ones in three different areas before I called a few classmates who also said they could not locate food or water.  Then, I started to panic.  I began to look for smaller stores…and despite my efforts; 7-Eleven after 7-Eleven, there was no food to be found.

This is where bread is supposed to be...  :(

I watched the news again tonight…and it says we should have MINUMIM seven days of water and non-perishable food stocked.  They anticipate the power will go out quickly with the floods and it could take weeks before Bangkok is back to normal.

I don’t have enough food or water for that long…and I have been just about everywhere I can think of searching for food.  

I have never really been in this situation before…