what joy looks like...

I’ve been trying to sit down and write for quite some time now, but with every failed attempt I get a little more discouraged and less likely to use the spare minutes to try again. But it seems wrong not to try, because so many beautiful things are taking place. I fear if I don’t record them, remember them, and let them all have their moment of contemplation that they deserve; that the growth that they have inspired, the beauty and depth that they have produced, would somehow be lessened by my lack of acknowledgment. So friends (as those of you receiving the rambling and incoherent e-mails have noticed as of late), I apologize for the randomness that may follow. I admit to you that within one walk around the city, let along an entire day, so many thoughts begin to bubble in my brain … Here is my attempt at getting my own head around the beautiful chaos that is our life, everyday, in this city, in our Apartment World, and in our community.

            The (epic) simple moments of the day that give me Joy: I don’t want to brag but I know the world’s best 9-year-old artist. I know that I am not the most unbiased of judges, but this certain little boy continually blows me away not only with his latest quick sketches of people, animals, caricatures (not all that flattering but all the more funny), but with his casual demeanor unaware that he possesses such a large talent for such a small boy. Our relationship is made all the sweeter because I distinctly remembered the fear I had when I used to see his grin with I used to incorrectly attribute to a perpetual state of mischief, but was really a tough veneer protecting a boy who wants and needs love and praise. Now, each night it is this same grin that slyly shows me his class-work in hopes that he will get the desired geng mahk  (roughly translated: awesome/skillful) seal of approval from Pii Naam (oh, that’s me by the way. Pii for “older” and Naam because, well, I drink a lot of water). His awesomeness is only enhanced by the fact that he too is a fellow raspy voice-er, so we sound a bit like the same person which is always cool. It is this boy that makes sure he gets to the middle of the class huddle and cheer when we celebrate yet another definite victory that our class in Chiang Mai did in fact sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes the fastest and the loudest in the entire world. I often tell my little ones all about my friends and family in America. They are very sure that they sing it loudly enough that it should cross the Pacific and reach you all on the West Coast and some nights, I don’t doubt that they are right.

            We started our Kids English Program on a whim, like many of our programs at The Center. Three of the teenage Ahka girls (who are privileged enough to go to a government funded public school, but unable to afford or gain admittance into a school that is comparable to typical middle class ethnic Thais) wanted some help studying English and KR and I were stoked to be able to help enhance the girls educational opportunities. An hour was set aside each night to study with the girls and thus our English Program was born. In one week we had doubled in size and the age-range continued to grow and soon half of the kids program was being sent up to the classrooms for the English hour with Pii Naam and Pii Kell-yyyyy. In typical GOH fashion our original plan we had to play some serious catch up to regain order and practically, buy enough chairs for all the new kids to have a place to sit. Although there was about a month of some crazy nights of teaching 22 kids in a classroom that should have a maximum capacity of about 10, English hour is officially my most favorite time of day. There are not many other moments in life that one is able to be amidst 15 little kids anxious to learn, anxious to be praised, and anxious to be both on the giving and receiving end of Love and Community. It is amazing to watch formerly shy, at times slightly deviant, and most definitely slightly smelly little ones; begin to transform into little individuals. Pii Naam is too proud.

            The boys in my class, that used to scare me a little, are now my secret sources of delight (secret because they are boys and they don’t want to be known as “nice” kids because that’s just not cool I suppose… especially when you live in a slum and being nice isn’t all that helpful). A boy, aptly named Boy, in my class is actually a big-eyed genius. Seriously. He surprised me with his brilliance too because I didn’t see it coming from this one. He is loud and his handwriting is so --- little boyish --- but he only has to hear something once because he is able to recall it. He lets me know he knows the answer by raising both hands and straining to get in my line of vision every time I ask for an answer. Only 8-years-old, he is not quite able to get the concept of why he needs to let the rest of the students have time to digest the latest round of English vocabulary. Especially because in our class we also have the world’s brightest, most sweetly-natured if slightly clumsy (which, as someone who daily trips on the morning walks with my H.L.P. I can totally relate and sympathize with) 5-year-old. Staplers, cups holding pens and pencils, and stacks of papers are all at the mercy of this little guy and one will inevitably be knocked to the ground when he enters the classroom. In his defense, he is usually the one to study either on a plastic stool without a table. You would notice him by his severe straining from the back of the classroom as he stands on his tip-toes to see the board or waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask with a slight lisp: “Pii Naam, can I go to the bathroom?”. You would know him by his diligent dedication to his homework which he does directly after class while he waits for a motorbike to come and pick him up. You would know Boy because some nights, he is the one instead of me to help out his friend – who although younger, probably outweighs the 8-year-old. Which just makes watching them that much cuter.

…

Thank you for indulging my whim regarding the world’s cutest classroom of kids. I tell you all of this because so many of you reading this have played an integral role in seeing this vision become a reality. I wish that all of you could come to Chiang Mai, meet the kids, hear the Ahka singing, walk down our street and know the faces and names of the ladies, watch the English classes as both the ladies and the kids enter the common ground of foreign language silliness as they try to say “L” “R” and “X” sounds, and that you could enjoy the quiet moments when friends stop by to drop of gifts of (expensive, gourmet, and really – life changing) mushrooms just to say thank-you for teaching them English. I wish that the profound sense of Joy that the community here continues to bring me, could be shared with you, so that you could feel the depths of our thanks.

Somewhere along the past 8 months, the reality and depth of Joy re-entered my realm of existence. I don’t know where it was lost last year, but I know I did indeed try to live a life without it for some time. Being at home was painful in that way because home was the mark of measure that revealed to me how distant and isolated I had let myself become – and there is no Joy to be had in that place. So many things that I had said I did not want to do: to become numb to suffering, to disconnect from those that I love and who love me, and to stifle the necessary processing that should take place in any major life-change/experience. I didn’t notice this change until I got home or maybe, I didn’t notice the gravity of my own isolation. So many things that used to bring me Joy seemed hollow. I knew that I wasn’t offering anyone the full, honest version of myself, because I couldn’t even offer that to myself – and to do what healing would require: total surrender.

It is hard because the past 2 years have flown by and sometimes I think that not much has changed. But there are other times, when I think back over what I spent my college days and hours doing and how I used to think about God, life, Love, and Peace (or maybe about how little I thought about these things?), and it is hard to recognize myself. But the lessons that are being taught here, the moments that rededicate my heart’s belief in the necessity of Community, the moments that cement my faith in the God of Love and Peace, the moments of painful reminders of my need for humility and grace – and I am floored by their vastness and depth. I am floored because I see so clearly how much I fall short of how I want to be, but I am hopeful in that at least I am beginning to see my areas of weakness and the necessity to seek healing and a maturation of my faith.

Every time a team comes they get The Garden of Hope official orientation (flawlessly coordinated by my a one, KR) and I get to do a little schpeal on the Women’s Resource Programs. I always feel kind of bad because in answering their questions about the commercial sex industry and the women we are in relationships with, I am unable to give them the simple answers that they desire. I feel like the bearer of bad news, the person that has to communicate the notion that the commercial sex industry is the largest industry in the world and that it permeates basically every level of Thai society whether we see it or not. Sadly, it is not difficult to begin to see the subtle ways that the buying and selling of sex under the guise (and mockery) of love alters and perverts everything it touches: because sex as love is a commodity here women are exploited, men come because women are sold cheaply here, if men come money comes, money affects clothing and entertainment so large corporations can continue the sale of sex in alternative forms, Westerners stay in nice hotels and eat expensive dinners so deficiencies and the tendency of men to concede to the whims of power means tacit government support of the industry, and all the while the blatant obviousness of it all makes a culture and a world numb to this form of exploitation. I feel really bad when I get in these discussions with people. I mean, they’re fresh off these hideously long flights and they are hit with an intense Child Protection Policy and then me. But oddly enough, this complexity doesn’t really depress me anymore because I am the type of person that would rather have the varied shades of gray that come with most truths, then the simplicity of the black and white world. And the complexity of this reality, which I am beginning to think is fairly representative of many of the other large and oversimplified problems that we currently face, seems to reinforce what I am beginning to learn about the Beauty, the creativity, and the depths of Love. It is not one person, one program, or one phenomenal public relations campaign, that will be the end that saves us all; but rather the simplicity – and with that the Beauty – of each individual expressing this love in their unique way and being a Community that together is able to express a Love so diverse that it in actuality, grows in depth as Community grows and as individuals grow.

When I came to Thailand the first time I thought I would leave here with a clear career path chosen – grad school or law school, human rights lawyer or non-profit masters program. I did not think that I would return home with insane collegiate debt (oh how interest kicks you in the butt), parasites, and a plaguing internal numbness that was foreign to me and made me feel foreign to others (as if returning home after 8 months away doesn’t make you weird enough, I had to add mental breakdown to my calamities). But I realize now that the difficulty of my time at home was not reflective of home, or my inability to be home, but more my inability to be at Peace with myself if I wasn’t able to fully acknowledge all of the ways that I had to be broken first to correct my own weak faith and my tendency to make decisions based in a place of fear and isolation. It has been a slow process of corrective redemption and a testimony to the patience that Love requires. But through the moments of Joy being born here, I am beginning to feel more whole again. The experiences that I have been storing away for quite some time in the “process later” section of my mind are beginning to surface and I am beginning to see the necessity of processing now. My biggest source of sadness now would be that the fear I have of opening up my barricaded spirit to potential pain, would prohibit me from naming the experiences, acknowledging their worth, and in that giving them a place in my soul where they can be contemplated and their value can be honored by having their changes remain with me.

I still fear leaving this place, but I no longer want to make decisions rooted out of a place of fear. Everyday I am reminded that ours is a simple vocation: to be a people of Love and Peace. It is simple because we can all do it, but it is a testimony to the beauty, creativity, and depth of Love that continues to exist in a world that would dare pervert this word in such ugly ways.

Somewhere in all of this I’ve gained so much more that it truly seems unfair to all the other years of my future life, that Thailand has gotten so much of the goodness. Experiencing Joy after a short period away in my own self-contained isolation is sort of like falling asleep on a bright blue chair in our living room after two nights of not sleeping at all (some like to call this insomnia, but I like to call it making good use of my time. Night is a good time to listen to CSPAN podcasts or like now, type this blog.) to the sounds of Friends and KR laughing and sipping water out of a pink straw. I love that Apartment World is not a lonely place but a place filled with our friends the geckos, who scurry about on the walls and ceilings and sometimes out from under furniture. I love that butterflies inhabit Chiang Mai like they own the city (and they sort of do). Right now as I type this I can look out into the treetops outside our apartment and I can see 7 bright green butterflies flying about and 3 of the blue and brown little guys all working together to eat nectar and spread pollen to continue the cycle of Thailand’s bright and vivid colors in the plants, trees, and flowers. I love that right now a cloud can engulf the valley we live in and within minutes the wind and rain brings the dark clouds and monsoon rains, and then after a time the clouds dissipate and move on and the city emerges a cleaner and clearer version of itself. I love that around 10am each day KR will ask me if I want coffee and of course my answer is always yes, that our apartment now can have the morning smells of toast and coffee and evening smells of garlic and pumpkin; and, that if we are both “on our game” you can hear sighs of awe as we read Thomas and Oswald in the mornings. I love that each day we go to work and the first person I see is my Thai mom/mae Pii Bua -  possibly the world’s most amazing cook, caretaker, and comedian (who is funny even with a group of people she can’t communicate with), who helps with the missing of my own mom. I love the sea of kids at the drop in center, and how their funny little uniforms that make them look like boy scouts, or on Friday, like old-style Lanna fishermen (Northern Thai fishermen).

These and so many other things give me Joy … I’ve been asked a lot about how I feel about the thought of going home, and as KR knows it is a thought that does inspire a bit of trepidation. But I tell you all of this because anyone who took the time to find this blog and get this far must be a fairly patient person (and as KR will tell you, her Love does has to be patient with me as I am a bit of a stubborn one sometimes… just look how long it took me to post this blog) and if I start to go a bit crazy upon re-entry into America I hope you will forgive me. That is not who I want to be to you and that is not what Thailand has done to me, that is a symptom of my own weaknesses that I struggle with wherever I am blessed to be in Community. But it is not where I want to remain.

            Well Friends, I started this blog around 4:30am and it is now 11:07am and I admit I took a bit of a coffee break with my HLP. This is officially the fifth draft of this blog and I am not entirely pleased with what I was finally able to get out. But I thank you for bearing with me with this. Writing about life here is always hard and it always daunts me a bit because it is so important to me that I don’t want to taint it by a premature summation of all it’s goodness. Yet at the same time, I don’t want to lose its beauty and freshness by having contemplation breed forgetfulness… So I thank you for your grace and I encourage you to read much more eloquently written blogs (KR IS the writer of a future Great American Novel – I am quite sure. And, she has a lovely reading aloud voice) that can be found below.

Peace & Love,

BQ

PS: I would post photos of the little kiddies but our child protection policy doesn't allow for their publication to prevent any exploitation at the children's drop in center... but trust me, they are cute. Very cute.