Three Years On

On this day in 2005, Jip and I arrived in Thailand to start this chapter of our lives. Returning here still seems like the best decision we could have made.

Jip’s moods and overall health have plateaued instead of continuing downhill as I feared they might. She has surprised me recently with how many activities are back on her list again. I often read aloud to her for about twenty minutes before bedtime—two years ago she would have said it took too much effort to listen. At the end of this month we’re going down to her village for the fifth anniversary of Jip’s dad’s passing. Last year she didn’t want to go, so I went alone and represented her.

Consistent, experienced care providers make all the difference. The current team of three women has been together nearly a year. They like Jip and they like each other. Jip can worry about other things besides whether or not her caregivers knows what they’re doing. I’m riding this wave of stability, knowing that it won’t last. In early August I’ll visit the U.S. for a couple weeks.

All this relatively good news is built on the foundation of Jip having had no major loss of physical function or cognitive ability, which also amazes me. We’d been warned for years that heat would be a problem if we ever moved back to the tropics, but the weather doesn’t seem to have led to her disease getting worse.

Well, maybe a little worse. She’s definitely still got spasticity problems … now in one arm as well as the legs. But luckily with round-the-clock care she’s always able to convince somebody to help her “de-stiff” her limbs, so the discomfort doesn’t last too long.

My brain and body are also doing pretty well. I get enough exercise, I finish the book club book before the book club meeting, and I get out of town on a regular basis. None of those things was true for me in Seattle just before we moved.

Mob, Part 2

Since the coup that left Thaksin without a day job, the country has been given a new constitution that weakens elected officials, by making it easier to impeach the prime minister, and increasing the power of the courts.

The judges have been busy. This week they threw three members of Thaksin’s legal defense team in jail on bribery charges. (The lawyers claimed to have gotten their cake boxes mixed up when they handed one containing $60,000 in baht to some minor court officials. The press is calling the incident “Pastrygate.”)

A longstanding border dispute with Cambodia has also flared recently, keeping Thai politicians from tackling, say, inflation, currently over 5%. Instead they’re debating which country should control the concessions around a 900-year-old border temple that may soon become a World Heritage site.

Next the courts will rule on whether or not the ruling party must disband in light of election irregularities. Bottom line: the government is struggling to survive.

Waiting in the Wings

Thai language borrows the English word “mob,” meaning crowd of people. I hear it used to describe the group that has been protesting outside the prime minister’s office nearly every day since the new government started up six months ago. But here the term doesn’t imply lawlessness or lowest-common-denominator thinking.

This mob seems mostly to be made up of the elite. The real target of its complaints doesn’t even work in the prime minister’s office anymore. He was removed by a coup nearly two years ago.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire businessman who led Thailand until September 2006, was never really sidelined. The current prime minister admits to being Thaksin’s proxy. Former members of his party still hold senior posts. And while several court cases accuse him of corruption during his term, he’s unlikely to ever go to jail.

He claims he’s done with politics. The people in the mob don’t believe him, but they can hardly wave signs saying “No more!” while he’s already saying “Enough!” So the object of the protests, and the alternatives being offered, seem a little fuzzy.

The true common folk, in fact, wish Thaksin would come back. His populist policies are the reason the leading party succeeds so well upcountry. His confidence and take-no-prisoners style may explain why he made the military nervous enough to overthrow him. And the fear that some day he’ll pick up where he left off fuels the “mob.”

Bash for Burma

It’s not uncommon here to do reverse birthday parties during one’s zodiac year. I was born in the Year of the Rat, which has come around again.

In honor of my four trips around the cycle, and of my friend Nick taking a job in Rangoon at the end of this month, last night he and I threw a bash downstairs by the pool. We raised over $2,100 for Burma cyclone relief. The proceeds are going to three Burmese-run groups that we’re sure will use the money wisely on behalf of people who are still in great need.

Two of these groups have bank accounts outside the country. They received half of the funds. On their websites you can read more about them, and add to our efforts if you wish. They are:

http://www.metta-myanmar.org/

http://www.nargisaction.org/

Our research also pointed us to a consortium of effective Burmese NGOs. Nick will distribute the remainder of the money to that clearinghouse when he arrives in Rangoon.

A few days from now, Aung San Suu Kyi turns 63 years old. The government has extended her house arrest yet again. This is her 13^th year of detention. Let’s hope that soon her country has something to celebrate.

Wait Till This Year

You’re probably thinking I’ve gotten over being a Cub fan, living twelve time zones and 30 years removed from Chicago. Or maybe you’re thinking, who wouldn’t cheer for a team that hasn’t won for 100 years?

Me, I’m thinking of that great quote from Paul Farmer, the advocate for health care among the world’s poorest:

I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory.... We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.

In 2008 I actually think we may win. You have to have noticed the streaks. This year’s Cubbies have been stringing together five and six in a row, especially at home. And how about the three Cub players—two playing their first year of major league ball—who top the National League All-Star voting at their position? Maybe best of all, let’s not forget Fukudome, the best Japanese import since the Toyota Prius.

Sure, we’ve been disappointed often. Some percentage of the patient sufferers around the globe who call themselves Cub fans may even expect to be disappointed. But that doesn’t stop any of us from saying, “This is the year.”

Jip Flip-Flops

Jip became eligible for American citizenship during the first term of the current U.S. president. She decided not to apply, saying, “Any country that would elect this guy is no country for me.” But lately we’ve been talking about the post-Bush era. Now she is reconsidering.

Practically speaking, we are unlikely to live in the States again. Given our givens, and the way that this century is starting out as belonging to Asia rather than America, Jip and I will probably be happiest staying in Thailand. Just the same, it’s fun discussing presidential elections with Jip.

Four years ago, she got on the phone and lobbied all of the American citizens she could think of to vote against Bush. We had heard something on the radio about the large numbers of Asian immigrants who hadn’t registered. Within a week, Jip had called people in about 20 states to make sure they knew what to do.

Since that time, phoning people has become more difficult and less interesting for her. But she’s got strong opinions. Don’t be surprised if you get a call for her sometime in the coming months, urging you to vote the right way.

Staircase Spirits

I left work after dark one night. A security guard saw that I’d come down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. As he approached me, at first I thought I had broken a rule or something. But instead he asked, “weren’t you scared?”

Lots of Thai people believe in spirits of one kind of another. You don’t have to look far to figure this out—movies and magazines on these topics are popular, amulets are everywhere. Spirit doctors are consulted for getting rid of ghosts or curses, or for helping with love troubles.

So I knew the guard wasn’t wondering if I was frightened by the low lighting in the staircase. When I told him I wasn’t worried about spirits, he answered something along the lines of “Oh, you’re the live-and-let-live type, huh?”

Not all spirits are evil. Big trees are often thought to house good spirits. Everyone who puts up a building in Thailand also builds a small house where the spirits of the land can live. The idea is that if the spirits don’t have a house of their own, they may not remain calm.

I decided to answer the security guard by pointing to the spirit house near the office. Somehow it didn’t seem right to tell him that I simply didn’t believe. I wondered later if that thought would even have occurred to him.

Burma’s Katrina

Remarkably, tragically, the news from Burma just gets more discouraging. A long-time friend of ours passed through Bangkok on a quick visit she was making to the Burmese border from Seattle in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

She was of course furious at the Burmese government’s refusal to help its own people recover, and so had flown over on her own because she knows some back channel ways of getting help into the country.

Her sense is that the best disaster response work is being done by groups that have been operating in the country for some time, and thus have large Burmese staffs, who can distribute supplies without attracting unwanted attention from the military. Our friend was impressed with Thirst-Aid. Money contributed at my birthday fundraiser will go to them. I encourage you to send them a check as well.

She had learned that in some villages, outside medical personnel and aid dispensers had to work secretly, in order to avoid authorities who want the people to see only Burmese soldiers providing relief.

Yet the message that comes through loudest is that the government doesn’t care about anything but its own survival. Nobody is collecting the corpses. Homeless villagers who made their way to emergency shelters in nearby towns are being told that they must return “home” in order to vote in a referendum that would validate the military’s right to rule.

News coverage by the BBC remains quite good.

Joining the Middle Class

The women who take care of Jip generally are long on experience and common sense, but short on savings. They’re always from the countryside, usually supporting family back home.

If they end up working for us a while, the wages we pay allow them to put aside a little bit, enough to front the costs of a small business. The longer people stay, the greater the odds that one day they’ll show up toting Avon-style cosmetics catalogs. Two weeks ago we celebrated one woman’s first anniversary. She’s the third to have continued that long, and all three eventually discovered the makeup sideline.

They also make some cosmetic changes of their own. This week the newest caregiver (eight months and counting) giggled as she described to the others how she’d paid $100 to get permanent lip color, for the Angelina Jolie look.

Jip doesn’t care for such conversations, or for entrepreneurship involving fashion. But I think it’s fun to watch what people do when they find themselves in charge of some disposable income. Who am I to judge what they do with it?

Energy Heart

About fifty of Jip’s nursing school classmates gathered at a restaurant Sunday for a 25^th reunion. They cheered and rose to their feet when we rolled in. Jip’s grin got very wide.

She handled the attention well. When we first moved back to Thailand, connecting with people from her past was a low priority for Jip, maybe because she wasn’t sure how they’d react to seeing her in a wheelchair.

At this event, she never complained, even though it got noisy and she didn’t always know who was talking to her. It probably helped that everyone there was a nurse.

I got a little misty watching the parade of people line up to speak with her. But that was nothing compared to how I felt when we got ready to leave. The whole group sang to her, a great song that translates literally as “energy heart.” Thais use the phrase to talk about spirit, encouragement, or moral support. I just kept reaching for my hanky.

Vast Humanitarian Disaster In Burma

Here’s an update based on an email I received from a long-time Burma activist, Edith Mirante of Project Maje.

Cyclone Nargis inundated Burma's densely populated Irrawaddy Delta, destroying entire towns and villages. The storm killed tens of thousands of people, left homeless as many as a million, and destroyed infrastructure in the largest city, Rangoon.

Now the country is dealing with serious shortages of drinking water, food, and shelter. Diseases such as cholera are not far off. Compounding the disaster are the wacky regime's deliberate delay of international emergency assistance, and the past few decades of deforestation. Things won’t get better fast; the Delta area was Burma's primary rice growing region.

Links for information and disaster relief donations are below. The groups listed appreciate and will make good use of any contribution, even small amounts. As one way to deal personally with this tragedy, I recommend organizing a small benefit event such as a concert, reading, art sale, dinner, or film show. Invite your friends, family, co-workers, or community and send the proceeds to a relief aid group. Children often have excellent ideas for such events.

I plan to celebrate my fourth cycle birthday at the end of this month with a fundraiser for Burma. Two cycles ago, when I was 24, warfare along the Thai Cambodian border led to the creation of huge refugee camps where Jip and I eventually worked. So we’ve seen the difference that a concerted, well-organized, and well-funded ongoing relief effort can make. That kind of effort isn’t happening in Burma at the moment, but perhaps if enough of us act, we can make the situation there a teeny bit better.

I know that these are hard economic times everywhere, but I hope that you will consider making some contribution to the relief effort, either on your own or by making others aware of the effective donation options available.

DONATIONS for disaster relief can be made via these organizations:

** Medecins Sans Frontiers (already distributing emergency aid in affected areas)

** Medical Emergency Relief International (already bringing aid to the Delta)

** Thirst-Aid (water purification is an urgent priority)

** Avaaz.org (special fund via Burma's Buddhist monks)

** MercyCorps (experienced disaster relief experts with local partners)

For constantly updated INFORMATION, see these news sources:

BBC News

The Irrawaddy

Mizzima News

US Campaign for Burma (also accepting disaster relief donations)

Labor Day

Over here it really is a holiday for laborers, not mostly an excuse for an extra day of summer vacation for school kids, the way it is in the States. My office wasn’t closed, but it seemed right that Jip’s caregivers should have May 1st off, so I stayed home and took care of her for 24 hours.

She and I both had a fine time. We could hear picnickers and game players laughing in the nearby park. Jip cracked jokes all day, remaining patient despite my rustiness with the daytime routine (now I only do Sunday nights). From loudspeakers in the park nearby came a medley of festive songs (weirdly interrupted now and then by solo saxophone renditions of 500 Miles and Auld Lang Syne—maybe they were recordings made by the king, a noted sax player?) and the occasional official-sounding announcement.

I was struck again at how hard the work is. Jip’s wishes and routine are not complicated, but she does talk about them nearly nonstop. That means caregivers have to get good at making conversation, or at least at letting Jip know they’re paying attention. She seems to be hearing less well lately (I’m really hoping it’s ear wax rather than a rare symptom of this disease), so we also must remember to speak up when responding to her.

Massage has become part of the job, as Jip has begun to complain more frequently of shoulder stiffness. When she uses her standing frame, she now has trouble lifting her arm high enough to throw a ball.

And she still takes great comfort from her tooth brushing and mouth swishing, which she can make last longer than anyone else I know (2-3 hours when the morning and evening phases are added together). So while we’d both had a good day, we were really ready for bed when the time came.

Clear Eyes

Two amigos came to town. Stayed a week. Had a fine time.

These are A-list friends, college housemates. Each traveled with a 13-year-old son. For them it was spring break. For me it was Thai New Year. Taking the week off to travel around and get into water fights was no problem. The five of us did some river taxiing and some wet bike riding and some kayaking and some waterfall climbing and a few other soggy activities.

Hosting newcomers to Thailand made me realize how much newness I’ve absorbed since Jip and I arrived in July 2005. My friends stopped and stared at things that no longer strike me as strange. They asked questions I used to ask.

Brad marveled at what seemed to him a mindful pace of life. Several times he commented on the daily routines that included time for offering incense to spirits, or for refreshing flower garlands that hang from taxis’ rear-view mirrors. By the end of the week, he was trying to figure out how to explain to his wife when he got home that he had become a Buddhist.

Edie appreciated the sensory stuff—“This tastes so great! That smells so great! How have we lived this long without feeling anything like this?! How come America hasn’t figured that out yet?”

The two kids also asked sharp questions about the language. “Are you serious that I never have to conjugate any verbs? I’m moving here.” They also got wide eyed as we moved to successively wetter parts of town during the height of the annual Songkran festivities.

One night we passed by a free outdoor concert. The performers were spraying spectators with big hoses from the stage. People at the back of the audience could choose to get soaked at their own pace under huge public showers.

As we used to say to each other back in college when our house would embark on similarly wacky adventures, “after this, reality is such a disappointment.”

Not Making This Up

Can your local cultural association top this offering?

The Thai Textile Society will present a lecture, “Lotus Stem Weaving from Shan State,” by Sylvia Fraser-Lu at The Siam Society on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. She will explain the development of lotus stem weaving for monk’s robes and its continued popularity today.

Lotus-fiber weaving takes place in the eastern quarter of Kyaing Kan village, the largest settlement at the southern extremity of Inle Lake. According to informants, this activity began around 1910 when a Daw Sa Oo (Madame Sparrow’s Egg) in the interest of gaining merit set out to produce a set of robes for the highly revered abbot of a nearby monastery, from the fibers of the local padonma-kya lotus plant, which grew wild in the shallows of the lake. The delighted abbot had the weaver’s name changed to Daw Kya Oo (Madame Lotus Egg) in honor of her pious achievement. Daw Kya Oo and her friends throughout their lives continued to weave with lotus yarn for meritorious rather than commercial purposes, producing one or two sets of robes a year for eminent local abbots. None of Daw Kya Oo’s progeny are currently involved in weaving, but the descendants of her friends have continued the tradition.

The obscure art of weaving monk’s robes from lotus stem fibers first came to national attention in Burma at the annual Shwedagon Maho-thingan Festival. In November 1981, a team of weavers from Kyaing Kan were invited to compete in a nation-wide weaving competition to honor a Buddhist legend that asserts that Maya, the mother of the Buddha, stayed up all night in the Tavatimsa heaven on the eve of her son’s Enlightenment, to weave him a suitable robe. Weaving in a rougher fiber than their competitors, who used milled cotton, they did not win, but their sturdy beautifully woven robe caused quite a sensation amongst the devoutly Buddhist on-lookers. Such an enthusiastic reaction was not unexpected, given the symbolic importance of the lotus in Hindu-Buddhist culture.

I didn’t make it to this lecture, but if you’re intrigued I can maybe scare up a lotus stem robe for you to honor the monk in your life.