The First Few Days

My internship was supposed to start yesterday, but some confusion over phone numbers and meetings prevented my commencement. So I've basically been hanging out, exploring the town a bit, doing a lot of reading, etc. Reading-wise, I finished "The Glass Palace" and began two others: Galeano's "Soccer in Sun and Shadow" and Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy." Galeano's an awe-inspiring writer, pure and simple. That Descartes fellow, though - dunno bout him.

Today I went with yet another Burmese artist - there seem to be an abundance of them here - for a little tour. He took me to SAW, which stands for Social Action for Women. The organization began as a women's group but has really expanded in quite a few ways. They have a school with more than 200 hundred students now, a safe house for women in danger, a crisis center for women, an orphanage, and plenty of other services as well. Primarily SAW serves the migrant worker population, and they are one of the first organizations that began to do so. My internship won't begin until Wednedsay now - Thailand declared today, Monday, and Tuesday a national holiday for the 60th anniversary of the King's coronation - so I will return to SAW to hang with the kids, help out a bit, etc. early next week.

Then I went to the artist's house, where he showed me quite a collection of his work. It's mostly charcoal pieces with some pastels, focusing on monks, children, and students. Tomorrow night he'll be auctioning a piece along with two other Burmese artists to raise funds for the Free Burma Rangers. I really, really liked their work. They also run a small art school. My tour guide and I passed a student on the street who said he'd just won first prize in an art contest today - my guide was very proud, as this student is a student of his.

Since my last post, I'm planning on being a little more careful about names, so I'll leave more people anonymous. I also realized I probably shouldn't post pictures of myself. Ah! - the luxuries of political tomfoolery.

(The top picture - at least I think it'll come up as the top one - I took at the "Day Market," possibly my favorite part of Mae Sot so far. I bought a pair of bootleg Arsenal shorts there today. The bottom picture is from just outside of Mae Sot. Mountains surround the town on all sides, it seems, and rice paddies extent in every direction. Praise the longyi.)