"kait.. if you have to stay in thailand forever.. do you like it?"

sa-wat-dii kha, people that I love!

february 6-7 was the chinese new year. my thai family is of chinese heritage, so we had a party. actually, it was two parties - wednesday night and thursday night. wednesday we had much family over for dinner, including my thai dad's mom, who's pretty old. she didn't talk to me too much. my thai cousins, in contrast, talked to me (or at least about me) quite a bit. this really started on thursday night, when the same family memebers, minus the grandmother, came over again for another round of card games. I was the at center of a lot of conversation (and jokes) as the family got more comfortable with me (and their heineken.) I included myself in conversation when I could, using my minimal thai skills. I think it was appreciated. a favorite memory would be the point at which they made the switch to calling me "kait" instead of "farang."

I'm in the process of solidifying spring break plans. me, evelyn, erin, and gavin, along with a couple special guests from the western hemisphere, will be spending our spring break on the island of Phi Phi, off the coast of southern thailand. I'm trying to figure out a better way to pronounce the island's name, but I've not had much luck so far.. let me know if you come up with anything. regardless, it should be a really fun time, and I'm looking forward to it. (sb08!)

the SST program ends may 3. from may 3 to may 10 I'll be traveling around southern thailand with desiree and some others. I'm really excited about that week already. today we visited four temples in chaing mai in under 3 hours. (temple-hopping, if you will.) I had a really hard time focusing on what was going on, since there were 30 of us. it's distracting to travel in a group of that size, so I'm really looking forward to a time when I'll get to experience thailand a little bit more on my own. I think a group of 5 will be much more conducive to really taking everything in.

one of the topics of our classes at CMU has been buddhism. it's been really interesting, but something surprised me. I think I was expecting to agree with buddhist philosophy a lot more than I do. one thing that is pretty central to buddhism is the idea of karma. using a loose definition of the word, I agree with karma; I fully believe that you will get back the words/actions/energies that you put out there in the world. within buddhism is the belief that you are born into each life based on the amount of good karma you accumulated in your previous life. following the logic, this means that people born with disabilities or terminal illnesses are born that way because of bad karma from a previous life. this leads to the abandonment of many babies born HIV-positive. and once in orphanages, thai families will not adopt them because that would be willingly bringing very bad karma into your home. also, this idea about being born "where you belong" leads to acceptance of the extreme differences between social classes. this is often accompanied by fatalism, which I believe to be poisonous to society. lastly, it is considered better to be born into life as a man than as a woman. this sets up an inherent inequality between men and women. (desiree and I are never left without things to talk about!)

about a week ago, my 18-year-old thai sister turned around from the front seat of the car and asked me, "kait.. if you have to stay in thailand forever.. do you like it?" I've been thinking about that question. I really love it here. I'm actually surprised at the amount of connectedness I feel to this place in such a short period of time. I already know that when I leave in may, I will miss it terribly. in regards to "forever," I'm not yet sure. my life is incredibly uncertain right now. but for the first time in years, I'm truly grateful for the uncertainty. it's forcing me to let go of things (people, places, planning, etc,) and teaching me to only want what God has given me for right now. I know He'll give me the next step; He always does.

peace :)