I miss you, Peter 30 August 2010, 16:46
Cajamarca, Peru
Your sneakers must come from somewhere 26 August 2010, 14:05
Foundation for Education and Development, previously Grassroots HRE in Phang Nga, Thailand, is a Burmese-run human rights org I’ve volunteered for and visited twice. They primarily serve migrant workers on construction sites and rubber plantations by providing schools for migrants’ children and offering legal, educational and health services for adults.
If you’ve never seen a rubber plantation, it’s pretty amazing and beautiful. Thousands of rows of skinny trees all in a line. Little cups on all the trees. Crazy bugs. A stillness throughout the jungle. But the Burmese workers there are often attacked, murdered and raped as they tap the trees overnight, and are not usually paid well. This Irrawaddy report on life on the rubber plantation noticeably lacks mention of the extremely repressive and genocidal dictatorship in Burma which is the REAL reason people flee to work in Thailand, but nevertheless, it gives you a good sense of life there (story starts around 00:42). I was on this particular plantation twice:
Au gust 17 August 2010, 15:04
Have started listening to opera.
It was there all along, like God,
but I chose to be busy with other things.
Catharsis comes sometimes the same way
seasons die: without our being able to control
the eventual or sudden transition. One day
it’s just cold.
I cut my hair because I could feel the leaves
disengaging. One must prepare.
And in the street, a rallying heat
waves its scarf in an early goodbye.
You might as well let everything go;
it’s best to be unfettered when the new winds blow.