Feb 1st- Feb 6th

This entry is from my journal about two weeks ago. I am currently reading Samantha Power’s “ A Problem From Hell: America and Genocide.” I started with the elephants because honestly that was how far I read into the itinerary before I booked the trip.  Obsession may be too strong a word, consistently focused and passionate sounds more accurate to describe my views on elephants. My mother, on the other hand, is obsessed.

Everything about the Elephant Nature Park is inspiring: from its back-story to its tour guides, to its promise. The woman who started it, Lek, is a powerhouse of innovation, and is an example of a community based individual with foreign support that has created tangible positive change within her respective community. What can be a major challenge for organizations working in foreign countries is resistance from the communities, which is why it is important to integrate community members into the structure or even lead the organizations. Even the western elephant trainer struggles with xenophobia among the mahouts. (A mahout is generally a man who takes cares of an assigned elephant for the rest of its life, and many times the two create a meaningful relationship. Despite how incredible the job sounds, it is considered very lowly work, as a mahout basically stalks an elephant for fifty years.) I definitely have personal experience with xenophobia whether it was upon my arrival in Jamaica or as a “gringa” in Central America. What most people fear whether its skin tone, eye size, hair color, or language is simply the different.

The idea of difference and foreign becomes a pivotal determinant in genocide. When a country is tragically undergoing civil war genocide, its borders become impenetrable, its people become unidentifiable, its history unknown, and its culture unrecognizable to the outside world.  More people would condemn foreign acts of aggressiveness than internal acts of extreme violence. For example (and here I do not mean to be overly controversial) more Americans will identify and remember more strongly Pearl Harbor, because it was our sons and fathers that were killed by the Japanese. They won’t remember the Hutu massacre of Tutsis despite ten times more people dying. If a Hutu were to cut down a Tutsi and an American with a machete, they would both bleed the same color. But only one would spark the attention of “world’s greatest country”. Replace one Tutsi with 800,000 and the statement still stands.

The fear of difference is why a) its so easy to understand why genocide is capable of occurring within countries and b) why foreign nations are hesitant to involve themselves in other countries’ internal conflicts since they doubt they will understand or change anything. It’s weird to think that our cultural divides become so apparent in such grievous and consequential events, when there are McDonalds and Starbucks in every city globally. If Western culture has infiltrated and linked the globe to the extent that some people believe, and indeed to the extent that even here in rural Laos, hamburger and fries is proudly displayed on every restaurant’s menu then, if that were true, the Mahouts would happily accept the Montana trainer’s method of positive reinforcement. What makes the tradition of how they treat their “livestock” more worthy of preservation then people’s traditional dress or dish? How do we conduct target training with different cultures? Should we even try? Otherwise Elephants are left to be tortured into submission under the argument that its been practiced for thousands of years.

And then Lek comes along. She doesn't have much national support from Thailand. But I have met some among her staff who grew up in Thailand, with fathers who were mahouts and practiced the painful traditional “crush” upon their elephant’s, and knew something wasn't right. They followed Lek’s voice to the Elephant Nature Park. A voice that most importantly sounded familiar.

Change is difficult; foreigners trying to cause change seems virtually impossible, and yet I try to implement the Jamaica Library Project with students from Washington DC, which has produced tangible positive change.  If you create a group of people with the same strong belief all other differences fall to the wayside. Lek has been able to do that successfully, and therefore when I leave the Elephant Nature Park, I walk away with something that the victims of genocide were killed for and that is faith. 

I genuinely apologize for not having updated this blog in so long.  I have been very internally conflicted over what the purpose of this blog is. It has changed multiple times over the course of the year. The original intention was that the website would be set up as an investigative piece on global food. And then reality hit. During my first semester in Australia, I neither had the time nor money to afford a side business of investigating Australia’s food and farmers markets. I ate mainly fast food for my meals, if I ate at all, in order to experience as much as possible. My entire east coast trip was afforded at the cost of my diet. Some days I would wake up at 8, get to the call center by 9:30 and not get home until 10:00 that evening, with only having eaten lunch that day.

My time was fully booked. The deal was I had to pay for everything so I worked for everything while any hobbies fell by the wayside. Well almost any. I’ll admit my weekends for the first month and a half I was in a Sydney I spent mainly with my friends. I made an effort to see each close friend at least once a week (a part from the initial week in the program). Now let me put that in perspective for you. I neither worked nor lived with my four close friends. Trying to build meaningful relationships within five weeks is difficult. I remember rushing from one friends apartment to another, my feet sore and calloused from block after block- many times it would also be raining. They didn't eat well either, well apart from Sophie but she could cook. I struggled with boiling hot water. I don’t regret a single decision I made in Australia, I grew up so much. I went from living with my parents to living with girls in their late twenties and thirties, having a landlord, working full time, planning my own adventures, deciding what was worth paying for, advising people ten years older then me and honestly just keeping my head above water. I came home from Australia and basically slept for a week straight. In three months, there was not a single relaxed moment. There were no days off.  There were no opportunities I said no to. There was no time to go scour for farmers markets and interesting food stories, when I only ate a decent meal once a week.

And so the blog became my emotional outlet. At times frustrated by the time difference, exhausted from work and thoroughly stressed out about being independent for the first time in my life I turned to this blog as my sole companion and stress reliever.  I am a notoriously sporadically passionate person - meaning yes at times, unsurprisingly to many I can be melodramatic. And this came across in my writing. Some posts were thought through and spell checked. Others were written late at night after work through hungry, exhausted eyes, and that showed.  

So now what is this purpose? Well, hopefully, like my situation has, it’ll change. I am currently on a Pacific Discovery program for two months in Southeast Asia. We visit Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, highlighting each countries different culture, language, history and cuisine. Hopefully this blog will be focused on my personal views on what we are experiencing.  In Australia, I learned new aspects of my personality and of “real life” every day.  In contrast, this semester, I am learning new things about the world every day.