A week in Thailand has provided an opportunity not only to access my blog directly so I can see things I send in are appearing (remember I can't access my actual blog to see how it looks from within China...), but more importantly it's given me the chance to take stock of my eventful year so far. So herewith, some all-text capsules from Krung Thep (city of angels, the Thai name for Bangkok).
Once Upon a Time
A guy named Paul studied Chinese language and history in college, lived in Taiwan for a school year and had the time of his life. While he was in Taiwan, he had good friends in northern Thailand, southern India and Indonesia...but did he make use of this precious opportunity to visit these places most American kids who grew up in southern Ohio never get anywhere near? Nooooooooo. Instead, he decided he had to rush back to the US and finish school: after all, junior years abroad are supposed to a junior year, not a couple of junior years...or so he told himself at the time. So back to the rat-race he rushed.
Post-college lack of funds, indecision about what grad school major to pursue, whether or not to hop accross some ocean again ASAP or to get more training or education or life experience before doing so...coupled with a sense that perhaps the US would be an OK place to live for a time after all...added up to that classic post-college choice: move in with Mom. This led to a job in order to have something to keep himself occupied and out of trouble. A job led to a career in publishing, which led to the reality that some folks reading this blog (if anyone from PPG still checks it -- Beth, Dale, anyone?) only know Paul the corporate VP. Ah but don't we all know in our hearts that virtually everyone we meet harbors depths and hidden selves we might never dream of?
Getting Stale?
Paul's hidden selves started reasserting themselves when he found that he no longer enjoyed his day job as much as he once had. The bike ride along the beach to work was wonderful; working with some of the people in the office or some of the clients could be a great joy. But he did -- twenty or more years down the road from the brash youngster who scorned such philosophizing -- find himself wondering what the point of it all was and whether, indeed, there might not be something more out there.
He remembered that he, in fact, KNEW that there was more out there since he'd already seen a lot of it! Life being what it is, he also realized it's never really too late to try again. Off to MSF went his application to be a non-medical volunteer. The only good news he got on the American election day, 2004 was that MSF wanted to interview him: this was better than the outright rejection he'd received from UN Volunteers, for example. And, as news went, far more appealing than the idea that an American electorate that went up in arms about undisclosed felatio had reelected a liar whose lies were (and still are) killing Americans and Iraqis on the other side of the world.
Starting Anew
And so began the whirlwind that have been the last 11 months. Much of the story is told in blog entries from February and March, and I've found myself revisiting those entries -- and memories -- here in Bangkok: both because I can (see my blog, that is), and because what I'm doing here ties directly to the initial training I took in Paris and Bordeaux back in March. I wrote then about the focus MSF, especially MSF-France, is putting on better tracking, training, development and management of our national staff. And about the fact that they'd just created a custom, proprietary software to allow them to better track all the more than 5,000 national staff working in our projects in more than 35 countries around the world. In our class, we were exposed for one morning to a pre-release version. That was March and it was still pretty full of bugs and things to be worked out.
Since June, they've been rolling it out. This being MSF, spread all over the world, yet committed to trying to do things right, they brought a former volunteer on board for nine months to complete the rollout project. She's been traveling the world since June, doing one-week seminars in many of our sites, training people and slowly starting the ball rolling to get all of these employees and their skill sets and work histories with MSF into one uniform database. Bangkok has been her last stop, and I've spent the last four days learning the software and applying it to all of our national staff from our projects in China.
I've also been meeting my counterparts from our missions in Cambodia, Burma/Myanmar, and of course Thailand, as well as several national staff adminstrative assistants and assistant administrators, and learning more about our projects in those countries. It's been a tremendous week: the pleasure of learning a great new tool that'll really help me do my work; the joy of being in a new city (and the first brand-new country for me this year: for all my travels, they've all been countries I'd been to at least once before) that I've heard so many great things about over the years; the pride in how interesting my colleagues are and what an interesting set of folks tend to be attracted to MSF.
Second Chances
On a personal level, though, this trip reminds me how blessed life can be, and tells me I've really been given a second chance. All those friends I didn't visit, all that time I didn't spend traveling Asia as a youth (when most Americans have the relative freedom from obligation to do so), have haunted me on occasion. When I decided to ditch the day job and hit the international NGO circuit, I also relished the opportunity to use my languages: and kicked myself at the thought that during my 20 years in corporate America I virtually let all three of my foreign languages shrivel on the vine.
And now, presto-change-o: In Bangkok I'm staying in the home of my old friend Tony from New York Front Runner days. Finding him again and catching up on his world travels as a hotel marketing professional over the past 15 years has been one highlight of the trip. Using my French and realizing that, indeed, at this point I can pretty much say anything I need to say, often rather complex thoughts, in French -- is SUCH a joy! That I have, on company time, spent a week 1) learning the streets and sights of Bangkok by night; 2) learning a new software that apeals to my inner geek; 3) using my French extensively; 4) seeing an old friend I'd been out of touch with for more than a decade; and 5) renewing my pride in and commitment to MSF by learning about out malaria projects in Burma, our TB and refugee health projects in Thailand, and our AIDS projects in Cambodia...all the while pondering my own next steps in MSF (extend my current post when my year ends next March; take a new spot, hopefully in Africa, etc.) in conversations with our trainer who herself has had a varied and interesting MSF career (including tsunami relief fieldwork in Sri Lanka this spring)...well, it rather takes my breath away, to be honest.
I suppose you get the message. I feel rather blessed and tickled pink that I get this kind of chance, again, in my life: and that I can now bring to bear for the benefit of this great organization all of the skills and abilities I developed in that business career. Oh, and my brother is coming to Beijing three days after I return home tomorrow!
So for those of you who only want pictures: there'll be lots from Thailand, perhaps as early as Sunday if I get them up in time. Then there'll be Steve's and my vacation pictures: I think we're going to do a Yangtze cruise through the three gorges, before the river fills them all up. Keep your eyes open!
