a new beginning

Hmmm something like 7 hours and counting and already feel like I’ve had the world thrown at me… this is in a good way though. I have seen most of Pattaya from a car’s view, eaten Thai food and met everyone in the office, exchanged phone numbers, gotten a new number and had my picture taken for the website, as well as taken a short nap and cleaned up after a long flight… quite possible one of the longest days of my life and its only 4 o’clock. Things that have struck me so far is that Openaid has real passion and drive behind it. Not only has this been said in various ways but I can tell by the way the girls and Justin interact with the city, even from the car, ready at a moments notice. I am thrilled to see this passion because quite frankly it lacks heaps and bounds in most of the places I have worked in the past. There is a genuine care for the people of this city and the girls of Asia. They have their own pace and approach which I think will be easy to get used to and they all seem like a fairly genial group of like minded people. Pattaya strikes me as a place unusual and sour but not the way I had remembered it from my previous visit here. When I came the first time 2 years ago it struck me as a place of grit where the foulest of people seemed to hover and the air seemed to have a depressed sadness about it. Today though as I drove through the streets, and maybe its because I’m in a state of slight delirium, looked different to me. As passed the many bars and clubs and masses of humanity converging on each other, I no longer saw the outward distaste but rather saw a girls face as she sat in a bar speaking to an old man. I saw a look of disinterest, one of which her emotions had been severed from her soul. There was no sadness in her eyes rather a blank despair. It was in her face that I understood what Justin had been telling me earlier at lunch. Openaid works on a relationship basis, one person, one community. I really appreciate this approach. I really believe in this approach and it excites me to be able to work with an organization of a similar mind. You can’t change systems until you change lives, one at a time.

In addition to all the really fabulous and insightful things as afore mentioned… there is reality to set in. Sitting in my simple but comfortable hotel room, watch American talk shows on tv, I have to laugh a little. The conforts of home are far yet I don’t feel too terribly homesick. Aside from the strange flower pot like containers full of a muddy water and what appear to be thousands of tadpole like creatures feverishly swimming through the muck. Strange…