Take-off!

Tomorrow morning we'll head for Seattle and Mary Ellen will drop me off for the long! flight to Bangkok.  A direct flight from Seattle to Seoul and then another hop to Bangkok.  I arrive sometime in the very early morning on January 29.

James, my co-instructor, and all the students left a week ago. (I had to lag behind because of two important conferences).  They've been sending reports about warm weather (80 F) and great curries.  I'll be heading north to Chiang Mai to meet them on the evening train on the 29th.  

I have been reading about the roles that parents and other adults play in the development of language and the rules of social interdependence and gender roles in culture and I am eager to get a chance to observe and talk with children and adults in the family and schools settings we will visit in the north of Thailand.  We will primarily working with the Karen people, a minority group in Thailand who come from Myanmar (once Burma) and I believe will have the chance to work in a school and an orphanage. 

We also will have the chance to visit the Panya Project, a permaculture farm (www.Panyaproject.org) where a recent Fairhaven grad, Martha Asselin, is the volunteer coordinator.

So today is most taking care of the last little details and collecting a few things that the others who are already there requested, and then the adventure begins!

Marie