The U.S. Failure

God! My journey away from the U.S. has led me to see the overwhelming arrogance of a nation, the uselessness of it’s government, and the complacency of the majority of it’s citizens. It’s not that I detest the country, I truly love the United States of America, I love what it stands for, I love the opportunities I’ve had. For those things and more I’m grateful to the ends of earth and back.
However what it stands for now means nothing to the harm it’s done. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty says:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

That promise hasn’t been kept. To it’s own people let alone the “Free World” the government says it protects. The “Free World” is now the most skeptical and guarded of all in relations to the U.S.

Bush has pulled out of so many pacts and treaties that I’m sure Fijians are shaking in their loincloths with fear of upsetting Junior into a possible war.

What is disturbing is that the people of America are OK with it!
The people of America don’t give a damn.

They were too busy watching Seinfeld when Clinton authorized weapons to be sold to the Indonesian government which went on to massacre 200,000 East Timorese people. They were too busy sucked into American Idol when Bush defied the U.N. and went to war with Iraq.

It took leaving the country and seeing these things happen from outside in to realize what I didn’t when I was there. What will it take for the rest of the country that silently cares but for which it hasn’t spawned yet? I don’t know, but I hope it happens soon – a revolution is necessary now!

This is one of the things that scare me – the complacency, the resignation and the beat down demeanor of the people that is supposed to be lifted and inspired by it’s government, but ultimately is just that: beat down by it’s own government. Oppressed by the Autocracy with no balls to do anything about it but enjoy the little sanctity they possess in their televisions.

My Failure

This doesn’t so much scare me but, it definitely weighs on me, as I prepare to go home, is that I really don’t think I’ve accomplished what I should have in the time I’ve been here. I came to Thailand with a strong vision to use my background with buildings to help others.

I don’t know if it was my stubbornness or the lack of competent management with the organizations I’ve worked with that was the hindrance, but there have been many breakdowns and I just have not been able to deal with them. I can forgive the lack of efficiency with the Thai people, it’s just a hot environment and the ordinary Thai or Moken villager doesn’t build 50 homes at a time. I believe the breakdown comes from not having a focused project manager with construction experience that has direct interaction with the village superior. Any other attempt is pointless and leads to misdirection, misinformation and misunderstanding amongst the people we’ve come to help.

It’s possible the misunderstanding is on my end. We are here to help, but with my experience and background I expect my “help” to be on a different level. Maybe make things a little easier or go a little faster. Maybe I’m just frustrated over my own ineptitude. I look back and here’s what I’ve accomplished in ten months:

April through July: Helped build 42 houses for a Moken Village. Quit working at the village because of the lack of experience of the volunteer manager and the reluctance to which my opinions and thoughts were accepted.

July: Created a database for which to track donations and contributions to an Adopt-A-Child program which offered aid to orphans and disadvantaged children. After this was completed I do not actually know how much this database was used and I now question the integrity in which the program was run.

August: I ran off to be an extra in what I though was to be a Hollywood blockbuster starring Patrick Stewart, but ended up being a double for Angus MacFadyen in a Hallmark mini-series.

September: Spent an entire month and all the money I had from the Blackbeard mini-series on an island cut off from the world and enjoyed the isolation.

October/November: Designed a new website for the Tsunami Volunteer Center.

December: Helped a local Tsunami Craft Centre with their promotional print material and then took off on a two and a half weekend with Heather for Christmas.

January/February : Started another construction project only to walk off the site again for similar reasons cited from the first foray.

My last job: creating a website for a homestay volun-tourism project that will bring volunteers into the homes of villagers that survived through the tsunami.

It sounds good and all, but walking off the job sites has probably been the hardest part for me to accept and one of the hardest aspects of my persona to confront. I quit on ninety-some households because I couldn’t get along with the people running the projects.

I want to say that I have values and wouldn’t let something slip through my fingers that wasn’t satisfactory, but I have to question those very values when I would quit on something I specifically came here to do because I didn’t believe in the leadership.

The Houses? Yeah they got built. They were gonna be built with or without me. But to recognize this failure is not something I’ve really enjoy seeing and really wish things were different.

How much have I really changed? I can’t quite say. Have I grown at least? I think in ways I’ve advanced more than any other year in my past, and in others I’ve regressed to stages I’ve far grown from. I’m positive this has been a life changing event for me and I will never forget my time here, yet I’m certain I’m not prepared to rejoin the culture I’ve left a year ago or move on from this beautiful place and the failure I’ll be leaving here.

The One Year Anniversary was the day after Christmas. Attended by thousands the ceremony was an amazing sight of diversity, emotion and light. Held right next to the beach where over three thousand Thai and Foreign people were killed, the Prime Minister gave his emotionless and banal speech and the Princess of Thailand, who’s son died in the tsunami, gave her engaging speech in Thai and thanked the volunteers and foreigners that helped in English.

The highlight: 5,000 floating lanterns of light made from rice-paper were lit and released into the air creating a manmade constellation hundreds of feet in the air. While below on the ground every person at the ceremony lifted there burning candles in remembrance. A beautiful and highly emotional evening to mark a years time.

New Years will be celebrated with my Arrogant Bastard Ale that was brought from home, and maybe some homemade tacos for the Feliz Ano Nuevo.

The Back Story:
Paddy was one of the first people I met when I got here in April. He went away for a bit to travel through Nepal and climb to the base camp at Everest. When he got back he proceeded to bombard everyone in town with unique pranks.
A couple of my favorites were…

• Stealing a huge, five foot tall yellow neon sign with a big ostrich that said “Eat me!” on it, from a local restaurant. Then rolling it down the highway in the middle of the night, and sticking it in one of the other volunteers’ room.

• The best one was when him and a couple other outgoing volunteers decided to steal each and every volunteers flip-flops from out in front of their bungalows. For the next few days along with some very pissed off people, sandal sales skyrocketed in town. At the Monday night meeting they struck again… They locked all the doors to the building from the outside, dumped everyone’s left flip flop outside and left a note saying that the other one was at the Fisherman Bar. They ended up getting kicked out for that one, but it was funny as hell. The people in the meeting had to use a hacksaw to cut their way out. And when everyone got out they were looking at entirely more flip-flops than they expected. Fortunately for me, I was in Kho Tao at the time and thus spared being a victim.

However I did end up being a recipient of one of his patented pranks about a week before him and a small group went to help the people in Pakistan in the wake of the earthquake. I was totally unaware of the fact that I had been pranked, and even when asked if I had been by Karen, a neighbor, I said no. A couple days go by though and I was sitting at my computer on my little table and I looked up and noticed that the elephant carving that came with the room. I thought… Maybe I have been pranked.

As the elephant carving didn’t mean anything to me I didn’t pay any attention to it. However a couple of nights later when I went to watch a movie and couldn’t find my remotes… Well a line was crossed.

The next day I was talking to Sarah, Paddy’s girlfriend and I told her I don’t give a shit about the elephant, I just wanted the remotes ‘cause I can’t work the TV and DVD player without them. She fessed to not having a clue about the pranks, but she told me I should teach him a lesson. So we conspired and came up with a plan…

That night happened to be their last night in Khao Lak and while they were out getting hammered at the Pia bar I went to their bungalow to find my remotes and do a little prankin of my own. However when I walked right in through their unlocked door (which meant they lost their key), I saw that because they were such slobs anything I did to the room would not even be noticed unless I cleaned the room entirely. So as I was thinking what to do I found one of my remotes but not both.

Then I came up with a great idea. What item above all else does a backpacker need when traveling? That’s right! I stole his backpack. On my way out I locked both doors, shoved a big wooden chair up against the window so they couldn’t get in that way and left.

The next day around 3 at the volunteer center my Spidey-senses alerted me and told me I should take a walk home. A five minute walk from the center to my doorstep and I hear noises inside… I quietly slip the key in the lock and turn and pull and there is a 5’6 red-headed Paddy very dumbly looking at me caught in the act.

“Hey there William… We were just… Cleaning your room…”

I see Roxanne, his accomplice, next to the back door trying in vain to hide behind the half length curtains.

After a minute of me being silent to get him uncomfortable he bursts out,

“Do you have my bag?”

“I do.” I respond.

“Is it here?” he asks.

I told him that it wasn’t and I want my remote and the elephant back before he could have his bag back. To which he responded that the remote is no problem but getting the elephant back was something he couldn’t do.

Now this is where the plan Sarah and I cooked up comes into play…

I look sharply at him and trying to display an air of anger and upset, but at the same time covering it up with calm.

“What?”

A little un-nerved he repeats that he wouldn’t be able to get it back.

Losing the calm a little I say.

“I really don’t think you would have taken it, if you knew what that meant to me. That elephant was given to me by my Mother who died of cancer last year. She used to spend a lot of time in Northern Thailand where she got it. That was the number one reason for me coming to Thailand instead of Sri Lanka or Banda Aceh!” Of course none of this was true.

After hearing this he covered his face with his hands and looked up with those eyes of “I fucked up so badly, how do I begin to right this wrong?”

He apologized profusely and said he would do what he could to get someone to find it. I told him to lock up my room and call me when he found the remote and I would tell him where his backpack was. And I left.

2o minutes later he called and told me he had the remote. So I told him to put it on top of the non-working refrigerator that was sitting outside my bungalow (no clue why it’s there actually) and after he did that I told him to open the door to the fridge and that’s where his backpack was.

They only had an hour to catch the bus to Bangkok so he had to scramble and put all his belonging in his pack and get up to Takuapa 30 minutes away!

I never told him that I was playing him.

In fact…
Paddy if you’re reading this now, “DUDE, YOU GOT PUNK’D”

AHHHHH!!! What happened? Why is Ahman Green not playing, why isn’t Robert Ferguson playing? Why are my fellow cheesehead wearing, funny talking Wisconson-ites hearts breaking all over Green Bay?

I hope they can turn this season around. I haven’t seen a losing season since I’ve been a fan… I’m not sure how I would cope…

I found it for a small time in another volunteer…

For the sake of anonymity let’s just call her Heather Burt of Austin, Texas.
Dustin introduced us and we all went to the beach to watch the sunset and drink Chang beer. She rode on my bike and we sang “Hooked on a Feeling” as we climbed the mountain and down into town.
I seduced her one night. Not sure how, we were both sober, but watching “Garden State” seemed to do the trick. For the next couple of days before she left we would spend time together. I’d put on some Otis Redding and we would fall asleep and wake up intermittently throughout the night.
She’s coming back in December incidentally. She must really like my big… music collection.