Authors Note: In 1992, the East-West Center, a federally funded research institution located on the University of Hawai’i in Honolulu awarded me with an academic  scholarship for four years of graduate study and field research towards the degree of Doctor of Public Health.

I was also recruited for a summer research project with the Thai Red Cross Society in Bangkok – interviewing street children, residents of crowded communities (a.k.a. ‘slums’) and social workers to assess the current and future impact of HIV/AIDS on children in Thailand, which also helped to refine the focus of my doctoral research project.

Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok

I met Lee at a public swimming pool near my apartment in Bangkok and she graciously offered to assist me with my summer research project. Her excellent English, keen interest in HIV/AIDS and wonderfully supportive and cheerful companionship were a real boost.

Riding hot crowded buses roaring through the capital city’s choking air pollution and notorious traffic to and from work, our days were spent conducting interviews in the hot, stifling crowded urban slums. Built on a swamp, Bangkok’s largest slum “Klong Toey” is home to over 100,000 residents, crammed into roughly one square kilometer of sludge, rubbish and sewage. Many of the tin-roofed houses are on stilts over stagnant, polluted water, and the area is prone to flooding particularly during the monsoon season.

Seated cross-legged on the floor, there was an easy-going village feeling even in those cramped urban quarters as most of the residents were poor rural migrants who had come to the city to find work. The latest fad among the youth was glue sniffing and many we came across were lost in a glue-fume stupor.

Balancing on rotting boards above the stinking swampland, we made our way along the narrow, broken walkways.

Then one day when we arrived a crowd had gathered to receive soap and rice from a local relief agency – twenty percent of the slum had burned to the ground the previous night. Two hundred eighty families suddenly homeless – no food or money, everything lost. A young sex worker we interviewed echoed the sentiments of many of the slum residents: “Of course, AIDS can kill you in a few years, but I have to feed my family today.”

A late afternoon downpour jammed the traffic to a standstill. Walking was going to be faster than to creep along in a sweltering traffic snarl, so we hopped off the bus and ducked out of the rain and into a food stall for some soup to wait out the storm.

At home, a cold beer washed down the urban residue. Sharing some late season sweet mangoes, sticky rice and coconut cream, Lee rescued me from my self-destruction and despair and helped translate our taped interviews with social workers, sex workers and drug users.

Yes, all of this and Willie Nelson (“Blue Skies”) on the radio helped put a guy in a jolly mood.  It was really getting better, as long as I didn’t go insane! A final trip to the beach left us tanned and refreshed. And at last a focused dissertation topic on a meaningful and pressing issue was finally materializing.

Abandoned Children and HIV/AIDS

With the course work finally done, and my ABD “All-But-Dissertation” certificate in hand, I departed Hawai’i in July 1993 to begin nine months of independent field research in northern Thailand to examine the factors underlying the recent escalation of abandoned newborn infants in the northern city of Chiang Mai, with particular attention to the rapid spread of HIV, which was devastating the northern part of the country.

Using participatory urban and rural appraisal techniques to assess the magnitude and nature of problems within the context of rapid social change, the research aimed to inform effective policy and planning to address the underlying conditions within which child abandonment was occurring — including options for prevention and community-based management of abandoned children.

The precise number of children abandoned in Thailand at that time was not known, although estimates based on institutional data suggested that more than 2,000 children were abandoned each year in 17 northern provinces – some of the poorest parts of the country.

But this was likely just the tip of the iceberg, as survey research had also found increasing trends of child abandonment by their mothers in hospitals shortly after delivery, as well as children born elsewhere and later deserted at hospitals. At that time, just one quarter of those in need had access to child welfare services.

When I began my research, there was one orphanage in Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city. But within a years, the number of orphanages had grown to six to manage the growing number of abandoned children.

As young people were increasingly moving to towns from their home villages for work or school, the risk for unintended pregnancies increased dramatically among the unmarried young, often poor women who were then being left alone by their partners when becoming pregnant.

So, it was in desperation that these women — typically poor, alone and too ashamed to return to their village as a single parent — would present for an emergency delivery and then escape, leaving the baby on the table. Far from being a malicious act, her rationale was that the clean, modern ‘baby home’ or hospital would surely be able to provide a better future for her child than she could.

Orphanages or “Baby Homes’ typically cared for orphaned boys and girls up to age five. But by age six, the orphaned girls would all have been adopted, leaving only the boys in what are called ‘Boys Homes’ until they are old enough to legally go to work.

Interestingly, baby girls were more highly coveted than boys by Thai adoptive parents — typically older, their own children grown and gone. A girl was considered less trouble than raising a boy, and also more likely to stay home to take care of the parents in their old age.

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Author’s Note: “The Alaska Native Health Board (ANHB) is the statewide voice on Alaska Native health issues. Active for over 40 years as an advocacy organization for the health needs and concerns of all Alaska Native people, ANHB continues to emphasize the importance of self-determination in healthcare services and encourages wellness and healthy ways of life in Native communities through policy change.” ANHB Website

In August 1990, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate program at the School of Public Health, University of Hawaii, USA. The following summer, I headed off to Alaska for my field research project, working with the Alaska Native Health Board to study and produce an analysis of issues, policies and programs affecting Alaska Native health.  The document served as the initial briefing paper for a joint Federal and State review of the geo-political, economic, environmental, cultural, psycho-social and other critical issues affecting Alaska Natives.

Field Research

Buckled in next to the pilot in a two-seater helicopter, we flew to a gravel strip alongside the scant row of houses on a wide bay across from the Kenai Peninsula. Port Graham – an Aleut village of 200 people, was hosting a first-ever youth ‘Spirit Camp’ organized by the Alaska Native Health Board, with 30 teenagers from seven communities participating.

It brought back wonderful memories of my YMCA youth work over the years in the USA and abroad. Led by Don, a gifted and charismatic Native youth leader, they addressed the various pressing social issues and youth concerns with creative and engaging activities and discussion, including a powerful drama performance on the problems of alcohol abuse.

Flying north to the village of Kotzebue above the Arctic Circle in ‘the land of the midnight sun’ we watched the sun drop to the horizon to the west over the Bering Sea and then rise again – never setting. Then, by car we followed the gravel road through a wide and lonely expanse of low-lying hills to Nome where I was hosted by a local family and their 16 sled dogs.

Driving on to the village of Teller, we picked salmon berries, learned about ‘honey buckets’ from the community health workers and then drove to the end of one of the few remaining roads in this part of Western Alaska, through spectacular rolling hills, past sparkling clear streams draining distant snow peaks and emptying out into the Bering Sea to the west.

Then following a hectic week back in Anchorage typing up field notes on the computer, we flew to the sizable community of Bethel, located on the Kuskokwim River in Western Alaska to visit their hospital aptly named the “Yellow Submarine” due to its tubular shape and color.

Continuing by light aircraft from Bethel, we flew over vast stretches of barren, misty tundra to Kipnuk village on the Lower Delta Region of the Kuskokwim River where we were searched for drugs upon arrival, except for one passenger who refused to be subjected to the search and left immediately on the return flight.

One by one, the rest of us were taken into a small shed next to the airstrip where we were instructed to remove our outer garments and footwear while the official went through our bags – including my notebook page by page – apparently looking for ‘micro-dot’ doses of illicit drugs.

Each of the 229 federally recognized tribes in Alaska is essentially a separate ‘sovereign’ entity or ‘nation’ with the right to make their own laws and be governed by them. As such, local tribal ordinances in some communities have mandated thorough searches of passengers on all in-coming flights. These procedures are viewed as an essential part of the on-going battle to keep drugs out of their communities.

The tiny shamble of roughly built, weather-beaten wooden houses sporting TV satellite dishes punctuated an otherwise barren landscape. A solitary child rode his bike along the small patchwork of village boardwalks that straddled a sea of rubbish immediately below. The flat, mushy summer tundra stretched as far as the eye could see under the cold, misty grey sky.

Flying on to Alakanuk village on the Lower Yukon Delta we enjoyed spectacular scenery by light aircraft – flying over thousands of mirror-like ponds and squiggly waterways flowing through the multiple shades of greenest tundra feeding the Yukon-Kuskoquim Rivers and flowing out to the Bering Sea and on to Siberia.

An occasional white tent marked a riverside fishing camp. Moose and herds of Caribou moved across the vast expanses stretching to the horizon.

Anchorage

By mid-August, the first snow had dusted the earth. In just one more week, I would be enjoying Hawai’i’s balmy breezes and inviting seas. But it was time to decompress.

Travelling around the state and meeting everybody for interviews was extremely exhausting and stressful, and the whirlwind trip had taken its toll on my health. I had come to the conclusion that short-term intensive consultancies were probably not for me.

Just short, quick investigative visits in and out of a given community, but still expected to somehow absorb a sufficient understanding of the often complex situations. I also missed the sense of a longer term commitment to the place and the people as I had experienced on longer-term projects, like in Samoa and Thailand.

But overall, it had been an extraordinary experience – very special. And I hoped that my input would result in a useful contribution towards addressing the formidable and on-going challenges affecting Alaska Native health.

Indeed, the people I met were exceedingly warm and gentle, and perhaps the most spiritual people I had ever known. When asked to describe themselves, it was always a ‘circle’ – balanced and in harmony with the universe.

But it was time to leave Alaska, and I enjoyed my last bike ride in Anchorage along the coastal trail between rain showers, breathing in the rich, moist, cool and invigorating air, alive with green growth.  I would miss it when the sun is out, but not the damp chilling rain, or the blustery north wind whipping across cold grassy marshes.

All so very beautiful – wildlife roaming freely. But I was ready to get back to warm sea breezes and refreshing morning swims in Hawai’i’s clear, sub-tropical waters. At last, handing over the document — with glowing evaluations from the Alaska Native Health Board and the Alaska Federation of Natives — I was content and ready for a good rest.

The Crash

I felt it coming after returning from Alaska in August, and it all stopped abruptly after losing Nit in December – she had married a Thai. Then the parting of friends at graduation, coupled with having lost Jessie when she married the year before, which symbolized a severance from the perpetual high of the past decade or so. The high and wide wave I had been riding for the first 18 months back in the USA had finally crested and crashed.

Eventually, I began to come out of the long bout of depression, culture shock and life-phase re-evaluation. But the painful sting of lost relationships remained – the consequence of living a transient, temporary existence everywhere – and forever negotiating that fine line between stability and stagnation.

View of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa campus from my study room at the East West Center

So, at last it was back to the good life in Hawai’i – taking it all in. Three all-you-can-eat buffet meals each day, biking to the beach, swimming in the sea, stressed mainly from the busy social life, but most content to be in the library with my nose in the literature.

The view up into the mountains from my study room was spectacular. Misty, mid-morning showers brightening into rainbows, arching across the valley. Then suddenly, the semester was over, but more critically, the all-you-can-eat student meal plan was over as well! 

Stay tuned for more stories, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Author’s Note: In August 1990, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate studies at the School of Public Health, University of Hawai’i, USA. The following summer, I headed off to Alaska for my field research project, working with the Alaska Native Health Board,  an advocacy organization for the health needs and concerns of all Alaska Native people, to study and produce an analysis of issues, policies and programs affecting Alaska Native health.  The document served as the initial briefing paper for a joint Federal and State review of the geo-political, economic, environmental, cultural, psycho-social and other critical issues affecting Alaska Natives.

Alaska

It was time to tug on the muck-lucks, smear some whale blubber on my chin and head for the Klondike! Based in Anchorage for my Master of Public Health (MPH) summer field project with the Alaska Native Health Board, I traveled by road, sea, and air – including two-seater light aircraft with bush pilots to Native communities throughout the state. I met with tribal councils, visited village health clinics, and interviewed local health workers and their clients to gain a better understanding of the impact of public policies, programs and other critical issues affecting Alaska Native health.

Anchorage is like a modern city with big, broad streets, some busy highways, but with a distinctive, wide open western ‘cow-town’ feeling. The local bars are dark, windowless holes underground with billiard tables and sawdust floors — an efficient escape for anyone wishing to detach fully from the world. Alcohol abuse is a devastating problem in Alaska and it was depressing to see this in an otherwise healthy environment.

Neatly paved trails wind through the well-planned, eco-friendly city, and offer cyclists or skiers — depending on the season — a pleasant and practical alternative to the main motorways. Breathing in the rich, moist, cool and invigorating air, I enjoyed daily bike rides through dense forest along Cook Inlet, named for the famous explorer Captain James Cook. Sharing the bike trail with an occasional moose grazing in the late afternoon sun dazzling across the water, the world was alive and fresh with lush, green growth everywhere.

Beautiful when the sun is out, but cold and damp in the rain, with the blustery north wind whipping across the grassy sea marshes at low tide. Long summer days, sunglasses on at 10 PM. The sun still high and glinting off the water with spectacular sunsets over the snow-capped Chagrach Mountain Range – splendid in the clear, fresh evergreen-scented forest.

June was a bit nippy for this island boy — 45-55 degrees F. At 60 degrees, painfully-white sun-bathers stretched out on a muddy beach were hopeful in the midday sun. But by mid-August it was snowing and I was ready to get back to Hawai’i’s tropical sea breezes.

Weekends on the Kenai Peninsula with my friend Bill were refreshing getaways from work and the city. Half Athabaskan Indian and half Russian, Bill was typical of many Alaska Natives. Bill worked with the Indian Health Service in Alaska and was also doing his MPH at the University of Hawai’i School of Public Health. His cabin, which he had built himself, was one of the few buildings in his home village of Ninilchik.

The only other building in sight was a large, simple structure with a smoky all-night bar and country music dance hall on one side, and an 24/7 cafe/diner on the other. Separated by the bathroom, convenient transfers could be made from one venue to the other and back again, depending on the time of day or night.

So, it was exciting times in center-town Ninilchik Alaska, with mere hours between late night beer drinking with the sleepy country and western band and late morning coffee and breakfast in the attached diner. A one-stop, all-purpose gathering spot for local residents.

Driving south from Anchorage past Portage Glacier, the town of Homer, also known as the “Halibut Fishing Capital of the World” was a total zoo with all the RVs, ‘shoestring’ budget campers and fishermen standing elbow-to-elbow along the Kenai River.

Bill took me to his family reunion and to several other Native potlatches – gift-giving feasts organized by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the USA. At these potlaches we enjoyed tons of tasty baked and smoked salmon, halibut, and seal meat, served up amid the splendid panorama of snow-peaked mountains with rivers rushing in spring run-off, and volcanoes rising across the inlet.

Colorful Native dancers moved to the mystical beat of huge drums at the annual ‘Spirit Days’ festival in Anchorage, which brings together tribal groups in traditional costumes from throughout Alaska and from the ‘Lower 48’ States.

With the rain coming down, oldies playing on the radio, I was happy as a clam in my cozy rooftop apartment overlooking Cook Inlet. Away from academia, I was thoroughly enjoying my research project on ‘real world’ contemporary health and development issues, in a cross-cultural setting and all on my own time schedule. My only worry was that I might become too engrossed in it all and miss out on enjoying this beautiful place.

Fortunately, I am totally addicted to swimming. So my daily bike rides along the coastal trail to the University of Alaska pool were not to be missed. It was simply magical pedaling along the coast through the pine-scented forest with the late afternoon sun dazzling across the water — draining the new green of the mudflats at low tide.

But the real fun began went I started my field work in Native communities throughout the state – travelling across vast, empty stretches of land and sea to tiny, remote and often stunningly beautiful locations to meet and interview local health staff and community members for my research project.

Stay tuned for ‘Back to School: Alaska (Part Two)’, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

August 1990 “A big, red sun was setting over smoggy Bangkok as the plane took off — setting as my heart is sinking – wrenching pain to again leave and say good-bye to good friends, and to once again leave a beautiful girl behind. Parting with Nit for an uncertain future – am I making another mistake? At the same time still smarting with the awful hurt of losing Jessie the year before – shattering those dreams. When will I be able to settle on someone, to finally be content, satisfied? Wishing I had taken her with me when she so wanted to go… now just fond, bittersweet memories. Really wiped out, heart-broken, so tired of it all. On to Hawai’i – back to my own country; back to school. A timely change for this fried expat. Look forward now, and enjoy the memories.”

Thailand

The beach was windswept, empty and stretched as far as the eye could see. A ferry was tied to the pier, but the passengers had long since disembarked. No one was in sight. Had she gone off somewhere? If so, how would she find my bungalow – she didn’t know where I was staying.

Suddenly Nit appeared from behind a sand dune, looking somewhat lost and alone. A small travel bag, black satin trousers hanging high and loose around her ankles, the wind blowing in her hair.  I felt terrible. I was late getting to the pier, and had not been there when she arrived.

Our reunion was tender, but somewhat dampened, as I was to leave for school in America the following week. Nit and I had been living together in Bangkok for nearly a year, and we had been preparing for this for some time. There were plans for her to follow me to Hawai’i, but as is so often the case, plans fall through.

We didn’t know it then, but this beach holiday was to be our last one together. One week later I would leave, and that would be the last I would ever see her. It still rips my heart apart to think about it. Distance and too much time apart spelled the end, and she eventually married someone else in Thailand late the following year.

Hawai’i

In August, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) studies at the University of Hawai’i, School of Public Health and moved in to an apartment with three other students – one was a friend from my Samoa days. He had been a Peace Corps Volunteer when I was there with the YMCA, and invited me to join their Hawai’i household.  What a privilege it was to have the time, resources and purpose to tie together some of my ‘real world’ experiences in a comfortable academic setting, which helped make sense of it all, as articulated and validated in research and stimulating discussions.

It was to be another jam-packed year of incredible highs and some intense lows – the heart-wrenching parting of friends, some wonderful reunions, and riding an incredible wave since arriving in Honolulu – turn right for the University, turn left for the beach.

Indeed, it was a significant year of transition returning to ‘civilization’ after nearly a decade living in the comfort of the outside world. But Honolulu was a beautiful, clean, modern city with a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, a perfect climate, and mostly Asian and Pacific people living in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. I was stayin’!

So it began – my tumultuous re-entry into the Western world as this ‘primitive man’ so to speak, prepared to ‘leave the trees’ – as illustrated in a typical Far Side cartoon panel showing a cave man clinging desperately to a tree at the edge of the forest as a truck stood by waiting – presumably to take him to the city.

Again, I was in for some of the highest highs and lowest lows as I entered my graduate program at University of Hawai’i School of Public Health. Not least of which was an insidious ‘reverse culture shock’ that eventually materialized, as I was faced with an American culture I could no longer relate to, nor easily return to.

I had chosen Hawaii partly because it was the only school of public health in the country that didn’t require the Graduate Records Examination (GRE) for admission, and feared I was not likely to score well after nearly 10 years away from school.

As it turned out, I received an academic scholarship from the State of Hawai’i to finish my MPH degree. And, at the bidding of several of my professors and former development colleagues, I applied to the East West Center, a federally funded research center on the university campus for a scholarship to pursue my doctorate. After all, four more years in Hawai’i sounded pretty nice, with fully funded research that would probably send me back to one of the Asian countries I had been so sorely missing.

Actually, I had applied for an East West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship once before — for my Master’s program, but missed it by one place. Out of roughly 600 applicants each year, typically only two are chosen in Public Health – and I came third. But my professors encouraged me to re-apply for a grant to do my doctorate – which I did, and again received a rejection letter. Incredibly, my application had actually been lost and not even considered by the selection committee – and they would not meet again until the following year.

Amazingly, and at the urging of one of my professors, the committee broke protocol and reconvened to review my application – and soon after, I received my acceptance letter and continued on to complete a doctorate in Public Health – fully funded for four years, with research support in Thailand on the topic of abandoned children and HIV/AIDS.

On an unbelievable roll – that first year in Hawai’i was like riding a huge wave.  Absolutely loving all the fresh and stimulating activities with barely a spare moment to sit and reflect on it all. Biking to the beach for a swim each morning at 6 AM, to school for breakfast at 8:30, and then back home to collapse at 11 PM.

But all the while, missing my Thai girlfriend Nit more than ever, and still hoping she would be able to come to Hawai’i. But her commitments at home, coupled with time and distance were making that dream harder to hold on to. Nit spoke almost no English and had never traveled overseas, which made the long trip seem even more daunting.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of demanding academic responsibilities and social commitments at school filled my days and nights, especially after being elected School of Public Health Class Chair.

A full schedule of fun-filled but exhausting social gatherings included plenty of good food and drink, hiking, biking, swimming and barbecues on the beach — I could barely keep up with it all.

And all the while, feeling the intense impermanence of life – distant friendships, relationships, endless experiences.

But how to hang on to it all?

Stay tuned for ‘Back to School: Alaska (Part One)’, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

 

 

Author’s Note: In 1989, the Thoed Thai Highland Health Center Project implemented by Tom Dooley Heritage, an American non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with the Royal Thai Government Ministry of Public Health was handed over to Government to assume full responsibility for its continued operations. The five-year Project was a successful international development partnership which provided capacity-building support (funding and training) for its gradual integration into the Thai Rural Health System. 

The experience also set the stage for my eventual entry into graduate school in Hawaii, USA — but not before accepting a one-year position with the Catholic Relief Services, another American NGO, which supported refugee relief work on the Khmer border and community health development in poor, rural communities in Thailand. 

Chiang Rai Province, Thailand

Though extremely difficult to leave, my time as Project Director at Thoed Thai Highland Health Center in northern Thailand had come to an end. The Thai Government was poised to assume full responsibility for operations of the Project, which had developed an appropriate health service delivery model for preventive and clinical health care by training and facilitating the entrance of local health workers into the Thai National Health System.

Innovative community-based health and development strategies had been successfully introduced, including gravity-fed village water systems, household gardening, community-based opium detoxification, and vector-borne disease control.

A multi-ethnic cadre of village health workers trained by the Project had been established and were providing basic primary health care services in their local communities as part of the Thai Rural Health System.

Meanwhile, the District Immigration Officer was certain that I was CIA. After all, the area had been saturated with American CIA agents conducting opium eradication. And although I was not a medical doctor, somehow I happened to be the Director of an American health project in the area. Furthermore, I spoke and understood Thai language reasonably well and probably just looked a little too ‘military.’

In many ways, it was like running a summer camp. Nights lit by serene lamplight, a fun, youthful staff, lively parties, variety shows.  Nine languages were spoken at our health center, representing the various local ethic groups (and three Americans) that comprised our staff. But we used Thai language for general communication and staff meetings.

Exhilarated and somewhat traumatized by the toughest and most intense work experience yet, I reflected on the many harrowing experiences, such as being pulled across a raging torrent on a swing-like board and cable where a bridge had once stood, before being washed away in the annual flooding due to widespread deforestation in the surrounding hills. Or the night a huge storm ripped through our area tearing the roofs off a dozen houses and knocking down ten others.

All was quiet following the violent storm. But there had been heavy shelling along the border all week long and insurgent fighters belonging to a rival drug warlord had reached the perimeter of our village. Wounded soldiers were arriving at a makeshift clinic across the road run by some of our health staff who were loyal to the local drug war lord, Khun Sa. 

Eighteen of us living at the health center boarded the hospital truck to evacuate down the mountain, but we decided the washed out road — at night and with numerous trees down — would be more dangerous than to chance lying low at the hospital.

And of course, each 13 kilometer journey up our treacherously steep and slippery mountain track was an adventure in itself, hanging on for dear life with the rest of the passengers – some of them vomiting – in the back of the violently pitching pickup truck.

Riding with my favorite Chinese drug-running driver – we barreled wildly along the heavily rutted road past flooded rice paddies, climbing higher into the mountains that filled the horizon. Meeting other trucks head-on and lifting them out of the ruts to get past, then flying through villages as dusk settled over the hills — with a full moon on the rise — and arriving home in time for a warm beer and a plate of fried peanuts at our only restaurant.

Bangkok

In stark contrast to my 18 months in the mountains (with no electricity or running water), it didn’t take long to settle into the comfortable ‘expat lifestyle’ based in Bangkok with the Catholic Relief Services, an American NGO which supported health and development projects in Thailand and provided comprehensive primary health care services for over 30,000 Khmer refugees living in camps along the Thai-Cambodia border.

As Office Manager, and later as the Acting Country Representative, I controlled an annual budget of US$ five million, managed 120 employees in five offices nationwide, partnered with Government, NGOs and other international agencies, and ultimately negotiated major revisions to the CRS Country Program strategy to move from a welfare and emergency relief profile towards longer-term, sustainable social and economic development.

Joining friends from work, weekends in the nearby province Kanchanaburi provided a refreshing break from Bangkok’s notorious traffic snarls and choking air pollution. We stayed in floating bungalows on the River Kwai, and would cool off in the river before heading into town each night for some good food and drink.

At home in Bangkok, lazy weekends were spent lounging by the pool feasting on ripe, sweet mangoes with sticky rice and coconut cream.

Life was pretty easy living the high life in Thailand’s cosmopolitan capital city, with a luxury apartment and pool, an air-con office, a lovely girlfriend and a growing circle of friends all sharing the fat and happy expat lifestyle in our version of ‘The Modern Raj.’

A Chiang Rai Reunion

When I returned to northern Thailand the following year for a visit, the rains had begun. So I kicked off my shoes, donned my swim trunks and made my way barefoot, slipping, sliding and sweating the thirteen kilometers to Thoed Thai Highland Health Center.

The mountain air was fresh and still. I felt absolutely high upon returning to Thailand’s northern frontier — unique and still mostly untouched, with the distant sound of cowbells, a few birds singing, and the full chorus of frogs and insects at night — and a cascade of emotions and memories from those exhilarating times living in the hills.

Breathing in the cool, fresh country air, I enjoyed a swim in our local spring-fed reservoir, hiked to a few nearby hill tribe villages and received a warm welcome from all.

But the wind was shifting and the time had come to set a new course. I would have to leave my friends and give up this extraordinary ‘expat lifestyle’ — after nearly a decade overseas — and return to America to begin my graduate studies in Hawaii, USA.

Stay tuned for more stories, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Note: An expatriate (or ‘expat’) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The term is often used in the context of professionals or skilled workers sent abroad by their companies, rather than for most ‘immigrants’ or ‘migrant workers.’