Here are a few questions we hear a lot during the Fall from students interested in May Term Thailand:
What is included in the price?
The fee includes just about everything for the trip. It includes the following:
Registration for May Term Thailand 2012 is now officially open! We had amazing interest at the May Term Fair last Thursday, with almost 50 people interested enough to leave their names and email addresses! We already have 5 deposits placed, with a hard cap of 18 students. So if you’re interested, please sign up sooner rather than later. You need to leave a $300 deposit and a completed registration form to reserve a spot. You can sign up for Honors, Education or Public Health credits (all upper-division 300 level), or you can arrange with your advisor for the course to count towards any major.
If you want to register, please see Sara Demko in the International Center in the basement of Shaw for the registration forms, or download them from here. Complete the form and have either Peter Ingle or Han Kim sign it. Then go to the cashier’s at Bamberger, pay the $300 deposit, and attach the receipt to the form. Finally, drop off the completed registration form and the receipt to Sara Demko, and you’re ready to go! If you have any questions on this process, check out the registration page here.
If you have any other questions on the trip, please contact Peter Ingle or Han Kim. If you have any other questions on May Term in general, please go to the Westminster May Term Page for more information. And make sure you “like” us on Facebook!
By: Tamer Begum
The past 4 days we’ve been staying in a small remote village in northern Thailand. So remote we piled in the back of pickup trucks, with all the gear, then an hour drive trough the bumpy mountain terrain, finally ending at Ban Nam Hom school. The school itself was composed of about 6 medium sized, one floor houses where the kids would study and more often then not sleep. The majority of the children are poor, and live there year round due to the fact that their family house is anywhere from 1-15 miles away. Last year from the fundraising efforts we were able to build a dormitory to house the 100 plus boys. Keeping in mind there are over 200 kids schooling and living there. This year we finished painting it, and helped restore a few other run down houses / fences to improve their quality of life.
By: Spencer Luczak
Blogging… definitely a first for me. Back home I go by Spencer Luczak but on our excursion I am occasionally referred to as ‘Stallion’. Usually my reflections of life are posted in a personal journal or fluffed up for an assignment given out at school. However, there is something about being in a foreign environment where nobody is in their comfort zone that causes me to be open with my thoughts without reservation. My entry for today, although simple in essence, I hope will give others a feeling for the innate love that children posses.
During our time spent painting and playing with the village children at their school in Kalasin I was caught off guard by the tenderness of a young boy and the tenured love of his on-looking mother. While the time we spent collectively designing t-shirts for each student strengthened our bond between the children, I found the actual giving of the gifts to be most enlightening. My intellect told me that the young boy who I would give my shirt to would not fully appreciate what was being done for him, but that is exactly where Continue reading
By: Lindsey Dunlap
After Volunteering at the Hser Ner Moo Center and going on the Mayterm Thailand trip, I have realized that an individual does not have to go out of the country to understand that we also have problems in our own backyard. I think that a lot of people think that it’s only the third world countries that experience poverty, poor health, and lack of accessibility to health care. Volunteering at a place such as Hser Ner Moo doesn’t just open your eyes to new ideas of how to help, or where to help, but it really makes you wonder why we don’t address these problems at a higher volume. And these problems don’t just exist in the refugee camps here in the United States, but everywhere. This is where I tend to get stuck on where to start or how to even go about helping.
In the United States we tend to focus on the issues of other countries rather than on our own soil, which only makes problems worse. For some reason, “us Americans” feel Continue reading
By: Lindsey Dunlap and Ellie Coleman
I think we generally tend to be numb to the way we live life here in the US until we’ve truly experienced another culture. It only takes a brief moment to realize the differences and the similarities between two cultures and to realize the opportunities we have to change for the better. Being in Thailand this past month has really opened up my eyes to so many different ideas, cultural differences, and ways of life. A trip like this doesn’t just change your way of thinking, it makes a deep impact on the person you truly are and, more importantly, what kind of person you aspire to be.
One of the most contrasting differences that Ellie and I noticed was the Katoey (Thai Ladyboys) here in Thailand. We have realized how culturally significant and normal this is throughout all of Thailand. We have discussed the fact that in the US it is a completely different story and attitude when it comes to gender differences. Passing Katoy on the street in Thailand is nothing but normal and accepted by the Thai people-the concept is honored and celebrated, rather than viewed as odd or taboo. This kind of difference forces a person to step back and contemplate how we accept people, and don’t accept people, in our culture.
By: Kate Stoner and Tiffany Henry
In Mae Sot, we visited the Mae Tao Clinic, which was an absolutely incredible experience. The clinic, just over the Burmese border, provides medical treatment for displaced Burmese people. Some patients are living in Thailand and have no other healthcare options while others traveled from Burma into Thailand just to receive medical attention from the clinic.
I enjoyed visiting the maternity ward of the clinic and seeing so many new mothers holding or resting next to their newborn babies. The newborns I saw all looked like premies, but they may be smaller than children in the U.S. because of maternal malnutrition or lack of pre natal care. Also, abortions are illegal in Thailand so a lot of the babies or patients were results if failed abortions or abortion attempts, which was extremely shocking and sad to see.
By: Ellie Coleman and Lindsey Dunlap
I recently took up running and on June 25th I’ll run my first half marathon. I was pretty stressed out about whether or not I would be able to train in Thailand and was pleasantly surprised to see a red dirt road upon our arrival to Kalasin. In our five days there I was able to run three times, but it wasn’t easy. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. and the air was thick and humid.
By: Rob Caesar, Jane Dahle and Alexa Ferdig
By: Tiffany Henry and Katherine Stoner
As we reflect on the past month and all of our experiences in Thailand, two inspirational men stuck out to us. Mechai and Michael taught us the importance of thinking outside of the box and taking action.
The center we visited in Mae Sot is a non-profit organization that trains backpack medics. The goal of the backpack medic is to administer healthcare services to villages in Burma who have no access to medical care. The medics must travel long distances across strenuous terrain and courageously sneak into high risk conflict areas to help serve the people in these remote villages. They bring crucial medical supplies and educate the people on sustainable health care.
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