By: Dani Howlett

Today was my last day in Thailand.  This past week has been filled with school (2 papers and a final) and random outings each afternoon and night.  Today, our professor threw us a going away party at

his house, which was INCREDIBLE.  He lives about 45 minutes out of Bangkok, and his place is so awesome.  The landscape design is incredible, and the house is full of very expensive antiques.  Our professor, Anucha Thirakanont, is an amazing person.  First of all, he is very smart and was a great teacher. Also-he is a mini celebrity in Thailand, which we didn’t really know until recently.  He has worked on numerous cultural projects, doing things like preserving the royal ‘Khon’ dance and working on other projects for the Queen (who he knows personally).  He dresses amazingly and has impeccable taste-which was reflected in his house. I could go on and on and on, haha 🙂 He’s been a really great part of my summer experience. I’ve also grown close to our program coordinator, Jane.  She goes out of her way so much to make sure we are all happy, safe and comfortable, and she is HILARIOUS. We went out to a couple of clubs with her last weekend, which was really fun:) Everyone loves her to death.

The last couple days have been filled with so many emotions, and goodbyes have been very difficult!  I have grown so close to my new friends, and it kills me to know that we probably won’t be seeing each other for a long time. Each and every one of us are wishing that we had done a full semester program-the summer program feels like such a teaser!

Despite a few tears and the difficulty to leave, I wouldn’t have changed anything about my summer.  I have learned so much about such a beautiful country and culture, and it has truly changed my life. Every local person that I’ve gotten to know has been exquisite-friendly, personable, and exceedingly helpful. We have seen numerous parts of the country, from the rice fields and rain forests to the bustling city and gorgeous beaches. My flight leaves at 5:50 AM, and I’m getting picked up from Amarin at 2:30 AM! (which is about 2 hours from now).I feel SO incredibly fortunate to have had this experience, and I really hope that I will be able to come back at some point in my life. Thailand is an amazing place, and the connections I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned here will stick with me for a lifetime.

By: Dani Howlett

This weekend, nine of us travelled from Bangkok to Ko Samet, an island off the southeast coast of Thailand. It was a crazy, beautiful, and eventful weekend to say the least! We arrived Friday evening and explored the beautiful beach that we were staying on (in a hotel for $14 a night once we split it!) Saturday morning we rented kayaks and went out on the ocean and explored around the island, it was gorgeous. The water was so warm and clear. That night, it started POURING rain. We ended up walking down the beach to a bar that was playing music, where people were dancing out on the stage in the downpour. We danced here for hours! It was such a fun time.

The next morning, four of us rented motorcycles an drove them around the island. This was kinda scary, because the roads on Ko Samet are terrible and people are whizzing around on ATVs and motorcycles everywhere. It was a good time though-lots of adrenaline! After that we went and got facials and massages (super cheap here!)

The last day (today) was a little crazy. We had to catch a boat back to the mainland, then a van back to Bangkok, witnessed in my life. Our boat pulls up right on the beach, so we ran out into the waves and pouring rain. Our clothes and all of our stuff was immediately soaked. We were all laughing and full of adrenaline at first, but after we had to make two more stops and our friend started throwing up off of the boat, the novelty wore off. After a slightly scary boat ride we finally made it back to the pier. We were dripping wet but so happy to be back.a cab to our hotel, but things ended up getting a little more complicated. To start off, one of the girls had really bad food poisoning and couldn’t hold anything down. And it was monsooning, as in the hardest downpour I have ever then

We caught our van, but then 2 hours later he dropped us off in an extremely busy square and we had no idea where we were. We didn’t even know if we were in Bangkok yet. So after struggling through some directions given to us by a cop, we made it onto the skytrain. After the skytrain we caught a cab to our hotel, now here I am!! Finally!

Despite a couple hitches, it was a fantastic weekend. We met some amazing locals, including a young Thai girl who came and sat in the ocean with us while it was raining one night. She just wanted to talk with us, even though she didn’t speak much English. That is a moment I will never forget 🙂 Her family ran a little crepe stand right on the beach, and we saw her and talked to her all weekend after that. I am learning so much and having so many experiences here, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the trip will bring 🙂

By: Danielle Barnes-Smith

I never learned how to ride an elevator.

Now don’t judge, just listen.

You have to understand where I come from. Eureka, Montana. Go ahead, Google it. You’ll discover that the name Eureka (Greek for “I found it”) is meant to be ironic considering how few people have found themselves living there. But one of the characters in The Host is from Eureka, MT, so what does your town have?
Our town was once know as the Christmas Tree capital of the United States. Once. Now it’s all Border. And it is small. There are no elevators. Correction, there is one elevator. In the clinic. I don’t know if it’s ever been used. But when it went up in 2007 (guesstimation), it caused an upset. It was believe that Eureka was Modernizing at a rate equatable to China (I’m taking a Chinese history class, so I know that that is very quickly).

Having grown up in a town without elevators, I had few opportunities to use such a contraption. Also, I am generally anti-elevator unless carrying luggage. So, other than when at a hotel, I hardly ever ride elevators. I have been able to avoid them.

But not in the Boole Library.

In the Boole Library, the stairs are hidden. I saw them once in a dream, but I can’t find them in real life. And so I have to ride the elevator. And I don’t know the etiquette.

Often I find myself waiting for the elevator to arrive to the second floor (which would be the third floor in the States). As soon as the elevator dings and opens, one person will appear from the rafters and get on. Now I don’t want to get on with one person. It’s weird and unnatural to ride in a small box with a stranger. It’s not because I distrust them. It’s just because. So then I hesitate. Well you can’t get on once you’ve hesitated. They’ll wonder, “Why did that girl just hesitate? What does she have to hesitate about?” So, naturally, you have to put on an expression that says, “Oh, I don’t need to leave this floor. I can live here,” and walk away. This, unfortunately, leads to me being trapped on the second/third floor. Once, when I finally got on the elevator, someone got on after me. I once saw in a TV show that you’re suppose to watch the numbers above the door. So I fixed my gaze there. There were no numbers. The numbers were on the side. But I was committed to staring at the perfectly blank space until the elevator stopped. When the elevator stopped, I realized I knew the person I was on the elevator with. So, to the guy in my Shakespeare class who is also in the Dramat society where we talked that one time, I’m not really that rude.
I just don’t know how to ride an elevator.

Which brings me to my point (yes, this was all leading to something).

Studying abroad is this very peculiar thing for many reasons. It’s a little strange to be like “hey, I’m almost done with

school, I think I’ll move for a year,” but it has it’s benefits. Sure, you learn more about another culture/country/way of thinking, but you also learn more about yourself. Most people study abroad their junior year, and good thing, because that’s the year you fool yourself into thinking your ready for the looming “real-life.” Studying abroad makes you vulnerable again. And it isn’t always just being in another country. For me, studying abroad has put me in a place where I can no longer avoid the elevators in my life.

So if you’re considering studying/volunteering/working abroad, I suggest it. Highly. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be googling elevator etiquette.

Check out this link for fun Irish sayings! Top 50 Irish Sayings 

Also, here is a picture of roses from my husband in a Guinness glass that may or may not have been taking from a nearby pub.

By: Dani Howlett  

Hello!  It has been 5 and a half days since I left Montana on my journey to Bangkok, and they have been days filled with exploration and exhilaration!

After traveling for over 30 hours and stopping in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and Tokyo along the way, I arrived in Bangkok and met my new roommate from Tennessee.  We were picked up at arrivals and taken about 45 minutes to our hotel in Old Bangkok. Even though it was dark, the drive was amazing.  We passed under intricately decorated bridges, which were lit up and featured massive framed pictures of the king. The traffic here moves at light speed compared to anywhere in the U.S., with taxis, mopeds, and buses all coming within inches of each other at

We arrived at our hotel at about midnight.  We came into our room to find that there were no blankets, towels, toilet paper, or other amenitieshigh speeds.

there for us. Kelsey and I met up with two other guys in the program, and

went out in search of some of the essentials.  By this time it was almost 1 AM, so we didn’t travel too far before

giving up and stopping. Sitting out on the street with my new friends, greeted by so many new sights and smells, I felt completely euphoric. Even though I had only been here for an hour, I could already tell that this trip was going to be even better than I expected! 🙂  Around 2 AM, we made our way back to our rooms at finally went to sleep.

Trying to find our school or any sort of department store was quite a challenge for us on the first day.  We walked and walked and walked, but we were seeing new and exciting things the entire time so it didn’t matter.  We walk through street markets pretty much every day to get around, all of which are 

amazing.  SO MUCH is packed onto the sidewalks. You’ll see anything from entire fried fish and exotic looking fruits to knives to huge Buddha statues for sale.  Prices are low (bartering is key) and there is honestly something for everyone. Everything is so close together and it is SO hot that it is kind of hard to shop, but it all adds to the experience!We only slept for about three hours, woke up at 6 AM, and headed right out to explore. We walked around the entire day, and saw a ton of new and exciting things.  Though the inside of our hotel is very clean and nice, we are definitely living in the more run down part of the city.  The sidewalks are kept clean, but certain areas are very dirty and smell pretty bad.  Most of the buildings are pretty decrepit as well.  Even though it is so different, I am really happy that we are located where we are.  I feel like we are getting a better feel of Thailand than the people who stay in the center of New Bangkok or in the beach resorts,which is awesome 🙂

Also when shopping and trying to get around, the language barrier has been difficult. But with a phrase book and a little charades we have been able to get around pretty well!  Gheet, the owner of the restaurant right next door to our hotel, teaches us new words every time we go in there.  He is so warm and friendly, and has already added a lot to the trip.  Almost every Thai person who speaks at least a little English is so nice and welcoming to us. Today (July 1) a man working at a spa told me he loved me four times, haha.

Anways, after we got back to the hotel from the school, we met up with three other girls in our program.  We walked to dinner at this great restaurant just down the street and I got my first meal in Thailand! It was some egg noodle dish with chicken, and it was delicious.  After that, we came home and I finally caught up on sleep 🙂

The next day, Saturday, was a little slower paced, which was nice.  We did a couple errands and got traditional Thai massages for $8 an hour (which is apparently pretty steep). Either way, it was an AMAZING two hours. I feel so lucky to even be here in the first place, then things like this REALLY make me feel spoiled.

Sunday, I met up with Ashika, Laura, and Jen, and we took the sky train downtown to a massive mall. This was a wild day for me, because I have never been anywhere nearly this big.  The skytrain track just towers over the streets below, but barely makes it a fraction of the way up the massive sky scrapers that it runs in between.  We spent the day at the biggest mall I’ve ever been to, full of things like Gucci, Prada, and so on.  We got delicious food there and walked around for hours.

Monday was orientation for school! The entire group of us met up and walked and took the ferry to campus, which is probably a 20 minute commute.  The orientation was set up really well, and everyone who spoke seemed awesome. We went over our agenda for the month, and we are going to be doing some really amazing things, I am beyond excited!!!  We bought our uniforms and went to lunch, then made our way back to the hotel.

Later on that afternoon, seven of the girls and I took taxis to Khao San Road, which is much more touristy than anywhere else we have been, but for good reason! It was SO awesome! Its full of awesome shopping and bars and food and massage places and all of that stuff.  We went to the spa and got ‘fish pedicures’.  We sat side by side and put our feet into huge tanks full of ‘garra rafa’ fish, and they nibbled at our feet for 15 minutes. It was CRAZY feeling haha but we had so much fun! Then we went out to a couple of different bars, which was awesome, then got food and came home 🙂

Sorry this one was so long! I had some catching up to do but from now on I will try to update this regularly and make the posts a lot shorter 🙂 I’m off to our first day of class!

By: Danielle Barnes-Smith

The thing about studying abroad/relationships/life-in-general is that it’s full of disappointment.
They call it “culture shock.” It’s kind of like when someone mashes cauliflower so that the dish looks like mashed potatoes and calls it “nutritious.”

I call it disappointment.

It’s disappointing because through our kitchen window we can see beautiful lights and an old church, but if you look down you see garbage that washed up from some litter hurricane and air conditioner that definitely serves no purpose to humanity anymore.

It’s disappointing because even though tickets to Paris are cheap, cheap can still be expensive when you’re in college and newlywed (who would have known?).

It’s disappointing because a lot of expectations don’t get filled.

When I was accepted to study abroad, I still had several months before the departure date on the plane tickets, so there was plenty of time to romanticize. I imagined I would have been to London, Scotland, and the Stonehenge within the first month. I imagined that the water wouldn’t give me a weird stomach thing (although bad gas is a really good way to tell if your spouse truly loves you). I imagined I would make twenty Irish friends and have drank my share of Guinness.

I have yet to go to London, Scotland, or Stonehenge because time and money is surprisingly short. The water does give me a weird stomach thing. I haven’t made any Irish friends. And buying Guinness all the time is actually quite expensive and fattening.

So it’s full of disappointment. In order to avoid the disappointment, I advise avoiding going abroad at all. It’s much easier.

However, if you still want an incredible experience, don’t stop reading.

Incredible experience? But, Danielle, you just whined a lot and told us way too much about your digestion.

Well that’s the thing about studying abroad/relationships/life-in-

general, the best parts are the parts that we don’t have time to romanticize about.

I have not gone to London, Scotland, or Stonehenge, but I have kissed the Blarney Stone, experienced Fota Wildlife Park, and ventured through Ring of Kerry.

The water does do something weird to my stomach, but it’s worth it for how great the butter and goat cheese is here (I’m not even joking).

I have not made twenty Irish friends, but, if I can be so cheesy, I have made some really great European friends and been more social that I am normally inclined to (I’ve made fun of Germans more often than I am normally inclined it). And I’ve had a few pints of Guinness (it’s good with Blackcurrant syrup).

Studying abroad in Ireland is not what I imagined it would be. School is different (not harder, not easier, different). Sometimes I don’t know what anyone is talking about (what is the meaning of pudding?). But if anything is for sure, anything at all, studying abroad, relationships, life: they are all worth it.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

This past week I was staying at a tiger reserve in central India. We looked at how the tiger reserve and tourism associated with it has helped or harmed the local villagers’ livelihoods. We did profiles on several people within the village, like barbers, doctors, guides, basket weavers, shop owners, and a woman who runs a homestay.

I focused on the woman who was running the home stay. Her name is Shahanaj Baig and she is an amazing woman who is working hard so her kids can have a better life than her. She and her husband are some of the few people from the village of Moharli that have sent their kids to the neighboring city to get an English education. She doesn’t want her kids to come back after school, she wants them to go out and live their dreams and be able to support her when she is too old. She calls it her investment plan.

This all ties into the environmental issues I have been reporting on.The issue is  environmental vs. social.

The question is whether tourism should be allowed within the core zone of the tiger reserve. Some think that the tigers need to be even more protected than they already are and that the tourism is hurting the tiger populations. But if they shut down the tourism, the people who based their livelihoods off the tourism industry, like Shahanaj, would have to find a different way to make money.

The problem is finding a way to allow tourism that is also not environmentally harmful. I think India has done a phenomenal job solving this problem, at least at the tiger reserve I went to. They have done a lot of things to protect the tigers. They only allow tourism in a small section of the core zone. They only allow a small number of safari jeeps into the reserve everyday, and are very strict about these rules. So far the Indian government has favored the tigers over the economic incentives that come from  tourism.

A tiger we saw while on safari. These tigers are used to seeing humans but are still very wild and dangerous animals

Although they have done a good job of protecting the tigers, man-animal conflict is inevitable. While we were there a local villager who snuck into the jungle to harvest bamboo was eaten by a tiger.

All they found was his leg but authorities won’t take action against the tiger because they want to do all they can to protect  the tigers.

I have two more weeks in Pune and will be looking at the problem of accessing clean water in the slums. I can’t wait to look at some of the deeper environmental and social problems here in India.