Sam Roi Yot Series 1 [December 2020]
- Aoyumi Jung
- Nov 22, 2022
- 14 min read
The stories I never shared before…
Day 0. 09. Dec.2020
The first training started with my late arrival and the coming of my period. I hope this stuff does not become an obstacle to making a great experience.
I am in a team of 6 people. Today I am curious to know more about P'Kai who took care of the well-being of our meal a lot. I can tell. He studied languages so he likes guessing people's accents. Let’s see along the way how we can learn from each other.
What is such a fantasy is that J! does not specify the evening activities. They trust us to designate our own and apply our experience to such an important program. Shannon said J! does not marginalize our expertise and knowledge by that openness and flexibility of content. So from tomorrow, I will start thinking about specific activities to hold for 3 evenings on the mountain and on the beach!
I read through the materials. There are a number of natural sites for us to explore. It takes lots of trial and reiteration for such programs with diverse outdoor activities and locations. Plus the cost of transportation, time, risks taking, and partnership building must be a lot from my simple recce trip with Lens on Mekong. Another new aspect is risk management which requires legal documentation and thoughtful communication with the people in charge, let alone knowledge of health checks and first aid skills. I have to familiarize myself with many medical terms and understand some levels of accidents and incidents. By a bit of modeling the scenario, I got more understanding of the cases. I hope there won’t be any fatality-related things occurring.
The training was conducted by Scott, our program director, based in Beijing right now. He is knowledgeable... he is a Doctor... he told us as facilitators to have kind and compassionate eyes to work with students rather than educators to be too strict to shape their behaviors. To free ourselves from the responsibility as well as to bring the most proactive experience for the students, maintain a mindful attitude and respect students' nature of beings. Taking this role feels like we are taking the safety and something crucial of many families. The example of the open phone being controlled by some strangers is great. I am holding precious gifts in my hand and my job is to protect and nurture them formally, respectfully and organically. Can I do it well? Yes, I can.
Day 1. Dec 10 2020
Whoo. The first day has ended and there has been great learning so far.
4 days together with students, alone, handling facilitation which is normally handled by 2 facilitators at least. This sounds incredible. My first time is also a new normal to the program. I am confirmed that my facilitators-mates are very good people that I can come to anytime to run the activities together. They are creative, confident, and comfortable with students. I am also energized to be surrounded by students!
It was such a long hour’s drive. 5 hours altogether but I was not tired at all. As destined, I sat next to P'Kai the whole trip and we are in the Pod team together as well. Surprising! I have a great mentor who is calm and loves being silent. He doesn’t have a need to engage in strange conversations but he needs to think in his mind. Me too.
We first headed to a Pineapple paper place where people made paper through natural resources and actually all of their initiatives are based on natural items. Basically, there are two main initiatives to explore: paper and Thai dye. With Thai dye, you will get to dye T-shirt in color with interesting shades created on your own. We use the same color but all will look differently depending on how you tight the rubber band and how many colors you put in. For the second product, people create paper from pineapple leaves. These activities help to attract tourists to come and learn about the functions of nature and its role in life. They can feel as a bigger part of the world, which is responsible for consumption and conservation. While these materials are, very often, wasted. But based on science, they learned how to invent a new process of making environmentally friendly products and get rid of chemical dependence.
The guiding questions needed to think about are:
- What do you do with the items or materials that are usually thrown away but actually can be recycled or innovated?
- What is ecotourism to you?
- What challenges the community people might have in this process?
Debrief questions for students:
- What did you enjoy the most from the activity?
- What could you do with the local and natural resources around your community?
Then we came to have a safari, an activity we will accompany students into the national park. It is truly an excursion I can observe nature, watch the elephants and red bull and see how they are enjoying their day. Using the binoculars is just so cool to have a close look at their appearance and movement. Things zoomed in like so vividly to my short-sighted eyes. David from "Bring the elephant home" is so knowledgeable about conservation and cool environmentalists as well as the history of human-elephant conflict. I will capture the content better when talking about today with my friends tomorrow, maybe while having coffee. :) to know what I will talk about with the students.
Thank you Linh and everyone today. I can learn well tomorrow as well. Good job Linh.
Day 2. Dec 12. 2020
I can lie down and have some private thoughts for myself. Such a whole day of great lessons with people. I am in my tent and surrounded by many tents, hearing a dynamic of sounds made by animals.
The last cool-down activity led by Shannon:
"Why do animal tends to make much more noise in the nighttime?"
- Because there are fewer predators for them." It’s the space where they can be the best of themselves. Every night the animals will rise up to be more active than in the daytime and contribute to a beautiful orchestra. An orchestra made of different tones, sounds, symphony, rhythm...
Let's lie down and try to listen to this incredible orchestra that we have missed out on during the day. Try to find similar patterns of sound, different noises, what animals are there and how many sounds can you identify.
....
Open your eyes when you are ready.
What animal that you hear
...
How does the sound feel to you? Slow or fast?
... any thoughts coming up to your mind?
...
This orchestra is unique in the sense that it has no rhythm but it seems to have certain patterns. It reflects the individuality of animals and the nature of how active they are at night when they can be themselves and show their uniqueness. And it is different every night because it’s part of the environment.
There is a saying that no one can bathe twice in a river. Meaning you can never experience the same in the same place. Everything changes constantly. You of tomorrow are different from today and an area can be transformed into a new one. Appreciate everything we get to be surrounded by and feel it as much as we could. Because what passes by will never go back...
Such a beautiful wrap-up activity of a day. Shannon is so beautiful. The source of energy deep down from her is endless. I agree when P'Kai said that Shannon has said such a high bar of standard for the opening activities because he is a calm person. But we can just be sincere with who they are and be our best with the students. I will be empowered by the energy and curiosity of the students, for sure.
I started the day by having a great breakfast with the team and having a brief on the Tom Yum project with David, an expert on environment conservation and elephant protection. Yesterday he lead us through the Thai dye and paper-making project, today he brought us to the Beehive fences project, a Royal Project, stories of human-elephants conflict, and some cool nature walks over the national park.
Tom Yum project is not to make Tom Yum but to make crops of Tom Yum's ingredients such as lemongrass, turmeric, garlic, etc which also are not a cup of tea of elephants. For a long time, people here plan pineapple to sell to companies as there is a market need. Yet elephants love to eat them so they often come and destroy many human crops. Accordingly, there is economic damage for the locals as they can’t make much profit. So WHERE DOES THE IDEA OF TOM YUM project from?
The students will learn about the problems in the community for the past time and ideate a solution for the farmers through design thinking. They will be based on viability, profitability and sustainability factors to build up their product prototype. And afterward, they will carry on the ideas based on the available resources and needs in Bangkok. I can do it!
I had a nice talk with a girl about the Activities of the Royal Project initiated by King Rama IX. He sent researchers to the community to teach people how to make artificial salt lick, and minerals and make pineapple-based products. Salt lick is crucial for elephants and normally they come to find salt in households because of the scarcity of salt these years. The plantation of pineapple has made water run out thus elephants are thirsty and they need nutrition. The whole is built to save water for elephants, and Dam check is built to prevent water from evaporating too quickly. I like how all activities are practical and make true impacts on animals and humans. It’s not like eco-tourism in Ban Don in visited... I came walking through the short walk of the jungle, elephants being objectified, no hands-on activities to try, locals selling souvenirs without any environmental purpose or ecological consciousness, the government acting ignorantly, and visitors like me feeling provoked to fight.
The nature walk forced me to learn new words bout trees and birds and insects...I appreciate how trees are taken as spiritual beings in the jungle. They pay respect for the dead trees by not cutting them, and if yes, give them new shelter places. They died out of a natural process... humans did not create any harm to the trees. The national park today is the primary one of the province while the one yesterday was a secondary biodiverse forest encouraged by the King.
Ready for sleep.
Day 3 Dec 13th 2020
I am writing journal for what happened today but right now its the new day already.
I have had a bunch of food today like corn, apple, tom yum soup, coconut, full lunch and nice porridge for breakfast. I am so grateful for what I have. What I like the most is the risk management activity and discussing the scenarios possibly happening for students. We came to PAWS Rescue and learned about how stray dogs are treated badly around and they might cause effects to people if they are not sterilized. So the organizations do great work to take care of them with the support of healthcare, sterilization and behavioral training.
I will prepare for some leading questions and debrief sessions for the kids to have a wakeup call to their responsibility with stray animals. Other than that, I cried when I looked at the blind dog. He looked so lonely and quiet. He seems to be isolated from his own path. He might not get any adoption from anyone, what he is having now? But what is the reason of his blindness..? I have no idea how many bad damages those dogs had been through. Will he be able to get social inclusion afterward? What I saw and felt was just a gloomy picture. Yet I hope he will find the right family and get to live a comfortable life.
An event that made me bad today is the falling of my backpack bag that my laptop dies inside out. 😭
Here is the heartbreaking screen. My bestie over 4 years...
I hope I will cure it soon, please don’t leave me, my love. As when I am in need, I reach out to all people I need, they respond to me that I love how they are always there for me.
So the laptop is on the verge of death, information about the job is really overwhelming, I will be ok.
Day 4. Last day of training. 01am.
Every day I slept later a bit as the number of things to do is incredibly a lot. I am not so sure what I am going to tell the students tomorrow so my head is still empty. At least I know the flow of the day tomorrow in terms of where and what but not really how.
Today is such a productive day of work. A long day with a chain of activities that I even forget what I did this morning. I had good coffee and time for checking activities, reviewing, practicing facilitation, learning the leave no trace, designing and writing up activities, having a great feedforward session at the end of the day, and a great HIKE to the cave and beach.
I can’t tell for how long I haven’t occupied myself with something this much. I have lived some comfortable days in my dorm with studies and messed with my comfort zone at times. There were days that I can sleep up to 10 hours per day. I do not know why I am still so energetic up to this moment, like when I was doing Lens on Mekong, YSI, InnEdu work at th3 same time restlessly. Maybe this is food that feeds my spiritual, mental and physical life. I am fed well even when I have to move around and constantly think of stuff for long hours. I am surrounded by such fantastic human beings, educators, social workers, and project managers,... I am a humble learner, as a small piece of the community which hugs me and treasures my value. It brings me all the way back to four years ago when I was first exposed to this experiential learning with I COMMIT Leadership Program in 2018.
Now, I am ready to live on my dream to inspire, empower and engage others to go toward their mission. I am on such a good move. Be proud and be my best self tomorrow with incredible students. I will be an active facilitator and learner!
Day 6. Second main day. Dec 15. 2020
What happened was what was meant to happen.
For Shannon, everything is fine. Everything is fine.
If I want to go fast, I’ll go alone, if I want to go far, go together.
I can’t believe I have become a JUMP! Facilitator after one year and a half... this is a journey of rock climbing in a way that I never expected. I am in a team that is fully engaged and purposeful which reminds me of Lens on Mekong Project. My leader is like a superhero, meeting so many people and handling so many issues coming up.
She is still speaking with others like the school headmaster, PM on the other side since our facilitation meeting. Communication is just so crucial to improving things on the spot. I think now I did not deserve the title of a project manager at Vinschool at all. There were many tasks, yes, but I was not performing like a PM.
Let’s talk about the students. They sparked my days. So much fun, energy, knowledge, respect and craziness... I hope I will be more connected to them tomorrow. I will be good! I must get some sleep now.
Shannon made me so inspired. I was exhausted from journaling but I love looking at her photos. I cried 15m before the students arrived. I cried because I was doing the job on my own, no longer prep days. I am an adult to be trusted by school and JUMP! I am creating transformational activities for smart students who were born with so much more privileges than me. I am also supported by two incredible teachers from NIST International School who had so many backgrounds to be in an international school and deal with students. Let see...!
Linh is halfway through and enjoying the process!
Day 7. Dec 16, 2020
A day of sincerity and learning from the kids, JUMP! team and teachers, and myself.
Sorry but before getting any near my lessons, I can’t hold from complaining about the damn no-awareness adult group. They are not behaving like adults. They are the first Thai people that literally make me annoyed. I have never met anyone being more impolite and disrespectful than them. They don’t have any sense of humanity right now being in the middle of tents with 60 kids who are sleeping after long days of activities and more for tomorrow. They have no idea that their funny stories are annoying to every corner of the peaceful campsite. I really want to have a fight with them right now. I hate conflicts but I am going to be on edge soon.
It is so hard to handle the situation right now as they have the right to make noise but there should be some sense of ethics. This is life, a life where humans live in harmony and care, not in their own selfishness. How the hell do you show up right on this special day and not feel that you are having the privilege to observe these youthful kids and observe people around you? I hope P'Fah can talk with the camp manager and security guard to come and sort these people out, getting out of here. You ruin my beautiful moods after my beautiful day with the kids. This is the most annoying experience for me.
What I was really nervous about before the hike was the students' safety, participation, and ability to manage the risks and information and guideline along the way. But things were really different in fact. My kids have been so active, smart, polite, creative, lovely, and different. I hope tomorrow I can have a picture of them all. They are my first international students, they call me Miss, and I have never felt more respected than this. They listened to me though not always but I got lots of responses from them. For the quiet ones, personal chat connected me with them so much. They are intellectual and have their own beauty of mind. Some are just too naughty with friends but they create the interaction and spread the word among the circle.
I hope I could do more things for them, and with them. I am so stunned by the moment they listen to me. I hope I won’t be crying in front of them. I don't know what they think about me, but in this case, when I am really living in my passion, I wish I could hear their thoughts of how I am, anything meaningful to them or inspiring to them. I wish I could walk them through some writing and journaling activities. I am so happy that my student leader remembers that I like writing diaries and he shares a similar hobby to me. I like having conversations with him. I remember all of my students now, I thought I could not.
I cried a lot on the bus back. Join JUMP! as a member has been the highlight of my 2020. This program has pushed me closer to just being affirmed about my passion for education, love for empowering others, and my best self to perform the work that I am responsible for.
I learn what is needed to do in such a project. Communication, risk management, problem-solving, timing, details, overview, feedforward, questions and answers, connection, comfort, relaxation, confidence, self-trust, self-discipline, active listening, taking initiative, being flexible, being mindful, being observant, connecting the dots, being empathetic, gratitude for everything.
In details about conversations or hiking, maybe save it in my heart. Great job Linh!
Day 8. Dec 17. 2020
One more month to my birthday.
I am curious if I am creating some impact for the students...
I am curious if the students are sad saying goodbye to me tomorrow...
I am curious if I have left any happy moment for them for the past 4 days
See you soon Pod 5.
Need to get up at 5 am tomorrow morning...!
Day 3rd after the program
930pm. 21 Dec 2020 (a Facebook status)
For 3 days, I sat on a bus for around 22 hours from Prachuap Khiri Khan to Mae Hong Son Thailand, wandering my mind around the mountains and campfires. But my heart is still for the people who have deeply challenged my resilience for learning and doing over 10 days in Kui Buri and Sam Yoi Rot National Park.
For the very first time, I become a facilitator for an experiential learning program surrounding community building theme for JUMP! for very smart international students based in Bangkok. JUMP! Facilitators have been my inspiring idols for 1.5 years whose values are nurtured by experiential education and outdoor adventures. Physical challenges always come along with a sense of achievement and unity.
I maintained good sleep for 3 months as only focusing on some main things. Suddenly, my sleep time reduced massively for the intensive program but I managed to catch the details of the program, who to talk to, what activity to run, hike and sleep at camp and write a diary at the end of every day. Indeed, one day was as long as one week. I could not eat food properly and sometimes could not speak properly because I lost clarity of thought and the tiredness to catch up with so many American conversations.
But I made it... I completed a mission together with an amazing team of experience, empathy and support, led by an amazing multitasking superwoman project manager. I wish I could do more to connect students together and connect them with themselves. I wish I be more inside-out and resilient to handle my emotions and interact with people in the program. I could not be another energetic person to hop on every single conversation. Sometimes the silence isolated me from others. But silence allowed me comfort among the big volume of noises. I am happy that the challenge was over, and I believe it is a door of more challenges ahead. Keep breathing and building up my resilience. No words can express my gratitude to have the privilege and the opportunity. Yet I still want to say I am so grateful for this life!
❤ Education is all about enabling the dreams of others/ The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch)
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