Afterword -- Cast B 2008's Green Room Torch Pass

Hello all!

So this past weekend, I journeyed out to Denver to see Cast B 2008's Rehearsal Show. If you remember, one of the first duties Sofie and I had to do was write a dedication to Cast B in the "Oh the Places You'll Go" book our cast was given in our first Green Room. Well, since I was going to be in Denver, Martin (the new cast's manager) gave me the opportunity to read the dedication to Cast B, which I took him up on. Green Room came, and I read the dedication. I thought that I would post it here as a final sidenote to my Up with People adventure.

Dear Cast B 2008,

You're at the beginning, we're near the end
You're surrounded by strangers, we call that stranger a friend
You're going crazy, did you pack all you need?
Our time to unpack -- how to succeed?
We're two points on a circle, different yet same
And that is what binds us to all those who came
We stood in your place only six months ago
And here you are, ready for your first show
The road lies ahead -- you ready to begin
a journey to help you look 'round and within?
But before we depart, we leave some advice
Words of wisdom in the form of thrice:

Stetch yourself
Unlimit yourself
Enjoy yourself -- GROW!

You are Cast B 2008
Now is YOUR time to celebrate!

With love and support,
Cast A 2008

The Final Adventures in Up with People...El Fin

Hello all!

Well, hopefully this will be the final entry – a conclusion to my Up with People adventures. I’ve got two weeks to get through, but I have a feeling my Hawaii weeks will be a bit easier than any Up with People weeks I’ve had to write about :)

Sunday, June 15th, 2008. A day that had been in our eyes avoidingly for the past five months. We’ve always known that it was out there, our final banquet day, but it is was always just a passive recognition – an event that was “out there” and most certainly not here. Well, the present caught up with “out there,” and it was finally time to draw everything to a close. It’s an amazing feeling, standing in one spot in time knowing that yours and a 100 other sets of eyes from both the past and our coming future are looking on this day and the events that would happen. The eyes from the past are looking onto this day with dread, indifference, and uncertainty, while the eyes of the future look back with fondness, smiles, and perhaps regret. And here I stand, in the present, with the one thing both are envious of – the power to act.

Sunday began early enough. My roommate, Mitch, and I weren’t sure when our host parents would be wanting us to hang out with them for the final time, so both Mitch and I rose early (regretfully) to finish packing our things away to prepare for our long travel day tomorrow back to the United States. I took the opportunity to clean out my suitcase a bit, which had managed to accumulate some trash over the past few weeks, and I found myself crossing my fingers in hope that my suitcase would make weight at the airport. What can I say – I picked up a few things in Thailand :) After Mitch and I had both packed up our stuff, our host family took us out to morning breakfast, and also presented us with some gifts. The first was a necklace/pendant with a picture of Buddha on the inside of a glass shell. The second was a moderately-sized picture of a Thai farm scene completely made out of straw. I have to admit that it was pretty cool, though I was worried about HOW I was going to get it home! After all, it had a frame and glass, and I had NO room on my carry-on. So I stuck it in my suitcase, and hoped for the best. (Don’t worry – it made it home. I know you all were worried) :) After breakfast, Mitch and I rounded up our stuff and loaded into our host family’s truck. Our final banquet was in a reception hall of a very nice hotel in Khon Kaen, so that is where out host family took us, dropped us off, and then said their goodbyes. After that, Mitch and I were free to relax while we waited for the afternoon to begin. By that time it was about 1:30 p.m., and the day wasn’t supposed to start until about 2:00. So we milled around, talking to people and enjoying our last day together, not really grasping the finality that was just around the corner. Meeting started promptly at two, and soon we were winding our way to the reception hall, since we had met in the lobby of the hotel. When we entered, I was floored by the amount of work that had gone into the afternoon and evening. Our final banquet committee had put together a fantastic display throughout the huge reception hall, with beautifully decorated tables, photos, etc. We all found places around the room at round tables, and not long after the afternoon activities began. Voting also began for cast representatives – the people who would be in charge of keeping the cast together once we all left for home the next day. There were four pairs up for cast reps – AJ from Wisconsin and Vivia from Chicago, Maiken from Denmark and Phil from Arizona, Beth from New Hampshire and Alice from Belgium, and Sofie from Sweden with myself. Everyone turned in slips of paper with their votes, and then went off to eat dinner – our LAST sampling of Thai food. Or perhaps just mine. I have to admit that I was excited to get back to Western food – or at least something WITHOUT rice! :) After dinner, we went through our list of cast awards we’d voted on earlier in the week – things like “most genuine” or “biggest flirt” or “cutest cast couple”….(Chris from Hawaii and Astrid from Mexico won the last one by the way). After that, and the laughing that went with it, we all rounded up our items to be put into the cast time capsule – a small suitcase that would be taken home with one of the cast reps to hold onto until the five year reunion, where it would then be opened. Once that was done, we migrated back to our tables for presentation of our “Certificates of Completion,” which were basically diplomas for our completion of the Up with People program. Along with that was a CD full of the culture presentations everyone had done throughout the year, a photo of the staff, and some other fun stuff that I can’t quite remember at this moment :) Once everyone made it through the presentation (which took a while, because there are almost a hundred of us), Andrew Lanham, our sound tech staff member, presented a project that he’d been working on for us for the past week, something he likes to do for the cast’s he’s traveled with. At the start of the city, he’d asked us to write down in a few short sentences what we’d be taking home from this program – from this experience. Once he collected all the responses, he photocopied them all onto consecutive sheets of paper and put them into a packet, which he handed out to us that evening. There were the responses everyone had made, all the little bits of strength and pieces of knowledge we’d be taking home with us the next day. Flipping through it, it was great to read all the different things everyone took away from their semester, and you couldn’t help but find yourself identifying with other people as you read what they wrote. The final copy of the packet also went into the time capsule, to be found again in five years. After Andrew’s presentation, the emotional fireworks began. Gabe, the staff member sort of leading the evenings events, cued up a slideshow of pictures collected from around the world – from the families of everyone in the cast. On the slideshow were baby pictures of us all, sent in my our parents and family and friends. Once that slideshow was passed through, Gabe cued up another made from photos from home as well – this time, it was of family members sending love and safe-travel wishes and see-you-soons. When the slideshow was over, Gabe came forward with the results of the cast rep elections, and Sofie and I were surprised when Gabe announced that WE would be the cast reps. We went up to the front and collected our new baby – the time capsule of Cast A 2008, and went back to our seats. Once that was done, however, there was nothing left to procrastinate with – nothing left to block our view of the end. The time had come. The evening was fast growing late, and we still needed to change into travel clothes and load the buses for our nine hour drive to Bangkok International Airport. So we gathered together for one last group talk and final, official goodbye.

Five minutes later, it was done, and we were alumni. Good thing I didn’t blink :)

Once we broke, the room became chaos again. I quickly changed and tried to get my stuff into order. We all said goodbye to Imm, who lived only 20 minutes from Khon Kaen and would not be riding down to Bangkok with us. The goodbyes had begun. Before long, we’d all boarded the buses and pulled out of the hotel and Khon Kaen, waving goodbye to Imm and our last city on the road. The bus ride to Bangkok was long and tiring. My bus date was Jessica Rojas and we took advantage of our sleepiness and did just that – sleep! Or we tried. It only kind of worked. We arrived at the airport, we all unloaded the buses and began to say goodbyes. Thankfully we had arrived with about an hour of leeway time, so we had time to make our rounds. Sofie and I, however, spent the first twenty minutes writing in a book that had been a gift to our cast from Cast C 2007 – Dr. Suess’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” In it, Cast C had written a message to us, which had been read to us in the Green Room of our first show. It was now our turn, Cast A 2008, to write our own message in here and pass it along to Cast B 2008. Like I said, it took Sofie and I about twenty minutes to figure something out, but we finally did and then put it into the book. Sorry, I’m not going to put WHAT we wrote in this blog because I’d hate to have a Cast B’er hear it prematurely. They will get to hear it in their first Green Room :) After Sofie and I finished, we made our rounds saying goodbye to everyone. I was able to delay my goodbyes to all the Americans since we’d be flying together to L.A., but that left a good amount of other to still say goodbye to, as well as the Americans staying in Thailand for a few weeks still. Even as I was saying goodbye, it wasn’t quite setting in that I wouldn’t see them soon, though. Finally, it came time to check luggage and get our boarding passes. I waved goodbye and walked away from two-thirds of my cast.

After about three hours of waiting in line, going through customs and carry-on inspection, I finally boarded my flight to Hong Kong. Our flight there was short and simple. We arrived there and waited for about an hour before boarding our next flight to L.A. That took about 14.5 hours, and I slept for about half of it. The flight was pretty comfortable, though. On board, we had our own personal media centers where we could choose from huge libraries of music to make playlists, movies ranging from classics to new releases, and T.V. shows new and old. It was pretty cool – and most importantly, free! When we arrived in L.A., it was about 11:30 in morning on June 16th. We had left at 8:00 in the morning on the 16th. There was that day we’d lost a few weeks back! :) I grabbed my luggage from the terminal (including the time capsule which I had decided to take home). Kelsey O’Keefe, one of our cast members who lives in L.A., and her family rounded together all the people staying at her place and we hopped onto a large bus that her uncle owns. We loaded our suitcases and climbed aboard, feeling strangely like Up with People hadn’t ended at all! The feel would only intensify – Kelsey had made us schedules for the week that people would be there, along with host allocations and host codes. We even had morning meetings and wrap-ups! Once we got away from the airport, the group of us (which was about 12 people) went to Tasty’s to have some good ol’ American fast food goodness. It was sooo good. After that, we traveled to one of Kelsey’s friend’s place (who would be hosting a few of us there) and there we were able to sit back and relax and just swim in their pool. Very nice! After a grill out later, we all sat down and watched parts of the Cast DVD. Before long, it was 10:30 p.m. and somehow I was still awake. I paired up with my roommate – Brandon – and we rode with our host family back to their place. We quickly found our beds and crashed.

Tuesday brought a day at the beach. All of us loaded up into the bus and drove to the Santa Monica beach. There, we sat on the beach and caught some sun and waves, just enjoying the fact that we didn’t have to do anything but sit there. It was quite nice. We even saw Eddie Murphy shooting a film on the pier at Santa Monica. After a full day of this, we drove back to L.A., and Brandon and I got picked up by our host family. Before we left though, we said goodbye to everyone there, since Brandon and I were leaving for Hawaii the next day. Afterwards, we ate at a Mexican restaurant, and then went home to re-pack for Hawaii. I went to bed moderately early, feeling sort of sick still from the past couple days, and hoping to get a good night’s sleep so that I could enjoy Hawaii.

The next morning began simple enough. I finished packing my suitcase for my trip to Hawaii. I also packed together a box to send home so that I wouldn’t have to worry as much about being overweight. It ended up being 15 lbs – definitely much better!! :) I and Brandon’s host dad took us to LAX, and there we parted ways – Brandon was flying on American Airlines to a different Hawaiian island, while I was flying on Hawaiian Airlines to Oahu. I checked my luggage, and eventually boarded my flight to Hawaii at 5:00 p.m. With the time zone switch and flight time, I arrived at Hawaii in the night at about 8:30 p.m. By that point, by internal clock was so messed up that one more time change really wasn’t about to phase me. On the approach, I was able to see the sparkling city of Hawaii in a sea of night-blackness, which actually was the sea since Hawaii is an island. I hopped off the plane, grabbed my luggage there, and met up with Chris’ grandmother and grandfather (Chris is my castmate from Hawaii that was hosting myself and about 8 others). We drove in the dark through the busy streets on Honolulu to a military base that we all would be staying at for the next couple days. We arrived about a half hour after we left the airport, I grabbed my stuff, and Chris’ grandparents were off. I settled in and hung out with everyone before I crashed for the evening – the time shift had made the day a lot longer than it normally would have been.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the rolling ocean. I walked out the back door of our cabin to be greeted by the great blue expanse of Pacific Ocean, line along the coast by trees, sand, and rock. I literally had to walk about fifty steps before I was in the ocean. It was SO beautiful! For the next two days, we spent our time hanging out at the beach on the military base, which made it a lot less crowded than anywhere else we went in Hawaii. The base itself had everything – a grocery store, a cafeteria/restaurant, a place to rent movies, and a souvenir shop. We even built a sand castle – moat and all. But our time there ended soon, and we packed up our stuff on Friday and migrated back to Chris’ place. We spent Friday afternoon at Waikiki beach on the south shore, swimming, touring, and just relaxing (a common theme so far). Friday also happened to be my 23rd birthday, and everyone treated me to dinner along Waikiki beach. Overall, it was a good day.

Over the nine days, we did a lot of things. And in an effort to streamline this for you a bit, I’ll list them off. We went to Pearl Harbor twice. Chris used to be a tour guide there, so he gave us a personal tour of the U.S.S. Missouri, and got us to different places not normally shown on a tour. Our second visit took us to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which was very cool to see, onto an active naval frigate, and finally a tour on the active portion of Pearl Harbor. On that last part, we got to see some of the places they filmed the movie “Pearl Harbor” at – including the airfield, and that tower in that one scene (I’m sure you know what I’m talking about) :) We also, over the course of our time, went to Waikiki beach a few more times, as well as a few other beaches in the area. One day, we went to Hunama Bay, which is an old volcano caldera which fell beneath the crashing ocean and became a bay. The bay is full of coral reef and fish and different marine life. We all took turns going snorkeling, and just enjoying the view. We also took an entire day to drive around all of Oahu – we even saw the place they filmed “Jurassic Park” and the T.V. show “Lost.” And to top it all off, it was with a bunch of good people from Cast A 2008. A great way to end my Up with People experience.

I flew out of Honolulu Airport at about 1:30 p.m. I happened to have a window seat on the right side of the plane to see the entire island of Oahu as we took off. It was really cool to see it all and pick out all the places I’d been to and seen over the past week and a half. The flight lasted about 4.5 hours, landing me in L.A. at about 9:00 p.m. at night, local time. I grabbed my luggage and made my way to the international terminal where I waiting for my 6:00 a.m. flight to Denver. Yes. I got to wait in L.A. for about nine hours. Woo hoo. Thankfully I didn’t have to do it alone. One of the people from our crew in Hawaii – Kristen Ditges – was flying back home to Denver on the same flight. So we, waited out our long layover in the International Terminal, grabbing McDonald’s and other random food to tide us over. Finally, 6:00 a.m. came and with it we were on a flight to Denver. I arrived with twenty minutes to spare before my next flight, so I said a quick goodbye to Kristen, and walked quickly to my terminal, catching the hostess as they were closing the terminal door. I sat down on my final flight – to Omaha – and my final flight as part of Up with People. Sort of fitting that I was flying home from Denver – the place I started this journey on nearly six months before.

July 1st, 2008, 12:30 p.m. – My flight touches down in Omaha, Nebraska. The world hasn’t looked this flat since Texas :) Still, it’s slightly comforting to be somewhere familiar for once. But at the same time, no matter how much I said to myself that I recognized everything, it all felt strange somehow. I was missing something. A very large something. A hundred-plus persons something. For the first time in almost six months, I was by myself, away from Up with People and the natural support it gives. But for the first time in nearly six months, the road ahead was an open one and ready for my OWN personal touch. NOW was the time for me to find out what I’d learned over the past five and a half months, to learn how I’ve changed, and to figure out where I’m going from here.

And so I stepped off the plane…

The Final Adventures in Up with People, Part 1

Hello all!

Well. This will be my final post as part of my Up with People journey. We’ve come a long way since January, huh? Anyways. I left off with my last host family day in Up with People, so I’ll continue on from there.

But, before I begin, I want to send out a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my host sister, Libby, from Denver. Libby traveled in Cast C 2007, and she was part of my first host family. She definitely gave Kristian and I the scoop on what to expect throughout this tour! Happy birthday Libby!!

Okay – the final week in Thailand.

Monday brought another return to the Daughters of Charity, our CI site for Khon Kaen. As in the last week, Molly, Tucker, and I went out to the playground to continue painting playground equipment and such, and the other four in our CI group (Mitch, Anna, Nina, and Katy) played and helped the children there at the school. Lunch came and went, and we all decided to switch up tasks. Those four went out to the playground to find things to paint while Molly, Tucker, and I went to the garden to do some weeding. Thankfully there wasn’t much left to do: our fellow Uppies had done a great job the last week tearing up most of the foul greenery (sorry, that sounds like something from a 1960’s Batman episode). Either way, we were quickly done with what was left, which only left us with some raking to do, which wasn’t very difficult work – especially nice since it was particularly warm that day. We finished up for the day and then went home.

Tuesday brought our last real day of work at our CI site, even though we were still coming the next day. The sister who runs the school insisted that Wednesday would not be a day for working, but instead a day to celebrate us coming and working with them. So really, Tuesday was our last CI day. As with previous mornings, Tucker, Molly, and I went to work painting at the playground. By that time, we were really scrounging to find things to paint, since we had managed to really dominate anything else in the playground. So the sister as us to paint fun decorations on their sandbox-gazebo, which had nine pillars going around its square frame to support the roof. We decided to paint vines to wind around the pillars, and then add flowers to them afterward. The final product turned out really good – I wish I had a picture to post here to show you. You’ll just have to take my word for it :) After lunch, the three of us migrated back to the garden, but there wasn’t anything to there but rake some more – which didn’t take long. So, we ended up finishing early and then being able to relax a bit before we all headed over the Khon Kaen Hospital for a large cast meeting – our last, in fact. When we arrived at the hospital, we had dinner and then were ushered into one of the meeting rooms were a gallery was set up: the Final Gallery of Cast A 2008. Inside was an array of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells from our travels this past semester. There were photos everywhere throughout the room from everywhere in our journey. There was a table set up with different kinds of food we’d had along the way – including pizza!! Ah! I was SO happy. There was also a table with covered bottles that we could smell (if we dared). I do remember some of them being cigarette butts, something quite sweaty, and then nothing. And then throughout the entire room was music playing that had been a part of our travels. Another cool thing was a list of comments sent in by all of our U.S. host families. I was even able to find one from my MAQUOKETA host family, who praised me and Up with People for the time we spent there. That was really cool to read…thanks guys! I miss you! We were given a good half hour to wander around the room and look at the many different things – it was a great way to look at the semester in a short glance. Then we sat down and watched a slideshow that had photos which singled each one of us out – it was really cool to see individual pictures of us all that had come throughout the semester. After that, we migrated into another room, where we all got a chance to write on sheets of paper with all our names on them. There, we all went around and wrote what we thought those people would be doing in five years – which is when our cast reunion will be. After that, we wrapped up for the night and went home.

Wednesday came, and with it my last CI day in Up with People. The morning was spent with everyone at the Daughters of Charity – the students and the staff. The students performed some dances they’d been working on all week, and the staff presented us with gifts and thank you cards. After that, everyone lined up and they all wrapped strings around our wrists – a tradition in Thailand as a way to ward off bad luck and ill-spirits. By the end of the ceremony, we all had about 25 strings tied to our wrists! :) After lunch, we spent the afternoon all together hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. The day ended soon, and we went home.

Thursday brought our final rehearsal day for our final set of shows. We spent most of the morning, actually, with some free time, which gave a lot of us some time to go around and have others right contact info and goodbyes in notebooks and journals and the like. After lunch, we ran through everything and worked out a lot of kinks, getting use to the new stage for us, as well as the different entrances. The venue that we were set to perform in was a domed stadium, which thankfully meant that it wouldn’t be out in the midday sun, but it also meant that it would be indoors and full of stifling body heat and more. But, its Thailand – we didn’t expect any less. Our stage was a large constructed stage about five feet off the ground, and thankfully huge. We had plenty of room for EVERYONE to be on stage, which was good since no one wanted to miss any part of the last show coming up on Saturday. A lot of Thursday was also spent working out the technical side of the show, since the audio system was not ours. It definitely took a while to get everything in working order, and even then it wasn’t quite right. For instance, we had a lot of trouble with the on-stage monitors which allows us to hear ourselves in the microphone groups, and lets the soloist hear themselves as well. They didn’t work very well, and kept getting muted out by the open drums and echo-back from the speakers pointed towards the audience. Something to get use to anyway. I rehearsed “It Takes A Whole Village to Raise a Child” again, and I tried to get used to not being able to hear myself, which sort of worked. Either way, we made it through all of rehearsal, and ended the day.

Friday was our first show day of two in Khon Kaen. We were set to have two shows that day – one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The first show wasn’t one open to the public, but instead it was for the many schools and children we’d been working with the past two weeks at our CI sites all over Khon Kaen. Even the children we’d been working with at the Daughters of Charity were there! The stadium was packed to the BRIM! We were told that there were 6,000 people there in attendance. Unbelievable! We ended up having to perform in a sort of U fashion so as to personalize the show for everyone that were practically surrounding us. And when they cheered, it was a high-pitch scream that reverberated around in the metal-roofed dome. Almost ear-splitting. But let me tell you – it was still the coolest thing ever! But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We spent the morning running through the show again, hitting different entrances and transitions and such. Once we finished, Gabe (our show manager) decided to cut into lunch a bit and let us have some fun. The sound board cued up the Mexican Medley and we all performed it for one last time. Ah, it was SOOO cool!!! For me, it had been since Mexico City since I had done it last, and for the cast it’d been since San Luis Potosi. Either way, it’d been a while, and we all had grown extremely fond of that 7.5 minutes of Spanish madness. And the crazy thing was that we all still knew exactly what to do. Talk about the best way to get everyone pumped up for the first show! After the medley, we all went to lunch, got ready for the show, and dove right into it. It went off great! As I mentioned, the cheers were near ear-splitting, and the crowd really seemed to enjoy it. After the show, we all found ourselves, however, drenched in sweat. I had two shirts on underneath my show shirt, hoping that it would help buffer the sweat from getting to my show shirt. I was wrong. We all quickly changed out of our show costumes and hung them up to dry before the next show. Backstage, there was a door to get outside and catch some sort of a breeze, but it was surrounded by a lot of the children that had just seen the show and were now looking for autographs and pictures. I can honestly say that I have never signed so many random pieces of paper, and taken pictures with so many random people. It definitely inflated our egos :) We all hung out between the shows, grabbing some dinner and just relaxing. Finally, as the evening’s show time was approaching, the show list was put up, and I found myself as the soloist for “It Takes a Whole Village…” Whew. Um, yeah, I suddenly wanted to throw up just a bit. I was just a bit nervous. Thankfully, I found people to hang out with to distract me for the next hour instead of think about it constantly (thanks Kristen and Wouter!). I was up on microphone groups for the first two songs – “Ayiko” and “Step Into the World” – thankfully, which let me warm up a bit and loosen up, too. Finally, “I Can Believe” got done and it was my time to climb up on stage. I took a deep breath and did it. On reflection, I am VERY happy that it was an evening show and the audience was dark, leaving me blinded for the most part by the spotlight and unable to see many of any faces. I think it made it easier. And it went alright. I fumbled the words on the second verse just a bit, but you could only tell if you knew the song/spoke English. Being that I was in Thailand, I think I was alright :) I did, also, have Mitch (my roommate, and one of our Education staff members) video record my solo for me, but I really don’t want to publicize that one any more than necessary. I listened to part of it, and despite what anyone told me in Khon Kaen, I don’t think it sounds that good. So that’s not going up here – sorry :-p But I knew that family would want to see it, otherwise I would never have taped it. After my solo, I flowed right into the rest of the show, and it went off great. One funny moment that I really enjoyed was during “Keep the Beat.” I was up on microphone groups, so I had a great view of the whole stage. Brittany, from Colorado, was singing the solo for this song for the first time. She was nervous, but she did an AMAZING job. But, at the end of the song, there is a short emcee transition into a break. She wrote the emcee (which was in Thai) on her hand so that she’d be able to read it stealthily and make the transition. When it came time to read it, the sweat from her performing (and probably being nervous) caused the ink on her hand to run and smear, leaving her making up Thai words during the emcee transition. It was all I could do not to chuckle. Don’t get me wrong, I felt bad for her – but come on! That kind of stuff only happens in the movies! It was kind of amusing.

Saturday, June 15th, 2008 – Cast A 2008’s final show day. It’s hard to think back to Denver on arrival day when I thought that the show was going to be the hardest thing for me. And now I knew it was one of the things I looked forward to every week. We started off the day with some general rehearsal again, and then we all climbed on stage in a circle. Over the course of the semester, one particular song had grown to be an emotional hook for all of us – able to tug at our heartstrings whenever it wanted to. Well, it was our last show day, and our last time we’d perform “We’ll Be There” together. So, hoping let our some of that emotion early and not in the final show tonight on stage, our show staff gathered us all into one large circle on stage to sing “We’ll Be There” to each other. By the end, there was not a dry eye in the stadium. It was the end. It had caught up with all of us. And it was time to face it.

Our afternoon show went by normally – just as sweaty as the day before, though. I brought I towel along, though, so I was able to take advantage of the showers they had at the sports stadium. It. Was. Amazing. We all hung out again after the show, chatting and savoring the calm before the emotional storm that would surely hit as soon as our last show started. Finally, it came to get ready for our final show and our last Green Room. We all walked to our final Green Room and were asked to sit down. When we did, it began. The song “Right Now” by Van Halen started playing, and staff members began walking across the stage silently, holding signs with different things written on them and all the while a sign stood lonely on the stage: “Right Now…” Some of the different signs said things like, “…your final audience is taking their seats,” and “…Cast B 2008 is packing THEIR bags,” and “…your family is waiting for you at home.” It definitely put things into perspective – right now isn’t necessarily right here. After that, the staff talked a bit, then we played some games (like we usually do), and Andrew Lanham (our sound tech staff member) gave us his last circle talk – probably his most powerful. We then went into a showcase of everyone in their final roles for the night – who was doing what during the show. And then we were off to the stadium and our final show. I changed into my specialty costume since I was set to do the frontline for “Step into the World,” which besides the show earlier that day I hadn’t done since The Woodlands. It was nice to have my last show include this frontline dance that I had done in my first show. So since I was in my costume, I had to wait backstage during “Ayiko” just as I normally do, which let Chris Ota and I jam out to the song like we use to always do – man was that fun! Then “Step into the World” came on and we all poured out onto the stage. Hans and Brandon (who had solo-ed the song for most of the year) were reunited for the show and really took it up a notch, almost to the point of going insane on stage. You couldn’t miss the energy. It was fun to do the dance one last time. We transitioned to “Village,” and I got to do cast movement for that. Overall, there had been three soloists for “Village” – Johan from Sweden, François from Namibia, and myself. I did the show Friday night, François did the show this afternoon, and Johan did the final show. It wasn’t any surprise to me that I only did the solo once, and really I was happy with that. So I was on cast movement for “Village” and that went just fine. We transitioned into “Sound of Peace” where we all form “clumps” on stage, some people kneeling and others standing. It’s a beautiful song. What wasn’t so beautiful was the dripping sweat rolling down off of everyone during the song. Eww. One person even said that they thought it was raining and the roof was leaking until they realized that someone was dripping sweat onto them – yuck. Glad that wasn’t me! :-s We moved from “Sound” to “Chang,” which was one of the Thai songs we performed in the show. The crowd really seemed to enjoy that. After that, it was “Power With,” “Ounce,” “Rhythm/Stomp,” and “Keep the Beat.” But before intermission, the staff from the hospital that had been sponsoring us in Khon Kaen came on stage and performed a song for us as a thank you. It was pretty cool! We didn’t quite understand it, since it was in Thai, but that didn’t matter – we got the gist. After that, intermission came and went, and soon “Shine the Light” was starting. I found my way to the front of the stage for our final time doing the song, and I really felt like the crowd was starting to feel our energy. Because let’s face it – as gracious as our Thai crowd was, they were still watching and listening to a show that primarily was in English. But it felt like they were picking up on our outpouring of energy – that unrestricted flow stemming from our final moments on stage as Cast A 2008. We transitioned to “One to One” – I found myself on stage doing the signing as the cast was out in the crowded audience. After that, our final “I Can Believe” and transition to “World Celebration,” followed by our culture jam. When the Mariachi segment came, and with it Jessica Rojas’ amazing long note, Jessica pulled out the big guns and carried her note one of the longest times I’d ever heard. There is no question that she knew it was her last show. As the Mariachi segment was winding down, Hans (the soloist for “Oye el Boom”) was getting ready for his solo coming up next, and he decided to unbutton his most of the way, leaving only a few buttoned and most of his bare chest showing. When he exploded onto the stage with his first lyrics, he ripped his shirt open and flowed right into the song. What I would have given to see the face of our show manager, Gabe. But it worked well and everyone really got into “Oye el Boom.” After that, we filtered off stage to do our change into Thai shirts. After I got that done, I made my way for my walk-on for microphone groups. There, I was able to watch our “We’ll Be There” video one final time with the other mic group people. As I looked around, I saw that a few people were openly very sad – they knew it was their last time. It was my last time. But as I watched the video, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as I read the words: “The world has also witnessed the power of people working together, sharing a common vision; a vision that together we can change the world.” That’s what I’d been a part of this past five months. Sure I traveled around to many places, lived with different host families, and met some amazing people. But I also had been an example to all the people that I’d met that it is possible. Whether it be working with people from different backgrounds or cultures; whether it be making a difference in a local community, and giving back to others; whether it be spreading a message of hope through a show – I had been a part of a vision that together we can change the world for the better.

The music for “We’ll Be There” began, and lights focused down on Molly Robertson doing her solo. I was up on microphone groups, so I could see both the stage and crowd well. Up ahead of us, in a balcony, stood the staff and the tech board. And while it was dark, the lights from the stage illuminated the stadium enough so that I pick out staff standing up there. AJ walked on stage for his entrance, joining Molly on the first refrain and then moving into his solo. The second refrain came and the cast members with culture costumes moved on stage. The refrain drew to its end and Jessica Rojas came on stage for the third and final verse. Most of the microphone groups by that point were misty, and Jessica only made it worse. As her verse ended, the cast’s cue to move on stage came. I looked up into the balcony and saw the staff raise up signs from our Green Room: “You can do it Cast A!” “We believe in you!” “This is YOUR final show!” The a capela refrain came, and the crowd pulled out white pieces of cloth they began to sway in the air, something else the staff had arranged. Our final refrain. I found myself panting and with a stupid grin on my face at the end – any sadness at this being our last time on stage singing this song fading under the amazing adrenaline and energy we’d just thrown out to the audience. A standing ovation.

The show continued on to our last Thai song. That was over quickly, and there were a few more emcee comments to wrap up the show and lead us into our final number: “Up with People.” As the music kicked in, however, an explosion ripped through the air, and confetti and streamers soared across the stage. The look on our faces must have been priceless, because we were NOT expecting any sort of confetti canon or fireworks. But we recovered quickly and went right into a powerful and energetic “Up with People,” the last time we’d be on stage singing it as castmembers and not alumni. It ended quickly and with it our final show. We moved off stage and about every emotion you can think of was found there: crying, laughing, solemn silence. Two things were constants, however: were all dripping with sweat, and we would never again do that show together. Whoa.

We all gathered outside after about fifteen minutes, where the sound crew and rigged up some speakers to an iPod. The clicked it on and we jammed out to our strike song one last time. People leaving the stadium stopped and looked at us with what could only be described as confusion and oddity. After all, we must have looked crazy. After that it was truly done. There was nothing left of the show but the sweaty costumes we needed to pack up into bags and suitcases to take home to the U.S. in a day. I found the bag that I’d need to take home with me, and found my host family. We drove home mostly in silence, still in kind of a lull and trying to process the night. I packed my suitcase a bit when I got home, but for the most part went straight to bed.

And I'll finish the rest in the next few days...haha, sorry to cut this into parts, but I guess that's what happens. The next part soon to come!

Until my next post!

Dan

The Thai Adventure Begins!

Hello all!

Well, it’s been an interesting past two and a half weeks here in Thailand. We arrived at about 9:30 in the morning, local time Thailand. Of course it was 9:30 P.M. back home, but that’s neither here nor there. We all made our way through customs, which was a two minute process for me. After that, we wheeled our luggage through the airport, and then onto the buses waiting for us outside. We drove for about twelve hours from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, which is in the north of Thailand. We arrived at a Buddhist temple, where we’d be staying at for the night. We couldn’t really see much of the place then, but there were hints of Thai all around us. The trees – more tropical. The wall decorations, too. When we awoke the next morning, we got a rude awakening to Thailand – squatty-potties. Yes. I’m sure you can use your imagination to decipher what I mean. Needless to say, this Buddhist temple did NOT have a Western toilet or shower. Your show was a bucket to fill with water and pour over your head. The same bucket that you used to flush the squatty-potty with. Yes. Fun times. But what’s more cultural than a bathroom experience? We gathered together for morning meeting, a welcoming ceremony, and then broke into our CI groups so that we could prepare for the week. The people selected to go into hill tribes left in the afternoon, set to enjoy the “rustic” experience for a week away from the cast. The rest of us worked on our own CI projects to be sure we’d be ready for the five days of CI. For most of the days, we would be only meeting with our groups and not with the cast as a whole, which was a change for us since we’d pretty much been inseparable since staging. Good practice for the end of the semester. Finally, host family pick-up time came and I met my wonderful host family. I was also roomed with Leo Martinez from Venezuela again (my roommate from both Brenham and The Woodlands). We went to a restaurant and ate what seemed to be traditional Thai food – rice, fish, vegetables, and such. The first phrase that I learned quickly was “mai ped,” which means “no spicy”. Came in handy :) After dinner, we went to their home and settled in for the night. I quickly learned that hard sleeping surfaces is prevalent in Thailand, not something just limited to our Buddhist temple experience. My bed for the next week and a half was, basically, a wooden table with a thin mattress (half-inch thick) on top. This wasn’t something thrown together for me – this was what Thai people slept on normally. Hmmmmmm. Cultural experience #2.

I woke up the next morning, Friday, quite early (about 5:45) so that we could leave and eat breakfast before going to our first CI site – World Vision. Leo, my roommate, really enjoys coffee in the morning, and adds quite a bit of sugar to his cup. Like, dump sugar in for five seconds. The look on my host mother’s face every time he did that over the next week and a half was enough to brighten my day. She would give him this genuinely aghast look, surprised that ANYONE could have that much sugar in their coffee, and then shudder at the thought of tasting that herself. We all laughed about it before too long. Her son, Peal (pronounced pee-el), speaks amazing English, which made all the meal experiences and general communication a lot easier. I was very grateful for that. He also is a BIG fan of Friends, the T.V. show, and so we ended up watching that every night, since it was a routine of his. Pretty sure he has all the seasons. It was quite strange, though, to find myself watching Friends in Thailand. Anyway. Back to Friday. After breakfast, Leo and I went to our CI site, World Vision, which is a Christian organization that, I believe, works all over the world providing social services to those who need it. They set up an English camp for Thai hill tribe children to attend since we, Up with People, were going to be in Chiang Rai. I was crew leader for this CI site, which meant that I was the liaison between our crew and World Vision, and I was also in charge of our crew managerially. Our job was to decide on subjects to teach three classes of Thai children, figure out a lesson plan that would work for the different times allotted, and then put into action these plans, teaching children who don’t speak any English something that will be useful for them. We decided on a few different subjects. My group (myself, Tyler from California, and Veronica from Norway) taught body parts, clothes, and if we needed it animals. Another group (Mitch from Ohio, Linn from Sweden, and Mira from Bulgaria) taught numbers, the alphabet, colors, and shapes. The final group (Leo from Venezuela, Rachel from the U.S., and Jessica K. from the U.S.) taught simple verbs, nouns, and directions. Our class schedule on Friday wasn’t too bad: six, 45 minute classes starting at about 9 and ending at 3:30 with lunch in the middle. The three groups would rotate around to the three different classrooms so that they could all each get our different lesson plans. We rotated around twice, so we ended up teaching each class for about an hour and a half. At the end of the day, the nine of us walked to a ice cream shop nearby and had some amazing ice cream while we did a wrap-up of the day and also began a discussion of the stages of loss, led by our staff member Mitch. For future reference, there are five stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We were discussing this, of course, because we were three and half weeks from the end of the semester – a semester where we’ve slept, ate, danced, sang, hugged, cried, and experienced the world together as a cast and now we’ll be soon going our separate ways. An appropriate discussion. We discussed denial, and then walked back to World Vision to be picked up by our host family. I and Leo’s host family picked us up and took us to the White Temple – a beautiful temple in Chiang Rai. See attached pictures. Wow. After that, we had dinner and I called it a night. I was exhausted from the culture shift, the culture experiences, and from teaching English to people who couldn’t speak a word.

Saturday came, our Regional Learning Day for Chiang Rai. Unfortunately, we were not an entire cast for this regional learning day – the thirty-some people in the hill tribes would not be joining us. But, we were still sixty-some strong and we were going to represent! :) We started off the day with an hour boat ride down the Kok river, the main river through Chiang Rai. It provided us with some great scenery and just a relaxing beginning to what would become a long and amazing day. We arrived at the shores of a hill tribe market along the river where we disembarked from the boats and got a chance to mill around. There were animal displays, too, where you could pay 100 bat, for example, and have a huge python wrapped around your neck to take pictures. I elected to not, but there were those who paid the 100 bat (about $3 in the U.S.) to do it. After that, we all paired up and climbed some stairs to ride ELEPHANTS! Woo hoo!! It was a crazy and different experience. We rode atop them for about forty-five minutes and traveled up into some hill tribes and then waded through the river to arrive back where we started. I rode with Mira from Bulgaria, who was freaking out for the first five minutes, but was then able to control herself for the rest of the ride if I could provide some distracting discussion. It was a fun experience that really made a lot of people’s day – many had been hoping to ride elephants in Thailand and this had been a surprise the staff had kept from us. After the elephant rides and lunch, we boarded the boats again for a short ride upriver to a landing site and sort-of hill tribe area. It was there that we set out on a road to lead us up into the hills to a beautiful waterfall where we would be able to swim and relax and enjoy ourselves. We were told that the trek would be about 900 meters – about half a mile. I, myself, never really thought about the walking there. For the first forty-five minutes, I spent the time talking to different people as I walked, just enjoying the chance to have social time while we were going to the waterfall. But soon the paved road turned into a dirt road, and then that dirt road got steeper. And then that dirt road disappeared into a walking trail. At different points, all sixty of us found ourselves stopping in the shade to rest for a moment and catch our breath and just step out of the sun. The water we were carrying turned hot quickly, but it soon didn’t matter as the sweat rolled off us in currents. Many of us were exhausted. Some of us nearly collapsed. A couple of us puked. Not a pretty sight. But we pressed on. This waterfall was going to be amazing, we kept telling ourselves. A hour elapsed since we left. Then an hour and a half. All the while, the sun wasn’t getting any more merciful, though our water was getting lighter – comes from drinking a bunch of it! :) Finally, we reached a point in the thick, lush trees where the entire cast stopped there to let everyone catch up who had fallen behind and give the group a collective break. We had figured out by then that this was no mere half mile, but we still didn’t know how far we had to go yet. But, after about 20 minutes of rest, we picked up again and kept climbing what had turned into a rough trail. We passed through several hill tribe villages, and after the rest I was better able to appreciate them. After about a half hour, we arrive and the beautifully majestic waterfall that cascaded down about 50-70 feet over rough rocks and trees into a glorious pool below. We all cheered with a relief and joy I thought none of us could summon at that point. It was truly an amazing experience and ordeal to have gone through. What was supposed to be a mild half mile walk turned into a 2 km climb through hot and rough terrain. I cannot hardly describe the immense feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction we all had when we reached the waterfall. We all celebrated by switching into bathing suits and jumping into the waterfall pool, enjoying the crisp and cool water. A-MAZING! :) We were able to swim and lounge around for about forty minutes, and then we continued on the path downhill to a clearing where vehicles picked us up and brought us back to the hill tribe we started at. By that point, we had already dubbed the day as the best Regional Learning Day ever, which is a lot to say after days like the pyramids in Mexico and the Alamo in San Antonio. We drove for about an hour back into Chiang Rai to a restaurant that served us all dinner and had a two person band playing music for us. The singer must have known we speak English because most of the songs he sang were covers of U.S. songs. He did a great acoustic rendition of Linkin Park’s “Numb” and “What I’ve Done.” We all relaxed, enjoyed dinner and each other’s company, taking in what all we had done that day. I and Leo’s host family picked us up that evening, and as soon as we got back home I went straight to bed. I surprised I was able to stay awake for the ride home :)

Sunday brought the first of two host family days in Chiang Rai. We got up early and left the house at about 5 a.m. to head to the farmer’s market (or something like that) where we picked up breakfast and took it to a friend of our host family’s house, who happened to be Scott and Ellen Enebo’s host family. We ate breakfast, which consisted of rice, eggs, and toast, and then Leo and I went into their T.V. room to wait for Ellen and Scott to join us. They turned on the T.V. for us, which was satellite, and I was able to flip through the channels to see if I could find anything worth watching. By happenstance, I stumbled onto the ESPN channel and the NBA Eastern Conference series between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons. I couldn’t believe it. And the game was live! It was 7:30 in the morning, I was sitting in Thailand, and I was watching the NBA live. Just weird. I was able to watch the first half of the game (which was Game 3, by the way) and see that the Celtics had taken a considerable led into the half. I can only imagine that they won, even though it was at Detroit. We all left soon enough and journeyed to the house of the King’s Mother – a beautiful home up in the high hills of Thailand. Gorgeous. After that, we toured the King’s Mother’s huge garden, which flowed around the foothills of her home – a beautifully huge area with hundreds of different kinds of flowers and plants that have been excellently maintained. So cool to see. After we looked at all of this, we all drove to another friend of our host families’ home – a beautiful house a good distance outside of Chiang Rai. There, we had lunch and played games with each other just enjoyed the beautiful afternoon. Leo and I caught a small nap, since the day before had been crazy-long and we’d gotten up so early. After a few hours, we all gathered back together and drove to Chiang Rai’s largest university, which was absolutely beautiful and provided for some great photo opps :) Soon enough, though, the day ended and we all parted. Leo and I went to bed, ready to start our four days in a row of CI.

In terms of CI, Monday through Thursday were basically the same. In the morning we had two, hour and a half classes with about 25 children, and we taught them English based on the areas we had chosen to focus on. After lunch, we had another hour and a half class, followed by a half hour, outdoor large-group activity, which we usually spent playing games like duck duck goose and red light/green light. We had the same kids on Monday and Tuesday, then a new set for Wednesday and Thursday, which meant we needed to have lesson plans ready for three hours of collective teaching. We basically used the first day as a introduction to our subjects, gauging how much they were absorbing to decide how much we should teach them in the first day. The second day was spent reviewing what we’d done the first day, adding on some new lessons should they be needed (which they always were). These were some bright kids. After each day, we walked to that ice cream shop down the street, spent 30 bat on some ice cream (which was about a dollar), and did a wrap-up of the day, prepared for tomorrow, and went of the stages of loss. Monday was anger. Tuesday was bargaining. Wednesday was depression. Thursday was acceptance. During the week, however, after CI, Leo and I were toured around to different places around Chiang Rai by our host family, seeing different sights, and getting opportunities for photo opps. Good times.

Friday brought cast rehearsal day, and the first day we’d all be together for a week, since the hill tribe people returned to Chiang Rai the night before, as did some of the other different allocations. All of us greeted each other with open arms in the morning, over-exuberantly happy to see one another. You would have thought it was a five year reunion :) Soon we all jumped right into a large CI overview, which gave us all an opportunity to see what everyone else had been doing all week long. After that, we all split into large groups of what we’d be doing after Up with People. My group was the “Returning to School” group, since I’m planning on attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the fall. It was cool to hear about some of the plans everyone had for after Up with People, and a keen reminder that the semester’s end was drawing near. After lunch, we jumped right into rehearsal, which was different since we weren’t doing it on the actual stage we’d be performing. Really, it was just an opportunity for us to work out show kinks before we arrived at the show facility the next day and had to work out all the technical kinks. It was obvious that the cast had missed doing the show for two weeks. The level of energy put into that rehearsal was huge! Our best rehearsal yet! I even got my hand in a solo opportunity, and practiced “It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child.” I thought I did a decent job, but in all honesty I couldn’t hear myself that well because of the poor speaker quality and sound meshing. In other words, it was very noisy in that room! :) After rehearsal, we got together for wrap-up and then broke for the day. Our host family was waiting for Leo and I, and took us straight after to a restaurant for dinner party in our honor. We had a special room all to ourselves, and our host family invited some of their friends, and we hung out while eating and laughing and even singing karaoke! I even had a pork chop for dinner – and it was amazing!!! By the end of the night, we’d been there for about five hours and we were all exhausted, but in a good way. We drove home, and Leo and I crashed.

Show day came we ran through the normal day routines. But since set up was done by a Thai crew, we had some presentations in the morning, followed by lunch. After lunch, rehearsal kicked in on our custom-built stage. We ran through the show, working out the technical kinks, and finally we were ready for our first Thai show. As we glanced out into the audience floor, we kept seeing the room fill and fill and fill. Finally, Martin came backstage and said we were going to start the show, and that they’ve been turning away people at the door! The room was packed – FAR more than would ever be legally allowed in the U.S.!! We the show started, a deafening scream raced through the room. Think of the most high-pitched, junior-high girl scream and then multiply it by fifty. That’s what it was like. Piercing. But, instead of being painful, it was only FUEL for us. All throughout the show, the screams and cheers spurred us on, and by the end of the night we felt like we’d put on an amazing show. Without needing to do strike, I was able to change and then go home right away with my host family. I turned in quickly, and fell quickly to sleep.

Sunday brought our last day in Chiang Rai, and our host family day as well. We were able to sleep in a bit (until about 7:30 – woo hoo!) and then we were off to join Scott and Ellen’s host family for a day of Thailand exploration and adventure! We all loaded onto a eleven-passenger bus and toured to the northernmost point of Thailand, what’s known as the Golden Triangle. If you don’t know the historical significance, I’ll explain it here in a bit. Basically, the Golden Triangle is where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar all meet. The first place we went to was a museum created by the King’s Mother (whose home we visited last host family day) called the Hall of Opium. It is a historical museum aimed at educating people about drugs, particularly opium, and then hopefully deterring people from becoming addicted to them. The tour, which was self-guided, began with us walking through a tunnel through the side of a mountain. In the tunnel, wispy and blissful-like music played, but the tunnel itself was dark and shadowy with artistic murals at points that depicted tortured and agonized faces seeming to “push” themselves out of the rock. In a pamphlet we got, this walk was explained to be a representation of opium addiction – the music representing the blissful, euphoric feeling one gets from the drug, while the murals represented the harsh, concrete reality of the addiction and its harmful results. Very interesting start. Once to the other side of the tunnel, we were given a very brief overview of the facility through a English video and then “set loose” in the museum, free to wander through its directed and interactive path. Along the way, it had signs and exhibits that detailed the history of opium and how opium got to be such a terrible addiction in Thailand. While I’m sure the story is MUCH more complex, the nuts and bolts of it is this: England had acquired a strong taste for tea in the 1600s, which could only be found and made in China. At the time, and because of China’s export tariffs, England could not afford the price it was costing to satisfy the huge demand for the product. They simply did not have enough precious metals to trade. But, since at this time they had colonized India, they had plenty of opium, and began trading it for tea. This ended up being a great trade for England since the Chinese quickly became addicted to the drug and soon demanded more of it, which England loved because then it could get more tea. The Chinese government, however, did not think opium was such a great idea. So they placed high tariffs on its import, and then finally outlawed it. England didn’t much like this, which led to the two Opium Wars, which both ended in England’s favor. This led to unfair treaty negotiations, placing opium as a nearly untaxed item in China. Opium’s influence later spread south into Thailand, which the northern hill tribes there and in Laos and Myanmar used as a cash crop to feed a huge demand worldwide. Whew.

After about halfway through this long exhibit that was the Hall of Opium, we reached a point where it turned into an emotional appeal instead of a historical documentary. More stories of people’s lives, whole peoples, and countries being drastically affected by opium surfaced and were the main display. By the end, I found that this museum had been an amazing experience that both taught me something and touched me. It was very powerful.

After the Hall of Opium, we all packed back into the van and drove to a large market and tourist area where we had lunch and then toured around to see some great architecture and statues and the like. This was right on the border of Thailand and Laos. The restaurant we ate at overlooked a river that was the border between the two countries. Beyond this, there were a lot of photogenic places. And my host family LOVES taking pictures. So needless to say I have a LOT of pictures :) After we toured this, we drove further north to the border of Thailand and Myanmar where we took some more pictures, saw some cool temples and statues, and toured through some Thai marketplaces. Its amazing how much I DON’T blend in here in Asia :) After we toured around here for a bit, we all clamored back into the van and drove back to Chiang Ria – about an hour drive. We dropped of Scott and Ellen and their host family, and then went to eat dinner ourselves. After this, we drove back home and Leo and I started to pack and say our goodbyes, since tomorrow would be departure day from Chiang Rai. After packing for hours and handing out host family gifts, we said goodnight and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up early and drove to our drop off point. Leo and I said goodbye to our wonderful host family and then boarded the buses for Khon Kaen. My bus date for the trip was Erin from Indiana, but we didn’t really hang out until the end of the drive since we both slept for most of the drive. Our bus wasn’t equipped with a DVD player, but it did have a V-CD player. Yes, that’s right. A VIDEO COMPACT DISC player. Shooting it back to lost technology. So we couldn’t watch anything on the bus since no one had a V-CD movie. However, at a gas station stop, Nicole from California bought a copy of “Sweeny Todd” on V-CD for a cheap price, and we were able to watch it on our bus. Unfortunately for us, the dialogue was in Thai. BUT, the music (because it is a musical) was still in English with Thai subtitles. Since I’d seen it already, I was able to explain to those who hadn’t what was going on in the movie when the English cut out, and overall it was an amusing experience for all. We were also able to listen to a CD copy of Carolyn Lee’s speech she’d given us at the beginning of our year about the Up with People experience. I’m pretty sure I blogged about this back in January or early February. It was really cool to listen to it again and give ourselves perspective of how far we’ve come and where we are now. It was a good focuser for the last two weeks to come. We arrived at about 8-8:30 in the evening after about a 12 hour bus ride over and through the mountains of Thailand to Khon Kaen. At times, we were all afraid we were going to die because our bus drive was driving our bus like a Indy racer around the curves of the mountain hills, but we arrived safe and sound, albeit with a few more grey hairs. Allocation ensued and I was paired up in my last city with Mitch McVicker, one of the Education Team staff members. I was pretty excited since I had thought to myself that he’d been one of those people I hadn’t gotten to know that well these past five months, so I was excited for the next two weeks, even though they would be my last on the road. After some fun trying to find our right host family, we were off to their home in Khon Kaen for a good night’s rest.

Tuesday was orientation day for the cast, and it was filled with welcoming ceremonies done by both dignitaries in Khon Kaen, and Khon Kaen University students. We also had some internal time that was used by Martin, our cast manager, to talk to us about how to use Up with People on your résumé and in interviews effectively, and by Dave, our Admissions Coordinator, on how to spread the word to people about Up with People when we get back. Overall, it was a great cast day.

Wednesday brought our first day of CI in Khon Kaen. I was placed at a Christian mission school for special needs children. There we were going to be working with the children, as well as working on weeding their gardens and painting their playground equipment. Seven of us were allocated to the place: Tucker from Denver, Mitch from Ohio, Molly from Ohio/California, Anna from Denmark, myself, Katy from Denver, and Nina from Finland. Mitch, Anna, Nina, and Katy worked with the children in the morning and then gardened in the afternoon, while Molly, Tucker, and I began painting all of the playground equipment the mission had, which became the routine for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The two head sisters at the mission are Philippine women who can speak Philippine, Thai, and English – all very well! Amazing. They’ve been working at the mission for about 30 years, helping the children there. It’s difficult work since in Thailand there is a traditional thought that if your child is born with an sort of disorder or handicap, it is because of a sin of the grandfather of that child – a punishment. The children have traditionally been seen as outcasts of society, and even though it is 2008 the sisters still must work against this stigma.

Saturday brought our only regional learning day in Khon Kaen, and our last of the tour. We started off by visited a huge Buddhist temple, which was absolutely beautiful! After that, we drove and visited a museum of Khon Kaen, which laid out some historical points of the region and also some modern and local attractions to see in the area. We then all loaded some trucks and drove to a neighboring town, Nam Phong, which Cast C 2007 visited on their tour last year. We were welcome by people there and had some great lunch provided by the local Rotary Club. After lunch, we all gathered up again and drove to Boystown in Nam Phong, where we would be spending the rest of the afternoon. The boys who lived there performed for us with some traditional musical instruments, and then we were given free reign of the facility, for which we the cast had some plans. Lucas, one of our Field Managers for the city, took the entire staff aside for a moment to tell them some harsh news – our show facility was currently under three feet of water and the power was completely out. There was no way we could have our final shows there next week. Immediately the staff began to brainstorm to find some last minute places, but it was looking pretty bleak. There were some anxious and, frankly, angry people in that meeting. Lucas then led the staff back over to the cast, who then surprised them with STAFF APPRECIATION!! Haha – so our show facility is not under water, and everything is okay for our final shows, but I’m told that it was an amazingly tense moment in that circle of staff members and some great acting by Lucas, who was in on the trick. We led the staff to front row seats, were personal attendants were waiting to get them water and massages while they enjoyed a mock awards show for their benefit. One by one, awards were given out to all the staff members with great appreciation notes attached to them. To receive them were members of the cast playing the respective staff members. Some of the imitations were HILARIOUS! Brandon had an amazing mimicking of Scott Enebo – I wish I’d video taped it! After all the awards were handed out, the staff got a chance to bid on some cast members who were willing to be their “slaves” for a day. It was quite amusing. Kristen Ditges was easily the most sought after “slave,” with multiple staff members bidding on her with money they didn’t really have (each staff member was given 100 fake dollars – Kristen was getting bids of about $120-$130!) After this, the entire cast handed out appreciate letters to the staff members, and then had the move to the center of a large circle we created. Once we surrounded them all, we sang “We’ll Be There” to them, one of the most powerful songs in show. While yes it was cliché, we could tell it meant a lot to staff. Many of them were quite misty-eyed by the end.

After staff appreciation, we moved into Hometeam Olympics, part 2. The first round of Hometeam Olympics took place in Puebla while I was on advanced work in New Braunfels (just like Cast Appreciation happened in San Luis Potosi). In the first Hometeam Olympics, Hometeam #5 – the Huggies – won, and were definitely being rooted against during the entire competition. My hometeam – Hometeam #2 – had placed last in the last Olympics, so we something to prove. Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far. We placed last again, and the Huggies won again, which in my mind seriously draws into question the refereeing of the event ;) haha, just kidding. We all had a good time. After the Olympics, we had wrap-up and the cast boarded trucks to head to Khon Kaen. Our host family, who also has a home in Nam Phong, had Mitch and I stay there with them. We joined Imm, who’s from Thailand and part of our cast, and her family for dinner, and got to hang out with all of her roommates as well: Sofie from Sweden, Gift from Thailand, Miwa from Japan, and Natalya from Uzbekistan. It was an Asian household :) After dinner, Mitch and I settled into a cabin-like room our host family prepared for us that had AC – woo hoo! We slept well, almost a bit COLD for once :)

Sunday brought our only host family day in Khon Kaen, and our LAST host family day on tour. We woke up at about 6:45 a.m. and quickly got dressed, had breakfast, and then drove out to meet a friend of our host family – a man named Martin, who is originally from England, but moved to Thailand, found his wife in Bangkok, and has since moved to the northeast of Thailand to raise rice and other crops while raising his three children. I have to admit that it was great to speak in full-out English again. Our host family only speaks limited English, even though the work very hard to communicate. So English, even British English, was great to hear. He had some interesting things to talk about, and Mitch and I did a lot of listening. He picked up two languages while he was here: Thai and another local language of the area. He showed us around his farm, which he plants and maintains himself. Coming from a farm myself, it was interesting to see the amount of work he has to do to prepare the fields for planting. He doesn’t use any chemicals to get rid of weeds and such – only a two-wheeled tractor that the Thai call a “Japanese Buffalo.” Think of it as a very large push, self-propelled lawn mower that you can hook things up to, like plows and discs and such. You can also jimmy-rig it to pump water into rice sections so that they’re control-irrigated, and I’m sure there are other uses for the tractor engine. Much like farmers use to do years ago in the U.S., these tractors are multi-purpose tools that last decades with good maintenance. And also like how it use to be in the U.S., neighbors come round to help each other out when harvest season comes around, since they know none of them can harvest all their crop by themselves. Rice, while it can be planted anytime with the even weather in Thailand, has a short amount of time in can be harvested. Too late, and the rice stems will droop over and the rice seeds will begin to trickle our and onto the ground, ruining the harvest and cutting yields. Basically, there is a two-week window to harvest. After that, yield starts to drop off. Overall, we spent about an hour or two at Martin’s place, and it was well worth it. He was definitely one of those people you remember meeting.

After leaving Martin’s place, we drove to the nearby damn that is also a hydro-electric plant for the Khon Kaen Province. There, we had lunch and got to take some pictures. Afterward, we drove to a nearby Thai massage place and received a Thai massage for about two hours. It. Was. Amazing. After that, we gathered all of our things that we still had in Nam Phong and then drove back to Khon Kaen where Mitch and I could do some clothes shopping for our final banquet coming up in a week. The theme, we were told, was strictly white and red. Unfortunately this meant we had buy a completely new outfit. A couple hours later, we each had one, but it wasn’t easy or cheap, sadly. We drove back to the home we were staying at in Khon Kaen, ate dinner, and then rounded out the evening with the movie “The Great Debaters,” starring Denzel Washington. It was very good.

As I sit now, there are seven days left of my tour in Up with People. It’s sort of hard to imagine where the past five months have gone. In fact, it is almost five months exactly since this adventure started back in Denver. Doesn’t seem that long ago that I put my first entry into this blog. But never fear – I’ve got a few more to come. Right after Up with People concludes, I’m spending a few days in L.A. followed by a week and a half in Hawaii – woo hoo! Can’t complain about celebrating your 23rd birthday on a sandy beach in Hawaii. And then, of course, it’s back home to prepare for life after Up with People. So like any good story, there will need to be an “epilogue” chapter this Up with People tale.

Until my next post!

Dan

Because I've Become TERRIBLE at Posting.....

Hello all!





Okay. I'm SORRY! I haven't posted in a while. And it's really not going to change for the next 24 hours at least. So. I'm going to post a bunch of pictures and see where this goes :) I hope you enjoy until I can get some words to go with the pictures. Just look at it like this: pictures are worth a thousand words, right??





Until my next post! (Hopefully soon)





Dan






























Picture 1: A large display pretty much in the center of Chiang Rai that our host family took us to the first Saturday we were there.
Picture 2: Me, pointing at a display on the border of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar -- the Golden Triangle!
Picture 3: A waterfall that we hiked about 2 hours to in the hot, afternoon sun -- and it was NOT level ground (think mountain).
Picture 4: Some beautiful statues at the Golden Triangle.
Picture 5: Some of the elephants we rode on our Regional Learning Day in Chiang Rai. Amazing!

The End of the North American Tour

Hello all!

Oh dear. So I’ve totally slacked and not updated in a while. I’m sitting right now in the Los Angeles airport, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong, which will then take us to Bangkok, Thailand. Fun times. But, while I’m waiting, I’m going to update everyone on the comings and goings of myself for the past week and a half.

So Wednesday and Thursday went well in the Woodlands. I continued with deck project on Wednesday, and we managed to get the frame almost all constructed, which left only the deck floor boards to be put on for Thursday. I, however, was not able to return the next day – I was signed out for vocals, catching back up from my advanced work break from the show and sort of “re-learning” the vocal parts for the show. That went well.

Friday was our regional learning day for The Woodlands. We went to a local lake and had a beach day all day. We played volleyball and ultimate Frisbee and swam for a while. It was great. The cast, however, didn’t quite take to heart the advice our staff gave about sunscreen, so a lot of us (including myself) found ourselves burnt. Thankfully, I wasn’t NEAR as burnt as I had been in Acapulco, so I got over it quickly. Overall, however, the day was an amazing time for us – a block of relaxation in an usually hectic schedule.

Saturday was show day for the cast, and for me the first show I had done since Mexico City. Needless to say, I was EXCITED! The entire day went by fast. I discovered Jamba Juice somewhere along the way, and had a fun talk with our assistant cast manager Scott Enebo. Rehearsal zoomed by, and soon it was time for the show. For me, it was a great show. We had about 1,500 people there, which I thought was a good turn out. We were only allowed to sell 3,000 tickets, and the facility was gorgeous – a HUGE amphitheatre. It was great to get back onto stage and re-engage into the show – a show that I thought was going to be the biggest challenge of this Up with People experience.

Sunday brought our host family day in The Woodlands. I spent the morning catching up on some z’s, and then the afternoon relaxing (obviously not updating my blog because here I am a week later). That evening, Leo and I went with our host family for some dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in Houston, which was delicious. After that, we went to “The Wedding Singer” the nationally traveling Broadway production. It was amazing!! I really enjoyed it, even though I haven’t seen the movie. The music was great, I after being in Up with People I could really appreciate the technical side of putting a production like that on.

Monday brought travel day to Plano, which was fun and uneventful. When we arrived, we were able to spend an hour and a half at the local YMCA swimming and working or just relaxing. It was great. After that, we changed into our nice clothes and took out some blind folds. For our allocation in this city, we were going to experience it all blindfolded. From getting our luggage off the bus to finding our host families, it all had to be done without the use of our crutch sight. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. Thankfully, I did not run into anything and hurt myself. And I was able to find my host family with relative ease. But it did make the entire process a LOT longer, and far more educational than it normally is. Once I arrived at my host family’s place, I got to take off my blindfold and “meet” them. My host mom’s name is Mary Reeves, and her husband is Steve. They both are amazing people and really made our last U.S. city experience amazing. I was roomed with Kyle DeGraff, the son of the Up with People Midwest Coordinator. I found out once I got there that Kyle’s parents would be joining us for the week at our host family’s home, making it one full house!

Tuesday was Regional Learning day in Dallas. We toured around the art district in downtown Dallas, and learned about its history. After that, an afternoon-long presentation on world hunger and poverty. While the presentation was long, and full of some amazing and ghastly information, some statistics that stuck in my head were that 1.2 BILLION people live on less than a $1 a day, and 1.6 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day. That is staggering to think about. We hear about stuff like this all the time, but its not often when the information sets in like it did on Tuesday. Just how widespread world hunger and poverty really is. Just how PREVENTABLE it all is. The top 20% in the world use 80% of the world’s resources. While I believe in people working for their own, there’s a point where we all must say that something’s wrong here when we look at this statistic. We finished the afternoon/evening with a hunger banquet, where half of our group had nothing but salt water and cold rice to eat, a third had warm rice and beans to eat with juice, and the rest had a full-out restaurant-style meal, after which all the extra food was thrown away. We all sat and ate this meal together, all next to each other (though segregated into our groups). It an interesting experience, one that I had done before at the University of South Dakota Newman Center. I could tell that it really made people think about how much they order and then DON’T eat at restaurants.

Wednesday and Thursday were CI days for the cast. I was on Stand For Peace, working in 4th grade classrooms. I had fun there, and it was fun to get back to that form of CI since I hadn’t done it in a long while. The afternoons on both days had BTS’s for the students at the school, which went great. On Wednesday, the entire staff were in a day-long meeting so we had to run the BTS by ourselves. I, personally, enjoyed this because I felt like I could take some personal initiative in all of this instead of just taking directions from the staff and carrying them out. It was fun! We did, however, find out that one of our staff members, Kristina Henry, would not be joining us on our trip to Thailand. She had interviewed for a position at Cirque de Sole and was offered the job. The only catch was that it would start on Tuesday. So, with regretful tears, she informed the cast that she would be seeing us off on Monday morning when we took our flight to Thailand, and she would get on her own flight to join Cirque de Sole.

Friday and Saturday were show days for the cast, and for us the last chance to make Kristina proud of us. Not that she wasn’t proud before, but I’m sure you get the picture. As Gabe, our show manager, put it once, Kristina is like our coach cheering us on, guiding us along, and giving us feedback to be better. So our Friday show came together nicely, but it still lacked a certain flare of passion. The message was there, since its part of the show, but the feeling behind it wasn’t quite on. Saturday came, and we spent the morning putting on an expression session – a chance for the cast to show off their talents and abilities they haven’t been able to before. That went off well, and really gave the cast a chance to relax and appreciate one another. Rehearsal came and went in the afternoon, and before we knew it Green Room was upon us. After we welcomed our guests and played some games, the mood turned emotionally serious. First, we invited Stan, our North American bus driver, to come to the center of the room so we could recognize him and say our goodbyes. Since we’d be going to Thailand, he wouldn’t be able to come with us. It was hard for both us and him to say goodbye. Many people have coined us the “welcoming cast” because we try and do just that – welcome everyone in. Stan wasn’t just our bus driver – he was a part of our cast. And we had to say goodbye.

After a large hug and gift presentation to Stan, we invited Kristina Henry to the center of the room. The air quickly thickened with the tears of many, especially the staff who had not only worked with her for the past few years but TRAVELED with her in A06. After a moment of emotion, Kristina said that she had been asked to read a poem of hers that she had written a few years ago when she was a student in Up with People – a poem she had read to us during staging but I had forgotten about. That poem was the one used in the song “Power With” we perform during our show. She then read her poem in its full-version, since the one we use in the show is abbreviated for its length. The words rang sharply in our ears, and I for the first time really heard the feeling behind it. Perhaps it was because the author was reading it, but it was a powerful moment. We broke from Green Room, determined to make Kristina cry by the end of the show (one of our little goals). I went through my normal progressions in the show, and soon enough I found myself out on stage for “Power With,” which is where we are miming people in verbal arguments with each other. I remember at one point looking behind me and seeing Kristina on stage, and I thought myself how cool that was that she got to be ON STAGE to perform one last time with Up with People. We progressed through the song, and during a break dance interlude, I found myself looking around for Vivia to come up onto the risers and give the poem lines after the break dance, but I couldn’t find her. I turned back towards the audience, silently worrying that something was wrong, but then turned back to see Kristina standing powerfully on the top riser, microphone in hand. And as her voice began to speak the words, “We’ve been walking through life blind…” a wonderful sensation of irony filled me and I tried my best not to smile. After all, who best to speak these words than the author herself?

“We’ve been walking through life blind, suffering of seclusion from other mankind, can we ask the questions to find the answers to bring this world back together, we are all mankind, a mammal so divine, we are one and strong we can be, if we open up our eyes and let our hearts be free.”

This was surely one of the most powerful moments I have ever been a part of.



The show ended as quickly as it always does. Kristina found her way back to her tech position at the back of the house right after “Power With,” but not before being hugged or congratulated by nearly everyone in the cast. We all realized how great of a moment that was – how special that was.

Strike and interviews came. I did an interview and finished the paperwork for it in time to lend a hand on the last strike of Cast A. In Thailand, we’re not allowed to do any set-up or strike for our show – only direct Thai workers – so this show was our last strike. After we loaded up the truck, and Kristina ceremoniously locked the door, the three tech staff climbed to the top of the truck and gave a beautiful speech to us all and each other. Then they popped open three bottles of champagne and sprayed all of us below. Fun times. But, we did get our revenge. As I mentioned before, Gabe considered Kristina to be our coach, so we did to her what many championship teams do to THEIR coaches – we filled up a water cooler and doused her with it. I’ll attach a video of it as soon as I can – perhaps its there already. Look below. Needless to say, it gave us all a great way to end the evening with warm smiles and strong laughs.

Host family day came, my roommate Kyle and I spent the morning in church with our host mom and dad. After that, we went to see the new movie “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I thought it was good – three out of four stars, I think. Definitely better than the first. After a great dinner of Mexican food, we went back and I began packing for my next big adventure – Thailand! After packing everything up, we loaded up our family’s vehicle and went to the Plano Chamber of Commerce at about 9:30 p.m. After some warm goodbyes, we unloaded our stuff, and went inside for Thailand prep and North American wrap-up. After a few hours of all this, we loaded the buses up at 3:30 a.m. and headed to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. We said goodbye once more to Stan, and proceeded through bag check-in and carry-on check in. We boarded our plane to Denver and took off at about 6:40 a.m., arriving there about an hour or so later. Flying into Denver was a bit surreal and nostalgic. I had the same approach as what I did back in January when I was first arriving – it was hard to imagine that so much had happened in between then and now. After we landed in Denver, we hopped right back onto a connecting flight to L.A., which lasted a couple hours. I tried to sleep a bit, but it didn’t work too well. Once we arrived, we had to grab our luggage and then hang out at the airport for about 13 hrs. before our next flight took off at 11:30 p.m. This was a relaxing, though sleepless experience. Still, I was able to get my taste of American food satisfied – I had McDonald’s for lunch, and some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. Mmmmm. And now I’m sitting in Gate 120 at L.A., waiting for our flight to leave. Our flight will last about 12 hrs. and put us in Hong Kong. From there, we get a connecting flight to Bangkok. We’ll go through customs, and then climb aboard buses to drive about 10 hrs. to Chang Rai, Thailand – which is in the far north. Honestly, I have NO idea what time of day it will be, but I have a bad feeling it will be during the hot, humid day when we’re on the bus, which will not make for a fun ride. Still, though, we’ll be in Thailand finally – and that’ll make it worth it.

I’m not sure what internet access will be like in Thailand. In fact, I’m hoping I can get this up sometime before I arrive, but its looking doubtful. But still, I’ll hope for Hong Kong. Either way, I’ll do my best to blog about the wrap up of Cast A’s tour around the world. June 16th marks the day we all go our separate ways from Thailand, and I have no doubt that it will come too soon.

Until my next post!

Dan