As some of you know, over the past year I've been working on founding a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing outstanding pregnancy, childbirth and new baby education to families of all income levels. Due in no small part to the advice, support, and encouragement I've received from so many of you, I am proud to announce that Birth Education Beyond the Ordinary (BEBO) is now an incorporated not-for-profit organization in the state of New York! Our mission To empower women and families to play an active role in the birth of their children by providing affordable and comprehensive pregnancy, childbirth, and new baby education and support. At BEBO, we envision a world in which women can approach childbirth feeling confident, well-informed, and free from intimidation.
Childbirth can be a complicated process, and sometimes requires that important decisions be made under intense and unfamiliar circumstances (like labor!). By being familiar with her options prior to decision time, the mother and her partner can increase her chance of having a positive birth experience.
So what's the need for BEBO? Well, childbirth classes offered by hospitals rarely cover a full range of labor and delivery options. They can also be expensive. Independent childbirth classes cover a wide range of options, but are cost-prohibitive for many families. By offering independent childbirth classes on a sliding-scale basis, BEBO hopes to fill the current void.
Things are coming along wonderfully. We have a terrific pool of certified childbirth educators as instructors, and our first class will take place December 8. For details, please check our website - www.beboinc.org.
Now for the tricky part... funding. I'm writing today to ask for your support. Starting out is difficult; foundations can be reluctant to give grants to organizations with limited programming history, and to get our programming going, frankly, we need money. If you are interested in supporting this brave young organization, please consider making a contribution at the $50 level or higher. If $50 is too much, but you'd like to show your support, please do! Any donation you can make today will contribute to putting BEBO on solid footing for the future.
To make a secure contribution by check or credit card, please visit www.beboinc.org/Contribute.html and click on "PayPal/Donate". You DO NOT need a PayPal account to make a credit card donation. To donate by mail, send a check made out to BEBO to BEBO, 103 Grove Street, Mt Kisco, NY 10549. If you have any questions about the tax-deductible nature of donations to BEBO, please contact me. If you have any questions about BEBO at all, contact me! I'd love to talk more about our plans.
Warmest wishes, Erica
erica@beboinc.org
P.S. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested!
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GIVE HER MONEY, OR AT LEAST FORWARD THIS ON TO PEOPLE WITH MONEY WHO MIGHT WANT TO GIVE HER MONEY!!!!
And an update with that elephant from the last post - Lek raised enough money to buy her and she's now at Elephant Nature Park. So that's cool! You can read a report about it here... http://www.bring-the-elephant-home.nl/en/index.php
There's a lot I owe as far as blog worthy stuff, but I happen to be at a place with really fast internet, so I want to post as many music videos as possible.
See, I went to Bangkok last week in an attempt to 1) stop feeling sad that I stopped working and 2) try to hate Bangkok less.
It totally worked! Through some Couchsurfing people, I ended up the Thai version of Warped Tour and Intonation put together. It's called Fat Festival, put on by Fat Radio in Bangkok. It was amazing. I got to see bands I had seen before and loved, bands I liked but had never seen and new bands I had never heard of before. I also got to meet a group of cool, but not obnoxiously cool, music people! They were psyched to meet an American girl who was into Thai "indie" music and I was psyched to finally meet some freaking Thai people who were into Thai "indie" music. I have to put the word indie in quotes, cause it has a very different meaning here. There are a bunch of cool "indie" bands, but there's also a ton of what I consider boring, lame, romantic pop music that is considered "indie."
But here it is!!!! Bands I saw this past weekend....
I first saw a Japanese band called The Travellers. They were good but I can't find a video.
Lipta - I feel like I had seen their video every day for a month so it was exciting to see them looking exactly like they do in their video. Not too exciting though.
Tor - Big deal because he's "velly haasum!" and he plays a big white piano but songs are cheesy and romantic.
Lullaby - Never heard of them before but really enjoyed them! All I can find is a myspace site that's too annoying to look at. It's a shame. Best thing about this band - they seem to have written their Thai name as เราระบาย which is only really funny to someone who reads Thai because it actually uses the "r" character rather than the "l" character as if they anticipate the lazy "l" pronunciation of the "r" charachttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifter to pronounce the English word "Lullaby". Ironically, this is the only Thai bands I saw this day where I didn't feel like I was falling asleep. Lullaby's MySpace site
Flure (interesting band, haven't seen before, but want to) and Thaitanium (saw last Halloween) both played that night, but I left before I saw them.
I saw better bands on Sunday.
First band I saw was Paradox. I knew of them, and had wanted to see them, but hadn't yet. Really fun, silly band. They were all dressed up and made the audience laugh a lot when they talked. I could laugh a little. People danced!
Paradox - ผงาดง้ำค้ำโลก (something about saving the world I think)
Buddha Bless - old favorites. I've posted a couple of their videos already. This time they were joined by a Chiang Mai hardcore/rap/rock band called Most Wanted. Most Wanted was great. I had seen them in Chiang Mai and I think I actually met one of the guys during Songkran last year. He ran up to me and Caroline and asked where we were from. He was a little disappointed when I said New York, because he really liked LA (showed me the hand sign for LA) and was really into Mexican hip hop. Songkran is the water festival, so everyone is in shorts and t-shirts and flip flops and this kid was staying true to his style - button down shirt with every button including the top buttoned, socks up to his knees, khaki shorts down to his mid calf and sneakers. With the shaved head and bandanna. He is hardcore. I'm sure there's a name for his style, but I don't know it. I saw Most Wanted again later at a small stage for little bands and they did an amazing cover of Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston. I tried to video it with my camera phone but it didn't work well.
Here's the new Buddha Bless song from the Gancore Club album which I was not impressed by. Gancore Club is a collaboration between maybe 10 different groups and artists on the same label. I knew two songs and liked them both, but the rest kind fo sucked. Why am I surprised? Here are the two songs I like.
Buddha Bless - Bump Boom Boom
ส้ม อมรา f/ Joey Boy - Play Girl (plays in 7-11 all the time)
I bought a new MP3 player that has a radio. On the van from the airport I heard this song that I liked and recorded (yeah, I can record off the radio! How cool!?!) So I met some of my friends who it was, they had no idea. Finally, at the festival on the first day, one of the music people asked her friend and he knew! It was a band called Slur who were scheduled to play the next day. Oh, how perfect...
Slur - Not So Sure (not the song on the radio, but a fun song anyway!)
The was the last song by the last band I saw on the last day. Everyone was going nuts. Soooo fun...
Hangman - Chocolate
THAI MUSIC DRAMA - Hangman is a new band formed by the singer of a very popular Thai band called Silly Fools. The singer, Toe, apparently left the old band because he didn't want to play in venues that served alcohol because of his Islamic beliefs. The old band, Silly Fools, then went and got a Korean-American guy (born in Korean, adopted at 3 months to an American couple) who looks a lot like the last guy, who they found while he was teaching English in Thailand to be their new lead singer. Their members are now Ton, Rang, Tor and Ben (Can you guess the singer?) and they now only play English songs. It feels a little weird to me.
Modern Dog - This was by far the best group of the festival. Probably of all Thai music. I am in love. I knew them a little bit before, and I think I may have posted a video in the past, but I'm way more into them now. If you've seen Green Day then you'll understand what I mean, but this band knows how to put on a show. Like the perfect amount of audience interaction, nice balance of songs, and just knew what they were doing. It was the only show that was actually packed but everyone seemed to be able to dance just enough. Perfect! And I totally have a crush on the singer, Pod. At one point they invited kids from the floor up on the stage to sing and dance and then that was followed by a older, fatter, white guy dressed in a sailor suit (came up on stage with the masses) singing the next song (in Thai) with the singer on backup. While it was kind of embarrassing for the farang in the crowd, the Thais sure seemed to be liking it. I think why this band is so cool is because they do a lot of different stuff. I'm only going to post one, fairly normal video but their songs are just all over the map, in a good way. They have some normal songs but they can get real weird and experimental too. They're so cool they opened for Radiohead when they came to Thailand!
Modern Dog - ตาสว่าง (Found)
So that was the festival...
Other cool stuff - Five stages - 3 indoor, 2 outdoor Nokia had mute rooms where you could go to use your cell phone Nokia had a stage for small bands to play in a studio and make a real quick DIY demo Nokia had kiosks with free internet (I've got nothing against corporate sponsorship) Green alien guys giving away promotional stuff (surprisingly not Nokia related) An area for 'zines (handmade, DIY magazines) and handmade notebooks An area for small bands to promote their own stff An area for old books and records An indie film area No stalls using plastic bags and lots of "I'm not a plastic bag" bags for sale No smoking, no drinking alcohol allowed A health and fitness area where you could check how in/out of shape you are (I didn't think my self esteem could handle it) A gigantic GoogleEarth map of Bangkok on the ground for people to label. The coolest looking baggage area I've ever seen A free CD only available to people who bought their tickets ahead of time (not me) A food court inside with standard Thai food court food (but no kow man gai). A corporate food court outside with the first Dairy Queen I've ever seen run out of ice cream. The coolest kids in Thailand by far. Blows the Chiang Mai kids out of the water. Skinnier jeans, bigger glasses, bigger hair, snottier faces. I loved it.
The festival was really fun and reminded me that with all of the crappiness of Bangkok (traffic all day every day, nasty polluted hot hot air all day every day, more expensive and not as good as Chiang Mai accommodation and street and mall food), sometimes it's worth it to be able to join a group of people to jump up and down and sing really loudly at a good show.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From an old post I never finished (FYI: I stopped working, went to BKK for a week, took a train back, went to the World Sumo Championships the other day and have been replying to emails and cleaning my room since then.)
Cool websites -
http://www.freerice.com - Vocabulary test that donates 10 grains of rice to an international food agency every time you get an answer correct. It's addictive. Watch out. Make sure you really have absolutely nothing else to do before you go there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster - my condition. Life is really hard for people like me so stop laughing at me for not being able to eat pad gra pow and som tam. http://www.educationburma.net/migrant_learning_center.html - a place my friend Steph volunteers, where I might start volunteering when I finish at AUA. http://www.sssny.org - A school in Chiang Mai which teaches Shan State (a part of Burma, messy history, whole other topic) youth which aims "To produce dedicated and pro-active Shan State youth committed to social and political change by providing them with necessary skills." They have classes in Human Rights, History of Burma and Shan State, Computer Skills, English Grammar and Pronunciation, Writing Skills, Environment, Systems of Governance and Democracy Studies, International Crisis and Conflict Studies, International News, Basic Video Production and Media Studies, Maths, Basic Science and Health. So they train these students how to go out and make a difference in their communities. I think that is so coooooool!!!!
I went to the graduation ceremony for their school yesterday. It was really inspiring. The first hour and a half was a education and democracy fair where you got to play games and win candy! And for the democracy part you got to vote on what act you wanted to see the teacher's perform. One choice was seeing two female teachers dance, one was seeing a male teacher shave his goatee and I think the last one was have a teacher sing a song. The two women dancing won! Yay democracy!?!
I bought a t-shirt and a book. I wanted to by a CD (they also have a music class) but I didn't decide that until the end and the CD selling people weren't there as I was leaving.
OK - So update with working/life -
I'm clueless. I'm currently writing this entry on a Saturday because I'm not working on Saturdays anymore. WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD!!!! I could have asked to work Saturdays, but I wanted to leave it to chance (chance = my boss)by checking the "Yes, but prefer not to" box on my availability sheet. It was actually a lie, because I wanted to work, but I know that if I don't force myself to quit, I won't. So, I did what I had to do, but told him that if he needed me, I was definitely available. He didn't need me. They have 2 new teachers and Johnny is back from his broken leg. I'm out!
So I'm still working, but only teaching 14 hours a week and for only one more week!
AHHH!H!!!
This is all my decision and a good thing, but it's still weird and scary to think about.
I have to figure out a nice balance of traveling in and out of Chiang Mai, relaxing, in and out of Chiang Mai and volunteering, in and out of Chiang Mai.
Me quoting an email from Bert from The Serengheti Foundation, quoting Lek who is at the Surin Elephant Roundup right now (with Jeff! He's back in Thailand!!). Now... from Bert...
-------------- Hello,
Many of you have asked me over the years to contact you as soon as viable elephant adoption/purchase situations arise. Though Lek "gets close" quite often, actual rescue opportunities are rare. Except for today....
We received the following urgent email from Lek
=========== EMAIL QUOTE:
Dearest Bert Hello from Lek. I am now at the Elephant city at Surin province. Every year they have the elephant round up as the elephant show to the tourist who come from all over around the world. Every year I come to check for the elephant situation and looking the needed elephant that needs to rescue. Yesterday I found one . She is the little baby elephant who look so stressed and the mahout abused her even in front of the tourist. she screaming over and over and he beaten her and force her to performing. We have the camera to film standing so upset all with chains. And one of my volunteer help me to send the picture to you. You can look from the wesbite below http://buggytrapoo.multiply.com/video/item/8/Faa_Sai_in_Surin_Elephant_Round-Up
We ask to buy her, Her both eyes going to be blind. Her stressed in the dangerous level. The owner ask for 650,000 Baht. The volunteer who came with me they start to collect the money from the group but we need much more to purchase her. Please help us fro the rest. We need to rescued her very soon.
Love
Lek
END EMAIL QUOTE ===============
OK then - it doesn't get alot more cut and dry than that. Over the years I have learned that when Lek is in fear that an elephant is in a dire situation, it is the truth. The elephant is in a critical state. We need your help, and we need it right away. We need to raise about $22,000 to purchase this elephant as soon as possible. As always, 100% of all funds donated will be forwarded to Lek (funds will be sent over on Monday 11/19/07 by Intl wire). Serengeti Foundation takes no salaries, fees, anything, and covers all international wiring fees, so every single penny gets forwarded to her. To donate, there are two options:
1. donate online via PayPal. It's easy, at SerengetiUSA.com. The funds arrive quickly, and you get airlines miles so you can go visit Lek !! :-) http://www.serengetiusa.com/serengetiusa/donation.htm
2. you can send us a check at: Serengeti Foundation - 19100 Hamilton Pool Rd - Dripping Springs, TX 78620. If you are sending a check, can you please drop me a short email indicating this, so I know it's coming? We'll be fronting those funds to Lek in the wire on Monday.
I hope to hear from many of you - let's make this happen!!! She is counting on us......
Best to you all, Bert von Roemer President - Serengeti Foundation
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Ok, now back to Beth. Just putting the word out there. The video takes a while to load but it's pretty sad to watch once it works.
