day 2

Hey Everyone! A little torn about how to write this next blog post bc the day I had yesterday was incredibly heavy. It was 6 hours straight of sitting in a classroom getting an education on prostitution and sex trafficking in Thailand by a woman who moved from the US w her husband after the death of their son, and she opened a safe house down the block from the red light district “the worlds largest playground” for all prostitutes to come live there. She does outreach in the bars, through English classes, and dedicates her whole life to saving these women. I will elaborate a bit more later in the post. Sorry if the post in general isn’t so funny, it really wasn’t such a funny day, just a lot of learning and processing in order to understand the work well be doing. After I put up my last post and went upstairs to bed, about to begin watching “the dark knight” for the first time, I got a text from Brian Koegel that he was in Bangkok! Now I knew he would be in Thailand, about all of kew garden hills told me that when I spent Shabbat there before my trip, but I had no idea we would be overlapping in Bangkok, we realized we were staying on the same street so we decided to meet up at 7-11 right across the st from my hotel (yes there are 7-11s here. Thousands of them, like 2 on every street, they are all owned by one family who is one of the richest families in Thailand, so if any of you are interested in making billions take a franchise to a foreign country and watch what happens) so we chilled, got some drinks and hooka, had some fish eat at our feet, got thai massages where I hardd core passed out during. I woke up when my massage was over and next thing I knew it was 4am and had to wake up at 730! So went back to my hotel and took a small nap. SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOUR ARE NOT INTERESTED IN A “LESSON” Woke up in the morning, my roommate had gone to get her and myself starbucks, thank gd! And we were ready to start our first session of the day w Rabbi Jamie. This session was extremely powerful, we spoke about how we need to let go of interpretative thinking, about what others my think, or what we may think and just live in the present and take the moment for what it is. We have to ignore our own perceptions of what others are thinking bc we cannot control that. Also, by using thought and interpretation you are bringing your past into your present. Memory is not reality and by bringing the past into the present you defile it. When you chose not to bring memory into an experience, that is a choice not a reality. We need to learn to experience as it happens. Don’t bring your past in a negative way into your present. Experiencee things for what they are with no interperation and then ask yourself how you can experience reality in a calm way. You need to trust other people, you don’t have to let them control your experience by worrying what they might think. Dotn try and control their definition of you. We need to give people space to get to know us without controlling their perception. There is a constant desire to control how other people perceive us. We need to trust others that they perceive us correctly. Your authenticity comes when you free yourself of interpretation. GOOD STUFF ANYWAYSSSSSS After the session we had breakfast at chabad, took lunch from there to go and we were off to “Beginnings” the name of the safe house we would be visiting. Bonita is the name of the woman who opened this safe house. She used to be a principal in Cali and is extremely passionate about education. Her son was hit by a drunk driver at 10 years old and became paralyzed from the armpits down. He overcame that and became the number 1 ranked junior paralyzes tennis player in all of California. Unfortunately he passed away and her life felt totally empty, she couldn’t relate or be around family and friends anymore and had no desire to go out. Her husband had been coming to Thailand for business 4 times a year for a 1 month at a time so they decided together in order to get away they would try out moving to Thailand. At first all she did was sleep and grocery shop bc she was so depressed but then a friend of her husband invited her to get involved in a safe house she had been working on. The house got full and this woman asked bonita if she would house 3 thai prostitute girls, and bonita did and fell in love with them. She felt a sense of purpose and like she had a child back in her life agin. She decided to open her own safe house. In the house the girls who came learn to sew, bake, make journals, and more skills in order so that they have what to do besides prostitute. They make 3,000 baht a month doing this, which is in the same range of what a prostitute would make monthly. However some prostitues make around 8,000 baht a month and if that’s the case she knows she has no shot of recruiting them. (the girls become prostitutes in order to support their family. In Buddhism it is believed that the men hold up the family spiritually and the women hold them up financially. So the responsibility is on the women to make money and they have no choice but to resort to prostitution) I know it seems like a huge jump to you, but that really is the case and I can explain it in person when I return if you are really interested in knowing. I have 6 pages of notes on the topic and am happy to share them. Bonita goes to the bars to try and do outreach to the girls, she has English classes and tries to do outreach there, and she hosts dinners. Keep in mind that when bonita hosts dinners, she must pay the bar fine which is the price it would cost for a man to take the prostitute out of the bar, for every single girl. So it comes out to about 200 dollars for 10 girls, before any actual costs of food! Her biggest recruitment method is that she hosts an annual Christmas for 150 girls dinner to “honor them for what they are doing for their families” and she pays all their bar fines for that night which is 18,000 DOLLARS before any food even! It is very hard for the girls to come through the door because the thais believe very strongly in “saving face” which means keeping up an appearance. So they have a hard time admitting shame, or embarrassment therefor making it very difficult for them to want to come to a safe house. She explained to us trafficking which is even worse, b/c girls are literally being sold to bars against their will, or promised by a man at a bar that they will have a better life and make more money if they show up to a certain place at a certain time and then are captured and put on a bus and shipped somewhere where they are drugged and abused to be compliant for up to 30 men. This industry is feulled by western culture, NOT by thai men (they have their own issues). We learned the different kind of men who come, why they come, etc.. Bonita explained that she used to have real rage issues when it came to seeing these men, but shes come to accept the fact that anyone who is willing to fly half way around the world for sex and exploit these girls must be a broken person. elderly men come, fathers bring their sons as a right of passage, amputees and handicaps come for the “girlfriend” experience that they cant find at home, some ppl actually come looking for love, ppl come bc they aren’t satisfied by what their wives are doing, and they come for the anonymity that they cant get at home. After spending 6 hours in Bonita’s classroom we actually walked through nana plaza in small groups to see it with our own eyes. After learning about everything it was honestly hard to walk through. And I will share some of the thoughts/ feelings that I had experienced. 1. bonita who suffered an incredible loss of her son, sets herself up for loss every single time she takes a girl in bc sometimes they just don’t show up the next day and she knows they were trafficked. She loves these girls like her children after spending so much time w them and when she loses one it breaks her heart. 2. She spoke about how when she goes back to visit friends in ny she has a very hard time relating to the “first world problems” they complain about it and it makes her upset to hear them complain. I am not sure what the appropriate balance is between their complaints being totally illegitmate vs. everyone being allowed to complain about what bothers them and not being held accountable for a small problem when there are much bigger ones in the world 3. I used to make fun of guys who got super religious for taking off their glasses to walk in the street bc how can you live in a bubble, and just walk around blindly. Without even remembering that, I at one point took off my glasses in nana plaza bc I was so disgusted and saddened by these men and didn’t really want to make eye contact with any one of them 4. Everyone knows about the “104 johnnies” from Nassau county whos name and picture was posted in every single newspaper. Their lives are forever ruined, ppl talk about them, their marriages are probably over, and they lost all dignity and respect. When people come to Thailand they can do the same exact thing and get away with it no big deal. Not lose out on anything. If we think what happened in ny is such a big deal. This happens every single day in thousands. In nana plaza there are 3 floors, 40 bars, and 3,000 girls working there every night. That is just 1 of the 3 red light districts within ten minutes of each other. This place is busy every single night. Think about what a big deal that is if you think what happened in ny is a big deal 5. The girls are in the bars wearing pins on them that have numbers. If a guy thinks “number 42” is cute, he will tell the head of the bar and he will send “number 42” over to the customer for them to negotiate a price for the night. My mind immediately headed towards another situation where people were stripped of their identities and reduced to nothing but a number. It is horrible, but that is literally how it works here. How is it ok that in 2013 11-18 year old prostitutes walk around with numbers on them being sold to men so they can support their families? 6. Bonita is one of the most inspiring people I ever met in my life, I really mean it. I did not get antsy once for the 6 hours straight she spoke, she has sucha good energy to her and you are really drawn to her. I posted a picture to insta/facebook with her in it and I hope to never forget the principles she lives by. 7. Having the ability to plan our future is a luxury and a privilege that so many people do not have and we take for granted. So those are some of my thoughts. Was a bit of a heavy afternoon and definitely a lot to learn. And process. This was the heaviest part of the trip, as going forward we will be working with kids on PREVENTION making sure this doesn’t happen. We’re starting at the top of the supply chain. We headed back to the hotel, Bangkok rush hour is like the van wyk at 6pm x1000 so at one point we were literally not moving for 45 minutes so we just got out and walked the last 2 miles….in the pouring rain. It honestly felt nice after such a long day. Went to dinner at chabad, bumped into brian who was walking the streets looking for chabad so he came along! We had dinner and then went back to the hotel to get our stuff and head to the bus stop for our overnight ride to chang mai. Had an hour at the bus stop, so we processed the day as a group and shared our thoughts which was honestly really hepful and healthy for everyone to talk about. Got on the bus, slept for all 10 hours (it was a fancyyy bus….beds, waitresses, etc) of it, and I am now writing to you from my new hotel in chang mai! So much nicer than Bangkok! I am about to go down to the lobby to get some breakfast at chabad and start the day. Today wer meeting with the founder of a trafficking task force, doing some games, excersises and case studies, and then a surpise cultural excursion in the afternoon! This day is supposed to be muchhh lighter and more fun than yesterday, so looking forward! Will write later tonight. Love to all! Miss you! I am having the BEST, MOST AMAZING TIME. Feeling super grateful for all the blessings in my life. -DK