laying home all day, with exception to having israeli and yemeni brunch delights at eliana's house, with a baseball sized ankle. a few good things have come out of this though, which is discovering:

-two new institutions who offer travel grants for humanitarian work
-a new photographer that i love by the name of ann wadden, particularly her work in china.

i believe she uses large format, which makes me want to fix my large camera before i leave. i should certainly try.

i am continuing to redraft my ideas and itinerary to develop a more effective participation. it will happen!

Despite an amazing trip out east, it feels great to wake up in LA. Gray morning spent with my new electric tea pot watching internet tv and eating sticky rice with mangoes for breakfast. My greenhouse is looking good thanks to mom. I woke up to more budding orchids. Now it's a bike ride around town for a good film processing establishment to reveal photographs from my trip, help mom out at the store, eat with pops, and then an evening swim. Now that I am back, I'll be doing serious planning for my yearlong trip in Thailand- kind of frightening, but what I've been waiting all year for.

I can't believe the last two weeks. I was so lucky to experience all that I did from visiting great friends, eating fresh fish to seeing so much of more of new england and meeting so many gracious and hospitable folks. How am I so lucky to know such lovely people? So very happy!

Also there is a seed planted for another New England project. I think it will be two or so years before it happens, but I'm already brain storming.

mama comments on the magic of coconuts

"they're quite great, aren't they? they make so many babies, and each one is filled with such clear, CLEAR, water. not only do they manage to put water in each one, but they share their sugar in the water. can you believe there are so many of these babies and these plants are responsible for making them all taste so good? they are very great plants. they are better in thailand though."

our faces seem ridiculously important. i suppose that is the first thing you see and then the eyes. but what if there were only the eyes, you know dangling on a string of flesh connecting from your neck? maybe there can be 4 strings of flesh, like a fork, a fork flesh for the eyes and the ears.

dyna is my family for the week bc everyone is in hawaii. she also plays my boyfriend. a more ideal boyfriend because she lets me get my work done. i miss the family that is in hawaii though. i talked to them today and they say they keep thinking about me which is nice. they say its the waterfalls and the tropical plants. they say they're going to show me a lot of pictures. i wish i had gone. i am putting too much thought into the work-filled weekend i have. but hey, im really close to finishing my FB proposal.

the packing begins. boxes of books and records first because those have been the least touched this year. what's next? everything else is hard because i am basically wanting my new life to start before i miss the old one, which will happen, through all of my anxiety and sadness, and then again, deep sadness. i think the scanning stops tomorrow, and then i put that in a box too. that means my photography updating is officially at a halt until my return from the east coast.

i should get rid of more clothes, but i feel indifferent about what i have, as in i don't hate anything. i wish this move was happening sooner.

as i sat on the couch thinking about all the things that belong to me, i realized i will leave a pretty spare apartment behind. strange, all the things we have in a house. what if you laid it all out on a picnic blanket? what if you were like that guy who only owned one hundred things? my brother wants to be that guy. half of the time i want to be that guy, but i'm definitely not that guy. too many plants to be that guy. too many pairs of jeans to be that guy.

i have spent a lot of time with my family in the last month. it's a kind of fulfillment that is different because you know you'll always know them, and you know they won't be that far, and because they'll certainly love you the whole day through. right now, i feel like there are a lot of extra people in the world, well in my world, and i am liking it small and kind and loving and real, because those people will tell you how it is better than anyone else.

my body is experience silence for the first time in a long time. it's nice. it's authentic silence because i want to be by myself for days on end. i'm not rummaging through thoughts. its just my body splitting through water like a canoe. smooth sailing, clean breaks. no turns. not looking back. trying not to at least.

i lie. it's not always nice. somedays you just want someone to love you the whole day through. it can't be done.

host affiliation and mentor - CHECK!!


was telling SS how great it was to get an email that said my project would be "strongly supported". it feels like my voice is a little bigger in the world, and maybe i will leave tangible, well-shaped foot prints after all.

z and i had a good one on one on the codes and modes of study vs. research. i guess i will be "studying" but it will involve "research". sometimes i like to think that i am an anthropologist of my own kind, but i don't publish papers with validity. i have a 2.5 blogs that are concerned with expressing elements of anthropology, elements of ecology, elements of me. i cannot be the kind of resource i look forward to when i am researching on JSTOR. i am okay with that, i am my own kind of cultural ecologist.

notes

The purpose of the 1964 National Forest Reserve Act was to legalize 'permanent' forests' mapped on paper and to accelerate demarcation by the state. This law allowed forests to be designated as 'reserves' without royal decree. The latest statistics show that forest reserves (45% of total land) represent almost twice the area covered by actual forest, making it clear that the word 'reserves' is void of meaning.

Jin Sato, Public Land for the People: The Institutional Basis of Community Forestry in Thailand

Approximately 1.5-8 million people (from about 2 - 13 percent of total population respectively) live on uncertain lands.

Usufruct rights vs. full ownership title

"Land reform, on the hand, allowed farmers to obtain their own land with certain restrictions; in other words, it was a mechanism for farmers to reclaim rights over ambiguous public lands... With the decline in economic growth from the late 1990s, and the increasing difficulty of finding jobs in the cities, the problem of rural landlessness is re-emerging as one of the key items on the development agenda."

ALRO (Agricultural Land Reform Office) & Plantation and forest village
*many of this programs began in the 60s and 70s (near forest reserves) and were often tied to national security concerns, particularly Communist insurgency. Conservation and restoration of forests merely served as a pretexts for mobilizing local villagers to counter insurgents who were often hiding in the remote forest areas. As a result, many of the forest village projects took place along the borders of Laos and Cambodia.

updated website: www.july1986.com

commentary often reveals the photograph people are most inclined to. somehow after listening, i begin to repel. why?

also today's BAVC meeting was amazing...exactly what i wanted from today. i feel rushed with new ideas and angles for considering the work i want to do. i see the importance and potential of impact. i want it to happen.