HIV/AIDS in Thailand

HIV/AIDS is an issue that has been around for quite some time in Thailand. Though it has recently taken a backseat as a result of numerous improvements, it is still an issue which needs a sincere amount of attention. Our group of CIEE students spent the day talking with Thai Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS (TNP+), where we learned all about their methods of HIV/AIDS education, their company, its goals, and procedures for helping fight a battle against HIV/AIDS.

We learned through readings and discussion with TNP+ that perhaps the largest reason for the spread of HIV/AIDS in Thailand is prostitution. Our group spoke with many members of TNP+ who contracted the disease through intercourse with their spouse. In general, their spouse had cheated and had a sexual relationship with a prostitute who was HIV positive. This is the most common way to contract the disease, with drugs being the second most popular method of contraction. Formerly, in the late 80s, early 90s, it was estimated that about half of all the prostitutes in Chiang Mai were HIV positive. Seeing as many people often have to travel to the cities for work or in order to find work, they will leave their wives for extended periods of time and then “miss their wives” which causes them to seek other means of satisfaction, as we were told by TNP+ members. They then return home to their wives and have sex thus passing on the virus.

Upon hearing this, my first inclination was to think how stupid the men must be to never wear condoms especially when having sex with commercial sex workers who have sex for a living. I then thought twice and realized that the HIV/AIDS education is lacking and the stigmas for those who have HIV/AIDS are horrendous and sweeping incorrect generalizations. The people of Thailand are often completely uneducated or undereducated about HIV/AIDS and believe that it’s safe to have sex without a condom as long as you really love your partner. Although education has gotten better and people are learning, it is still hard to make up for all the years of lack of education and years of people fearing to get close to anyone who is HIV positive.

When you understand the history of HIV/AIDS in Thailand and how far they have come it is not surprising that people do not understand how to interact with people who are living with HIV/AIDS. For example, as we learned from readings and discussions with members of TNP+, the original slogan for HIV/AIDS in Thailand was “If you get AIDS, you will die.” With these messages being distributed by the government, it is all very clear why the people of Thailand would not want to interact with people living with HIV/AIDS. That being said, it is important to see how much Thailand has grown since the time of that slogan. For example, the government sponsored slogan is now “If you get AIDS, you will live” which is a stark contrast to the original. Additionally, the HIV/AIDS awareness has increased and the media has started to advertise safe sex and other positive messages that no longer condemn those with HIV/AIDS, but show that they too, can live a full life.

That being said, there is still a long way to go. With drugs being another big issue in Thailand, there are still more actions that the government could take to secure the future safety and security of the people. For example, needle exchange programs would greatly benefit the people of Thailand. More importantly, however, for those living with HIV/AIDS who contracted the virus through drug use, they are not being allowed access to the appropriate healthcare. In all, Thailand is being remarked as a role model for other developing countries when it comes to the fight against HIV/AIDS for the remarkable progress it has made. Although Thailand does deserve all the credit for the actions taken to fight HIV/AIDS, there is still much to be done as far as eliminating stigmas and providing the appropriate forms of healthcare. There is much to be said for groups like TNP+ however, that spread HIV/AIDS awareness and help those living with HIV/AIDS know and obtain their rights. Indeed groups such as TNP+ have the power to continue the current trend in the right direction providing a hopeful future for Thailand’s HIV/AIDS population.

Suzanne Haggerty - George Washington University

Going Home...Is Building Community Even Possible?

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to make some sense of the units we’ve studied and to identify some of the ties between villages we visited. For me, the most important parallel between all of these villages is the strong sense of community they seem to develop. It’s not a realization I recently came to, but a topic that I came to Thailand hoping to learn more about. I never expected to be as moved as I have been by the relationships villagers forge with one another. During our home stay in Kambon Noi, the landfill community, it was difficult to tell which of the many people coming in and out of our house were actually family. The families there relied on each other for daily survival, helping each other scavenge for recyclables to sell. At the exchange in the evening, I noticed that the women in the village acted more like sisters than neighbors.

It’s difficult not to envy the strong bonds that villagers share. My family moved into a housing development a few years ago, the kind of subdivision with a neighborhood association whose primary concern is how long residents keep up their Christmas lights. We still don’t know our neighbors. Big surprise.

I’ve been wondering why it is that this concept of a strong community has been disappearing throughout America. Why is it that we can join online networks to read about the music preferences of acquaintances living across country, but not take the time to know those who live right next to us? Are we just too busy? I’ve been asking myself “why don’t we have community” when really I should’ve been wondering what reason we have that would bring us together.

There are many reasons why the villages we’ve studied have been able to develop a strong community. Each village was united by a common issue. In Surin, it was farming. In Khambon Noi, it was the dwindling economy and poor health conditions. In addition, Thailand has a rich cultural history. Isaan has a culture that is so tight knit and specific.

But what unites us as Americans? In a nation of immigrants, do we even share a cultural history? In “Angels in America”, Tony Kushner calls America “this great big melting pot where nothing actually melted”. It may be pessimistic, but lately I’ve been wondering if it’s even possible to strengthen communities in our nation that is a heterogeneous mix of immigrant cultures.

And while I know this may spark harsh criticism from many, I can’t help but think race is a part of the dissolution of communities. I’m from a small Georgia town, where racism is still very much a problem. I have seen the way it affects communities and feel like I can confidently say it is a dividing line for many. The college I attend also has its fair share of race related issues which have contributed to a rather disjointed student community. Sometimes I wonder if Thai villagers are able to share such close bonds not only because they share a common issue, but also because they come from a similar racial background.

This blog post probably says a great deal about my faith in humanity, which is another post for another time. Disenchantment is not a pleasant experience. I came to Thailand hoping to learn about how to build community and now I’m unsure of whether an attempt at reconstructing it is even possible.

Lane Eisenburg - Wofford College

Living in the Landfill

I just spent two nights in a landfill in Northeast Thailand. I slept in a community of houses no less than fifteen meters from the gigantic piles of trash, which our tour guide/home-stay mother referred to as “a different kind of mountain.” The people of this community rely on collecting recyclables and selling them to private businesses for their livelihood. The amount of trash that came in, on the one hand, looked good from the vantage point of a community that depends on lots of trash to survive. On the other hand, well I’ll just tell you a story about my only previous experience with a landfill…

I’m from Long Island, NY, which can get pretty rural in some places. About ten years ago, my father and I took down our old wooden fence from the front yard. The town had refused to pick up the old wood for whatever reason so we put it in the back of my Dad’s produce truck and were going to drive it the fifteen miles to our landfill.

I had never been there before and had no idea what a landfill would/should look like. When we got there, I remember being appalled- appalled by the smell, appalled by the site of so much indiscriminate trash, appalled by the massive machines used to lop the trash from one place to another, and, lastly, appalled by the young man’s face that came to the truck’s driver side window. I was in middle school at the time, so acne wasn’t something new. I can still vividly remember this man’s face, scarred and oily and downright monstrous. Like Rocky Dennis in “Mask.” I was ashamed at the way I had stared at him.

After we dropped off the wood and started leaving, my father (very uncharacteristically) said to me “Don’t ever work in a landfill.” He wasn’t saying that it was a condescending job. I think he was just commenting on how it was the cesspool of capitalism.

Maybe that’s a term that I’ve come up with, but this has been troubling me. The goal of capitalism is, in one way, to maximize efficiency. The ways in which it accomplishes this are highly visible- cities functioning with populations in the tens of millions, affordable technological marvels such as cell phones and IPods, spaceships traveling farther and farther out into the universe, the perpetual shrinking of the computer chip, etc. What is not so visible is the ultimate by-product of capitalism- trash.

The landfill community I stayed with in Thailand, Khambon Noi, is a perfect example. The city of Khon Kaen (just a few kilometers up the road) sends all of its trash there, yet Khambon Noi itself lies outside the jurisdiction of the mayor of Khon Kaen. The city is literally severed, politically and regionally, from its trash. How convenient.

We have completed the Human Genome Project. We have put astronauts on the moon and a robot on Mars. We’ve developed warheads that could end ninety-nine percent of life on this planet within a few days. Figure out how to use the sun’s rays to power a television? Check. The worlds largest building (Beijing Capital International Airport) built on top of earth-quake prone land? No problem. But let me get this straight- our best idea of how to dispose of trash is to bury it and/or let it pile up? What the hell is going on here? What are we, cats? I’ve stood on top of one of these landfills, worked an 8 hour day and witnessed thirty or more trucks dumping more capitalist stool. This happens every day.

Have you seen WALL-E? It’s an animated movie about the future, and humans have left our planet for a myriad of reasons. One of the most striking images is that of the barren city which at first looks to have these amazing skyscrapers, only when the camera pans in you see that they are made out of compacted trash. Our global society is growing larger and consuming more every day and there doesn’t seem to be a solution on the horizon as to where we plan on putting all of this waste. I’ll be dead in sixty, maybe eighty years. In that amount of time, I don’t see the current system causing any catastrophic problems. For the rest of you (you know, every human born after August 5th, 1986), choke dee. That’s Thai for “good luck.”

Dan Masciello - Northeastern University

The Right to Lease

Living on land that isn’t really yours, or being denied access to fair and simple human needs such as water and electricity, or knowing that your education can’t be furthered only on the basis that you don’t have a paper for legal housing registration are common problems for many inhabitants of the slums in Khon kaen, Thailand. The poor poverty levels and bad hygiene lead to poor health, however adequate health is not provided to these citizens of Thailand on the mere fact that they do not posses housing registration because they do not have leasing rights.

Many villagers in Khon kaen have been protesting and fighting to get leasing rights. A couple weeks ago the villagers in aid with the four regions Slums Network marched on the streets of khon Kaen and self delivered letters to the mayor in order to grant them leasing rights. Some communities were successful whereas the others continue to fight. Many of the communities that that received leasing rights we also involved on a big march in Bangkok a few weeks prior to the march in khon kaen. Many community members of the slums say that they will continue fighting till the bitter end.

Take for example, Paw Gahn, he said, “The motivation that keeps me fighting is our children and grandchildren who are living on the land that we have invaded. They will not have any security in life because the land that we are living on does not belong to us. I have been fighting in order to be able to rent this land and make it more secure. Paw Gahn has been fighting for his community; he is 70 years old and still fights with great vigor. He is not sure what the future of this community entails but he wants to live in a secure community and in order to make a community secure people must come together in harmony. He says that, “Happiness will eventually happen if people are living in harmony.”

Like Paw Gahn, there are many. They hope to see their community’s become a place of peace. They want security. They understand that they are intruding on land that isn’t theirs however, they recognize that and want to rent the land so they can be given a housing registration because without such, many social services from the state are denied, limited and or have inflated prices. They believe that they have a right to fair prices on water and electricity and a fair opportunity in education and healthcare. They pay taxes for purchased goods thus they should at least be treated and cared for as a citizen of the nation.

The community members don’t want to leave their lands they have been living there all their life. Their parents died there and they were born there and it is legacy that remains in these communities. They love their neighbors and enjoy community interaction. They don’t want to leave but, they are conscientious of the fact that they are do not own the land that they are living on and because of that they want to be on the right path and lease the land. They want to do things right. That is why they continue fighting for leasing rights until it is granted and they can have equal access to public services. They will do what they have to, to reach the goal

Sara Saavedra - Hope College

Slum Communities in Khon Kaen: Development and the Depletion of Natural Resources

"Two women from a slum community in Khon Kaen pick vegetables from a field located next to the highway. The sign reads 'Land for Sale', and although the women are not the owners of the land, they take advantage of its natural resources to gather vegetables they can eat or sell to community markets."

The United Nations defines a slum as a dwelling that lacks one or more of the following: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, security of tenure, durability of housing structure, and sufficient living space in which no more than two people are sharing a room. Last week my classmates and I had the opportunity to live with families residing in Khon Kaen slums, and after meeting with government officials, community members, and NGOs, we became more aware of how development directly affects slum residents. Specifically, we discussed how the path of development that the city of Khon Kaen is on right now may ultimately lead to such a depletion of natural resources that families living in slum communities will not be able to maintain their current livelihoods.


It was a Sunday, and my classmate and I were scheduled to spend the day with our host family working on the golf course that neighbored their slum community. However, as soon as we finished our breakfast of Chinese donuts and coffee, some neighbors of ours stopped by our house on their way to work and asked if we wanted to join them. My classmate and I had no idea where exactly we would be going, but we hopped into the cart attached to the side of the motorcycle and away we went. After driving for about twenty minutes and making stops periodically, it seemed we had reached our final destination: the side of a highway?


Our neighbors are just a few of the many urban dwellers in Thailand who take advantage of the wealth of natural resources available even on the side of the highways. During our short home stay with the slum community, we went fishing at a permanently flooded community rice field, saw a herd of cattle marching through the city, and watched our host family gather crabs that would later be eaten for dinner.


Natural resources still make up a large part of the developing city of Khon Kaen, but as we watched our neighbors pick vegetables and other plants from a small pond, we couldn’t help but to notice the huge construction zone next to us that seemed to be paving the way for a new high-rise apartment complex. As more-and-more construction zones are being established, natural resources that were once available for city residence to live off of are being destroyed. It seems that Khon Kaen’s landscape resembles that of Bangkok’s three decades ago, so if Khon Kaen continues its current trend of development, the depletion of natural resources will most certainly continue.


During a conversation my classmates and I had recently with an NGO representative, the representative claimed that slum communities in Khon Kaen live lives that are half rural and half urban. After experiencing the way of life that I described above, I see that this is very true. It is clear that a depletion of natural resources caused by the current trend of development in Khon Kaen would gravely affect the self-sufficiency of slum and like communities.


Yet, will it matter in thirty years if slum communities are no longer able to pick vegetables on the side of the highway? Will their way of life gradually be affected by city development anyway to the point that natural resources are no longer crucial to their daily survival? I believe that examples of slum communities in other large cities around the world are proof that access to natural resources is crucial to subsistence, and in situations where natural resources are not available to live off of, slum and like communities take a hit for the worse. Such may be the fate of Khon Kaen slum communities if Khon Kaen continues along the path of development it is currently taking.

Katie Jenkins - Indiana University

Urban Unit

The CIEE group just ended our final official unit. The urban unit consisted of a slum community home-stay, landfill community home-stay, and a day with HIV/AIDS victims. It was all connected because of the influx of migration toward urban areas. It was really awesome to live with the people and experience their lives. In the slums I went with my family to go fish in a pond near the city. They did not have much success which was sad because that is not just a pastime for them it is a mode of sustenance. My family’s main source of income though was picking recyclables out of trash. They travel all over the city and collect recyclables to redeem at a recycling facility. This has proven to be a relatively sustainable profession for them and they love not having an employer. After leaving the slums I went to live with a landfill community. Here they do a similar job. They pick the recyclable items out of the landfill, which they live right next to. Both communities have been hurt by the financial crisis in that they can’t get a good price for their goods. The collection centers have stopped taking cans all together right now and prices in other goods have dropped as far as 500%. This has made life very hard on the scavengers in Isaan.

Scavengers are not something I have really witnessed at the same degree in America. I know its illegal to pick other’s trash for health reasons or whatever but it’s interesting that people in Thailand are making enough money for a live off of scavenging while people in America are homeless and without a way to make money for themselves.

Today Americans are putting a lot of environmental focus on the need to recycle. This is a costly expense for taxpayers but it is necessary. Recycling can considerably cut down the need for minerals such as aluminum, steel, copper, or even plastics and cardboards. Recycling also gives the consumer the illusion that they are not being so wasteful.

While in Thailand it has really frustrated me that there have not been recycling bins or places where I can gain the illusion of reduced wastefulness for myself. I did not know what to do with bottles and cans. The only bottles I would buy if I could help it would be glass because they were reused and the storeowners would get a redemption refund. What I found while living in the slums and in the landfill community was that some of the trash I threw away was actually benefiting someone and the scavengers were sustaining themselves off of what I had discarded. I did not need to worry about the bottle I threw away because hopefully a scavenger would pick it up and make enough money to feed his or her family that night with my bottle’s help.

All this got me thinking while I was picking trash in the landfill. What would a recycling program mean for Thailand? If everyone was separating out most of their recyclables would there be a way for scavengers to make money? I’ve always thought of government run or private recycling companies taking a large role and picking up recycling as a good thing. But where people are allowed to scavenge and there is a reasonable way to make a living maybe there should not be a large recycling system in Thailand. What these scavengers do is a great service to the Thai people and to the planet through taking our waste and putting it back into the manufacturing system.

Wes Mills - Colorado Christian University