Looking at my time in Bangkok as an intern at GAATW, I see it as bookended by two conferences. The Women Workers For Change (WW4C) conference we held in June, and the International Members Congress and Conference (IMCC) we hosted in October. This bookend framing has also translated into how I reflect on my time here personally as well. To get a little corny, I keep thinking about how each ending is new beginning, and I’m once again at a point where I’m standing on the precipice of a massive life change.
The professional
This internship is mainly about the conferences we’ve hosted. They’re sort of the raison d’être for there being two intern spots instead of one this year. The bulk of our work has been helping prepare for the conferences, especially in the past month leading up to it. Aside from preparing for the conferences, having two extra sets of hands on deck proved very necessary at both conferences. When I wrote my first blog, I was anticipating our WW4C conference as my first real GAATW event. That conference was an amazing experience and was a real opportunity to immerse myself in the work that GAATW does. GAATW does great work as an organisation, but it can be a little hard to understand what they actually do in the beginning. When I first started I definitely did not have a concrete idea of what an “international secretariat” does. After a month of working at GAATW I still had no idea what the work the secretariat was doing actually looked like. The WW4C conference changed that. I was able to meet representatives from so many of our alliance members, hear about what work they do, and learn what GAATW does for them. It was a window into the world of the Alliance, and I felt like I was really able to gain an understanding by witnessing that conference and all of the work that went into it.
Our internships at GAATW are also closing out on a conference. We hosted our IMCC at the end of October. The IMCC is a conference where members and partners from every region of the world come to report on their work, GAATW’s work, the global context as it pertains to anti-trafficking work, and look forward to our future together as an Alliance. This conference was also a celebration of GAATW’s 30 year anniversary. In our preparations I got to learn so much about GAATW’s history, the work they’ve done, and how they have evolved and grown as an organisation over the past three decades.The experience I had at the IMCC was so different from the one at the WW4C conference. At WW4C I was doing the best I could to help, but for my personal experience it was largely about learning and watching. At the IMCC I felt like I was really a part of the organisation. I could answer questions about GAATW as an organisation, and because of all the research work I’ve been doing, I was able to have real conversations with our members about anti-trafficking issues. I feel like I have developed a real understanding of the fields that GAATW works in, and I was able to engage with the presentations and participants on a much deeper level at the second conference.
The Personal
I thought the end would never come. It’s probably because I’m young and have only ever been a student and have never really done anything for six months straight before. When I first arrived and looked forward, October was not even a dot on the horizon. Now, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s been six months. But, at the same time, when I arrived feels like a million years ago. It’s funny how time expands and collapses – what felt at first like an infinite stretch is now a speck on the timeline. My life before coming here feels far away, but I also can’t shake the feeling that when I return to Canada it’ll feel like nothing has changed. As if I put a pause on my life for six months and when I return it’ll just pick up where I left off. I know realistically this won’t be the case – the experience I’ve had being here definitely has changed me. When you change slowly over time you don’t notice the difference. Maybe when I’m home it’ll be more visible. Or maybe it won’t. I guess you can find out in my next blog post. I was reading back my first blogs, and couldn’t help but think about how forced a lot of my positivity was. In reality I was scared, overwhelmed, and lonely. I didn’t know how anything worked and the separation from my friends and family felt so raw. But I stayed so positive. I kept saying I was really getting comfortable, figuring things out, feeling at home. It’s not to say that those feelings weren’t true, I was getting more comfortable and at home. But looking back I can see that I was so scared that I couldn’t even imagine what the actual comfort I have now would feel like. I doubt I would’ve achieved this level of satisfaction here if I hadn’t maintained that attitude in the beginning, so I owe past me a thank you for getting me here I guess.
Pretty much every single thing I’ve done and basically every moment in the past month has been coloured by the thought that this will all be over so soon. It’s a scary thought. I’m very excited to move forward and do new things, especially travelling for a month and a bit once my time at GAATW is over. But I’m afraid to go back to Canada. I’m done school now, have no job lined up, and pretty much no plans. The world is splayed out in front of me wide open and I have no idea what I’m going to do. It’s thrilling and daunting all at once. But, completing this internship has really given me the confidence to believe that I’m more than capable of doing pretty much anything that might come my way. The success I’ve found and enjoyment I’ve taken from my time at GAATW has taught me the value of taking up opportunities as they’re presented. I almost didn’t apply for this internship because I thought I probably wouldn’t get it, and that – as cool as it sounded – it wasn’t the type of thing somebody like me did. But I took the chance, got the internship, and now I’ve all but finished it. I’ve learned a lot in my time as a CAPI intern, but I think the lesson that I will take with me the most into the rest of my life is that if something interests me, it is something “somebody like me” would do, and might even really enjoy. I don’t really know if this works with the “bookend” metaphor I’ve been trying to work in here. Maybe it’s better described as a cycle. I don’t know. But I feel similarly panicked at the thought of going home as I did about moving here in the first place. At least now I’m facing the situation with more confidence in my ability to handle change.
The Final Countdown
October has been a mad dash of fitting in everything Carly and I had left on our bucket list. With the gift of hindsight, I do wish we had done some of these earlier. Doing really touristy stuff is less enjoyable when you’ve actually lived somewhere. That being said, ending our time in Bangkok with a bunch of activities made it clear to me just how much I’m going to miss living here, and it did give me a chance to tap back into the feeling of being awestruck by Bangkok.
We went to Iconsiam, which is on every ‘must-see in Bangkok’ list. At the end of the day it’s just a mall. A very fancy mall, but a mall nonetheless. I am not a huge fan of malls, but I will say that this was probably the coolest mall I have ever been in. The main draw of it is that the entire first floor is an indoor market with different sections that are meant to replicate different regions of the country. The market wasn’t really about shopping for me, most of the stuff can be bought for a fraction of the price at any other market. I was amazed at the sheer fact of this mall-market’s existence. Mall culture isn’t for me personally, but at a place like this you can see just how much stock Bangkok puts in its malls. It also reflects a commitment to grandeur and experience that I find very admirable. There’s also a huge waterfall/fountain thing on the top floor that literally spells out words with the water droplets as they fall. Stuff like that really makes you feel like you’re living in the future.
We also went to the Ancient City Museum. In doing so we crossed off a second bucket-list item – going to the end of the train line. The Ancient City Museum was absolutely crazy. It’s a model of temples and other prominent sites throughout the whole country, but it’s built on this 200 acre complex. It was not a very authentic experience, but it was so interesting to look at. It was cool to see all the beautiful temples, and if I wasn’t able to travel out of Bangkok it would be a good way to see all of the gorgeous architecture and learn some of the history. I was absolutely dumbfounded by the scale of this museum though. It honestly feels wrong to call it a museum. But the amount of work and resources and planning and everything else that went into creating this monument is astounding to me. It also made me feel pretty philosophical thinking about the replicas and the difference between seeing this and seeing the real temples, and what the various cultural implications of this place might be. Probably not the intended point of the place. It was quite beautiful though, and we got to spend the afternoon biking around on empty(ish) and flat roads with Lauren from PACOS, which was very lovely.
The other two activities we did this month also involved a lot of biking. The first one was a bike ride through Bang Krachao, AKA “Bangkok’s Green Lung. ” The green lung is a large area of Bangkok that is referred to as an ‘urban oasis’ and it’s full of dense trees and bike trails, as well as restaurants and cafes. We went with one of our coworkers and it was absolutely fantastic, spending the day in fresh air surrounded by trees and sweating up a storm. It was extra nice to spend a day in nature because it was right before we began our conference where we’d spend pretty much 24 hours a day inside the hotel we were hosting it at. This was honestly one of my favourite things I’ve done in Bangkok, and I’m sad that I waited until the end to do it.
After our conference Carly and I realized that we had almost no time left here in Bangkok. So we powered through our exhaustion and went on a day trip up to Ayutthaya, the Ancient Capital of Thailand. It was such an amazing sight to see. The ruins of the ancient buildings were so beautiful. It was fascinating to learn about the history, and I was totally inspired to do some more research on the history of Southeast Asia, because I realised how little I know about the Khmer Empire and the history of the region more broadly. By research I do really mean watching Youtube videos, but all forms of learning are valid <3.
I do feel like I’ve managed to do most of the things I wanted to do In Bangkok, and I still have time left to squeeze in a few last minute additions if the wind blows me that way. Now that I’ve crossed these items off my list, I need to focus on packing up all my stuff. My move-out date is imminent and it turns out that it takes a while to pack up 6 months worth of stuff. So my last days here might be a little more practical than exciting, but that’s the way she goes.
I’m going to miss so many things about my life here in Bangkok. I’ll miss all of the cats that live in the parking lot of our office, and the one that lives in the parking lot of our apartment building. There’s going to be a P’Ning shaped hole in my heart (and stomach)- I’ll miss the food and all of the lovely people I see there everyday. I’ll also miss the food in general – the abundance of $1.50 soup available to me will be a very hard loss to cope with. Leaving the office and all of my amazing coworkers who I have been so lucky to spend my days with is really hard for me to come to terms with. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that soon I won’t be seeing Carly anymore. It seems crazy that we’re going to go from spending basically every moment together to not seeing each other at all. There are so many things that I’m very sad to leave, but my time here has given me so much that I will take forward with me in the future. I’ve learned a lot about what I am looking for in a work environment, what I’m passionate about doing, and I’ve been so inspired by the intelligence and drive of the GAATW staff. I’ve gained confidence in myself through the success I’ve found in taking this opportunity to get out of my comfort zone. The experience I’ve had engaging with and immersing myself in another culture will definitely colour the way I move through the rest of my life, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think about travelling the way I did before this experience ever again. I’m so grateful for my experience in this internship and everything I have gained from it, and I’m excited to see all of the other CAPI interns at reintegration where our stories can be shared and I can learn what everybody else took away from this opportunity.
