Chiang Mai Seder

Tonight was the Passover Seder and we met M and the newly arrived volunteer W at the Centara Duang Tawan Hotel. We sat at the English Speaker's section. Mostly it was Israelis. And it was run by Chabad. As it turned out the English speakers were all put together because we had a Chabad member from New York translating into English for the English speakers - maybe about 20 of us in a room of 200 or more





W, who was in on the original AJWS orientation conference call back in November, finally arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday. He was born in Berlin and his family escaped to Central America and he eventually was able to get to the US and become a US citizen. He now lives in Vienna. He's an international consultant and just finished a job in Ukraine before coming here. Here he is with M.





We were sitting with really interesting people. Next to J was J2 who has relatives in Wasilla and is working on his PhD in Thailand - his subject is elephants. He said that most of the elephants that beg on the streets are owned by rich Thais who lease them out to people to go begging. The sugar cane doesn't help and the people with them are generally doing fine financially. So, their basically using the elephant's ability to connect with people for their own gain, not the elephant's at all.




On my side was F, who was born in Algeria and became a French citizen and worked for 30 years as an Air France pursar, mostly on the Paris - Anchorage - Tokyo run. So he knew and loved Anchorage. It is a small world. He also had very interesting stories about Algeria, France, and many other things. He lives in Thailand now.

We are planning a second seder with M here tomorrow evening. We've rented out the dining area and kitchen downstairs. We got food today. This will be interesting, but after tonight, I have much more confidence in the food we'll eat.