Hello Everyone,
So this Saturday i was in my room reading the book Dao my colleague lent me 'Maximising the study abroad experience'. It's a rather interesting the book that involves all the necessary information on studying abroad, so anyone intending to do that or is already on the program, i recommend that you read it, its very useful.The portion i was reading in particular was about keeping a keeping a journal and how most people that travel out as tourists or students regret not keeping it, so i got a new book from the Payap book store and you guessed it! i ventured to start keeping accounts of Daily activities.
Just then, as i almost completed writing one 'as at that day', Seashia my colleague on the Thai studies program called me up and asked if i was interested in attending an open mic gathering for the students group that was staying over at PIH(paradonparp international house) for about a week. The group was a rather interesting one i later discovered, it is called AMAN meaning (Asian Muslim Action Network), a group of mostly Muslims with the Aim of promoting human dignity and social justice for all by encouraging intercultural and inter religious dialogue and cooperation. This was interesting because it was a group of diverse people of about thirty(30)from different countries like Bangladesh, Jordan, Iran, China and a host of others, bonded with a common Aim of raising awareness on issues as mentioned above. This was also almost co incidental because as part of my study abroad program I'm taking a course called 'Intercultural Understanding' and it basically painted a typical picture of the foundation concept of this course as it intends to explain understanding about interculturality,and how we can be common amid our diversity, and this group was a typical manifestation of that.
So we said our Hello's and introduced ourselves to the different participants, they were warm and welcoming so it took us less than 5 minutes to settle in an enjoy. Since it was an open mic event it was more informal, it took place in the PIH dinning hall and so the MC would call anyone from the group and they would have to sing a song, mostly culturally to give a feel of their cultural background.It was exciting, as we saw different displays of culture and tradition , Kudos to the Bangladesh team as they did a song but with a twist, they had a dancer too! which was an edge to the other teams in my opinion. Surprisingly, i was called from the audience to sing a song and since i could almost not remember a perfect song i sang a simple and easy to follow song,i shyly sang a song the for them and constantly looked over to Seashia who immediately gave me a thumbs up so i assumed i was doing good,i was being cheered by the entire group and was even given a flower as i was singing,this boosted my esteem so i went on till the end. Seashia, my colleague who has a Hmong Heritage also sang a traditional Hmong song which was really touching and nice. We were like the PIH pop idols for the night. Other participants did their performance some dedicated it to their parents, peace, reconciliation etc.
Some of their activities also includes Human resource development through training workshop for youth leadership, Peace education at community level,Interfaith dialogue on major issues such as peace,ethnicity and globalization. This is complimented by the AMAN Assembly which is the supreme decision making body that meets every three years to adopt broad policy guidelines, to define the program framework, and to elect council members from among the delegates..
Later as the event almost came to an end the editor of the AMANA Magazine(Amana Year book 2009) awarded me the 'Best performer of the Event' so i gracefully went on stage to receive my PIH Grammy award, i felt so proud that they appreciated our little contribution to their event.Seashia was awarded my runner up so she claimed her price as well, i was so proud of her. We were really thankful to the group because granted we just met them that evening they were so generous and accommodating to the extent of giving us their magazines.
The event was concluded by the vote of Thanks by one of the Participants Matin, we later took pictures on the red carpet :)with our hosts, it was a rather nice and interacting way of spending our Saturday evening.We later headed back appreciatively to our rooms with our prizes in hand.
"Rau kui gan thi lang" (Talk to you later) :)
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