An Interview with Bodhi Garrett
Lisa: We
are interviewing Bodhi Garrett. My
first question is, could you tell us a little about your history.
Bhodi: I
was born and raised in Kathmandu and when I was seven I moved to Monterey and
then I went to Berkeley and live in Oakland and Berkeley where I worked as an
environmental lobbyist. From there
I moved to Nepal again but I couldn’t get a job because the civil war was on so
I came to Thailand as a volunteer.
I got a job at an ecotourism resort, which was destroyed by the Tsunami
and then I got involved in non-profit work and started my own NGO here, which
is non-governmental organization.
Lisa: And
that was the North Andaman Tsunami Relief Organization?
Bodhi: It
was and then that eventually turned into Andaman Discoveries.
Kaizen: So
what exactly is “ecotourism”?
Bodhi:
Well, in it’s most common form, it’s tourism in the eco-system and I think
unfortunately that really is how it’s defined by most people. But to my mind eco-tourism incorporates
an aspect of responsibility as well; of trying to not degrade the resources
you’re going to enjoy. And if you
see human beings as part of the environment and part of nature then the natural
segue to that is also making sure that it respects the human community. So I prefer the term “responsible
tourism” because it incorporates responsibility to the environment, to the
community, to the economic situation and yourself. What is eco-tourism?
It’s marketing word. It’s
not in depth enough to really describe the practice.
Lisa: And
so what are the important elements of “responsible tourism” to you? What is it you aspire to contribute in
terms of tourism, if you take away the marketing piece and get the heart of the
practice?
Bodhi: Here’s the deal. We have a wildly unsustainable global
system that is extracting resources and producing people at rate that our
planet cannot keep up with. We’re
a closed system, not an open system and we don’t have any other planets to go
to so we’d better do well with this one.
How to do that is a really good question; what does each person want to
do to make the world a better place?
For me, I didn’t choose to get involved in tourism. I was in an area I wanted to help and where
tourism was a major force, so I utilized it as a tool. One side is to try and support the
communities that are moving in a more sustainable direction and living in a
more sustainable way and then the other part is to try and effect and transform
the guests that are visiting. When
you’re at home you’re busy and you’ve got your schedule and your classes and
your stuff to do and there’s not a lot of time to think outside the box. When people go on vacation they’re open
to new ways of life and new ways of thinking and so for me, yes people flew
here on a plane and used oil to get here and they drove here in a car and they
burned oil, they bought snacks at the store that were manufactured thousands of
kilometers away and driven here with trucks and wrapped in unnecessary
plastic. All true; but at the same
time when people come here their minds are open to how they might change the
way they live so if they can come into a more direct experience with nature, if
they can see that the rubber and the cooking oil in their house comes from the
destruction of the rainforest that they’re enjoying so much I think it helps
them to see the system, to get a systems perspective and to participate in
non-linear models of change, meaning that once they get here it’s not my job to
teach them how to be sustainable which is not my place, it’s every bodies job
to figure it out on their own. The
more people understand the system the more sustainability is a natural
conclusion. And so to me, if we
can get people out here thinking about how amazing nature is and then
understanding the larger system then hopefully it creates positive change. And then if you can do it in such a way
that people want to come, then other people will copy you, which is better than
copying the 7-11 or the Motel 6 down the street.
Kaizen: You
said in another interview that coming from a privileged and wealthy society has
both benefits and responsibilities.
So how can people from outside the area learn to help and contribute?
Bodhi: One
thing that is important is that while you’re traveling here to try and figure
out where the money you’re spending while is going. Is it going to ethical people or not? Just to take an example like
cocaine. I don’t really care much
about cocaine. I’m not that into
drugs. I’m not for or against
cocaine but I’m really against the people who produce and sell it. They’re bad people and they hurt other
people. So when people make
economic choices they have a responsibility for where that money is accruing. If I send a rock down a hill and then
walk away, it’s still kind of my fault if that rock hits someone. So, that’s one thing that’s important
to think about when we travel; to ask where we’re accruing benefit. Are we accruing benefit to people who are
working for a positive future or are we accruing benefit for people who are
just trying to milk tourism for as much cash as they can so they can go buy
another car or another rubber plantation?
Lisa: And
as tourists how can we tell? How
do we know where our money is best spent?
Bodhi: I
think doing research, trying to be informed, checking in with the people you’re
visiting to see if they’re aligned with that vision or not, generally speaking,
trying to keep travel to more local places, not the large chains, not to big
resorts, not to places where the standard of living is way higher than any of
the villages around it. I think
those are some good ways to start.
Traveling with respect and acknowledging that responsibility. And then
the other part is trying to generate some practical, on the ground good. Just something small. Just to know that your visit somewhere
made a difference; made a positive impact. So, you can always try to talk to people about
sustainability and getting them interested in these topics to spread the
impact. And you can go home and
tell all your friends and encourage it to happen but I feel those are secondary
and tertiary kinds of benefits.
And it’s also important when you’re in a place to just make sure you do
some concrete good for someone there.
Lisa: Can
you give an example of that?
Bodhi:
Sure, well there was this researcher doing research on a fishing community up
north on the Northern Andaman coast and she was sure that her research was
going to contribute to a better-informed policy about how climate change was
affecting global fishing communities.
But I wasn’t so sure so I asked her to challenge that notion and find
something she could do as well and she found a kid with some development
challenges and helped get him into a school for kids with developmental
challenges instead of just sitting home all day. So for you guys, when you’re traveling, I guess you don’t
have that much time and depth of knowledge but you bump into good people trying
to good things all over the place and to align with them and give them a little
bit of help, whether that’s moral support or financial support which should be
given very carefully, or just going to help out somewhere for a day so that
people see that you support them.
Lisa: So on
that note, could you talk a little bit about Andaman Discoveries? Because I
believe that’s part of what Andaman Discoveries is trying to support isn’t it?
Bodhi: It
is. We try to make sure that
whatever the context, if people go with us into a village, that they are
contributing. So, for example, if
they go in to do a village tour all of the guides are local, all of the service
providers are local and in addition there’s a contribution to the community
fund, so that 15% of the money that the guest pays to stay in the village goes
to a fund that is used to benefit the whole community. Same thing with the study tours and the
volunteers. I think it’s important
to understand that a volunteer who goes in for two weeks is probably going to
benefit a lot more than the program is because they get to go, they get to be
in service, they get to be in touch with this wonderful group that doing all
this good work. So that’s why we
ask them to contribute financially as well. That way people can plug in for the short-term with their
hands and hearts and then help on the long term on the financial side. When you go to volunteer, if you go to
serve, often you tend to get more benefit than the people you’re serving, which
is a good thing, and it should be part of self-development to go volunteer and
do stuff like that but it’s also important to think about what that
organization is doing when you’re not there, when you’ve gone back to your
normal life, their mission continue.
We do really try to focus on exchanges so it’s a bi-directional thing
rather than just community-shares-their-
culture-with-you.
Lisa: Are
there opportunities for family even on the short term. Are their opportunities for teenagers
to contribute?
Bodhi:
There are super opportunities for teenagers to be involved. Younger kids might just be able to play
with the children but the teenagers can be a role-model. That’s what’s cool. It’s not just some adult talking at
them; there’s another kid who is interested and has skills they can teach. That part is actually very useful. For example, a family that came last
year volunteered in the Burmese learning center, taught a few lessons, played
with the kids at playtime, and helped clean up the school, and helped elevate
the floor of the preschool so the kids could take a nap. The school floods twice a month at high
tide. Then based on that, they got
really interested and then banded together with some of their friends to help
us buy the land.
Kaizen:
Could you tell us about this school project?
Bodhi: Yes,
the kids were stuck in this school in the inter-tidal zone, which flooded twice
a month with garbage and nastiness from the sewers, full-on. And that sucks! That’s not a good place for kids to
learn. It’s not safe, it’s not healthy, it’s not clean. We work with a partner
organization called FED, Foundation for Education and Development (wonderful
organization!), based out of Koa Lok. We identified a partner organization that has the long-term vision for how to
empower the Burmese community in Southern Thailand. And one of the ways they do
that is with a series of twelve schools. One of those schools is in our area.
And they find it a lot easier to get funding for the main schools that they
have in the Khao Lok area. And basically they just told us that there was
no way we could build a new school up there. So because it’s part of that
larger organization after we buy the land, which we’ve already done, and now
build a school, which we’re hoping to start next week, then we let this
organization utilize it because they’ve got the teachers, they’ve got the
relationships with the students, they’ve got the understanding about what is
important for the Burmese kids to learn.
So, that’s how we got involved.
Initially we were volunteering, ourselves at the center, and then we
were sending paying volunteers to the center, then we started sponsoring their
school lunch program and now we’ve finally been able to raise the money to buy
the land and hopefully soon we’ll have the rest of the money to finish building
the school.
Lisa: Why
is that you’re focusing on the Burmese community? Are the Thai kids handled? What’s their school situation?
Bodhi:
Everybody needs better education but the Burmese have none. It’s kind of like moving the US as an
immigrant and not being able to speak English; it makes life hard! It’s difficult not to speak the
dominant language.
Lisa: So
the Burmese are immigrants to Thailand.
Bodhi: Yes,
their immigrant laborers; they’ve come to work in the fishing industry and in
the rubber palm plantations. And
their children don’t have education and don’t have access to education. They don’t have any nationality, or
human rights.
Lisa: So
they’re much more underprivileged than the Thai kids here…
Bodhi:
Vastly! And given that they’re 30-40% of the population in some places…Any time
a society isn’t take care of 30-40% of its people it creates problems. It creates problems with communicable
disease and health, social issues, poverty and crime. So, the more we can help these kids be happy, well-adjusted
members of the society to which they now belong the better. It also helps them to avoid
discrimination if they speak Thai and represent themselves and know their
rights.
Lisa: So
it’s probably more important for them to learn Thai then to learn English…
Bodhi:
Well, half-half. It they can learn
English they can get jobs and they can compete with Thai people.
Kaizen: So,
what is the common educational experience for Thai kids?
Bodhi:
Memorize this book please and recite it back to me. Critical thinking is not part of the program. That being said, there are lot of good
teacher who try to get important information across to the kids but overall the
structure of the educational system here is not one that encourages creative
thought. It’s a system in which
probably you would have stopped paying attention to me by now in this
conversation. Because I’m talking
about “weird” big ideas that don’t related to what you just watched on tv or
what you’re thinking about doing today.
Your ability to track this conversation, even though you’ve been bored a
few times in the conversation, but to stay with it and bring it back, is the
kind of skill that would be very useful in Thai education.
Lisa: Is
there universal education in Thailand for Thai people?
Bodhi:
Yes. Mostly now until at least 9th
grade. Though Paul there, he was only in school until 6th grade and
has taught himself English. But it
wasn’t school. He’s a curious
interested man who likes to learn and advance himself.
Lisa: So,
with the school project what’s needed?
What’s next?
Bodhi:
There are two directions on this.
The first is what’s needed for the school and for the partner
organization to run the school and then there’s what’s needed on our end as
organization to finish building the school. Find the money…maybe $7000 to finish building the school and
to make sure that the school meets the needs of our partner, make sure it’s
consistent with the vision of the organization that’s going to be running the
school, to make sure it really syncs with what they’re doing. So, the director of FED is currently
reviewing the plans and the construction budget. And then we need to make sure that they can run it
responsibly. I just spent a year
raising $80,000 and I have a responsibility to make sure that’s used well. So we’ll give it over to the NGO for
use for free for as long as they want but I don’t think we’ll sign it over to
them until I know for sure that they can keep running it for three or four
years. If not then we have to make
sure that we can use that land for some other ethical purpose, like doing
something for the Burmese kids and the local Muslim kids in the surrounding
villages which are also poor- not as poor as the Burmese villages, but poor. The final part is making sure that when
the school is built it’s a thing of quality and integrity and won’t become an
immediate headache for someone.
These guys gave me a boat after the Tsunami…free boat, free engine, amazing! Turns out they had driven it terribly
and it was about to break apart. I
got stuck with $7000 in repairs so it wasn’t free at all. And when I ask them to help because I
didn’t have the money to fix it they said “we gave it to you as it was, it’s
not our problem anymore”. That’s
not cool. That’s not particularly
helpful. That’s the kind of
helping that you do to feel good about yourself not to genuinely make the world
a better place. That’s one other
thing I’d like to comment on; when we talk about all this stuff about helping
people and doing good. You really
have to examine your own motivation.
Why am I doing this? Am I
doing this to feel better about myself? Am I doing it to feel like a good
person and then I can go back to the rest of my life and ignore the uncool
things that I’m doing? Or am I
doing this because I genuinely love, respect and support the people and I want
to join with them to make something better. There are a lot of reasons for helping and not all of them
are healthy and the ones that aren’t healthy are generally not that effective
because the motivation is wrong and often influence the outcome in a negative
direction. Here’s an example. This guy comes into a village and drops
off 5 tons of squid net and drives away.
So what happens? Well,
someone in the village tries to own it.
And then someone else tries to own it and then they start fighting. So we call the guy and say dude,
serious conflict because of what you did.
He says back “well, these Thai people they don’t know how to organize
themselves; I’m going home”. So
because he didn’t have the wisdom and the commitment and the courage to find
out how to really help, he helped in a lame way and then when it didn’t work
out he blamed the people he was trying to help.
Lisa:
Kaizen, Bodhi just answered one of our questions, or at least the corollary of
our question.
Kaizen:
Yes, he keeps answering my questions before I can ask them.
Bodhi:
That’s because I can see where you’re going. Your questions are well-constructed and follow a logical
path.
Lisa: We
read online that you feel that The Tsunami Relief organization you started
after the Tsunami can be more effective because it assessed the needs of the
people. Can you give an example of
that.
Bodhi:
Sure, back to the squid net. The
donor was a jerk and had left and so we asked the chief and the two district
council members to please give us the net, which we then took out of the
village. We then did an assessment
of how many people had been squid fisherman before the Tsunami. Well, it’s not just net you need to
make squid traps. You need wood,
you need rope, you need palm leaves, you need twine to tie it together and you
need foam to keep it floating.
None of which any of the villagers had any money to buy because it was
just after the Tsunami. Yet they
did want to get back out into the waters to fish because that’s how they made
their money. So we partnered with
SDC to buy the rest of the equipment, we divided it into 56 packages, which we
delivered to the homes of the 56 families who had been squid fisherman before
the Tsunami. We had one guy
get really upset and yell and scream and throw things at me because we didn’t
give anything to him. He had been
given money for assistance because he owned a shrimp boat when nobody else had
gotten money yet. Because we’d
done our homework we were able to check if we had genuinely forgotten this
guy. And by being fair in that
way, we earned the respect of the villagers so when we opened a community
center they would come because they knew we’d treat them fairly.
Kaizen: So
does being a foreigner here help or hurt you in trying to make a difference?
Bodhi: Yes
and yes. If I fall, I fall alone
but there’s a positive racism towards to farang. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of exploiting my
privilege here to try and work for real justice. If there’s a matter of conflict usually people will defer to
me, I’ve never been stopped by the police like many of my Thai friends, often
people are respectful because I’m here trying to do good and generally I’m
assumed to have money. So that
benefits me, plenty, but it’s not cool because there are a lot of other people
on the other side of that discrimination.
I have buddies who, dude, if their hair was a long as yours they’d be in
jail. The police would stop them
every time there was a tail-light broken on their motorcycle. Especially the Burmese community;
they’re really picked on! So, I
can’t deny the fact that I’m a white westerner with a good education; that’s
who I am and that’s part of what gave me the understanding to want to do
something about what’s messed up in the world. My kind parents and my kind teachers gave me some
perspective…but then how to use it in a way that tries to make sure that’s
available for everyone. It’s not
that we’re all born equal, but we all have equal value. You can’t expect everybody to be the
same but you have to give everybody a chance to be respected. And I think that’s what’s
important. We need janitors and we
need CEO’s…well, we certainly need janitors, we may or may not need CEOs. So if I’m in a CEO role in this culture
then how do I make sure to build an organization that is fair and happy and
leads to a good life for everyone from the janitor on up. And that’s what needs to happen.
Lisa: Are
the changes you’re contributing to generally appreciated by the local people or
are they suspect?
Bodhi: Neither. They kind of write it off as “you’re a nice boy”. The muslim villages were more suspect
of me, but for good reason. I remember
the first time a chief called me in and asked “why are you here and why are you
helping my people?” and when I answered his hard questions he said “great,
you’re welcome. Come anytime and let know how I can help you help”. We’re not
necessarily taken that seriously but that can be kind of cool. For example, there’s a fishing village
that work in and the squid traps get eaten up by the giant boats that are off
the coast, which are owned by the Chinese mafia (and which are killing off of
all the fish). So when their traps
are gone they don’t have any money because they can’t sell squid to buy new
traps, so they’ve got to go to the local dude that loans them money. They borrow money to buy new traps and
then for the rest of their lives they owe him 30% of their catch. That’s messed up. That’s called economic feudalism,
slavery, self’s and peasants. This
is what revolutions were made of in Europe. When I come in nobody pays much attention to the farang
giving scholarships and that buys me time to set up a co-op store and get
enough money together to buy the first round of stuff to sell to them at real
prices and then instead of giving their money to the money lender they give
their money to the store which generates more money to buy more stuff which
they can sell for a cheaper price.
If they knew that was what I was up to they wouldn’t even let me near
the village. But by the time I can
set that up it’s too late. So
you’re not taken seriously but you can use it to your advantage because good people
with a common mission will take you seriously. And you don’t always want to be taken too seriously.
Bodhi: What
do you see that you could do? As
you’ve been traveling around have you seen any places that you might be able to
contribute? That’s an interesting
thing to assess. Whether or not
you have time, you’re a real person moving through real places which means you
can make a real difference even if it’s only a small one and it’s not meaning
that you should, everywhere, but if you start to pay attention to how yo might
then when you see the really key ones, or something that you really care about
you’re tuning your skills to how to help the best. I do community-based tourism, I do responsible tourism and I
went on vacation in Vietnam and found a chill little bungalow by the beach run
by a nice person and road a motorcycle around. That’s all I wanted to do but then there was this kid whose
mom was really poor and couldn’t find new lines of work and so I set up little
account for the kid, it was a monthly thing where the kid has some money. That was enough.
Lisa: So
that raises the question about how you should give money. If I was in a situation like that I’d
be hesitant; how did you know that was appropriate and appreciated and
useful? Like you said earlier
sometimes just giving money can be the worst thing you can do if you don’t do
it right.
Bodhi: You
don’t want mom to spend the money all at once or in a way that isn’t useful for
the kid. So what we do is transfer
it in small doses and the hotel owner and the mom are both signatory’s on the
account so he monitors how she’s spending the money because it’s supposed to be
on the kid. And in this case it
was also about recognizing that I didn’t have a great shot at empowering the
mom who was pretty fundamentally disempowered. So at least helping the kid get a leg up on the education
system was useful. It’s all about
the method; it’s not just about giving some kid money. Making sure that the kid understands
that he holds the bankbook.
Lisa: where
was the money supposed to go, in this case?
Bodhi: To
family expenses, school uniforms and food.
Lisa: Going
back to the school organizational system again it seems like you’re involved
with a lot of different organizations.
I’m trying to understand how you do them all and how they all fit
together. There’s Tsuanami relief and Andaman Discoveries and Our Jungle House.
Bodhi: Yes,
I’m the volunteer director and the manager at Our Jungle House…it’s about
partnership. I know what I
can do best and I try to keep doing it and I try to do it in the service of
people who do a good job. At one
point Andaman Discoveries was up to 46 staff and we were running our own
training center as time went on I realized that we could grow more into the
role or we could find the people who were already doing it and likely to keep
doing it for a really long time and support them. And so that’s what we do; work in partnership with people
who can do a great job. We just
built a community center out in Ban Lion that you’ll go see. To do that we cooperated first and
foremost with the village group and then also with Naucrates, which is the
Turtle Conservation group out there as well as another NGO called Mangrove Action Project so we were the main four partners and then we brought in people
from other NGOs, from a community network of thirteen villages who went in and
shared experiences with the villagers and do exchanges. That way you don’t have to pay for
expensive academic outside trainers to come in and tell people what they
probably already know.
Lisa: So
one final question since we’re going to be going to Ban Lions, in that
particular community what is most needed?
Bodhi: It’s
a tough community with a lot of problems.
It was built by the Lions Club and entirely too big, probably for
corruption reasons. Very few of
the original villagers moved back but a lot of really good people from the
island ended up moving there. So
there’s not enough kids for the school to be open, or more accurately, the
headmaster in another village is corrupt and steals the money. If that weren’t the case I’d say plug
in with the school. But in this
case, the school is not an option.
The conversation work that’s going on there is really good; that’s with
the group called Naucrates. Really what I think the village needs most is
empowerment of the community. I’m
sure there are a lot of things that can be done but off the top of my head, to
go in for a couple of weeks with a translator at the community center and to
try and document the villagers way of life, to start to tell the story of BaanLions, I think could be really useful and fun.
Lisa: How
would that be useful for the village?
Bodhi: It
would empower them to think about their lives, to think about why they’re at
Baan Lion, what are the choices they’ve made, what kind of goals do they have
for Ban Lion, why aren’t they on the mainland washing dishes in a
restaurant? What do they want out
there? What’s the history of their
family? What led them to be there?
How long have they been on the island? What is the interesting stuff that’s happening? And then we start to create a sense of
community in Baan Lion (because it’s three or four villages all mixed together)
by the sharing of these stories.
That’s the only village I would give that answer for of the 15 villages
I work in. Elsewhere I would say
check in at a special education institution like an orphanage or a school for
Burmese kids. You could spend part
of the day doing service and part of the day interacting with the kids.
Lisa:
Kaizen, do you have any final questions?
Bodhi: Ok,
dude, now I get feedback from you?
What did you think of this interview? What did you think of my answers? Did you find it interesting? Boring? What
are the areas you would want to follow up on?
Kaizen: I’m
not good answering questions like this.
Bodhi:
That’s ok, as long as you’re good at thinking about them. Can I ask this? Can you kick out anything about around
here? About staying at the jungle
house and staying here for the last few days? Why was this place interesting for
you? Or why not? You can be honest. What’s your assessment of this place? We claim to be an ecolodge…are we? That would stoke me.
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