By Lorraine Berry

It's not unusual for a top Division I college basketball team to take a trip to Europe during the summer. Student-athletes get the experience of playing before foreign crowds, an opportunity to see a culture and its works close-up, and a chance to be goodwill ambassadors for their school. Check any Division I women's basketball program's Web site, and you'll no doubt see details of some trip to London/Paris/Rome/Madrid taken by the team in recent summers.

Well, Carleton College, one of the premier liberal arts colleges in the United States, and a strong member of the Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAC), decided to send its women's basketball squad on a trip last summer. But they didn't go to Europe, and it wasn't a relaxing sightseeing tour. The women of Carleton went to Thailand with the mission of bringing basketball to some of that nation's poorest women.

Much of the trip included touring the Thai countryside, where the Carleton players put on clinics and interacted with students. According to Bridget Seegers, one of the team's co-captains and the 1999-2000 MIAC Sixth Player of the Year, the team was able to reach out to the country's young women through hoops. "The clinics we ran in the hill tribe schools were a way to introduce basketball and women's athletics," Seegers says. "These schools have basketball courts that they are not using, so we ran clinics that let kids get a taste of the game."

The players, coaches, and other Carleton travelers (including parents of some players) took turns keeping an on-line journal of their trip. Many of the journal entries reported experiences that reminded the group just how alike human beings really are.

Player Karissa Kramer describes a chance encounter with Thai school children this way: "Most of the children we met were eager to greet us with a 'hello' or 'hi' and many wanted our American autographs ... Much like the children from any other place, the Thai children were curious about us strangers. Our height and skin color definitely makes us stand out.

"As they huddled together in their groups, trying to get the courage to say something, I was reminded of my own little sisters, Kelsey and Kayla. They, too, wait for a brave soul to make the first move, but once the ice is broken they are right up with the rest of them ... Even though we are on the other side of the earth, with very different cultures and backgrounds, children seem to have common characteristics wherever you go."

But, there were just as many experiences that reminded them that they were definitely NOT in Minnesota anymore. Thailand is a nation known for its gorgeous beaches and ancient and ornate temples, but also for its nightlife. Bangkok attracts tourists from all over the world who fly to the city to partake in "sex tours," in which clubs, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc., introduce their guests to the prostitutes who bring in billions of dollars in foreign money into the nation.

It's a huge business, and girls as young as 11 and 12 are recruited from the countryside to come to the city and make money in such a fashion. Not surprisingly, the rate of HIV infection and the numbers of deaths from AIDS are skyrocketing in Thailand, with many of the victims of the disease these young prostitutes.

Claire Lasher wrote after a walk through the Bangkok Night Market, "We glanced at the Gucci watches, Polo shirts, and Pokemon paraphernalia that the Thai people were selling in nice neat rows. But the thing that really caught our eyes were the extracurricular activities going on barely five feet from us. Young men and women would approach the males in our group of about 45 Americans and try to entice them to enter the sex shops ... Let me be the first to say that blatant prostitution like that is not something that I have ever seen.

"Luckily, three of my teammates had done research for a women's studies class last term on prostitution in Thailand ... I'm glad that we got to see [this] so that we could be aware of what goes on night in and night out throughout Thailand and other countries around the world. I also feel fortunate that we come from a country where our options are open. In the USA, females can participate in sports, we can go to college, and we can even choose our careers after college."

Having seen both the good and the bad of city culture, the teammates were eager to hear how they could help to make a difference. One teammate wrote: "I am so pleased that members of our group are being moved by what we are seeing. Parents and players are reflecting on our 'privileged lives.' People are making the connections that the children we help in the village may be saved from prostitution we see in the city. We are also reflecting on whose right it is to stop the prostitution (seeing as it is deeply embedded in the culture and poverty of the country) and the other factors behind the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We are certainly 'learning outside the classroom.'"

But on the same day that the team was making these connections in their own minds, they got to play their first basketball game, where the reported score was 45-21 for Carleton. "Basketball was used as a uniting tool," Seegers says. "We played two university women's teams in basketball. The games allowed us to interact with the other students and create ties. We spent time after the games talking to the students and sharing our stories and experiences as college students on opposite sides of the globe."

Another player wrote: "The game was not about the point spread. We were far more interested in mingling and mixing with the Thai players after the game than paying attention to the score. A good time was had by all ... including the parents who played a quarter against their coaches and some other people. The teak floor was slippery, but I think we enjoyed seeing our fathers, brothers, and coaches play just as much as playing ourselves.

"Something inside me knows that I am very lucky to play this game. It crossed my mind that if I had stopped playing this game at any point in my life (the going wasn't always easy) or for some reason I had missed Carleton, I wouldn't be here playing and more importantly learning right now. Yeah for serendipity and whatever being you choose to believe in or not believe in above."

The trip was definitely not full of first-class luxury. One day, the team got into four covered trucks and rode for six hours along potholed, eroded roads until landing in a Karen village that would be their stopping place for five days. The village, Musakee, lies in the foothills of the Himalayas, and players report that the view of the mountains was spectacular.

During their stay, the players put on a number of clinics at local schools. They demonstrated such diverse activities as basketball and ... the HOKEY-POKEY! It seems that some of the players had an absolute blast teaching Thai kids how to do some of their favorite dances--the Hokey-Pokey, the Chicken Dance, and the Bunny Hop.

But, there was serious work to try to do, also. Bridget Seegers spent one day learning how to plant rice. Here's how she described it: "We made it to the rice paddies and they put us right to work. We took off our shoes and jumped into the water. The water was only about six inches deep, but you sink about six more inches into the soft mud, one time I sank up to my hips in the mud. Once we were in the water we were given bunches of rice plants, which we stuck into the mud.

"Rice planting is a skill that most of us lack. One member of our group was being followed by a woman who for one section took out and replanted what he had just planted; too many plants, too close together. We did our best, but our rate of planting is about half the pace of the Thais'. But we stuck around for a couple of hours helping out until our backs hurt and it was time to head back to the center for lunch."

Even months after returning from Thailand, Bridget Seegers is still pumped from the experience. She told Gball about her most memorable experiences: "The most memorable moments for me came from running the clinics at the school. The kids, initially, were so afraid of us. They would not want to come near us. But, as we worked with them with smiles they started to trust us and laugh and smile with us. We even had most of the kids giving us high fives by the time we left. A lot of good feelings were created with the students. It is amazing how much can be accomplished with just a basketball, a smile, and a good attitude."

But, if Seegers thinks that she may have left Thai youngsters with new lessons, she knows that she herself was fundamentally changed by her own experiences there. "I believe that any journey to a new culture changes an individual. You learn that there are many ways to do things and that does not make one culture better or right.

"The Thai culture, I believe, is quite amazing. They are very accepting and extremely kind. While we were staying in the Development Center I learned a lot about the importance of community. This Center is the home of almost 60 children and perhaps eight or 10 adults. These people have so little material goods, yet they are happy. They are concerned with one another instead of worrying about wealth and the individual. They help each other if one falls down and work together to finish their chores. The old helping and directing the young.

"They have simple things, but seem to have all the important parts of life. They do not waste their time striving for our strange sense of success, which tends to be tied to material goods."