I spent Saturday wandering intentionally through local villages in search of a cotton-weaving factory. By taxitruck and foot, I met some incredib(ly hospitable) Thais along the way. Many were wearing red shirts, and carrying buckets of water (some climbed into the truck and made sure I was sufficiently soaked before departing). Most took time to converse.

Sonkran is the Northern Thai new year. It’s three days of holiday stretched into a week of some sort of region-wide water fight. Seriously. Everyone seems to be carrying squirt guns and/or riding in the back of pickup trucks with drums of water. There is no shelter, the holiday has yet to officially begin, and the city is packed.

I returned home last night (wet, as expected), to find my host father positioned in front of the radio. After watching the news with him today (already knowing a bit of the situation, and that the ASEAN summit had been canceled), I headed over to the internet cafe (our neighbor’s garage) to do some self-informing.

Tomorrow I will join my family for three days of celebration back in their village in the Lampang Province. While the protests provide no personal threat (I’m entirely safe), the situation is quite incredible to be experiencing from within the country.

Watching as the next week unfolds, Reb.

This time studying river ecosystems and issues having to do with human rights has set before me an incredible narrative, of the relationship between humans and their environment, a connection that holds both sorrow and joy. I’m not quite sure how to share this through a blog post, but I’ll try.

In Thai, the word for river is “Meh Nam,” which literally translates as “Mother Water.” This reality, one of life bound up in the river, was humbly evident in the two communities that we stayed over the past two weeks. I would particularly like to share with you about my time in the first village, Nawg Poh, along the Mun River.

The integrity of this river ecosystem and the integrity of its fifty-five villages exist in a seamless relationship. The families there relied almost entirely upon the river. The relationship manifested itself in many ways. That is, many fished (both for subsistence and some income), but the river’s importance spanned far beyond this one, direct connection. Its flood cycle was a curcial part to the agriculture too, rice fields relied upon the flood cycle, as did the commonly-held forests and wetlands (producing vegetables that women, in particular, gathered for food and sale). River-side gardens were an important reality in the dry seasons, as were the dug out pools in the rice fields, created during floods and stocked with fish to breed and createa  source of protein during the drier half of the year, when the river was low.

The Pak Mun Dam project was a hydro-electric initiative. Dam projects are often seen positively not only because of their energy production, but also for their creation of a reservoir upstream is often seen as an opportunity to stock fish and prawns.

However, dams, in how they cut the flow of a river, have damaging impacts upon the communities that hold relationship with the river. The legacy was evident in Nawg Poh. As a dam cuts the flow of a river, fish, sediments, and nutrients (not to mention water) are unable to pass through. This has drastically cut both the quantity and diversity of fish (they can no longer travel upstream to spawn). In addition, the flood cycle is lost, negatively impacting the commons (forests and wetlands) and agriculture efforts. At the same time, the Pak Mun Dam is not actually economically viable. The project has produced far less than it had intended.

Nawg Poh today is a place lacking a generation, where young adults have been forced to leave and search for work elsewhere. Most move to Bangkok or other larger cities, as wage laborers and migrant construction workers. The people of Nawg Poh (mostly grandparents and grandchildren) expressed their mourning not only for the river, but also for their culture and way of life.

This is a brief, unthorough explanation of what I was studying in Nawng Poh. However, let it be an introduction to the topic. Perhaps I will return throughout the next two weeks (before I leave the city again) and revisit the issue and flesh out a few more thoughts.

If you are interested in reading details regarding the issue, feel free to check out the official report from the World Commission on Dams.

Until later. Peace, Reb.

School work, and a large portion of my thought-energy has been directed towards the understanding of what it means to integrate human rights and the environment. Hm. In that context, we have been developing our knowledge of river ecosystems and the impacts of dams – both in how they serve as a destructive force in the ecological health of streams, and how they have repeatedly displaced communities along rivers in many different countries (often forcibly and without adequate compensation).

Tomorrow morning I leave for our first expedition course. We will be visiting two different areas of Thailand. I will be staying in rural communities that have been impacted by the construction of a dam and learning how their lives have changed. I will also be paddling another river where there is a proposed site for a dam project.

I look forward to sharing with you all when I return. Until then, I’m going to set myself toward listening, watching, learning, and reflecting. I’m excited about being completely unplugged for three weeks.

Until then, I hope you all stay well.

Peace, Love, and Water Buffalo.
Reb

We just moved out of our homestays this morning. My parents dropped me off in my new room with a plastic bag containing bee pollen to drink, sweet purple potatoes, a ceramic mug, and a few slices of green mangos (the hues are slightly shifting to tints of orange, promising sweeter fruit soon).

So much seems to have happened since I’ve last written, but after arriving back from a weekend at Mae Taa where I lived and worked with a community of organic farmers, the last week with my parents in Chiang Mai seemed too valuable to go off and spend an hour at the computer.

To begin, a list of interesting food I’ve encountered recently: larp (raw veal stomach, complete with gastric juices), larvae-containing honey comb, fried chicken feet, and cow/pig placenta. These, of course, are interspersed with boiled eggs, fresh fruit, sweet green (young) rice covered in coconut shreds, fried pumpkin in egg, and an assortment of curries/fish soups/boiled vegetables.

Last weekend provided a series of wonderful events. Mae Taa itself provided a refreshingly calm space outside of Chiang Mai that was both my first introduction to rural life in Thailand as well as an opportunity to move my body around a bit more. The first evening, language immediately became a challenge. Scraping and scrambling through my limited supply of vocabulary, twisting the different tones to hopefully offer anything vaguely recognizable to my host mother was an obvious task. But I opted to stay at a home by myself, precisely to be forced to maneuver through these tasks on my own, so the challenge was slightly exciting.

But perhaps not the most difficult part. That was, to my surprise, trying to prove that I actually wanted to work. As in, plant and weed, hoe and sweat. For a good part of the afternoon my mother insisted I sit in the protection of their cool cement room, bundling produce for the market. While I was happy to help in this way, there finally came a break through on Friday afternoon – when I stubbornly followed her to the field. She chuckled and shook her head but I insisted upon hoeing the ground next to her. When she went to get some greens to transplant, I pushed along and kept working, until the entire section had been completed. It helped, because when she returned to find my face dripping in sweat and my lower shins coated in dust, she seemed to understand my intent. So, together, we crouched over in the irrigation trough and began transplanting the greens. Of course, even with my strong will, I was unable to keep pace with her thirty years of experience, but I managed to hold my part  and complete my section. It felt great.

And so did selling the vegetables at six am on Saturday morning. All together, I was able to attend a co-op meeting (where the farmers chose what vegetables to grow next season), scrap coconuts while squatting on little stump device at a gathering of neighbors (they were making some sort of dessert to sell at the market), and talk a bit with a woman who had just spent the past year on an exchange program in Nepal. There, she worked with a community, teaching them about what the villagers in Mae Taa were doing so that they could adopt a similar program.

The weekend, of course was not finished. Soon after the market on Saturday, my host parents from Chiang Mai picked me off and we drove another two hours outside of the city, to my second village visit. We spent a night in Lampang, the town from which they came. There, the idea of  “Thai family” became more real. Siblings and parents, cousins, aunts uncles – living in close proximity and often on the same piece of land. My parents proudly showed me their childhood homes, how to fish in the canal, and the land where they hope to live one day (both said that if they could choose, they would move back closer to their families).

At one point, I found myself on teh back of this village woman’s motorcycle (I didn’t know her, but met her when I went with my aunt to some celebration), heading towards a wedding. There, eight Thai women toted me around. They fed me crab chips and curry, filled my glass with fanta (while they worked through several servings of whiskey), and giggled at the idea of me performing kareoke on stage. Eventually, I agreed to at least go up and dance. My father eventually came over to the wedding as well. When he arrived, I was dancing with a crowd of women – not one of which who came to above my shoulder in height.

So there’s a brief synopsis. I’m now off to my apartment. It should be an interesting change to experience the city in complete freedom. I was sad to leave my parents, but the opportunities are also pretty exciting. (Hopefully by this time next week, I’ll have been to the buffalo market).

Peace, Reb

Recently, after having spent a couple of days learning about Thailand’s economic history, the ISDSI class recently visited King’s Royal Development Project site. It’s really a fascinating place of research, initiated some twenty-five years ago, after an economic scare/downturn.

As demonstrated by the project, the King is promoting a future for Thailand (particularly in rural areas) that incorporates this idea economic sufficiency. This comes in stark contrast to a recent history that has been patterned after a model from the World Bank, for Less Developed Countries (LDCs): growth, industrialized agriculture, and exports. Of course, under this plan Thailand has boomed (its GDP expanding at incredible rates, something like 10% annually during certain points). It’s economy is based mostly on exports (cars, specifically trucks) and tourism.

However, the King is offering a refreshingly simple model in response: security for farmers in agroforestry and diverse practices. These ideas as a whole are aimed to work towards a complete a system, where their livelihood in ensured, regardless of the global economy. After visiting the Royal Development Project, we were able to visit a farmer who was putting these ideas into practice (he was educated at the project, classes are offered for free). On his acre (or so) of land he was raising carp, pigs (producing biogas for cooking), rice, various vegetables, and a couple of cows (other classes offered include mushroom cultivation and frog raising). It was quite impressive. He was able to sustain himself completely off of this piece of land, and then also sell what extra he had in order to provide some surplus income (and send three daughters to college!).

Here is the place where I’ve been thinking. Such visits seemed particularly applicable after just having finished two books: “Stolen Harvest” by Vandana Shiva (about the negative impacts of industrialized monocropping on biodiversity and food security) and “Deep Economy” by Bill McKibben (looking at how our assumption that economic growth is inherently good is both unfounded and perpetuating inequality on a global scale).

So I’ve been wondering quite a bit lately, what can the United States learn from this idea of economic sufficiency? Not that I’m suggesting we all adopt this idea of a small scale farm, but really, given the limited resources in our world – shouldn’t we all (at least partly) be moving in that direction? Hmm, I sound a bit strong. Maybe I’m mostly wondering where the middle ground lay. How should we live (particularly in the ”developed” nations)? Is there a way in which we can each have enough room to ensure both our own livelihood and the humanity of others? How are these aims reflected in my own life?

I hear it’s more beautiful in Thai, but the phrase our guide offered I found to be quite wise: “All I have I use, all I use I have.”

I’m back from a weekend “camping” (retreating) in Doi Sutep National Park. There I spent the afternoons swimming in this long chute waterfall, peeking at bat caves, and crunching through the forests on a hike. I learned how the worms are collected from bamboo shoots for snacks, that banana trees aren’t trees but actually more closely related to grass, and poked at the soft bark of this sponge-type tree from which local villagers take the poisonous sap to hunt small animals with arrows.

All that said, I’m really happy to be back with my family. This evening was a somewhat celebratory ordeal. One of my parents’ friends came for a surprise visit. They hadn’t seen her for either four or ten years (I honestly didn’t quite understand that part). Either way, it’s easy to understand why they were so excited. We sat around with bowls of fruit, ate two different types of fish, and laughed our way through a gigantic dish of banana coconut milk dessert. I also munched on my first helping of soup made from vegetables and red ant eggs (http://www.gnaw.cc/images/udon/ants.jpg). I’ve been wanting to try it, and honestly, it’s quite delicious.

Mm. At this point, I’m just working on experiencing.

Peace, Love and Tropical Fruit >>>> Reb

p.s. A picture! It’s all I’ve got right now. Me and my pal, Rachel. We’re at the ISDSI campus. (By the way, Rachel and I just had our first traditional Thai massages this week! Yup).

This week presented a few new and enjoyable activities. Apart from rock climbing and visiting a couple of the schools in Chiang Mai (a rather interesting and informative experience), I’ve also begun yoga classes!

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I head over to a studio space by Chiang Mai University. After two sessions, I’ve decided that it’s going to be great. It’s a wonderful time to sit and melt into the space and noise of the heavy evening heat. I enjoy stretching my body and allowing my mind to unwind from the processes of the day. Inside out, outside in. While it’s definitely a challenge to do yoga when the instructor speaks a different language, I still come home carrying a body that seems to fit together with itself more peacefully. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make a couple of new Thai friends.

Tomorrow will be our swimming “assessment” and off to a weekend of camping/retreating with the other ISDSI students. (And now, I will go pack).

Peace, Reb.

It’s thick and warm here. The smog and the smells creep into your skin and between your fingers: roasted eggs, cooked rice and condensed milk, pink and purple fruit, grilled chicken.

Everyday I rise at 6:30, take a shower, eat breakfast, and set off on the silo (a yellow version of the red taxi truck I described earlier). By eight o’clock I’m usually in Thai language class. The ajaans push our farang-shaped tongues to wrap themselves around the high pitches and multiple tones of this seventy-six consonant language. Repeat, repeat, and repeat. My mind is usually reeling, squeaking and pushing its every ounce to catch what it can. It’s really hoping to jive and flow with the seemingly obscure sounds, soon.

I’m home by 6:00. In the evening, I sit out at the “kitchen table,” the center of my life while living with kuhn maa (mother) and kuhn poh (father). Before dinner, I rewrite and repeat the lists of vocab from the day. Kuhn poh sits next to me and listens carefully. Sometimes he arranges special lessons, where he uses photographs of my neighbor (Anna, another ISDSI student) to teach me the parts of the body in Thai. His large gestures and expressive noises have been both helpful and quite amusing (half my size and thirty-some years my elder, it’s also a bit silly that he always responds to me “yes sir”).

I live with just my host parents. They feed me extremely well and poke fun at my attempts to repeat the things they say. They have been quite helpful, taking me to the market, teaching me about Thai culture (like how to use the toilet or the fact that I need to shower multiple times a day), and even bringing me along to events like a funeral.

Oh the things to learn.

Peace, Reb.

After a thirteen hour flight to Tokyo and an eight hour layover in the Bangkok airport, I arrived into Chiang Mai on the morning of February 6th. We were met by the lovely Pi Pookie (an ISDSI staff member), who shuttled us to a guest house for the evening, by way of one of the red truck taxis that seem to be quite common here (according to the Lonely Planet books, they are organized by the mafia, hmm?).

My first day in Chiang Mai was perfect. I walked around with my friend Stephanie for a few hours, exploring city’s parks and observing the “Flower Day” festivities. The warmth and humidity were a welcomed shock to our Michigan-familiar bodies. At some point, Stephanie decided to head back to the guest house for a shower, but I decided to explore a bit more. Using the map we were given, I made my way to a restaurant that looked interesting and purchased myself some green tea soy ice cream. I slowly ate in on my way back to the guest house.

It wasn’t long until I finished the ice cream. It also wasn’t much longer until I realized I actualy didn’t know where our guest house was. In a typical directionally-challenged style that is all too often expected of me (and most of the time, fulfilled), I managed to get completely lost. Not wanting to surrender my pride, I reassured myself that I would be able to find my way back. For over three hours I walked and rewalked the circumfrance of a rather large area (about half of the city), trying to identify familiar buildings and signs (which were becoming more familiar as I revisited them over and over).

Eventually I gave in and borrowed a woman’s phone. I called Pi Pookie to ask for the address of the guesthouse and took one of the red truck taxis back. It was a little bit of a comfort to hear that Stephanie also got lost, hahah. I fell asleep last night completely exhausted, and I could still feel the sun inside of my skin. It was a wonderful day, maybe exactly what I was hoping for.

Tomorrow, my host parents will take me to the department store to buy a school uniform and a cell phone. Classes start on Monday, and I’m really looking forward to learning a bit of Thai.

I hope you all are well.

Peace, Reb.

This weekend has two purposes: to attend wakeup weekend events and to hand tie my quilt together.

Yesterday evening was another pleasant potluck (this time with SCL, see the “compassionate living blog,” to the left). To contribute, I prepared some homemade tortellinis. The pasta was with sundried tomato pesto, and the filling was with beans and spinach. They turned out alright, perhaps a little bit mushier than the picture in the recipe, but still adequately delicious (I think).

After reconsidering food choices over the past few years, it is interesting to recognize that in Thailand, I will once again reincorporate the presence of meat into my daily diet. I feel okay about shift, for relational and cultural purpose, but attending one of my last vegan potlucks with this realization in mind also got me thinking >>>

I am thoroughly excited about new experiences. But even in that, as I prepare to go, I am reminded of how thankful I am for the community of friends I have here in G-R. They’re quite thoughtful and engaged, they have pushed me to reconsider the way in which I live, and I place a lot of value in the places and relationships I occupy here at school. Perhaps it took me a long time to acknowledge this fact, to recognize how much I like living in Western Michigan. But, I surely do. And it’s nice.

Okay, next I’m off to a panel discussion about animal issues, race, and gender. Whoowee. Should be splendid.

Peace, Reb

p.s. Blogging is incredibly awkward, forgive me as I try to become more comfortable with the idea. Ughh.