Visiting P'Witoon (the details)

Jonathan and I arrived late Saturday afternoon to P'Witoon's village.  We meet P'Naiu (Witoon's wife) and P'Dara (Witoon's sister) at the village house, dropped my stuff off, and headed out into the farm.  At the main farm "house", P'Naiu and P'Dara began to make dinner while Jonathan took me on a short tour of the farm.  Chickens and ducks are fenced in, but have plenty of space to roam as well as a coop for safety at night.  Within the large fence, pigs are also kept in a pen.  Above this fenced in area is another fenced in area where P'Witoon is keeping goats and has a large fish pond.  Over-looking the fish pond is another small 'traditional' bamboo house.  Still farther up is a water retention pond and water tank.  All around this entire area are banana plants (I'm going to share my bio-nerd sidenote again, just to reiterate: banana 'trees' are not actually trees and are instead classified as herbaceous because the trunk is not a woody substance but the base of the leaves-called a sheath-that are tightly packed together... it's also known as a pseudostem).  A little ways down from the main farm house is flatted land for rice fields.  Beside the rice field is an 'integrated farm' ... coffee and passion fruit are planted among mango and lum yai (also known as longan) trees.  Besides the 'integrated farm,' multitudes of banana plants, and main farm house, what I was shown was newly built or expanded within the last 3-4 months.  As P'Witoon said, it's their 6 months of 'rest.'  They have the time to invest in building/expanding/establishing projects before the rainy seasons comes and the 6 months of hard work begins.

Dinner Saturday night was quite delicious: mountain rice (my favorite next to sticky rice), freshly caught freshwater snails, and some other dish I'm forgetting at the moment.  Lahu food tends to be on the spicy side, which I quite appreciated as I haven't been eating as much spicy Thai food as I though I'd be.  As far as the snails go, they were deliciously flavored and seasoned!  I'm not a huge fan of the texture, but if well-prepared like these were, it's easy to overlook and actually enjoy!  Also, in taking seconds and thirds of rice is always appreciated ... it shows that you really do like the food and appreciate the hospitality.

P'Dara and I at the top of Doi Chang

Sunday was a day of rest and sightseeing!  After breakfast of rice and 'pumpkin' at the farm, we dressed for then attend church.  The service was in Lahu, so I didn't understand a single word, but I was able to follow and 'sing' along with the songs because written Lahu uses Roman-based (English) characters (whereas written Thai is Sanscrit-based and written Karen is typically Chinese-based).  After church we all loaded into Jonathan's truck and drove to a large reservoir where we had lunch at restaurant just above the reservoir dam.  Driving a little farther, we visited one of P'Witoon's friends who owns a little coffee shop.  After enjoying a most delicious ice coffee and way too much iced green tea, we headed toward Doi Wawee and Doi Chang along with P'Witoon's friend.  Doi Wawee and Doi Chang are somewhat known for their coffee as they have coffee shops throughout the rest of Thailand (I myself am quite a fan of Wawee Coffee's iced coffee and 'coffee boom').  We drove around/through Doi Wawee on the way to our actual destination: Doi Chang's botanical gardens.  While we drove around most of the gardens, we did get out and walk through a couple different areas.

P'Witoon enjoying Doi Chang's beauty

At one of these stops P'Witoon turned to me and, looking like a kid in a candy store, said, "This is what I dream my village will look like some day ... all green, with trees, and better farming."  The people in the village P'Witoon lives in, along with the surrounding villages, practice slash and burn mono-culture farming.  As a result once jungle-covered mountains are now darkened and smoldering during the dry season; the once fertile soil is striped of nutrients; farmers slip further into debt as they become more and more dependent on fertilizers and chemical pesticides.  Through his own farm, and now his demonstration center, Witoon hopes to help farmers return to more sustainable and less debt-ridden farming techniques. Sightseeing over for the day, we headed home for dinner (I think we had the pumpkin again, along with a chicken and broth dish).

All in a day's work!

Monday was a 'work day.'  After an early breakfast of potatoes and rice, the guys went to begin to build the upper water-retention pond and I was told I'd be making pig food.  While I maybe made a hand-full of pig food, I mostly just watched the pig food making process.  After lunch (leftover potatoes and vegetables), I went with the women to a nearby village where P'Witoon's 2 kids, nephew, parents and grandmother had been attending a Bible camp/VBS.  It looked like it was quite the production ... the whole village was abuzz with activity.  After meeting and visiting with a number of people, we loaded up and headed home, stopping at small market on the way back.  Upon returning to the farm, chaos seemed to break out as the women set to preparing dinner and the kids began playing with their puppies (named Black, Brown, and White ... guess what color each one is).  I decided to trek up to where the guys were digging out the retention pond (of course I ended up making this little trek in my flip-flops, no big deal, I'm a honorary villager now).

I learned a number of things from this village visit ... that there actually are scorpions and king cobra snakes in Thailand (I saw one of each with my own eyes!).  I also learned that having a tokay living 'in' the room you're sleeping in is not enjoyable, but actually terrifying when it suddenly makes it's call and sounds like it is sharing your pillow.  Finally, I learned something at dinner Monday night ... you can actually eat pigs' lungs.  Definitely not my favorite cut of pork, but it beat other parts I've had, and I was still able to have seconds.

Tuesday was another sightseeing day.  After an early breakfast, we loaded up into Jonathan's truck and headed north to MaeSai and the Thai-Burma border (we didn't go into Burma, but 3 villagers rode in the back as they were going to visit people in Burma and we were their ride).  We had lunch beside the border and spent some time walking around the market that was right there. We were also able to climb up a temple that gave us a great view of the Thai-Burma border.  It was hard to tell where one country ended and the other began, but the Burma side seemed to transition much more quickly from an urban to rural landscape.  As we headed back to P'Witoon's village, we made a couple little detour stops.  One at Doi Tung, another botanical garden, and one at the bizarre White Temple in Chaing Rai.  Unfortunately, it the temple closed early and before we arrived, so I was only able to appreciate few of it's many oddities but plan on getting inside the temple at some point before I leave.

White Temple (Wat Rong Khun), Chiang Rai

We got back just in time for dinner: snails and a whole black-bone chicken in broth.  A whole chicken means that ... a whole chopped chicken ... basically everything is eaten ... including the blood.  In trying to fish out a nice piece of chicken meat out of the bowl, I accidentally fished a nice piece of chicken blood.  I got pretty used to eating chicken blood on my semester, as it was a favorite of my host family, but I'm not a huge fan ... the texture is somewhat similar to tofu, but it tastes metallic (which makes sense because of the high iron content).

Wednesday morning, besides our delicious Lahu breakfast-fare, we also had pancakes with directly from the comb fresh honey ... what a treat!  The guys were actually able to finish digging out the water retention pond before breakfast (though they were a little late), so Jonathan and I began the drive back to Chiang Mai shortly after breakfast wrapped up.

All-in-all it was a wonderful trip.  I got to meet and better get to know an incredible local leader who has such a wonderful vision for what his village could be and how to get there.  Sure it takes a lot of hard work, but to see his face light up when talking about a project or seminar he wants to have to encourage other farmers to practice more sustainable farming practices, you can't help but want to join in!  P'Witoon has given up a lot to serve the village he grew up in.  He has a masters in sustainable agriculture from Chiang Mai University and worked for 7 years as the Project Manager for the agriculture division of the Integrated Tribal Development Program.  According to Thai and Lahu culture, he shouldn't be living in the village he was raised in, but rather in the city using his education to make lots of money, and yet he choose to return to work in village and barely scrape out a living.  His is definitely an inspiring story, which I find so much more inspiring after walking through his village, seeing the surrounding land smoldering, and sitting in the shade of his tall banana plants.

And we get to play a part of this story!  You through your prayers and financial support of me and my administrative work here!  It amazes me how God can use people across the globe to be an encourage each other, as well as the fact our faith in Him can bring us together as we both strive to build His Kingdom here.