Hard at Work

It has been a whole three weeks now since I’ve been back ay UHDP after studying in Chiang Mai, but it seems like I just got back. It is really nice being back and knowing that I’ll be staying at UHDP for the rest of my stay here and that I won’t have to get up and move again. The past three weeks have been spent trying to figure out how the work I will be doing will fit in with the grand scheme of things at UHDP, as well as trying to improve my Thai after having studied the language for a month.

Learning the Thai language has been a slow process so far, but I have enjoyed the challenge. It hasn’t been easy to improve my language skills at UHDP because I haven’t been forced to speak Thai like I thought since I've been back. There are now a total of four interns working at UHDP so UHDP has a much different and busier feel to it than it did before I left. I have enjoyed being able to talk with the other interns in English, but it has definitely come at the cost of improving my Thai. Two of the interns, Ruth and Katy, are much more accustomed to Thai culture and are able to converse quite well in Thai, while Kim and I still struggle a bit since we have only recently been exposed to the language. I have found that the staff at UHDP will often seek out Ruth or Katy to tell them what is going on since it would probably fall on deaf ears if they came to me or Kim. However, I can tell that my Thai has improved since I’ve been back, and I have to keep reminding myself not to be too hard on myself. I am now able to pick up the topic of conversations during meals, and every now and then add a little something to the conversation – that is if the conversation hasn’t moved on to the next topic before I’ve figured out how to say what I want to say in my mind. I have also been able to improve my reading skills by translating the lyrics of some of the Thai music cd’s that I bought in Chiang Mai. I’ve translated the song titles for each of the three cd’s and an entire track on one of the cd’s, and I think it has helped because I was able to follow along when we got together to sing songs for our Wednesday morning devotionals this past week. It has definitely been nice to talk about cultural struggles with the other interns, and they have been supportive because they know exactly what I’m experiencing. It’s encouraging when Ruth or Katy tells me that it took them forever to get comfortable with the language and that it will come with time. Even though learning the language has been frustrating at times, I’m staying positive about it all, and I know that I have to be patient and accept the fact I probably won’t be comfortable with the language even by the time I have to leave.

The big project that I have been working on since I got back from Chiang Mai up until now has been to dig out garden beds around the house Kim, Ruth, and I are living in so that we can start growing vegetables during the cold season. The cold season lasts from November until the end of January where the temperature will still be around 70°F during the day and get down into the 40’s at night. I’ve never started working on putting in a garden at the end of October before, but I kind of like it. However, I do really miss the fall colors back in the states. My summer just isn’t ending this year….So far, I’ve dug and planted everything that we are going to grow in the front yard, and the beds in the back are ready to be planted. In the front yard, we have a bed of long beans, tomatoes, pak-bong (not sure what it is in English), radish, celery, cilantro, basil, and luffa. I also put in a raised bed on top of the section in the front yard that was covered with cement, and we are going to try growing pak-bong and Chinese kale in the three different soil types we have. The three different soil types that we are experimenting with are soil from the forest, the nursery potting soil mix, and the hard clay from around the house. In the back, a sunken bed has been prepared so that we can compare it with a raised bed, and we also have a bed that has been amended with a banana tree stalk as a fertilizer. These beds haven’t been planted yet, but we will probably plant things like lettuce and green onions in the beds in the back. The only things that have been planted in the back are a few squash and eggplants. The garden has been a fun project to play around with and make into whatever we want it to be, and I’m very interested to see what works and what doesn’t. We had very little room to work with around the house, and the space that was available consisted of extremely hard clay. Our goal was to try and simulate what a garden would look like in a village without much space, and I think we did a pretty good job of reaching our goal and using the space that’s available.

I have also been busy the past couple of weeks figuring out what kind of work I will be doing for the next five months at UHDP. Last week I wrote up a proposal for Ajaan Tui (my boss) about the different projects that I will be working on so that I could see everything organized for myself and receive feedback from him. I didn’t receive much feedback, but he told me it looked good. So it turns out that in addition to the garden project around the house, I will be conducting a bird survey for UHDP in order to gain some knowledge about the biodiversity that is supported by the agroforests at UHDP. I’ve really enjoyed this project so far because it is something that I’ve done a few times before in the states, so I feel like I’m in my element with this project. The bird survey has been a great way to explore the grounds at UHDP even more, but I do have to make sure that I douse myself in mosquito repellent before I head out into the forest each morning. I don’t know any of the bird calls in Thailand so I’m relying solely on the bird book I have to identify the birds by sight. I’m finding it to be quite difficult to get a good look at the birds as they fly from one bamboo stand to the next, but I have seen some really cool birds so far, and I’ve started to become familiar with some of the more common species. I’m also working on pest management research in the organic gardens at UHDP and will be putting an insect database together of both the harmful and beneficial insects that I find in the gardens. Right now I have a few caterpillars and eggs that I’m rearing in order to figure out what they turn into, and later on, as more beds are planted, I will probably be doing some research with crop row covers that help protect the plants from insects.

I’m still in a period of adjustment, and I figure that I will be continuing to adjust to things as they come up for the rest of my time here. I still have so much to learn here, but I’m really glad that I have some projects to work on and keep me busy. The pace of life here and my lack of knowledge of how things work can make me feel extremely unproductive at times, but, hopefully, I can become more productive as time goes on and I continue to adjust. But for now, I’m content with where I am.