Out of the Ordinary

Working and living at UHDP can sometimes feel like I’m trapped in a bubble, so I usually look forward to any sort of activity that breaks up the normal pace of work at UHDP. The past two weeks have been anything but normal at UHDP as they have been packed full with a lot of different activities as well as a lot of visitors.

Two weekends ago, Armando (Kim and Ruth’s boss from the states) came to UHDP so that he could see and experience for himself everything that is happening at UHDP. Armando works for Floresta, which is an NGO that UHDP has been working with for the past couple of years, but UHDP and Floresta have only just recently made the partnership official. There were a lot of kinks that needed to be worked out between Floresta, UHDP, and the interns, so having Armando here was a great time for Kim, Ruth, and I to explain our experience living at UHDP so far and give suggestions for how the intern program could be improved. Armando, Kim, Ruth and I were also able to get out and explore Fang a bit more, and it felt great for me to have a guy in the group that I could just talk with about things like sports for a change.

Last week, everyone at UHDP was busy with hosting the two student groups that were visiting. One of the student groups came through the organization Thinking Beyond Borders, and the other student group came on their own. Thinking Beyond Borders accepts high school seniors who have just graduated, and gives the students the opportunity to travel all around the world for a year and learn about the development issues in the area where they are staying. I really enjoyed helping out with the activities at UHDP last week because both of the student groups got really involved and were interested about what happens at UHDP. Now that I’ve been at UHDP for a few months, I was able to help out with the activities a lot more and answer more of the questions that the students would bring up. On one of the days, I was able to help Geut and Ajaan Tui show the students how to make pig feed, compost and neem, and explain how they fit in with everything else on the farm. I learned a lot about how the plants in the agroforest are used by hilltribe people by tagging along on the tours with the students since I was never given a formal tour of the agroforests myself. And in traditional fashion, we killed another pig towards the end of the students stay at UHDP, and I was impressed with the willingness of the students to get involved and learn about how important pigs are in the hilltribe culture. A student even helped Apot stab the pig in the heart this time! Having so many people around who liked getting their hands dirty and who had a genuine interest in UHDP’s work picked my spirits up and made the whole week a lot of fun.

The past week was also better than normal because the cold season festival was being held in Fang all week long. At this point, I feel like I have a better understanding of hilltribe culture than I do of Thai culture so it was great to get out and see what Thai people do at night in and around Fang for a change. The festival reminded me of a city fair back home, but instead of Ferris wheels, cotton candy, and elephant ears there were noodles, dried squid, and a techno club. The main attraction each night was a concert, and there were some big names that came to the festival. The first night that I went Prik Thai was performing, and I was surprised as to how crazy the people in the crowd became. The lead singer of the band was a girl so a lot of the guys in the crowd would find a friend’s shoulder to ride on, take off their shirt, and twirl it around in approval. It was quite funny to watch. The second time I went Golf and Mike were playing, but we didn’t get to see the whole show because we arrived in Fang kind of late. The concert Golf and Mike put on was also a lot of fun, but they were a hip hop band so it took me a little longer to get into the music. They put on a good show, but I thought that the outfits that the band members were wearing were the best part of their act…..

To top it all off, I was able to go to Alop’s wedding last weekend. The wedding was a traditional Palaung wedding, which consisted of Alop and his party walking from his village, Huay Sai Gaow, all the way to the village of Huay Wai, which is the village that his bride, Ngun, was from. I headed to Huay Wai with other UHDP staff and met up with everyone at Ngun’s house. Everyone gathered at the Ngun’s house for a ceremony where friends offered Alop and his wife money and tied their hands together with string. Once the ceremony at Ngun’s house was over, everyone headed back to Huay Sai Gaow for the actual wedding. The wedding was held in Alop’s house and was mainly a communal acknowledgement that Alop and Ngun were husband and wife. I couldn’t understand anything that was being said because it most mostly in the Palaung language, but I was still glad I could be at Huay Sai Gaow with everyone to celebrate Alop’s wedding.

It’s back to normal old UHDP again, and it feels good to have it a bit quieter around here again. However, I do have a barbeque at Rick Burnet’s (founder of UHDP) house this weekend to look forward to down in Chiang Mai, so my normal routine at UHDP will soon be interrupted again.

Tropical Christmas

The Holiday celebrations started a bit earlier for me this year than normal. The Christmas party with the staff at UHDP was held on the 18th of December, and the day consisted of another pig killing in the morning with songs and a white elephant gift exchange at night. Most of the day was spent preparing the food and decorations for the party at night. And I must say that it was very different to have palm branches as Christmas decorations. The gift exchange was a lot of fun, and everyone started getting into it when people started stealing the good gifts that were already available. There were a few gifts that kept getting taken from people, but everyone was a really good sport about it. I ended up stealing a cup and a plate for our house from Alop, and I was fortunate enough to keep it until the end. It was great to have a party with everyone at UHDP, but it was also kind of sad because that was Katy’s last day at UHDP.

Once it actually reached Christmas time, things got a bit more relaxing. Christmas Eve was the day that the other interns and I got to be bums and act like we were on vacation. We made our Christmas breakfast that morning and treated ourselves to some french toast with bacon and eggs. For the rest of the day, we watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and snacked on the food that we got as gifts from one another. On Christmas Day, the other interns and I were invited over to Ajaan Tui, Pi Dah, and Lek Lek’s house for dinner. I ended up making nachos on Christmas for the first time since I’ve been here, and Ruth made a Canadian dish called punteene, which is just french fries with gravy and melted cheese on top. Ajaan Tui is not a big fan of American food so there were also a few stir-fried Thai dishes for dinner as well. It wasn’t the typical Christmas meal that I’m used to, but the meal was still very good and we all ended up getting extremely full. After dinner, Pi Dah took Kim, Ruth and I to her church in her Lahu village where we got to experience the Christmas celebrations going on there. It was a great day overall, and it was good to be able to spend Christmas with the other interns and Ajaan Tui’s family since they have kind of become my family here at UHDP.

New Years was a whole new experience as well. Ruth, Kim, and I were able to spend the New Years with Wah at her Karen village, which is located up in the mountains about 5 hours west of Chiang Mai. It was quite a trek to get there, and I ended up riding in the back of a pickup truck the whole way there. We eventually got to Wah’s older sisters house where we stayed for a few nights, which was in a village only a few miles away from the village where Wah grew up. While staying with Wah’s sister, we visited the school that Wah went to when she was a little girl, and her school gave me the chills because it reminded me of the schools in Cambodia that I saw that had been converted into execution and torture facilities during the Khmer Rouge era a few decades back. On New Years Eve, we left Wah’s sisters place and headed to the village where Wah grew up and where most of her family still lived. We got to meet her Father (who had remarried after Wah’s mom died giving birth) older sister, younger brother, and an older brother. I learned that Wah is one of nine children and that she had been a compassion child growing up, which allowed her to continue school and look for opportunities outside of her village. It turns out that Wah is the most educated out of all of her siblings, and her younger brother is the only one who has also gone on to study outside of the village where they grew up. When the village got together for the New Years Eve celebration, I could tell that some of the younger people had come back to the village from the city, and Wah told me that more and more people are looking for opportunities outside of the village. The New Years Eve celebrations that night started fairly early in the evening and went until an hour or so past midnight. Everyone gathered together around little fires at the church up on the hill where people sang songs and handed out prizes until midnight. Kim, Ruth, and I were even called up to sing a few songs for everyone. The entire celebration that night was all in the Karen language, so I couldn’t understand a word of what was being said, but it was nice to spend the night around a fire, and ring in the New Year by watching the second hand tick on a clock. When it finally reached midnight, one of the village leaders got up in front and asked a blessing for the New Year while others kept on with the usual singing, and then people gradually started heading back to their homes to call it a night.

I knew to expect that the holidays this year were going to be very different from what I’m used to, but I had no idea how different they were going to be. For the past couple of years, the Holidays have been a time for me to recover from the school semester plus exams, eat a lot of good food, and spend much needed time with my family. But this year was spent with people I have only recently met, and at places I have never been to. I’m used to spending Christmas in very familiar places, and I did get homesick at times, but I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with the staff at UHDP for the Holidays. I felt very welcomed everywhere I went, and it was nice to be able to celebrate the Holidays in a different way than normal and just be a part of the celebrations in the hilltribe communities in Northern Thailand.