End in Sight

For the past couple of weeks, my work load at UHDP has been steadily decreasing as I prepare to go back to the states (not that I had tons of work to begin with), which has been nice because it has given me the opportunity to spend more time working with the staff at UHDP and even go visit my friend Karen in Phnom Penh for a week.

I realize that I haven’t been keeping people updated on the various projects that have been keeping me busy while I’ve been at UHDP, but I guess that’s because I’ve been relating my experience here with the people I’ve come to know and the places that I’ve been. However, I have spent a lot of time experimenting with growing vegetables around the house, trying to raise ladybugs as well as conducting a bird survey.
- Experimenting in the garden around the house was a great learning experience for me since I have never grown vegetables in a climate like Northern Thailand’s, and half of the vegetables that I grew I had never even heard of before. We had a lot of success growing vegetables in the sunken bed in the back of our house even though Ajaan Tui and Apot laughed when they first saw it and said that it wouldn’t work. The raised container gardens that we had in the front of the house worked really well too. To no surprise, we found that the vegetables grown in UHDP’s potting soil mix grew much better than the veggies grown in the soil from the forest and around the house.
- During the time that I spent in the organic gardens at UHDP as well as the garden beds around my house, one of the major pests that kept popping up were aphids. Aphids were seen damaging a variety of plant species, so when I finally saw some ladybird beetles feeding on the aphids, I collected some of the beetles to try and reproduce them in captivity. However, raising the beetles in captivity proved to be extremely difficult, and I didn’t get very far with the project. I tried feeding the ladybird beetles with various types of artificial food, but the artificial food only partially worked. The food was enough to keep the beetles alive, but it wasn’t nutritious enough to cause the beetles to reproduce. Reproduction was the goal since the ladybird larvae have ferocious appetites for aphids (as do the adults), but the larvae don’t have wings to fly away with and are forced to eat the aphids in your garden.
- The bird survey I conducted at UHDP kept me busy on most days, and I was able to gather a lot of information about the different types of birds in the area. In total, I observed 46 different bird species on UHDP’s property, which is pretty impressive seeing as how UHDP only has 14 acres. I was able to compare the diversity of bird species at UHDP with one of the surrounding orange orchards, and I found that the orange orchard only contained 14 different bird species even though the orange orchard must have been at least 4 times the area of UHDP. I could go on, but I realize that not everyone is interested in this stuff as I am. I’ll finish this section by leaving you with the names of my five favorite bird species at UHDP. If you are interested you can copy and paste the name into google images to get an idea of what they look like. My top five: crimson sunbird, indian roller, short billed minvet, black-naped monarch, and the scarlet-backed flowerpecker.

As much fun as my different projects have been at UHDP, I enjoy when other random things pop up at UHDP that take me away from the normal routine, and a few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to go visit a friend of mine from Calvin, Karen Genzink, who is currently interning at International Justice Mission in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. IJM is an amazing organization that works to stop sex trafficking, and it was great to see where Karen works and inspiring to hear about some of the stories of girls being rescued. Karen and her roommate, Roya, were kind enough to let me stay in the extra room that they have at their apartment, and I was able to get a sense of what everyday life is like in the city of Phnom Penh. It was great to be back in Cambodia again and explore Phnom Penh and get reacquainted with the city since all of the places I went to in Cambodia two years ago have gotten all mixed up in my head. The one weekend I was in Cambodia Karen, Roya, and one of their co-workers, Lisa, and I went down to the city of Kep, which is on the coast of Cambodia, and I got to see a whole new side of Cambodia that I had never seen before. Kep is a nice quiet town with a crab market, great little places to eat, islands to boat out to, and great scenic views! Karen, Roya, Lisa and I spent a day hiking around one of the small mountains in Kep, and we ended the hike by running up the mountain to catch a view of the sunset with just a few minutes to spare. We also had a great day on the beach at one of the nearby islands enjoying some of the seafood and getting a little sun burnt. All in all, it was an amazing trip that I’m thankful I was able to take before I left South East Asia, and I’m jealous that Karen and Roya are just starting their internship and have many more months left in Cambodia.

As my time draws to a close at UHDP, I have been spending as much time with the staff as possible. Since I am wrapping up my projects at UHDP and have less and less work to do, I have been spending my extra free time helping out with other random projects going on at UHDP. Most of my wrap up work has kept me inside, so it was nice to get out and work with the UHDP students (Eak, Ong, Waen, and Suphanat) this past week and help out with things like making mud bricks for the adobe house or putting up shingles on the shack for the cows. Recently, the guys have started playing a game called takraw after work, and I have had a fun/embarrassing time learning to play the game with them. Takraw is sort of a mix between hackey sack and volleyball because you use your feet and head to volley a small ball back and forth over a net. I’m pretty bad with my feet, so I have learned to stand at the net and let the ball hit me in the head and drop down on the other side since I’m much taller than the net is. Needles to say, the guys get a good laugh out of my tactics. I’ve had a great time hanging out with the guys and getting to know them a bit, so saying goodbye will be hard, but all I can do right now is enjoy the time I still have left with them.

I can’t believe that as I post this entry I only have a little over a week left at UHDP. I have come to absolutely love the time that I have been fortunate enough to spend at UHDP, and it doesn’t seem right that I will be leaving so soon. I have a going away party to look forward to this week, and other than that I’m preparing myself mentally for the transition back into American culture. It will be difficult to transition back into life at home; however, I am really looking forward to seeing friends and family once again.