Bouncing Around Thailand!: October 2012

Hello BlogLAND!

Sorry for my recent hiatus. I was attacked by a ferocious black bear while braving floods and forest fires in the upland jungles of Northern Thailand and all of the fingers of my right hand were ripped off. The road to recovery has been long and hard but I have recovered enough to write this post.

Not really. In fact, none of that (except the Northern Thailand part) is at all true.

GOTCHA!

Anywho here are some highlights just for YOU:
The Pig Harvest-
The first week of expedition was spent at UHDP, an NGO that works on sustainable agriculture with hilltribes in northern Thailand. While there we participated in the infamous Pig "Harvest." Read: We killed and ate a pig. This was definitely something that I have both looked forward to and feared since applying to ISDSI. I feel like it's one of the more well known things about the study abroad in Thailand on campus. "Oh, you're going to Thailand? Isn't that the program where you kill a pig?" There seems to be a lot of hype surrounding it which probably explains some of the nerves. In all honesty though it definitely wasn't nearly as traumatic as expected. The actual killing involved one the the students hitting the pig in the forehead with a huge stick/log after which Pi Apadt (one of the local instructors) slit it's throat to bleed it out. Afterwards, the pig was shaved, cut into smaller pieces, carried up to the kitchen and then butchered and cooked. And then we ate the most delicious pork meal of my entire life.

Seeing the entire process from living animal (which we had fed that morning) to dinner was definitely an interesting one and brought out a lot of different thoughts and opinions among the students. For me, the entire thing served to reinforce just how much work goes into raising and then slaughtering meat. As a result, I definitely started thinking more seriously about my own food choices. I eat a fair amount of meat at home and while I've vaguely toyed with the idea of becoming a vegetarian I've never really given it serious thought until now. Now that I've seen firsthand all that goes into meat production (albeit on a small, non industrial scale), I feel like it's just plain silly to eat a pepperoni pizza when I would be perfectly happy with plain cheese. (Yes, I know all the excessive labor and bad things that go into the production of dairy and eggs but I haven't quite worked out the whole meat thing yet, so bear with me)

Anywho, my timing couldn't be worse to think about these things because we're not allowed to be veggies in Thailand Not to mention it can be kind of tricky if you don't want to eat at Salad Concept every night. On the bright side I now have something to ponder in my rare moments of philosophical-ness and inner quiet. YAY!

Villages-
After UHDP we moved on to a 4 day journey around several of the villages surrounding the town/city of Chiang Dao including Ban Dang Nauk, Ban Dang Nai, and Ban Huay Pong. This was probably one of my favorite parts of expedition while also being one of the most challenging. In Chiang Mai, I can generally blend in with the hordes of farang tourists. In rural hilltribe villages, we all stuck out like the wealthy, predominantly white, and privileged westerners that we are. It was probably the most "touristy" I've felt thus far in Thailand and gave our short stays an interesting dynamic. I also feel a little wrong thinking/writing/complaining(?) about this because there is definitely a privilege/power dynamic there. We came to the village on our own terms. We (in the general) decided how long to stay ect. This is all very confused in my head so I'm sorry if it's coming out wrong but my lovely friend Charlotte told me it was ok to share so I am.

In the villages we also learned a lot about some of the legal and policy issues facing many of the hilltribe groups in Thailand today. The villages were Dara Ang (Pahlong) and Lahu, two of the most recently immigrated tribes into Thailand. Many of the villagers we stayed with did not have full ownership of their land. This is because of many different factors including a lack of citizenship and those rights associated with it. By contrast, the two biggest villages we visited Mae Tah and Mae Meh were both kohn muang, ethnically northern Thai, and did not face the same issues, or at least not to the same extent. This was super interesting to me (SIP potential???) and I'm excited to find out more while in Thailand. Yay for nerding out.

Mae Tah-
The last part of expedition was spent in a village called Mae Tah. Mae Tah is super cool for a number of reasons, including the fact that they have an incredibly successful cooperative of organic farmers. We stayed in Mae Tah for 5 days in host families with another student. I lived with Dorraine and our family was so wonderful and great. Our Pi's were both fairly young and had only been organic farming for a few years. Helping them out in the garden on Family Day was definitely a highlight of our stay. We also learned how to make some Thai kanom (dessert) and played with our 1year-8month-old Nong Pahkat who was initially scared of me until we bonded over our mutual fascination with insects and tukes (giant geckos).

I didn't have any giant epiphanies in Mae Tah but the stay was a lot of fun and really informative. It was also great to see an organic system that works. While Mae Tah has the same problems of any rural/farming community, it is generally very self sustaining and successful and it was nice to end expedition on a note of optimism and warm feelings.

The whole of expedition was an amazing experience, full of so much fun, and learning, and interesting things. I've never really been in a position to devote myself entirely to experiencing new things and just learning, learning, learning all day erryday and I am so so SO ridiculously happy that I get to do that here. I'm SUPER excited for Political Ecology of Forests (our next course, we leave tomorrow, AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!) and all of the things we will see and do there. At the same time I am feeling a little rushed here. It's the end of October (we celebrated Halloween farang style with chocolate last night) and I've been here in Thailand for over two months. The time has just FLOWN by and that makes me nervous. I just want to see EVERYTHING and I feel like there simply isn't enough time. At the same time, I'm here until February which is a LONG way off. Kind of.

Loves!