Abroad in Thailand: November 2013

Even I still have about a month left in Thailand, this past week was our last full week in Chiang Mai. Thus, the week of lasts began, with everyone trying to cross things off their bucket list for the city. I really didn't have too many activities left on my list, other than making it to a few restaurants/cafes and of course my final Walking Street! I did, however, want to make it to the climbing gym, which we finally managed to do last weekend!

Other than that, it was a busy week. We had quite a bit of readings in preparation for our next course and it felt like my brain just didn't want to absorb any more Thai. Combined with a little run-in with some dogs in Chiang Mai University (I'm fine), feeling stressed and exhausted, a Thai reading test and oceans essay, and less sleep than I should have been getting, it wasn't necessarily the best of weeks. I think, though, that the semester is just catching up to me and everyone else as well. We've been on the go since early October, and I was thinking that I haven't slept in the same location for more than a week since Foundations ended so long ago. So I suppose a little fatigue is to be expected!

In light of all this, I figured I would share a little bit about everyday life in the city. After some requests from home, I started trying to document our everyday activities; we live pretty normal, everyday lives in the city (to some degree) so the pictures don't necessarily seem as exciting to me as do mountains and rice fields. Nor do they seem to really do the experience justice, but hopefully they'll give you a bit of an idea about semi-adult life, aka life in the apartments where we may have graduated to high school from the preschool days of our homestays!

I'll let the photos do the talking....

We walk half an hour to and from school each day. This is the entrance right off the road.

Here we are walking down the driveway, with the CrossFit gym ahead and the instructors' motorcycles on the right.

This is our main outdoor space (it's covered with a roof), though it probably has 6 tables and is much bigger than it looks. We eat lunch here everyday, in addition to sorting/handing out gear.

Gear storage and part of the bouldering wall.

Our front yard with tables and a swing.

Thai classroom. We calculated we've spent over one hundred hours in this room....lots of great memories!

Whiteboard the other day. If you see spears and fish, you're correct; we were learning about mangrove forests and fishing techniques!

The front of the apartment buildings. The coffee shop on the left is where I'm sitting right now writing this post!

Our apartment building.

New mall just up the road on the way to school. The progress is more noticeable each time we return from an expedition, and I believe it is supposed to be open by the time we return from Oceans.

Thai class love! Hard to believe Friday was our last day of class ever.

Walking home from school.

Front gate of Chiang Mai University (CMU). I pass this every morning on my runs.

CMU track. I frequently run here to either just run laps or pretend like I still have speed in my legs! If you look really close at the mountains, you can see Doi Suthep, where we hiked to during Foundations.

Walking Street. Basically one long street probably a couple kilometers long, lined with every sort of art or good you could want. It's every Sunday evening, and we love to go there, walk around, hunt for gifts, and get great street food.

Smoothies are probably one of the greatest aspects of Walking Street (and other markets). Take your pick of tropical fruit, add in a little sugar and water, and there you go! I think in this picture we had dragon fruit, banana, and pineapple.

This is the road where we live, and just up on the left is the coffee shop we frequent for internet access and computers, mainly for skyping and essay writing.

Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures (CMRCA) bouldering wall. Finally made it there!

Awesome market just around the corner from CMRCA. The food here is delicious!

Turkish chicken kabob and watermelon smoothie...new favorite foods!

Samosas from the Indian food stand at Walking Street.

ISDSI treated students and staff to Thanksgiving dinner last night. Here we're toasting to pumpkin and apple pie!

More Thai class love!

We went to Burma! Not again; this was earlier in the semester. Unfortunately we were there for less than a half hour.

Street food at Walking Street.

Walking in the Old City.

That's it, some snapshots of life in Chiang Mai city! Now off to run some errands and pack before leaving for Oceans early tomorrow morning!

Another course down, another month passed. Hard to believe it's the end of November, that the holiday season is rapidly approaching, that we only have one more course left. Maybe it's the lack of changing seasons, but it still feels like summer here, despite the time seeming to fly by!

Forests is all about political ecology, which is an extremely broad term, and I'm not even sure if we were actually given a set definition for the course. Either way, the basic idea is approaching an issue from both its environmental and political/economic viewpoints. Talking about land as we were, this idea encompasses a multitude of issues. Mae Hong Son, where we were, is located in the uplands of Northern Thailand. It is populated mainly by ethnic minorities, though we focused only on the largest group, the Karen people. The Karen come from Burma but have been living in this area of Thailand for hundreds of years. They practice a form of agriculture called swidden agriculture or slash-and-burn agriculture; what this means is that they will burn an area of land to release the nutrients into the soil and then immediately plant vegetables and rice. After harvesting the crops from this land, it will then be allowed to fallow for a period of ten to twenty years, and to return to a forested state; each year, a new plot of land is burned and then used. The Karen view this method of farming as sustainable and conserving of the resources.

Outsiders, mainly government officials, however, do not feel the same way about swidden agriculture. They view swidden agriculture as the cause of deforestation, air pollution, loss of forest biodiversity, and the root cause of environmental problems for lowland patty farmers. Other problems have arisen as well because the Karen live and farm land that is being turned into National Parks. In some instances, villagers are being forced to leave; in other instances, they are allowed to stay but on much smaller areas of land. There have been clashes with government officials over the land because oftentimes villages do not have land titles that would give them ownership of the land, yet national park boundaries are being drawn randomly without regard to the areas that are already being inhabited.

Guided primarily by local villagers' knowledge and village meetings, we explored these issues in seven different villages, as well as community solutions. Again, our perspective was focused on the people themselves, so that's what I'll focus on. Though villagers do not have land titles, they are working with an NGO in Mae Hong Son city to create zones for their different areas of land (conservation forests, preservation forests, community use forests) and to develop and make official in higher levels of government rules regarding natural resource use, both in the hopes of showing officials they are capable of conserving the land and its resources and hopefully eventually leading to a community land title. The other main topic of discussion was Community Based Tourism (CBT). Most of the villages we visited are involved in this initiative. CBT was started mainly because tourists were also coming to the area and it was a way for villagers to earn extra income, but villagers are also involved in CBT to show outsiders their livelihoods, hopefully shifting negative perceptions of swidden agriculture.

For Group A, my group, our expedition started with a four-day stay in Huay Tong Kaw village. While there, we had a variety of activities. As a large group, we talked to villagers during a village meeting. We also had separate gender meetings, which were a riot! I can only speak for the women, but it started innocently enough talking about families, marriage, and birth control. Except probably the most outspoken woman in the village was having none of this; in addition to introducing herself as inappropriate names, she wanted to know the scoop about women in America! So funny! In addition to two family days where we got to harvest rice, we also had a culture day where we learned to sing the traditional "flirting song" when a guy is courting a girl; made bamboo baskets; learned about blacksmithing; and learned about traditional medicine practices.

I, coincidentally, ended up living with the village herbal medicine man! It was ironic because the placement was totally random, and I didn't actually realize this until the herbal medicine lesson was at our house! Both my host parents, however, were so sweet. I think some of my fondest memories of the expedition will be sitting around the kitchen fire chatting with my host dad while he cooked food. Probably the second fondest memory is of my host mom. She would randomly sit down next to me, place her hand on my knee, look into my eyes and just speak at me! I say this because she didn't speak Thai and my Karen language skills end with "hello/good-bye/thank you," "very good," "uncle," "aunt," and "cat," meaning I could understand absolutely nothing she was saying, and the only thing we were both able to do in that situation was laugh!

Our field

Lunch while harvesting rice at the field

My house

Blacksmithing

Where we spent most of our time

My host parents

After Huay Tong Kaw, our group moved on to Huay Hee village. Coming from Huay Tong Kaw where I was definitely part of the family, it was strange to be treated more as a visitor and feeling less a part of the family. My host parents, however, were very nice and had the most adorable little boy. Huay Hee is an all-Christian village, so we got to experience a church service, and let me tell you, 2.5 hours is a long time to sit when you're hungry and can't understand anything that's being said. And I was lucky because I only had to go once! It was neat though because apparently villagers welcome visitors by inviting them to share a song, so all of us students got up and sang "Silent Night." Throughout our stay though, a definite highlight of Huay Hee was playing soccer with the village kids and men on a dirt field under the shadow of the mountains until-literally- the sun set and it was too dark to play any more.

Also in Huay Hee was our midcourse seminar. We hiked Doi Pui, the second highest mountain in Northern Thailand. The views were breathtaking, at one point we were literally surrounded by a cloud, and it was one of those days where everything was just right with the world! I'll let the pictures do the talking:

With our Pi's!

Nearing the end of our stay in Huay Hee, the other group arrived for their midcourse, which meant we were able to have our second culture exchange as a large group! Culture exchanges are a pretty cool event, and it is exactly what it sounds like. Our two groups go back and forth, sharing whatever we feel represents our culture. Our exchanges included the singing of The Star Spangled Banner and Wagon Wheel, irish dancing, rapping, the cup song (where you sing and clap on cups), and Ninja (the last two, ironically, where the biggest hit and had one woman laughing so hard she could literally not keep it together!). In exchange, villagers shared guitar playing, songs, and dancing. Really cool opportunities, that's for sure!

Villagers and students watching in Huay Tong Kaw

Sword dancing in Huay Tong Kaw

More sword dancing

Singing in Huay Hee

After leaving Huay Hee, we spent the rest of the course backpacking between I believe five different villages, staying only one or two nights in each. They all run together, so I won't talk about them individually but I will share some random stories:
~In one village, an elderly man had just passed away. He was Christian but many of the other villagers were Buddhist. Per Buddhist tradition, villagers stay up all night drinking and gambling next to the body so the spirit doesn't get lonely. Imagine our surprise to find what seemed like an entire village of drunk people! But actually, a really great opportunity to witness an event that not many students get to witness.
~In another village, we had weaving day, where we learned how to weave, spin cotton, and make natural dye by boiling leaves.
~Realizing just how remote we had been (and slight culture shock) when we hiked into our last villages and saw paved roads, electricity, motorcycles at every house, houses constructed using wood and concrete, washing machines, and stoves.
~Exploring Mae Hong Son city the last night of the course, and letting off lanterns in celebration of the Lantern Festival.