Church in Backenyaw

Women's choir performing at church.
A young Karen girl in a traditional white dress that women wear to indicate that they are unmarried.

We spent a total of five days in Huay Hee. On Sunday we went to church with our mother. Huay Hee is a completely Christian village and they have about five services on Sunday. The Karen in Huay Hee converted to Christianity from animism several decades ago, because their animist traditions required the entire village to move any time there was a tragic event. They Karen were tired of moving around all of the time, so they decided to adopt Christianity, so they could stay in place (I have a feeling that modern pressures and missionary work also helped form their decision to convert). In fact, Backenyaw was not a written language before they converted to Christianity, at which time missionaries helped the Karen develop a written language so the Bible could be translated.

Our host mother went to every service on Sunday, except for the men’s service of course. Ellen and I went twice, but declined to go the third and fourth time. As beautiful as the choir sounded, that was just too much church in one day for me.

Host family in Huay Hee

Adorable Huay Hee host family.
The paved road through the village.

Huay Hee, seems a lot more metropolitan than the others (probably because it has a paved road). Still our bathroom has no door and drainage was obviously not taken into account when the concrete bottom was installed. I had to take a bucket shower in my pasin (a wrap around piece of cloth) in a puddle of cold water. Our host family is adorable and very young. Our host mother is 27 and our host father 23 (only 2 years older than me!). They have a three year old son who is an absolute terror. He played with us when we first arrived by showing off with his ax and then pretended to shoot with a piece of wood that he used as a gun. His redeeming quality is that he is possibly the cutest kid I have ever seen in my entire life. He has big bright eyes and an endearing smile. He’s too young to go to school, so he doesn’t speak any Thai yet and we don’t speak any Backenyaw (except for hello/goodbye/thank you, which isDa bpluegh and incredibly fun to say), so we communicate through facial expressions and actions. Words aren’t really needed to play.

Hike to Huay Hee

Rice balling trouble makers.
View during hike from Nam Hoo to Huay Hee.

After two days in Nam Hoo we hiked to the village of Huay Hee were we would stay for five days, have our mid-course seminar and meet up with the other group.

Journal excerpt:

Today’s hike was relatively easy. We went up a mountain and then down a mountain. The view at the top of incredible! Everywhere you looked you could see mountains. I really am in love with mountains! I was pretty sore today and I’m glad set a slow pace.

My host mother packed us way too much rice for lunch, so Brittnee, Kari and I were playing with it and balling it up. The balled up rice looked like snow balls, so we started throwing them off the mountain. Mid-act it occurred to us that what we were doing, probably wasn't riproy (a Thai concept of consideration, respect, propriety, etc. For us, it determines what is culturally appropriate). We bashfully looked at our Karen guide, Pi Sawong, and apologized for not being riproy. He laughed and in typical Thai fashion of round-about reprimanding, he said, "It's ok. It's a different culture."

Once we arrived in the village my mood began to plummet. I'm crabby. I’ve been with people for days and days and in the villages I always have to act interested and be polite. It’s actually a lot of work to stay social all of the time. What I’m craving right now is time to myself.

Working in Nam Hoo

Our beautiful host mother carrying chopped wood up the hill with her head!!
Kari and I were struggling to carry the wood up the hill. Our host mother really showed us up.
Our host mother chopping wood with incredible precision.
Our house in the village of Nam Hoo.

Family Day in Nam Hoo

Nam Hoo was a delightful village to be in. It was quaint and nestled into the mountains. In every direction I looked, I could see mountain peaks. For this homestay I was with two other girls, opposed to the normal 2 people per house. Our host mother was middle-aged, speaks Thai and strikingly beautiful. She ate dinner with us and even let us help with the dishes. We were so tired after the hellish hike that we went to bed at 6:30 pm.

(To be polite, Karen people let their guests eat first and then eat separately afterwards. I didn’t really like it and I always trying to get my host family to eat with me. Sometimes a family would prepare more of a different kind of food for themselves, but other times they would just eat the left overs. This always left me in an awkward position because I never knew if they’d be eating my left overs until after I was done eating, at which point, what was left was usually meager helpings. Other times, the families would sit and chat with us, but still not eat until later.)

The next day in Nam Hoo was a “family day” which I interpreted as a rest day. I was incredibly sore. In the morning we were talking to our host mother and I asked her about her husband because we hadn’t seen anyone else in the house yet. Through our broken Thai and many hand motions we discovered that he was dead. She had pointed to the sky and figured that meant he’d gone to heaven. We all looked at our host mother with sorry, sympathetic eyes.

Our host mother decided that we were too tired to go to the rice fields, so we helped her saw a teak log into fire wood. The work wasn’t too tiresome, but chopping the firewood did take some skill. Our host mother always hit her mark, cutting the log in halves and then fourths. She let me try, and it was pathetic. I never hit the same point twice and never with enough force to do any good when I did succeed in hitting the log. Our host mother laughed and laughed (as did our awesome Karen field instructor, Pi Sawong. He’s not a permanent ISDSI employee, but should be. He is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met, more on him later).

We then filled baskets with the firewood to hike up the hill to our house. When the weakling that I am couldn’t quite lift up the basket, my host mother helped me by instructing me to put the strap around my forehead and carry the wood up with my head. Really? I tried it and as soon as she let go of the basket my head snapped back. That was definitely a no go. A friend helped me carry the basket up the hill. At the top we looked back and our host mother was trucking up the hill, carrying the heavy basket with the strap around her forehead.

Later in the day, we met our host mother’s daughter. She showed us family photos. We got to a photo of her father and we all made sad faces and said we were sorry. A few hours later, at dinner a man came into our house and started to talk with our host mother. He began to move things around and help cook dinner. We were all so confused. He looked strikingly similar to the man in the photo shown to us earlier. Finally our host mother introduced him as her husband. The other girls and I looked at each other and began to laugh. We thought he was dead, when really our host mother was trying to tell us that he’d gone to the upland rice field!! The misunderstanding gave us a good laugh.

Hike to Nam Hoo

(A tough hike. Beautiful Forest)
(playing with the children at the school in Huay Nam)
(A Karen woman, wearing traditional clothing, at work)
(The tea served to thirsty, tired hikers)

(The fungus is among-us: a forest shot)

The hike to Nam Hoo was brutal. The first 40 minutes were pleasant, but the next 3 hours were straight up hill. At one point our guides got frustrated by the relatively slow pace of our group and just booked it to the top. We spent the next hour trying to discern where the path was and searching for the footsteps of our guides. At the top we paused for lunch, only to find that leeches had wiggled their way in past our gaiters, pants and socks. The anticoagulant that they secrete left us all with bloody feet and ankles.

After lunch we were under the assumption that the rest of the hike would be easy, because we were following a road down to the village of Nam Hoo. The second half of the hike turned out to be one of the most strenuous hikes I’ve ever done. After hiking straight up for another hour and a half with no shade (because we were on a road), we went straight down. The roads were not paved, but rather bumpy dirt roads that were washed away in many parts and eroded on the sides. The compact dirt and loose gravel made it difficult to get a solid footing. The downhill wreaked havoc on my shins, toes and quads. We had a few close calls, with people slipping here and there and their heavy packs pulling them down on their backsides. If it were not for a great group of people, singing and making good conversation, the hike would have much much worse.

Huay Nam tots

Hike to Huay Nam

Hikes through Mae Hong Son

Our first hike us took us through small streams and a few shallow rivers. In all we had about 30 “river crossings.” It was a beautiful hike. Shaded and peaceful. Some of the hike was pretty technical. I remember at one point I was practically rock climbing as I shimmied over a damned up part of the river, clutching onto a boulder. The last part of the hike was brutal. It was straight up hill with no shade. I was cursing the terrain under my breath. It was such a relief to enter the village, Huay Nam—or the village of tots as I like to say. There were so many little kids and young animals running all over the place. The piglets, kids and baby water buffalo ran away from us whenever we got too close. There were so many cute things in the village that it was a little overwhelming.

At one point I was trying to coax a baby goat into coming closer and a Karen woman saw me. She walked out of her house and, without hesitation, picked up the baby goat and put it in my arms. It was so adorable! The next day I tried to follow her example, by scooping up a baby goat. It’s mother came after me and started to get pretty aggressive, ramming it’s head into my knees. The Karen woman just laughed as I ran away screaming.

We spent two very enjoyable days in this village. In the morning of our second day I got to harvest rice with my host grandmother. She also didn’t speak any Thai, but we got by through pantomimes and smiling. I really enjoyed harvesting the lowland rice. With the help of the other two girls I was staying with, the four of us cleared quite a lot of rice (although we only cut and did not bundle the rice). I got into a rhythm and could have stayed out there for hours with the company of my thoughts. The entire rice harvest process is a lot of work and I can see why it is a community event.

In the afternoon we went to the village school to play with the kids. We passed out cookies and asked them their names. The ages ranged from 4 to 11. They were adorable. We played tag. London Bridge is falling down (but with Karen lyrics about vegetables and fruit), duck duck goose (again with Karen words for different animals), birdie on a perch and set up an awesome obstacle course. Of course the little kids always won the obstacle course because they were so tiny and nimble. It was so much fun laughing and playing with the little kids. Hanging out with kids is one of the few times when the language barrier isn’t a painful obstacle.

An excerpt from my journal:

A typical village morning…I was awoken at 3:30 a.m. by the roosters. The one across the street and the one under our house did a call and response for about 2 ½ hours. I officially woke up at 7 a.m. Around 8 a herd of water buffalo walked down the path in front of our house. The were unattended and seemed to know exactly where they were going. The last in line paused, looked me in the eyes and then continued.

(I remember thinking how bizarre this morning was at the time, but by the end of my time in Mae Hong Son, I’d grown accustomed to large packs of animals wandering wherever they pleased. I never got used to the roosters, however.)

Political Ecology of Forests

(Written in Thai on the side of the bus: Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son)

The field portion of our Political Ecology of Forests course took place in the province of Mae Hong Son—north west of the province of Chiang Mai and bordering Burma. During our time in Mae Hong Son we hiked between Karen villages, staying for different amounts of time in each. The Karen people make up a hill tribe that came to Thailand hundreds of years ago from Burma. The Karen use swidden-fallow (slash and burn) agriculture in their mountain settlements. Over the past few decades the Royal Forestry Department has tried to relocate Karen villages that were within the boundaries of the national park. Forming a network of village leaders and working with an NGO, the Karen showed the Royal Forestry Department that they could live sustainably with the land and preserve forest through their agricultural practices.

In getting to the mountainous province we took an eight hour bus ride with over two thousand turns, and with the way Thais drive, it felt like we were on an endless rollercoaster.

The first village we spent the night in was Pakalo. This is village is unlike the other Karen villages we visited because of its proximity to the city Mae Hong Son. Many Karen families move to this village to be closer to their children who are sent to school in the city after 6^th grade. Elderly Karen move to this village to be closer to the hospital and others move here to work. The village does very little farming and only has an acre or two dedicated to rice production. Most of their food comes from the city.

Here is an excerpt from my journal:

Nov. 2

We’ve arrived in our first Karen village after a bumpy, sweaty and all together uncomfortable 8 hour bus ride to Mae Hong Son. The small village is charming and smells nice—like the woods—damp wood and burning wood. It’s a welcome break to the gripping pollution of Chiang Mai, where the smell of exhaust takes hold of your body and gets stuck in your nose and lungs. Communication with our host mom is tough. She doesn’t appear to speak or know any Thai, except for the word ab nom, which means to shower, which she is very adamant we do (note: Karen have their own language, Backenyaw, but most Karen know Thai because that is the language taught in school).

The houses here are packed so close together and I can hear everything being said. It’s nice and provides a sort of sound track for my experience.

Setting my float into the Mae Ping

Lighting the candle in my float before I put it into the river

Setting off a lantern

Loy Kratong

Loy Kratong is a Thai celebration that takes place in November each year. Before we left for the beautiful mountains of Mae Hong Son, we were able to partake in some of the festivities.

The festival is meant to honor the spirits of the river, Mae Ping, which is the central river running through Chiang Mai. As few as ten year ago the river was a hot spot of activity for city residents to bath, wash clothes and transport goods. To thank the river spirits and apologize for all of the pollution caused by humans, small floats, made out of banana tree cores and decorated with banana leaves, flowers, incense and candles, are put into the river as an offering. Our Thai Ajaans helped us make floats at school and explained the traditions.

In addition to releasing a float on the river, many people release lit lanterns into the sky. On the first night of Loy Kratong I stood on the roof top of our apartment complex and watched thousands of lanterns float above the city. It was gorgeous. I released a lantern with some of my Thai friends. We wrote our wishes on the lantern before we set it up. They said that if the lantern caught on fire, or didn't take off properly, you'd have bad luck and your wish wouldn't come true.

After setting off our lanterns, we went down to the riverside to put our floats in the river. It was absolute chaos. Fireworks were going off everywhere--big and small. Some large ones went off so close to the ground it was terrifying. I bought some small fire crackers with my friends. As the whole city going nuts with fireworks, my friend Adam said, "it's like every 10 year old boy's dream come true." At one point, something exploded in the middle of the river. I shrieked. With whizzing fire crackers and explosions everywhere it felt like I was in the middle of a war zone.

It was exhilarating. From one moment to the next I never felt the same--brimming with glee and fearful for my life.