The things I never want to forget about FORESTS:

The thing about going away for two and a half weeks is: where to start to tell the story? Even journaling while we were on expedition I felt overwhelmed by the amount of detail from day to day that I wanted to put on paper. Ultimately what I found was that it was the sensations, little moments that I wanted to bottle up so that I could open them again at free will and be transported back to the amazing places and be in the company of the amazing families that I have been with for the past few weeks.

In short, in two groups, our study abroad program hiked between 5 rural villages in the North of Thailand and stayed with families in each one. Some were closer to the city and others were farther away, but all rely on the forestland to farm rice and feed themselves. They are almost entirely self-sustainable, growing all of their own vegetables, and of course: rice. There is barely electricity, and in some villages barely any vehicles to travel there and away, because they rarely need to. This land and forest is home to the Karen people, a population of villages who truly value and cherish the gifts of the forests and live in respect to preserving it forever.

11/2/12 Huay Ton Ko, the first village: “I’m having a moment, and I need to write about it! All week I have wondered: does my MooGah (host mom) like me? I have mistakenly done a lot of rude things and she always scrunches up her face when I talk to her like she can’t understand. I just came over to the kitchen to look in an watch her cook, and in a rush she came over and hugged me. She has never initiated anything before- conversation, instruction, anything, but we just had a moment of understanding. I’m sitting here in the doorway where she sits and suddenly feel so connected to her. Even though we are socialized differently and behave differently and have different ways of acknowledging people, we are the same at the very center. Being in the village has been such a rejuvenating experience: being with people who care first and foremost about their own health and the health of the land.”

11/6/12 Huay Hee, the second village, writing to Ali about the things I don’t want to forget:

“1) The STARS. They are magnificent, I feel as though we can see every layer of them, and the milky way too! There are patches of sky that ebb and flow, darken and pearl into this milky strip of galaxy. The stars even twinkle here and even burst at times. Every time I look up at the sky, I’m sure my pupils get a little bit wider.

2) Waking up in the mornings. When we wake up, our MooGah has been up or a few hours already (usually since 4:30 am) cooking, so the sweetest smelling wood fire aroma fills the air of the house and coaxes us out of bed. Sometimes it is hard to wake up, and other times it is easier, but I almost always have to pee really bad after not wanting to get up in the middle of the night. So, we duck out from under the mosquito net and step carefully across the precariously placed bamboo floor emerging outside to a beautiful sunrise: the first few rays of day coming over the hill. On the walk down to the bathroom the puppies lick my feet and nibble at my pajama pants and I look out over the small farm below, perfectly rectangular brown raised beds, with grid like patches of green vegetables.

3) Writing by candle light- I love this lifestyle of getting up and going to bed with the sun, but the sun even still sets very early, so we burn a small candle on an upside down bamboo cup for a small bubble of light.

4) Bucket showers- a mix of discipline and relief… most of the time I’m so dirty that I’m eager to dump the ice cold water on my head.”

11/8/12 Nam Hoo: “We don’t stay as long in this village so it is harder to get to know our families, but we still had some cute moments today: My Bpatee (host father) took me to see the farm and a cave nearby that we actually went inside. He is so small and old and has about 10 LONG hairs growing out of his chin that I just want to wax right off. Also when he speaks he just grunts so I can barely understand him. But today he came over and sat with us and told us semi-sentimentally that he has never had daughters before

11/10/12 Huay Nam Mae Hong Son: “This morning we went to the rice paddy fields, its like a small haven of beauty and bounty of food! We cut rice and I cut my pinky with the sharp knife, and my MooGah lovingly rubbed an herbal leaf on it to stop the bleeding.”

11/13/12 Hike to Pakalo: “This was one of the most unbelievable hikes I have ever been on- we started out down a hill, overlooking the rice fields we had been working in the day before which was so fueling for the rest of the day. From here we decended into the jungle, and basically hiked down a river for 7 hours: through the whole thing massive rock walls rose up on either side and stretchy vines hung down. There were rushing waterfalls and technical moments involved. There were also parts where we came upon cairns that were very precariously placed, small works of art to show that some skillful people had walked before us.”

11/14/12 Huay Nam Mae Sa Guud: “By some fortuitous series of events, Emma and I ended up showering behind some lady’s house in her river. This was such an epic way to end the course- with Thailand trickling and spreading all around us, washing our hair and tired pruny feet in the cold water felt so good.”

Also, I am on recovery day 2 of food poisoning: living hell. Nothing makes you less apetized my your favorite Thai food than the memory of it shooting out your mouth and nose. I was basically a human faucet for 7 or 8 hours. I hope my Karma has some healthy times in store!

The piles of rice that have been cut

The "rai": bit of forest that has been burned to use to grow rice. But it will later be left to grow back into forest

The Naksuksa (students) tying rice

Looking out over Huay Ton Ko

One of my homestay houses

Dorraine and our host-niece

My MooGah in Huay Ton Ko

Our family's farm in Huay Hee

Our house in Huay Hee

Looking out over Huay Hee

Making natural dyes in Nam Hoo

Spinning cotton to weave

Daniel, weaving the cotton

Cutting rice in Hua Nam Mae Hong Son

Our family and house in Hua Nam Mae Hong Son

Top 5 Highlights of Food Systems Course

My Top 5 things to share…

         This block totally confirmed for me that I want to be a farmer… all I want to do and learn about is food. Food food food! I just love it! So yes, I was in complete love with everything we did on this course. Here is a play-by-play of the highlights, but basically what we did was travel around to different places and learn about methods of sustainable (economically, socially, and environmentally) agriculture in communities in Northern Thailand.

1) Pig Harvest.
We spent a few days at a project site in Northern Thailand that focuses on education of sustainable food production in the Northern Villages. There we had a pig harvest where we killed, butchered, cooked and ate a pig from start to finish. I have a lot more to say about this experience than I will let on right now, but it was really incredible for many reasons. I think everyone in my group had a different experience, but I will tell you about mine.

         Before we began we were asked to think about the moment that we went from thinking about the pig as an animal to thinking about it as food: it was always food to me. Even when we visited in beforehand and it was walking around and oinking, I thought of it as food. I surprised myself with this a little bit because I am a real pig-lover at heart, but this experience really just confirmed to me that I think of animals as food, and I believe they exist to be eaten.

         Basically what we did was hit the pig on the head to make it unconscious (one of my friend, Michael did this), then carried it over to a bamboo mat where my other friend Kari stabbed the heart and we bled the pig. From there we shaved its hair, cut it open, removed the intestines and brought the meat up to carve and cook with. This was a really hard experience for some people, but also very humbling. Where we all sat around and decompressed at the end of the day, talking about how it made us feel to see something die, how the pig must have felt, if we thought the process was humane or not… our Thai instructor reflected that there was nothing strange to about the day to her, that in Thailand people kill pigs all the time. (Yeah, they do!) People around the world kill animals every day, so they can eat. It made me feel a little bit guilty of our emotions, and really caused me to let go of all other factors and opinions that stand between me and killing animals. People do it to stay healthy and feed their families, it’s that simple. But this is just my personal opinion, I highly respect those who have big hearts and use them to feel sensitive towards suffering beings.

Our Pig, after being bled

2) Staying with a celebrity in the village of Mae Ta. 
Basically, I went to paradise. Our class went to stay in a village that is almost entirely self-sustainable after they switched from practicing industrial monocrop farming to polyculture organic farming. 20 years ago these farmers were in millions of Baht worth of debt, and my host father one day decided that he wanted to see if organic farming was more profitable- and it was. I stayed with the hero of the village! He went around teaching all of his friends how to farm organically, and started a cooperative and network of community support in the village. Today around 100 families in this village grow all of their own food and feel themselves and their neighbors, as well as earning a living from selling the rest of their food at a market in Chiang Mai. This village radiates health, happiness and resilience! My host sister Pi Pui is currently researching how to save seeds from the crops they grow in order to decrease their reliance on outside organizations even further. I want to say I will live here someday, or at least live in a place kind of like it… . The hardest part, though, was thinking about how much harder it is to farm this way in the United States. For Thai farmers it is less expensive to farm organically because they don’t have to spend money on fertilizers or pesticides, and the growing season is year-round.

Getting ready for the market

3) Selling at the market with my family. 
After our last night staying the self-sustainable wonder village that it Mae Ta, we woke up at 3:30 am and traveled to Chiang Mai to sell with our families at the Organic farmers market. One of my favorite parts of this day was bonding with my host mom, helping her take money, and bag produce, and talking to the customers in Thai… it was just so cozy, I felt so safe and pure standing next to her and helping distribute such healthy food. We were wrapped in a blanket of cool but humid darkness for about 2 hours selling from 5-7 am under the lights of the pavilion. There was just such community there, it really touched my heart. The best part is that we did a price and quality comparison of the products at the organic market versus the Thai version of Walmart. And guess what? The organic market products were on average 1/6^th of the price, and almost always came with better quality and selection. (!!!!!!!) Whaaaaat??? #GoawayUSA

Selling produce with out Mae, all from the farm <3

4) Learning about Agroforestry. 

Have you ever heard of it? I hadn’t… but now I have, and it’s AWESOME. Basically, it means utilizing a forest for food by growing native plants and trees and harvesting them with enough time for the supply to replenish itself. It’s taking advantage of the natural edible biodiversity in Thailand (which is very diverse). We hiked through 4 villages practicing agroforestry where again, the people are happy, healthy and resilient! Hiking between the last two villages was my favorite part- the hills literally rose up around us offering food in the most beautiful shapes and patterns- we hikes for 3 miles through hills and hills of food. The first village we went to we took a walk around the community forest with the village headman, Mr. Bueler. I have never seen such a physically enthusiastic food man in my life! He was around 70 years old. This man was about food through and through. He frolicked through the land practically clicking his heels with delight passing around food for us to sample, and thanking the earth for its bounty. He swung from vines, threw fruit in the air, and danced about making the sound effects of the forest. If this isn’t health, I don’t know what is…

The hills are alive, with the sites of food!

5) Snuggling. I’m a little bit shy to admit how much of a highlight this was for me, but being on a program of 28 people, it can be a balance to both experience Thailand, and also get to know everyone. There are so many people that I love here and am trying to get to know better, and one of the things I loved about this course was that we had time together, so we snuggled, and it was great.

Wooster snuggle! We had an awesome mosquito net that cradled us to sleep every night.

Pictures:

My Thai class, the day before we left our teacher :(

The fields near my host families house

The styles of houses in the village

Sohm Oh! (Grapefruit) which we picked off of this tree and ate in the middle of the woods! Local to the max.

The seeds from the vegetables my host family grows.

Preparing crickets for dinner (you pull out the anus and all of the intestines, and snap the legs off)

Eating the fried crickets

Hat time with Pi Pui (older host sister) on our farming day!

Dilip, an exchange farmer visiting from Bhutan

My host mother, working on the farm

We harvested this "weed" that is also very flavorful to put in eddies or curries, we sold it by the bunch at the market the next day.

Weeding

The miracle farm!

Making lunch

Pomegranates DO grow in Thailand, even organically!

My friend Sarah, Pi Pui and Dilip packing eggplant for the market

The organic market at dawn

Michael drinking organic coffee, conveniently in front of someone wearing the most functional hat ever!!

A sign outside the market

I love this picture, and I love this girl! She's the best <3 the uke is coming in so handy, and is fun to play in transit (right now we are in a Roht Deng- taxi truck)

Making a natural pesticide from enema, a plant that repels mosquitos

Using a massive mortar and pestle to mash our pesticide ingredients

Derek spraying the plants using an awesome pressurized backpack dispenser type thing

Next we poured hot water on it so the hair would come off, and we shaved it with little knives

Removing the intestines

Butchering all of the meat

We pretty much used all of the parts of the pig and had a giant feast!

Khaow Nee-ow or "sticky rice"- so. good.

An agroforest village

The cuties of the village <3 my host brother is on the left.

My awesome roommate, Liz

We came back from the villages and the next night went out for pizza with my family :) that processed stuff I told you about before...

This week we went over to cook a lot... Zena and I made Som Tam, grilled pork and sticky rice. "It is very delLEEcious" says Yod

And we made chocolate cheesecake...

And oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, (Zena, Yod, and Liz)

And sugar cookies, (Kari, Emily and Yod)

And apple crisp! (Yod, Emma and Nick)