Homestay in Mae Joo

Mae Joo is a village of about 100 families. Diana and I stayed the week with Pee Noi and Pee Nit and their two children, Noi (7) and Nii (11.) They had a lovely wooden home that had belonged to Pee Nit's father (today, to build a house out of wood in Thailand is near impossible because of the extreme deforestation in the past 50 years,) with two luxerious squat toilets outside and running water (I realized how luxerious their home was later while staying with the Juhu hill tribe where there were no bathrooms and only one place in the village with running water.) Most Thai houses make no effort at having tight seals. What is the necessity? Often there is a foot or two gap between the top of the wall and the start of the roof, the windows have no screens, and bugs are just as acceptably part of the indoor environment as they are part of that of outdoors. And bugs--and not the standard USA sized bugs but mommoth ones--make niether house moms nor toddlers flinch. A six inch grasshopper? Great! Let's watch the two year old play pick it up and play with in inside the house.

Our meals always eaten on the floor with an elegant newspaper "table" cloth, and we typically ate sticky rice and veggies, fish, etc. with our hands. I have not had a single meal without rice (while staying with a family) in Thailand, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Thai cooking ingredients include: rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, oil, MSG, salt, sugar, garlic, hot pepper, veggies, and tofu, fish, chicken, or pork in a wide variety of combinations. That is Thai cooking in a nutshell. Examples of veggies: bamboo, pumpkin, tomato, greens such as kale, green beans, edamame.

On the second day we walked the few miles up to the nearby Lahu hilltribe village, Hu-e-La-Bute. The scenery en route: wet rice paddies, banana trees, papaya trees, avocado trees, trees of fruits that I am not quite sure I can pronounce, water buffalo, and rolling hills and mountains. In the village all of the adults were gone out in the fields save perhaps one school teacher, and children seemed to be running about unchecked. In all of these hilltribe villages, there are pigs and chickens/ roosters gallor. There are very few water buffalo or cows compared to what there used to be, however (we saw a small heard here and none in other hilltribe villages.) In the past, cows or buffalo were a family's bank. If a family came upon weath, they invested in animals. There was no bank in which to secure money, and so it was much safer to use a cow as a bank, earn interest in calfs, and when need be sell them for money or trade. But this came to be looked down upon by Thai society as outside influences poured in and so very few families do it anymore. All of the hilltribe houses here were made of bamboo, and most had thatched roofs. A good thatched roof will be impervious to rain and will last a good ten years. Smoke that gets trapped in the roof from families cooking inside will prevent termites, bugs, and moskitos...and did I mention that they are readily renewable and often at no cost?

Missionaries: while missionaries have been very unsuccessful in converting Thais, they have had much greater success in converting hilltribes. In this small village of bamboo houses, there was a large, cement church with a big cross on top. Typically--such as in the case here--missionaries will come in and offer food and money for education only to those willing to convert. So, if you don't let them "save your soul," then they likely will not help you at all.

Many houses in Thailand--both the Lahu houses and those in Mae Joo--are raised up on stilts because of the rainy season. The Lahu build bamboo houses up on stilts and their livestock live beneath, protecting from predators and providing security. they also act as very efficient garbage disposals: family members prepare meals inside, and any scraps they can drop down to the animals by lifting up pieces of the bamboo floor and dropping food through.

Boxing: Our nextdoor neighbor in Mae Joo coaches Mui Thai boxing in Bangkok. Thus, it became nightly ritual by the end of the week, particularly in Peer's case, for him to give the American kids a bit of exercize and a run for their money. I got free Thai boxing lessons! After Peer was done one night and they were looking for someone else to take a turn, I was naturally the first to step up. What awesome exercize! I wonder how much bringing a Thai personal trainer back to the States would cost me in Baht.

Funeral: There was a death of an elderly woman in the village on our first day in Mae Joo. Bummer for her, but a great cultural opportunity for us. For the three days before the funeral, community members constantly surround the family. Every evening people especially people congregate in big tents around the family's house. They pay respects to the body, but more so it is a meeting place for community members to laugh and have a good time. Not much somber atmosphere to be found: people seemed to be having a great time. Every evening the women make huge vats of food, be it dessert, soup,or rice to feed everyone. the day of the funeral is also a full day ordeal, with community members cooking lunch together, eating lunch together, and then heading over to the grounds for the cremation.