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.

Steps to builing an adobe house

--Lay a foundation of rocks or cement. It is important that your adobe blocks do not start directly in contact with the ground to prevent termites from climbing through your walls and up to your roof.
--Make your mixture of clay, sand, fibrous material (such as rice husk) and water. Mix with feet (“I Love Lucy” style) and pour into blocks, easily formed by the frame of a basic wooden ladder.
--Let dry for 7-10 days.
--Stack your blocks in shape of desired house, leaving space for door and windows, and hold blocks together with a thinner version of your first mixture.
--Cover the inside and outside with same mixture. Add imprints and embellish for decoration as desired.
--Add thatched or tin roof using wooden frame directly on top, being sure to leave a long overhand beyond all walls to keep water away.
--Vuola! Move in, plant an organic garden, and enjoy your new home debt-free! Your new home will keep you protected from the elements and will maintain a fairly regulated temperature on its own. Hurrah for self- sufficiency!

Pun Pun: Living Sustainably

Pun pun is an organic farm, seed-saving operation, and sustainable living and learning center an hour outside of Chiang Mai in the small village of Mae Joo. We stayed with families for eight days in Mae Joo in pairs of two, learning the village Thai way of life, working and learning at Pun Pun, and running a kids camp for some of the village youth in the evenings.

Five years ago, Pee Peggy and Pee Jo (“Pee is used in Thailand for respect) bought the stripped piece of land on which they hoped to build Pun Pun with very little money. No one would ever know, however, because—with organic farming techniques and patience –where not even a banana tree would grow before crops are thriving. They are sure to keep nutrients circulating; far from monocropping on their nine acres they grow rice, sesame, passion fruit, pineapple, turmeric, kale, squash, papaya, basil, bananas…and the list goes on.

Many years ago, the Thai farmer was almost completely self-sustaining. But starting 50 years ago, the government introduced monocropping for export to make more money. People began working harder, cutting down more forest, and finally introducing chemicals. They were producing more, but producing only one crop did not provide them with security. Rice, their main crop, traditionally can only be regrown on the same land for three seasons before the land is stripped and they need to find fresh land. At Pun Pun, they are trying to reintroduce a self-reliance system to Thailand, providing people with more security, and harvesting less of a greater variety of crops all throughout the year and rotating crops to keep the land healthy.

When Pee Jo and Pee Peggy purchased this “unusable” land and began their unconventional practices, the villagers of Mae Joo thought they were crazy. Although chemicals were not introduced into Thailand’s agriculture until a mere 50 years ago, people already cannot imagine farming successfully without them. But that is alright; Pee Peggy and Pee Jo planned to lead by example. Sure enough, after only a few years the villagers started going up to Pun Pun asking for advice and adopting their techniques. Now Pun Pun offers numerous internships and provides week long intensive courses that are attended by people from all over—both from Thailand and abroad.

They are also using and teaching earthen building techniques. One-third of the earth’s population still lives in earthen homes, and it is the oldest building technique. With millennia of wisdom to learn from, earthen building may be something worth looking into! “Why spend the rest of your life worrying about paying off a mortgage when you can simplify your life, build yourself, and spend little to no money?” Pee Jo makes clear, a simpler life is a life with much less stress.

During our time at Pun Pun, we learned by hands-on experience. We made our own adobe bricks, helped to construct a house, added a final paint finish (paint made from earthen products such as clay and sand, of course,) and worked on organic farming techniques. Pee Jo is an inspiration, living his words and beliefs as very few can claim to do. In a world of fast paced advancement but less and less security, his example of self-sufficiency is becoming more and more attractive.

Mountain Trek

White and squirmy, its taste of coconut milk surprised me when I bit into it. The cricket I ate in Mexico had been so bitter compared with the mildness of this bamboo worm . On our six hour hike, one of our guides had gone off and gathered dozens of bamboo worms with his machete. For the past four days, we have been trekking with guides from the Mirror Art Group in the mountains of Northern Thailand, from hilltribe to hilltribe, staying with hilltribe families along the way.
Day one we stayed in a small Aha village, and were very lucky (or very unlucky we came to feel around 4 a.m.) to have arrived the evening of their New Year celebration marking the end of the rice harvest. The celebration entailed dancing, banging drums, and singing around a fire from dark until well into dawn the next morning—thus our frustration in the midnight hours as we tried unfruitfully to sleep with thin bamboo walls in the small window of opportunity we had between the time we left the celebrations and before the rooster were set to begin their wakeup call. The dances were performed to scare off spirits; because men must leave the confines of the village in order to work the rice paddies throughout the harvest, once the harvest is complete any spirits that follow them back in through the village gate must be frightened away. When we arrived, our families fed us well: the wonders one can do with little more than fresh vegetables, rice, a fire pit, a wok, and a mortar and pestal. Then they adorned us in traditional Akha garb for the festivities—ankle covers, head dress, and all—and we headed for the town center to dance around the blazing fire. The dances were simple, more or less just stepping together in a circle, but I’ll be damned if those elderly Akha women didn’t keep their vigor well until five a.m.! I’m sure that “whiskey lady,” walking around with a free flowing bottle of whiskey and a shot glass making sure everyone had had their fill, helped to keep spirits lively.
The next day our wet, rugged trudge through the forest was wonderfully balanced by the two hour elephant ride the rest of the way to the Lahu village, but day three was by far the most intense. We were in the mountains with no other human in sight from our start at 9 a.m. to near the time we reached the Jahu village at almost 4 p.m. Starting at 900 meters, we hiked up the mountain reaching 1500 meters and then decended to the secluded village on the other side.
The Mirror Art Group is a non-profit, non-government organization working in Chiang Rai. Through a number of projects, they help the peoples of the area make a better life for themselves while still retaining their cultural identities. They organize numerous advantages for the surrounding hilltribe communities, such as a television station with their local news, volunteer teaching, help achieving Thai citizenship, fundraising, and cultural experiences that help other Thais and tourists understand the hilltribes’ unique ways of life while creating pride for the hilltribe peoples in their traditions. All of the guides with us had themselves grown up around Chiang Rai in hilltribes. Their ability to navigate through unmarked jungle and their use of a machete as if it were a mere extension of the were impressive. But most impressive was their ability to understand the Thai language, English, and multiple hilltribe languages, all unintelligible between each other.

Bangkok, Thailand!!

My First Glimpse of Asia: Bangkok, Thailand

After Twenty hours in the air and thirty eight hours traveling, we arrived in Bangkok! We flew on Asiana airlines, who knows presentation. The flight attendant uniform was lovely, and they even had matching silk aprons for while they were serving! The food was wonderful. Ironically, as we looked around, it was we Americans trying to eat with the provided chop sticks while most of the Koreans around us were using the silverware!
In the Guest House, I awoke early (my internal clock will not be readjusted for a while, yet) and walked around the market with my camera. There are food stands anywhere you go. Thais are known for small meals often, very clear looking at this city. A food stand can never be too far, and though you may not be sure what it is that you will be eating, you can be fairly certain that it will be delicious. I found myself some Thai tea: a delicious, thick orange drink full of spices and condensed milk. Then leaving the street and entering the market, I was surrounded by meat. I wouldn't want to know what kinds. But absolutely as fresh as can be, can be sure. There even were a few skins hanging, I guess in case anyone has need for fresh flesh with fur attached. Then came the fish--fish in all stages. Alive, in line to be be-headed, and dead. Eels, catfish, squid, toads, turtles, squid, and just about anything else that swims or hops around Thailand. Oh, the smells! All with their own personal aroma, it was an experience to embrace. Then there were stands with women crushing fresh hot pepper mixes as I passed... and I've found the use for my left over Thai Baht when we come back through Bangkok!
I tried looking for cooking lessons last night...but I settled on a Thai massage, instead. One hour for 220 Baht...more or less seven dollars. It was extremely relaxing (except for the Thai massuses chatting back and forth, interupting the meditation of silence) except that my massuse worked all of the toxins from my body from the bottom up. But when she reached my head, she spent about thirty seconds and said she was finished, so they all got stuck there. So for the past day, I've felt a head full of toxins.
We spent the afternoon out as a group: we went to the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, and Wat Arun with a nailbitingly steep climb to the top to see over the city. They were all magnificent. They put most Western Cathedrals to shame. The colors are extraordinary, and the details are so intricate. Gold is everywhere, with bright rich blues, reds, greens, purples galour. The Grand Palace was established in 1782 and houses the royal residence, government offices, and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. His Majesty the King and Queen of Thailand have a status incomparable to those of most other countries. Their pictures are all over, their seal is on the shirt of just about every tenth Thai to be seen, and criticizing them is absolutely out of the question. Each of the Wats ( Thai place of worship) was just as colorful on the inside: we left our shoes outside of the door and sat on the floor. In a Wat, or almost anywhere for that matter, you must take off your shoes before entering as a sign of respect. Feet are a touchy issue and you must be careful: to point with your feet--intentionally or unintentionally--would be a huge offense.
We traveled place to place in boat: this is, after all, the Venice of the East. It was a glorious day and we couldn't have been luckier. The sky was blue and the clouds were billowing. AIn the evening, after our Thai massages, we had our own little yoga session with our newly relaxed muscles (we have both a trained yoga instructor in our group and a very practiced meditator who are only enhancing our experience) and then we went out to eat. After our three dollar meal in a restaurant with a fabulous ambience, we met with some artists right outside of our guest house and played music and danced until hostel guests began to complain. It was wonderful! It was a mix of bongos, digeridoos, guitar, and tamborines (and my dancing, of course.) Thais and Americans making music together in the sidewalk having a gay time...who's to say the people of this world can't live at peace?

This evening we leave for an overnight train to Chaing Mai where we will remain for two days. Then off to our first home stay in the tiny village of Pun Pun to, volunteer, learn about sustainable living, and learn about Thai life away from the cities!

After Twenty hours in the air and thirty eight hours traveling, we arrived in Bangkok! We are staying in the Tavee Guest house in the upper Right corner of the city near the national library and the Krung Thonburi Bridge...a very nice area.

We flew on Asiana airlines, who knows presentation. The flight attendant uniform was lovely, and they even had matching silk aprons for while they were serving! The food was wonderful. Ironically, as we looked around, it was we Americans trying to eat with the provided chop sticks while most of the Koreans around us were using the silverware! In Thailand, I awoke early (my internal clock will not be readjusted for a while, yet) and walked around the market with my camera. There are food stands anywhere you go. Thais are known for small meals often, very clear looking at this city. A food stand can never be too far, and though you may not be sure what it is that you will be eating, you can be fairly certain that it will be delicious. I found myself some Thai tea: a delicious, thick orange drink full of spices and condensed milk. Then leaving the street and entering the market, I was surrounded by meat. I wouldn't want to know what kinds. But absolutely as fresh as can be, can be sure. There even were a few skins hanging, I guess in case anyone has need for fresh flesh with fur attached. Then came the fish--fish in all stages. Alive, in line to be be-headed, and dead. Eels, catfish, squid, toads, turtles, squid, and just about anything else that swims or hops around Thailand. Oh, the smells! All with their own personal aroma, it was an experience to embrace. Then there were stands with women crushing fresh hot pepper mixes as I passed... and I've found the use for my left over Thai Baht when we come back through Bangkok!
I tried looking for cooking lessons last night...but I settled on a Thai massage, instead. One hour for 220 Baht...more or less seven dollars. It was extremely relaxing (except for the Thai massuses chatting back and forth, interupting the meditation of silence) except that my massuse worked all of the toxins from my body from the bottom up. But when she reached my head, she spent about thirty seconds and said she was finished, so they all got stuck there. So for the past day, I've felt a head full of toxins.
We spent the afternoon out as a group: we went to the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, and Wat Arun with a nailbitingly steep climb to the top to see over the city. They were all magnificent. They put most Western Cathedrals to shame. The colors are extraordinary, and the details are so intricate. Gold is everywhere, with bright rich blues, reds, greens, purples galour. The Grand Palace was established in 1782 and houses the royal residence, government offices, and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. His Majesty the King and Queen of Thailand have a status incomparable to those of most other countries. Their pictures are all over, their seal is on the shirt of just about every tenth Thai to be seen, and criticizing them is absolutely out of the question. Each of the Wats ( Thai place of worship) was just as colorful on the inside: we left our shoes outside of the door and sat on the floor. In a Wat, or almost anywhere for that matter, you must take off your shoes before entering as a sign of respect. Feet are a touchy issue and you must be careful: to point with your feet--intentionally or unintentionally--would be a huge offense.
We traveled place to place in boat: this is, after all, the Venice of the East. It was a glorious day and we couldn't have been luckier. The sky was blue and the clouds were billowing. AIn the evening, after our Thai massages, we had our own little yoga session with our newly relaxed muscles (we have both a trained yoga instructor in our group and a very practiced meditator who are only enhancing our experience) and then we went out to eat. After our three dollar meal in a restaurant with a fabulous ambiance, we met with some artists right outside of our guest house and played music and danced until hostel guests began to complain. It was wonderful! It was a mix of bongos, digeridoos, guitar, and tamborines (and my dancing, of course.) Thais and Americans making music together in the sidewalk having a gay time...who's to say the people of this world can't live at peace?

This evening we leave for an overnight train to Chaing Mai where we will remain for two days. Then off to our first home stay in the tiny village of Pun Pun to, volunteer, learn about sustainable living, and learn about Thai life away from the cities!

Estes Park, Colorado

I am in Estes Park, Colorado with both the Asia and Latin America groups at our orientation, preparing to leave early tomorrow morning (or late tonight--it's all perspective.) So far, all of the other students in my group are amazing individuals and the group leaders certainly will bring a great deal to the table with all of their insight and experience. Yesterday we went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park for several hours as an entire group. Three months with a group of individuals that gets excited about three hours hiking in mountains should certainly stimulate the adventurer in me!

Chronicles of Asia Fall 2008

Time to go abroad again...my feet have been itching to leave this local soil! I will be posting on my world journal throughout my experience whenever possible, and I will also be sending articles to Hofstra's newspaper, The Chronicle. Here is my first article for the Chronicle:



Semester Spent Half-way around the World

Fall 2008 will arguably be the most exciting semester in Hofstra’s history. But my thoughts will be far from Hofstra’s campus. For a full semester I will be backpacking through South East Asia with a small group of students led by an organization called Youth International. And—fully contingent on Internet access—I will be reporting back to you through The Chronicle!

We will spend three months traveling through Thailand, India, and Vietnam, seeing everything from the biggest, most global cities to the tiniest, most isolated villages.
Is this a study abroad? --Not in the typical sense.
Is this just a vacation? --Certainly not.
What is it, then?

It is an adventure.
The group will travel mostly by train, by bus, and—lest we forget—by foot. We will explore on bicycle, touring the remains of Thailand’s ancient capital city of Ayuthaya. There will be three four-day treks: through the northern hills outside of Chiang Rai, Thailand, in the Himalayan foothills in Dharamsala, India, and between tribal villages in the mountains surrounding SaPa, Vietnam.

It is a hands-on learning experience.
The group will visit historical sites from the Grand Palace in Bangkok to the Ghandi Museum in Dehli and the Taj Mahal in Agra. In India’s Golden Temple, we will live with other “pilgrims” while learning about the Sikh faith. Next, in Daramsala, India, Tibetan families in exile will open their homes to us to enhance our understanding of Tibetan culture, history, and contemporary culture. From there we will attend a four-day meditation retreat practiced in Tibetan tradition. Later we will take part in workshops on sustainable living techniques including organic food production and natural building, and at a local NGO (non-governmental organization) we will be introduced to development issues faced in local “Adivasi,” or India’s indigenous, communities. As if all of those are not emersion enough, in Jaipur we will wake up to yoga classes, Hindi language lessons, and workshops in India’s traditional Batik art.
…So—though I will not receive enough credits to even qualify myself as a part-time student—it will be a full-time learning experience.

It is a volunteer experience.
While living with local families over the course of the three months, we will teach English in local schools to young children. We will work together to construct a local community theater in India, and we will also work to reconstruct a home on Thailand’s island of Ko Lao, an island entirely wiped out by December 2004’s Tsunami.

All of this while you are back studying out of textbooks at Hofstra? You bet’cha. (Don’t worry: I’ll get mine, too, when I have to stay in college for an extra semester.)

My focuses at Hofstra as an undergraduate are global studies and photography. How will these be utilized, you ask? For global studies, see every above description to cover every definition of “global.” For photography, I will hopefully be sending a picture or two with my articles (again, pendant on internet access.) With that said, anticipate to be reading from me again soon after my departure this week!

For more information on this program, Youth International, go to www.youthinternational.org or for the Asia program’s specific itinerary go to www.youthinternational.org/itineraryasia.aspx .


Alex Moore
September 15, 2008