Ya samoonply:herbal medicines
Life: Rice and mountains
Huay Tong Kaw: Oh how I miss thee
The light streaming in through the ceiling made of "tong kaw": how the village got its name
On top of Doi Pui: the tallest mountain in Huay Puling district
LIMBO
Take a trip with me
We'll start in the back of a pickup truck, 5 eager students bounce up and down as they wind their way up and through mountain after mountain. Into the heart of the forest, hours away from telephone service and junk mail. Miles away from paved roads and traffic jams. Worlds away from the city life your accustomed to.
Now you've arrived at Huay Tong Kaw. Greeted by your smiling Moogas and Pawtees (aunts and uncles) A village with a vibrant and close knit Karen tribe community eager to share their culture, their time, and more than a few laughs with their new children. Don't worry, it takes no time to get accustomed to life in the mountains. Waking up to the chickens, a not entirely welcomed personal serenade welcoming you to join your family around the fire...which is providing the only heat and light as the sun has yet to be awakened by the poultry choir. A couple hours of slowly and steadily cooking eggs, pumpkin, and peppersauce (always accompanied with rice of course) all the while singing songs in bawkenyaw, a way for mooga napal to simultaneously teach and poke fun at her silly foreign children. All the while Pawtee Sakoo scurries about busily, making bamboo cups, feeding the pigs that grumble hungrily underneath the tree house-esque, stilted bamboo fortress where you are residing.
Don't get too comfortable though, as soon as you've finished your delicious fill of neverending rice its off to the Rai/Na/...Rice field. A half hour walk of bumbling to keep up after 70 year old pawtees while trying to soak in the view, by the time you arrive somehow your moogas have already started working (Wasn't she still at the house when you left?) and your breath is already gone- taken away by the vastness of your families land amid the surrounding peaked landscape...a field of food..several families sustenance surrounded by wilderness.
But now is not the time to be out of breath, it's time to work. 4 hours of struggling to keep up with these beasts and you'll never take rice for granted again. They have the triple f's down to a bowing t- fun, fast, and fficient- so efficient they don't need the e. It becomes a beautiful rythym, cutting bunches with a sickle, tying the bundles with a clump of dried husks without sacrificing any grains (this step a swift dancing twist of the hand and husks for the teachers- a slow tangle of limb and lumps for the struggling student).
Don't worry, a break is in store...a trip to the "sabai shack" for lunch. Todays menu: More rice! With a side of more pumpkin, another type of equally deliciously spicy pepper sauce and upon special request: Zoo. A bawkenya delicacy. Commonly known to foreigners as wild rat. Freshly skewered and roasted personally by Pawtee Papu and cooked specially in front of your eyes right in the sabai shack itself. If that's not guaranteed freshness I don't know what is.
An hour of lounging, laughing, and licking your bowls clean and you'll be sent off with your pawtees, helping them carry 10 foot bamboo poles back home for several uses: making cups, baskets, floor repair, pipes, "thai twist ties"...and a variety of other creative and effective things. You can't help but be left in awe of their handiness.
The days pass in a flash, blurring into one big scene. A scene that leaves you with the feeling of laughing so hard your eyes are filling with tears, your side in the best kind of cramping pain as you remember playing limbo with the locals, laughing hysterically at your mooga as she continues her attempts to embarrass you by telling all the pawtees that you like to "Kee-ka-hoooo" (Shake your butt; synonymous with being promiscuous). Who knew you'd be paired with a woman whose quirkiness rivals your own. The scene leaves your head spinning as you try to hold on to everything you've learned. weaving baskets, weaving clothes, setting looms, spinning thread, dying thread from barks and fruits, blacksmithing, herbal medicines, traditional songs...each local teacher an unending source of knowledge and friendliness.
No time to get comfortable though. Pack up your belongings, it shouldn't' take long. It all fits into one large bag. Sling it over your shoulder. Let it get to know your back...they'll soon be best friends..they have quite a bit of time to get to know each other over the course of two weeks. Put on your quick dry clothing, your name brand boots and gear. It's time to get a little dirty and a lot wet- a combination of river crossings and intense sweating, an inevitable consequence of hiking through forests and up mountains.
At the time it will feel like the day will never end. With each peak you reach there is another in sight. Your legs may scream and your feet blister, but most of the time it's hard to think about anything other than the enormity of the trunks surrounding you, sprouting roots bigger than most trees you've ever seen. The variety and lushness of the forests. The clarity of the river. The overwhelming aura of pure wilderness. No time to want the pain to end if it means the beauty will be gone too.
But eventually you make it, everyone in tact though thoroughly exhausted and overwhelmed. Don't think you get a break though, in a short half hour your whisked off to the next family. The next adventure. The deaf grandma who works harder than most healthy boys your age, Take a trip with me
When you first meet this woman she'll have a basket on her back strapped to her forehead for balance. This basket probably weighs as much as she does, full to the brim of veggies from the farm. Within 5 minutes she'll spot a chicken climbing up the stairs and proceeded to grab a nearby machete and chuck it with surprising accuracy straight across the house at the aformentioned poultry. Don't worry she's just trying to scare it away. This woman is such a boss and you'll aspire to be just like her someday.
Hike after hike, family after family, as you go you'll get closer to the city. Closer to the end of your trip. Closer to missing all these experiences and people. Closer to understanding a complicated issue of people living among the resources of forests that are trying to be preserved by several actors, all who view the same land through a different lens.
Closer to Chiang Mai, closer to February when I'll be returning to all of you. It's bittersweet. Bitter and sweet. But don't worry... I'm only tasting the sugar on my tongue.
