"I feel like the Pied Piper!"

This past Thursday through Sunday we visited a Lahu village near Chiang Rai to do research for our Social Context of/for Community Development.  It was absolutely amazing!  The ride from TLCC (where we live) took about 3 hours.  After we unpacked the trucks we split up into two groups and walked around the town.  By the time we found each other again we had amassed a group of about 50 kids!  We stood around in a circle and sang songs.  Well, we sang and the kids watched.  They don't know English so our songs were basically gibberish, but they didn't care.  There are very few farang (foreigners) that come to their village, so our presence was pretty exciting.  For the next three days, every time we walked out the door, there were kids there waiting for us.  It was a lot of fun to play with them and (attempt) to talk to them.  Between the little Lahu and Thai I have learned ( and  few of them knew a little bit of English as well), I was able to ask a few questions and have two sentence conversations.

The main reason we went to the village was to do a survey of the community and where it is in terms of development.  My group did a group interview with some of the men on Friday night.  It was supposed to start at 7:30, but we didn't actually begin until after 7:45 because the function on "Lahu time" (similar to Caribbean time).  It was interesting to watch how they interact and learn how they view the community while we waited.  We had a lot of questions, and we weren't even able to hit them all because it takes so long to have a conversation through a translator. It was frustrating at times because the questions were sometimes hard to get across and because the translator only gave us a summary of what was said.  I wish I could have understood everything that was said in the meeting.  At one point, towards the end, one of the older men in the group actually fell asleep.  That's when I realized it was probably time to wrap it up (it was almost 2 hours)!  We learned a lot about the community, which I will eventually have to write a paper on :( 

We stayed with a woman who is in the local government.  She represents the Lahu people and has done a lot to help her community.  One of her biggest contributions was to create a group to help people who have TB and to teach the village about TB prevention and treatment,  They are a group of volunteers who give rides so the TB patients can get to the hospital for treatment, and when the patients come home the volunteers help them and encourage them to take their medications (which can be very confusing).  Many of the Lahu believe that TB is terminal and there is no cure, so she has done a lot of work to teach them that there is a cure.  Also, the patients often feel better long before their medication is done and stop taking it too early, then they relapse and have worse problems, so the group does a lot of work to make sure that everyone finishes their treatment.

The pastor of the church is the man who translated the Bible into the Lahu language.  He is highly respected in the community.  I wish that we had been able to meet with him, but we did not have a chance.  We were told that he has had a mild stroke and is not doing well.  We did get to briefly meet his wife; she is an amazing woman.

While we were there we were also able to go on an elephant ride and visit a children's home (not orphanage, many of the kids parents are too poor to care for them and pay for school, but they go visit them sometimes on weekends and during the summer).  The kids at the orphanage were really sweet.  I was disappointed that much of the time we were there was very structured.  We only got to really interact with them for about a half hour or forty-five minutes.  They showed us around and then we played sports.  Some played soccer and the rest of us did a combination of volleyball and tekraw in a circle.  It was a lot of fun, and I was able to hit the tekraw ball a few times.  I must say that the girls found our lack of skill quite amusing.

We also visited the White Temple in Chiang Rai for our Cultural Arts class.  It is very beautiful and creative, but it is sad that it is built for the wrong purpose.  It was funny because when we were told where we were going we all expected it to be a few hundred years old, but it is not.  It is still being worked on and is not expected to be done until 2070 at the earliest!  To get inside you have to walk over a depiction of suffering, basically it is a pit with hands reaching up.  Really creepy.  When you get inside there are finished murals on the front and back walls and one in progress on a side wall.  The back wall is a depiction of the Earth with all its evil.  It is very interesting to look at.  It has historical figures and events, metaphorical images, and superheroes and pop culture icons (including Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and even a scene from Avatar).  The whole thing is an effort to gain merit so the people involved can have a better next life.  It is so sad that all this work is being put into this one thing to gain merit for a life that will never exist. 

This week is short (only 4 days) because we are attending the Southeast Asian Film Festival at Payap University in Chiang Mai.  All the films will either be in English or have English subtitles.  I am really excited because the directors will be there to answer questions after the films.  Can't wait!