From the postcard beautiful beaches of Koh Tao, we made our way to colder, mountainous Northern Thailand to officially begin our fourth core country. The topic this month: sustainable agriculture. Despite the itinerary switch that relocated this month from India to Thailand, our time here has been wonderfully fruitful.
We spent our first week at the Upland Holistic Development Project, or UHDP. UHDP is a working sustainable farm run by an NGO that works to test new crops, animals and farming methods before suggesting and introducing them to various local communities. While there, we learned firsthand about agroforestry, composting, making organic pesticides, raising pigs and propagating trees as well as the organization's community outreach projects directed at nearby tribal villages. We even witnessed and participated in the slaughter and butchering of a pig which allowed us an opportunity to discuss, among other things, how distant the meat we eat at home usually is from the thought of actual killing. Our time at UHDP was a great crash course in viable sustainable agriculture.
We
next made our way to the very Northwestern city of Mae Hong Son and from there,
a two hour drive into a national forest to a small community of about 30
families called Ban Huay Hee. Ban Huay Hee is a Karen village (the Karen are a
minority of about 400,000 in Thailand with an additional 7 million or so living
across the border in Burma) where the primary language is called Bawkinyal. It
has, for the past fifteen years, run a Community Based Tourism (CBT) program,
allowing the villagers to control the tourism industry around their homes.
Through the CBT, we spent three weeks in homestays, learning about the
village's sustainable agriculture practices as well as helping to weave cloth
and baskets. (The Karen are known as Master Weavers, and we have certainly seen
that they deserve the title). The warmth and generosity of the families we
lived with will be something we all carry with us. Ban Huay Hee was like one
big family (and, actually, may have been quite literally). The people taught
and shared a lot with us and we will miss them.