I can't remember if I explained what a homestay entails and I'm too lazy to go back and read my previous posts, but basically every time a new group of volunteers come through the foundation, they get to spend a few days with one of the local hill tribes. We are divided into groups of two or three people and we stay with a host family. The family provides us breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a place to sleep and shower. Unlike our setup back home, the sleeping accommodations may mean a small space on a concrete or bamboo floor and the shower facility may or may not be enclosed. No joke.
Being part of the ourdoor crew, I get to go on all the homestay visits, since the work generally involves us doing some kind of outdoor work. The last homestay that we did was unusual as we taught English to the kids, but generally we always do some kind of building or repair work.
From what I was told prior to the homestay, the village had applied for assistance from the Mirror Foundation. The severe storm we had a couple weeks back completely and utterly demolished one of the bamboo huts/bungalows and we needed to rebuild it. So we prepped on Tuesday by going up to a nearby bamboo forest and we actually cut down bamboo trees. It was crazy. We had these old, dull machetes that we used to hack at the trees. And, of course, there isn't a Thai version of "timber" so one of our more fragile volunteers got pummelled in the head by a falling bamboo tree because she wasn't paying attention. It was the top part of the tree, so its not as bad as it sounds. I know its not nice, but it was kinda funny. The girl was a freaking hazard. She was constantly getting in my way. I don't know if she though I was fragile, since I was considerably smaller than her, but she was always trying to take the bamboo I was carrying away from me. She would pull it out of my hands and then I would get whacked by some of the branches. I think I have some bruises under my ribcage because of her. The dingbat. Incidentally, she also slipped down the hill and twisted her ankle. (No, I didn't push her down the hill.)
I digress... so back to my story...after, we cut the bamboo, we had to carry them down the hill, cut them to the right length, then slice them open to make mats out of them. Can you believe it? All with a dull machete! It was so hard. We only managed to get half of them done. So we had to pack up the rest and take it with us to work on while we were at the village.
On Wednesday, we headed out to the Tebu Akha village, which is surprisingly close to the Chiang Rai airport. The village was named after the Tebu tree. (I'm probably totally getting the name wrong, so don't quote me.) They have been established for about four years, so they are still a fairly young village. There are only about 25 families and they weren't as well off as the last village we stayed at. This one apparently has a considerable amount of issues including, no viable water source.
Anyway, when we arrived at the village everyone came to shake our hands. I guess we were the first farang (foreigners) they've ever let come to their village and they were extremely grateful that we came to help them. I guess they aren't able to apply for government assistance due to their lack of Thai citizenship.
We were told that the family who had lived in the house that was destroyed could not afford to pay the cost to rebuild it because the patriarch only gets 500 baht a month from the government as a result of his disability. Not sure how that works, but that isn't a typo. 500 baht a month is like $15 bucks! I think his wife works as a day laborer and they have a bunch of kids. The nice thing is the village really pulled together to help this family. Other families took them in and they all chipped in to help us build the house. It's unbelievable how this community works together. Truly, I've never seen anything like it. For example, even though we stayed with one family, everyone chipped in to help feed us. When we worked on the house, the men in the village would come and help us They were running from house to house bringing food and making sure we had plenty of it. They would just give use huge mountains of rice and the greatest food you've ever tasted. OMG! Forget about Thai food, Akha food is incredible!
Again, back to my story...we spent Wednesday afternoon splitting and cutting the rest of the bamboo and getting it ready for Thursday. Then that night, after dinner, we all got together and listened to the villagers play their musical instruments. They were beating their drum, banging gongs and bashing their cymbals to make an odd sort of tune to which they danced in a circle. It was not entirely pleasing to the ear, but it was fun to watch. There was some debate that some of the older villagers were either straight up drunk or on something since a couple of them were out of control. But then again, they probably thought that about some of the more exuberant volunteers. It was all in good fun and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves.
On Thursday, the hard work began. After breakfast, we split into two teams - one worked on the building the house and the other team worked on pouring a new concrete floor for one of the single moms in the village. I was on the second team so I got to help with the flooring. We started off by laying strips of bamboo down on the dirt to make a grid. We used wire to tie the bamboo altogether. So can I just say that cutting the wire with a pair of really dull and useless pliers is not easy? I ended up having to use the wire cutter on my handy dandy Gerber. It was funny, when I pulled it out, the villagers were looking at it and wanted to see all the little gadgets. What wasn't so funny was when the priest asked me how much it cost me and I told him it was $36 USD. I didn't realize until it came out of my mouth that that is equivalent to almost two and half months of income for the family whom we are building the house. I felt like a major S@#!. I'm spending money on gadgets and he can barely feed his family. How humbling is that????
Anyhoo...we mixed piles and pile of cement and got the floor down. The other team put up the concrete posts and started making the bamboo frame for the house. That night, we all had another awesome feast. With the exception of the dog....So just some backstory, there were a few volunteers that have been talking about eating dog. Apparently, many hill tribe people eat it and they say its quite good. Almost like steak. Well, a couple of them have been hounding one of the mirror staff members about getting them some dog, so he went up to them Thursday afternoon and asked them if they wanted to try dog. Well, the boys are a bit tone deaf or something was lost in translation, because they thought he said "duck" and they were hi-fiving because they thought they would be in for a treat. Guess what? They were. They later found out that they misunderstood, but it was too late. The villagers had already gone to one of the houses at the bottom of the hill and dragged away one of the dogs that one of our female volunteers was playing with. She burst into tears, while another gal sat and watched them kill, skin, filet and cook the dog. I heard she took pictures too. Weird, but whatever. Then they all tucked in. Luckily, it was optional. I don't think I could have faced my poor Sammie if I did eat it.
After that traumatizing episode during which most of the girls were completely depressed, things did manage to pick up. We didn't do the crazy dancing again, instead the women in the village dressed us up in their traditional Akha garb and had us take pictures with them. It was pretty cool, though I was a bit embarrassed for some of our larger girls who couldn't exactly fit into parts of the costume. I also had a chance to talk with out team leader and about Akha customs. (see "Egg and Whisky Anyone?")
Since Friday was a half day, we started working right after breakfast. The local villagers began putting up the frame for the roof. Meanwhile, we began work on the walls, which entailed taking flattened pieces of bamboo and standing them upright between two halved pieces of bamboo. We then secured them to bamboo posts with nothing more than thinly cut strips of bamboo, which we had to dampen to make them more pliable. It was insane. Believe me, it's more difficult than it sounds. It was so hot, the bamboo strips kept drying out and breaking whenever we tried to twist them in knots.
By the time we left, we managed to get up three of the walls. Seriously though, when I looked at that house all I could think of is the story about the 3 little pigs and the house of straw that blew away. I highly doubt that house will be able to withstand another torrential rainstorm. But, from what I'm told, it's a standard house for villagers...actually, I think it's a better house than what he had before. I guess as long as the owner is happy....
