An hour out of town, we began driving into dustier and
sleepier communities before we finally slowed down and parked in our one-street
village. We unloaded and got divided into our homestays throughout the small community
of 150 houses.
The first word I can think of to describe the village is rustic.
The dirt path led us to houses on stilts, slatted with wooden planks for walls.
Some houses were made of concrete bricks, but where I stayed was more of the
wooden type with open walls serving as ventilation and windows. Our kitchen
consisted of a small charcoal stove, and our bathroom had a scoop bowl in a water
storage basin we used for everything next to the squat toilet we patiently used
without toilet paper. (As a side note, I’m currently nursing a wound from
slipping off of that squat toilet and ripping my skin open on the brick wall.
Leave it to me to get injured by a toilet!) We walked through mud and dirt and
other natural litter on the ground, in flip flops. Some of our walks were
impressively long and dusty. By the end of our visit, my feet were caked in
dirt and my nail polish had gone from bright pink to dark brown.
The second word I can think of to describe the village is delicious.
Each of our maes (“mother”) knew how to cook us a feast three times a day, and each
time we were stuffed to the gills with treats I cannot figure out how to make
nor describe. While the food was often eclectic for our mostly-Western taste buds
– cricket soup, grilled fish chips, stuffed frogs – our class complained about
gaining a lot of weight from the trip because the food was so amazingly tasty.
I really enjoyed each and every meal we shared with our family, and I still
think about this egg dish our mae made (“Son-in-law eggs”) because it might
have changed a little part of my personality for the better. There was a lot of
sugar in our foods, too….but…it was so good!
The third word I can think of for the village was wonderful.
The community members were some of the warmest most genuine people I’ve ever
met. Our mae was a quiet woman, but happily answered any wild questions my roommate
(Kenyan Jackie) and I could think of. She was concerned about me when I got
heat exhaustion from the 90F+ tempeatures, and laughed when I would try to
(mis)pronounce words to her in the local dialect. She was so sweet with me,
even though she couldn’t completely talk with me. Also, the other community
members always smiled at our class members, and fully laughed with us, even
when we barely did anything interesting. They welcomed us into their homes,
they shared what little they had, and always made sure we were comfortable. I
now consider the village a place I wouldn’t mind visiting in the future, just
to see the people again.
Our class was an intensive learning course; we woke up early
every day and started our learning process by 8:30am at the latest, and ended
around 6pm as the sun set. We went on epic walks under the harsh sunlight, and
visited rice fields to learn about the way of the farmers in the community. We
rested on boats along the Mun River (situated in the village) and talked to
fishermen about fishing and how it is impacted by the development of dams
(specifically, the controversial Pak Mun Dam). We interviewed Buddhist monks
about Buddhism and visited forest temples. We chatted to women about the roles
of village women and menstrual hygiene. We observed children singing at school
to impress the falang ("foreigners") observing them.
I personally got to experience the care of health volunteers
in the village – essentially basic healthcare workers who help with basic community
health before a hospital is needed – to make sure I didn’t need medical help
for my body’s poor response to extreme temperatures. Most days were steaming
hot, and we all felt it to some level. I think I reacted very poorly to it – I guzzled
water and got intense headaches from the heat. I also had blood pressure
problems because of the incredible heat (I’m fine now, don’t worry). But it
didn’t lessen from the rich experience we were getting in the village.
How did we talk to the villagers, if we didn’t speak
Thai/Isan/Lao? Our teacher from the local university, Ajan Kanokwan, and a
handful of translators who came and lived with us to translate each and every
sentence said while in that village. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to go
between three languages like they had to for us to get points across. My
translator was Rose – a spunky yet patient lady doing her PhD on prostitution
in the Ubon area. I admire her because while we got to take breaks in
conversation because of the gap of language, she was going between our mae and
us constantly, explaining and translating stuff for everyone every waking hour.
She was also a great teacher, as I am an insatiable student and insisted on
learning some of the local language while I was around her. I pointed to everything
and asked for its local name, repeating words like a toddler learning how to
talk. She graciously humored my interests in language, and we would have deep,
rewarding conversations about life and cultural differences when she wasn’t
busy exchanging words to our mae for us. She’s great – I wish you could meet
her.
The other translators were fantastic, too! Rose had to sleep
next to me and listen to me get up for the toilet ever night, and she deserves
special appreciation having to put up with me nonstop for so long. Gai, one of
the other translators, was like the class cheerleader – he would pep us all up
before an interview and lecture, easily making the flow of conversation
seamless. Tuan, also, was patiently listening to everything said and filled in
the crucial gaps that would happen in others’ translations. Ploi was putting
together our interviews behind the scenes, and taking pictures for our
memories. Seth was the comedy relief who would also explain to us how to ask
culturally-appropriate questions, and Ing was the sweet yet sassy companion
that helped us get a hold of children for interviewing. Our translators, for
the whole class, were a perfect group of people, and I am so glad they chose to
help us and put their lives on hold to give us communication.
If you’re curious, we were doing interviews partly for a
general assignment we have on how the community develops in several ways, and
how water plays a part in that development. We also were interviewing for a
presentation on a specific topic we had to put together before leaving the area.
My team’s topic was on community hygiene, and I was impressed by how much
material we got out of the community in such a short time span. I never would
have thought that trash management would be such a crucial part of domestic
hygiene for the village, but everyone mentioned that before they got trash
bins, flies were everywhere and people got sick a lot faster. We also talked
about water hygiene, food hygiene (they clean their vegetables), and handwashing
(the older guys are not good at it).
We had a day off somewhere in the middle, too. Well, by day
off I mean we got out of town and went site-seeing all day long. We went to where
the Mun River meets the Mekong by the border of Laos (Khon Chiam?), and saw
that the convergence of the rivers looks like two different colors mixing
together. We went to Pha Taem National Park and hiked under the sweltering sun
to see some ancient cave paintings on the walls, and beautiful views of the
hillside. We visited the 3000 Holes, where rapids during the dry season are
climb-able. We ended the day with eating on the water some traditional meals
(Larb, fish soup, sticky rice, omelets…). The day, sadly, was too hot, and we
paid for our outside excursions the next day with more heat-related stomach
aches and headaches.
Our last day came as a surprise to us. We were all wondering
if we’d make it through the week in simple living, but when the day arrived, we
felt like it was too short of a visit. The village had prepared a Buddhist
ceremony for us – phuk siao. The ceremony was a way to bind our souls to the
villagers’ souls, and keep us connected spiritually. In some ways, it was also
a way to tie us souls to our Thai “homes”. It was a beautiful and humble
ceremony, with an altar and singing, and the tying of strings on our wrists
while village members individually gave each of my classmates and I unique
blessings. The whole ceremony was moving, and I wept quietly through most of it
(I was not alone in the crying though!). For me, I hadn’t realize how much of
my heart I had given to the people in the village until they performed that
ceremony, and I felt a bit heartbroken that I was leaving them. I haven’t taken
off the strings yet.
After our village experience, we stayed in Ubon for a few
days and ate lots of food at the town’s night market, got massages while local
women howled with laughter when we tried to say some things in Isan to them,
and relished drinks on the Mun River before we left the area. I personally felt
a lot of loss, since it was the beginning of my solo journey throughout Southeast
Asia, and I won’t see my classmates that I love like family for months.
But now I’m in Laos with other journeys to share later.
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