Last week, we all took a trip to Yasothon and Roi Et provinces to do our study of agriculture. WOO.
The first village we went to was called Baan Dong Dip in Roi Et province. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of this place because, you know, I often forget to do these sorts of things. But imagine a village with dirt roads and shacks made of wood, and you've got it. The majority of the villagers are organic farmers who make their own natural fertilizer from the animals (don't think about this one too hard) as well as natural pesticides and herbicides. In addition, they are contract farmers, which means that the cash crops that they grow go straight to the company. This creates a guaranteed market, but if their food goes to the company, is the village truly self-sustainable? Well, yes, it seems so. But from the formal teachings that we got from readings and lectures, it seemed that contract farming was the devil because of transnational, evil companies or giant conglomerates. I suppose this particular village was just super duper.
Anyway, we took a tour of the villagers' land where they primarily grow sugar cane, cassava, rice, and banana. We even got to try some fresh sugar cane, cut down about 3 minutes before we ate it. Apparently, sugar cane contains some chemical that whitens your teeth! But it also rots your teeth at the same time because, well, it's sugar cane.
If I had taken a picture, this is what mine would have looked like.
We had an exchange with the villagers there that night and then went to our mini-homestays for a night. We got paired off for these homestays, so my bbgirl Abby (henceforth, Babz) stayed with me! Our family in this village consisted of a paw (dad) and mae (mom), and they apparently had 2 older daughters that are currently working in Bangkok right now. And this is a trend I'll get to later, so just trust me. It's relevant.
The father showed us the back of his shack, where he kept 4 pigs and 5 piglets as well as an in-ground pond full of baby catfish and frogs. He explained that the community center area also had a community garden, several more pigs, cows, and water buffalo, as well as an abundance of rare mushrooms in their mushroom-growing hut. Because that's totally something you see everyday. The next day, we hung out with mae and the rest of their neighborhood in their backyard. Their house really had the "front-porch mentality" where everyone just kind of gathers. It was certainly delightful to see, as most of those front porches are slowly disappearing from our suburban and rural areas in the US.
After a 3 hour van ride, we got to Yasothon! Babz and I were able to meet our family that night in a village called Gut-choom (or so it sounded like), and boy, did we have a family. It consisted of a paw, a mae, an older sister, an aunt, two girl cousins, a yai (grandmother), and a tha (grandfather). They are organic rice farmers, as all of the villagers are. They are also members of the Green Market (an organic market in the area run by the villagers) and AAN (Alternative Agriculture Network). They had cows, a water buffalo, 3 dogs, chickens, ducks, and pigs as well. Their farm was divided into 6 areas: the building with the bedroom areas, the building with two bathrooms, the building for the kitchen, the building for the cows and water buffalo, the building for the pigs, ducks, and chickens, and the field. And in the neighboring area, dogs and chickens just walk around freely. So like, our van had to stop for dogs sleeping in the road as well as for chickens who decided that they really, really liked the other side of the road.
Oh. Quick note about yais. I REALLY WANT TO BE A YAI WHEN I GROW UP. It's legitimately a life goal. Why? Because yais can do whatever the hell they want. They can sleep wherever and whenever. They can talk/yell any time, especially in a conversation which doesn't involve the yai herself. They can criticize you. They can talk to themselves. They can work if they want to. Or not. And our family's yai was no different. I would say that all yais are legitimately my heroes.
So, Babz and I ate some awesome cabbage + eggs with a local variety of red sticky rice that our paw and mae grew themselves. Little did we know that we would have this same exact meal for 4 days at every mealtime. I mean, occasionally Babz would be able to partake in a skewer of meat, and we would also get som tum, a spicy salad made of local tomatoes and green papaya. But the cabbage (which, don't get me wrong, it was delicious) and sticky rice was pretty much it.
So here's the bathroom situation. Babz and I went to the bathroom which consisted of a squat toilet and two huge vats of water with a bucket inside each for bathing. So the biggest problem with this is setup is that I can't defecate into squat toilets. Like, I'm literally physically unable to do it. Also, when bathing, the idea is to throw water on yourself using the buckets and the two big vats of water. But wait. The water is icy cold. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the first time I took a shower, I yelped in shock when I had to throw the water on my back. And I'm pretty sure the family thought I had, like, drowned or something. Also, later that week, Babz and I were going to shower, no big deal. And then we realized that there were two gigantic toads in both of the bathrooms. So after screaming in fear and getting our 6 year old cousin to help chase it away, all was well... Until the next day when we tried to get a chicken out of the squat toilet-area through light kicking by Babz, who was brave enough to do so. And then we found giganic spiders hanging from the rafters. That was nice.
Anyway, that first night, we slept on the floor beside our older 26 year old sister's room, who I kind of bonded with when she asked me to translate a song by Mariah Carey into Thai for her. And I dislike Mariah. But she's cool; she's a science teacher at a local school and expressed that the only thing she wants to do is stay in the village and educate the children while taking care of the land. And like I mentioned before, not many kids do that; most go to Bangkok or find work in other urban settings. So mad, mad props for her.
The next day, we awoke to our cabbage and sticky rice, and we were able to help our paw cut down some of the tall grasses in order to feed the cows and pigs for that day. That was fine, but feeding the pigs was sort of disastrous. Mostly because pigs are aggressive when they're hungry. And the cows were freaking tricksters. One of them in particular liked to step on and move the rope which attached her collar to a fencepost as we walked by, thus tripping us up every time. Anyway, after that, we planted about 50 tamarind trees in little bags to sell later at a green market. In terms of work, though, we didn't do too much; the next day, we had to sort white from red rice to sell later at the market. The kids helped a lot, so that was fun.
We basically bonded with the other family members for the rest of the week. And it was really nice to be able to speak and understand Thai.. It definitely made the process a lot easier. I feel like if I ever came back to Isaan, I would definitely visit that family again and try to help out more with their harvesting or whatnot.
Other stories from the other kids in the group: two girls had to eat lizard that the family dog had brought in. Two girls as well as two other guys had to deal with ridiculously violent and out of control children. Two guys had to construct a wall-like structure using rice bags and mud.
So, yeah, after a series of exchanges with the villagers, we had to come back to Khon Kaen. Here are some pictures!
The group + all of our maes at the Green market! Jacked this from facebook, so credit to whoever had this picture.
The kid's nickname is Im. And that's Babz being the most adorable living thing that has ever existed ever.
Im being ridiculous with her older sister, Oom. Excuse the rank-looking bangs. I blame the bucket baths. I think I took this picture from Babz, so credit to her.
The rice paddy at sunset. Yeah.
I feel like I really learned a lot about the benefits of organic farming, where our food comes from, and how farming is so, so important. I'm still struggling to figure out the stigma behind the farming occupation as well as how we've let all this corruption in the food industry go on. Everyone, just watch Food Inc. if you want to know more. Woo.
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