Saturday, December 31, 2011

a 'brief' tale from last night...

This picture has nothing to do with the text... (it's at a waterfall which was very fun to swim under ... we visited a border village here which dee had never been to before and heard distressing stories of brutality from burmese soldiers)

I'm sitting in suvarnabhumi airport feeling a wee bit seedy... we spent time celebrating christmas with a village south of mae sot last night - very fun, about 500 people, really cool community feel - I was inspired to do some amazing christmas dancing... we headed back to mae sot after dark, cos wa wa and I both had to catch flights today... the car was fogging up, and boon shu and dee were both nervous because it's an area you apparently don't want to drive slowly through. We paused quickly outside the fence of a refugee camp ( it's beautiful - awesome backdrop of sheer limestone mountains draped in jungle, the abrupt hills in the foreground are densely covered in tiers of leaf thatched houses and banana, lime, mango, papaya, teak and jack fruit trees. Everything is made out of bamboo or bush materials, and it feels like it should be the set for miracle on the river kwai, only more beautiful than I imagined), and a child was passed through the fence and deposited on one of the girl's laps...
Hmmm haven't got to our breakdown, or the hilarious drunk saviour who towed us with some pathetic rope in a flamboyant, erratic and for most of my friends highly alarming fashion (he was so drunk he could barely stand, amd when he initially went to get water with mu ker paw and paw kwa lee he accelerated so rapidly towards our car I thought he hit it, and in his second attempt at towing us he completely forgot his wife, who was trotting along the shoulder in the dark. While towing us he drove off the road a number of times, which from my vantage point on top of his ute was extra funny in a slightly alarming way, as we careened over small boulders and bounced and jerked on the rope which had failed first attempt, with the whites of boon shu and dee's eyes shining up at me through the windscreen of our ute) or filling up the radiator with copious scoops of toilet reservoir water at the frequent police checkpoints, or arriving at wa wa' s house at 3 am after a freezing ride in the back of a ute, sitting in water, wrapped in santa claus costume - but my flight is about to leave

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

gwo lehr hghee from mae sot

this is a random array of images - i'll try to capture some recent moments here...




this is playing statues in a thai community within bangkok where we had a bbq and played games with the kids... pretty amazing opportunity to connect with some thai families who are really reaching out...



this is a footbridge into burma. it used to be a vehicle bridge years ago, and when dee was 13 she ferried women and children from their village, which was under attack from burmese soldiers, to a safe place in thailand. she spent the entire day doing trips, driving a 4wd that the men were too scared to drive because nobody had licences... they asked if i could cross but the soldiers at the border said it was too dangerous. one of dee's uncles was kidnapped by burmese soldiers somewhere near here...

the thatched rooves you can see used to be dee's (and khugay, khusay and wa wa's) home... the first time the soldiers came the burnt it all down... (dee's relatives saw their house burning on the news)... dee's family rebuilt, and then the soldiers returned, maybe two years later, and that's when dee's extended family fled to thailand...

this is the view (above) from a church on a hill which dee spoke at at an early morning service, after which we were fed a hearty breakfast (typical karen style, lots of rice, chilli, chicken and pork soups and curries - tasty... we then returned to khugay's house, where we were fed another meal... this day i ate 6 substantial meals. thailand is always a little like this for me - the karen are highly hospitable, but mae sot is particularly social, and every house we visit feds us a huge meal - to the point where i am visibly growing, and my body is in a state of distress... i'm eating like i'm in serious training for world sumo championships... i caught sight of myself in a window today and was startled, astonished (in a kind of fascinated 'woh' kind of way) and a little dismayed to see how much i've 'grown'... (boh oo - very fat in karen)...

after being told i couldn't cross the bridge as it was too dangerous, we walked down to the creek for a 'shower'. i spent a lot of time playing in the current... the river is the border, so everytime i got out on the far bank i was in burma

[we have to go and eat again - meal number 4 for today, so i'm just going to post this with no more explanations, and hopefully get back to fix it up...]


this is noon, prior to having a wash in the river...


this is the view from the back of khugay and khusay's house, taken during the killing of the pig...

this is the pig...

this is the merry dance prior to killing the pig, in the end 4 other guys hopped in the pen and held the pig down. she didn't entirely appreciate that and squealed a lot...

here the hole in her side, which was recently spurting blood, is being staunched with some kind of raffia reedy grass stuff...





Sunday, December 25, 2011

kler kler


just back from playing games in a thai community in bangkok, which was recently inundated with floodwater (last time we visited it was still knee deep, but the water mark was head high on the walls)... very fun and funny, had to remind my self every so often that it's christmas day, bit surreal here... leaving in the morning for mae sot, will be there all week... have been to 5 different villages this past week, and celebrated christmas in varied and entertaining ways. would like to write more but have really limited net access...

hopefully it managed to upload the shot of the production of morning coffee, such a noble activity...



and this is coco, one of the possibly 80 kids dee now cares for... they all have 'proper' names, but some of their 'use' names include chocolate, coffee, icecream, mocha, latte, carnation (a milk brand), dupro (another milk brand), coco(a), milo, pancake, obama...

Sunday, December 18, 2011

suitably epic jungle adventures...

there are so many things i want to write about from thailand, however it's been so hectic, and that pattern looks like continuing... so i'm going to upload as many photos as i can tonight, and then hopefully add some more when we return from the villages. mocha, one of the toddlers living in this place, stole my charger and (only) battery (i inadvertantly left my spare in san jose) today, and if i don't find the battery that will be the end of my photo taking...

anyway..we returned last night from an epic jungle adventure... it was very very fun...


this is boon shu and takwa (dee's brother, real name tomahawk, but called takwa by most people), in takwa's most magnificent beast... what it lacked in brakes, starter motor and windows, it made up for with rpg launcher switches, flashy motorcycle exhaust, radiator cap cutout in the bonnet, amazing paint job (every part of the engine, including hoses, spark plugs - seriously everything was painted blue and red, to match the racing car seats), and all sorts of other unexpected additional features...





not long out of sangkhla buri we turned off the tar onto a dirt road. we had two 4wds, both single cab utes, and there were 15 of us. takwa's beast took the lead. it required roll starting to get it going every time, and one of the guys had to leap off the back to chock the wheels when we stopped; compensating for the absence of brakes. at times the vehicle's momentum would drive it over the chock repeatedly, with the chock boy running along side attempting to halt it...

the road grew increasingly rugged, and takwa's door, which was wired shut with bungy cord which had lost some of it's elasticity, casually flapped open something like a fish gill - quite mesmerising to watch... the cars were constantly swaying, jouncing, rattling, bashing form side to side, so i ended up standing... for three days i stood, at the back of a ute with no tail gate, going up and down some amazingly steep hills and through some crazy river crossings... rossco and i did most of this trip back in 2006, but that was sitting on top of a loaded ute and was far more padded...








there's so many more photos, and much much more to write, but technology is failing, and it's 12:30am and we've been pushing a crazy schedule,(and the girls in the room are trying to sleep), so i might have to leave it here for the time being, and write about getting bogged with no gear and having to sleep in the jungle, and crossing into burma and having porcupine for dinner, and playing games with the kids and swimming in the river, and watching fireflies flit through the bush next week when we get back... and write about thanksgiving in seattle too...