Flood Fighters

I’ve talked before about the volunteer efforts of the faculty at RMUTL Nan (aka the Farming University), especially with the rural population of northern Thailand. Last week I got to participate in such an effort when I went to build some dams in a village 20 kilometers outside of Nan. The German AFS volunteer I’m with and I went along with about a hundred students from the university, which was pretty fun. Despite the name, many of the students at the Farming University are in nonagricultural majors. There’s a large business department, and most of the students we were with last week were studying accounting. Accounting is considered somewhat of an “effeminate” major, so we were building dams with a bunch of chicks. Score.

It was a sizable initiative, with our hundred students and maybe another hundred volunteers and farmers from the region. Before enrolling in the Farming University I did some work with a sustainable farming/community development office, and there were members of this group there as well. It was a motley crew of concerned citizens, capable farmers, a couple of farangs, and we were ready to build some dams.

Or so we thought. I’ve mentioned before the large importance of taking photos in Thai culture. This is just as prevalent among Thai politics, and possibly more so. And when your bringing students and farmers together to generously help impoverished villagers, well, that’s just too juicy of a photo-op for an ambitious politician to pass up.

And so we found all 200 or so of ourselves sitting around and waiting for the governor of Nan province to come. No expense was spared in creating a photogenic environment, with a stage, banner, and blessed gong brought through the mountain roads to make a display. Comically impressive, really, and most everyone was grumbling for a good 40 minutes until the governor arrived.

I was mentally prepared to see some credit-hogging fat cat, cruel and dismissive of everyone who was going to actually build the damn dams emerge from the entourage of vehicles he came in. But I’d be lying if I said the man wasn’t charming.

He had a self-effacing manner, and didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. He wished luck to the students and discussed the harvest with the farmers. Upon seeing the two farangs there, he made conversation in capable English, asking me where I was from and bantered about the Bundesliga with my German cohort.

He may have come late, he may have done almost nothing when he actually came, but the man had a certain charisma about him, no denying it.

Photos taken and credit distributed, the construction could begin. It was a classic example of Thai ingenuity. We built about 90 small damns, no longer than 6ft or so, along a 100 meter-ish ditch the water would flood during rainy season.

The farmers hacked up the nearest available bamboo stalk with a machete, which we proceeded to hammer into the ground with a wooden club. Once a basic fence was made, we dug dirt and rocks from the ditch and filled the dams in. Easy-peezy lemon squeezy.

The dams finished, we relaxed in the forest. An intrepid (and possibly suicidal) capitalist had driven his motorcycle ice cream cart up the mountain roads to the village and made a killing among the students. We ate Thai ice cream sandwiches, a delicious, if all too literally named treat. It’s a white piece of bread folded around a scoop of coconut ice cream and peanuts. It’s also mighty tasty, and a worthy end to a damn fine adventure.

I don’t have any photos of the dam construction, but I’ve been taking a fair amount of photos while I’m here. Most of them are going on my flickr. You can take a look at 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100169753@N08 

Some of the recent additions include cooking class at the University, Hmong New Year, and Kid’s Day at the University.

Bangkok Burning

About three weeks ago, I went on the Rotary District 3360 trip in Central Thailand. It was a truly incredible week; the exchange students I was with are all marvelous people who have enriched my life by knowing them. It was also far too large of an experience to try and capture fully on this blog. I think it’s something I may reference and if I have opportunities to bring it up in other blog posts, I will. In short though, it was just damn solid trip with some excellent folks.

One of our destinations was Bangkok. Bangkok has been caught up in the heat of anti-government protests, which I’ve been alluding to without properly explaining.

I could make this post about the issues, but I would rather focus on the experience of the rallies. The only background you need is this: The current government is pretty corrupt, led by a wealthy political aristocrat. The protestors are also quite corrupt, and also led by a wealthy political aristocrat. If I had to pick a side, it would be with the government, since it supports democracy (albeit, an extremely sleazy one), while the protestors are advocating for an “unelected people’s council” (standard Orwellian doublethink).

The protestors are based in Bangkok and have a tight lock on the city. Traffic is at a standstill, and many of the government offices have been “occupied”. The streets are filled with people, and there was no way our bus could get through. Just to get to our hotel, we would need to walk past the protests.

The 3360 Rotary exchange coordinator and leader of the trip supports the protests, and decided that we should as well. Avoiding the protests would be impossible; I understand that, there isn’t a street that doesn’t have at least someone there. Buying us all flags and whistles and having us march with the protestors? That might have been avoided. Prudent or not, we were in the protests.

The first thing you notice about the protests is that there are tons of people selling random junk. Some of it applies to the situation (whistles with a Thai-flag pattern lanyard are the fashion item of the protestors), but plenty of it is just random. Clothes, toys, and nonpolitical accessories are available about from someone every twenty feet or so.

The protests are also oppressively loud. Remember the whistles I mentioned earlier? Imagine a few hundred people blowing on them. And we were far from the thick of the protests, where thousands are gathered. That said, aside from whistling, most people simply walk quietly. Slogans aren’t yelled and people aren’t discussing the issues. They just whistle.

I’ve been to one other protest in my life, Occupy MN in Minneapolis. That protest suffered from lack of unity. It was less of a protest than a place where people met to discuss politics, like some kind of radicals’ coffee shop set up in front of city hall.

The Thai anti-government protests are pretty much the opposite of that. It’s a mob. A well behaved, mostly non-violent mob, but a mob nonetheless.

The whistle makes the perfect symbol for the protestors. A whistle makes a single pitch. There is no room for subtlety, for compromise, or for discussion. There is only the shriek, then the moment of thoughtless silence encompassing it.