WWOOFing

i have just finished my time in asia, and more specifically thailand, with a good experience. i wwoofed. wwoof stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. it is an organization that connects organic farms and volunteers. volunteers stay and eat in exchange for helping out the farm. i did this in the north of thailand in an area know as the golden triangle. it was about a three hour drive northwest of chaing mai. i was only an hour drive from the burmese border. for centuries this was where all the opium was grown to be sold in china and other countries. now however there isnt as much opium and people are struggling to find a stable means of income.

the one alternative that has popped up in the last 5 years in tourism. in the past 5 years the trekking industry has boomed in northern thailand. many many people sign up for 3 day treks to stay in hill tribe villages, go bamboo rafting, and elephant trekking. the hill tribes are minority groups that have a different belief and cultural system than the thai people in the lowlands. they have been on the fringes of thai society due to their distance from larger cities. now however trekkers are coming through their homes on a daily basis for a cultural experience.

the opinion on this sort of trekking in debatable. some argue that it is good because the hill tribes receive money. some argue that it is bad because the hill tribes culture is changed and disturbed by the constant flow of westerners into their village. i cant make any judgment statements because i didnt partake in this activity. instead i stayed at a place where all the bamboo rafters left their rafts and the whitewater rafting rafts started. therefore i had the mixture of both the rural thai experience and the western tourists coming to visit me in the jungle.

some of the people i worked with were from these hilltribes. some were buddhist. some were christian. it was a good representation of the current thailand.

the village i lived in was called sop kai village. there was about 90 people in the village divided on the sides of the riverbank. the family i lived with had a large piece of property because the grandfather was the chief of the village in the past. he is now 80 and his daughter and grandson live on the land with him. some villagers used to smoke opium in the past in the traditional practices. then in the 1980s heroin became popular but none of the knowledge about safety came with it. therefore 30% of the village has hiv/aids.

it seems that all my complaining about the rain might have been an accurate measure of how much it was raining. the day before i arrived the river rose 20 feet in 7 hours. doesnt sound all that disastrous, however it destroyed some houses and tore down some bridges. many towns throughout thailand were flooded and businesses and homes washed away. so for the first few days we dug out the house that was buried in sand and river debris. after that i helped with marketing material for the whitewater rafting company. the family is mostly making its money through tourism now. they also make money by selling bamboo and green tea. they had a passion fruit farm, but it was ruined early that year in a hail storm.

even though i was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, there was english all around me. i only learned a hand-full of words because everyone wanted to practice their english. i never had communication problems because:a) i am the queen of charades after living in asia for so long and not speaking the languages and b) someone would find someone to translate for them if it was really important. but as my experience in south east asia has taught me the best way to get any idea across is just to smile and laugh.

i was the first volunteer on this farm and i had to break a lot of preconceived notions of foreigners. when i first picked up a shovel and started digging many people commented that they had never seen a farang women shovel before. for the first couple minutes they watched to make sure i wouldnt break and then they let me be. it was difficult for them to understand that i wanted to take time out of my vacation to work. so they constantly were telling me to sabye sabye (relax) because there wasnt work to be done. but when i sat around and watched long enough i could find work that they had just assumed i couldnt do and wouldnt be interested in doing.

i cant remember a time when i laughed more than in the last 10 days. the thai people that i worked with were all jokers and laughter was the communal language between all of us. even when working people would be singing or laughing. but work, as with everything, in thai society seems to be taken at a leisurely pace. there is no hurry for anything. everything is mai pin ri or no problem. their work ethic is a striking contrast to the koreans which seem to be working themselves to the grave. given i was living in a city in korea and in thailand i was living in the middle of a jungle, but there was a noticeable difference.

an added bonus to the job was that i was able to go rafting 3 times. i even was captain for the easy part of the river. the river was really high so the rapids were large. it was super fun. plus at the end the strapped the rafts on the top of a pickup truck. i climbed up on top with the river guides and we would bounce our way back to the farm. the views during this drive were beautiful. steep hills that seemed to glow green due to the dense forestation.

i am currently in the singapore airport at midnight waiting for my flight at 2am to leave for south africa. the airport is a culture shock for me. it is so clean. there are so many expensive stores. there is a koi pond. there is free internet on flat screen computers. there is a train that drives itself. there is free xbox live. there is every american fast food chain imaginable. and everything is buzzing at this late hour. it just reminds me about how diverse asia is. everywhere is so different.

im sad to be saying goodbye to such a large continent after seeing such a small portion of it. however i know parts of it will always stay with me. i also know that i will have to return. i met some really great people over the past year and a half in asia. i was touched when one of the river guides pieced enough english together to say, lola dont go.

(there is no r in thai and most asian languages, so im lola). the people have been so welcoming and showed me a lot about their culture and made me realize a lot more about my own. it makes it a lot easier to know that its not the end of the journey but just a step to another continent.