Wanderings

Well, here I am, in Chiang Mai staying at the same place I've been staying the last couple of times here. Tomorrow, I leave again, for my last official research-related trip. This time, its off to Mae Hong Son, an very mountains area in northwest Thailand (so no, I have not been there before). I'm going to and staying at a children's home called the House of Hope.

Songkran, the Thai water-festival, falls right at the end of this week though, so I'm wondering where I'll be, how transportation will be, etc. during that time, as it gets pretty hectic!!

But okay, so I'm sure your expecting just a tiny bit more than just info on where I'm headed off to next. However, I do believe I'm slightly blogged-out. I'll give a quick recap, and post a few photos, and that's it for this time I think.

Last week wednesday, after hanging around Chiang Mai for nearly a week, I headed off to Mae Sai, to a youth camp for the Shan migrant children (though there were a few other minority groups there as well). I took an 4 1/2 hr. air-con bus ride there, with Thai sitcoms blaring the whole time - and yes these sitcoms are well...unique, have their own Thai flavor shall we say-, and was met by a nice couple that has been working in Mae Sai among the Shan migrants for 3 yrs now. On the way up, I had already noticed that the checkpoints were a bit stricter, with every single bus passing through being checked thoroughly for proper I.D. cards etc. I saw one man holding up the infamous 'white paper' that most migrants get to stay here. Farangs on the other hand, don't even get asked for their passports. Once there, Samuel and his wife showed me around a Shan migrant village, and it struck me how set apart the villages here were, as opposed to other Shan areas I had visited. Here, they are really treated as temporary laborers, and Samuel explained that they are really dependent on and exploited by their 'masters'. That is how he called them, and indeed it seems a fitting title for a situation that is comparable to modern-day slavery.

The camp itself was a lot of fun....for the kids. I have to admit, I can count on one hand how many 'camps' I've been to in my life, and well, let's just say I've never been a huge fan for some reason. And indeed, it brought back that wave of feeling from back in the day. I think this was mostly b/c I came to talk to the kids, to interact with them etc. However, #1, I don't speak Thai, and #2, I was not given any defined role or task, so what happened was a lot of hanging around, kind of feeling like an outsider trying to tagalong or something. Which I guess I was, really. Ahh, well, its not that the time was unproductive. I got about 5 good interviews with the kids, via a very helpful young lady Jo who was willing to translate while also having all the camp staff tasks on her plate. And the kids were great, with the added bonus of the location being beautiful!
So camp ended on saturday morning, and I was trying to figure out my plans to get to Mae Ai, and town about 1 1/2 away from Mae Sai, to visit a development project among the Shan. Only problem was, I didn't really have a bed to crash on for saturday night, and I had two options: go to Mae Ai via hopping songthaews with my little communication skills or sit in a random guesthouse waiting until the couple I was to meet would pass through on their way back to Mae Ai. Yeah, songthaew hopping is the option I chose! It was a fun adventure. What was supposed to take 1 1/2 hrs, took me about 3 1/2 hrs. Why? Simply b/c songthaews don't run on time schedules like buses. Rather, they run at the whim of the driver. So if he wants an afternoon rest, okidoki let's wait. If he wants to chitchat at leisure with other fellow drivers, fine. If he wants to eat his lunch, alrighty. If he wants to wait for a ton of passengers to finally fill up his truck, yep that's cool. So I waited patiently, under a nice bamboo-covered rest platform out in, well, rural farming country aka the middle of nowhere. But luckily there was only one road to Mae Ai, so as long as I said where I was going, it got there. And for a very cheap price I might add! Less than 2 euros.

I stayed in a nice bungalow near the Mae Kok river in Thaton, the neighboring town, and then stayed at the Scott's house from Monday to Wednesday, which all was very nice and relaxing. I visited 2 local Shan communities, interviewing a few families, and brushed up on my English-teaching skills during my time there. Next to that, I got to see a slightly different approach to reaching the Shan, namely by setting up a more development-oriented project. The whole idea was to get the Shan to stand on their own two feet by teaching them basic health care, micro-enterprise (like raising crickets to sell), skills to get their roads paved etc., and helping teach the kids. I enjoyed this more hands-on approach, which really strived for involving the locals in improving their own livelihoods.

Yup, and that was that! Took an insanely long (though luckily not too hot) bus ride back to Chiang Mai, leaving at 2.30 and arriving at 7.30, a trip I had previously done in under 3 hrs. I hit the ground running though as soon as I got back, b/c I wanted to squeeze in some important interviews before weekend, leaving for Mae Hong Son, and the crazy holiday period coming up. I got the one I wished for with the elusive Shan Women's Action Network, and was quite happy! Now off to one more adventure, and then I get to look forward to transcribing, transcribing, and wrapping up loose ends as I got back over the last months of research! Yay! My brain in the meantime, is slowly starting to scream, overload! I thought to travel around a bit after all is finished, but well, after all this coming and going, I don't have much energy to go jet off again. I'm afraid would arrive back in Holland dried and shriveled up like an old sack of potatoes, hehe! But we'll see...