Agroecology Part 1 – UHDP – October 3-9

I kept a journal while I was away so I’ll give some updates from my journal!

We first went to UHDP, the bus ride was pretty rough because seats are tiny but the buses are so funny because the ceiling is a mirror with actual fans hanging. Pretty old school.

Anyways, the first couple days at UHDP (Upland Holistic Development Project) were really rough because I was really sick. I got some sort of stomach bug and just couldn’t get out of bed for a while and it lingered for a couple days! Luckily it happened at UHDP and not the villages or the homestay in Mae Ta!

Cooking Day! – Day 4, 10/6/11

On October 6^th, we had a cooking day. We split into groups and collected food to later cook with UHDP staff and community. We cut down some parts of rattan trees (super sharp thorns) and skinned them with machetes. I wasn’t doing so well with the machete and I almost hit my leg twice. The machete slipped from the tree bark, I guess. Pi Jonas and the Thai member got really nervous so I relinquished the machete. We then took our goods back and found out we were also killing two ducks to eat! They brought the ducks up to a cement area in the trees and we were allowed to strangle or chop the neck to kill it. The first duck was really rough because the knife was so dull. Dan refused to cut its neck. Then Mel tried…wasn’t working. At this point I was feeling kind of sick. Then the Thai member asked Pi Ming if he should kill it…UH DUH…poor bird. So, he tried to chop its head off but the process ended up taking way to long and the poor creature started flailing when the knife went in. Apparently, when the knife hits the nerves, the animal flails even if it is unconscious or dead. I couldn’t watch anymore. Eventually, they brought the bloody bird to the host to wash it off. We later found out that this guy had never killed a duck before…kind of apparent.

 

Then it was time for the second duck. This time we had a sharper knife so Mel held the bird and Dan chopped its neck three times! Much better than the 10+ last time. All of a sudden the duck started flailing and everyone told Mel to let go! So, she did and the headless, bloody duck started runny right at me! I freaked out and ran around a tree and the duck followed! I don’t know if I have ever been so freaked out in my life. Eventually, I turned again and the duck continued forward off a ledge where a Thai guy eventually caught it. INSANE

We then continued to cook…I chopped meat and vegetables. And then folded it up into banana leaves and tied it with bamboo and then steamed them all! While we were cooking we had a nice snack of sticky rice in the bamboo people shopped and duck organs…I ate some heart  (tastes like salty chicken), kidney, liver, and I even gnawed on some chicken feet… First duck experience. Can’t say I really enjoyed it. After the cooking it was time to eat!! Wasn’t a fan of the duck meat and pork but the vegetables were good….might become a vegetarian when I’m back in the states. I must say, this was the most local meal I have ever eaten…everything except maybe the pork was from UHDP’s property. Tomorrow we slaughter a pig so even the pork will be local!

The rest of the day we learned how to make natural organic fertilizer compost. It’s really amazing what people can come up with using certain abundant resources. Wish it could be implemented everywhere!

Pig Harvest – Day 5, 10/7/11

Today was the day I was dreading. We were to watch a pig be killed, butchered, and then cook it and eat it! I knew that the way we were doing it was most humane but I have never seen an animal die before yesterday’s duck. I was most nervous for the scream/cry of the pig, which I heard was awful and sounded like a human scream!

We started the day by feeding and cleaning the pigpens…I thought it was cruel of them to make us do that hah. The pig in the pen that I cleaned out was a bit jumpy which was for me AND the pig. The way they care for the pig costs them very little and is very low maintenance so that was really cool!

We then went to the canteen and listened to four different hill tribe villagers talk about their cultures and the importance of pig/meat in each culture. This was probably the most helpful part of the day. I realized that the pigs are very important to their cultures and they really truly appreciated and enjoyed eating the pig. In America, we completely take meat for granted. In the hill tribes, meat is special and only eaten on occasion. At the end, they asked us about meat in America and the answer was embarrassing and disgusting. We have no idea where our meat comes from in America. Many people become vegetarians to remove themselves from the industrialization process of meat. In Thailand, there is no need because livestock is treated humanely. Sadly, Thailand is also moving away from this appreciation and connection with their meet. Unfortunate!

Anyways, back to the killing. We went to a pen where we lured the pig out with leaves. The pig faltered out and was put in a cage. Me and about 5 others carried the crate to the field. A few people (not me) offered to hold the pig down after it was hit in the head. The back legs of the pig were then tied to the back poles of the crate and the door was open. The pig started to step out and one of the Thai men slammed a rod on its head to knock it out! This was the worst part. The pig faltered and hit the ground hard, spazzing. The students pinned down the pig and the Thai man stabbed a knife into its neck, which killed the pig. Everything was so fast. I didn’t realized what was happening until after but I was shaking.

There was blood spewing out of the neck and they stopped it up with a leaf after draining some blood out. They then brought the pig to a bamboo bed and poured boiling water on it and began shaving the pig’s skin and hair. We all then joined. It was kind of hard but it was a good experience. Then we all started making jokes about shaving the pig and getting it all done up…definitely lightened the mood! After the pig was shaved they cut it open and removed its intestines, etc. into a bucket. At this point they were also cutting off the ears and tail, which they cooked immediately and fed to us. Nasty! Everything was brought up to the canteen area where we started cutting it up! This was crazy and I never thought I’d be able to do it but I got really into it. It took a little getting used to touching the skin, meat, bones, etc. but once I did it was really cool! I cut the skin off the thigh and I removed meat from the bone and muscles…etc!

 

Eventually we got to eat the meal! I usually don’t really like pork but this was delicious! I think the seasoning helped, as well!

Seed Bank – Day 6, 10/8/11

Today is our second to last day at UHDP. I kind of nervous to leave because we have “tame” food, company, hot water, toilets and toilet paper…everything! Anyways, today was a great day!

We worked with a organization called ECHO who does work with seed saving. There is an intern, James, who is working on building an Earthbag house to show poor communities how to build it and use it as a seed bank. It was awesome because we got to do some physical work, which felt so good! We all go really into it. We dug trenches, moved gravel, made sand bags, filled tranches, created drainage pipes, etc. Towards the beginning I wasn’t feeling it because it was SO HOT and I was completely dripping with sweat but everyone livened up and made it really fun by singing, making dumb jokes, crazy noises, and finding more “efficient” ways to do things! At one point I was pulling the wheelbarrow full of gravel and Zane came up and pushed the wheelbarrow from behind and we almost ate it but it was pretty funny and quick so we kept the system. We also kept joking that we should do work like this for Crossfit so we could be productive while doing hard laborious workouts!

Off to the fields...

We leave today for SFS course. We are going to UHDP (Upland Holistic Development Project) and staying at the center for almost a week. Then we have mid-course seminar and mid-course paper and then we switch with the other group and we go to Mae Ta (village) and stay with a family for a while and then backpack to another village to stay with another family. We will be learning all about agriculture and we’ll also be working in the fields! It’s going to be really cool and I think our Thai is going to improve IMMENSLY because we have to speak Thai with the villagers and families. But, I am pretty nervous. Be back in 2.5 weeks!!

Seminar week of Agroecology/Sustainable Food Systems

This week was really crazy and pretty intense. We had agroecology/sustainable food systems (real name, I guess) seminar and Thai class this week. Foundations was pretty chill because it was mainly a way to get us acclimated with the culture and they knew we were with families so we wouldn’t have much time to work. SFS was much different. Now we are living in apartments so they just loaded the readings on…probably because they wanted to keep us from going out and causing havoc in the apartment buildings. Well, they did a pretty good job. The readings were interesting but heavy. The best part of the week was dinnertime! We went to some cool different places for dinner throughout the week!

One day we went to this place called the salad concept. We were SO excited…we haven’t had salad or fresh vegetables in so long. So, we took full advantage. Another night we went to this really nice hotel restaurant…definitely a mistake but once we walked in we couldn’t walk out. So, we had some good American food and a few beers. I accidently knocked my glass of beer and broke it. The waitress was so sweet but I felt terrible. Saving face is a true thing in this culture. 

On Friday, our final essay was due! We had to create a sustainable food system for Northern Thailand in only 5-6 small written pages. Within those limits, we also had to explain the problem that the food/ag system has been facing. It’s funny because this assignment at CC would have taken me about an hour or two. Here, it seemed huge and everyone seemed to be freaking out. So I gave myself a reality check and Mel and I decided to go out for dinner at this cool market down the street.

We got there and decided to go to this little place where you cook your own meat and veggies on a little grill in the table. How could we mess that up?? Well, we managed. The “farang” in us struck again. We couldn’t understand the menu, luckily there were pictures but pictures of raw meat all look relatively the same especially when the menu is faded so the waitress pointed to one picture and said “gai’ …luckily we knew that meant chicken. So we ordered chicken and shrimp and a basket of veggies and a plate of noodles. The waitress looked at us like we were crazy and kept asking what else. We said that was it. Someone started our grill and she came back a few minutes later with a small plate of a few pieces of chicken, 3 shrimp, veggies and noodles, and bacon. We definitely didn’t order bacon…I have a feeling she didn’t think we would have enough food and threw in bacon because what American’s don’t like bacon? We then proceeded to put the meet on the grill as she attentively watched. Next to the grate, there was water boiling…we weren’t sure why. We started eating the noodles raw (we didn’t realize they were raw) and the waitress came up and said no no no and pointed to the water. So…I dumped my plate into the water…she bolted to the other side of the table to Mel and grabbed her plate before she could do the same. Instead she put Mel’s noodles in a utensil that looked like a ladel with a strainer. And stuck it in the water. As carnivore club members, Mel and I went to grill the vegetables. Not here…those were also to be boiled. We then took some cabbage to wrap our food in and everything pretty much fell apart. We then look to our right at the couple who had just sat down They had PLATES of all kinds of meats and vegetables and one was in charge of the grill, the other in charge of the water and they just had it down. They saw us looking in awe and laughed. We were a mess. But, the food was delicious. Mel gave me some noodles. Definitely didn’t have enough food but that just meant it was time to find some KANOM!!! We were looking for Roti (I think I explained roti before). But, the best part of the dinner was the sauces they gave us. It was sweet but sort of spicy and so delicious.

So, we eventually left and headed of to find some Roti to bring back to eat while we wrote our papers. The place we knew of wasn’t there so we went to look on this back street. We thought we were out of luck when all of a sudden I saw the stand! We were SO excited. It took a while but was so worth it! We finally got back and started writing our papers. Someone I finished that night. We also had time the next day to write but I knew I would rather just get it done.

Friday was great because we didn’t have Thai class, just seminar. We then had a long lunch and went to a factory in the afternoon. In the evening we had a dinner at the school. It was supposed to be at Ajan Mark’s house (the head of ISDSI), but because of the storms, his house is flooded! So, we couldn’t make it. By the way, the storms here are really bad and souther/central Thailand got hit hard. It moved up here but luckily we are ok. Many of the fields and areas by the river are flooded though. Scary!

Thai class was short this week because we got to start an hour later! But, it was still intense. We learned about farming terms and phrases we may need in the villages. At one point, Ajan Sithorn was trying to teach our how to say manure. She couldn’t remember the English word so she said “cow SHIT”. She taught us how to say “shit” in Thai a while ago. It’s hard to tell this story in person so typing it is even harder. Ajan Sithorn is hilarious and always tells us great stories and cool words and proverbs!