Back in the past

I’m sorry that I haven’t written a blog entry for quite some time now, but my schedule has been pretty hectic. I know that this is going back more than a week from today, but I really want to tell all of you about my experience on October 19^th. I, along with many other CIEE students left the office at 7 AM to go to a trial in support of the Kon San villagers. Kon San is a protest village that was created a little more than 3 months ago, and it is to keep logging companies from planting eucalyptus trees, which suck up all of the water from the surrounding area and kill nearly all other vegetation around them. The logging companies invaded the villagers’ agricultural land nearly 30 years ago because the villagers’ land is optimal for planting and then cutting down eucalyptus trees in order to make paper.

The villagers of Kon San used to have land titles, but a couple of years ago, the logging company paid a neighbor chief to tell Kon San that he was willing to help the villagers in their fight to oppose the logging company, but that in doing so he needed to have copies of their land titles. So, the villagers gave this chief their land titles, and as was directed by the logging company, he then threw all of the titles into a fire so as to destroy all proof that that land truly belongs to the villagers.

Furthermore, the logging company hires men dressed in black shirts to monitor the villagers at all time. They have stations set up at every entry point, and normally take photos of the villagers in a menacing way. The black shirts, as they’re referred to, also use violent and scare tactics to try and get the villagers to disband the protest village. In order to deal with the black shirts, the villagers have created wooden platforms on trees that are used to monitor the movements of the black shirts, and if one comes too close to entering the village, an alert goes out to every single villager.

After 30 years, the villagers decided to sue the logging company (law suits are a pretty new thing in Thailand) for trespassing, loss of land/sustenance/and livelihood. Yet as a result, the logging company chose 36 people, at random, who are being tried for supposedly trespassing on the logging companies’ land, and if it is brought to a criminal court, those 36 people have the possibility of being sent to jail. Hopefully that won’t happen, and the case will simply stop at the civil court. Yet to further prove our solidarity with the villagers, all of the CIEE students had shirts made that had a quote from the leader of Kon San, which read (in Thai): “The logging companies must leave. We want our land back now.” I’m so glad that we were wearing them because the villagers really seemed to like and appreciate them.

Two of my friends were gracious enough to let me go into the courthouse even though we all wanted to attend, but unfortunately, no one but those being tried (the villagers and logging company officials) were able to enter the courtroom. I waited outside with everyone else for the villagers to emerge from the courthouse, and while it may not seem like we did much of anything rather than simply show up, it still made a huge difference. Not only did we show the villagers that we care for and support them, but the legal team defending the logging company backed out because the 2 lawyers didn’t want to be attached to a case that was being given so much attention from international students. I think that was a huge success!

Afterwards, the villagers invited us to their protest village, which was like nothing I had ever seen before. Their shelters reminded me of the pictures I had seen that showed the “housing” in refugee camps. They were made with wood and tarps, and were extremely minimalistic. We were given a tour of the village, and although small, it was obvious that the people who live there are dedicate, passionate individuals. It was actually stunning to see how many eucalyptus trees surrounded the village because they were literally everywhere! They still had a really small amount of land where they plant rice, but it’s sad because the logging company has destroyed most of their land. However, the people there seemed to be in good moods, and it was truly awe-inspiring to see people dedicating their lives and leaving their homes to fight for a cause.

1 Day, 1 Night= A Changed Person

On October 9, a group of 6, myself included, arrived in Bamraung 2.2, which is a railroad slum, meaning that it is right by the tracks of a railroad, in Khon Kaen. All railroad slums in Thailand reside on land owned by the SRT, The State Railways of Thailand, and Bamraung 2.2 just recently received a 3-year lease from the SRT, which is nothing in comparison to the 30-year lease that many slums have. The SRT stipulates that all houses within 20 meters of the track must be relocated before the community is given a lease. However, the community I was in has houses, one of which I stayed in, that are literally 5 meters away from the track, and yet the entire slum was able to receive a lease without any of those households having to relocate.

Furthermore, the residents have to buy all of their own water and electricity until they tell the water and electricity companies that they were given the lease because they are technically trespassers on the land on which they live, and therefore the government does not provide them with any basic utilities. As a result, people in Bamraung 2.2 are forced to buy water and electricity from their neighbors at highly inflated rates, sometimes by as much as 60%.

When we arrived at the slum we were given a tour, and it looked like any other village to me. Yes, the structural construction of the houses was very primitive, but it all looked very similar to the houses that I’ve stayed in during past units. I had been expecting to stay in a megacity, but we ended up staying in a village slum that was very rural in the midst of Khon Kaen, and which did not match my preconceptions of a slum. I was slightly disappointed, but the slum dwellers and our meh and paw, who is the slum leader, made up for everything. They were all incredibly generous, intelligent, and proud. I felt honored to be able to stay with them because they were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in Thailand, which is saying a lot since everyone here is overly kind.

After the tour, we all went to the market together to get dinner materials, and while there we saw intact pig heads (don’t worry, we didn’t purchase any)! Dinner consisted of vegetables and rice and eggs (the usual), and we then went to bed at around 8 PM. Our meh came in to tell us that she was going to the house next door and then repeatedly formed her fingers into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot one of us while vigorously shaking her head and speaking in Thai. We were terrified, and thought that she was warning us not to leave the house because people would shoot us, but we finally realized that she was telling us that was no violence allowed in the slum and that we had no need to worry about guns.

After a fitful night of sleeping due to the trains that passed every couple of hours and made it sound as though a helicopter was going to tear through the house at any minute, we woke up and had breakfast. Afterwards, we went on a tour of 2 temples. The first temple wasn’t that far away, and we had a monk as a tour guide who took us to every statue of Buddha, at which time we did the customary wai three times (sitting on both legs, press both palms together and bring your thumbs to your forehead and then lean forward and press your forehead and both hands to the ground- repeat 2 more times. Paw then took us to a wat that had 9 different stories as well as relics from Thailand’s history. We went through every level until we got to the top, and the view was pretty impressive.

From there, we visited 6 other CIEE students who were staying at a neighboring slum called Pornsawan, It’s located right next to a golf course, and the community is beautiful. The houses there were the nicest houses that any of us have seen since coming to Thailand, which granted would most likely look like shanties to most people in America. They all had concrete walls, western-style toilets, showerheads, and ceiling fans! Going to Pornsawan opened my eyes and made me realize that I had no right to be upset about the condition of Bamraung 2.2. I had entered this unit thinking that I knew exactly what slums looked like and how the people who lived there should act, even though I had never been to a slum before, and it made me realize that slums are slums. Slums all look different from each other, and the term just means a community full of people who live on land that is not their own. I was really glad I was able to see the other village because it gave me a much needed wake-up call.

That night, we had an exchange with paw and some of the other community members, and it was so much fun. They had never had an exchange before and they were all so excited that people, especially foreigners, had an interest in their lives. At the beginning, they would yell and hoot to show support, and it was hilarious. By the end of introductions, everyone had settled down, and we were able to find out that Bamraung 2.2 had been given money by CODI, the Community Organizations Development Institute—a Thai organization that gives Bt20,000 to each household in a slum to make improvements, and that community upgrading would begin in a month. Paw said that Bt20,000 isn’t enough to put both a new tin roof on one’s house and concrete walls, but that the money was better than nothing. Plus, CODI doesn’t ask for any of the money to be repaid, and all responsibility and power of the improvements are given to the residents of the slums.

On October 11, Paw took us on a joyride around Khon Kaen, and it was the best way to start the day. We all stood up in the back of Paw’s truck, and it was so nice to feel the wind on my skin while looking at a part of the city that I had never seen before. We stopped at a field where we looked at a river, and we also looked at an irrigation system that community members had to pay for, but then the Thai government never supplied them with any water. Currently, it just looks like a concrete passageway through the fields.

When we returned to the slum, it was time for the group to head to the landfill. It was sad to say goodbye to the slum and to the community members because I loved being there. There was always an abundance of laughter, and the people were just so good-spirited.

The landfill provided a drastic change in setting. The first thing that could be seen was a mountain at the end of the small road that the houses line (the houses are situated on the landfill), and the stench was overwhelming. We met our homestay families, and Haley and I lucked out because we had the sweetest mom, dad, and 2 younger sisters. They were all really hard-working, had the kindest smiles, and tried their best to communicate with the farang (foreigners). We went for a tour of the landfill, which was when I realized the mountain I had seen was made out of trash, piles and piles of rotting trash. It was incredible and sickening to see how much waste humans produce. We explored the landfill, where little kids ran in flip-flops and waded through the toxic, liquefied, rotting trash to find treasures amongst the garbage that had not yet putrefied.

We were shown the incinerator, which the community is afraid of because of all of the toxic fumes that it releases into the air, as well as the pond of trash that was created by a Japanese company who wanted to make oil by somehow combining chemicals, water, and trash, but that project has been postponed, so now there is a pond filled with trash in the middle of the landfill. It was really eye opening, and it was hard for me to process what I was seeing because it was all so new, exciting (I hate to say it), and unfamiliar to me.

The next morning, October 12, Haley and I woke up at 6:20 AM, had breakfast, put on our gloves and boots, and headed to the landfill with our parents. My first instinct was to keep from vomiting because the smell was so overwhelming, but I pushed that reaction to the back of my mind and concentrated on finding somewhat steady footing while trekking up the great mounds of trash. We were given hoes and used them to rake through the trash in hopes of finding plastic and aluminum bottles. It seemed kind of easy at first, but then it began to get hotter, my arms ached from raking through trash, my legs were weak with fatigue from wading through trash, and it was getting harder and harder to find valuable materials since the garbage had all been scavenged by someone else just hours before.

I became quite freaked out when Haley happened to find a dog in a bag, which is a common finding. Many Thai people put their small dogs into bags, and then the dogs either suffocate to death or are killed by being squashed by trash. This amazes me because there are homeless dogs wandering all throughout the streets of Thailand, so why not just let your dog loose on the street if you know longer want it?

Haley and I only spent 2.5 hours working at the landfill, but it was enough for me. I hate to say it, but all I wanted to do while I was there was to leave. I’m sure that the scavengers who work their everyday of the week for an average of 15 hours per day must get used to it, but it was really hard for me to be there and to see such wonderfully nice and giving people in such a hard, unhealthy setting. It’s one thing to learn about these things in environmental or social justice classes, but it’s another thing to see and participate in these peoples’ lives.

I hate to admit it, but I’m still not comfortable with people working in the landfill, and I didn’t enjoy my time working there. The people were really great, and I had a blast while not at the actual landfill, but I wish that I could appreciate the fact that these people like scavenging because it provides them with a steady income, they don’t have any supervisors, and they are able to decide their own hours. It’s something that I definitely need to work on within myself, but I walked away from the experience knowing that my time at the landfill changed my life. It’s absolutely amazing how less than 48 hours in a completely new surrounding can have such immediate and strong impacts on a person’s psyche. I have a new outlook on consumption, waste, and careers. I will never look at trash in the same way again, and I will never lose my respect for scavengers around the world for doing a social service that goes unnoticed by most of the world’s population.

Did anyone bring trail mix or a respirator?

On October 3, I began my day with an 8 hour drive to Tamui Village, where a celebration is held every year to commemorate the end of Buddhist lent. Kati, Jenny, and I roomed together in a wooden house on stilts, which was very nice. Both our meh and paw were also very gracious and they fed us very well. Other than having dinner, which consisted of sticky rice, mushroom soup, and an omelet, nothing too exciting happened, which was good because we were all pretty exhausted and collapsed onto our mat underneath a pink mosquito net.

The next day marked the day of the celebration! We woke up, ab naamed (showered- something that is done at least twice a day to appease our homestay families who insist that we shower every time we sweat: a.k.a. ALL THE TIME), and then met up with everyone else to go to the Pha Taem National Park. We were given 2 hours to explore the park, and many of us wanted to see the closest water fall, a mere 4 miles away (each way). I, along with some friends decided to keep up a fast-paced walk to get to our destination, which was a hilarious adventure. It was an outrageously hot day, and after 10 minutes we were all having trouble getting air into our lungs, keeping our legs moving forward, and seeing through the sweat pouring into our eyes…Naturally, I was the one having the most difficulty, but I trekked on in order to see the waterfall.

Sadly, after hiking for a mile, we realized that we had gone in the opposite direction and were forced to walk another mile back to the parking lot where we waited for everyone else to join us. However, we were able to take in stunning views of the Mekong River and of Laos, which is on the other side of the river. A couple of times, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it back to the parking lot, but we rested many times, and my friends always made sure to make fun of my inability to partake in any kind of physical exertion to keep me motivated. Although I didn’t see the waterfall, I still had a wonderful time, and it made me appreciate the people who are on this trip even more because it was so much fun!

Afterwards, we returned to the village, and Kati and I took a nap, and then woke up 2 hours later and talked to some friends who were living next door. It then reached 5 PM, and we were on our way to the edge of the river where we sat on a porch made of bamboo that sat on the side of a hill. We had a stunning view of the river, which was good because we were on the lookout for the Naga, the protector of Buddha who is a snake with 7 heads, since it’s supposed to shoot fireballs out of the water to mark the end of Buddhist lent. After spending some time there, Kati, Jenny, and I made our way back to our house and had dinner with our meh. We were all pretty stuffed, but didn’t want to be rude, so we ate an entire omelet. Our meh must have thought we were ravenous since we ate an entire omelet, so she made us another one, which we had to power through…Quite funny to see 3 girls cramming food into their mouths while smiling and yet complaining of overeating in a different language.

Out meh then took us down the road where we saw glowing orbs of orange light scattered throughout the sky in a whimsical path toward the moon. We then saw that the orbs were huge paper lanterns that were lit inside and then pushed into the sky where they slowly made their way through the night sky. We then went back to the porch on the hill, where we saw long boats filled with hundreds of candles floating down the river. It was the most surreal moment that I’ve ever experienced in my life because it was so beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before in my life. I actually felt that I was part of anime movie where floating lights hang in the sky, boats on fire pass through the night, and mystical serpents slither just beneath the surface of the water. The night was made perfect by locals who sang and played local instruments for all of us to enjoy traditional music. We never saw the Naga, but I still believe that it exists…Maybe I’ll see it the next time I’m in Thailand!

At 11 PM some of us got into the vans and made our way to Bangkok, a 10 hour drive (our drivers are absolutely amazing!), to march during World Habitat Day, October 5, to demand the rights of Thai slum dwellers. We held paper mini-banners that said, “Everyone, everywhere deserves the right to housing. Don’t hurt people just because they’re poor.” We marched to parliament and a loudspeaker conveyed what the slum dwellers wanted from the Thai government, and representatives for the Prime Minister came out and spoke to us. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, they said that they would do all they could for the 1 million people in Thailand who live in slums, but that the real problem in getting any improvements made lay in the Department of Development, which was simply a way to pass the blame on someone else.

We then marched to the U.N. Embassy, got lunch, and made our way back to Khon Kaen. It was a crazy day, but one that I feel so fortunate to have had. The slum dwellers were passionate, peaceful, and dedicated. They have nowhere else to go because they are too poor to afford to live anywhere else, and they are prepared to confront the Thai government until change is seen. It was great to stand in the middle of a crowd wearing all different ribbons to signify the different slums they came from, and holding brightly colored signs that declared their needs.

I love this program so far, and it has exceeded all of my expectations. For the past month and a half I’ve been able to walk in the shoes of people whose lives are drastically different from my own, and in doing so, I have learned more about myself, how the world works, and human nature than I have in the past 20 years.

Pak Mun Dam

Located in Ubon, roughly 5 hours outside of Khon Kaen, the Pak Mun Dam is known as one of the World Bank’s worst failures because of the thousands of lives that it has ruined. The Dam was erected in 1994 after the Thai government asked the World Bank for a loan in order to construct a dam that would generate power for Ubon City. In theory, it was a good idea, but the Thai government and EGAT, the electricity company that constructed and now runs the Dam, never consulted the villagers before and while the Dam was being erected, which has led to the violation of community rights.

The Dam was supposed to produce 136 megawatts, but during the rainy season, it is only able to generate 20 megawatts. Yet to make people in Ubon City believe that the Dam is their sole source of energy, EGAT created a blackout in the city for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, it is a strategy that worked since many city dwellers continue to believe that the Dam is the main source for their electricity.

However, the worst consequence of the Dam, in the eyes of the villagers, has been the loss of fish in the Mun River. Research shows that only 45 of the 265 fish species in the Pak Mun area still remain. As a result, fishermen’s catches have decreased by 60- 80%. Furthermore, constant flooding means that vegetable and rice fields are no longer viable options. As a result, many families have a hard time feeding themselves, and many people have lost their livelihoods since it was common for men to fish to feed their families and to also bring to the market. As a last resort, 31.2% of all fishermen upstream of the Dam have switched professions. Such a steep decline in the number of fish that remain in the Mun River has led to the ruination of a culture centered on water, fish, and the rapids.

To “help” solve the fish crisis, the government introduced fish and prawn to the Mun River, but they did not survive since they were not used to the environment. After that failed, EGAT built a fish ladder to help fish migrate (the destruction of the rapids meant that many fish were unable to migrate upstream), but they used the exact fish ladder used to help salmon migrate in the northwest of America. Clearly, a fish ladder used in America for salmon is not the same fish ladder that should ever be used for indigenous fish in Thailand.

Some people have been compensated, but thousands of families have not. The dam is currently open for 4 months out of the year, but this does little to help the situation since those months are not when fish migrate upstream. The only real solution to the problem is to have the gates open year round, but EGAT won’t allow that because it would tarnish its reputation and all of its dams would then be looked at with a more critical eye.

The 9 of us who decided to go to the Pak Mun Dam were able to meet the main lawyer, some NGOs (that’s what they call human rights activists), and the village leaders. It was an interesting exchange, but it was also frustrating because the villagers just recently decided to tackle the problem through a legal strategy, something that is rarely done in Thailand, and expected us to have legal advice for them, which we didn’t. It was also really sad to see these people fight for 20 years and to have had very little to show for their efforts. They were very unorganized in that the Assembly of the Poor, the main organization that all of the villagers negatively affected are part of, has many different views on what should be done next: some want the dam open, some want it closed, some just want money. Plus, it doesn’t help that the 2 NGOs who had been helping the villagers for the past 20 years both passed away last year.

After the exchange, we went to see the Dam, which was quite impressive looking. It was an odd sensation to walk on something that has caused so much pain and suffering to thousands of people. It looks like any other dam, and yet it has wreaked havoc on the ecological system in the region, the people, and the culture.

Then, we met with a local farmer who said that EGAT installed irrigation systems throughout the region as a ploy to try and make people believe that the Dam is necessary for agricultural purposes. This too is a fallacy, at least according to the farmer we spoke with, who said that he was charged Bt75 per hour for the irrigation system, which no one can afford, and that it is completely unnecessary during the rainy season since the crops are watered naturally every single day.

Then, we went on our way back to Khon Kaen, and I walked into my room at 1:30 AM after it was decided that there wasn’t much else for us to do there. While I had a wonderful time and feel that I know a lot more than I ever did before, I hadn’t even heard of the Pak Mun Dam before this past week, I wish there was more that we could’ve done to help the people, and I also wish that we could’ve stayed for longer since the original plan was to stay the night. I would’ve liked to have had the opportunity to speak more with the villagers. We will be going back for Unit 3, which is later this month, but I just with that there was something that we could do for them in the immediate sense.

The best part of the trip was meeting people who have never lost faith in their cause. Despite all of the setbacks that they’ve faced in the past 20 years, they continue to come up with new ways to take back what they have lost: their way of life. The people who are fighting will continue to fight until they die because they have come this far, and there is no turning back at this point. Throughout this entire program, I have been amazed by the capacity of the human mind and heart, and the villagers of Pak Mun Dam have only added to my newfound realization that people are capable of overcoming amazing, seemingly impossible challenges.