sooooooo then … even though i know some of you think that i’ve just been ambling my way around the place for the last few years i do believe i pumped out enough reports, interviews, assignments, bibliographies, analyses blah blah blah in the last month to last me another year … really … ok well i sense the majority of you have little care factor so i will order myself a wine and continue !
so the last month has been back in laos and doing some really interesting surveys etc on the influencing factors behind effective community development through the village committees in the project’s target areas. so this took me far wide high and low in the mountains of luang nam tha and had me eating and seeing an equal variety of entities. you know up and until this trip, i had always struggled a little with the whole notion of bringing “development” to the masses. don’t get me wrong … i absolutely believe 100% in everyone’s right to education and the freedom that can come with that … but i did sometimes feel like we were potentially upsetting the equilibrium in some communities … ones that had operated fairly happily in their remote mountain top existences for hundreds of generations. i guess i used to think that through creating knowledge you create desire and if one would never have the opportunity to fulfil desires and wants then isn’t that the definition of frustration?
but then i met Saryoh in a village called lakkam mai … an akha and hmong village between luang nam tha and muang sing. there were three of them but Saryoh had the most beautiful, intelligent, mischievious, curious eyes and they burned into my soul i would have to say. Saryoh is 15, married, about to have a child and was made to leave school in grade two. she’ll never go back and will never study non formal education because she’s married … and that’s the way it works with akha girls. and to be honest, saryoh is one of the lucky ones … at least she had two years.
she’s the one on the right …
and now i don’t have any more answers than before but … i do believe in upsetting the equilibrium now … with obvious measure to guide and support the way … but it needs to be upset …
now i am back at the same fabulous place i was in thailand before, for five days of uni writing craziness (with of course a few cheeky swim and singha island moments thrown in!), before heading to athens on sunday. and there for about 4 weeks with the film peoples from the marathon last year … to try and work on my own creativeness in that area and see if we can’t put some combined projects together. apparently the first project is working on a promo film for some mediterrarean yachting company …. oh yeah, i’m definitely up for that one!
so if you’re a european resident you’ll be hearing from me soon to track down a local beverage sharing moment … or come find me in greece!
some pics from the last month, until the next time …
three girls from nam khone … fabulously confident and giggly … and these girls get to go to school
the water pipage system at ban pakha … you can see the lady at the end doing her washing, waiting ever so patiently for those drips of water to come through
a village meeting in one of the most remote field visit venues … you can find me crouched in the corner near the door trying to be friendly but then not to the two teachers who were a just little over excited at a single woman being in “town”!
a little discotheque outing in lnt with davan … this girl is a special one … she rolls around every couple of days with a bag of fried river weed or tofu or papaya salad or other such tasty treats being the fab girl that she is … and as you can see they do rather like the beauty of a white white face!
all akha villages have a place like this right at the highest point in the village, just near the school, upon entry generally … from what i can tell, the area under the triangular structure is like a meeting ground for parties etc and the timber structure up the back is for phou bao & phou sao to go and hang out and chat! aka the unmarrieds!
so during this visit we went around to 14 different villages and as a component of it, held a meeting with the local village committee. so in this pic the village committee are the seated people and the rest are the fascinated ones! not too many visitors round these parts. nb the fancy headpiece of the girl in the bottom lh corner
… a bit of ad lib karoake … the masses wanted to hear an australian song so this is me belting out waltzing matilda with a chopstick sticky rice fashioned microphone
… from namsa … and yes they wear these amazing headpieces doing the garden on the side of a mountain in the mud!
so … in akha villages you can find stacks of these little huts which are about the length of a body and not much wider … and this is where boys go to check out which girls work for them. so if i’m a boy and see a girl i fancy, i make a little date for later that evening … we spend a few hours together in the hut … and then we sneak back to our homes before morning. and we keep doing it til she’s pregnant … and then we get married. or alternatively i get sick of her and try out a few other girls
Filed under: Updates
so the prof photo people from the marathon last year in greece finally sent me some pics from the race, so i uploaded a couple for you … such painful but good good memories … the brain forgot the pain enough to make me register again … hmmmm
in laos and about to head out to some rather remote 8 hr from the nearest road on the side of the mountain type villages for the next couple of weeks … will be a combination of super beautiful super confronting super inspiring super interesting super empowering super reflective super everything time …
and then next steps … to athens for may to do some learning and work with the film doco people from the marathon … www.olyvon.com and then … we’ll see …
