Jing Lo

Yesterday I worked on a project along with the "youth program" (17-20 year old boys from the village who are doing a 2-4 year apprenticeship at UHDP). On this particular day, there was a group of potential new participants mixed in with the regulars. Though I had seen some of these boys around the farm, I only knew one: Ai, whom I had worked with all last week. This was the conversation I heard as we sat around during our half-hour morning break:

"How old is she?"

"It doesn't matter. She has a boyfriend in America."

"No she doesn't!"

"Yes! I heard she's engaged."

"Maybe she's married."

"She's not married, you idiot. Why would she be here by herself if she was married?"

"Anyway, Pi Leu said she doesn't have a boyfriend."

"Ai, did she say anything? Does she or doesn't she?"

Ai finished his glass of water slowly, enjoying the attention, and then shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Ask her yourself. She understands Thai."

Stunned silence and embarrassed expressions as they realize I've been following their conversaiton. "Jing jing?" Kopi, one of the bolder ones asks me--really?

"Jing lo," I respond, shrugging. 

Another minute of awkward silence, and then, taking me by surprise, hysterical laughter. They love a joke, even when its on them.

Moving

Tomorrow morning I move out of this house in Chiang Mai. Thai lessons are done, and I'm heading three hours away, to UHDP's farm, which houses the ECHO seedbank project as well. For the rest of my time in Thailand I'll be living there, with a community of the various staff members--who come from a mix of different hilltribe backgrounds including Karen, Shan, Palaung, and Mon as well as a few westerners--and their families.


I have mixed emotions about the move, to be honest. I'm excited to go--after all, working at the UHDP farm is the main reason I came to Thailand, and it will be nice to start the "real" internship work, to become a contributing member of the staff community that has welcomed me so graciously. I'm certainly looking forward to being in more of a community, no longer alone in a house.

Rainy Season

Almost every afternoon, it starts to rain. Fontok, I think--it's raining. I'm pleased to hear the same word echoed across the street, confirmation that those thai lessons are paying off, in small ways. My life has become an endless vocab quiz.


The first drops fall softly, would be almost imperceptible were it not for street after street of densely packed tin roofs amplifying them, and everyone in Chiang Mai sighing an echo. Relief. The humid haze we've labored to breathe through lifts and suddenly the city glows, the trees in the garden are radiant. I wish I was good with a camera, wish I could show you this miracle of rain and sun and light and shade and drop and leaf and Beauty.
Rest.


The construction workers across the street, the parking attendant in the lot behind the house, her little daughter, the girl's puppy, my neighbor Wi Lai, her grandmother, and I all take cover but don't go inside--we sit and watch. We wait. We enjoy.


I've always liked the rain, but here it stops me in my tracks, stuns me. Daily.


"People live in history as fish live in water," one of the first readings we did for hngr said. In Northern Thailand, at least this time of year, they live in both.