Working for the future

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This week-end we privileged the teenagers at the Munithi, and together we set out to a village nearby, where Sister Nuan comes from, to learn how to make … fertilizer !
The village used to buy chemical fertilizer and spread it every year over the fields to increase the yield. For five years now, the village has taken the bet to convert itself to “bio-farming”, as we would call it, and “traditional ways”, as they do call it. After two years of hardships, where the rice couldn’t live in a barren earth without fertilizer, the yields have started to rise, and now are even higher than the years before ! And they are getting better every year at making fertilizer, so reaping the rice will be more plentiful still. Oh, and the crabs and fish living in the rice patties have come back, interesting and delicious side-effect of coming back to natural ways !

This phases in totally with the Munithi aim of using the deep-rooted traditions to reunite people, especially the generation gap. The people teaching us how to make fertilizer were adults, and happy to share their knowledge and motivation to younger generations. And our kids were happy to imagine where rice gets its nourishment from. Oh, and we also made dishwashing soap from perfectly natural products as well ! I just went shopping today, this saved us over 500 baht for this month, all the while having the kids enjoying themselves !

So we climbed up in the pick-up for an hour’s drive… bags, covers and all – authorities in Europe would holler to hell about carrying kids around like this, just don’t overreact, will you ? It’s a heck of a lot more fun than a plain bus, and we don’t have much choice anyway – a pick-up will go where no bus has ever gone before !

Note the dashing smiles of the three Charlie’s Angels for the day : Duang, Nam and Op waiting to leave. It was a great time during the week-end to get to know these kids better. Duang is opening up more and more, she’s always been rather secretive, this week-end joy shone through her eyes and she had fits of honest laughter which were a pleasure to hear. Nam is also stepping down from her pedestal : for some time she had become a little arrogant with everybody, since she had been chosen in her class to lead the school procession during the new year parade. And Op, she’s a heart inside out, always helping out or sharing with others. It was a tiring week-end for her though, she finished it off suffering of a bad stomach ache, it was difficult to witness the tears in her silent eyes as she was suffering without word. She’s sadly used to this, the medicine hurting her, but she has no choice but to take it…

So step one in making fertilizer is… knowing what to use ! Here we go through the different plants used that can make a good mix of nutrients, kids wrote it all down on a small notebook for the week-end. Here I’m explaining Piya about the Farang tree. Farang is a kind of goyava, but it’s also the way we white people are called. So when I eat a farang I never have to wait 10 seconds to get the same lousy joke over and over again, “Farang gin [eats] farang”, but when you see the laughs it’s worth the frustration a million times over.

So then you gather the leaves…



… assemble them …



… looking nice as doing so, Duang makes me think of the Sister Theresa wanting to be the little flower of God… well, there’s still a long way to go !



And finally starts the chopping ! Nope, no machine here, when these guys mean “tradition”, they mean, “tradition, dude !” Here Nat and Phyak



Ploy in an incisive mood



Bap hits the beat



Duang studiously writes all the steps in her notebook, while Ploy and I watch. Hmm, letting others study and work !





And then you mix this with molasses from sugar cane and cover for two weeks… and then you get this ! Hungry ?



If you’ve lost your appetite, that’s a shame, ‘cause Nui is just about to bring us fishing.



Tang is in the water with Sister Nuan’s father, fishing for pla duk, a fish that can reach up to 200 kg in the Mekong river !



But we’re far from the Mekong, and we get only these few shrimp that disgust even Ninda…




So after all this work, we rest in the shade : Nui, Tang and Bap…



Or go for a little arm-wrestling – note the balancing of forces with Bap using only one finger (he lost, that’ll teach him…)

In the meanwhile, Claire and I try to value the powers of concentration and lines of energy to lift a person easily. Piya and Ninda volunteer to help, Ploy the guinea pig of the experiment. Don’t look under for a picture where Ploy is levitating, it didn’t work. Will try again and concentrate more, I’ll keep you posted.

Or just plain lay down and go for a snooze or play… Ben and I, followed by Pi Kara and Nam.

A final view of a kid aiming for the sky – Ploy ! And each of our kids came back tired, we did too, we were all happy to have learned a lot and new things and eat the most delicious pla dek I’ve ever found yet !