Going Home

Well, I've decided not to teach in South Korea after all. I'd rather work at the farm or get some job in town for the summer than to deal with more solo traveling and teaching. Plus, teaching at this English summer camp would mean that I'd have to be there on a tourist visa, which is illegal. I'm not really one who cares much about the legality of things, but if the camp got checked by the authorities I would be deported and, worst of all, not paid.

So, instead I think I'm going to fly home on the 23rd of June. That's just three days from now. Panya has been really fun and I've learned so much here, but there's not much reason for me to stay any longer. With all the core members gone, I would sort of be in charge of running the place. With all the people that come through here looking to have fun but do very little work, most of what needs to get done here would fall on me. It's basically a lot of responsibility I don't want and would actually be paying to do. (Although I stay for free now, I have to pay for internet.) Besides, my visa expires on July 4th anyway. I'd rather go home and spend some quality time with family and friends. This way I'll be able to watch the Euro 2008 final with my Dad and be home for the 4th of July.

Being home will be great for all sorts of reasons, but it's also going to be a really strange transition. I've been away from the U.S. now for almost ten months now. I've gotten used cheap food, cheap public transportation, cheap living expenses, cheap everything. It will be hard to get used to a place where everything is so expensive and there is so much waste and excess everywhere I look. It's home, though.

As a goodbye from Thailand, here are some of my favorite pictures from Panya/Thailand. Enjoy.

Ends and Beginnings

The permaculture design course, all in all, was pretty amazing. Some of the basic information were things I've heard before. However, the new things I learned, along with the way everything was tied together, were eye-opening.The permaculture design course, all in all, was pretty amazing.

Surveying the Land

Before coming here and taking this course, the idea of living naturally with a small ecological footprint and growing a large percentage of my own food seemed to be some distant dream. I knew that it could be done, but it all seemed so complex to me. I had found out from working at Lyn’s (Over the Moon Farm, an organic farm) that it actually was possible. From all the new things I’ve learned staying here and taking the course, I now know that it’s not that difficult or expensive to create an ecologically-sound system of living just about anywhere (even cities and the suburbs).

Basically what permaculture is (in a nutshell) is an integrated system of landscape and home design which draws wisdom from a diverse mixture of environmentalism, biology, ecology, agriculture, organic farming, and many other sources. As a result, permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture, can be created just about anywhere. So much of the waste which is created in traditional homes can instead be used to create an abundance was pretty amazing.

Someday, I do dream of having my own piece of land somewhere, but I think that dream is a long ways in the future since the pursuit of money has never really been an interest of mine. But until that day, I think I will have plenty of opportunities to practice and implement what I’ve learned at the homes of friends and family and such. If I can convince them, maybe I can semi-permaculturize my parents’ (or sister’s?) suburban home in a way that would help reduce water, energy, and food costs without much additional effort.

In other news, I recently found out from someone that it’s relatively easy to go to graduate school in Japan on a full scholarship. Japan doesn’t provide scholarships to Japanese students, but because they really want foreign students to study in Japan, they offer this government scholarship to many non-Japanese students every year. Most of the students who apply are from developing countries like China and India, and as a result the competition for students from developed countries is very minimal. I e-mailed the division of Environmental Science Development (in the department of Environmental Science) at Hokkaido University and made some inquiries as to what kind of research is going on there. I got a reply that looked pretty promising, so it’s definitely something I’ll be considering doing in the near future. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing after my siblings’ weddings, but returning to China is also a very likely possiblity. Even though I’m pretty much dirt poor right now, I feel good that a lot of different options are opening up for me. I’m excited to think of where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing a year from now.

A Meaty Post

Well, I promised I wouldn't post updates any less than once a week, but then I went and did it anyway. I'll make up for it in June when I'll have a lot of time and there will be much fewer people here, I promise!

So the permaculture course will be starting here in two days, which means things are going to change around here big time. The last couple days we've been really busy working like crazy to get everything ready for the students. It's kind of funny since I'm actually one of them.

Up until yesterday we have been rotating cooking and doing the dishes between all of us here, but now they've hired two women from the village to cook and do the dishes for us during the course. It's nice to not have to do it anymore, and it's even nicer to have authentic Thai food cooked every day for us. There has been a problem, however, with the cooks not being able to comprehend that vegetarians don't eat meat. (There are a lot of vegetarians in our group)

By the way, the meals I've been eating since I've been here have been vegetarian 90% of the time. Although I'm not a vegetarian, this is exactly the kind of diet I believe I should be eating and I'm glad I'm finally doing it. Don't get me wrong -- I love meat. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems inherent in eating meat that a lot of people don't realize. (I feel an essay coming on, so get ready...)

The first of these problems is the land usage problem. It's a recognized fact that a lot more land is needed to produce one kilo of meat than is needed to produce one kilo of vegetables, grains, or fruit. With a global population spiraling out of control, we need to use our land as efficiently as possible in order to feed everyone. By producing huge demands for meat, we are causing farmers everywhere to grow less staple crops essential to feed everyone (and relatively inexpensive) and having them shift to meat that is only available to those who can afford it.

The second problem is the ethical problem of animal mistreatment. Most people who live in the city and suburbs have had little exposure to agriculture and truly don't aware of how terrible animals are treated in conventional poultry, egg, and beef operations. The animals are kept in crowded, filthy rooms and given little to no opportunity to go outside or get any exercise. Many conventional egg farms keep their chickens permanently in small cages where they cannot even turn around, much less engage in their natural foraging habits. I've seen a conventional pig farm where the pigs are kept eight to a pen no bigger than 2x4 meters. The buildup of manure was so terrible that fans needed to run constantly in order to keep the pigs from asphyxiating from all the ammonia in the air. 99% of the meat you find on your grocery store shelves come from these "factory farms" in which animals endure unspeakable suffering.

A third major problem is the health problem. Americans eat an enormous amount of meat, and it's no surprise that we have more health problems than most other nations as well. It's no secret that America is the fattest developed country in the world. In most traditonal societies just about everywhere, meat has never been a regular food item, but seen as a luxury which could be enjoyed on special occasions. There are exceptions, of course, but what I'm getting at is it's not natural to eat meat every day or even multiple times a week. And surprise, surprise -- it's not healthy either. All those factory farm animals I mentioned aren't raised in a way in which they can get a lot of exercise. They are kept penned up and fed mostly grains so that all they can do is put on lots of weight, most of which is fat. The result is beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, etc. which when consumed in large quantities, will certainly have a negative effect on your health. I won't even begin to go into the topic of pesticides, growth hormones, and antibiotics which contaminate most meat and cause all sorts of health problems and risks.

So what is the solution to these problems? Is there a solution, or are vegetarianism and veganism the only sensible options? Thankfully, for those of us who love meat, there is a way we can keep meat as part of our diet and still rest easy knowing our diet is healthy and ethical. The solution, as you may have guessed, lies partly in moderation. Meat is something that really shouldn't be eaten on a daily basis, but maybe once or twice a week or even less often than that. Fruits, and especially vegetables really need to regain the prominent role they once had in the American diet. Dust off that spice rack and you'll see how tasty vegetarian dishes can really be. Another benefit of eating meat less often is that on the rare days that you do eat a dish with meat in it, you'll really appreciate and savor it that much more.

Moderation, however, is only part of the answer. The other part is knowing where your meat is coming from and how the animals are raised. If you want your meat to be leaner, more nutritious, free of carcinogenic and otherwise dangerous contaminants, (and even tastier), then organic, free-range (aka 'pastured') meat is the way to go. Organic, of course, means that the animals are only fed organic feed and are not genetically modified, fed growth hormones, or laden with antibiotics. Free-range means that the animals are not confined in tiny pens or cages but allowed access to open pasture where they can get plenty of exercise, engage in more natural foraging habits, and eat a lot more greens (and a lot less grains). The hens pictured here foraging around in the grass are producing high-quality, free-range eggs. This really makes a noticeable difference in the quality of the meat. The best way to ensure you are buying free-range organic meat is to go find a local free-range organic farmer and visit the farm. The farm I worked on in Rebersburg, PA (Over the Moon Farm) was one such farm, and an exceptional one at that. Find out for yourself exactly what is going on and what kind of conditions the animals are being raised in. (This is especially important to determine if the meat is actually free-range because some commercial producers will claim to be free-range, when in fact they only give the animals a tiny bit of access to the outside which is usually barren and quickly soiled.)

Of course, this isn't an option for everyone, so the next best option is to look for free-range organic meat products in your local grocery or health food store and buy them there. It's not ideal, and it will be a lot more expensive, but proper health and diet is definitely worth it.

So anyway, that's the very long explanation of why I believe eating a mostly vegetarian diet is the best way to go. Sure, vegetarianism or veganism are still very healthy dietary choices, but I think it's even healthier to get a dose of meat (and the vitamins and minerals which come with it) every now and then, too. And although it is certainly true that raising a kilo of meat uses up a lot more land space than growing a kilo of veggies, if animals are integrated sustainably into the land
alongside crops they actually make up for the extra land use with the input of valuable manure into the system. And some vegetarian products like tofu are actually highly processed and also take up a very considerable amount of land space to create. I'd like to go more in depth with my thoughts on vegetarianism and veganism, but that would take far too much time so I'll save it for another day.

Seeing in how this post didn't have too many pictures with it, here's a random picture of these awesome little geckos that are everywhere around here. (I know at least Jamie will appreciate it.) Enjoy!

Monsoon Too Soon

Well it looks like the rainy season is here after all. Strange thing is it came almost a month early -- very unusual. It's almost as if the climate is somehow changing in some unprecedented way! Funny that!

So it's been raining here just about every day. Some days it will be twice or even three times a day. Today I thought we were going to make it through a whole day of sun and no rain, but alas it started pouring down in the evening.

Aside from all the water, the most interesting thing about the start of the rainy season is all the strange animals that start coming out. In the evenings we have started getting these massive termite hatches which are easily the most amazing insect phenomena I've ever seen. The termites hatch after a big rain and take off to the sky with these flimsy wings and head towards the nearest light source. They eventually lose their wings and then start crawling around on the ground looking for a new home.

At Panya the structure where we cook, eat, and (most of us) sleep is the "sala". It's an open-air structure so there's nothing keeping these giant hatches from us. It also has a number of lights. In the sala alone there must have been tens of thousands. They get everywhere. We made the mistake of eating dinner a little late one day and boy did we pay for it. Even without any lights near the food the termites were landing on us and in the food by the dozens. We actually had to evacuate the sala and eat in the new cottage and under our mosquito netting just to eat dinner. The termite hatches are a mixed blessing though. Although they are a pain in the ass to clean up the next day (and they work their way into the wood of the buildings here), they are also an easy source of food for both ourselves and the chickens. All we do is keep a couple of lights on in the kitchen and put two big bowls filled with water under the lights. The termites and several different types of beetles fall into the water and get stuck there. In the morning, we have a huge bowl of chicken feed, or for the more brave amongst us, food for ourselves. One of our Thai residents here cooks them up every now and again and gives us a small bowl to try. Cooked the right way (fried with oil and salt/soy sauce) they actually aren't too bad. Very crunchy.
Of course all the other animals love the termite hatches as well. I saw a gecko and a frog just gorging themselves on termites. The frog was especially fun to watch because he was eating them so quickly (about one every three seconds). Ants enjoy taking part of the cleanup job the next day, hauling as many as they can away.

Termites aren't the only things to come out in great numbers. Several types of frogs come out to mate in the newly formed ponds and add their choruses to the nighttime sounds. I've seen a number of snails, too, which worry me about the prospect of growing some greens in the garden. These little black ants seem to have come out all over the place as well. They are no bigger than one or two millimeters, but they have a painful little bite that seems to be just as bad as the much larger red ants here. The worst things to come out with all the rains are the mosquitoes, though. They've always been present, but now they are more numerous and attack brazenly even in the daytime. I don't use any insect repellent sprays usually because the idea of dousing myself in chemicals doesn't really appeal to me. If it gets real bad I might put on a little citronella balm, but it rarely comes to that. I imagine as we get further and further into the season it might get pretty bad, though.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the rains or not (my guess is it doesn't), but I also happened to see the most interesting looking insect I've ever seen in my life a couple of days ago. I was pruning the mango trees along the road and noticed one mango leaf on the ground that didn't look quite right. I wish I had the foresight to have taken a picture of it while it was in a tree, but at the time I was in the rush to go somewhere and just snapped a few quick pictures. I hope I see one again, although with camouflage like that, I somehow doubt I ever will.

I'm not quite sure what else the rains will bring, but I've been told that leeches will be in the picture sometime in the near future. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the future has in store for me. (Coincidentally, just as I had finished typing that, a large treefrog leaped straight over my lap and onto the ground. Those things can really jump!)

Snakes, finally!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post. I feel as though I had written my last post only a few days ago!

In fairness, I had planned on writing an update yesterday evening, but a big thunderstorm blew through and kept me from going anywhere near the computer. It was a nice soaking though, and it was a real pleasure to go to bed as the thunderstorm was weighing down on us. Laying in bed in darkness occasionally illuminated by lightning, I listened to the roaring of the thunder, the constant pounding of the rain on the tin roof, and piercing howls of the wind. It's nice to have a reminder every now and then of the power of nature. No matter what delusions we grant ourselves, we shall always be subject to its fury and mercy.

I was disappointed that I had not seen any snakes at all for the first two weeks I was here. This is Thailand, man. Snakes of all kinds are supposed to be crawling around everywhere! A few days ago I finally saw my first snake. I'm not entirely sure what snake it is or what the adults look like, but this juvenile had dark gray head, a black neck, and then a yellow collar separating its gray/dark gray patterned body.

Then, yesterday, out of nowhere I saw three snakes in one day. In the morning I saw another juvenile collared snake (probably from the same litter as the other one) as I was working on the cottage. Later in the morning we heard this squeaking and couldn't imagine what animal was making the sound. Christian and I followed the sound a few meters away and discovered a little frog squeaking for its life. He wasn't alone. His body was lodged in the mouth of a slender snake. The snake had a bronze-colored head, with black stripes along its eyes and continuing horizontally along the side of the snake. Parallel to the black stripe was also a cream-colored stripe. It's back was a patchwork of iridescent blue, black, and gray. Later I identified it as a striped bronzeback snake (Dendrelaphis caudolineatus). In about two minutes, the snake had swallowed the tiny frog and slithered up a nearby tree (it's an arboreal snake) to escape all the huge two-legged animals gawking at it.

Thinking my snake sightings were finished for the day, I was surprised to hear about our neighbor Ryan calling us during our siesta to ask about a snake that was curled up in the corner of his house. I told him I would come over and happily remove it for him (and try to identify what kind of snake it was, too). When I arrived, I saw this thin snake curled up on a bookshelf. Its eyes were large with vertical slits (like a cat's), indicating that it was a nocturnal species. It was probably just trying to sleep through the day until it could go out hunting at night.

I got a large forked stick and managed to get it out of the house and away to a nearby field. The snake was colored pinkish brown with a beautiful pattern of two red dots and brownish stripes continuing down along its back. I still haven't figured out exactly what kind of snake it is, but I know it is some type of cat snake (my best guess is golden cat snake, Boiga drapeizii). Cat snakes are mildly venomous, but usually not dangerously so. They are rear-fanged, so they need to get a good bite on sometime to inject their venom anyway. I wish I had a better picture of it, but unfortunately my camera was out of batteries and I had to use the pictures a friend had taken instead.

I am continually amazed at the levels of biodiversity around here, despite the fact that all the nearby forests were clearcut a few decades ago and all the forest is secondary growth. (There are no old-growth rainforests left in Thailand anymore due to this practice.) Apparently, it wasn't always so. The person who originally sold the land to the Panya project a few years ago used the land as a mango plantation. All the little lizards and snakes we see running around now were much less numerous then, and I imagine that is true of many other animals as well. One can only get so much biodiversity from a monoculture agricultural site. As we plant a greater variety of different plants and trees, I expect the biodiversity here will continue to increase, and that definitely brings a smile to my face.

Fire, Wind, and Water

The last week has certainly been an interesting one! It was a week of "elemental extremes", if you will.

On Sunday we spent a good part of the day battling brushfires. It seems to be a habit in this part of Thailand for the villagers to burn the underbrush of wooded areas during the dry season (so that it doesn't build up and create more massive forest fires). So on the other side of the hill next to us, someone had lit one such fire. It was creeping towards us Saturday night, and then Sunday morning we had to go up and use shovels and hoes to keep the fire from spreading onto Panya's property. We thought we had extinguished it, but 10 minutes later it was ablaze again. It finally stopped at the dirt road that separates our property. After relaxing a bit in the afternoon and having our siesta, someone noticed that there was still another fire continuing unchecked at the other side of Panya's land. This time we decided to set our own fires just above our land in order to stop the fire from spreading downwards. It made the fire a little more intense, but after a lot of hard work by many people our efforts worked and the fires were put out for good.

Later that evening, after we were exhausted from the fires, it started to rain. We actually welcomed the rain immensely because it's the dry season right now and all the plants and garden are thirsty for some water. It started slow and then picked up a bit. Then, suddenly, the winds picked up big time. I'm talking hurricane-force winds here, with rain coming in completely horizontally. It only lasted about a minute, and then died down again, but in that time everything was quite chaotic. A bookcase fell over, mattresses were blown everywhere, and the main building was just a complete mess. Lots of unripened mangoes fell off the trees, and a number of banana trees fell over. Luckily, aside from a little bit of the thatched roof getting messed up, there wasn't any real damage.

Most of all, it was really just a strange experience. The winds came from nowhere, and left as quickly as they came. It was actually the second time I've experienced such a phenomenon. The first time was at the farm in Rebersburg, where I was watching the farm by myself. There was a small rainstorm moving through, and suddenly the winds were so intense that I began to scramble towards the basement thinking it was a tornado. Then, suddenly, it just stopped after a minute and everything was back to normal.

The next morning, we finished cleaning up from the storm and then set out to Chiang Mai (the nearest city) to celebrate Songkran. Songkran is Thailand's new year festival, but it beats the hell out of both Western and Chinese New Year's celebrations. It takes place during the hottest part of the dry season, and what it is is basically a gigantic country-wide water fight that lasts several days. Although it happens all over Thailand, Chiang Mai is actually where it is celebrated the hardest. We all drove up there together in the truck with buckets and water guns and went to the heart of where everything was happening in the city. There are several canals there, and everyone is throwing water at people and simultaneously getting water thrown at them. No one is spared -- not old ladies, babies, people on motorbikes, paraplegics, no one.

Most of the people were just throwing warm water from the canals on everyone, but some of the people were more clever and had dropped huge blocks of ice into their water buckets! They were quite good at the art of pouring an ice-cold bucket of water straight down people's backs as they walked by. It was really a ton of fun, although the environmentalist in me was a little distressed with the huge amounts of water being wasted and all the idling pick-up trucks filled with water warriors -- but hey, a celebration is a celebration!

After a few hours of getting thoroughly soaked, we went to a local sauna to sweat out our stress and relax in style. It was a really awesome place, and I can't wait to go back there sometime. What's really cool was how simple their sauna system is. A lot of the people at Panya liked it so much, we're thinking of installing one here at some point in the future. I hope to be here when that day comes!

Right now, things have settled down once again and it's back to life as usual again. Luckily, life as usual is pretty unusual here, which is why I love it.

What is Panya?

It’s been a few days since I’ve updated, so it’s about time I write one. It’s real easy to fall behind on e-mails or blog updates because there is only one internet connection for everyone to share and there’s always so many other things to do instead.

Anyway, I thought I’d make it my task to explain exactly what Panya is, since it may not be clear to everyone reading this. But to talk about Panya, we must first talk about permaculture. Permaculture is similar to organic farming (farming without the use of chemicals, genetically modified organisms, or antibiotics), but it goes far beyond that concept. It is a way of integrating culture and lifestyle with natural ecological systems, which creates a continual flow of food, energy, and natural materials for meeting the local needs of a community. That’s the basic explanation, at least.

Panya is, first and foremost, a permaculture and natural building education center located among the small villages of northern Thailand. It is also an ecovillage-in-the-making. As an education center, Panya offers both natural building internships as well as permaculture design courses (PDC). I will be taking the PDC, which starts on May 15. I’ve come here early to help out with whatever projects are going on before the course starts, and I’ll stay here for a couple of months after the PDC has ended, too. I’m very interested in staying here on a more long-term basis.

The interesting thing about this area is that Panya is not the only place of its kind in the local community. There are two other neighboring communities, Pun Pun and You Sabai, which also do natural building and emphasize natural living. Each place has it’s own focus though.

Pun Pun, headed by Peggy and Jo, was actually here a few years before Panya, and really started the whole natural building movement in this part of Thailand. They are just down the road from Panya, a 5-minute walk at the most. They are set up in s very similar way to Panya and have a very sizable garden, because at Pun Pun, they especially focuses on seed saving. They grow rare varieties of vegetables (heirloom varieties) in order to preserve the genetic wealth that they contain. Many vegetables and fruits have traditionally had dozens (or hundreds) of different varieties, with different localities propagating unique varieties. Unfortunately, as commercial industrial farming has found its way into local communities all around the world, the local varieties have been phased out or abandoned altogether in favor of the (often genetically modified) commercial varieties. The more species we lose, the lower the amount of genetic wealth available to agriculture around the world, so seed saving projects like this are a really wonderful thing.

You Sabai is a cooking school run by a Thai couple. They are located right next to Pun Pun and often have their cooking students buzzing back and forth between both places. They also run a little café with delicious smoothies, shakes, and other drinks available to help cool down on a hot day. Like Panya and Pun Pun, they use natural building methods and grow a lot of their own food.

As far as Panya goes, there are several long-term members of Panya who stick around to oversee the internships and teach the PDC, and there are always lots of different people coming by for internships, PDCs, or just visiting or getting involved in the project on a more informal basis. There are also a handful of Thai people living amongst the community, although they usually eat by themselves and do more of their own thing.

The layout of Panya is pretty interesting, and I’ll probably elaborate on different parts of it independently in future posts. For now, though, I’ll just give a basic rundown of how it looks. There’s a small mango orchard (along with random mango trees spread around the site), a bunch of banana and papaya trees, and a handful of other different fruit trees here and there. There’s also a garden where we grow a variety of different vegetables.

At the center of the community is a large open-air building (pictured above) made mostly from wood, with a concrete floor and a part tin, part thatched roof. The kitchen is located here, where we cook and eat together as a community. There’s also a number of hammocks lying around for random napping, a couple of computers for internet usage, and a bunch of sleeping bunks on the second floor for interns and PDC students.

All around the community are also a number of small houses made mostly from bamboo, wood, straw, and/or mud where many of the long-term members and Thai people live. They are really quite beautiful and very cheap to build. Right now we are also in the process of building two other buildings. One is a garage/workshop made mostly from dried mud bricks where we plan on keeping the truck and motorbikes, along with some tools and other small machinery. The other is a beautiful house which will double as a community gathering area. I will be sure to elaborate on it in the near future. Lately we have been spending a lot of time putting plaster (made from mud, sand, elephant dung, and water) over the mud bricks on the inside walls and it’s starting to look really fantastic.

Our bathroom is a composting toilet system with three stalls that are rotated depending on what stage in the composting process they are in. There, we compost our own “humanure”, mixed in with rice husks and other kitchen scraps. It’s not smelly at all, and the compost is perfectly safe for use in our own garden. Any dangerous microbes or diseases are killed in the composting process. Currently the first stall is full and is being composted, and the second stall is being used.

By the way, we do have showers, and we even have hot water available for them. After getting really muddy working on the buildings, showers are a great way to cool off at the end of the day. Our water is provided by various sources – a couple rainwater catchment systems (mostly for drinking water) and water pumped in from one of Pun Pun’s ponds (for all other water use). There are also two large ponds built with dams that are designed to fill up during the monsoons and remain as a water supply during the dry season. Unfortunately, we haven’t managed to completely seal the bottoms yet, so they are dry at the moment.

There’s a lot more to say about Panya, but it can’t all be said in one post, so stay tuned. I just wanted to explain the basic layout to everyone so its easy to get a feel for what I’m doing here.