Linda Geaves - Web Administrator
Linda Geaves – Web Administrator of MMCC visit to Thailand – what are the first thoughts which spring to mind? The land of a thousand smiles, Buddhism and monks, beautiful beaches? This summer a group of eight students got to see a rather different Thailand to the common Frang (meaning Foreigner in Thai); a misty mountainous (yet still sweltering) Thailand, drenched with vegetation and the eternal humming of crickets which stretched over the remote hills like an invisible blanket. Old ladies sit on their porches sewing, while babies sleep soundly, safely strapped to their mothers back as she farms her rice paddy. Sounds romantic, but when you are trying to sleep on a mattress an inch thick while dripping with sweat because the powers cut and the fan will not work, I can promise it isn’t! And though from an outsiders point of view, and indeed the impression we gained in the first few weeks, our remote village seemed content and self-sustaining, yet under closer scrutiny, made possible through building trust with the locals, we learnt that there were indeed some rather large cracks looming under the surface of this seemingly peaceful, unchanging village in the hills of Northern Thailand.
Now that I have landed back in England had a shower (instead of a bucket) and a nice cup of tea, I have had a chance to reflect on our eight weeks in experience in Thailand. Was it successful? Did we achieve our aims? Did we make a difference? Formally, the project in Thailand was for us to go to a village called Nam Ngao in Northern Thailand and build a water filtration system, teach at the local schools, integrate into the community and give ourselves an experience of a culture which is different to our own. And yes, we did achieve all those aims if not by the prescribed method, yet I am still left with the challenging questions of was the trip successful and did we make a difference?
The first week of the project was a bit of a shock; from learning that not one person in the village spoke English, that the majority of them actually spoke Chinese rather than Thai, to going into the school and being asked who we were and why we were there – it was demoralising to say the least. But in those rickety foundations of the project were embedded the seeds of success whose growth was made possible through a combination of eight strong willed students dedicated to making their project work, the kindness of the villagers, and the help of outside coordinators. And the measure of success? It was not that the water filtration system was built within schedule, nor that the student enthusiasm and ability to speak English had greatly improved. No, it is that the villagers and staff felt that they could open up and discuss with us the problems of the village which on the surface were very difficult to see. This information means that we now have material to work with so that the next students to go there can have a direction and real purpose.
We had previously had no idea of the extent of people moving from rural to urban areas in this part of Thailand – except for hints in what seemed almost like ghost classrooms, where there were desks, books, even toothbrushes but no children. We did not realise that when parents relocated to the cities they left their children, sometimes without even monetary support, with their Grandparents and started up new lives and families elsewhere. The left behind in the village were either too old or young to work, and we learnt from the teachers that the students often went without lunch. The schools in the village were not the same standard as those in the city, and the families which could afford to send their children elsewhere did, meaning that the children in the Nam Ngao were disproportionately worse off as they could not get the standard of education, namely in English, to enable them to get better jobs. We also witnessed first hand the villages waste problem as our piles of rubbish grew higher and higher, until finally instead of dustbin men taking it away, the wild dogs, pigs and chickens had a go at it, strewing it all about our garden – not that it made any difference when the usual method of waste disposal was to dump it by the river, the very river water the locals drink and wash in. The villages problems extended beyond its boundaries, as in the processes of trying to make a living the locals have stripped the mountains of its lush vegetation and have replaced it with cash crops. With the decline of the village the need to intensify their farming is understandable, yet they are faced with two very big problems; firstly they do not actually own the land as it is common, and secondly, the deforestation combined with monsoon rains on steep slopes has meant that sometimes these cash crops will simply be washed away and in the case of a nearby village, take houses with it.
Despite these underlying hardships the villagers shared with us what they could from coming round every evening to give us fruit, candles and photos of themselves to treating us to six straight hours of karaoke! The group of eight of us had massive amounts of fun whether playing ping-pong with the children or cooking the most horrific meals (sometimes in the dark) with ingredients that looked like it had just walked into the kitchen! Though the aims of the project were fulfilled, it did not run to plan and whether we have made a difference to these people will depend upon next years students. We gave the school six weeks of English lessons, and yes, there was a visible improvement in the children’s and teachers English, but what is going to happen now we have left? In my opinion, a plan needs to be put in place not just to educate the students for a few weeks of the year, but to work with the teachers so that they can carry on the project once we have left. The skills which have been drained out of the village as people have left for the cities needs to be refreshed, but in such a way that allows people to adapt to a culture which is changing rapidly. How this will be done requires much thought and planning, and it will be interesting to see how next years project will approach these challenges.
