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I had been to all of three lessons of traditional Lanna dance. One was an informal practice in Noinas home before the show.

So obviously I was not well prepared to get up on stage in front of the entire town! (everyone was coming because they heard I was dancing) I’ve definitely been accepted since they found out I was dancing. I’m not sure if the goodwill towards me will continue once they actually see me dance like tree stump)

But after my hair and makeup were done I felt a bit more confident.

After makeup was a great selfie opportunity for Ma Now, Noinas little sis, and I. 

Then I slipped into my outfit and I was as ready as I could be.

There was an actual stage inside a Wat in Phrao. I saw it when Noina and I grabbed our lunch from the ladies in charge of the food for after the dancing. This is a serious thing. A stage!!

The minute I saw the stage I was immediately grabbed by the town leader’s wife and the other women prepping the food and fed many kanom jok sai Ma prow (some delicious coconut dessert wrapped in banana leaf). They not only want me to dance but they want me to be fat as well. Demanding!

Back to the main act:

I got dressed and it seemed like everyone I met behind the temple had something to add to my outfit! A necklace here, a belt there, a sash here, a new skirt there. Everyone smiled at me.

Then I was at the front of a parade of women some with banners others like me carrying platters of curries, fruits, and sticky rice.  I was grinning the whole time. Everyone was having a good time.

People sat on mats in front of the templeand ate while they watched the numerous performances.

We had to wait to dance. I was so nervous. But I was also enjoying the atmosphere. I was the only foreigner at this fundraiser and the first foreigner to ever join in in this town. And everyone seemed so pleased I was there. Pretty epic. Definitely the most memorable activity so far:)

The dance can’t be uploaded so I’ll post a link later.

After, they kept me up on stage and spoke in rapid Thai to me while I just stood there awkwardly waiting to tell them I couldn’t understand. 😂😂
Then it was time to eat! Yum the best curry I’ve had so far in Thailand called Gaaeng hang laeh muu. Yum! With sticky rice, of course!

What a night!

Saying yes to everything offered is the best way, I’ve found, to get to know the people of Phrao. It will surely get me into trouble soon but while my stomach agrees with them, I will keep trying the Lanna specialties: raw meat, live shrimp, and blood soup! Right, so chances are it’s definitely going to bite me in the ass. I mean come on blood soup (raw by the way, and not too bad…pretty salty).

It’s not just food that I’m flexible with, it’s my schedule and plans as well. And I’ve found I have the best experiences when I nod in favor of whatever it is I’m asked to join and hop in the bed of a truck to who knows where.

Today, I conducted another interview at one of the nicest open-air restaurants I’ve been to anywhere. I tried fresh crab papaya salad (som tam pu) and finished it off with a Chang beer, because I’m now a fan of light beer (dammit!).

Then, I was supposed to scooter back to Warm Heart for dinner but was feeling pretty exhausted so I sat down at my translator’s bar for a minute. The restaurant owner, one I interviewed whose kow soy is to die for, and her son who goes to CMU came over and invited me to go with them to the hot springs. Ah  I didn’t even ask what hot springs and just jumped into the bed of the truck with her son, James, and two other university students.

The hot springs turned out to be the local hangout.

Mosaic hot tubs had been carved into the ground and natural sulfur smelling hot water was pumped in.

Some people were bathing in the larger pools, some were boiling eggs 😂  and some were just dipping their toes in. A group showed up with beers and whiskey playing loud music. Party.

A beautifully tiled serpent (ngu) ran along the northern edge of the pools guarding the hot springs from the mountains beyond.
We all soaked our feet and two of the students jumped in.

Then it was a homemade meal of chicken blood and noodles, sticky rice mixed with blood, raw pork liver, bean sprouts, and chilis. I’m surprised I haven’t keeled over from another parasite yet, honestly. It was delicious.

The students and I chattered away. I have new friends to go to dinner with in Chiang Mai now. How great.

I also met some Chinese students in the kitchen of our dorm the other day who also study at CMU. They are going to teach me how to make Chinese dumplings by hand on Monday. We are also going to go out and listen to their teacher sing at a bar. Ha! How cool.

Making connections is what I’m here to do. Just being open to everything and willing to try is the way to get the most out of my experiences. Nice to put out energy and have some returned to you in unexpected and fun ways.

It was supposed to be my first week of classes at CMU.

And then I decided I would go to the wedding of one of the cooks and house mothers at Warm Heart. That was that. I asked Evelind for a seat in the bed of the truck and drove up the Monday classes started so I could leave for the wedding on Tuesday. I’m laughing as I write this because it was so awesome and completely worth it.

7am Tuesday January 17th. Myself and 2 other volunteers, Hillary and Jayne, along with Nit, a Warm Heart university student, hopped into the bed of a pickup truck.

The two and a half hour ride was thrilling.   Just look at our facial expressions:)

We never once stopped climbing high up into the mountains.

The entire ride, we were surrounded by incredibly dense Jurassic park like jungle.

The mood was only slightly  dampened by the fact that the road was so incredibly bumpy we all were thrown around and our tail bones bruised perhaps forever. Worth it.

We arrived at the small village just as the sun hit the mountainside we were on.

Everyone had gathered in the center already. The women wore beautiful skirts and woven tops. Some of the men had woven tops as well. All very colorful.

The bride and groom came out of one of the houses on stilts and everyone fell into step behind them as the village leader and the priest led the way to the church. She was beautiful.

Above was the church. Just a single room structure.

Somehow I got a seat inside next to Josephine, the badass head of Warm Heart’s Microenterprise. She was reading literature during all the speakers. Ha. I tried to listen but it was futile because my Thai is so basic, so I just watched. The ceremony was simple. The couple sat in the front facing the guests.

They never touched or looked at each other. The village leader, the priest, each village elder, both families, and other notables in the village all blessed the couple and spoke at length in Thai. The marriage contract was signed and the rings were exchanged that was the only time the couple touched, to shake hands over the contract.

The marriage was, in essence, a contract. They were both getting something out of it. Then there was singing, lots of it. Finally the priest gave his final blessing and everyone followed the new couple outside for photos. Dried rice was thrown over the new couple.

That was the view from the church.

Then it was time to eat! Big pots had been bubbling and boiling since early this morning in preparation for the wedding feast.

Sticky rice is delicious.

Then I got to listen to stories of Michael in Zamibia interviewing miners and Josephine working in the garmet industry and then as a business journalist in Bangladesh.

After, the kids from Warm Heart decided it was time for a swim next to the village.

We were exhausted by the time we loaded back into the bed of the pickup truck. I wasn’t too tired to snap a few more pics of the landscape as we cruised home.

A great day I won’t soon forget.

After bopping around Chiang Mai for a night on my own, I zoomed 90 km up into the mountains to start my work with Warm Heart in Ban Mae Pang.

I scootered through the lush green jungle that hugged the mountains north of the city and arrived at what I now call my second home.

Situated near the village of Ban Mae Pang, the Warm Heart Foundation compound is everything that is necessary and nothing excessive. In other words, it’s perfect. The children’s homes, kitchen, play area, and Michael and Evelind’s house lie on the western side of the dirt and gravel road running through the middle. The central road dividing the area connects the two dirt roads that enclose the compound on the north and south that also serve as the exits to the road to Phrao and Chiang Mai. On the eastern side of the central road lies the offices, the general office, volunteer office and the microenterprise office, the library, restrooms and a short skip down stone path reveals the small, homey volunteer housing.

The cooks whip up the most delicious and nutritious meals for lunch and dinner everyday. Vegetables in coconut stew or simply  steamed to perfection, chicken in curry or boiled so it melts in your mouth, omelets and chilis, pork and cauliflower. Served with freshly cooked rice and a side of information from whoever happens to be sitting across from me.

The latest snippets of knowledge I’ve been privy to have consisted of the details of production, efficiency, costs, marketing, microbusiness, and challenges of biochar in Warm Heart as well as farther up north in small villages. Climate Change always enters the conversation and I learn more about solutions and not just offsets than I have ever studied in the US. I’ve learned a bit about working in the Garmet industry in Bangladesh surveying factories on price points, products, retailers, and why the twenty something human rights worker was never going to be respected there because they didn’t understand how the industry functioned and asked dumb questions. I’ve learned a bit about interviewing Zamibian miners who spent more than twenty four hours imprisoned far down in the earth. The secret to talking to them? Approach them in the bar and share a drink. (It also helps to be a guy in that situation I’m sure. Not many female miners I’d reckon.) Never the less, I’ve drawn on these experiences of persons who have lived, truly lived, every moment thus far and have thought deeper and more critically than I assumed possible and they have guided and enhanced my experiences here.

The decision to accept my translators invitation for a beer at her little bar after my first interview with a woman who owns a restaurant proved to be the best decision I could have made. It opened the door to allow me to get further stuck in with the women, marvelous fucking creatures the women of Norhern Thailand are, in this community.

One evening (2/3) she, P’Da, brought me to the public health volunteers meeting. She and five other women, each from a different village, keep accounts of the 600 baht they receive monthly for public health and record deposits and expenditures on carefully drawn balance sheets. That was one of the most powerful meetings I’ve witnessed in my life. I sat and soaked up everything I could as they laughed and drank beer while arguing over the calculations for the annual balance sheet. I did not sense much awareness on their part of what an awesome thing they were doing because, I realized, only an outsider can say something so routine and necessary is awesome.

I thought I would get tired of the drive up to Warm Heart. That is laughable now. I love the drive up to Warm Heart once I get out of the city and into the mountains I breathe easier and the anticipation of knowing I will learn so much in the next few days makes me grin stupidly at times as I inhale the scent of freshly grilled chicken in tiny roadside stalls and zoom by golden temples.

Most of the classes at CMU are a struggle for me to get invested into because I am so invested in learning up here. Ha! The homework seems irrelevant and is not teaching us practical knowledge for understanding and interacting with the Northern Thai peoples. That’s what I’m learning while working at Warm Heart. I chatted with five female restaurant owners, all tough women, today before drinking beers and chewing on buffalo skin with friends of my translator at her bar. So, while sitting at a desk has its purpose and while the classroom at CMU is nice and clean like the theories and power points that are presented in it, I prefer my new classroom. The one in tiny little restaurants and bars talking with women who have created their own businesses, eating traditional northern Thai dishes, drinking beers and singing karoke, and shutting up and listening and thinking deeply about to everything and anything I’m told. It’s the most challenging and most exciting lesson I’ve ever received. It never ends! No wonder I’m not a fan of sitting at a desk right now.

I also was able to attend a hill tribe wedding and a New Years celebration in small villages in Northern Thailand. I wouldn’t have done that taking a course! I actually skipped school the first week of courses to go to the wedding because when would I ever get to go to a Hill Tribe wedding otherwise?!

More stories to come…