Life in the Village

The nicest building in the village is the school. There are 67 children, representing something like 70 households, which tells you something about the age demographic. Fewer Akha people are staying in the village, so there aren't as many children as you'd expect. Niti's mom was one 12 kids, I believe, but those were the old days.

The school just reopened after semester break, and every household was required to send one volunteer to help sickle the grass to discourage snakes from moving in. My job as a volunteer was to take pictures of people working that the school administrator would have proof that the community turned out to help. I also managed to agree to teach English six hours a week. I start on Monday.


Here's what I've been doing lately: I get up in the morning; eat a bowl of cereal (which everyone thinks is really weird); walk on a trail like the one above to one of the extended family's fields. One of our recent projects was to harvest the rice.


Here's a savvy gentleman using his scythe to cut off the grain heads.


And here's me looking much less adept. Lots of bending over with my scythe. We were actually short one blade, so at one point in the week I was lopping off rice heads with a paring knife.


This is the source (in two senses) of my income. I draw water from this pool in a little creek and let it flow downstream into the Chinese generator I recently purchased. Power from the generator runs 150 ft uphill to our hut where I plug in my computer and write travel guides all day long. During the first few pre-generator days in the village, I had to power the laptop with solar cells. Rainy days were loathesome, and I constantly fretted about meeting my deadlines. Now I can write well into the night if I want to.


So water from the source flows 450 ft downhill, gaining energy until it finally surges into my generator. The generator cost a little over $100, but the pvc pipes cost twice that. I also bought a $60 voltage regulator that protects my electronics on days when the creek is feeling extra robust. Lots of family members and neighbors helped install the whole system, which is why I gladly put writing on hold and help out with things like harvesting rice and hauling sacks of who-knows-what.


With so many side projects going on, it's easy to forget why we came here in the first place. Here's the inside of the nursery. Seedbed is in the back corner, and then the rest of the space is for the bags that will eventually have saplings in them. Right now we have about 1,000 bags prepared.


And finally, the humble abode. The thatched roof is half-new, half-old thatch. That's why the colurs alternate. The stilts are about six feet high on one side and eight feet high on the other. On teh far right, you can see the solar panel. Coming in from the left is my power line from the generator. And then there on the deck is my lovely wife and reluctant photo subject. The house has a hardwood floor with bamboo walls and rafters. The grass roof doesn't let the least bit of rain in.

The first few weeks, we cooked over a concrete hearth with scrap bamboo embers. The fires were shortlived and aggrevating. We recently bought a gas range top and a tank to power it. We have a home-made wooden mousetrap that reminds me of the children's game with all the moving parts. Mouse wanders into this wooden box and sniffs around. Next thing you know, a giant block of wood falls on it. When it works, it's quick and painles; when it doesn't ... well, you can imagine.

We also brought up an old television which we hooked up to the neighbors aerial antenna. The generator is a bit picky; but I think I've got it figured out. You can use the computer, plug in a flourescent bulb, charge a cell phone and maybe power another desk lamp. You can run the television and nothing else, in which case you use the solar reserves to turn a light on. If you turn on too many things, the voltage regulator has a small battery backup which kicks in for extra juice. Then you get about 15 minutes of power before everything crashes and realize that you shouldn't have plugged so many things in.


Night falls quickly here. One minute you're square in the middle of the afternoon, and the next the sun dips behind the mountain and the whole valley settles into darkness. On days that I work in the fields, I have to write after it gets dark. Otherwise, we head across the mud-slick to the neighbors house to play card games. On those days when neighbors show up to help install eqiupment, build the nursery or haul dirt, then I run to the old lady merchant down the street and buy a fifth of whiskey to share with the workers. Only the young men like it, though. The old men say they don't know how to drink anything but rice whiskey.