Huai Wad... Huai Wad

 We visited to Huai wad recently to follow up the village's situation. The village was very quiet as most of the villagers were busy harvesting the upland rice in their plantation areas..

We met a few women taking care of the kids at home. They mentioned about the lacking of rain this year that there was not enough water for the household consumptions. many big tanks built around the village were not fill up. After thier small taks at home were empty, they fetched up water from the tanks behind the village school. When those tanks ran out of water, they asked the TAO to carry water to the village once a week. This event happens every year and has been a part of the life at Huai Wad for some six years already.

There were some attempts in working together among the Dai Dai Dai team from Chiangrai , EWB volunteers from Australia, the villagers and local officers to solve the lack of water in Huai wad. But it seems difficult to get to the solution. Even hill water seems to be the best solution but the villagers in the nearby village do not want to share the hill water with the villagers of Huai Wad.

However, it was good to see a few villagers got back home with some foods as Lahu beans, ,cucumbers, and papayas in their baskets and bags. Traditionally, the Lahu plant some other crops together with the upland rice. So they have many foods during the harvesting time.

They also collect a lot of wild mushrooms from the wood as for their food and also for sale. A merchant comes and buys the mushrooms in the evening. They get 50 baht per kilogram of the mushroom when the local people will have to pay some 100 baht per kilogram at the market.

They looked happy when they told us the upland rice yield seemed to be enough for their consumptions this year. They have some fishes from the flooded areas effected from Kew Kor Ma Dam.

Life at Huai Wad is still going on in the similar way each year. Even sometings have been changing, but the lack of water is still existing. It does cause a great impact to the living at Huai Wad. How to cope up with such problem ?

Women Rights and Human Rights ...

I spent two weeks in Phnom Penh for a training course. We talked about Equality and Human Rights of women in South East Asia. It was a good time to learn and share with 24 friends from 9 countires. The internatinal , regional and domestic mechanisms were learnt and share together too. I was missing my friends in the villages as such mechanisms were very faraway from them.

We agreed that attitue, belief, socilal norms, tradition under particular culture play very important role on working with the term " Human Rights". Then the challenge is how to integrate them into the local mechanisms effectively to promote the Human Rights in the villages and communities. Some friends did say " It should start from ourselves" and I liked their ideas. But "how to.... ?" is an inresting question we have to think about !

 

I have found it was good not mentioned about the term of "Human Right" much during our working together. Their participation in the process of working together to access basic needs already reflect the Human Rights in practical.

Working together in the IDPs villages still need more time more understanding and more attempts. However it is a very important starting point. I do belief in civil society movements and the butterfly effect. Just keep trying.

Green Drought at Huai Wad

 

We were happy to see green surroundings when we entered the Huai Wad Village last week. But we were surprised to see our Lahu friends looked unhappy and worried. After we discussed with them we got to know that it was a kind of "Green Drought".

There was no rain for a long time. Rice and corn were dying in the plantation areas. There will be very less crops yield this year as the lack of rain affected the pollenations of the crops.

The worst thing was that some villagers have already invested growing the corn with the loans from traders. They have already indebt for the seeds, chemical sprays and fertilizers.

As there were two existing tanks at Haw Yae, we had a third construction at this location. Made a connection by a poly line from a big tank under a meeting shed on the hill. So that a poly line will fill up the lower tanks when they run low from the tank on the hill. This will provide an additional 20,000 litres for the villagers. This was just what we could do for a short term solution and with available resources we had. While the villagers shared their labours to construct the tank.

Just hope that it will rain soon. And when it rains, all tanks will be filled up. The villagers will have enough water for their households'consumptions. We were happy to see the smiling faces of the villagers of Huai Wad when we left them.

Also hope there will be no more "Green Drought" again at Huai Wad !

Lychee and Lychee

We visited our IDPs friends in May. It was the time to harvest lychee. We met only the elderly and young kids at the village. The others were busy in their lychee orchards and some were the labours in the orchards. The Phu Yai Ban (village's leader) was at her orchard too.

It was another hard working time of the year. The villagers had to wake up at 4 am, worked in the orchard and had very late lunch. Then took the lychee to sell at a market. They got 9-10 baht per kg for the biggest size and 1 baht for the smalles size. The price was quite low and the income did not cover the expenses. But they had to sell it. "Better than getting nothing" they told us.

Lychee is one source of their yearly income. But when they get very low price, lychee becomes the source of their depts !

Working Together and the term of Human Rights....
I belief that human rights is our daily life. The working together in the IDPs villages confirmed my belief.

We were trying to solve water problems in the IDPs villages. Nobody knowed the answer but we kept thinking together and shared our ideas. Then finally we got to know what should be done under the villages' contexts and all resources available.

Not the very best solutions but we are sure that our IDPs friends in Huai Wad are having more water containers for the coming rainy season. They will have more water for their households' consumtions during the dry season too. Also our IDPs friends in Pong Hi will have clean drinking water resulted from the filtration systems we built up together.

It was a bit difficult during those days as there were some communication problems among us, the Lahu, Australian and Thai. But it was also a great challenge to integrate our ways of thinking and local wisdoms into the working processes. So we had lots of fun and our friendships developed. We all have learnt many things together and we did feel the "ownerships".

It was said that to access to water is a basic human rights but i think this is only a romantic term when the IDPs are still hungry, having no food and water.

Even we did not mentioned this romantic term but it becomed a daily life according to the processes of working together, participation and respect to each other.This is another lesson learnt about human right, very simple and practical way.

I would like to thank you all friends who have voluntary minds, the Engineers Without Borders:EWB volunteers from Australia, my Chinagrai teams and the IDPs friends who work for their comminities. Keep our belief and let's change for the better !

Expectation !

It was quite hard to work under expectaions as we may not be able to reach all expectations at the same time. And recently i have found that working with the IDPs at Huai Wad became harder under expectations.

There were many expectations on solving the problems on water issue. The IDPs friend expected to have hill water system. They also expected us to work for them but we expected them to work out actively with local authorities, keeping coordinations and communications. The Local authorities and the neighboring villages expected the IDPs friends to be more active and cooperative. Thre were also high expectations that the Huai Wad people should proof that they had good prctices on forest researvation and there were no more drug trades in the village.

As there were no implementations of such expecations and with the lack of coordination, the expectations were just only daydreams . This let to frustrations and conflicts among all actors.

Expectation then can play both postive and negative role to working with the IPDs. How to meet this challenge ?

Opportunity !

Opportunity is a nice word when we think this would lead us to achieve our goals.

May I bring this word to the IDPs communities ? To give them opportunity is a simple sentence, but very complex in reality. Generally their goals are to access the basic needs and live their lives sufficiently under good land for cultivation and enough water for consumption. They can access to eduational and health services equally. So that they feel like settle down in the new home. And then their local wisdom can be learnt from generations to generations through socialization and other means. The spirit of community would also plays essential role again.

However, what will happen when the ones who work with the IDPs would like to take the opportunity to achieve their goals too ?

Opportunity then may become underprivileged !