In The Wilds Of Esarn

Here I am sitting in an old house that has been in my wife's family for more than 3 generations. It's in a small village called Trakarn Puedpon, about 40 kilometers north east of Ubon Ratchathani city. Many of the houses around this one belong to members of my wife's very large family. Her eldest brother runs a general store up on the main highway. Another brother is a teacher in the local primary school. Yet another brother always seems to have a few whiskeys inside him, but he's never any trouble and always friendly. I'm not sure what he does. There are at least a couple of other brothers somewhere in Thailand. Then there are quite a few sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces scattered around too. After seven years in the family I'm still not sure I have met everyone. It's a nice feeling being here though, especially as they are all such pleasant people to be around. You won't find any of them putting on airs and graces. These are real salt of the earth people. I count my blessings every time I come home here.And it is home for me. I feel comfortable with them. The local kids all come over to play with my two daughters. My nieces drop by whenever they are around and sit to talk. Meals are a big affair with various family members from other houses dropping by to tuck in and join the laughter and conversation.Our house is nothing special. It has the usual cement brick walls downstairs with a huge family room, and a kitchen out the back. The new bathroom off the kitchen, a gift from my wife and I, has a big tiled tub you scoop water out of to wash. It has a Western-style sit-down toilet. I asked if they could put one in so I didn't have to squat any more, like we did in the old outhouse out the back. My knees just aren't as strong as they used to be.The upstairs area covers the cement brick area and has 3 bedrooms, all a decent size. There is still plenty of room for a large open area where it is possible to sit in the evening when it is raining and enjoy the fresh breeze blowing across the room. We're sleeping up there under a mosquito net because all the other rooms are full.We came up here this trip to go to our cousin's wedding. She married a British look-krung. His father is a large northern Englishman and his mother a very distinguished looking Thai lady. They have been married for 25 years he told me. They have moved over here to live now that he is retired.The groom hired a Mor Lum group, complete with huge (very loud) speakers, a 2-tier stage, 7 beautiful dancing girls who donned a series of scanty costumes throughout the night, and a band for the princely sum of just 27,000 baht (about $US700). The young men came from villages all around ours. As the evening went on the dancing in front of the stage grew wilder as the contents of the whisky bottles went down. We took the kids home to bed around midnight, so I missed all the excitement.A group of young men from one of the other villages threw an empty bottle into the dancing group. One of them picked up a bottle and threw it back. Then a general brawl erupted. It wasn't too serious, as I was told no one was injured. They were just letting off steam because that's what they do up here. They can't dance with the young women. There weren't that many around anyway and their parents kept them under close surveillance. The next morning I drove up the road and saw a trail of broken glass all the way up to the highway. It must have been quite a brawl.Sometimes the village headman, the Khamnan, wakes us up with a speech on the village loudspeaker system. He talks about social issues, or what is next on the social calendar. I tune him out as he drones on for about one hour. The villagers go about their preparations for the day. I don't even notice when the Khamnan stops talking until I suddenly realize that the buzzing noise in my ears has gone and it's almost quiet again.If the Khamnan has nothing to say, the cockerels wake us up with their crowing and then the dogs start barking. There's no such thing as sleeping in upcountry. I come awake to the smell of the charcoal fire downstairs as big sister steams the sticky rice in a large bamboo basket. A mixed bag of aromas waft upstairs too, some of them make my mouth water. Others make you wonder how anyone could possibly eat whatever it is that's cooking.The matriarch of the family, my wife's grandmother, lives across the road two houses down. She is 96 years old and still as strong as an ox. She is not as spry as she used to be a couple of years ago, and her memory is not as reliable as it once was, but she still gets up early and does many of the easier chores around the house. The Thais say that long ears indicate a long life. Hers are very long.My wife's mother is a darling at 72 years old. She still puts in a full day out in the rice fields each day. With her betel stained teeth and calm demeanor she is a perfect mother in law. She endeared herself to me on the day we got married when she told everyone in the village she didn't want a sin-sot (bride price, or dowry). As long as I looked after her daughter and treated her right she was happy. I could only afford to pay for the wedding, but I promised that I would give her money whenever we could afford it. She has never asked me for anything ever since.The family has large land holdings devoted to growing rice. They keep all the rice for their own consumption. They never sell it to the Chinese middlemen who go around buying rice from other villages. The family is very self-reliant. They grow almost all their own food. They also hunt for various animals and insects, such as rice crabs for the 'som tum' papaya salad, or grasshoppers, red ant eggs, or they pick greens from trees and vines growing wild around the village. My wife came in today and offered me some 'worms', claiming they were delicious. I passed on that opportunity.The farm is gorgeous this time of year. There are no fences, just an almost endless vista of rice paddies. It's hard to tell where one family's holdings end and another one's start. All the rice fields are green with new rice plants. A few scraggy looking chickens scratch around the old farmhouses, where an uncle or two will sleep sometimes to look after things at night. Pepsi the dog lolls about under the stairs with his tongue hanging out. He's been banished there because he kept barking at the passing parade back at the family home. Now he guards the buffalos at night.The buffalos have their own covered enclosure where they stand in a pile of their own dung at least one foot deep. My family doesn't use any artificial fertilizers or sprays. Everything is grown naturally. They live very much in harmony with nature. They spread the dung onto their rice fields after the buffalos have earned their keep by ploughing the soggy mud padis. Then everyone pitches in to plant the rice in water up to their mid-thighs.But that was a couple of months ago. Now it's the middle of July and the wet season is well under way. During the day it's very hot, with a mostly overcast sky. Those of us who are not out in the rice fields working lie around panting in the heat. The overhead fan in the house just stirs the hot air around, but it doesn't help to keep you cool. Sitting outside on the large wooden platform under the corrugated roof that shelters the front of the house doesn't help either. The heat rises in waves from the concrete road outside the fence. There is no relief. You just have to sit and wait for the rain to start.Around 4 pm the first drops fall and quickly turn into a raging storm that bangs on the tin roof, making it almost impossible to hear each other talk. Perhaps this explains why so many upcountry Thais have very loud voices. They all shout out at each other as they pass each other's houses."Hey, Loong (uncle), where are you going?"He'll shout back, "Just taking the buffalo down to the farm." Considering he's dragging a buffalo along behind him, the exchange is really more of a social nicety than an attempt to find out what he is doing. He trudges on down the road and we wait for the next passers by to inquire where they are going.The rain might stop after an hour or so, or it might slow down to a continuous drizzle for the rest of the evening. Right now it's drizzling. The air is cool and the house is quiet. Almost everyone has gone to the temple for 'Wien Tien' to usher in Kow Pansa, the Buddhist Lent. They carry offerings to the Buddha. Everyone sits on the floor of the large temple meeting room with their legs tucked under them for an hour as the monks chant the prayers. Then the head monk gives a sermon. Everyone listens with their hands clasped in a respectful wai (hands clasped in prayer), although there are a few quiet murmurs from the people at the back of the temple. Then they each light a candle and walk three times around the temple while they wish for good things. The lights from the candles form intricate patterns as the people walk in the dark. It's a beautiful sight. When they have finished, they gather in groups and talk for a while before heading home to sleep and get ready for the daily work routine.The next day, the cycle begins again. Life in the village goes on much as it has for generations. My wife says that it isn't quite the same as when she was a kid. Back then, she said, the temple was filled with villagers, but now there are only a few old people and some youths. Modern day appliances in every home, TV, supermarkets, and the motorbikes outside all the houses mean that the villager's horizons are slowly expanding. The temple is no longer the social focus it once was.Not many villagers can afford a car, unless they have gone to the big city to work. Even then, only the most successful can afford a car. One of my wife's best friends arrived today in her Chevy utility truck loaded with sweet pineapples. She's married to a German. They have built one of the few modern houses in the village, but they hardly ever live there. Instead, they live in Rayong where she works at the Chevrolet assembly plant as an accountant. She set up shop from the back of the car just down the road from our house and sold most of her load within a few hours. She'll go down to the local market tomorrow morning to sell the rest. Every house in the village has a lamyai tree dripping with the fruit right now, so I joked with my wife that she should start selling lamyai fruit like her friend.We'll be heading back to Bangkok in a couple of days. Five days in the wilds of Esarn is just about enough I'm afraid. It's pleasant for a little while. Then it's time to get back into the thick of things in the big city. But at least I know now that the grass up here grows an average 0.02 centimeters a day.