Farm Experiances Near Chiang Dao

Our time here at Amee Doyer's organic farm has been quite enjoyable. During our stay we have worked on cobbing dried corn. The dried corn is going to be used for pig feed and the left over cobs we mixed with rice haul for a compost layer. Next we started pruning banana trees which consists of cutting the leaves that have started to turn color and cutting any trees that have produced fruit and are dying or dead. Now that we have the ingredients for the compost we have been starting to layer banana leaves and banana trees, corn mixed with rice haul and water, pig poop and repeat.


It has been amazing to see how much work we have been able to accomplish with the energetic group of WWOOFers staying at the farm even if some of the work seems redundant. As of Saturday most of the WWOOFers have left the farm and there is now only Marina, one other girl and I staying here so it's much quieter than before. This has created more of a chance to work and hang out with the Lisu family that is living here and operating the farm. This has been fun and a good way to experience their culture even though we sometimes have trouble understanding each other as they mostly all only speak Lisu. Often we don't know the intent of a project until it's nearly complete but they are very nice to work with and seem to have relaxed a bit now that the group is a smaller size.

On Thursday Alia killed a pig. This was a major event with all the WWOOFers wanting to take in the experience. I have never really seen anything like this before and I felt like it was good to witness. After the pig had been killed they used dry grass to burn off the hair of the pig. During the butchering of the pig we were told that the Lisu eat almost all parts of the pig raw. I arrived as they were finishing the butchering and tried what seemed to be some sort of skin and part of the pig's ear which one of the children cut off as an after school snack (moments like these make me realize how different of a world we live in). These surprisingly tasted like a pretty normal pork product. The next few days for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner consisted of strange pig organs which we assume were lungs and liver. Both tasted alright but it was difficult to get over eating the unusual parts with their associated unusual textures. Eventually they stopped putting out these dishes and moved us back to the vegetables and rice diet that we were on before as the meat dishes were not going very fast.


The Lisu live very simply in small brick or straw houses with one or two rooms that are empty except a TV in most of houses that I have been in. They usually sleep on a mat on the floor or a raised wooden bed. They cook all their food over the fire. Here at the farm they also have a gas burner fueled by the biodigester and electric rice cookers.


Clement the French Canadian owner of the farm tells the story of when he installed counters for the Lisu to prepare food on and they climbed up on the counter and squatted preparing food as we have seen them do here. This must be something that takes some getting used to because after about two minutes of doing dishes in this position I am ready to fall over. Maybe more flexibility would help also. The Lisu are a very beautiful people group with lots of big smiles which we are told can have many different meanings.