Farmer Chords

I just got back from the first part of the food unit trip, full of different bubbling emotions. We went to Surin province, a province in the south east of Isaan, next to Cambodia. In fact, at our homestays we were about an hour away from the border. Surin is known for many things: its beautiful silk, majestic elephants, and most recently its title as the “organic province.” While the first two items are interesting, we focused our unit on the third one – organic farming.
I lived with Elly and Anne with Mae Sollohai and her family, which consisted of Paew, her son Tuh and his two adorable daughters, May, 8, and Daw, 2. They lived in the farming village of Tap Tai, a village of about eighty households, where thirty-two of those households farm organically.
First some words about the village. They are nothing if not incredibly warm and outgoing. There would be times, Elly, Anne, and I would go walking down the long road that linked the houses, and complete strangers would welcome us onto their front porches to share food or drink or mag (more on that later). We would try to practice our Thai with two families in one afternoon – one with whom we shared a som-oh (pomello, or sweet grapefruit) and talked about our families. This felt great to not only connect with people in our community, but also to connect feel entirely welcome and accepted. Frankly to be able to even brokenly communicate in Thai feels like a great step (although by no means are we fluent yet). Another impression of the village is their warmth toward each other. At one point, before an exchange, we met at the house of one of Mae Arangna, a local leader and member of the sub-district government. Several villagers were to talk to an organic organization from another province later that day. A large group of village women met that day to share food and skill to create a delicious meal for not only the visiting Thai group but for us. Elly, Stephanie, Anne and I helped by chopping garlic, cucumbers, and chili peppers.

The villagers are also incredibly hard working individually. While I didn’t get to farm, much to my disappointment, I watched Mae doing diverse labor all day. She’d get up incredibly early in the morning to gather vegetables from the garden, which she’d label for sale or start preparing. In the late morning, she whipped out the loom and started weaving patungs, the traditional Thai skirts. She also cooked and took care of the baby while the father was out catching fish; still Mae found time to make sure we were doing alright and get us farangs our beetlenut.

Ah, beetlenut. It’s what the Thai traditionally use as a type of chewing tobacco. I heard a (maybe apocryphal?) story that back in the day, black teeth were seen as a sign of beauty. Because long-term beetlenut (or mag) use will wear away at your teeth, turning them black, women started this habit. Now that standard of beauty is outdated, so you only see the older grandmas doing mag, if anyone. Mae’s teeth were white and straight, so I doubt this is something she does regularly.

In addition to staining your teeth a darker shade of delectable, mag gives off a slight tingling sensation in one’s mouth and an overall relaxing feeling for several minutes. Elly, Anne, and I had heard about it from our Ajaans, so we wanted to at least sample the wares. As it turns out, the process of mag is a multi-step process, almost ritual-like. First you need to get the actual beetlenut itself, which looks startlingly like a lime and grows from a tall palm tree. One grew in our yard, but getting it out of the tree proved difficult to say the least. Because it is about thirty feet off of the ground, the way to get it out is to take a long, spindly bamboo stick and whack it out of the tree – harder than it sounds. When Mae tried, this tiny older woman, it seemed possible to aim the stick at the mag, but holding on to it ourselves displayed nothing but our clumsiness. Finally, she disappeared, returining with an equally spindly bamboo ladder, with which the deed was done.

Once the beetlenut is procured, there are two more ingredients. First there is a red paste that we bought from the neighbors, spread on a shiny green leaf. The second is more of the aforementioned shiny green leaves. Spread the paste on the leaf, like peanut butter on toast, then roll like a tiny, skinny burrito. Cut off a sliver of beetlenut and chew on. While chewing, take a bite of the leaf burrito. Do not swallow. When you spit, it’s bright red, and depending on your style, this red saliva will stain your mouth, tongue, lips, finger, chin, and probably your floor.

It’s a really satisfying feeling, living out on those farms. First off, you have security in knowing where everything you eat came from, whether it’s organic or not. The family made or grew almost everything we ate. The freshness of the vegetables, combined with Mae’s great cooking made for some of the best Thai food I’ve had. Furthermore, the sense of community is palpable – something common to all the communities we’ve seen so far. They may be financially poor, but in deep friendship they are wealthy. The nights aren’t quiet (it’s hard to be quiet with all the animals around), but they’re satisfying and peaceful. It’s enough to make you want to settle down in real farmlands. Well, almost I suppose.

I guess I don’t want to idealize the lives of villagers of Tap Tai too much. Yeah, they have their problems. Yeah, they watch TV – a lot of it. Yeah it’s by no means perfect. Still, it is another way to approach life. It sounds cheesy, but we all can learn a lot from one another.

On an interesting note, we were talking with an older gentleman and he was telling us about his paralyzed wife. He suspects it was witchcraft, which rendered her paralyzed, which is a not uncommon belief in this part of Thailand. While it’s still in Isaan, Surin province is more influenced by the Khmer (Cambodian) than the rest of the region, which is Lao-influenced. So jealous we didn’t get to dip into Cambodia!