Ox Bells, The General and Beautiful Birds:
The Death Of Bright Eyes.

She called me in the morning, she wanted to go home and see her children one last time. I told her that they would not let me take her out of the hospital till the bill was paid. And I was still waiting and hoping that some money would come in quickly, in time. She had way more cancer than what surgery could remove. In my heart I felt that the surgeon must have known this before the surgery because the tumor was already visible on the skin.

Meanwhile situations were brewing in the mountains, fuel money was short. It came down to the evening before the day that the army would be holding a meeting at Huuh Mah Akha and I still did not have even money for gas. The room was hot, the fan going, the heat duplicating the despair that gripped my mind. My friends wife called many times from the hospital but there wasn't gas to go there even. I searched my mind, I searched the streets, a light rain fell. Somehow I found two hundred baht. This wasn't much relief, because now I would be forced to go directly to the mountains as there was not enough to go to the hospital and see her and then go to the mountains. Without better than a thousand dollars to get her out, there was not much that I could do, yet I wanted to at least spend some time with her and talk.

It wasn't possible. The light rain cooled the street and I headed for the mountains, feeling not the least good. It was past midnight, I could search and wait no longer.

I climbed the bad roads into the village, complicated by rain, mud and now not the best tread left on my tires, the four wheel drive having to work that much harder, and by two in the morning I was there. Didn't really matter when I got to Huuh Mah Akha, they knew I came early if I could, but they always made tea, so we sat and drank tea, and talked till three.

None of us knew what was going to be happening the next day. Whatever it was it was serious as there was an army patrol sleeping in the school, a helicopter had been there every day, and the pad was clear and big trees had been chopped down right in the village for a second one.

They were very concerned, many people had been coming to the village proposing this and that project, knowing little to nothing of the village or its situation.

Finally I went for some sleep.

I woke to the sound of ox bells down below my hut and the village. I could hear bugs, wind even, the dawn as it were. There was no big road into Huuh Mah Akha so no Thais came there at six in the morning tooting their horns to sell things to the villagers which was a most annoying mentality. There was no big rush of traffic, no electric wires and poles, blaring TV's, each youngster going through their state of having the power that the volume control offers on some big cheap plastic stereo.

Falling water at the washing pad, the drift of childrens voices, the bright green as when trees are still wet with dew and cool. In the morning it is not light. It is gold and green. The light is a substance, not something you look through and past, but a color, it is here, it is there and then it becomes different and disappears, only giving sight to the stage. The trees and magnificent jungle around Huuh Mah Akha help you to see the light, where it is, and below the trees, the golden light can not get there, but it is only cool. In the morning the trees seem to carry the light on their shoulders, like some kind of liquid gold that they bounce up and off their leaves, tossing it to one another, higher and higher till it gets hot enough to vaporize and then we can not see it any more, yet it gets so hot it comes back and burns the very trees that gave it loft. Then in the evening once again the light settles back down to the ground upon the leaves and down between them, falling onto the ground as dew that lays there till it begins to bounce and stir again in the morning. There is one bug that gathers the dew of light just at night, after it has fallen off the tree leaves, onto the grass, and this bug catches a bunch of it and then holding it in a small spot upon its tail it races about half the night in drunken circles flashing everyone with this tiny collection of light.

I went up to where the second helicopter pad had been cleared at the top of the village, two beautiful large shade giving trees had been felled by the army, course the Akhas had been made to do the evil deed.

I could see figures coming down the road that led out of the village up to the ridge toward the Burma border. About half an hour later they were in the village, on patrol to secure the site. Other commandos were on the far ridge keeping watch. Two four wheel drive Unimogs showed up and parked next to the hut where I had slept.

I took the time to explore the elements of the village a little more, expecting missionaries to show up as they said they would, I wandered up and identified the pastor in the village. He was an invader, didn't live in that village, had no family there, wore a shirt that said something about Jesus belonging to the Chinese. He didn't farm, didn't do anything but try and split the village it would appear. Apparently he got his pay from the German who was busy shipping transvestites to Germany, the one from Huai Krai. He was paid every month, was having some of the girls learn to read the Bible in Chinese, the only proper way I suppose. Had four houses on his tally so far. One girl had no mother and no father so she was a natural target, any weakness, any irregularity. I asked him his intention for the church, the village? More houses? More Conversions? The whole village? The girls said you couldn't be Akha if you wanted to believe in this Jesus. I knew the line. I asked them why? The pastor said nothing, went off somewhere. Just stayed in the village every day.

More army officers began showing up in the village by truck. I spoke with some of them. One took me aside and told me that there were many goings on, that there were many problems in this region, that the pine was very bad for the jungle, for the mountains, for Thailand but that the forestry department, many people, were pocketing money out of it. The Akha were made for cheap labor to take part care of it while the others got much money from it. I told him that I much agreed that it wasn't good, but had no idea to these details.

He showed me statistics on the Chinese in the region, who were running their own mafia, drugs, smuggling women, buying ID cards. They numbered about 10,000. Gin Haw. The Akha numbered about 24,000. Now it became sort of obvious why the Chinese missions were working so hard to convert the Akha into their controled ranks, it trippled the people under their control and gave them much more power.

The day lagged on, we had lunch and into the afternoon. Still we waited for the Army who were coming, no NGO's, no missionaries showed up. None of us had any idea what the meeting was about.

Then around two in the afternoon a call came in on radio that the helicopters were on their way.

Soon we could hear the distant throb and looking far down the valley we could see them making a line up the jungle mountains to us, striking as for the appearance of intent and power, drawfed by the magnitude of the place they come to visit, like mechanical bees in it all. And only three to this vast expanse.

They followed the contours up, their rotors throwing slow motion white to the eyes. All three pulled high and to the left circling, and then the first one came in low below the village and touched down while the other two headed further out for the moment. Then letting some people out, the first one lifted off again and all three went to see the new village site, hung now on the eroded mountain, some of the houses damaged by mud already.

Soon one senior police officer, the assistant Ampour and the head of forestry, a portly guy, puffed their way up to the benches where we were sitting. The police officer from Mae Faluang was indifferent, chatted, the Ampour was a tall fellow, a few questions and the head of forestry was most unhappy, puffing and grumbling about a foreigner getting him into all kinds of shit. Sorry, did it yourself sir. Were going to cut the end off your nose was his humorous reply.

And then the helicopters were back. Two more landing the third circling and flying off again toward Hua Mae Kom. No one landed at the second pad for which the big trees had been cut down. This is the mind here.

Top ranking officers came up into the village, a swarm of commandos, and the General. I was told his name but did not manage to write it down, all was happening so fast. A few weeks earlier I had a meeting with Colonel Sawat. He had laughed off my concern about the pine being planted on Akha lands. Now he was obviously ignored. The head of forestry spoke to the General, said he had a big problem because of this foreigner. The General took a very brief look around, began passing out care packets of food to all the villagers, and then began talking to them. Yes, talking to them. How come you planted all this pine up to the village he asked the head of forestry? Oh, they can be moved down below said the forestry man. And how will they not all die replied the General? Oh, but sir, we have planted all the way to the Burma border, planted and finished. Yes, and we can burn it all and sell it for fire wood said the General. Colonel Sawat stayed to the side, the General would not look at him or speak to him, the head of forestry sweated profusely, tried to say something about the villagers being there only a few years anyway, not the 78 they claimed. The General dismissed him and began talking to the Akha young people. One man, Abba, we will pay you to be a teacher, he said, and to one Akha woman as well. This is your village, you get to stay here, no one moves you anywhere. They could have electric and a bigger road if they wanted it.

And with that, he went back to the helicopters and they all flew away.

The villagers stood at the village perches, watching as the rotors wound up to speed and the great beautiful birds turned and leaned as it were out and over the jungle, then off and down the canyon. Looking over the head dress of one Akha woman and her baby it was a most odd moment.

The villagers talked that a road would bring too many people and ruin their hillsides and that power lines would do the same and cost money and make them look awful and that they had solar anyway. I told them to think it over carefully but that the decision had to be made by them. If they refused the new road and power lines, they would remain one of the most beautiful Akha villages in Thailand. And the morning would wake them up as it had done all their lives, quietly with the sounds of all the natural life that they lived among.

The phone rang surprisingly, my phone still showing no signal. The hospital. My friend, the woman with the beautiful bright eyes at her final hour, was dead. The bill was not paid, but could I just come and get the body quickly anyway. How odd, how the priorities change. Death, more powerful than greed. And now only her tiny baby girl had her beautiful bright eyes. Since no truck would volunteer to take a body to her village, nor were they able due to the roads, I was forced to wrap her body and bind it carefully to the truck for her final journey. Now, in mockery, at least enough money had come for gas. The hospital staff were all too eager to let her out now. The villagers met me at the entrance of the village, helped me to unload her carefully, carried out the proper ceremony at the village entrance and then carried her into the house for the funeral to begin. Her husband was very poor, there wouldn't be much, but they set about to making a coffin in the Akha Way.

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The Akha Way Video, Is Now Showing on National Geographic Channel Television Asia.