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More Stories For Akha Chronicles, Edit Mini Stories Chin man had 16
wives village problem
solving opium smokers
were least likely to drop culture "Private
Forgiveness" de-development Verbo villages Thais copied the
Americans, the worst parts, parks - no people The negative
attitude of the Thais toward the Akhas, and many expats, was similar to the white American attitude
towards the American Indians, blacks. The Old Chinese
Guy from Insert, having
just come out of having to borrow $5,000 to settle a dispute with Cary
Bartholomew for money that I did not owe him I know something about
this. More details here. The brother coming up here made it worse. Father Norman 9 coins or 9,000
kyat The Lover The afternoon
hung still in the air as ripe fruit on a tree in the shade, not even the dust
having the energy to move. She came to him softly where he lay in the cool room. She was such a
splendid lover. Matured into a woman.
Often with a far away look in her eye, he only wished that he could
tell what it was that she was thinking. Softly familiar to his touch he
wondered if she knew how much it was that he loved her? Her black hair
strewn across the pillow she looked to the side through the open window to
the whitewashed wall of the patio. A long time he
had loved her and just as often he had to leave her. These departures tore at
him and even now as he lay beside her looking at the
silver light settled on her face, he wondered if she loved him anymore. He felt for her
because he knew life in these parts was not always so easy. In the end she
could be discarded by her friends. He wondered if
she loved anybody? What was it that he saw in the
eyes so quiet as she lay there? He tried not to
think of how many lovers she had but he knew that he was not the only one. He
never had been. Possibly if he had offered her a more secure situation it
would have made a difference. But he realized that this would have been too
easy and he was only kidding himself. And so both time
and opportunity passed, rocking them gently in different directions as the
currents of the sea, to occasionally allow them the chance to glimpse one
another for a moment. More than
anything this was a searching of the heart for him because he wondered how it
could be in life that love, like a vapor, slips through the fingers when he
so dearly tried to grasp it and draw it into his embrace. Love did not seem
so strong and it may have passed by before he even noticed it had come, so
subtle was it’s breath upon his cheek. He asked that she
come back but knew as he did so that very possibly she would not so soon come
again. Gathering her
clothes to herself, she took her umbrella and walked away down the street in
the soft sunlight. He watched sadly. He
wished that there would be a little more light cast
into the shadows between them as now the candle that they both held only
weakly flickered in the winds of time and he feared that the next gust or the
one after that would snuff it out completely. But he had never
known love to end well, otherwise he guessed it would probably need not end
at all. Could it be that love never lived as more than a vapor within the
human heart? No doubt many an
eye had filled with mist at watching the departing of a friend and love
taking a piece of their heart with them. He returned to
his desk and aimlessly shuffled the papers as the shadows grew upon the wall
and in his heart as well. Commentary: The British Woman's Donated Cash A letter in reply I got your air
mail letter from As to the
situation on the border here I am no expert. I think overall I feel some
sympathy for the Burmese government and people. I understand the government
is full of difficulties and people acuse Before I go on
from my soap box here let me say that I think the Burmese government has
opened itself up to problems from the west because it has not so much kept
its house in order. But I don’t think that makes it collectively worse
than the American system, just different and now, like other eastern
countries it is going to find itself going through paiinful
changes. And you can be sure that these changes are not going to be good for
these people western democracy says it is here to help, but for exploitive
big business, with most Burmese ending up having to work much longer and
harder for more things that they don’t need. One of the
reasons that I don’t trust the intentions of the west when it comes to My feelings on
western good intention would be questions like why the British, and excuse me
once again but I am sure I as an American am just as painfully aware of
American mistakes, don’t kick in some money to help the people who were
so adversely effected by the opium trade it started and left in this region
of the world? Here we have families that don’t function very well
because of the effects of opium on the people and their descendants who were
originally pressed into growing it . I would be glad
if some British people of conscience would help with money and materials for these hill tribe people for whom opium is a scourge. The
streets of Maesai are full of Akha children, malnurioused and dirty, dutifully begging for money for
their parents’ opium habits. I am of the
feeling that some time of constructive engagement on the part of the west in in order. A lot of poor people will suffer if the west
pressures and expects As to prisons,
well I know that in April 2, 1995 Ellen: (for journal
notes) build out stories Your letter was a
bit of encouragement that I needed at the time and I appreciate the gift
enclosed. More often than
not these days there are things which I find discouraging, not all having to
do with the Akha. A few problems in my
life as well with just making ends meet.
I have a lot of knowledge of the area and I try to put some of it into
stories but I lack the mental frame of mind much of the time from which my
best writing comes. In addition I
don’t know anything about the writing market except that it is
difficult to get in. The photos were
beautiful, especially the ones of Appa and her
baby. She spent a year in prison in I moved out of
the office. Back into the I fear sometimes
that I have withdrawn too much, but maybe it is only a reconsideration of my
work here and whether I am of much use.
Without funding I am not able to do much of the research that I need
to do to familiarize myself more completely with the culture and the
villages. The photo of the
kids in the water. Remember, one that
you sent? Well look at yours again
because all the trees are dead and all the houses are gone. The palms are dead as well. We had a war here. Khun Sa’s boys came into town with heavy machine gun
fire and rockets about 4AM. The DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM
DOOM of a heavy gun still rings in my mind. A grenade hit near the bathrooms here at
the guest house and a few stray bullets.
Several people were killed on the other side. Most of Khun Sa’s boys retreated to the Thai side where they got
whisked away, but a few foolishly stayed near the neighborhood in your photo
on the Burmese side where the Burmese army blasted them with heavy machine
gun fire, grenades, anti tank rockets and incendiaries until they finally
burned them out around 2 PM and the wind caught the flames spreading them to
the thatched roofs until it was all gone.
Apocalypse Now kind of stuff.
People hauling their possessions as they waded across the river, a ceiling of
black smoke spread above their heads like clouds of black rage. Then a white flag went up and three to five
guys surrendered to certain deaths of torture. As to coming here, I don’t
think it is a problem as long as we are careful. As to your friend I don’t know
because even without her passport showing she was born in The road to Cheng
Tung is open and closed, presently the border point
is also closed, no one sure why except possibly because of the Thais not
handing Khun Sa’s
men over. Right now I am
working with a fellow from As well I met a
photographer from This explained a
lot of things about why so many problems weren’t being addressed in the
Akha villages as I looked at it, so we are interviewing as many people as we
can. In addition I am
following up a story on sterilizations that the other Baptist missionary Paul
Lewis organized. (who is also said to
have worked for the CIA) There are a whole heck of a lot of leads on different causes of
problems the Akha are experiencing. I
think that the first thing on my agenda is to get some funding for research
in the villages with some video equipment.
Even better if other people keep coming in and researching the
stories. And I think that
a general “Anthropological study” of the Akha pretty much would
cover everything. I am still
thinking about the doctor thing. The
situation in Then when the
border closed two weeks ago I made some trips down into some Akha villages in
I do hope that
you will come back quickly to this area and put together some kind of
story. I am sad that I am ideally
located here, with a growing knowledge of the language, and have so few
resources for gathering more information and taking out more medicine. Most of the families in the villages on
both sides of the border are facing a real struggle. MMM. Missionaries, military and
Marketplace. The three steps of
cultural destruction. One advantage
that the Akha have, though nothing is rosy in I knew US
GI’s who did similar things in I will try to get
to Dr. Cynthia as soon as I can make travel like that. As to the AIDS
problem, I think that there needs to be some work done on analyzing what the
situation is in the Thai villages. Lots of rumors. Few facts. However one
approaches Burma, I think that it is good to keep in mind that no matter how
bad the country is they are still more pro western and more conservative
about things like prostitution than Thailand is. For this reason the more they can be
encouraged to stay moderate, and the more one can appear to be complimenting
that conservative approach the more hope there is for staving off a tragedy
with the hill tribe there. There are a lot
of people on a witch hunt after I know that if my
actions were at all construed to be political it would be the end of any help
I would ever be able to supply the Akha in As you felt, I
also felt that we had so much more to talk about. But I am understanding
about impulse and the timeliness of going off the cuff. I wanted to tell you that I haven’t
met very many level headed women of your class especially when it comes to
subjects which can be so heated in the west and
where most westerners look for the quick scapegoat. I am finding
frustration with the instability in I am not much of a salesmen and raising
funds is difficult for me. If I was a
better salesman I probably would not be bothering with this corner of the
earth in the first place. Is there anyone
there who would fund a basic ground level amount of research, number of
villages, where, what religious influence, and agreed upon needs common to
most all of them? Fungicide,
antibiotic powder for cuts, scabicide, head lice
medicine, and other odds and ends along the first aid line like
electrolyte? I could get a lot done
here if I had some back up. I have been
thinking about this idea of getting the Akha to start using greenhouses more
to improve diet and conserve water, as well as save time and provide some
cash surplus. All basic Mother Earth
News sort of stuff but completely overlooked here. I am still
working on the language, having just finished my third editing of that word
book and I will be making a few copies shortly. I am improving on the order that I am using
as well as using some words twice in two different locations that seem
logical. I have also added close to another fifty or so words that came off my other word
lists upon a review. I know that there
is the need for a new dictionary with more than the mainstream dialect
because many of the Thai Akha use the lesser used
dialect compared to Being as you are
in Another thought
on your filming would be to do it in such a way that you kept the children
around you as much of the time as you could.
If we were to interview some people we would need to set the camera up
in a blind such that they had no awareness of it, otherwise, not that they care, but
they might mention it to someone who did. The sooner you
could work it out the better, while the fields are freshly turned over from
some of the other research that is going on here with me. Maybe some critical mass could be achieved
with more and more people making this place more open to inspection. Much has happened with impunity in the
past. The nearby
Catholic man, who is really a gentle fellow, told me that when the Akha go to
Thai school, and after they learn their Thai in the first year, then they all
end up in the top ten percent of the class.
Maybe the Thais are afraid of them?
If only more would fight back against what is being done to their
people and their girls. Unfortunately
numerous Akha’s are involved in the trade,
both women and men. Let’s keep
working on ideas. Write. Come quickly
and see what we can do. Because I am entertaining the idea of taking a break
to Best of
everything friend. Stay well and take
good care of yourself. M. First Meeting of Attur I met a pleasant
Akha girl and have begun to learn her language. It would appear that I am more interested
in learning than she is willing to admit it is her language. She is taking English tutor lessons. A Gift For Ah Burh There was this
woman I knew here, back in the days when I was running my bead business and
having to go back and forth to the Later I heard
that she married and lived in Chiang Saen. Didn’t do any good to dim my memories
or realize that the boat had pulled away and gone down the river. Many thoughts of
her drift through my mind, houses I lived in while I knew her, old photos,
ways which she had, places she worked, her family, friends, and all the world
that has swirled on and by us, between us now. I do not know if
there is suitable repayment when a friend goes missing. I think I saw her
one last time crossing the street, that was before I
realized she was gone and I never saw her at all after that. I might have seen her sister once, the one
who the fellow shot through the hand trying to break into her house, but that
was all. Reflections You know how it
is to look at old notes of inspiration?
Valuable. And re-inspiring. Old notes bring back the old times, the old
memories, and that is tremendous. Not
because those times were easy or easier, but because it widens the experience
of the present. It is like stimulating
various parts of the brain , turning on the stage
lights and discovering you have a whole orchestra still in the shadows of the
past. Memories were one
of the most beautiful things that God built into us. Most of them pleasant, the bad ones having
been put to the seasoning poetry of time turning sour bitter thorn fruit into
pleasant wine. the wester use of color to
mark sex, lips this was most
noticeable in Personal Stories and notes we all get to see
what the other fellow is pumping this comes with the habit of prostitution
where all the guys don't mind screwing the same girls, almost at the same
time. an odd
kind of thing that people stoop to, believe it or not. attur the opium man at
San Sook funeral and attur’s
mother July 6, 1993 Attur Attur came over this morning. Back from her trip to Doungee
and It was cool and
rainy. A sad day. She was sad too. She cried . She saw an opportunity missed and had
learned something. More mature and the
cockiness was gone. I am sad but also
that she had to learn the hard way.
Some things are just a sorrow over all. She never should have been ashamed of her
own people. Attur Attur said to me one time, tapping her finger
on m y chest. “There are many
women in here”
Such a beautiful way she had of seeing the world. Often I remember her telling me her vivid
dreams. A place that was a complete
world to the Akha. She was going to
meet someone today and she did. That
sort of thing. That was the
life. I bought her a
store box and between her business and my business we separated. I remember being frustrated because I would
try and propel her forward yet she didn’t want to do a lot of
things. Yet I remember
how she would go buy me a “sponsor” electrolyte
drink while I sat there. Then
she would talk to me while I drank it.
Then she got into playing cards.
I got into another girl. I
couldn’t change the course of either.
I tried but failed. She lost
much wealth and in the end sold out and went back to the village. She later married
a burmese guy, and has two children in Chiang Mai. Our relationship
was best when in room 28 she didn’t work. I was there and we did things to gether. And then
my partner continued to lie to me and I had to go back to boost the business
and that hurt her greatly.. The uncertainty. So many years and
so far away now. Nov 2000 Attur I had heard so
many kinds of stories that finally I went to Chiangmai
and inquired and spotted Attur surrounded by
tourists. I heard her voice almost as
soon as I saw her, definitely her voice, the woman I had been married two, now
married to another, two kids. Made me sad. She was fat, but
definitely alive, but looked sad, when I thought of it too. People had said
that she was dead. Sure not. Her mother went to Chiangmai
to help with the kids. The Loss of My Wife The loss of my
wife Attur was particularly hard for me as a ship
which tears its keel off on the reef, yet appears unchanged. Attur was a
gentle love. My chocolate midnight
sleepy marshmallow. Always snookered
against me as a kitten. Often her hair
hanging in her face, looking to me or murmuring. Sometimes biting me. An old friend of hers, a man told her I
probably wasn’t coming back on one of my trips and it was probably
about this time she picked up a young fellow.
I was gone three months, weekly calls but a tough life. Ban and I go to Loi Tung This beautifully
friendly girl Ban asked to come over and help me bake some bread. She was so friendly and she showed up on
time, beautifully dressed. We baked
some bread and I fixed her some chocolate, which she greately
enjoyed . The
bread was great, two plump loaves even better with butter. Then we locked up and took the motorcycle
up the back raod of Doi Tung and off to see one Akha village and a hidden
lake. She liked the lake so much we
agreed to come back with lunch on sunday and go for
a swim. Then we headed up the back
road and throuogh the creek onto the new blacktop
road and headed back for the Royal residence and Huai
Krai. We were both covered in red dust and bugs
when we got back. It was funny to
see someone so polite interact with the rough Akhas
in the village. Akhas
can be loud and of course the life in the villages is hard by comparison to town. Andy Buys Rubies So then Andy had
little joe help him buy some rubies. But little joe got
a friend in on the deal, they bought high and sold higher, sold to Andy for
17,000 baht, two bags and he couldn’t get his money out. Charlie, he was always a cut shark player,
a man whose face you didn’t want to see too often. And he told Andy that his stones were only
worth 1500 baht so andy felt ripped off and burned
down his friendship with little joe. All these guys were dumb, burning each
other when they could. I kept my
transactions simple, only had little joe get videos
for me from the I didn’t
always want to be in this place.
Sometimes I told myself to pick out my three or four or five top
priorities, set a deadline, finish them and get out to anywhere but here.
Even that was hard to do. I had this
word book to finish, a children’s book to finish and then this book to
finish. That was it really but it all
seemed so endless, just kept going on and on.
Especially this book, there was just so much detail that I
didn’t have on paper. But now many of
the hard parts of the project were finished, now it
was just paying for them to be duplicated. Back in Meeh Suur is coming
back from her shoe factory job in I had left a
message for the family before going to keng tung but they hadn’t gotten her to come h ome. After Asaw spoke with them they believed that I
would do my best. Too bad I had to
deal with that first. Broken Relationships It took a lot of
patience. One of the things
that I was most troubled by was the “all or nothing” mentality
with people here. The Akha and
others. I was not the only one to experience
this event. Other people working on
language projects experienced it also.
There were difficulties with both male and female informants. It was a whole science. And not just language work but also
relationships. If one kept their
language work separate from their relationships one would think that was best
but reality was that the long evening hours with a woman in bed spent talking
apart from anything sexual, was some of the most informative time I had ever
spent, filling gaps in why things got done the way they did, why people
thought the way they did and trying to peice the
whole puzzle together. Ultimately it
required a lot of faith in people, the importance of teaching others good
things, patience to the task, and an insistence that the good win. But many times
people pulled up stakes and then that was all that there would ever be. There was no western egalitarian thought,
like they might talk to you ever again if you met them on the street, not a
chance of that, no matter how much you had done on their behalf or even for
members of their family. Usually the
family would not talk to you either, as if in depriving you of their
friendship they were achieving some moral victory that moved them or anyone
else a centimeter forward in life. Setting up a new house, coming back to Maesai I have now been
back in Then with the
business going slack, I could have spent it well doing something else. Here my rent is
higher but I am anonymous and don’t have to go in through someone
else’s gate, announcing my arrival each time. And to boot, there they
came home at 1 in the morning from their night market restaurant with all the
barking dogs. Was her daughter
going to do that or would her daughter sell herself to someone from out of
town, for a new dress and a new brassiere and some gold? The Chubby
Karaoke Girl There was one
chubby girl who worked down to the Karaoke every evening to earn her
keep. What a future in that. I have even
outlived quite a number of them like Attur’s
brother with the big ear infection who died of drug use at 20 after one child
he had with that one girl, the name I forget.
Life is cheap, their own lives are
cheap. They silently suffer without
imposing anything many times. I can never get used to it. She was a nice
girl, she died suddenly and fast of aids, her mother
was caring for the child and came and told me. I forgot her name. I had been so happy she married. But she did not live to 22. The Chinese Shop
where I bought the jewelry tools One of the
players in my life in maesai was Mr. Cary Bartholemew. Steaks, big faced
like the thais I was carelss, not making note of the nature of the friendwship as it developed and how it might go
sour. He was wealthy gentleman and I
was poor. And he was generous as long
as he was more or less in charge and as long as he had the big word in everythging. Ultimately I
agreed to buy one of his motorcycles.
I was looking for a place to rent and do some manufacturing. A gradfather
cottage came open next to his house so I
reemodeled it and moved in./ One problem I
came to realize was that any effort I worked on he knew better. Only thing was that his solutions wer3e
expensive, rather than low tech. and had an air of control to them . For instance I was trying to buyild a frendly furnace and
was having difficulty getting plans.
He offered to put it all together for 50,000 baht or $2,000. Obviously I couldn't afford that. In the end I discoverd
a thermostat controlled metals kiln ready to go sold for $400-$600 . This exagerated cost to everthing
made it obvious to me that this gentleman needed very much to stay in a suprerior position in his relationships. Furthermore, he
had difficulty relating to how someone else might feel about something
despite his general jolly approach.
And dare not challenge him less he loose his jolly approadch
as well. He didn't like that. Matter of fact,
don't make any comments at all because he always had a contradiction or one
better on that. At any rate, as
fate would have it, I wqas no sooner almost
complete with the house than my worthless partner in the I owed him money
for this and that. In time those bills
would grow. Little dod I know that as I left, my partner had also stolen all
of my hgolding sin the So oupon gettin to To make a long
story short, upon my return to It became easier
t claim no contest and agree to the amount than stir it up even more. He felt he was owed $5,000 and that is what
his ego neeeded so I would give him $5,000, wearing
of his bourish ways and his recollections. In reality, had
some money been retrieved from my interst in the
house and had my money to him been counted I would have owed him
nothing. I think I was intimidqated early on and didn't stand up for my side of
the bvooks soon enough. Keep good records,
make people sign for transactions no matter what in a book. Flimsy Thai Construction plaster in the concrete if rebar shows at a
strategic lower corner. hey, if the
concrete didn't fill at the bottom of the pillar around the rebar, just
plaster it but there is no
twist strength like what would be needed in an earthquake in much of thai construction, probably due to not getting much of
that and probably due to being mostly on rice mud which dampens the effect
anyway. I quit saying the
words “My Wife” Cause it made me uneasy, cause soon as they
were my wife, the words giving a sense of permanence, they left or I lost
them, call it what you want. Falang
and Akha Many Akha women
gathered around. It ws the first time they had seen a froegner
married to an Akha. If he wants a
little wife never mind, it wwill always go well
with you none the less. mita green shoes Yes, who are
those shoes in the room? Never saw them before. Wife kidnapped
over beads They tooted for
me on the other side of the river. That guy was a pastor too. Got himself
lots of trouble, his wife left him.
His partner at the time was the little thin Akha guy who dressed well.
I knew his wife, she left him cause she couldn't
make a good kid. A little daffy
too. A little self rejection I would
guess. Most Recent Akha Memories After
Deportation Working Through
The Villages There was a lot
to reflect on since I came back from The memories of
my life with the Akha fought to stay to the front, whil
time made them try to fade. These
memories wanted to see the abscence like I was just
on one more leg of my Akha Crusade, just on a new plateau that did not let me
be in I thought often
of the truck rolling through the villages, stopping here and stopping there,
sitting on porch stoops, looking for this or that person, joining in with
village events, listening to or for the hidden indicators that told what was
going on in that village, culturally or security wise. This was the work. Now I was in the
west and had to do my utmost to learn fundraising and move forward to benefit
and protect the Akha and my family, who were still in I remembered all
my friends, and all the villages, the roads, the weather, the landscapes, the
times farming, the many days and years in the lives of the Akha as close as
one could get. And it all
brought back joy. My wife told me
on the phone that Abaw Tooh,
from our village had died, he was Booh Teeh's father. She told me about
my sons and daughter, what they did, what they said, and I told them what I
was doing. Always looking for
something for Cabelli, telling him about fish I had
seen or fishing spots. The deportation
was intended to end my work, to end my connection to the Akha people. That it WOULD NOT DO. Non Story Notes: Deep Trouble at
the Maesai Another Bridge,
another time, swallows. A river snakes
through the bottom of the valley, cliff like banks, storks, and gray diggers
that lived a life along the rim and on the pasture lands. The ranchers hate them. The swallows didn't notice, they gave up on
the ranchers and all lived under the bridge where they built their nests of
mud. Swallows were fun and funny birds,
always playful about life and around people, able to take a feather to
heights, drop it and fight over it, not because they needed to work but just
for fun. They built their nests all
clustered under the bridge and then one day the ranchers came and shot them. We truncate a thought process early by an "approve" -
"disapprove" system that prevents imagination and freedom. We learn to be
slaves inside first and we must learn to be free for most all that we do we
do based on internal designs. Sometimes good
designs drive us and sometimes faulty. I search for kind
things, for healing, for valuable ideas and thoughts. Nurturing the
heart and mind, to take care to the soul, to value those good things between
people as compared to those things that ruin. Whatever our
religion, we spend our life being born again from what we learned as
youth. Some of it we keep, some of it
we get rid of, but life itself is an ongoing rebirthing process. Not just once I think, but also growing up
and strong, like a tree rebirthing our bark, while building stronger and
stronger wood inside. ******** Maesai A Mexican Orphanage I could see the
incredible poverty of these people that ran the orphanage near I thought it
would be good to help. Others asked me
why I wanted to do that? I wasn't suppose
to take it THAT seriously. People, important
powerful people, are afraid we just might help the poor, and somehow threaten
their selfishness and greed. The old
American was holding the orphanage together some how. The small farm provided feed and food, some
livestock, a very old battered truck with bad gears. They weren't so far from
the richest country in the world, there in We drove down to
the beach in Ensanada, in the red Ford that the
classmate drove. Some hippies were fishing doewn
there. They had a
sling shot too. Something I would notice. We turned around.
There weren't enough adults with us. Would you let your 17 year old drive his
truck to We tried to get
it going again to no avail. The truck got very
tilted and we got out. A couple fedralis came by with guns. They had the slingshot and fishing pole they took from the hippies. They said the hippies were skinny dipping.
The Federalis seemed drunk. They moved on. We walked back to the camp. The next morning
we came back, the battery was gone.
Where we could go for a new battery was written in the dust on the
windshield. We paid for that and a
"cat" to come and help pull the truck out. But as it got close to the truck it
stalled. The mexicans
couldn't start it, so we left, a couple students stayed in ******* Maesai Travels, Culture and Knowledge Over the years I
had always put value on mobility, exploration, adventure to new places,
meeting new people and changing where I lived if it suited me. Having traveled a lot as a young person
with my family, car, horse, boat, hitchhiking, or plane became other means. I
went from living on an aircraft carrier, one of the better known ones, the Many times I gave
up possesions or position, sometimes of great
value, and quickly, to be on my way again. I had discovered
a culture along the way. This caused
me to think. In the west we had lost
culture and gotten ideas, things. But
people were empty within, looking for themselves, hungry, angry, restless.
People forgot the structure of what culture was, even scoffed at the idea
because they didn't have it, knowledge passed down from the old world till
now, and they stood in the wrong line or were born in the wrong line. For those who
notice they make their way back. Others don't.
Some of those scoff, they could but don't want to spend the effort to find
the way back. To find out what it means to be human. Always there are
those who gather and save the knowledge of what is good. The Jews have a
culture. It has value and meaning woven into life. Culture was a
collection of pragmatic ideas, not always perfect, but they worked. Christianity had
taken all the teachings of Jesus, twisted and discarded them, and then in the
end become sterile without culture of any form, unless bankruptcy can be a
culture. My own father perceived a culture in passing, but also dismissed
culture in part while searching for culture in part. A Scotsman. My mother a Hungarian, also missing her
culture, just one generation, looking back on how she sensed her culture was
in And as cultures
are lost, as the knowledge that they have are lost, maybe also the knowledge
of God is lost. The knowledge of God
is lost when people don't think that knowledge is important any more without
evidence that this is in fact the case.
Be it Akha or Jewish, there is a sense of obligation to a greater
accountability than the individual.
Culture has a logic. Christians are twisted because they come
along and destroy this very model, and then try to replace it with a model
they claim is nearly the same. They
wonder why they are sick, twisted, deceived and so accepting of the lie,
cause they started out lying in the first place to cover up what they were
really doing, economics of conquest.
The Christian model we have is one passed down from the crusaders, the
conquistidors, and it has not changed a bit.
Exploitation, enslavement and death.
While the merchants, armies and priests get fatter. The loneliest
people claim they need no culture. People seek
God. The Bible is God? The words of God? If words are like light, an extension of
the source, then are the words and God the same? We could understand God
better than we do. Understanding
ourselves, understanding God, as compared to religion. I have found that
there are not so many people who can discuss God and His attributes as
compared to those people who can discuss religion and their particular
investment in it. Coming to Before I had been in
construction work for years in the Construction work
was always good cash, but at the end of the day I was burnt out, and had not
much energy to relax on. I traveled to
quite a few countries but didn't have a whole lot of money for more of that
so I stopped in Story of
Indian on Street in 2001 Nov 25 The last twin
Deaths? Pah Nmm Akha Two daughters
were born to Ah Gaw at the hospital at Haen Taek from his wife who was
from Huuh Yoh Pah Soh, an Ooh Loh villgae. She kept Ah Gaw's
little store and was always kind and pleasant lus
she taught at the school and cooked at the school kitchen. Ah Gaw was the younger brother of ah Soh,
the Pah Luang. His father was Ah Baw
Chah, the brother of Ah Baw
Zah who was the headman. Ah Dzay was the other brother with two wives. Ah Chah - ah soh and Ah Gaw Ah Zah - headman Ah Dzay with the two wives. Ah Gaw had the two baby girls at the hospital for two days
then brought them home in the morning to the village so that they could be
killed. Now I would never
have believed that he would have done this.
Not all traditional villages do.
Bpuuh Seeh said he
was going to help Ah Gaw build a house out of the
village near the school and they were going to stay there and I thought that
this is what they would do so when I found out that the babies were already
killed I was very angry about it. The village took
it in stride in one way, but it was a definite hand in the village that very
much upset everyone and also my voice that I would have paid dearly for the
two children. At least I never dreamed
Ah Gaw would have come home if they were born
outside the village. Some said they
would stay in the Huuh Yoh
Pah Soh Christian village. I could not tell
if the village people had compassion underneath for the two babies or not, or
if they did they just covered it up, it was way too complex for me, and soon
I did not want to talk about it. Ah Gaw and his wife went to live in the brush for several
days and then left the area for the required one year. Their house and possesions
were taken away as well. Some people spoke
that Ah Gaw was a bad guy so this happened. This was the second set of twins killed
here but the first time I had been in the village at the time. Meeh Daw's father's
younger brother had twins with his wife two years ago. Seems the Akha
have twins quite often. Before that
had been Booh Teehs'
older sister in the village below. They
too had been killed. But in the
morning Ah Soh had come back with Ah Gaw and his wife and the twins. Someone made the comment of it and I told
them that they should not kill them. I
didn't know or thi nk
that this was the plan and it was happeningat the
end of the village at Ah Soh's house. When they spoke
of it I walked down there but when I got there the twins were already dead. Ah Baw Zah put ashes in their mouth they said, but they were
strong and would not die, so Ah Soh's mother put
her foot on their chests or hit them with sticks, I don't remember which was
said, but it was quite horrible to hear of it. It did not make me dislike the Akha, I
think it made me feel deeper compassion for how isolated they were from real
help. I don't try to understand all
the ways of this, just to oppose it. The killings. The twins were
quickly taken to the jungle and buried.
I did not see them go. Word
slowly leaked out and I told the villagers that people would have paid any
price for those children. Ah Soh came by to say that they were ever so small that they
would never have lived, but I knew this was a lie in his ever
deepening water. The two children were
registered at the hospital, but there was never much of an investigation of
it and the children were also dead. Then the next day
a man from Pah Luang Sah Jeh's land came, a
traditional Akha, he heard there were twins and he said not to kill them that
many people would take them, but then he was very disappointed and upset when
they told him the twins were already dead, and he got on his motorbike and
drove away. He wore glasses. Because of the
twins, their killing, the village did not work for three days. The store was torn apart, Ah Seh, my father in law, siad
that normally all of Ah Gaw's stuff would have been
looted. Some was in fact stolen. His houe was torn
down, and he and his wife left the village by a special route and slept in
the forest with several men from the village to protect them. They would live
elsewhere for 13 months. They coudl only come back to visit and could not go into the
grand mother's house. People were
forbidden to talk about it but in fact they all did. Nobody in the villae could sew or work a needle for a month. And no body could visit the villages for
the rest of th is month. But people could
smoke opium, certainly not considered work, and their wivs
and children could go hungry. But since the
hospital had registered the births and knew, word spread quick that the
school wife had allowed her children to be killed. There was the
possibility that the police and army would come and arrest the killers. Killers got punished short by life around here. Ah Djuuh beat Ah Myauh and her unborn baby died. He was killed shortly later. Ah Jung from San Chai
killed many people and he was soon dead by his own hand. The knife thrown
comes back to cut off the head. Missionary Excuses and Logic Dear Matthew, We can talk about
these things until the cows come home, but it all boils down to one
problem: you have a problem with God and the way He does things. His ways are not
our ways, neither are His thoughts our thoughts. You must remember that man fell out of favor with God, not
the other way around. We only begin to
prosper spiritually when we put our trust in Christ, and Him alone. For many this also means material
prosperity. “Man shall not live by BREAD ALONE, but
by EVERY WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” If we only
concentrate on feeding those who are hungry, and neglect the condition of
their souls, we are merely putting a band aid on a festering sore. The needs of the BODY are important, but
the SPIRIT of every man continues for eternity. There is nothing more
important than helping every man to come into right relationship with God. The worship of
evil spirits DOES bring poverty, sickness, and all kinds of bondage. If you
read the Old Testament you’ll see this to be true in God’s
dealings with Why don’t
you stop pointing out all the faults of the missionaries? I’ll admit, we have many faults - but we are only human. Try looking around you and see that
ALMOST ALL the good works in the
impoverished world have been accomplished by the Church. Look at the long
-established hospitals and schools in established by
missionaries early this century - some of whom gave their lives. Show me how many good works are done by
the other religions or New Agers or Humanists or
Greenies (save the whales, who cares about people). Who is more
involved than anyone else in caring for the thousands of aids babies today? Answer: Christians - and often at
their own expense, many having given up the so-called “good
life” back in the west. Maybe they don’t quite do it the way YOU would like. I noticed
you made the statement, “I love the Lord”. If this is true that
means you are a believer. But your speech and attitude betray a bitterness in your
heart against Christians. If the Church
ever hurt you, you need to forgive them, and get on with serving the Lord. “He who
says he is in the light, and hates his brother [other Christians] is in darkness until now. He who loves his
brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. He who
hates his brother is in darkness and
walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:9-11) No. It all boils
down to the fact that you don’t agree with the way God has dealt with man through history. But let’s
remember that IT IS ONLY BECAUSE OF GOD”S
MERCY THAT WE ARE NOT ALL BURNT UP AND THROWN ON THE GARBAGE HEAP. If you truly are
a believer, you better stop criticizing God and His people and get hooked up with what He is doing in
HIS world. Kind regards, Rodney At 03:25 PM
8/22/98 +0700, you wrote: >Rodney: > >I am
penciling theology here. > >I was
interested in your comment that the reason the Jesus Film got >progress was
“because Jesus wanted it done.” > >What would
you suppose I should think when infants die in the village? > >Do they die
because Jesus wants them to die? > >I think we
need to be very careful when we claim that something is the >”Lord’s
doing”. > >Not to be
picky, but I think that many people are throwing their weight >around
regarding God and the Akha, and living quite well while the Akha >suffer in
poverty, and blaming this on the fact that they are not >Christian
this or that. > >Well I have
proof that the Christians here are some of the least >Christian
people in the region, that they horde wealth and the good life >while Akhas die in poverty all around them, the Christians ears stopped >with cotton. > >I know that
this may not come across well but I think it needs saying. > >I love the
Lord, but I don’t agree with the way the “church” is doing >the Akha and
I can document what I say. > >Matthew Signed Rodney &
Suzanne Gynther Chiang Rai 57000
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