" the air up in the 'there' you've never been to "

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seedart trek to the upper mountainous jungle region above chiang rai: part 1

you're sitting on a plane with a new book in your hand. the pressurization has just gotten to your brain, and concentration is getting difficult. to your left, a new contact is sleeping the hour-long or so flight away, having invited you to participate in a very cool important project, resting away for the things to come.

you're getting an over priced taxi from the chiang mai airport to the overbrook hospital. you're going to meet doctor david, a man that for all intents and purposes, will be your guide through the whateverness of unknown trails and peoples yet to manifest. he looks like a hiker, a camping trekker, a man with the sort of boots that signifies he walks a great deal over great distances constantly and often.

you're sitting in the roadside meetingpoint/restaurant of the hill-tribe villagers, whenever they make it into town; there is a governmental restriction upon the actual entering of these 'illegals' into the city limits, but they are allowed to sit, eat, converge, meet, and peer into what the 'privileged life' might possibly look like.

you're walking at top speed, as if there were no time left in the day, through the local produce/goods market buying things like eggs, vegetables, tubers, ponchos, mosquito nets, and medicines. there is absolutely no catching up to doctor david, as his pace is that of a massive steam engine train chock full of coal. every few seconds he disappears around some corner, leaving only the wincing smile of an old toothless lady selling cucumbers arranged neatly in a pile.
you're on the back of a truck headed for somewhere. the wind smells fresh and clean, completely unlike the "air" in bangkokia. the winds of change, one might say. looking around, there are many faces that seem as if they might be familiar ones; the faces of workers, the faces of old hill-tribe grandmothers with their blackened teeth and red tongues from chewing too much betelnut, the faces of young couples with a baby; the teen-aged husband not really ready to be a father as he smokes a cigarette over the edge of the back of the truck, one leg dangling near to the bumper. all these faces surround you, as the wind pulls our collective hair up and back. the road nears to separate destinations, and these people start to disappear as if you never saw them.

you're getting off of a long-tail traditional boat; the motor supplied from the hollowed out truck engine, refitted for aquatic transportation rather than the road. the last three hours were spent at a hill-tribe school on the other side of the river; the side of the river attached to the road back to civilization. you and your three companions waited three hours for the boat. it was hot and long and boring (excepting the interaction between camera-photo taking and the smiling constantly amused children), and it seems that in all of the discomfort of waiting, there are some people here that have done this every week of their lives.

you're on a second truck. the road has turned to that of dirt and mud and river shallows and tall grasses and deep cloven slits in the earth. the branches from bamboo shoots arc over the road in defiance of man's divination through them, and they thrash the faces and backs of unwary passengers sitting in the back of the truck; multiple unexpected lashing from a nature too old to move out of man's way.

you are sitting in a Lahu village eating dinner. a simple meal of rice and vegetables and cooked meat. you forget for a moment that the reason you are here is to interact, document, teach photography, and observe the means of education that these villagers' children can be provided with a basic sense of elementary and secondary education. the small sound of the rush of bodies in anticipation of food accompanies the thoughts of making it to the village finally after five hours of transit. again, the thought that these people have to do this every week comes to mind, and you humble yourself before the hot meal, happy to have made it to the location of something very very real.

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