scroll with me

A common feeling of mine is the desire for those people that I care about to see what I am seeing. I feel helpless trying to explain or even remotely verbalize the feelings and sights that surround me each day. So I invite you to scroll with me on a vertically formatted trip through some of the past few weeks.

Mok Fah waterfall. On the diirt road below you a subway system of tiny red ants creates a halfpipe crossing the road/desert. In another place on the path the team has abducted a helpless worm, and carry his wriggling body away both gracefully and efficiently, up and over sand cliffs, and into the brush, slowed by no obstacle. Your distractions have masked the light mist overtaking your constant sweaty state. You look up to realize that ahead, past the badly translated english subtitles of the precariously placed thai signs is a most massive waterfall plunging out of the dense tropical bush into a sandy pool. Of course you swim, and as you get closer to the falling wall of water you realize that the name waterfall is only partly fitting, for much of the water in the hurricane dropzone area can be seen defying gravity and heading back up, away from the sweaty tourists. The Thais see the jungle as a place of numerous and sometimes dangerous spirits.

The commute into Chaing Mai. The yellow song tauw into the city is full, of course. So you hop on the back bumper runner thing and hold on to the roof rack, watching vehicles filled with hooded people or heavy objects precariously balanced on top pass by. It is misting this morning, but the distant sketches of mountains can be seen. The sociology of Thailand is very different than that of which I have culturally absorbed back home. In Thailand, the laws are... well... semi-important. No one will let you out into traffic as a common courtesy, and they may not stop if they hit you. This is a country of relationships. For those people who are strangers to you, you have no direct moral or social obligation. But those people wkho mae it into your 'circle of concern', they are taken care of... and you will take care of them... all according to a social ballet of hierarchical relationships based on age, gender, social standing, education, and wealth. I feel so advantaged to have been fused into the circle of concern of my host family and their friends, it will be hard returning to tourist status.

Talapia fish farm. You are in the murk up to your chest, and if your shoes didnt have straps on them they would be engulfed and annexed by the mud bottom. The net is rolled up to gather all the fish into one corner. There you reach in with your net and pull out 2, 3, sometimes 4 wriggling 8 to 14 inch talapia. Indigenous to the Nile River system, they are a great fish for harvesting due to their love of phytoplankton, their rapid growth (0 to 750 grams in 7 months), and their minimal bone structure. So you grab the front end with your gloved hand, pry open the mouth, prop the gill open with your thumb, and attempt to empty the female's mouth of eggs. These are collected and incubated into fry which will be sold to local farmers on a kind of micro loan system. These fish can jump though, and some frisky individuals jump the net, hit you in the chest, and swim off into the murk.

Twelve thousand two hundred and fifty monks recieving alms after some Buddhist chanting in the sub district of Doi Saket where I live.

Picture this: The side of road is dark, a swaying red blinking light can be seen ahead. Elephants need taillights too in the night.