Quick Update

Hello friends and family,
        It's been two weeks since I've written and it will be another three before I write again. Monday morning I leave for my first Experiential Field Course (EFC). This past week we have been learning about agroecology, an ideology that applies principles of ecology to agrarian settings. As part of the course we are learning about the history of agriculture in the world focusing in on the US and Thailand. We are also reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dillema. 

To give you a bit of context: most everyone would agree that we are in a bit of a crisis with agro-businesses and are current agricultural practices developed over the last 100 years, but especially post-1950s with the widespread use of chemical fertilizers as the military industrial complex converted to the agro-industrial complex. There are two large movements suggesting solutions to the current food crisis.  Either we (1) turn to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), or (2) turn to agroecology based farming. The stuff we are learning seems particularly pertinent as there is debate in the US right now over whether GMOs need to be labeled or not. As part of the course we visited our Ajan's organic farm as well as a CP (Charoen-Pokphand) animal feed processing factory. If you don't know what CP is, you should, they are the largest animal feed producers in the world, a huge vertically integrated agro-business, and have investments in about every field you can imagine. The two field trips manifested wildly different emotions surrounding agriculture.

Monday, our group splits in to 2 smaller groups. I will head up to Mae Ai, the northernmost district of Chiang Mai,  and spend the week at Upland Holistic Development Project (UHDP) working in farms and preparing food from the ground up. On Wednesday, we will be killing and eating a pig. For real, for real. After a week with UHDP I will head to Chiang Dao and live in a home-stay with local villagers who have worked with UHDP to cultivate an extensive agro-forest.

In short, life is about to get way cool.

As for the past two weeks, they have been good. Last Thursday we had a farewell party and said goodbye to our host families. We all wore traditional Lanna (the historic Kingdom of northern Thailand) clothing. Saturday, we moved into apartments closer to the city. Saying goodbye to my host family was very difficult and I already miss them all very much. We grew pretty close and had a lot of fun together. I am going to see them at least once more before I leave the country.  Life in the apartments is a completely different feel and to call it an apartment is a bit of an overstatement. It's more like a hotel room without a kitchen, so we eat all our meals out. It's chill, but I'm excited to head out to the field.

Just to clarify, I will have not have access to computer/phone/communications devices of any sorts. ISDSI has its students unplug for the field courses.

That's about it for now. Talk to you in 3 weeks. :)