My first three weeks at UHDP have flown by quickly. I haven’t been whipping out my camera as much, treatment so there aren’t as many “environment”photos, opisthorchiasis but here are some of the adobe (or mud-brick) house that was being built when I arrived. If it’s finished in July, cost I’ll be moving into it (my fingers are crossed!). By using mud-bricks, UHDP demonstrates using local materials (mud, rice chaff) that results in a cooler building to live in, compared to the regular concrete homes that tribal communities are adopting.
I got my feet dirty my first day at UHDP. A mud pit was dug out beside the construction site and we used our feet to mix mud and rice chaff to produce the mortar used to glue the bricks together.
The same method was used to produce the brick mixture. The ladder-like tool in the picture above is the brick template used – first, the inside edges are wetted with water so the mix won’t stick. Second, the brick mixture is pressed into each rectangular mold and the tops are smoothed. Third, two people grasp each end and lift in one motion. Voila…bricks. They are dried in the sun for several days before being used.
Adobe house building equipment. The cool thing about mud-bricks is that you can cut off undesired edges with a machete if it doesn’t fit or if your wall is slightly jagged.
“Man power”. Literally. The farang (foreigners) were volunteers at UHDP. Lawson, the middle guy, had been supervising building of the adobe house before he returned to the US.
Exterior shot of the house.
Interior shots of the house. It’s very “muddy” at the moment.
Laying bricks is not that easy. I helped lay bricks for one section of a wall and it was so crooked. I’m glad that I’m not responsible for finishing the building.
This is one of my favourite pictures so far. Supona is Paluang from Burma. He’s terrific at soccer and has a beautiful shy smile. He’s one of several students from surrounding communities who work, live and study on the farm. In addition to the students, most of the staff from various tribes (Karen, Paluang, Lahu, Akha) also live on the farm so it’s a unique community.
Ekachai is now in charge of building the adobe house. He’s Lahu from Chiang Rai province (next door to where I am in Chiang Mai province). He calls himself a “free boy” (i.e. bachelor) and has even fancier footwork at soccer than Supona. I’ve worked beside them both in the field, hoeing and weeding, and had good fun with them.
Lek Lek is the daughter of UHDP Farm’s director Ajan Thui and his wife Pi Da. She’s hilarious…this is her posing on the first day I met her. When I visit her house, she’ll dump her baby kittens in my lap and force them to stay there.