OTHERS

The wedding of a fellow NGO worker Sarah (from Belfast) and local boy Prin. I shot their wedding this month.

I think If I was to sum up why I haven’t updated this blog for a few months. It would be “Others”. I have been gifted in the last few months with a new community. Its funny how you could ‘live’ in a place for a long time without having a real community. Thankfully for me Thailand really is a friendly and open place. I recently had the priveledge of going to an engagement party in an Ahka home and it was seriously one of the best days and night Ive ever had. I loved it. They killed the pig right out the front of the house and everybody helped with the cooking and the set up and of course ALL THE EATING! It was so much fun.

My new friend Fai is getting her traditional dress on for her engagement party.

So Community means a heap of different things. Things aren’t always peachy in communities. Sometimes people stay too late after dinner when you want them to go home, Mums and Dads (even Tribal Elders) still say things to hurt their kids, people are mean, racist, gossips and judge others. I personally as part of the community have to own the times I blow it and say or do hurtful things to others, with or without meaning to. As I said, It isn’t always peachy.

But Community in Thailand is a strong and real and as necessary as rice, rain and pigs. Where I live, everybody knows everybody, extended family live together in one house and everybody is connected not just through family but through tribal roots. My village is Karen. Karen girls walked by my house this morning in their traditional dresses and they really are so beautiful and living out their culture every day

Some Akha guys who live in my street.

I don’t know how , but I seem to have been, kind of, accepted here and even as Im writing this my neighbours have come into my kitchen to invited me out to another village and brought me Karen (Tribal) coffee roasted in clay pots by their extended family in a different province of Thailand. People here show genuine generosity, friendship and gratitude on a daily basis. It is confronting and fabulous at the same time. I think being here is changing parts of me. Community forces you to be open and trust. The other night some young guys were singing loudly and drunkenly outside my house. I realised that when I first got here I would have been scared, but now I understand the structure of this community I know that if they were in any way a threat, someone would have gone out and told them to go home to their mothers and their mothers would have found out (maybe at the market) the next day what had happened. I now know that if they were out there singing loudly in the street, it was permitted by someone. Its funny how this understanding shapes our responses.

Joe , Fai’s Mum and Fai at their engagement party.

The other amazing thing about living in Chiang Rai is the interconnected partnerships and values of the NGOs and Charities. I recently met a wonderful, intelligent and vibrant woman from the local university whose vision for tribal young people was as strong as any tribal leader and she was of Thai decent. I love meeting so many amazing people tackling the big issues here in the North. It humbles me and energises me. Today I met some young Americans working here with The Sold Project (Intervening for kids at risk of trafficking), this week I met some Australians who work with Indigenous Affairs at home in Australia and I have recently connected with two groups in my street who are doing really positive projects that assist their Akha Tribal people. There is really good things happening here.

Fai’s Dad in his loungeroom with the lights that his family and community makes to sell.

I am a photographer. I watch and I try to explain things with a camera, but most of all I get to be with this amazing community. Im not making money. Im not advancing my career, Im not even really getting the shots I want most of the time (because its not always appropriate to set up a tonne of speedlights…sadface) .

But I hope in some way despite all my failings, I’m helping my new community.

In other news I also went to Lao, Burma and Nan and Chiang Mai Provinces since my last post hahaha… So many stories. Join my Facebook www.facebook.com/thelightlover to see up to date stories and photos.