Lost on Earth

I was delighted to find when I arrived at the school (OPC) that the diet of the children seemed very romantic to me. Every day at lunch there is a bowl of warm rice and some sort of strange vegetable, usually in a broth. One day we might eat rice and steamed forest ferns, bamboo in a very watery broth, morning glory with some chilies, fried pumpkin, and a sauce of ground peanuts, salt, chili, and soya beans.

For some reason, just today, it suddenly occurred to me that the reason why they eat this food is beacuse the rice is donated to OPC through another organization, and the vegetables are gleaned by the cook from the small bit of land surrounding the OPC office and the school. In the mornings the cook and her mother take their large baskets and pick morning glory from behind the office, taro from the creek etc. These kids rarely get to eat meat or even fruit (fruit is expensive in the market and it is considered very bad form to pick it from someone else's tree). Blaise and I decided to go to the market on Sundays and buy oranges for all the kids so they can have fruit once a week, but meat is a bigger problem.

Today, Kham Chuen drove us outside the town of Mae Hong Son and showed us his solution to the food problem(pictured above). On a large portion of donated land he has built a fish farm with two small ponds squirming with whiskered catfish, a clean, covered pen for ducks and chickens, and land that he recently planted with pumpkins, bananas, chilies, eggplants, and lemongrass. On some days the kids go with him to the farm and learn how to cultivate the fish and grow vegetables. "It is good for the kids to know English and math and computers" he explained "But when they go back to Burma those things will not help them. They also need to know farming".