My second weekend excursion was buffalo riding. We arrived at a rice farm somewhere outside of Chiang Mai. The Thai farmers showed us the three ways to mount a buffalo. The first is to climb up by pushing one’s foot against the neck area of the animal. The second way is to train the buffalo to sit down; which looked the easiest. The third way is done by running towards the beast’s butt and jump at the last second and avoid touching it's poop. As dumb as it may sound I was so nervous to mount the beast. I made everyone go before me. Everyone jumped the animal just fine and all I could think about was hitting it’s poopy butt and falling on the ground. Out of peer pressure, I did the impossible and mounted the stupid animal. Thanks to all the interns I have a bunch of great pictures to document the astonishing moment. These photos will not been seen unless the other interns cruelly post them for me.
The second activity was tilling a wet rice patty with a water buffalo. From what I hear the water was hot and felt discussing. I woulda, shoulda, coulda done it but after Nate started bleeding and the lack of clean water in Thailand to clean off the mud, I elected to watch from the sidelines. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone; I am a farmers’ daughter and I don’t have to get dirty to prove it! The buffalo was struggling to pull the till through the mud. I felt bad for the animal and all the farmers; it is really hard work. Next we planted rice in the mud; I will never know how they manage to plant perfect rows. It creates the most beautiful landscape.
All the interns learned the steps to harvesting the rice. After the rice is cut, a bundle of rice is smashed into a very large wooden basket to abstract the rice. The seeds are then placed on a plastic tarp and fanned. The fanning makes the casing of the rice fly off the tarp and only the rice seeds remain. The rice is then put into a cement thingy and a funny machine continues to de-shelled the rice. The rice was then placed on a wooden tray. There are several types of rice; jasmine, red, black, green and gross American rice.
I like jasmine rice a lot and it’s a good thing cuz it the only thing I eat! I totally don’t have an eating disorder just because I’m on a rice only diet… or do I?? Side note: two weeks after I was a Thai farmer, I made a horrible, most heinous gesture at dinner I was served fried rice for dinner and when I was going to grab sticky rice, I got the most disturbing looks from my mom and grandma. Apparently, when eating fried rice one is NEVER allowed to eat sticky rice. Or maybe I am so large and in charge in Thailand that my family has put me on a more restricted diet and I didn’t get the memo. Anywoo, we were showed how brown sugar is abstracted from sugar cane using a water buffalo. The brown sugar cubes were very sweet and delicious!
Finally, we got to use a platform to mount a nice tame buffalo and ride it in a circle. The experience was similar to child’s birthday party with pony rides; the animal was slow and the farmer never let go of the rope. Luckily for the buffalo there were not as many flies as I imagined so he didn’t get slapped and I didn’t fall off its extremely mal-nourished boney back.
The interns spent the rest of the afternoon hiking up to a gorgeous waterfall. I was dying of sweat more than normal because we decide to race up the jungle instead of observing the beauty of Thailand’s jungles. Once we reached the top my clothes were already off and I climbed on to a high rock and let the water cool me down. It was an amazing moment. I felt so refreshed and I took several minutes to embrace the moment and repeat in my head “I Love My Life!” I contemplated about all of my life experiences that led up to that moment. There have been few moments when I have felt so vindicated for all the long hours and sleepless nights of endless labor I have endured for the last 5 years. The boys and I splashed around in the water and had a great time. I must say Sondra had a breakdown and I thought it was hilarious but I wasn’t the one getting screamed at for jumping off rocks. I played in the water until I was cold and we hiked down the jungle at a slow pace.
We went to the Sam Kanpang Saturday street market. I love the street markets! We hunted for food and found lots of yummy snacks! We had flat scones with condensed milk (everything has condensed milk on it). We found some delicious spicy meat balls and some other kind of deep-fried meat. I of course found myself my daily fruit smoothie; this one had gummies in it and they tasted great! I found two adorable skirts! And then the most dramatic event in Thailand’s history happened… I ran into Pinton! Pinton is the 24 year old computer teacher at my school. All of the lady teachers want Pinton to be my boyfriend. Stanley and I spend a lot of time with him because we are always working on our laptops in the computer room; we have become good friends with him. PINTON had his mystery GIRLFRIEND at the market and she HATES my whiteness Barbie self!!
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