Mae Nam Khun

This past weekend Dan and Anna joined six Cal Poly engineering students and traveled to a small rural village in the hills of northern Thailand, Mae Nam Khun, near the Burmese border. It is considered a hill-tribe village because the people who live there are not really of Thai ethnicity. For this village the residents included Chinese, Lahu, and Akha tribe members, and they predominantly farm tea for a living. We mostly stayed with and worked with the Lahu people; Cha-Sha-La means Hello (and Goodbye) in Lahu. Most of these tribal settlements started as refugee villages when people were kicked out of other countries (usually China).
Our Goal in Mae Nam Khun was to work on two engineering projects, one ongoing and one just beginning. The existing project involved design and installation of a water filtration system on the overlooking hillside. It mechanically and biologically filters water that comes down to the village via a set of water tanks on the hilltop (pumped from some river as near as we could tell). We successfully added a flow restrictor valve to make the filter easier for the villagers to use and modify. The second project was to explore the feasibility of implementing an alternative trash processing method. The current methods involve burying trash in the jungle, dumping it in the river, or burning it in or near the home. We collected data on what is in their trash (a lot of plastic, foil, and, and ag waste), how often it is eliminated (many homes burn their trash on a weekly basis), what health problems arise from the practice (burning trash in or near one's home has very bad effects on respiratory systems and buried trash can cause harmful agents to seep into the river). We will summarize our trash findings in a report and make a recommendation on alternative processing technologies (e.g., burn with an air filter) to the Cal Poly Engineers Without Borders student club.
Anna got to participate in all of the activities, including hiking up to the water filter, surveying villagers, and sifting through trash. We slept on mats in a small dormitory (two-story thatched hut). The little kids of the village were constantly staring and giggling at the white visitors (us), especially Anna and her blonde hair. Overall, we learned a lot, got to talk (somewhat) to some of the villagers, ate lots of 5 Bhat (about $0.15) ice cream cones, and had an amazing ride in the back of a pickup through the beautiful highlands of Northern Thailand.