APRIL 5, 2019 | LEUM DTAA COHORT | SOUTHEAST ASIA - LEUM DTAA

By Loida Pat

After Spending a day and a half of exploring the big city of Bangkok, we left to Plum Village. Plum Village is a Vietnamese meditation center created in Thailand by Thich Nhat Hanh. He is a very famous for teaching Zen Buddhism, which is basically mindfulness. Mostly everyone was pretty excited to go on this retreat where we would learn mindfulness and get time to be on our own and just relax without thinking so much of the future. When we arrived to Plum village we were received by a grey cloudy sky and the oh so beautiful rain. To us the rain was a blessing to all the nuns and monks it was not. It was so cute although there was barely any rain compared to what we get in Portland, they were running around with their umbrellas. Our first day was very confusing, we literally broke most of the rules on our first day but we ended up learning by observing others. 

MARCH 27, 2019 | LEUM DTAA COHORT | SOUTHEAST ASIA - LEUM DTAA

Sawadee Kah (Hello) future students, friends, family and supporters.

This is Davineekaht blogging to ya’ll. After a 5 hour van ride, we arrived on the farm confused. Only saw dusty dirt roads and no houses. Everyone looks at each other looking tried and confused. All of sudden a rusty red Monza truck slowly coming down the dirt road and stoped where we are standing. It was Sandot and his son Jon Jon. We load our heavy bags onto the truck. Then we had to walk up the hill. We didn’t know how far we were walking but everyone started to walk up the hill. Soon we reached Sandot and Jon Jon at the top. Sandot showed us were we are staying. All we saw was a straw roof, a floor made out of bamboo and mats covered with mosquitos nets. No walls, no doors, we were out in the open. Besides the open huts we had a beautiful view. We saw beautiful green trees covered the hills and other people’s houses.

MARCH 22, 2019 | LEUM DTAA COHORT | SOUTHEAST ASIA - LEUM DTAA

As soon as we hopped off the sungtao at the Akha village, we were greeted with delicious freshly made food and fruit. After lunch, we were given a tour by Pi’ Cartoon, a guide from The Mirror Foundation and Yui an intern from The Mirror Foundation. She has a very bubbly and funny personality so we felt comfortable with her at first sight.

As we walked around the village, we saw Appi Attah (an elder of the village) and her daughter sewing beautiful patterns on tribal fabrics. Appi Attah’s daughter helped teach Davineekaht how to sew some of the beautiful patterns. As we were watching the beautiful sewing, Loida was playing with Appi Attah’s grandson who had beautiful plump cheeks and a tender smile. We then moved further down the village, Paw Klu, Elena and I helped a very kind lady cut banana trees stems which are used to feed pigs. We also saw how straw roofs were made and met a bunch of little cute kids on the way.

MARCH 16, 2019 | LEUM DTAA COHORT | SOUTHEAST ASIA - LEUM DTAA

Finally and tragically our last day in Mae Rim, all our preparation was coming down to this night. First as usual we had our thai language class in the sala where we added the finishing touches to our speeches. Then we made some lanterns out of banana trees for a ceremony called Loi Kratong. We continued to set up and rehearse for this highlighted event in Mae Rim. We were finally able to finish an uno game that had lasted for hours. We then started to get ready. Ladies with long skirts, white shirts, red sash, a floral headpiece, and long gold fingernails. The gentlemen wore white shirts, burgundy pants, and had swords. It was time.