From akha@loxinfo.co.th Fri Aug 13 01:32:29 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id BAA60160 for ; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 01:32:28 -0700 Received: from chmai.loxinfo.co.th (root@chmai.loxinfo.co.th [203.146.0.65]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.06) with ESMTP id BAA11209; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 01:32:26 -0700 Received: from loxinfo.co.th (loxppp2-chrai1.North.loxinfo.net [203.146.34.2]) by chmai.loxinfo.co.th (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA15167; Fri, 13 Aug 1999 13:53:17 +0700 (ICT) Message-ID: <37B392CE.DFF43EC3@loxinfo.co.th> Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:36:46 +0700 From: Matthew McDaniel X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Akha@loxinfo.co.th Subject: San Chai Mai, Akha Weekly Update Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Friends: The weekly update is now divided into two pieces, a piece of mail with stories from the Akha lands and then this update with news of ongoing projects. Please subscribe a friend. If you wish to unsubscribe, please make sure if you have more than one email name or that the newsletter is not coming to you via a mailing list. **** For this week Akha Photo Journal: http://www.akha.com/PhotoJournal1.htm **** Building New Gathering Place In San Chai Mai: Now that we have finished construction of the "Sah Lah" or gathering place in a mountain village we are ready to proceed with one in the village of San Chai Mai, which some of you are familiar with. San Chai has had one of the hardest times as a village, drug addiction, HIV and problems with the police. But in 8 years of being here I have yet to see any project done in San Chai itself. People come and go, the village still remains impoverished. There is even a clinic next door now, built by the government, but it doesn't appear to have actually affected the quality of life in San Chai. As part of our effort to strengthen villages, to help them hold onto their land, fight relocation and fight the removal of children and girls from the village for "education" we are asking for people to help us build these traditional gathering places for the villages. I donate the boards for the floor, help with the construction and the village helps as well and provides the poles and grass roof. If you go to http://akha.com/Salatsoh.htm you can see what building one looks like. These are places for the village people to meet in the center of the village, drink tea, talk, sew, the children to gather out of the rain and contribute to village unity. I know some of you have friends in San Chai, like Nimit, and if any of you can contribute to the cost of the boards it would be much appreciated. ($700). **** Book Punch Well, after months of prodding and pushing the book punch is within a few days of being done, the punching head was being machined last time I was there. The fellow is a good machinist, just has too much work and not enough helpers. This allows us to punch the signatures through the side, rather than back stitching, and then allows for sewing the book together with heavy string for a long life. I will include a jpeg link as soon as it is finished and fine tuned. **** Zeneca Agro Chemicals We have been talking with Zeneca Agro Chemicals of London about the availability of Paraquat to the Akha, as it is a very dangerous defoliant and most villagers are not aware of this or trained to use it, to say nothing of the fact that it is just really a nasty chemical to be dumping in the environment. We would like to see it not sold at all. Last year Zeneca sold over 7,000,000 liters, that's right, over 7 million liters in Thailand alone of just that one chemical and there are other chemicals and other companies, like Monsanto and their glysophate. Nasty stuff too. Anyway, Zeneca has at least agreed to help make educational materials and help provide safe water in villages so that they won't be contaminated by washing of the containers, not sure how many yet. I have to say that they have been very willing to discuss this problem as compared to some other groups we have had to deal with. **** Bayer and Dioxin?: Gotta Headache? Bayer Company is dumping a chemical in Thailand called Hedonal 95 SP. This is 2,4,D which I believe is the same as Dioxin or contains it, someone correct me if I am wrong, but this also is finding its way into the hands of villagers who have no way of knowing how dangerous it is. I am also trying to contact Bayer about this. I wonder if people have any idea how much of these chemicals are being dumped on our soils and in our waters around the world by our own western companies, killing us all. **** Please visit Akha.com when you have a chance, maybe a couple of times over the month, as the site is changing and streamlining. We have new categories in the index which are not filled up yet, don't be concerned, it is where we are headed, collecting stories and jpegs to fill each category. There is one on Bamboo, Birds, Butterflies, Bugs, Mushrooms, etc. As well, if one of these categories is a specialty of yours, or you have one we have missed, let us know. Would also like any input or contribution of related articles or information for these pages. We are also encouraging people to come and study the flora and fauna of the Akha forest as a means of helping them preserve it and keep their position in the mountains. Many villages are under pressure or ruse to leave the mountains. Help us fight this. **** Thankyou all for your support. Matthew McDaniel -- Matthew McDaniel The Akha Heritage Foundation 386/3 Sailom Joi Rd Maesai, Chiangrai, 57130 Thailand Mobile Phone Number: Sometimes hard to reach while in Mountains. 66-01-881-9288 US Address: Donations by check or money order may be sent to: The Akha Heritage Foundation PO BOX 6073 Salem OR 97304 USA Donations by direct banking can be transferred to: (Preferred) Wells Fargo Bank Akha Heritage Foundation Acc. # 0081-889693 Keizer Branch # 1842 04 4990 N. River Road. Keizer, Oregon, 97303 USA ABA # 121000248 Web Site: http://www.akha.com mailto:akha@loxinfo.co.th Discussion Groups: akha@onelist.com indigenousworld@onelist.com .