Life 5 Years After People

After spending several weeks traveling at an exhausting speed through several countries, I decided it was time to settle in and do some volunteering in Thailand. I found a project 25km from Chiang Mai, Thailand and began my work there yesterday. I didn't know what to expect, but I had a feeling that I was in for a completely different experience.

I met Chris, an American ex-pat (from South Dakota of all places) and former Buddhist monk, at a Wat that he does Buddhist teaching and immediately liked him. Chris and his Thai wife live in Chiang Mai with their 2 daughters, one of which is crawling all over me right now. His wife is an international lawyer and a lovely woman. Chris and I drove through the outskirts of Chiang Mai to what will be known as the Metta Experience. Metta is a luxury resort that never came to fruition. It has sat empty for 5 years in the jungle.

Stepping out of his car I immediately was attacked by mosquitoes, crazy huge ones that seemed to really like me. We walked through the buildings on the property and it's hard to describe what I saw. It is truly an episode of "Life After People-5 Years" up there. The rooms, which were supposed to be guest rooms and will be again had been taken over by various forms of life. Mold on the vaulted ceilings, spiders everywhere, dead mice and geckos on the floor, and snails. The main area for eating and lounging has amazingly beautiful furniture in it, with bamboo roofs that are partly caved in. The vines have overtaken the sides of the buildings, climbing up them as they do. The structures are intact for the most part and shouldn't take much to fix up, but it was the cleaning that still makes me feel as though my skin is crawling with bugs.

I started on what will be my room for the duration of my stay, armed with a can of extra strong bug spray and a bamboo broom. I received a cobweb shower for my efforts, sweeping the ceiling and moving onto the floors. Spraying along the edge of the room, I traced a trail of chemicals that killed everything within minutes. The bed and mattress seemed almost pristine, never having been slept in and with the original sheets from 5 years ago. I stripped the bed and pulled the mattress back from the wall and found a termite colony. There were literally thousands of termites in the bed. I'm not a squeamish person, but that was a little too much for me and yet, I carried on. Die termites die! The bathrooms in my room and all of the rooms are massive and completely western. The rooms all have private balconies and the detail and work put into the place is amazing. It's a shame that it didn't originally open when it was built, but I think that happens a lot here.

I moved through the 7 main rooms, cleaning as I went and waiting for the water to be fixed. Unfortunately, Chris wasn't able to fix the water or the power in the main units, but the community room has power. Chris and his wife were gracious enough to let me stay at their house in Chiang Mai last night and I got to eat the first home cooked meal I have had in months.

Today, I am going back to Metta with Chris and another volunteer. I will be spending the night up there and several subsequent days and nights helping them restore the property. I can live without electricity in my room for a bit and I can pee in the woods. I really like what they are trying to do with the center, make it into a Eco-community were people can come and stay and learn about Buddhism, meditation, and Eco-farming without having to pay a ton of money. I am the very first volunteer that they have had and I feel a certain amount of ownership in the project already. It's a really good feeling to feel like I am helping to create something. Doing something just do it, not for monetary gain feels really good. The experience is worth the discomfort. Being on the typical tourist trail can feel a bit empty and hedonistic at times and that feeling has all but disappeared being at Metta. It will be great to visit in the future and see what has become of it. I know that I will always have a home there, already finding a little part of Thailand that I can make my own. Check out the website for Metta: http://www.mettaexperiment.org/.

Peace, love, and joy from the jungle in Thailand.

Lara