ELL: Akha Weekly Journal:Truck is Back Jan 24, 2001

[Matthew McDaniel]

Maesai Thailand Update, The Akha Heritage Foundation.


Dear Friends:


Well, it sure has been an exciting week.

My friend Karen came from the states to see the project. We were able to
get the Truck out of hock and start getting out to the villages and
taking a look at what was going on.

I haven't been in the villages much for two months, so my heart leaped a
little with this.

As mentioned, one of the local ner do wells, an American, with nothing
better to do, put sugar in the truck when it was parked out in front
here.

So we got a new engine now, still not enough power (as in hummer) but we
are rolling.

So that is fantastic, just absolutely fantastic, but not just that, but
because it just so happened that when it rains it pours.

The ovens are turning out bread and have gotten two batches out to the
village children so far as I work out recipe sizes, etc.  One firing of
the ovens makes over 200 loaves and I run two firings in two hours for a
single shift.  So now I got to get a roof rack to haul these bundles of
loaves of bread to the kids.  Thai army take away rice land, well, we
got news for you.

The Bakery Video is at http://www.akha.org/akha_video.htm  2.4 meg I
think.

And to make matters nearly unbareably joyous, the printing press is
coming this week, to its waiting berth, here at the building.  Well a
few people still haven't paid their pledges on this baby yet, but that's
ok, I can wait, and since the other fellow said he could too.  (so come
on now, lets not make this guy wait forever) But the press is still
coming.

But as if that was not enough, great joy, heaped on hope, and then
another load of joy dumped on top, well along came fantastic news that
the fish project pump and well work will soon be done also, so that the
test tanks can go into full cycle.  They got filled up with water by
last years rain, have had catfish in them since, and then a nice bloom
of water hyacinth has kept the fish cool.  We wondered how long the
catfish could survive without changing the water, we found out, nearly a
year. But of course with the pump and fresh water coming in we will be
able to boost the count quite a bit.

So there ya got heart stopping hope and joy folks, Fish, Bread and
Books, rolling to the villages anytime now.

This year will be our no holds barred year, full on service to all 282
Akha Villages in Thailand along with all the village fragments and
displaced Akha in the urban setting. We got into 250 Akha villages last
year.

Karen was really cool, she brought vitamins for the villages, went we me
to Huuh Mah Akha to see how they were doing.

Been a real nasty case of scabies in all the villages of late.

By the way, in a continued focus of this project I am working to put
together a formidable effort to stop infant death in the villages.
Seeking one pediatrician with third world and infant experience, with
emergency care would be good and with tropical disease experience would
be good too.

This is really the greatest gap here in available services.  There are
few doctors or clinics or hospitals with good infant care capabilities.
So even if I do find a sick infant in time, getting them to the hospital
guarantees a big bill, but not always their life.

By the way, any of you who would like to help us and the Akha by joining
in our Anti Drug War effort and our Anti Militarization of Akha
environment and border villages, please contact us to help support
poverty alleviation, not guns.

We figure there is going to be enough war here this spring as it is.

Now the final good news is that with the completion of all the
infrastructure projects, the smallest donation now goes directly into
fish, flour, paper, meds, vitamins, for all our projects.

Lots of bang for the buck folks.

Ok,

Happy Chinese New Year

Matthew McDaniel
>From the Big Bubble Bread and Wide Eye Pie Publishing Company
Maesai

Yeah, we make some kick butt apple pie too!

--


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