Bridging the Gaps

After hacking a small clearing from a tangle of nasty ‘cat’s claw’ vines, soft-spoken Jim Connor smiles and points his machete upriver towards his farm. “Since we’ve moved out, it’s a bit overgrown,” he apologizes. In truth, the farm is a model of order compared with the surrounding anarchy of the jungle. But to reach the smooth-walled mud buildings thrusting their thatch roofs through the greenery, there’s still the matter of fording the surprisingly swift river.

Last year there was a small footbridge which even small children could use to cross to Whispering Seed, the children’s home cum community education center set up in 2004 by Jim and his Thai partner, Saowanee Sangkara. Things were going nicely before floods hit 43 of 76 provinces during the 2006 rainy season. The normally placid river bordering the farm swelled to 5 times its width and swept away the footbridge, some nearby school buildings, and a great deal of the riverbank. With their bridge access gone, Jim and Saowanee had no choice but to pack up their projects and move into a rented house in the nearby town of Sangklaburi.

Set in the hills wrapping around the northern tip of Khao Laem reservoir Sangklaburi looks something like the Mediterranean with bamboo. When it’s not pouring, at least. It’s the last outpost before the infamous Three Pagodas Pass, the Thai-Burmese border crossing known for its unstemmable flow of black-market goods and narcotics. The area is home to a mix of ethnic Thais and Burmese, as well as minority groups such as the Karen, Mon, and Karenni, many of whom were forced to flee the Burmese army with its repressive policies of forced labour and relocation. Minority people have lived in this area for generations but live on the margins of mainstream Thai society, facing discrimination because of their different languages and practices.

Jim and Saowanee started the Whispering Seed to support displaced peoples and minority groups by teaching sustainable living and promoting traditional knowledge. Rather than working in refugee camps, they have chosen to help individuals and communities use local skills, knowledge, and resources to heal themselves and adjust to their present situations so they can work together to better their own lives.

The center teaches locals about mud-brick building, low-impact technologies (even surprisingly odourless composting toilets), and traditional crafts and arts. Jim’s education background has also led the center to double as a nurturing home for abused and orphaned children and disadvantaged families. The Whispering Seed acts as a metaphorical bridge between traditional communities and modern sustainable philosophy, but to do this, a real bridge is needed.

To the rescue has come Architects For Aid, a UK charity lending professional planning and support to building projects internationally. A4A has already surveyed the riverbank and has drawn up plans for a sturdy wood and bamboo span “from up here to the yellow banana tree,” Jim puts it, indicating through a gap in the foliage. Jim hopes to use A4A’s guidance to turn the November bridge-building project into a teach-in for locals so that “they can fix the bridge if it breaks or build one of their own with what they’ve learned here.” Thailand-based company Dragonfly is supporting the project with volunteers and funding. According to founder Martin Walsh, “this is an opportunity for people from different parts of the world to come together to challenge themselves, gain a new ‘worldliness’, and make a real difference.”

Dusk begins to settle over the hills as Jim’s ancient Landrover bounces along the muddy rutted road back towards Sangklaburi. Locals wave and call greetings in at least three languages, Thai border police stop their football game to smile and ask him how his home is, and he stops in on a neighbour to borrow a large pot to cook extra rice for a group of teenaged UK ladies visiting to learn about mud-building. His contributions and inclusion in the community is obvious and so is the need for the bridge and more similarly dedicated individuals to follow in Jim’s hard-working footsteps.

Article Source: http://www.travelarticles.org

Whispering Seed (www.whisperingseed.org) provides a safe home for children in need and community education for marginalized people in the Thai-Burma border region. Architects For Aid (www.architectsforaid.org) work with building projects across the developing world. Dragonfly (www.thai-dragonfly.com) organizes placements for international volunteers throughout Thailand.