In the last year volunteering and trading skills for 2 ecovillages, 1 centered around self-reliance and the other more around education and experiences. I'm getting in some valuable farm time at one (about 50-75% of the diet is from the land), the other just traded translating a book for volunteer time , but my interests there are primarily around seed saving networks. In between that I've been helping a family in the north belonging to Pga K’nyau. Simply executing on whatever they need help with and learning their ways at the same time. I am fascinated by their culture and way of living, tbh with or without considering permaculture... like farming on a shear mountainside, their simple and wise methods, their animal husbandry practices, and the rituals and storytelling that keep it all intact. Make me think about Bill Mollison and his interactions with the aborigine. Time slows down out there in the remote village, and all things are done with intention, which turns out to be just the right amount of patience.
Oh yeah, the photo, the children are of the Moken in Southern Thailand and Myanmar. These cute kids were our chaperones that visit. They help their mothers with the souvenirs made from the plastic waste and drift that washes up on the beach. I don't think many of them are happy with their setup is an understatement. Moken were once nomadic sea dwellers, now confined to individual islands and their fishing areas restricted only within the last few decades. They cannot build their own boats anymore, because they are not allowed to cut down the trees that they use to build them, and they are blocked off from using the resources even for ceremony in other parts of the island. They are now a bit of a tourist attraction and I'm afraid what their future might look like in the coming decades. I haven't figured out how we can help them directly yet except knowledge spreading, but I think that's the goal.
