Save
The Akha: The
Self-Sufficiency Projects
Wells & Safe Water Systems
Well Preparation |
A Look Down In |
Finally Finished! |
Happy to Have Clean Water! |
Second Well Completed |
Cistern |
Water Pipe With Fresh Clean Water |
Water Ditch |
Mud Cistern |
Matt delivering much needed blankets
The best sight in the world - a happy kid with a new blanket
The fierce problems of delivering to the mountain villages
Akha roads are really bad. If someone calls you to an Akha village and
your truck isn't having trouble getting up the road, you know you don't
have the right road. On the other hand if the road looks totally destroyed,
like the one above, you know you're going the right way.
When you have 300 villages to go to during the monsoons on roads like
this, one obviously needs some axle clearance. The humvee axle design
is one of the few vehicles suitable, short of building our own.
Now we originally approached AM General some two years ago about buying
a humvee, 'cause they are a lot cheaper as military models, than the
civilian Hummer which has a lot of plastic stuff on it we didn't want
and doesn't like deep water. But AM General said they couldn't sell
this humvee to anybody but armies, which of course is not true.
So THEY wouldn't sell one to US because we aren't an army. Well, I
plugged on, and got by, but kept looking for funds and solutions. Now
along came this border war. Everyone is fighting about who will get
to make and keep all the money off the heroin and speed pills here in
Southe East Asia. Somebody needed a war, and somebody else always needs
to sell humvees. AM General. A war helps.
And humvees they sold and humvees we got. We got them everywhere. In
the villages and in the towns and here at the border. Only we DON'T
got one for medical care for these same villages! The AM General humvees
come to my door three times a day or more, when I am in town to see
them, to feed the soliders staying under my house on the border river
here with Burma.
So I called AM General back up and I asked Mark
Wickizer there about selling or donating a humvee. He said the answer
was no, still no. I asked him what projects AM General had for helping
good social causes, since it seemed odd that we could end up with a
jillion humvees here but none for an ambulance? No reply. Now, figure
this, AM General is SO efficient that it can deliver a score of humvees
into Akha villages where the company execs have never even been nor
even seen an Akha.
Yet the idea of helping someone deliver vitamins or natal care to the
same villages with a good vehicle didn't even enter their picture? They
didn't even want the tax writeoff? 300 mountain villages, gobs of humvees,
and no vitamins or infant care? Well, we hope AM General GETS the picure
now.
Desperately needed: a Hummer!
Tuesday: March 27, 2001: Mark Wickiver: CEO, AM General:
Dear Mark: I got no reply from you as to what projects your company
provides assistance to that are of a social concern? AM General is able
to profit very well off war. We now have humvees here everywhere, scores
and scores of both fast backs and two door pickup varieties.
I have troops under my building here on the north Thai border with Burma.
One of your AM General Hummers comes to my door every day several times
to deliver them their meals. How's that for you making your point? These
are humvees, which cost a small fortune, tromping in the villages of
the very poor where we can not even get sufficient vitamin supply. Your
company would profit first off war in an area that has no neo-natal
program? You see no contradiction, that your company makes money by
distributing its humvees into these villages while these villages don't
even have an ambulance?
I wouldn't mind, except these last years have been years of exponential
corporate greed around the world and your company appears to be no exception.
Being a non profit organization, you could have donated us a humvee
for an ambulance here and written the whole thing off. AM General may
soon get some advertising of a totally different nature. Hook and tongs.
Matthew McDaniel, Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
The awesome terrain with which Matt must deal: the town of Vieng Xai
A typical mountain village homestead
From muddy river valleys to mountain peaks - all in the same trip
Winching the four wheeler out of another muddy hole
An Akha mountain girl
Some of her little brothers and sisters
A bridge over a mountain river
.jpeg)
Matt McDaniel: wearing, in fact, many hats: self-sufficiency project
manager, mechanic, relief worker, webmaster, political ombudsman, cultural
anthropologist
Donated Seeds:
This has been a great help. Seed assortment in Thailand's north
is very limited. Many yellow vegetables are just not available.
More Agricultural Needs:
Soil Test Kit Soil Test Kit guide for determining suitable use for soils
here.
Computer programs for planning greenhouse size or for vegetable crop
production.
Mushroom growing technique, kinds of rare mushrooms that have higher
market value.
Funds for sunscreen mesh, raised beds construction, and pots, potting
soil.
Coffee plant purchases Bamboo propigation, especially of larger varieties
aqua culture.
Bee equipment
