When my boss offered me to participate in the GRIP program, I (a Staff Exchange Participant from Siemens, Germany, who has never been in a 4th –world environment before ) was very excited but also a little unsure as to how to cope with 10 days of living with a hill tribe family in Northern Thailand…

After about 30 hours of travel, I arrived at the Northern province of Chiang Rai, (at the “international” airport), looking forward to be greeted by a representative from the NGO, The Mirror Art Group, which had organized my immersion. And here was the first challenge: No one there that held up a sign with my name as agreed – well, that’s why they invented cell phones: I was glad I had rented the global Nokia phone… but, no service… aha. VIP- Lounge? What’s that? English speaking staff? Hardly….

Half an hour and many mental what-if-scenarios later, the representative did show up, time is not really that important up here. We threw the luggage on the flatbed of the pickup truck (Thailand is the second largest market for pick-up trucks) – it was raining - and twenty minutes later we made a turn onto a dirt road, which looked like it required a 4x4. The driver said: “it’ll get worse” – and it got worse. But the Nissan managed trough the mud and 10 minutes later we arrived at the NGO site on the bottom of the hills, my home for the next few days. Greeted by many smiles, and even more dogs and cats, I was provided with a comfortable room in the house of Khun Nuling, the head of the NGO. I shared the bed with an unidentified number of ants that night, but given my jet-lag, it bothered me only little. The next day at daylight I saw the whole beauty: tucked away in the middle of the jungle and in walking distance to the hill tribe villages resides this 11 member NGO (plus a handful of volunteers and numerous children) including 100+ chicken, some horses (used mostly as living lawn mowers), dogs, cats, satellite dishes, a video production studio, a computer center (The NGO won at the WB’s Development Marketplace with their rural CIT project “Bannok TV” and a little art shop.

Everybody was extremely helpful and supportive in making my first step of the immersion as easy and comfortable as possible. (comfortable in relative terms: wading through mud, no hot water, dogs eating off your plate, a king cobra had just been found in one of the houses a week earlier, but – I could surf the web at high speed faster than at home…)

On the third and fourth day I joined one of the project teams, which was organizing a nature excursion for the hill tribe youth. For that, we needed to visit 13 hill tribe villages in order to find out who from those villages would participate. That trip was quite an adventure. On the back of a 2-cycle moped, I was being driven kamikaze-style through the hills near the border to Burma, and we were greeted by the heads of the villages with hot tea and local goodies. Conversation was quite a challenge, as almost every village belongs to a different tribe and has their own language. One village was so remote and high up the mountain, the road was too steep and muddy from the recent rain for anything other than the feet (even for my local driver, who pushed the moped way beyond its limits), so we had to march for an hour. Even with my hiking shoes I had a hard time to manage myself up the hill, which was even more embarrassing when I saw the village kids running up and down the trail safely and easily with their flip-flops on.

But the view over the rolling hills and the beauty of the simplicity of the village were very rewarding.

After a few days of “local adjustment” for me at the NGO (one could also say preparation at the base camp) it was time to move on to the real challenge: visiting one of the hill tribe villages and live with them for a few days as part of the volunteer teacher program. No electricity, phone, email, meat, beer, hot shower etc…

The NGO had asked me to prepare a workshop for the villagers about the basics of doing business : One of the challenges for the tribe is to use the money they get (which is a grant the NGO gets from the International Labor Organization and passes on to the villages) wisely, i.e. in a reproductive, investment sense and not just to buy daily consumables.

The trip to the village was a 3 hour hike over the hills, through the jungle and on narrow, steep and wet clay trails, but the view and the beauty of nature was breath taking. We arrived at the Akha village which comprised of about 30-something families living in 36 bamboo huts; each can be build with nothing more than a sharp machete in about three days.

Inside the dark hut burns a little fire pit, providing a bit of light and lots of smoke, (which keeps the bugs away and makes the roof more durable against rain) and most of the family activities take place around the fire, while sipping tea and rolling sticky rice in their palm into a small ball. I stayed with a family of four, sleeping on the bamboo floor. “Shower” facilities were comparatively quite luxurious, as running water from the nearby creek was fed into a bamboo pipe system, and behind the main house was a little shack proving “running” water and a toilet facility. (i.e. a hole in the floor)

The four days can mostly be characterized by “hanging out”, playing with children (they are really good at soccer) eating 3 – 6 times a day, sleeping on the shaded porch like everybody else and helping out with little daily activities, like digging a base for a new water tank. But it is actually hard to do almost nothing all day, compared to a busy day at H Street. No work is the main challenge for the villagers, as this particular village has no land of its own and has therefore very little work and income options. On two evenings, I adventured in organizing the “workshop” for the villagers, talking about the principles of doing business, making profit, planning and alike. This is where 1st world met 4th world. I am pretty sure that I learned more about them during these two evenings than I was able to convey to them, as most of my MIT and Harvard knowledge was not really helpful since there is no knowledge basis what-so-ever. But I think we (me and two translators: English-Thai; Thai-AKKA and vice versa, which was an experience of its own!) managed to bring a few key messages/ learnings across, and the NGO will continue to work with the hill tribes on some of the ideas created.

After 5 nights it was time to leave for my world again, with an incredible amount of impressions, learnings, and wonderful memories, but also appreciation and knowledge about the issues and needs of the less fortunate people. But are they really less fortunate? I must say that I looked into many happy eyes, saw lot’s of smiles, and men and women who are content with the few things they own, and are so grateful about a small gift or favor; something I don’t always find in “my” world.
I am extremely grateful to all who made this wonderful experience possible for me, and special thanks to Jon, Moo, Pam and Ian.