A village funeral

On Thursday, Nov 4th we went to the last day of the funeral rites for Ya's mother in her village about 3 hours south west of Chiang Mai. Ya manages the House of Hope in Sansai and also oversees the House of Hope in Ban Pak Kwee. We left CM around 8:30 AM with Dang, Bev, Resa, Kado, and Kado's girl friend. Resa manages all the sewing, weaving and handicraft production for KA, and in the 9 years has worked long hours to train the villagers and the HIV womens' cooperative how to create high quality products. She spends time in many of the villages and has established a good rapport with the women in several villages. Dang was the first KA employee and most recently was responsible for the 2 year Red Lahu Reproductive Health Initiative. She worked with a team of young Lahu to visit the villages and teach about reproductive health issues in the Lahu language. We hope she can lead the clean water project that will train the villagers about hygiene and sanitation, and how to use the bio-sand filters.

On our way to Ya's village we heard from Ya that so many people had come the night before that we better eat before arriving, so we had lunch at a road side restaurant at 10 am! Ya's village is a relatively large village close to the road between Hod and Mae Sariang.


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Once you leave the Chiang Mai valley the lime stone mountains are steep and covered with bamboo and other trees, with farms mixed in between. Ya's village is next to two other villages and I would guess 200+ houses and 3 temples - 1 for each village.

Thai Buddhist funeral rites usually last from 3, 5 or 7 days, depending on the wealth and status of the family. They are not usually somber events; many, many friends and acquaintances of the deceased and the family come together and spend the time eating, playing cards, etc. throughout the days and the nights.

In the slide show note the tables and chairs on the casket - these will be left at the temple after cremation.
The "little house" is a replica of Ya's house and the items inside will be used by the monks after the cremation. The model house is not burnt.



One side story from our trip was that on the Wednesday night a person from the village drowned, and there is a tradition in the village that if someone dies after the person who is being mourned that person should be cremated first. Since this would disrupt the cremation plans for Ya's mother the solution was to keep the body at the hospital, thus not bringing the body to the village until Ya's mother's cremation was complete.