*FLOOD UPDATES*

 BREAKING NEWS #1   October 5th, 2024

      September is always the wettest month by far, and this year was the worst. There was serious flooding back in Sept. 2013 and again in Sept. 2022, but just a week ago, September 26th, 2024, Chiang Mai suffered the highest flood level ever recorded. On the other hand, the city has worked extremely hard to improve its flood controls, dykes and sluice gates, and the beautiful Old City stayed dry  -- that's where we recommend you book your guesthouses! Downtown Chiang Mai (south of the City from the Worarot Market to Nong Hoi and Wiang Kum Kam) was under water for 2 full days, but Thais are used to that. Indeed many of the noodle shops in the affected areas remained open, and who would be bothered by a bit of water around the ankles? Rice culture is a water world -- Thais know it, deal with it, and move on. And of course the temperature remains balmy, and the mood always positive.

   We flooded too this year, but all but one of our bedrooms are in houses on stilts, and our one room downstairs stayed dry -- by just an inch! In fact it's one of our best bedrooms and with a private bathroom to boot, and the lucky student who got it preferred not to move to the new bedroom we offered upstairs!

   We never missed a day of the class or a meal during the flood, and to compensate for the inconvenience we laid on an extra study-day free of charge at the end. Not everybody loved it all the time, but we don't think anyone regretted the experience.

BREAKING NEWS #2.   October 6th, 2024

    On October 4th, 2024,  a 2nd wave of flood water arrived from Mae Sai and Chiang Rai in the North. The first had come down from the mountains in the East and was, for 5 days, history-making. But it was nowhere near what this second wave has been. You could hardly keep your feet in the torrent that swept across our car park -- driving back to our house I felt our beautiful new Isuzu song taew was going to be swept off the road!

     Our community has never been hit so hard in the 30 years we have been here, and there's irony in that. The only flood barrier not yet completed on the Ping in Chiang Mai  is our own 300m long bank just downstream from the old McKean Leprosy Mission. The irony is that for the first time in 150 years McKean remained dry behind a beautiful new dyke with stainless steel handrails completed just a few weeks before. By contrast, our village's make-shift sand-bag wall collapsed, and a wall of water struck us directly from the West. The whole of our village was swamped in a few hours, just as the lepers and care-givers had been at the McKean Mission so many times in the past. (There are no lepers at McKean anymore, a cure having been found in 1954, but the island remains a sanctuary dedicated to them, and we feel honored to live in their shadow.)

BREAKING NEWS #3.   October 8th, 2024

     The flood level started to go down early this morning, and we very much hope that in the next 48 hours we can at least get 1.) a toilet working, 2.) some fresh water flowing,  and 3.) our domestic kitchen functional. We expect to begin the big clean-up in a day or two: downstairs in our 9 houses first, then the two steam baths, the paths, the garden, and car parks (fortunately our 2 big training salas remained dry). We'll need a week for that with all the staff and family working.

     Fortunately the next class is not until October 20th -- plenty of time for us to get washed too!

     We apologize with all our hearts to the 6 students who we won't be able to welcome here for the 60hr Womblifting Course from October 6th to the 15th.  They each get a free deposit for any of our courses in the future, and we so hope they will be able to get back to us soon.

      We will be posting more news for the 14 students that are signed up for the 60hr Herbal Therapies coming up, October 21st to the 30th. A wonderful group including a number of important herbalist friends. And  we will make it happen!!!

BREAKING NEWS #4.   October 11th, 2024

    More information  for any of you who are still worried about whether or not we will be ready for the 60hr Herbal Therapies with Food as Medicine from October 20th to the 31st -- and the answer is as always, and with regard to Deluges in particular: "God Willing!"  -- also as in every other language under the sun:  "MERCI BEAUCOUP!"

      So we thank you all,  dear friends, for your encouragement, for your good thoughts, and for your trust in Baan Hom Samunphrai.

      The 'klong' (the irrigation canal that runs beside us) is all the way down, our drains cleared, and our toilets, showers and water pumps functional. In addition our 7 refrigerators and 3 water coolers are safely back on the ground and humming (they'd all been jacked up above the first  flood 2 weeks before). And last but not least, the red bricks of our pathways are slowly but surely being scrubbed to their warm red welcome, and the tiles on our floors to their gleaming.

      Still the big kitchen to go -- it's all cleaned up but not yet reassembled. Yesterday Nooey and Aie spent all day with a big soapy tub between them washing all the dishes cups, glasses, pots, pans, and implements, and today they're all rinsed and laid out on bamboo racks to dry in the sun.

      Getting the washing machines back in place and going again is next - such piles of brown laundry!

      So it's still not all done by any means, but fortunately we have over a week left to attend to the details, like rinsing off the medicinal shrubs, bushes and trees that Homprang will be showing you in her garden. And she'll soon be taking an all day trip up north to Chiang Dao as well, the largest Herbal Market in Thailand. She will return with baskets full of fresh roots, leaves, fruits and bark for you to slice up and grind in your mortars and pestles.

      And before you get here we'll be looking after ourselves too, and be fully ready to welcome you to Baan Hom Samunphrai -- (in Thai "Baan" means house, family compound, or village, "Hom" fragrance, and "Samunphrai" herbs.)

BREAKING NEWS #5.   October 15th, 2024

      Five days to go and Homprang has already driven up to Chiang Dao and returned with a truck load of roots, tubers, stems, and bark which you will all slice, grind, and smash to make new, very-old medicines that really work!

     The big kitchen is all done, and a new refrigerator and washing machine were delivered just yesterday morning, and the old ones junked. In addition, this computer is just about to be returned to the Baan Hom Samunphrai office in Baan Uii Kham -- the old office got totaled in the flood. We had to throw away most of the old shelves and have already had new ones constructed, which  will be  installed tomorrow.

     There's a big story here. Household detritus after flooding is a monster issue everywhere in the world. Chiang Mai has piles and piles of ruined furniture, much of it little more than card board, along with soggy rugs, cushions. mats and mattresses. The junk piles are the saddest in those areas which suffered the deepest water -- that means up to two meters (6+ feet) in some of the very old, low lying areas. That's where the poor still live in shanty towns. 

     We built Baan Hom Samunphrai in an old area too, but 'low lying' not because it was poor but because it was near McKean,  the old Leprosy Mission. The big Real Estate investors in Bangkok did not finance any Developments in our area when all that started way back in the '80s and '90s, so we were  spared the over-development of so many of the Chiang Mai suburbs to the north and east -- the tycoons felt that nobody would ever want to live near McKean!!! For that reason our neighborhood  still has the 'country village' quality that we love so much with its daily taalat din ('earth markets'), orchards, rice paddies, fish farms and old country Wats. And all this is such a special blessing for us -- as you will see very soon!

BREAKING NEWS #6.   October 18th, 2024

      We're ready -- indeed, in some ways we look even better! All our antique chairs, benches and tables have been scrubbed and rubbed with teak oil, and our most important electrical appliances are sparkling  new. The only give away is that despite our best efforts the grass is not as luxuriantly green as it was before, and there are still watermarks on our white walls which record just how high the water stood -- we have scrubbed them all but you can still see if you want to, which we don't.

     Not for the faint hearted would be a walk to the villages around us. Koh Klang, for example, shows water marks up to 5 feet (1m 80) on some houses, and those houses are not on stilts like our bedrooms, dry and fresh and beautiful as ever. In Koh Klang the piles of old split sandbags show just how hard the villagers tried to stay safe, and just how catastrophic the floods were when they failed. Almost everything they owned is now piled up outside waiting for the government trucks to cart the mess away.

     But Thais are always strong and resilient. At heart they are all still rice farmers just as they were when  their houses were still on stilts, and they waded into the flood water with their hearts full of gratitude. Because some years the rains never came, and then how they suffered -- drought was the nightmare condition, not the life-renewing flood waters of the South East Asian seasonal cycle. A blesséd place it was, and in many ways still is.
 

                                        Blessings on you all, Christopher (Homprang's husband)
 

THIS WILL BE THE LAST NEWS BULLETIN AS THE NEW CLASS IS JUST ARRIVING..