Pa Mai Dang Village

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Pa Mai Dang Village

Pa Mai Dang Village is located some 60km from Chiangmai, northern Thailand. It is a small village of about 20 families. Houses were are made of wood and bamboo, with zinc roof to prevent water from dripping into the house. Most households do not have electricity to provide lighting at night or to power any electrical appliances.

This is Bumeu's home with walls made of bamboo and a zinc roof. This little hut housed 5 people.

A view of the village from the top of the hill.

The village looking from the bottom of the slope.
A typical mother with small children.

This is the little village church on top of the hill.
The villagers reside in front of the church.

Pa Mai Dang village is one of the those villages being reached by the gospel, so a church can be found. Every Sabbath, the villagers worship in the little church.

Like many other villages in northern Thailand, you will find many children there. I suppose, unlike the city people, birth control is not practised in this part of the world.

Most of the EOP sponsored children come from villages similar to the Pa Mai Dang village. Their families had very low income.� The living condition is very similar as well. We hope that this will give the reader an idea of the village home where the EOP children come from.

An observing girl.

A little village boy

Great Friends

Very cute baby. Mother is camera shy!

Concerned Note
A concerned visitor brought to my attention regarding to issue of birth control. He felt that we shoud not impose our idea of birth control on these people. Birth control is very much an idea of city dweller, like myself.

We exercise birth control because we feel that with fixed financial resources, we can only provide the best for our children if we limit number of children we have. The more children we have, the smaller the share of our financial resources we have to split for each of our children.

For villagers, their definition of best for their children may not only be measured by financial resources. So, we are not in the position to citicise about their birth control practice.

The villagers speak primarily Akha. Akha tribes are people originally from Burma. They migrated south into Thailand when war broke out in Burma. It is said that the Akha tribes, along with the Karen, Lahu and Hmong tribes in the northern Thailand are descendants of the Mongolian tribes outside China. When the Mongol rise to power and established the Mongol dynasty in China, these weaker tribes were driven down south to where they are today. This seems to be possible. History indicated that there were many tribes in the Mongolian plane. These tribes were constantly a threat to ancient China. That was one of the reasons for building the great wall.

The villagers were mainly farmers. Their typical income per month is between 1000 bahts (about S$45) and 2000 bahts (about S$90).