Living next door to 'Ah-reece'

By Seymour Cumming

Recently I decided to practice an income-free lifestyle, living out here in my bungalow in the jungle, dabbling with arts and crafts, cultivating calmness and growing my little patch of organic, everything-free vegetables which I've harvested on inner peace, happiness and positivism.

And then new neighbours arrived, Karen hill tribe squatters who seemed to have showed up out of nowhere. The mama's name is 'Ah-reece'. I dunno, maybe she got it from a missionary but she tends to mix up her 'l's and 'r's. Well, they just rolled up, took one look at the open space next door and said, 'This place looks alright, we'll move into this muu baan, sabai sabai maak. Velly good.'

Quicker than you can say 'you need to bribe the village headman' they had erected a tin shack, shipped in all the kids and cousins, tapped the power lines, smoked us all out and started a noodle shop on the street corner. What a wonderful cultural experience. (Schiester, this is not good for my real estate value ja!)

Phew! Well, yesterday she woke me up with her karaoke practicing. Ah, bless her soul, she's come down from the mountains, abandoning her hill tribe for the 'modern' Thailand. I guess she hasn't had electricity before so she's making up for lost time. My own electricity bill has mysteriously increased since they arrived but mai pen rai, life is sabai sabai here in the northern jungle.

Anyways, like a child with her toys on boxing day morning, she was up at first light having fun with the volume knob. The old dear invited me over to sing a few ditties but at seven in the morning my singing's not at its best you know, besides, the volume was so loud I figured my off-tone singing would terrorise entire suburbs of western Chiang Mai.

Well, I've abandoned setting my alarm clock since they've arrived. If anyone epitomises the saying 'make hay while the sun shines' it's them. Shoo! I never realised making hay required such noisy instructions, dang they're only a few feet away from each other. Perhaps they brought too much of that mountain coffee with them. Oh well, I guess some of us just aren't morning people.

We've met a few times actually. There was the time I had to retrieve several of my shoes which her pack of unruly dogs turned into jelly. Ah mai pen rai, dogs will be dogs; 'here', she said, offering me a consolation bunch of bananas which, I noticed, had been picked from the other neighbour's yard. I asked the old hag if her dogs didn't keep her awake all night with their endless barking, but I think she missed the point, grinning back at me as if I was saying 'oh isn't Rover so cute, where DID you get him'. Phew!

Heck, one morning one of the mutts showed up on my porch with a massive hot oil burn on his back, poor fella. Mai pen rai, 4000 baht in vet's bills later I gave the dog back, she was ever so grateful, but had no idea how the accident happened. I guess neighbours are there to look out for each other eh!

Ah man, then came the chickens - a box full of chicks that ran wild all over my garden and steadily grew fat on my little patch of organic happiness. Dammit, the other day I noticed her selling them on the street corner, she even asked if I wanted a few, only 50 baht each. Bloody outrageous.

'Oh of course dear, any chance of a discount?' I asked, but then her unruly dogs ate all the remaining chicki wickies (thank god!) and she was left without any income so she came over and firmly asked for some compensation, blaming my cat. Aw schucks, dear you got me on that one. Mai pen rai. Why not pawn the karaoke machine you silly old hag!

Well, give 'em an arm and they take the whole bloody body here. Godammit! Woke up a week later and she was calmly harvesting the lychees in my garden. She even offered me a bag full before heading off to the market on her brand new Honda Dream, Crikey!

Ah bugger it! I'm fed up with this 'lifestyling' choice, the veggies have failed, the locals have taken liberties with my calmness and metta and I'm getting bloody hungry myself. Enough of this hey! I'm heading back to the city...

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, 'shock jock' and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer's Weekly, Nyet!, Chessworld and Cross-stitching Magazine.

He's been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he's written the author's biog, and not progressed much beyond that. His controversial commentary on ex-pat life in Thailand appears in Chiang Mai City Life Magazine.