The only difference between a man who walks slowly uphill and a man who walks quickly downhill is the soles of their shoes wear in different places. Every man walks for a reason.

I am going to take you back to the village once more today, sorry about that, you were probably hoping for an evening stroll in Pattaya, well life sucks sometimes. The fresh air might do you some good. Most of Wonderful Wi’s family live in the village, Thai villages seem to be like that. Wi’s mama is the head of the family which seems a touch strange to me because she does not appear to have a pot shaped piece of porcelain to pass water in (try saying that after a couple of JD’s). Head of the family is not entirely true because inside the walled rai that is the glint in Wi’s eye, our house, she is definitely Wi’s back up singer.

Mama is a decent lady but it appears to me that she can get out on the wrong side of the bed more times than she gets in it. When the black mist descends mamas shadow is the charred pixels no member of the family wants to be stood on. She does not rule by fear, more by decibels and you need to be a fairly cool customer to let it all go over your head. Enter Aunt Awn and Uncle Boon. Awn is a real cool lady, early 40′s, a tireless worker. Her main employment is at a food store in a small town three kilometres from our village, she also helps out in the family rice fields and vegetable plot. Guiding her teenage daughter through the flowering of womanhood and worrying over her unemployed 20 year old son are all part of her normal day. Mamas fluctuating moods are merely another chore in her working life.

Khun Boon or nong as I sometimes refer to him as he is a few months my junior at 48 years of age is mamas younger brother and married Awn in his mid twenties. Ex army, probably conscript, Boon had spent the previous five years or so taking their two cows and later one calf to graze each day until selling them at the back end of last year. Boon is a decent handyman and helps out with any minor tasks around our dwelling and for many years Boon has been working the family rice fields. In their life Boon wears the trousers to work but Awn definitely wears them at home. Khun Boon seems oblivious to mamas many mood swings having seen them all his life.

Now this brings me to the whole point about me writing this post, there is something I need to know. Last year Boon sold his cattle for about 16000 baht having walked them back and forth each day for five or so years. Many a day I saw Boon walk the cows past our house about nine in the morning and they would return about five, a round trip of roughly one and a half kilometres. Everyday for five years in the searing heat and at times the pouring rain, he walked them cows over 2700 goddamn kilometres. If someone said to me walk these two cows and this small calf 2700 kilometres and I will give you 300 quid , well, my answer would be very short, in need of sugar and there would not be a handshake at the end of it.

I really do want to know what possessed him to do it. Five years manual work on the lowest wage would have netted him at least ten times his money. I asked Wi why he did it and she just laughed and said she had no idea. I quizzed Boon as to why he trod the endless path and he either did not understand the question or I misunderstood the answer, if you understand what I mean. So come on, there has got to be one of you out there who can enlighten me because I really do want to know. Better still if someone is out there now watching over their cows, with their laptop wedged between Daisy’s rear end cheeks and using her tail as a cooling fan, please log on to this site and leave the answer in the box below. See I told you the country air would do you some good. Thanks and have a good day. Hoo Don

Credits

Photograph  Cow   by Julie A Wenskoski – Free Digital Photos

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