Pak Mun Dam

Pak Mun Is the second village that I visited on the third unit of the program. This village has a similar problem to that of Rasi Sali, however it’s much furthur down the timeline, and sadly not in a good way. The Pak mun dam project was built under the guish of a mass development plan that the Thai government was under going created by the World Bank. The dam was supposedly supposed to be built to create a significant amount of electricity for the region surrounding the dam, but is not producing efficient amounts of electricity. The dam, like the one at Rasi Sali, has severely destroyed the environment around it as well as affecting the livelihoods of the villagers in the surrounding areas.

My initial view of Pak Mun was very different then my view of Rasi Sali. While I could see a Young movement and active community involvement in the issue, there was none of that at Pak Mun. The whole community seemed more beaten down and tired then unity and active, due mainly to the huge timeline stretch and the way the issue was being treated by the Thai government. The most significant difference I saw in the two communities was the way of life, and the work. While in Rasi Sali you would still see rice fields and feel a sense of community, in Pak mun I only saw broom making, the way the villagers compensated for their lost income from ruined rice field and fishing, and seclusion.

I think what affected me most about my time in Pak mun was the image of the river and the fishing boats along the banks. Rather then farmers, the villagers of Pak Mun are more considered to be fisherman. Since the building of the dam, the migration of fish up stream to where they fish has severely decreased, and in turn affected the villagers way of live.

This being said, In the morning of the first day that I stayed in Pak Mun, I went fishing with my homestay father. As I walked to the river, I was astounded by the sight of fishing boats laying all along the river side, many destroyed and unusable. It turns out that the day before, the gates to the dam was open in order to let the water through for the rice fields for a small time period, but that night they closed the gates for 4 months because the government decreed that it was time. In turn the river shrunk, and all the boats that where on the river washed a ashore on to the bed. I was again astounded by the advances of “development”.