A Small but meaningful Passing on the Gift Ceremony

I woke up from the sound of mortar and pestle separating rice grains from their husks, cats fighting and roosters.  A golden ray beamed from the sky to the rice fields in front of us.  It was such a beautiful morning.  Luckily there was no rain that morning otherwise it would have destroyed the special event of the day.   The villagers were shouting to each other in Karen language which I assumed they were asking each other about their readiness for the event.  The music from the speakers made this small peaceful village surrounded by rice field became livelier.  The women were dressed up in traditional Karen costume the children were excited about the event that will begin in just a few hours.  Today the villagers in Mae Ab village in Hod district would organize the Passing on the Gift (POG) ceremony. 

Mae Ab is one of the planned pass on villages of the Livelihood Improvement Project for Highlanders (LIPH #22-0510-04).  The implementation period of this project ended in 2009 and it is now in reporting phase.  Mae Ab is a small Karen village that is about 4 hours drive south of Chiang Mai city.  The villagers are making their living from farming and raising livestock, especially pig.  The receiving group is a woman only self-help group with 14 members. They were so excited to receive pigs from the project and they were grouped around a pig sty and made fun to each other.  Even though I could not understand the meaning, I assume that they were talking about those piglets that will be theirs in a few hours.

Before the ceremony started, young children from the village’s elementary school performed a dance show.  Then the women group sang a Karen song for the participants.  Mr. Pornsak Jantarayuth, Heifer Thailand program officer who is from Karen ethnic group himself helped translated the song for us.  They sang “Warm welcome our special guests, thank you for visiting us.  We hope you will come back again in the future.”  After the performances, the main event of the day, “Passing on the Gift” ceremony started.  On that day, 24 pigs, 10,000 Baht worth of rice seeds and 4 sacks of pig feed were passed on from 7 families from Tung Yong villager to 12 families in Mae Ab village.   Apart from the gifts from the self-help groups within the project, Rural Community Development Project (RCDP), one of Heifer Thailand’s project partners also gave 5 sacks of pig feed to the SHG as an additional gift.

This POG was only a small event, but the spirit of sharing, friendship and goodwill are gifts that are priceless and could not be quantified.  The participants were about 40 people since some of the givers were unable to attend because the road was cut from flooding.  However, it was a warm and meaningful event for the givers, the receivers and guests from local government authorities, school and local NGOs.

I feel appreciate that POG is not only an event among the givers and the receivers, but other organizations also took part in this event and shared the gifts both tangible and intangible to the villagers.  As the staff who looked after this project for 2 years it is a successful event eventhough there were not many participants since some roads were inaccessible due to the flood and some people also have to work on their rice field because now is the rice farming season.  It was a simple small ceremony, but full of appreciation from all parties,” concluded Ms. Traitip Sekararith, Program Officer of Heifer Thailand.