Hello my name is Asa,
I am from the Akha tribe.
The Akha people have a unique culture, their own language, hand craft and dress, religion, and historical background.
The culture has developed over a period of 500 years or more. The Akha tribe is one of six indigenous hill tribes that live in the Mekong Highlands, that includes the Golden Triangle, it was given this name by Western media reporting on gun battles between large rebel drug armies in the 50’s. The Akha people live in Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) Laos, Vietnam and China. 
I was born and lived in a grass hut on the ridge of a mountain surrounded by tropical rain forest.
My grandfather moved the village further south in Northern Thailand to escape the drug wars and abuse by drug armies. The Akha people have never formed an army to protect them self. Preferring to move away from trouble. But my uncle as a young man worked as an undercover operative assisting the Thai military force to push opium production out of Thailand. My father and mother used to take me on a small pony every day through the forest to fields were we would grow mountain rice, we would collect food and fire wood in the forest on our way home. My mother would walk beside the pony spinning cotton for our clothes and singing at the same time. Every year after harvest we would have the swinging festival, people would swing on very big swings out over the edge of the mountain, it was a fun happy time, with singing and dancing, we also remember past events, hardships and persecution with the older women singing historical songs to the younger people. When I was very young, men started coming nearer and nearer with elephants and trucks to take the forest trees away. This went on for a long time, there was mountains of trees cut down and large trucks continuously taking the logs for the export market. My father and other men in the village were not happy about this and stopped them taking some of the trees from around our village. The Akha men could see our way of life disappearing. A time of turbulence trouble hell on earth and death. Many villages were disrupted by opium armies, the forest was taken. Not long after that the trafficking of hill tribe children started. Young Akha Girls were taken away and never seen again. Many villages were forced to move next to dusty roads, with no land to farm. Wages were low and food was scarce and many promises of schools and building material were broken. 
My father was very concerned about the fast disintegration of the Akha culture, especially all the children disappearing. He sold a pony to a man that said the only way your daughter will survive is to send her to school. When I was 5 years old my father took me on a long journey, first we walked through the forest to a town, we caught a bus to a large city, he then left me in a school ground. He didn’t know how to register a child in a school, he didn’t even speak the language. I was very frightened, I didn't know why he had abandoned me, I couldn’t make friends with anyone because they all spoke a different language. I found a hiding place under a stair way and cried a lot. I followed the other children to the dining room and classroom.The Akha people love singing. I found the singing classes and sometimes I would forget about the pain in my heart when I was singing. When I was about 8 years old, someone wrote a song about a girl writing a letter to mum and dad to stop growing opium, my mum and dad did NOT grow opium but the school dressed me up in tribal clothes and gave me the song to sing. Everyone liked it so much they took me to different cities all over Thailand to sing to big crowds, they made a record and sold many records and used the money to build a music room for the school. For me the song brought back memories of mom, dad, my brothers and sisters. In my heart I was longing to see them again. The principle didn’t know where I had come from and I thought I was going to be expelled from the school, I was frightened and sad. But every week end we would travel on long journeys to cities all over Thailand singing. After many years at the school I made new friends and excelled in my studies and became the school student leader. After graduating from grade six I found my way home, I was so excited to see my family and friends again and share with them all the things I had learned and experienced. But life in an Akha village was not the same as other places and my excitement soon turned to horror. One of the first things I saw was my cousin, she was so pretty and had grown up so much, she was the same age as me, I started to call her name and run to her but suddenly realized something was very wrong. A man was pointing a gun at her head and leading her away, she was too ashamed to look at me, she had tears streaming down her face. She died one year later at 14 years old in a brothel from continual sexual abuse. Next I found out that two of my younger sisters had died. All my child hood friends had been captured and taken away to be used as sex slaves. The last one died when I was 22, some found their way home and died, some never returned. One good friend came home and sat staring at the wall for a week she never said a word and quietly died. With children struggling to survive all my achievements seemed to fade away and become unimportant, Reflection on the Akha way.
That school holidays was a time to reflect on what was happening, I was now part of two very different worlds. Both worlds had danger and sadness. The men were still cutting the forest down and a walk that used to be beautiful jungle, rugged limestone formations and clear streams and waterfalls, was now transformed into weeds prickles, dirty muddy water and men ready to capture the young innocent tribal children.
My parents were struggling to survive, no longer was there mushrooms, wild ginger, bananas, berries and fruit in the forest. We were eating plain rice once a day. All the cotton trees had been destroyed, we no longer had filling for our pillows and mattress. Mum couldn’t find the colorful dyes for the Akha clothing. There was no longer Akha women sitting around singing and weaving cloth.
The opium growing had decimated many villages and started migrations to safer places, governments moving villages, Akha people loosing farmland, people being killed for growing opium and people killed for not growing opium. Logging and selling of forest timber. All through the mountains the beauty of the forest was destroyed. Trafficking of children was wide spread, the beautiful Akha children were hunted, tricked and captured for pleasure and profit. Suffering years of torment humiliation with only AIDS to release them from the prison of pain. There was no justice to be found anywhere the Akha people were stateless and rejected with no legal right to live in the world. The opium industry turned into heroin and became a very dangerous but profitable industry luring the poor and hopeless, the Akha people were then blamed for the logging of forests using swidden farming as an example of Hill Tribe evil ways, and then the rejection and misunderstanding of the world accusing us of selling our children. I was thirteen years old confused and frightened about my families future. I went back to the city and enrolled in a school, I worked part time and later returned to the village to get my surviving sister and brother and enrolled them in schools. We worked at night and went to school in the day. I worked hard graduated and worked in an Architectural office as an interior designer. I travelled to Australia to do more study in Architecture and started a successful business and lectured in a collage. BUT I couldn’t stop thinking about the Akha children struggling and dying through no fault of their own. I received a phone call from home saying the last of my child hood friends had just passed away after spending years of torment as a child sex slave. We were both 22 years old. The tears wouldn’t stop. The pain in my heart was overwhelming. I had to return to the Golden Triangle and help the Akha children to survive and be successful. 2009 we now have close to 500 children that are being protected, educated and trained. With our sponsorship program the children receive total care second to non, food, bedding, healthcare, education & training in life skills. 500 tribal children learning the Akha Way, handcraft, dance, song and Akha language, with Akha teachers. Join the fun, volunteer to teach English, or help in many other ways. Contact us we would love to hear from you davidasa88@gmail.com The tribal children are extremely healthy, happy and confident at the Akha Training Centre You can help save a life by Sponsoring children and/or Volunteering.
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