To: akhaweeklyjournal@yahoogroups.com
From: Matthew McDaniel <akhalife@...>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:40:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [AkhaWeeklyJournal] Akha Journal: Update, 3rd Akha Journal

Dear Friends:

 

We near the end of the year. A busy year, a year with heart break and joy, long miles, and a united family. Mostly. But a year that saw us on the move, still waiting in the forever process of fakery at USCIS, regarding my wife's visa, her legal right, that may or may not ever happen. Our children grow up not at her house and not at mine, not in her country, not in mine.

 

We have made the best of it, to find out what is happening to the Akha elsewhere, in China and in Laos. Not always a pretty picture. Sad. In Laos, we find more and more data showing how ruthless the US Drug War has been to the Akha, poverty beyond belief, and death. Done to them in total disregard, in secret, a few people knew, mostly they kept their mouths shut. We are told by reputable sources that Norwegian Church Aid was involved. We were hoping not.

 

We found this year that while UNESCO works with missionaries who destroy Akha culture, they don't fund any Akha culture projects, or do very well at answering email either.

 

We found that people in Salem, Oregon at the churches, they are supporting the missionaries who destroy the culture of the Akha, they feel it their right.

 

The killings of the Akha in Thailand go on, so do the land seizures, so do the forced conversion of the Akha, so does the trafficking of Akha children into lucrative American missions.

 

We got one film produced and another should come out next year.

 

We took a lot of photos and now know how many more pictures we need.

 

We look at setting up an NGO for a malaria project in one country, but the progress is VERY slow on this. Maybe we will just cope with visas and do the best we can to help the Akha with what we have in hand. Beauracracy.

 

Meanwhile the fund for the 3rd Akha Journal has reached $1,025. Wow, it might happen yet, starting to feel excited about this. We need $2800 to get this all press ready.

 

Since october donations have been mostly down, so if you haven't donated in a while, keep in mind that while hanging from the world's rafters in this town and that, we still don't let go of our committment to make progress for the Akha, and right now the 3rd Akha Journal is what we are working on.

 

Your donation is very much needed and very much appreciated.

 

Last week we had a pretty rough go of it with the web site going down. But we are on better servers now, and a better site we hope to make it. We like your suggestions as to what makes the site useful for you and any ideas. What would you like to see more of? Less of? What part of the site is hard to use? www.akha.org

 

Slowly the website is headed for 10,000 hits a day.

 

We connect to a lot of blogs now, and run a few ourselves on different topics. Know a good blog, send us a link.

 

Right now, our only goal is to get the 3rd Akha Journal put together and published. Be so kind as to help us out with a donation. And to those of you who already have, we thank you so much.

 

Matthew McDaniel

 

 

The Akha Heritage Foundation.
http://www.akha.org Akha Heritage Site.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Akhaweeklyjournal
Discussion http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akha
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PO Box 6073 Salem, OR. 97304 USA.

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