This is one of the happiest times of Akha life. One can see the lush green all around them, the plants that are going to bear fruit, no shortage of water, the soil soft and supple, cool under the feet, the paths carved like pliable byways in the brow of the mountains, vivid with all sorts of bugs going to and fro. Yes bugs, we often stop and stoop to watch them, they too enjoy the paths where we more clearly pick them out.
The joy of soil giving life to plants and hope, where humans have not learned to abandon the farming, the ways of nature, in a world that has forgotten her.