Oh the places you will go.....

So I've been absent lately, but it is because I have really been out of city life. Living in the mountains has been wonderful, I loved waking up to roosters before dawn every morning to watch the sun rise over the mountain peaks with the rustling of pots and pans and birds singing in the background. The whole village would be waking up and getting ready to start their business for the day. But first and most importantly, you must have breakfast with your neighbors. "Na mon!" I hear my host mother yell and that means it's time to eat.

The family I lived with really opened up to me and made me feel so comfortable living with them. I guess my volunteer program was to send me to a new village every week and I heard the other villages were larger so I decided to stay in Pha Nok Kok. I found it very interesting to slowly put together how everyone was related and learn more and more everyday about life in a hill tribe. Plus I became really attached to the children I taught every day. I loved to see them around the village and have them run up to me screaming my name. All the parents appreciated that their kids enjoyed me being their teacher. It was a great volunteering experience as it was really up to me what I brought to the community.

I would ask my host family if I could stay another week and they responded (I had to have someone translate this) "You can stay one more week, one more month, one more year, or the rest of your life. We consider you part of our family and want you to learn as much about our Hmong village as you can. We may not have large amounts of money but what we do have are large hearts- you are welcomed to stay." Everyone else in the village would say things to me like, "After you stay here for about 2 months you will be able to speak Hmong fluently", or "When you come back to visit us we'll have to work on building a house". I felt very comfortable staying in the little village up in the mountains. However the 3 weeks was up and it was time to leave and see the rest of Thailand. I ended up up staying longer because I was invited on a road trip with one of the families( see below) The village knew that I would be in Chaing Mai for Songkran (the Thai New Year) and they said, "It would be a shame if you were so close and we didn't get to see each other again" haha so I am going back to visit them in a week. It's cool because now I have friends to celebrate Songkran with- it's supposed to be the world's biggest water fight!

Long story short I kind of went out on a date on the last full moon with Ya, the other teacher at the school. She invited me to the nearby Buddhist temple that was celebrating the new lunar month and they had a mini carnival with games, music, bands, dancing, food, you name it. It ended up just being us two walking around together, it was a lot of fun! Since then I have been eating dinner with the family and even helping out in their garden (farm). She was the one who really pushed me to stay longer and she always was inviting me to new things. She even invited me on her families road trip- I am really glad I went because it ended up being a very unique event!

Her older brother Imbla (the one in the picture) has been married for one year and in the Hmong culture this is a very big deal. The man is to throw a party of honor the event for good luck for his future. The father of the wife is to re-name the husband and give his 2 names instead of just one. We went to Chaing Rai (about 5 hours north of Pha Nok Kok) to pick the wives' family. There the celebration started. We brought 2 chickens from a local farm to offer to the wives family, and then we prepared them for supper. Imbla took one and I had the other and I learned how to kill it, drain the blood, de-feather it, clear out the organs, then cut it up for cooking. It was kind of crazy but it made me feel better about eating meat if I do all the work and not just buy a package at a store. After we prepared the chicken Imbla had to stand up in front of the family that was sitting at the table and they kind of did a "roast" on him where each person would say something about him and he would bow to them. When they all spoke the wive sat next to him and the parents offered them each two small glasses. I asked Ya what it was and she said beer- but it was clear so I knew it was just a miscommunication. Then the family motioned me over and gave me 2 glasses as well. I threw the first one to the back of my throat and no it wasn't beer- it was homemade jungle whisky (thai moonshine)! It burned so bad and then I had to take the next one right away. This was the only drink that I had in the whole 3 weeks of being in the village (well besides the glass of "wine" my host brother gave me that was really just fermented strawberries). After the drink they called me to the table and there I sat with 8 men until late in the night and we finished the jug of whisky that came from a clear plastic bag- not from a bottle bought at a store.

Before going back to Pha Nok Kok we went to the nearby border of Thailand and looked into Lao and the Mekong river, the views were amazing!!

Back in Pha Nok Kok was the big celebration. It started at 6 am Sunday morning with the killing of a cow, which was Imbla's offering to the village. The one who killed it only was aloud 3 hits for moral reasons- they laughed and handed me the ax telling me I had to do it- I told them that I'll get the next one. Any vegetarian would have had a nightmare for sure- I was even shocked. After cleaning the cow the feast began as the first thing cooked was the most important part of the meal: by eating this it is for good luck and cures all you of your sickness. It was the cow's penis. The offered me a piece and it was painfully chewy, it took about 20 minutes to eat. I was grossed out but just went with it, they offered me a beer and a shot of whisky to go with it. By 9 am I already had a buzz going. Being a guest in town they always want me to try everything, haha that becomes painful when whisky is involved. From there we ate the each of the 3 stomachs, the heart, the throat and the tounge. That was followed by a raw meat spicy salad- it was delisous!

The main event was the father offering the new name and it was brought on with a 3 hours ceremony of sitting at a table with 20 other men. The oldest sit on one side and the younger sit on the other to learn the process. It was a celebration that included about 15 half glasses of beer each to cheers and drink as a a group and then each of us had to stand up and give a speak to Imbla. At the end the new name was given, the wives father kept "imbla" but added Va to the beginning. His new name for the rest of his life would be Va Imbla (Fortune Ring). It was a great event and I am so glad I stayed in the town to be a part of it instead of leaving early to travel on my own!


So yeah, in the last post I mentioned that I haven't gotten sick yet. Well I Jinxed myself because 3 days later I got hit- hard. I thought it would only be a 24-hour job but it lasted longer, it was horrible to be so sick with out the comforts of a toilet or bed... haha but that's life in the village. Out of all the crazy things I have eaten I think it was this canned fish I ate for lunch, it didn't taste right going down and hours later was when I got sick. I only ate organic food from the village from that point on. I took the medicine for traveler's sickness and it worked within hours. Thankfully it did because the day I started taking the medication was the day I had to sit on a bus that had no bathroom for 6 hours so that I could make it to the border in time as my visa ran out.

I decided to go into Myanmar (formally known as Burma) when my visa ran out and I ended up staying there for 3 days. About 5 people told me not to go because of what they have read or heard about the country and I think that made me 5 times more excited about going- I was always the "red button" kid. If someone told me I couldn't do something because it wouldn't work out- oh I would put all my energy into proving them wrong. That is what my trip to Myanmar was. I didn't just cross the border and head back, I went 100 miles into the center of the Shan state to a town called Kengtung, it is the capital of the "Golden Triangle" and it was a village that has over 85 different ethnic tribes living in the area. It was a 5-hour bus ride through gorgeous winding mountain roads that followed a river. I was the only foreigner on the bus and was worried everything wouldn't work out but it did. In Myanmar they has a whole different language, currency, government, and way of life- it was such a cultural adventure! I loved it!

Being the only tourist in town it was easy to find a place to stay and I ended up hiring and English-speaking guide to take me to visit a couple of the nearby tribes. I am fascinated by smaller indigenous tribes so my favorite one we went to was an "En" animist society of about 98 people, each family would have typically around 8-9 children (not all of them were expected to live past 10 years old). The shaman lives in the center, or "heart", of the village and makes all the decisions. This society is afraid of water because of the spirits that live within the liquid so they avoid it whenever possible. There was a bamboo water system that ran through the village where in the center was a post where 3 times a year they would sacrifice a chicken or dog to the water spirits. It was an hour ride on a dirt path on the back of a motorcycle followed by a strenuous 2 hour hike up the mountain before we reached the village. This was no tourist hot spot! We walked around the village and was invited into one of the locals huts. The older locals all had black teeth- it is a tradition to blacken the teeth by chewingg tea leaves so that their teeth wouldn't be white like dog's teeth are. The believe dogs are not friendly and eat dog very commonly. They say that it keeps them warm in the winter and they believe it cures them from malaria. The women prepared lunch for me and into the hut I went. After just getting over being sick I was worried about eating the food because of the sanitation, but the medication worked really well so I eat with them. For lunch we ate raw mustard plants and rice noodles mixed with potatoes and peppers. It was such an interesting meal, I couldn't help but just look at everything around me with me jaw almost on the floor. I didn't think that people still lived this way but I was so happy to encounter this village! They were completely self-sustaining and didn't rely on outside help. Hidden in a little nook of a mountain I wondered how much longer this village would last before being taken over.

While in Myanmar I visited a few Akha tribes and one very small "long-neck" Paudang village. I headed to Mae Hong Song to visit larger long-neck villages when I left Pha Nok Kok- the hill tribe I was living with. The bus ride was 8 hours in a very small bus- being tall is a disadvantage in Thailand, I barely fit in a seat that was meant for two! It was well worth the trip because the views were amazing! In Mae Hong Song I rented a motorcycle and went out to visit the nearby Long'necked" tribes. It was so great to sit down and talk to them! The picture with the two women are mother and daughter. They fled Myanmar 14 years ago because of the ethnic conflict that was occurring. They are happy in Thailand but do miss their old village. The mothers coils weigh over ten pounds! Despite what many people say, they will not die if they remove the coils. Their necks are not actually longer, the coils just push down the shoulder blades into the ribs. The practice does not have a large impact of their health but I did notice that most of the women had a lower toned voice.

After living with the hill tribe village I feel comfortable being the only western in town and learned how to try and communicate even if there is a language barrier. Afterwards I road that motorcycle all around the mountains weaving back and forth around windy roads- it was so great!

Ok I have to go catch a bus- I'm heading to Laos today, it's going to take about 12 hours.