Our home stay in the Lisu village for Dr.Otome’s class was my favorite trip of the semester. It was good to be in a small group, and to have Dr. Otome as a guide in a place she knew so well. When we arrived you could see how happy the villagers were to have her back and they all smiled and ran up to talk to her. When all of our hosts arrived, Dr. Otome casual placed us where she saw fit. She waved me over and introduced me to a large, smiling woman name Allema and said, “She picked you so you will stay with her,” then waved over and introduced Kelly and sent us off.
Kelly and I shared Allema’s daughter’s room which was decorated in anime drawings and a large landscape poster. There was a man sitting on the floor watching TV in the living room who I assume was her husband. This man generally ignored us our entire stay and seemed to have no interest in us. I think he just left it as Allema business and didn’t want to be involved with the farang. Allema cooked us a delicious dinner, she was by far the best cook of all my home stays, but Kelly and I couldn’t help but speculate the amount of MSG she used which was the obvious reason for the scrumptiously salty taste of her meals.
The next morning Allema woke us up early walked us to Otome’s house for our tour of the village. We spent the day walking around and seeing what there was to see. We walked up to the village wat, which sat on tope of the tallest hill overlooking the surrounding area. We also saw a church and spent a few hours talking and playing with children on the playground. The day ended with a trip to a Lisu burial mound, prepping us for our visit to a funeral ceremony the last day.
The second day we all piled into a couple pick up trucks and drove to a neighboring Akha village. We ate guai tiao and visited a couple of the houses. We drove a little farther and saw a coffee factory that used the local coffee crops. They explained to us that the company was a collaborative effort, owned and run by a group of people. They also mentioned a disease in the coffee plants that was causing issues for the farmers, but the young man seemed hopeful and very optimistic of the company. On the way home we stopped in a peach orchard and ate some of the unripe fruits while we walked around.
That night we had a community dinner. It was an incredible amount of fun. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, dancing, drinking, eating, and talking. Some young girls put on a traditional dance for us, and we taught the villagers the hokey pokey- I’m not sure if they quite understood but they seemed to be enjoying it. We all danced together in a circle around two musicians playing traditional Lisu instruments, and I tried to figure out the dance steps, but couldn’t get the hang of it. Allema had dressed both Kelly and I in Lisu costume, which was a little uncomfortable, but all the other villagers kept complimenting us and telling us how beautiful we looked. I think it pleased both them and Allema to see us dressed like the rest of the villagers.
We departed the next day, saying goodbye to Allema and the other villagers. We stopped on the way home in another Akha village where we saw a spirit gate, created to keep the bad spirits out of the village. There were little helicopter figurines made out of sticks and folic symbols which Otome said there were many speculations over.
The trip was overall a great experience. It was very relaxed but fun and I feel like I learned a lot. Visiting the village put Dr. Otome’s class into perspective and it was a valuable opportunity to experience and observe the very things we ha been talking about in the classroom.
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