Homestay in Nan

Last Wednesday, we drove to Nan, a province in northeastern Thailand, to stay in a village composed of people from ethnic minority groups. After a rather long van ride, we arrived in the village, and we met our families. Actually, The people who were staying in the Mien village I was staying in (two other students, Reid and Evie, an ajan, Pi Neung, and myself) met the head of the village, who drove us to the village before placing us with families. At first, he just told us to choose a house, but after driving us past all three locations, he pretty much placed each of us with a family. I stayed with the village head's parents, though I mainly saw him, his wife, and their children. Across the street was Pi Neung, and the other two students were down the road (in opposite directions). Before we went to the village, everyone pretty much expected to be living in a one room hut with a family, so I was a bit surprised to see that all of the houses in our village were concrete houses. I had a room to myself, and there was an indoor bathroom, although I did take showers with a bucket.

My room


View of kitchen and car port from the balcony next to my room


Thursday, I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning. I was told that I was going to the market with my family's grandma at 5, so I wanted to be ready. I was ready, but she didn't knock on my door until 5:30. The market was small--mainly just a local shop with a food stand in front. It was run by one lady, but many people came to buy groceries. I saw a lot of people in traditional clothing.
Later that morning, Evie and I went for a walk around the area. Eventually, we ran into Laura and Seashia, who were staying in a house together in a Hmong village. At their house, we met their host brother, and he wanted to take us up a mountain.
We spent the rest of the day with them, doing a lot of climbing and exploring. We went to a waterfall near the beginning of our journey, and everyone wanted to swim because it was very calm compared to other waterfalls we had been to. We also stopped at a lookout point to take pictures on the mountain. We could see tons of lychee farms. On the mountain, there was another Hmong village, and the host brother teaches English at one of the schools there, so we stopped by. We also spent some time walking around, and we saw fighting bulls and climbed a bit of a rocky part of the mountain. Before we left the village, we went to a cave that was filled with Buddhas. We climbed through the cave barefoot, and it was an amazing, though slightly frightening, experience.









Friday, we visited a former refugee camp, and we listened to Seashia and Laura's host dad talk about living there--which he had done from the time the camp opened until it closed. Then, we visited another waterfall, where we spent the afternoon. A lot of people went swimming, and everyone at least stuck their feet in the water.
Friday night, there were movies showing at the school near my village. After dinner, I walked over with Evie, her host sister, and several members of my host family.
I was rather shocked by how violent the first movie was. I was even more shocked by how many little kids were watching it. The second movie was funny but almost too funny.







Saturday was a long day. Nothing was really planned, and as usual, Evie and I took a walk around the village. Eventually, we met up with a group of people, and we spent a good portion of the day (until a bit after noon) at Reid's family's shop. After that, we walked around to a couple other houses, and at one, we tried on some Hmong traditional clothing.



That evening, we had a huge dinner for all of the families, and my family decided that I would wear traditional Mien clothing. As I was getting dressed by my host mom and a few other women, Evie came over, and they started dressing her too. When we arrived at the dinner, we were the only people in traditional clothing, but soon more people showed up in outfits, and some families took students back to dress them up. By the end of the evening, nearly everyone was wearing some sort of traditional clothing, and all of the families were taking tons of pictures.
Although the outfit I was wearing had long sleeves, the only really difficult part about wearing it was the weight of the jewelry, not the fabric.
This morning, I woke up and packed to come back to Chiang Mai. After breakfast, my host father invited me to a Mien ceremony. I wasn't allowed to go near what they were doing because I'm female, although I did get to go into a house where an altar was set up. This contained many items, including a whole pig which was to be cooked and eaten after the ceremony.
When we went back to the village, we packed up and said our goodbyes. My host father gave me a silver necklace. He owns one of the silver shops, and I had spent some time watching him work and picking out gifts for friends there earlier in the week.
Overall, it was an amazing experience, and I'm both glad to be back and resting and sad that I'm no longer in Nan.

My host father and brother with me on Sunday morning