Lisu Village Stay

After the couple of days we spent at UHDP we left to spend a couple of days in a Lisu village. It was not too long of a drive and very beautiful. The village where we stayed was is Doi Lan at the top of this mountain. To get there we had to snake up this pretty steep incline. You could definitely feel the temperature change the moment we stepped out of the car. Lisu people are an ethnic minority group that live throughout the hills of Thailand and some surrounding countries in Southeast Asia. Since they live on Thai land they are Thai. But they have their own language, culture and beliefs. Ethnic minority groups in Thailand tend to suffer from a lot of discrimination, inequalities and poverty. Access to healthcare and substantial education is often difficult. A woman named Atome came with us on the trip. She teaches and Payap and has written a lot about this. She lived in this particular Lisu village for 6 years. So she knows the language and everyone in the village. They love her and were so happy to have her bring some students to stay.

My friend Angela and I stayed together with a woman who came and pointed to the 2 of us, picked up our bags, and hurried us off to her house. She was great, we called her "Mae" which means mother in thai. The children are taught Thai in their small village school so most of the younger generations know Thai. But she also knew Thai very well so that's how we communicated throughout the trip. Mae had 3 children-- 2 sons and one daughter I believe. Two of her children had moved to the city to find work but one of her sons stayed home. She joked about marrying one of us off to him. He was cute but I don't know about marriage. It's really common today amongst the younger generation for children to go to the city to find work. They usually only end up being able to acquire low-paying jobs because many actually do not have thai identification cards... which is kind of a long story. Anyway, it was interesting to be in this village that consists primarily of middle-aged, elderly and young children. There were two little girls that hung around my house all of the time. My mae would feed them and care for them but we were pretty sure that they were not related at all. It is so cool because there was such little presence of ownership in the village. All of the kids would just run around and then get scooped up and put on the backs of different women. It was such a compact community.

The food our mae made throughout our stay was hands-down the best food that I have had in Thailand. All of the vegetables were fresh picked and so tasty and the rice was a different, more grainier grain. We also had this amazing black sticky rice that is popular to eat in the North. The kitchen was a large room with a cold cement floor. We would sit and eat together on these tiny stools around a low round table with all of the dishes laid out. There was a wash basin in the corner, a small stove and a mattress in the other corner. The bathroom was outside of the house in a small cement hut and the shower consisted of a bucket with cold water. Our bedroom was nice... but at night it would get so so cold.

I shared with her some pictures of my family and friends. She seemed to enjoy that. Then she brought out these huge photo albums and showed a bunch of old and new photos of her family and the village, etc. She had this amazing photograph of a little girl standing in a beautiful poppy field. They used to harvest opium on their land in the 80s and these hills were covered with miles and miles of purple, red and white poppies. It was very lucrative for them. Some would become addicted to smoking (mostly men) but mostly it was just a source of profit for these villagers. But then the previous PM Thaksin had his 'war on drugs' in which he ordered military to shoot-on-sight anyone he thought looked like they might be suspicious. This created a lot of resentment amongst hill tribe villagers. Our mother talked about how one of her siblings had died from an opium addiction but also talked about how three men from the village had been murdered during the war on drugs. It was pretty interesting and sad. 

The next day we walked through the farmland to this open field where they were growing cabbage, celery, tomatoes and some other crops. We spent the whole day there preparing a meal and a chicken to sacrifice for a ceremony. The people in this village practice a mixture of buddhism and animism so there is a lot of belief in forest spirits and ghosts but also there are touches of buddhism throughout a lot of their customs and rituals. There were very intent on us drinking their local rice whiskey which was very good but extremely strong. Even a small shot glass size of it puts you in sort of this warm and fuzzy daze. So we spent the whole day in this field laying around in this cabbage field under the hot sun in a whiskey daze. 

That night they had a party for us at this house on top of the hill. They dressed us up in their Lisu garb which is incredible. The women wear really vibrant colors of shiny velvet material that are sewn together into these long dresses with black velvet pants underneath. It looks so beautiful on them with their dark skin and jet black hair. It looked a tad different on us foreigners but it was fun to come together like this. There was a big meal, Lisu dancing, Lisu music and of course, more whiskey. It was a fun and very strange night. Strange because I had this weird thing happen where a tripped over a cord and when I went to plug it back in, I was electrocuted! It was so strange because I didn't even touch the outlet and I wasn't wet but my whole body kinda shook for only for a second. It really freaked me out. It was crazy because I looked up after sitting around and everyone was crowded around me looking at me in all of these outfits. Pretty bizarre... I rested for a while but felt better by the end of the night. 

We said goodbye to our families on Monday. So basically I would say that nothing that happened that weekend was an experience I have ever had before. Pretty eye and heart-opening. They were such welcoming and warm people. It was a great last group trip. Now its about a month more of class and such until I meet my family in Chiang Mai. I am pretty excited. That's about all for now. 

Here's a link to some pictures from the trip:

http://s438.photobucket.com/albums/qq110/emilyfwolff/UHDP%20and%20Lisu%20Village/