Saturday, January 31, 2009

I am back in civilization for a bit and thought I would update with a quick blog. I'm in Mae Hong Son on some  independent student travel, but we are leaving for the village in about 3 hours by way of truck. The homestay has been pretty awesome so far, and the village, Ban Huay Hee, is really cool. 
My homestay family is pretty awesome, the parents are about 30 years old and they have two small kids, both between 5-10 (I'm not very good with ages...). They also have 4 cows in our yard, one momma pig, one baby pig, 2 dogs, 4 puppies, and I think I saw a cat somewhere too. They don't feed the puppies very much, so I fed one of them once and he literally follows me everywhere I go. The village is really small, I think there are something like 25 families in the whole village, and around 125 people, so TBB makes up a substantial portion of the Ban Huay Hee population.
The food has been pretty awesome, my host mom is a pretty stellar cook, and I learned how to say "I like spicy food" in thai and she makes delicious chili paste and puts hot peppers into my scrambled eggs.
The town is really community based and they seem to share almost everything, including, sometimes, us. There have been a couple times when my host mom will not make dinner and just lead me over to another house and I'll eat there. Also, when they all harvest rice 10% of what they harvest goes into a communal thing of rice that they all share if someone doesnt have enough rice. They are also really self sufficient, growing most of the food that they eat in the village.
Sorry this blog is not very interesting, I can't think of any funny anecdotes at the moment, I just needed to put something up so that my parents would know that I am alive. We get back to civilization again in about a week or so, I'll write again then I guess.
One love,
-Dave

1 comment:

sarah snyder said...

Thank you so much for letting your parents know you are alive! You sound great.I hope you are taking pictures of your host family and multiple animals, especially the puppy who loves you.
I love you,
Mom