My Time in Nan
This trip to Nan has been the highlight of my time here in Thailand. I had such a great time that I found it difficult to leave.
We stayed at Paklang Village in Nan which is a province in Eastern Thailand. It is very close to the border of Laos in a mountainous, lush region with waterfalls and big puffy white clouds.
I was at first really skeptical about going to the village, especially since I had “tong sia” (broken stomach) pretty bad the night before we left. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I did not go on the first village stay in Mae Cham. So we left in our very large air conditioned vans with TV screens and DVD players. It took about 7 hours to get there because we stopped at wats and ate lunch along the way. When we finally did arrive at the village it was like we were rolling into this quiet little community who had never seen a white person before. We got these wide eyed stares from children, adults, elders, even dogs. I was the second person to meet with my host family. I was lucky enough to be placed with a family who was strictly Buddhist and therefore was completely vegetarian. I was worried about finding food that I would be able to eat but little did I know that these people really knew how to cook up some veggies.
My host mom’s name was P’Noo and when I first was introduced to her she was so personable and nice, I knew that my trip was going to be good after that. Let me just say that I am very happy that I can speak some Thai because she did not speak any English. I was lucky to have two host sisters who attended Chiang Mai University and spoke a fair amount of English. So my host mom kidnapped me before Aj. Marcus was finished briefing us about the village. Before I knew it I was in the back of a pickup truck being driven to someplace in a village with no phone reception. I was kind of nervous. I didn’t know if I was going to be living in a hut or a house but once we pulled in the driveway I could see that they lived in a nice house. I was somewhat relieved to see this. My host family showed me around and explained things to me in Thai – I caught on to about 80% of what they were trying to tell me. One thing I remember them saying is “Mai grang jai” which means “don’t feel bad for doing anything, you’re not imposing, we want you to feel comfortable.” They also explained to me how I was just another family member and to feel free to use anything in the house. I felt so welcome by them it was wonderful. As I walked past the Ajan that was staying in the house I heard him say “chok di” which means “good luck”- he said this because I was a vegetarian and he considered it good luck that I was staying with their family.
It was such clean air up on the mountain, what a difference from the pollution in Chiang Mai. We were all just so happy to be able to breathe. We walked around more and I came across a little shop (the only shop) that sold some sticky rice and various snacks. I bought some rice crackers and a big sweet sesame seed bar.
We continued on and found a small school that all the children of the village went to. They were all out playing at recess and we sat down by them to watch. I think they were all about 5-8 years old and I was fortunate enough to talk to the teacher at the school. She didn’t speak any English so I couldn’t ask her too many questions but she told me that all the kids lived in the village and she didn’t have any children of her own yet. They were so cute and I’m happy that they let us watch them play!
The last night there the whole village got together and had a big meal at the meeting hall and many of the residents did dance performances and sang for us. Most of our host families also insisted on dressing us up in traditional Hmong, Mien, or Lua clothes for this event. In return our group was expected to perform something for the village and in a last minute effort we managed to find the song “Build Me Up Buttercup” on Misa’s Ipod and hold it up to the microphone while we sang and danced. I think we did a pretty darn good job!
When it was time to leave there were so many tears from everyone… it seemed like we all made a connection with this community and our host families. It was the kids that made me cry, they were so wonderful and happy, even though I only spent a short amount of time around them I feel like they made this huge impact on my life. Something in me opened up on this trip, I don’t know how to describe it but it was a feeling of immense contentment and it changed the way I see things. I even started to like taking a shower out of a bucket! Haha! I guess anything is possible.