Though it took twelve hours to drive there and sixteen hours back, it was an adventure of a lifetime! Through many twists and turns we arrived in the jungle where life could not be lived in a more simple state. There was a certain peacefulness there. We looked at the mountains (much different than our Lijiang mountains) and the beautiful scenery and took it all in. When we arrived, we met the family we were to stay with for the few days. The village is like one big family. Everyone looks out for one another and the love that was shown here will not soon be forgotten. The family we stayed with has many fields of different crops and it was quite amazing to see it all! It was time to harvest the corn so all the village came together to help harvest, separate, and transport. The next day, the village would do the same for another family’s crops. It’s really a beautiful thing to see them happily work together.
Some interesting things that happened while we were there include: seeing lizards all over, eating bee larva, dressing up in Lisu dress, teaching the kids English songs, climbing a treacherous, incredibly high, I mean HIGH, mountain (I think I was the only one that thought this), and teaching them how to play Skip-Bo. :) Everything you ate, you just went out and cut it down or killed and ate it! They killed a pig for us and every night one of their chickens. Chris and the men went out fishing to catch fish to eat for dinner. In the mornings, we just went to a tree and picked some passionfruit to eat. While we were in the mountain, our friend hunted and killed two birds with two shots. Even while he was getting the bee hive out and was being swarmed by bees he cared not about getting stung or wearing any protective bee keeping attire!
The Lisu people really showed us love not just in a direct manner but also in the way they lived their lives, especially one to another. Words and pictures cannot express how touched we were to see this. We learned some Lisu language too while we were there. All I remember is Aku Shamu which means thank you! Another cool thing was that the Paeng’s are Korean, so the parents would speak Korean to Chris’ student, he would translate to Mandarin to our Lisu friend, who also spoke Mandarin, who translated to Lisu to his family, and then the student would translate to English for us. It was a memorable trip and the Paeng’s were wonderful to be with. They are a family that really just enjoy being with one another. Well until our next adventure…!
