Student Blogs: Homestay with the Lisu tribe in Northern Thailand
After the group went back to Chiang Mai to see the elephants in the nature park and zip-line, we participated in our second homestay. This home stay was in a remote village in the mountains of Thailand and in my experience almost incomparable to the first homestay. The culture and lifestyle of the Lisu tribe is even more different than what we had already experienced.
During our homestay with the Lisu tribe we experienced a lifestyle that we had never experienced before, where we planted coffee bean, trekked through the mountains, and even ate new and different foods native to the Lisu tribe. The Lisu tribe makes their living through agriculture and live happily in the mountains. We had some difficulties talking to our host families because they didn’t speak northern Thai (which is what we learned during our Thai lessons). Nevertheless, we learned to persevere through these obstacles and enjoyed our times there; hanging out with friends, host families, and community members.
Justin L. and John Cole O.
Our second homestay with the Lisu Village was one of the most diverse experiences from the entire Thai program. Even looking back in retrospect with visiting all the cities, the stay with the Hill Tribe was very different from what we expected. Living on a mountain passing through the clouds while helping with work in the field was a very new experience. It gave beautiful sights that we couldn’t have imagined, and we got to see what life was like in the village. From the first homestay while we were able to get an inside look on how villages worked, in the Lisu it was incredible seeing people on the outskirts of Thailand who didn’t even speak Thai. The festival on our last day was very fun as we learned their dances, and all had a good time. There was never a dull moment at our stay, I’m glad to have been through this part of Thai culture and I hope to come back again someday.
Josiah C.
