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Published: December 28th 2010
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Ronald next to the women
they were discussing who they were going to follow back to their villages The walk today was really great, much better than yesterday's. Yesterday we just walked through one village and right back up, but today we walked about 12.5 kilometers and saw two villages and a lot of beautiful countryside. It's basically rice paddies as far as the eye can see and they aren't flat, but have been built up into the sides of the mountains, just like in Peru.
The women from the Black H'mong followed us the whole way for two reasons: they go to the market in the morning and then walk home, and they wanted us to buy things from them. Our guide, Lan, told us a little bit about her life -- she makes the most money out of anyone in her family (she's 16). Max, the owner of Kangaroo Cafe, just sort of picked her up off the streets one day and offered her this tour guide job. So when she's doing this, she makes much more than the rest. They leave school at 16 and get married around 17 or 18 and have lots of babies. They seem to age really fast and I assume that is because of how much time they spend outside
the women crafted these
litte horses...he put it in his hair to graze in the sun with the rice. The older women don't have many teeth, but when we were taken to Lan's house, we met her 95-year-old grandmother, who did. She tried to sell us bracelets and purses, just like all the rest.
This was actually pretty funny because one of the women was a conspirator...before walking into the house, she came up to a few of us and whispered things in our ear about how they would try to sell us stuff, but not to buy it, and to buy it from her. Pretty funny. "You buy from me" is the standard for everyone selling. Anyways, in her house, we saw their new years pig (it was really big), them drying corn and dying clothes black. It takes a full year to make one set of clothes, and Lan's tribe is called the Black H'mong because they make and wear black clothes. There is also a Flower H'mong and they make clothes with many different colors. The Zai make neon clothes that are a different texture, and they speak Zai so when the other tribes communicate together, they use the Vietnamese that they learned in school.
Her family is
a bit different because they are Catholics. Most don't have a religion, and none of them celebrate Christmas. But they're definitely a tight community. Yesterday when we were walking through the other village we saw all the men helping in their bare feet instead of doing whatever it is that they do by themselves...
When we were leaving her house, one of her brothers threw a dead rat at Ronald. They all thought it was pretty funny...so we left Lao Chau (Black H'mong village) and walked to Ta Van (Zai village). On the way we stopped for lunch and this is also the prime spot for all of the vendors. They pretty much all sell the same things, so we went ahead and bought two small bracelets from one of the women that followed us. Ronald also bought some sort of flute, but we're not sure how to use it yet.
When we walked through the Zai village we saw a school that had been built for them by the Japanese and then next door saw some kids practicing some form of martial arts after school. **Edit: there's a video below, but it's very small. Let me know
black h'mong
wearing black clothes, a woven basket, and a plastic comb to keep her hair up if there are any problems with it.
In town we went back to Ly's shop for Ronald to try on the North Face shoes she said she'd have, but she didn't in the end. So we ate at Buffalobelle, had AMAZING potato soup there, and they gave us free hot spiced wine for Christmas I guess, or maybe for the cold.
Tomorrow we have a free day, so we'll look for hiking shoes for Ronald...he has a big foot, so it's hard to find them!
Also just wanted to say that whenever they dub anything on TV, the original sound is in the background...for example, if they're watching a British soccer game, you can hear the English announcer, but then on top of that the Vietnamese. Funny.
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