On the farm!

The Li Su Farm!!

There are 56 different minorities in this country and one of them are the Li Su People. They live in Burma, China, Thailand, and India. Our friends spoke Mandarin and then also had their own dialect in Li Su.

They are doing some amazing work down in the south. They goal is to make their farm organic (without all the chemicals), its the most low cost and effective way of farming for them in the villages. They are also in the process of teaching other farmers this method and seems to be successful.

When we got there, their biggest need was 'weeding the corn.' We got right to work!!

Our schedule:
6:30 Wake up
6:45 Eat Breakfast
7:00 Be in the fields and start weeding corn
12:00 Lunch Break
1:00-1:45 Nap time -dream about corn (this is a national thing-happens all over the country- a majority of businesses will stop from 12-2 for lunch and nap time)
2:00 Be in the fields weeding
2-6:00 Weed corn
6-7:00 Eat dinner
7- rush back before sun goes down to shower (need the light from the sun to shine into the bathroom to shower, there was no electricity)
8:00 Read and watch sunset
9:00 Sleep and dream of weeding corn again

Corn!

Lots of corn!! It was taller than me!

Because the farming method was organic... they used goat manure and mixed it in the dirt. We were crawling through the red soil, manure, and lots of spiders! Lets just say some of those clothes were left behind.

We worked alongside of the Li Su guys in the fields and with them and we just had so much fun.

Even more corn!!

The three of hanging out on the roof of our little house

Just had to show you a picture of this crazy cat!!

In the evening after work.... the sun going down!! Absolutely beautiful!

After work I would sit on the edge of the roof watching the sunset and read!! It was awesome!

The outhouse

The guys' house

Getting to see the clear skies here were so beautiful and such a huge change from city life! It was absolutely beautiful in this part of the country.

This is Harvey. He was the spider that lived at the top of our shower

Hanging out with some of our new Lisu friends

Rach and I (about to be covered in the red dirt-that stained everything)

Fresh goat milk being boiled!!

Cooking lunch

Fried Goat Cheese!! Possibly one of the best things I've ever eaten!! So good!!

Rach at work!

Me at work!

We milked goats, petted the goats, wedded grass for the goats, drank goat milk, ate goat cheese.... thats a lot of goat!! We even ended up buying a goat for the farm! It was a lot of fun!

The guys were working on building a new outhouse

Grass to feed the goats

This was such an awesome truck!! We had to ride in the truck bed of this down the mountain to catch the bus at the bottom (just wish we could have got that on video... however we were all busy holding on and trying to avoid literally falling out the back)... such an awesome adventure!

Click here to see more pictures and videos!

2nd City: Dali

Then we headed a little more south to Dali and spent two nights there!

The markets

Part of a funeral we saw taking place (people usually wear white and parade down the street singling songs and carrying pictures)

Sean, Rach, and I rented bikes for the afternoon and took off for a few hours and biked through villages, around the lake, and through rice patties! It was so beautiful!

Some of the things we saw:

Again... it was so beautiful getting to see the villages, bike around, and get some sunshine! Seeing the blue skies and clean air was just what we needed. Definitely refreshing and encouraging to see. The bike ride was amazing!!

Cat? Rats? Termites? What is it?

I just had to post this funny moment from our trip....

The Setting:
We were staying in a hostel in Lijiang, K, Rach and I all sharing a little room

The First Night:
K had mentioned that she hadn't slept very much... but didn't really mention why...

The Second Night:
I roll over in the dark and scrambled to find my little flashlight... I knew I heard something... but what was it??

I was half asleep and so tired... but I can't seem to sleep over the loud mysterious sound that was coming from above my head behind the wall. I turned on my flash light and shined it on the wooden frame In the midst of this, I happened to wake up K.

The Conversation:
K: "What are you doing Stacy?"
Me: "I can't sleep. There is something behind this wall making sounds... I'm trying to figure out what it is."
K: "Don't worry about it, just go back to sleep."
Me: "But its driving me crazy... I think it might be termites. I'm scared of termites... I just have this image that they're going to eat through the wall and land on my bed..." :)

Remind you... its 3am)

K: "I don't think its termites... just don't worry about it."
Me: "What do you think it is?"
K: "Don't worry about it... just go back to sleep."
Me: "You know what it is!" I gasped.
K: "Uh... we'll I don't think its termites... I think its bigger than that... its moving..."
Me: "Think it could be a SNAKE!" I took a deep breath and waited for her response..
K: "No... but I think it has legs... "

Remind you... Its 3am, K and I are playing the guessing game of whats moving behind the wall thats above my head.... with me sitting up in bed with my little flashlight still shining on the wall trying to figure out what it was


Me: "You know... don't you..."
K: "I think it might be rats..."
S: "Oh... just rats. They don't bother me... they are like the little mice my friends had growing up, they won't bother us. I'll go back to sleep."

I rolled over in bed to the sounds of the scratching (which was coming from above my head) and fell back to sleep. K was in shock that it didn't even phase me that there were rats in the walls.

Also keep in mind... there was a huge hole above your shower in our room... where we knew some creatures might be.

Such a fun trip and great experiences!!

Our Summer Trip! Part One - Lijiang

School was out for the summer and we decided to head south (unfortunately our trip we had been planning to Xinjiang had to be canceled, but we were able to make a few last minutes changes and headed south)!

We went to Yunnan! First to Lijiang for 3 days, then to Dali for 2 days, then headed to a farm outside of Kunming for a week!

**The few pictures I post here do not justify how beautiful it was... I just posted tons of pictures on my Picasa check out the link below to see them!!!

The City

Street Food

The view at night

Light one of these and then can watch it go down the little canal

Dying cloths

I ended up getting one for our kitchen table cloth

Check out that blue sky!!! It was absolutely beautiful! Been awhile sense we had seen a sky that blue with the clouds!! So refreshing!