Rachel: The Village Experience - 27th of July, 2009

I don't quite know where to start this. Maybe I'll just start at the beginning, that's always a good choice. So, one of our Chinese friends, we'll call him Thomas, whom we met at our school, recently asked Rachel and I if we would like to come to his dad's birthday party. We of course agreed we would like to go, but when the day came, Rachel had work she needed to do, so that left me to have the adventure. On hindsight, this was a better arrangement for reasons that will be made clear soon. So this is kind of a big deal because a lot of our Chinese friends are sometimes afraid of what we'll think when we see their humble beginnings. But in the weeks and travel prior to arriving at Thomas' lǎojiā (the literal English translation for this word is "old home", but is meant to denote where one was born and raised), he kept saying how his parents were poor and didn't have much money. That didn't surprise me, I was much looking forward to seeing the "real China". He also mentioned how we would have to hike over a mountain to get to parents' house. He thinks he's preparing me, but all the while, I just get more excited.

So the day finally comes for me to go out to his parents' place. It starts off normal with a bus ride, not the city transport bus, but a city to city bus. About an hour and a half after leaving Nanning, we arrive in a fairly small town called Du'an. From there, we hop in a little three wheel cart and head out of Du'an for about a half hour and we make it to his friends' parents' place where we have some dinner. (Below is the picture of me with Thomas' friends and the guy's parents)

By the time we're leaving their place, it's starting to get dark, but we venture on. We then hop in another three wheel cart for about fifteen minutes when we're dropped off at Thomas' sisters' place where he says we must say a quick hello. Surprisingly, it was a quick stop, but before leaving, his sister gives us a flashlight (torch). As we're walking out of her place, Thomas points at the mountain behind her place and says his parents live on the other side. He was not lying. The trailhead was right by his sister's place and by the time we make it to the start, our flashlights are on. The hike took a good forty-five minutes to an hour with the first half of the hike being uphill. I remember at one point as we're still hiking uphill, I asked Thomas how far we were and he said "A little bit further and we will be halfway." We finally make it to his parents' house about nine in the evening. A lot of family has come for the celebration. Though we've eaten dinner, they insist on killing another chicken and preparing another meal. Finally, about midnight, I'm able to lay down and try to sleep. Surprisingly, I fall asleep. How do I know? Because at 4:30 in the morning I am suddenly awoke by the bloodcurdling scream of a pig that just had it's neck slit. The scream slowly fades, but unfortunately I do not. And about an hour later, it's time for the goat to have his turn.

I get out of bed shortly after this because I'm not getting sleep anyway and that's when I pull out the camera and begin to try to capture the beauty of the scenery and the fun of a family celebration. Now Thomas has a big family, eight kids all together, so there were plenty of people. The hard part was not understanding anything. Thomas and his family are of the Zhuang minority, the largest minority in China with an est. 18 million people, so they speak Zhuang, which is different to what I'm learning. But I had fun anyway and I'll stop here and post some pictures for you see.