Home Stay

There is this little thing in language learning called a "home stay" The idea is to totally immerse yourself into language and culture so that you can learn the language quicker. I have been wanting to do one for a long time but it just never worked out. So, this weekend, I asked our language helper, Hope, if I could stay with her and her family Her family raises water buffalo for a living. She was told to treat me like a family member, NOT a guest. So, she put me right to work. I chopped veggies, helped prepare dinner, stoked the fire, kneaded dough, and milked water buffalo.

I enjoyed working along side Hope and her family. They mainly live and sleep on the top of their house because its the coolest part. There is a nice little breeze up top.I slept out on a cot with all the ladies of the house. As I laid there, underneath the light of the moon, I thought about how simple life could be. I don't actually need as much as I think I do.

Because of all the manual labor, my weary body quickly drifted off to sleep. Within a few minutes, I awoke to someone shaking my shoulders. It was Hope's mother. She wanted me to drink something. She handed me a tall lukewarm glass of....buffalo milk. It actually turned out to be not too bad. ;-)