Our entire group pulled into Lijiang at 6 in the morning this past Saturday, having been on a sleeper bus for 8 hours. We were groggy and it was cold and dark in the early morning. From there we took a small van to Nan Yao village, 45 minutes away. Coming from a fairly large city like Kunming, it was a complete 180 getting out of the van onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We huddled around a fire, struggling for warmth and waiting for the traditional breakfast of Baba, almost like baked flour tortillas, with honey. Then we were off to meet our new minority home stay families we would be staying with for the next week.

Unlike in Kunming, Naxi homes all look very similar. They each have a large courtyard filled with a variety of animals, including water buffalo, pigs, chickens and ducks. Without fail, every house has a large, chained up dog, or a few little ones, that bark viciously when you pass by, but love you once you begin feeding them your leftover breakfast. The families are all very welcoming, greeting you with food no matter what time of day it is. Every home you stop by to visit seems to provide you with sunflower seeds, walnuts, oranges and dried cherries. If you are ever full during the day, you must be prepared to eat a second or third breakfast; in the very least taking a handful of walnuts to crack on your own with a large stone.

The culture of the Na-Xi minority is unlike any I have ever encountered. It is extremely different even from the culture of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, where our group has been based this past month. The Naxi women are the leaders in this matriarchal society, and "run the show", so to speak. They do not marry, but have children early. As a minority, they are not required to abide by the "One child rule" that most of China follows. My host mother had 19 and 17 year old daughters, and was only 40. Although she is quite young, it was apparent that she had done hard labor all of her life. She just didn't have the "soft", young look that my 45 year old, ex-model host mother in Kunming has. The women of Nan Yao village all wear the same outfit: cloth slippers, pants, and a bright top with cloth 'wings' sewn onto the back. Every adult in the village, male or female, seems to own a pair of camouflage army shoes.

It is a very different world out there in the mountains. It is beautiful, with many trees beyond the exquisite Chinese architecture.The wind beats strongly, even with no heat, causing your skin to dry out quickly. The young children of the town all have red blotches on their faces, much like the painted-on circles of blush found on children's dolls. Squat toilets are in vegetable gardens or in the pigpens, and showers are not found in every home. You quickly learn to accept being a bit dirty, and look for tricks the locals use to stay clean without showers.   


Kunming begins to feel like a luxurious place, a city with running water and shops. As Americans, we are considered wealthy in any third-world country, although in our home country we may not be thought of as more than middle class. It becomes surreal to imagine that actual people live their entire lives like this, in a remote village full of dirt roads and fields. There are no refrigerators, as is the case in Kunming, and both towns hand wash laundry and hang it up outside to dry. Other than that, similarities between these two diverse home stays begin to blur. Always consistent throughout China, however, is the strong sense of family. Chinese people in general are always willing to welcome you into their home, no matter their financial condition. It does not matter if you are a complete stranger and foreigner. Family is highly treasured in all parts of China, as I have noticed from both of my home stays.

Interestingly, of the over 400 minorities in China, only a small portion of 56 or so have been officially acknowledged by the Chinese government and declared separate minorities. The Naxi are among the few minorities that were successfully in becoming registered. Their capital city of Lijiang has a population of about 1,000 people, a "small" town in China, but still large enough to get lost in. Who can say why these people are so interested in being recognized as minorities. Perhaps it is the pride with which they run their society, or their way of distinguishing themselves as different from the rest of China. Whatever the case is, I am extremely happy that they have been named one of China's official minorities.

I worry however that this type of country life will not last in the coming decades. Small minorities in any country struggle to maintain their age old identity and uniqueness in a world that is pushing towards the future every second. The Chinese government already has plans in effect to build giant gorges, which would displace many minority people. I only hope that more people will visit these remote places and notice the beauty in nature, in dirt and in quiet isolation. For me, at least, it has been an intense learning experience seeing how other humans here in China live their lives strongly and happily, despite varying levels of poverty.

 Hello Everyone, Writing this is extremely difficult. What I want to make a mirror of the past month, but I don't know what happened in the past month, or who is in the mirror now. I left the country pissed off. I was pissed off at The Patriot Act, 9/11, The Council on Foreign Relations, the War on Drugs, Education, The Federal Reserve, and anything that remotely resembled, in my view, the system's program of manipulation. I was pumping Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Public Enemy, you name it, any artist that said 'f#*k the police' I was in on it. I  kept ranting to friends and family about the utter injustice of it all. At parties I would suddenly leap up and start a slurred 15 minute pep talk on how we were going to take down the powers that be. I had this fantasy that I would go off to South America and everything would be fixed. That was the person who was in the mirror before I set foot on that plane. Since then, the past month has been a series of moments and frames. Every pre-concieved notion I had about South America was thrown out, along with my ego and my utter hatred of the State. Not saying that I suddenly started loving the red white and blue, because I don't, but some revelations started coming. I am a really angry person. I havn't created anything. I'm that angsty rebel teenager. I suddenly realized that this trip saved me from going down a road that would have probably put me in jail. These three months are an opporunity of detaching myself from that place of contempt. I've thought about past lives, the beauty of people's ideals, love, and community. I've started seeing opportunities of reproducing Andean culture and reciprocity in my city. Fond thoughts of my friends, family, and childhood came back to me and rejuvinated my soul. My petty burdens and troubles have disapeared when faced with the third world's struggle, and a determination has set in. We have two months to go, and I'm completely sure that at the end of these two months I'll be able to return without regrets and fear. Minneapolis better get ready

I walked down the steep rain-soaked steps of Sorata, Bolivia, for Spanish classes for the first time today from my new host-family’s home. I could still taste Felipa´s hot cocoa on my tongue and my hamstrings were burning from the previous day’s near-run down from our base camp at Laguna Chillata to escape the rain and get into a nice, warm...bed of a truck. Sixteen of us piled on top of our packs in the back of the truck that would drive us down a bumpy road for 45 minutes, and played that game where you each contribute a word to form a sentence. What a great way to end our trek! To describe everything that occurred from the start of this particular trek, to actually reaching Laguna Glaciar would be near impossible, but I’ll try. Our base camp was Laguna Chillata, which was about a 4-hour climb with amazing views, insanely green hills and white rivers creeping out between the crevices of the mountains.  Herds of sheep and cattle were scattered everywhere and mountain dwelling men and women were seen and heard whistling in the distance.

This morning I woke at 6:30 am to the sound of my new Nepali home and neighborhood very much in motion. The now familiar harmony of local dogs barking and musical car honking mixed seemlessly with the tones of my new aamaa (mother) brewing the morning chhia and my elderly bhaa (father) completing his waking throat clearing. Once passably presentable, I ventured out of my room to greet my new family with "chuba bihanni" or good morning!

On my way to the kitchen, I passed my bhaa's room to find him sitting peacably on his bed, looking out onto the street and drinking the chhia my aama had provided. He glanced up at me as I bowed and uttered namaste, still shy of this country's early morning vivacity. He responded in quick and soft Nepali and I struggled to catch the one term I recognized, chhia. My understanding of the social dynamics in Nepal, especially among the older and more traditional, is still developing and as of yet I am inclined to interpret most Nepali comments as a type of direction. I quickly  offered (in my rudimentary Nepali) to fetch him some more, and we stood momentarily on opposite shores of a formidable language gap. He spoke again, and more slowly and I deciphered "tapai," a gracious and respectful "you," and happily went off to the kitchen to serve myself a cup of Nepal's deliciously spicy tea.