Lahu Wedding

I have been here a little over 9 months already and I finally made it to a small Thai village! One of my students invited Stacey and I to go with her to her cousins wedding. The wedding took place in a small village up in the mountains, not far from Mae Sai on the border with Burma. We were only in the village for about 24 hours - just a taste.
My student (Naley) grew up near the village and for me the best part was seeing her interact with her family. I couldn't understand what they said, but it was so nice to see her completely at ease. We were invited to stay with her aunt. They gave us our own room with a fan. They had electricity, a huge TV, a kitchen with a refrigerator, even a washing machine! I think that after being a here a year my standards have changed. Technically where they lived isn't what I would be used to at home. However, just the fact that is was clean (ie. no trash lying around) made my opinion go way up.
The main street through the village in Mae Fa Luang.
The wedding was not a traditional Lahu wedding. Usually Lahu people do not get married in a church. This was a church wedding with a wedding dress, tux, vows, music - in short just what I would expect at home. Afterwards we all walked down the hill to the brides home where there was a huge tent. We had a delicious lunch cooked by the women in the village. The couple changed into traditional Thai costumes and came out to greet the guests.
The wedding program in Thai, Lahu, and a smidge of English.
The inside of the village church.
The bride and groom singing during the reception.
Back at the house a few of the young girls were still in their traditional Lahu dress ready to ham it up for the camera.
We left shortly after the wedding and my visit was capped off with a thrilling ride down the mountain on a motorbike. This time it was fun, which I attribute to a good bike.

Today I head for home. I will see some of you soon!

Culmination Time

The last few weeks have been very busy, plus, I got my first taste of an extended period with no electricity! Fortunately, here in Thailand, that isn't a huge deal. But it did cut me off from my late night blogging and the relaxation of a good book before falling asleep. Apparently now our electricity is fine since the lights are on and my computer hasn't shut down.

One of the most exciting things for me since I last wrote was our graduation. We actually only had one student graduate this year. (Usually it is between 6 and 8, but his whole class left last year.) It was still pretty fun, though, because the students performed, choir performed, and two of my piano students played songs. I was pretty excited about that. It takes a bit of courage to get up and play. Especially when your hands shake and your palms sweat - both of which make playing piano difficult! One of the girls had never played in front of a group, but she did a nearly flawless job. It made me feel good when she said she decided to play because I had put in a lot of time so she wanted to show what we had done. Awwww.

Another highlight of the music show was a song that two of the students composed. It's just fun to see them get really involved and come up with their own ideas for things. Their song was actually pretty good and the Thai students especially liked the style.

One of the students was the MC, which put a smile on my face because she was so confident. Plus she came up with all of the transitions and comments herself.

Toward the end of the program I directed the choir and was a little nervous because our songs had started to fall apart just a couple days before the performance. On graduation day, though, it came together very nicely.

The graduation mainly consisted of the awards, music, graduate speech - and then a buffet. This year we also had a magician come and do an act. His son stayed with the school for a few months so he volunteered his time. He definitely had the students laughing.

These are all my students this year. It is kind of funny to think of how all my energy goes into those 13 people...