Spring Festival is the biggest holiday of the year – it’s comparable to Christmas in that everyone goes home to be with family, share lots of food, and take a break from work and school. We had several different invitation to go back with local friends but their hometowns were just too far away. We were able to visit one of our friends in a village that should take less than 3 hours if we had driven ourselves. We however took a mixture of public buses and taxis. It took us a bit longer 
Sharing a meal around their kitchen fire where everything was cooked. We had beef and tofu soup with some home grown greens, another dish of hand made tofu with pig intestines, and a bitter gourd dish.
The village has lots of dogs and a recent litter of pups. We didn’t play with these though since they could bite and transmit disease
This is our friend’s home. There are always chickens roaming about. I guess they know whose are whose.
It’s a beautiful view from their home on top of the mountain.
They were drying some leftover rice and noodles which they will put in their oil tea (which is more like a soup than tea really). They also had some honey combs strung up and dried out that the sister told me they would use to make medicine. I feel like there are so many things I could learn.
They had hoped we could come up a few days earlier when they killed their pig, but we were hosting visitors. They don’t waste ANY of the pig. This meat will be smoked gradually as they cook over the open fire every day.
Handmade basket to pick greens from the garden
The upstairs of their house. They did have a washing machine, WIFI, and a TV – though everything else is really rustic.
This is a storage room of dried goods. It’s hard to see, but there is a pipe in the center which is connected to the kitchen fire downstairs to direct the smoke up and it can escape through the open roof
One of the bedrooms
Nike backpack and fur/feather jacket together?
Songbird
The kids made instant friends with the kids there.
The old house they our friend grew up in. He said it had been in the family for over 100 years. They built the new house was built about 5 years ago.
They used to host village Sunday meetings in their home.
The bus only took us so far, then we walked about 20 minutes up the mountain to their house
Keep going! Almost there. . .
The kids on the bus. They did good on the hours and hours of transportation playing quietly or listening to audiobooks.
Eating in town before going to the village. The chicken, duck, and fish are all alive and not killed until ordered. We ordered fish. It’s cooked whole so there are lots of little bones that you have to carefully pick around or spit out, but we are all used to it.
Smoked and dried pig face and some more honeycomb. I didn’t ask about this one. I wonder if they cook with it?
We didn’t order the rat or the small fish mixed with tadpoles beside it.
I was doing pretty food and enjoying the pictures until the rats at the end!!!!
Haley, I love getting your posts. You are such a wonderful mother, wife, and the teacher of everything the children need to learn. Some of the food I’d love to try, some of it , I wouldn’t. But so it is with our food. Tell David we had the honor of having Daniel spend part of the day with us a few weeks back, enjoyed him so much. Y’all are remembered each day.
You are too kind and encouraging. Would love for you to have the opportunity to experience a little of the food here
Thank you for remembering us!