We were greeted by 4 bubbly girls who weren't as confident as other girls we've previously met but were very proud to show us around their home village.
The majority of us hadn't seen a hill tribe village like this before and it seemed miles apart from Chiang Mai. It had a very profound effect on us.
The village was very basic, with houses mostly made from tin and wood, yet it felt like there was a tight community spirit. All of the homes had outside toilet facilities, however many houses did have satellite dishes and access to electricity which some of us didn't expect.
We saw some ladies doing traditional embroidery which was beautiful which they loved to share with us. It would take 2 months to produce a very intricatley designed piece (albeit very small) of their local dress!
There were many chickens, pigs and dogs freely roaming the area, which the hill tribe families would use for food and for trading.
It's upsetting to think that girls like the ones we met today, could be persuaded to move to inner areas such as Bangkok as they're told that their quality of life will improve - when in fact they will be taken advantage of and exploited in the industries such as the sex trade.
Now we've had a real taste of the kind of lives some of the hill tribe children have, it's helped us to fully comprehend how important our activies on Sunday will be. We're really looking forward to sharing our activies with these girls and many others from local schools in the area.
El, Anna and Beth X
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