Me, mid-cementing action:
Boone seems to be hopelessly falling for Maria! He also keeps teasing me about Ido...
The baby birds unfortunately didn't make it..I'm gutted.
After cementing the walls we left for Bintang Mengalih..another village where we were invited to a traditional Dayak ceremony! These only happen like once or twice a year! It was celebrating that they passed some eco law or something..
The boat ride was an hour long..very loud. We dropped our stuff off at the place we were staying the night in (a large empty room) and went to the cutting of the wood..they just paranged through bits of wood! Like cutting a ribbon at an opening but..Indonesian style, wearing crazy hats.
After that we drank a bit of tuak, their home brewed alcohol, out of a horn.
I then got completely bombarded with men with camera phones..was like a proper paparazzi! I couldn't get away for a good 10 minutes..photo after photo after photo..
It then chucked it down. But people still played volleyball in the pouring rain..there was also a random tug of war..! So funny to watch them slipping all over the place!
We then went to the ceremony. This started off as different people making speeches that seemed to go on forever. They then did this weird thing where they started talking really fast into the microphone, they took it in turns. It was so funny, it was like an Indonesian rap battle! Like 8 mile or something, with people randomly cheering when they said something they liked. They also added a drum beat while they were rapping. That too went on for what seemed like eternity. By this time my arse was, as far as I was aware, non-existent.
They then started the ritual..a plate of rice with an egg on top was on the floor. People took it in turns to go up and this guy would come up to you with a chicken with its legs tied together, and a knife. I was thinking, shit, please don't kill a chicken in front of me, I'll cry. But they just touched it then touched my forehead..blessed by a chicken! Although..I guess it would probably end up on plates later on though...
We consumed more alcohol as part of the ceremony..breaking OFUK rules..oops! The people who did the ritual then did traditional dayak dancing in the middle of the room while everyone danced round them in a circle. Very, VERY repeatitive!
I got bombarded again by more people wanting photos. By this point I was knackered.. We got back to the house about 11pm. We slept on the bare floor. For some reason they wouldn't turn off the light. There was still so much noise from the parties going on. I think I managed to get a solid half an hours sleep. Today I ache.
We left about half 6 as mostly everyone was up before then from not being able to sleep. Straight back to work..more cementing! Looks close to finishing now though...
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