Nanga Matu 5/6

Last night was the party in the village..our leaving party. During the day people from other villages came to watch another Dayak ceremony.

They killed a cow for us. I felt sorry for the cow..as I walked past it..watching it's last ever sunset. It was a pretty big thing killing a cow for us..they have 3. Anyway, it turned out the cow was pregnant. So they also barbequed the baby cow. Horrible..to them its just more meat though.. I can't imagine how scared the both of them were. God damn.

In the ceremony before lunch, it was Maria and I that got asked up to do the ritual and dance..and drink. So we had to down 3 glasses of the alcohol. After 4 weeks of not drinking any alcohol, after this I was actually a little bit drunk! It felt good though. 3 volleyball games took place..then the other villagers left.

The ceremony resumed after this. More dancing. A LOT more dancing. I went up again and guess who I was paired with ..Pak Ronald.. :!!! Hmm..that wasn't set up at all was it!
Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say our dance went on FOREVER. I swear, about triple the time of everyone elses..I was exhausted! The traditional dancing got pretty boring..so I mixed it up with my own moves..disco'd it up a little! Hah. Hope I didn't insult their culture..I got a lot of thumbs up though! It felt like it wasn't going to end..I was so hot and sweaty.

We weren't allowed to drink anymore after this point..but every man in the room seemed to be shitfaced. I asked a very drunk Ido if I could have a go on the instruments they were playing and he was like' YA!!'

The guy playing what kinda sounded like steel drums but..louder, tried to teach me how to do it properly but was just making no sense in his drunken state. So I did it my own thing..they seemed to like my drumming I think! It was really fun.

Drumming away:


Ido and I:


More of the SAME dancing took place. I continued to mix it up. Dawn and I incorporated the disco moves. We did a ripple chain at one point, it was awesome, went down well with the villagers!

It then went a bit crazy..the traditional dancing actually turned into what looked like kung fu.


People then brought in speakers and a TV..! They were planning on doing an Indonesian kareoke..until the generator ran out of diesel.
I don't think Ido felt too great this morning. We started painting the walls of the toilets and the roof is now on!