Did you ever have one of those days that start off with you waking up in your nice clean bed in an air-con-ed room and that end up with you going to bed on a mattress in the only house made from concrete and having electricity in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere?
Well, with a bit of ups and downs, that basically sums up my Saturday!
This Monday we had a public holiday (due to a big Indian celebration), which basically meant LONG WEEKEND!!! YEEEYYYY!!! So there was the whole "what should I do, where should I go" dilemma. And after some thought and consideration, I decided not to go witness the indian festival together with most of my other friends here (part of me regrets it but truth be told, I was seriously not in the mood for the crowdiness and hectic-ness that went along with it) and instead decided to visit one of the other CDOs. His name is Aleks (Serbian), he does the same job as I do, only that in a tiny orang asli (this is the aboriginal people here) village in the middle of the jungle. I managed to corrupt my volunteer and another friend also, so we all went to visit the jungle!
I must say that Saturday was a nice special day anyways. It's like all the stars were aligning to make things good and enjoyable. In the morning we went to an event in our community - we were supposed to be there only until 10am, but we ended up staying until 1.30pm. There was breakfast and lunch, there was lots of nice conversation, there was sitting in the kitchen with the women, helping with cooking and finding out all the gossip, there was playing of games - we actually got introduced to their national games!! I actually won one of them by pure luck (it's a lot like pool so I sucked at it massively!
As luck would have it, we also found out that one of my students (remember Diana from one of my previous posts?:)) was going to her homevillage in the afternoon. And the said homevillage was really close to where Aleks lives. So guess what? ROAD TRIIIIIPPPP!!! With Diana and her sister. And that was sooo fun! We started off with one of the hugest (and yummyest) mochas I have ever had...and here is the evidence! :)
After 3h of driving we kind of felt we were approaching Aleks' village. We had turned from the main road to a tiny tiny tiny (and by that I mean seriously narrow road – still excellently paved though), on which we were the only car and we occasionally met motorcycles from time to time. There was no light (it was getting darker and darker by that point) and nothing outside except jungle! Huge palm trees, weird plants and us on the road :) And who knows what other living creatures in the wild :) Needless to say we were asking ourselves if that was indeed the right way. But it was! And we soon started seeing traces of life...wooden huts and some people who when asked about “teacher”, pointed happily towards the only illuminated house in the village. And there were Aleks and Tina waiting for us :)
And the evening was just starting! Aleks told us that we are super lucky – someone in the next village is sick, so we will get to see a live shaman led healing ritual!! Yeyy! (obviously we felt very sorry that someone was sick). So we all went on motorbikes (no, I did not drive one, I just hold on very very tight!!:)) to the nearby village. Where it all happened – the shaman did his thing which consisted of word mumbling, things being put on him and then him putting things on the sick person, more word mumbling, and various ritual type things being done. What was really funny was that while all this was happening, the guy who was sick was at the same time watching TV!!! Which was glorious because these people are seriously poor! There was nothing in that house but they had a flat screen TV!! (this village is a bit more well off than that of Aleks and they do have electricity there).
Anyways, moving past that – we then got fed with the best omelette in the world! (I actually thought we will all eat but they actually made dinner specially for us!!).
And then we proceeded to part 2! Which consisted of people playing some bamboo poles on wood – it made beautiful rythmic music and we got to do it too! Normally, they play that for 2 evenings from about 10pm until 3am. To chase away the evil ghosts that might come for the sick person again. We lasted only until 12.20pm. Those poles are seriously heavy! But the whole experience was truly amazing – you keep playing those things and you go into a sort of trance like state – all the sounds getting mumbled together, the chanting gets inside you and everything gets completely fuzzy and mixed up. At one point I stopped playing and had my eyes closed and they thought I was asleep. Apparently that is super bad for the sick person, so they started chanting even louder and pushing me to wake up!
The next day followed in the same atmosphere...they came in the morning and took us to one of their huts where we had some amazing breakfast. A huuuge banana (they actually call it horn banana), and some rather weird and unheard of vegetables, together with petai beans. IT was soooo delicious! Again, they fed us first and made us take tons of food. And then they just shared what was left (among the 15 of them!!). I felt sooo bad for taking their food but Aleks said they would feel offended if we give it back to them. In addition to this, the cutest kids in the world were part of the group which made things even nicer! (which by the way had probably never seen a camera before cause they were amazed that they could see themselves on the screen and kept asking f that was a mirror I had with me :))
We then walked through the jungle and to the field, where we got to another hut :) We basically spend the whole day around there – playing with the kids, walking through the jungle, talking, eating more amazing food that they just picked up on our trails. IT was incredible! We would be walking through the jungle and our host would suddenly stop, go to a plant and say “makan” - meaning that it was good to eat :) And later we had that for dinner! Lovely!
There was also the moment when strong wind came and all the trees started winding and making noise! All the locals we were with stopped, and started looking very worried and afraid. Aleks translated that “the forest does not want us here”...so we turned back. In all fairness, ghosts and spirits are a huge part of their culture. Everyone is wearing talismans and it is something that cannot be doubted. It can only be accepted, feared and learnt to deal with.
The Sunday evening was less exciting than the previous night. But still amazing. The kids and adults got used to Aleks holding a movie night, basically every night. These kids (and most of the adults for that matter) had actually never seen a computer before so the fact that Aleks is projecting movies on the big wall is something amazing! They all gathered and we watched The Jungle Book. And it was really amazing. The kids I teach are in quite a modern community – so they've seen tons of cartoons and they're very difficult to surprise or amuse. But these kids were enjoying the cartoon so so so much! Laughing at every joke and funny song, and cheering along with the movie. It was so nice to see! And the adults too! They were a bit annoyed in the beginning that we were watching a cartoon but they got so caught into it! It was so nice to see! :)
This jungle trip was nice for so many reasons! And many reflections have been brought on by this experience - maybe I will at some point give an account of these also, not just of the happenings per se.
But I guess the thing that struck me the most was that the moment I arrived there I had a feeling of peace and relaxing that I only get at my grandmother's place. The same warmth and atmosphere of good, of calm and of “life is simple and beautiful”. And I am just so so thankful to have found that here.
Also, the villagers told us we were the first white women to visit their village. Ever.