This last week i got to be a part of a HUGE cultural celebration in a small town up the mountain. The closest thing that I can compare it to in the States is Thanksgiving, however Saparan here in Asia Pacific looked a little bit different.
My friend Karen and I showing off the first of MANY snacks and glasses of tea. Our plan was to visit 10 houses, but by the end of the night we had visited 16.
At each house we were ushered in, asked to sit down and eat our fill of small cookies and chips as well as enjoy a glass of hot sweet Jasmine tea.
After that we were then ushered to the "main meal" table where we were expected to put something on our plate to eat. Knowing that we were going to be doing this at LOTS of houses it was important to pace yourself. If you only ate a little bit, that was ok the big deal was that you ate something.
We started visiting houses at 1 pm and finished about 8:45 pm talk about a long day of eating, visiting and shaking hands.
As we were visiting houses of people that we were supposed to go visit other people would see us and beg us to come visit their house as well, thus that is why we ended up visiting 16 houses.
Since I have been staying away from MSG I was only able to eat rice and sweet cookies. by the end of the night I was wanting to eat something that wasn't sweet and wasn't rice. All the food smelled and looked delicious and my friends said that it was, however I didn't get to experience the goodness. However I can tell you which houses had the best rice. =)
Our little traveling group consisted of 5 Indonesians and 4 whites. This adorable girl was among our group.
All of us gals posing for a picture. The 2 Asian Pacific ladies were cracking me up! There were so many times that our host would come in the room and urge us to drink and eat and they would just raise their glasses and say, "nge" meaning ya. They were joking that you just have to hold up your glass of tea say ya and make them think you are eating and drinking. We laughed so many times as we raised our glasses and said "nge".
Or friend's son found this little beard and he was enjoying doing a little dance.
He tried to put it on Jeremy, but Jeremy was a little ticklish.
We also were given some cucumbers by one of our host, so the kids enjoyed eating those.
Deo and his cucumber.
At this house we asked to use the bathroom and were ushered through their barn to their squatty potty. I enjoyed petting the cows in the barn while I waited my turn.
Finally our day came to an end after 8 hrs, 16 houses, 15 glasses of tea, 15 small portions of rice, lots of small cookies, lots of smiling, talking and hand shaking. It really was a lot of fun, but I'm glad that it only happens once a year.
