We left on Sunday night, and the trip was an adventure in itself. In addition to the conversation and various forms of transportation we took, there were a few “firsts.”
Part way through the trip we had to get on a bus that would take us to the town closest to their village. When we got on, there was plenty of room so we had to wait awhile for the seats to fill up before we could leave. 15-20 min later the seats were full and we started to pull out. However, the general rule here is that “there’s always room for one more.” So when several people started running towards the bus to get on, the rest of us were asked to make room.
I’m sitting in the front with one of my friends, and he starts asking me to scoot over to the next seat. I look and all that’s left is the driver’s seat, so I’m a bit confused and am wondering if I’ve translated everything correctly. I smile and jokingly ask if he wants me to drive, but about that time the driver gets in and starts asking me to move over to the seat next to him. All that’s between us now is the gearshift, so I’m still a bit puzzled. Finally my friend grabs my knee and lifts my leg saying “here, like this” and it’s at that moment I realize that the “next seat” is the gearshift itself. I’m supposed to straddle it so we can make room for another person in the front seat! I have to admit the whole situation is a bit comical, but after riding like this for about an hour or so with the driver shifting gears every few seconds, the amusement has worn off and I’m ready to be a bit more comfortable.
Fortunately we arrive in town just a few minutes later and head down the street to where someone is supposed to be picking us up—only he’s not there. No problem. Everything here runs on “rubber time,” so no one (including me) thinks much about it. Instead we do the typical evening activity and squat on the side of the street for a chat. After about 30 min or so someone shows up with one motorcycle. One of my friends gets on with the driver and disappears in the opposite direction of his village saying only: “stay here.” I again laugh to myself thinking that there aren’t any other options and proceed to squat again and chat with the remaining friend. I asked him if he knew what was up, and all he said was “he had to go get something.” After another 30 min or so, they show back up with a small sack and say “ok, lets go.” Including the driver there are now four of us, and once again I’m a bit puzzled and just wait for an explanation. About that time a motorcycle taxi pulls up and one friend gets on, the other friend tells me to get on the bike with he and the original driver. So for the next 30 min or so the three of us ride one motorcycle up the mountain. The comedy doesn’t end there, however, because there is only one set of foot pegs for a passenger. They want to make sure I’m comfortable, so they insist I use those. The problem is that my friend is uncharacteristically tall for the people here (meaning almost as tall as me) so he has to stick his legs straight out in an upside-down “V” to keep them from scraping the ground. It’s obvious that no matter how “normal” all of this may be to him, it’s definitely not comfortable, so I get him to bend his legs back up behind him a little, and we make the rest of the trip with me holding his legs up by the ankles.
We finally arrive at his village, and despite the late hour several people come out to meet us. Most of these are the teenage and college-aged friends of the guys I came with. They showed me their humble, yet very comfortable 4 room, bamboo walled house and gave me the room with the mattress. My friend (and the 8-10 other guys) all insisted they would sleep on the wooden floor in the main room. That, combined with our dinner, also helped me finally figure out the earlier mystery.You see, during the trip, my friend had asked me what kinds of food I usually ate. It seemed like a totally innocuous question, so I had answered it straight out. However, as we sat down to eat dinner that night, there was only food for my friend and I—not the 8-10 friends or the older sister and her husband (at whose house we were staying). Then I realized that the chicken we were eating was still warm, but the rice was not. So apparently when I mentioned that I usually eat chicken, my friend realized that they wouldn’t have any in his village so he had gone into town on the bike earlier in order to buy some!
Then there was the whole issue of bathrooms. In the traditional houses in the village, there aren’t any. I like camping, so this really didn’t bother me in the least. At the same time, when it came time to “go” I wasn’t sure where. I very discretely asked my friend and he yells across the yard to his sister saying: “Mr. has to ‘throw away big water’ where can he go?” One guy then runs off to the neighbors house (apparently they have a restroom) and then an escort is found to take me there and wait outside until I’m done to escort me back the 100-200 feet to my friends house. This of course became a very humbling trend for the weekend. They gave me over and above their best so that I could be comfortable. All this, of course, was despite my best efforts to reassure them that their normal lifestyle was more than sufficient, and that I enjoyed just living life the way they do—even if it wasn’t exactly “normal” for me.
Other than getting to meet everyone, experience life in my friends shoes, and share some with a few of the local guys that have now become my friends too, the highlight of the long weekend was probably eel “hunting.” I say “hunting” because I’ve decided that capturing animals with no real threat of danger means you just add “ing” (fishing etc.) However, if weapons of some sort are involved it’s called hunting. The weapon of choice for this particular style of hunt is two electrified metal poles that are connected to a motorcycle battery carried in a homemade “backpack” made out of a plastic jug. That alone might not be sufficient to call it “hunting.” However, the method is to wade through knee deep mud in a flooded rice field, stick the metal poles into the same wet mud you’re standing in and pull the trigger to electrocute any eels that may be between them. The eels are then stunned and float to the top of the mud. After that you simply reach down and pick them up and put them in your sack before they come-to.Now I’m not yet totally crazy, so I knew enough to think that this might not be such a good idea. At the same time, they assure me that they do this nearly every night and are quite experienced. “But if you’re in the water with the poles, can’t you feel the electricity?” “well yes…but only if you stand too close” So I make a mental note not to get any closer to said electrocutionary device than the feet of the guy operating it, and we are off. After a few minutes, I realize that the real danger has nothing to do with the electrified poles, but running around between the terraced pools on 10 inch wide dikes in the dark—not to mention that the mountainside is so steep that some of these are 10-12 feet or more above the next one! Oh yeah…and did I mention that these guys do this every night so “running around” is a quite literal expression and I have no flashlight?
Drama aside, it was an incredibly fun cultural experience. They thought it was hysterical that the “albino” wanted to try, and found it funnier still that I was able to keep up (after a significantly slower introductory period). We ran around the rice fields for over three hours and eventually had a few pounds of eels that we brought back to the house. Everyone was sleeping when we arrived, but now that the “hunters” were back they got up and helped prepare the meal. One guy went and got a few banana leaves to put on the floor to serve as our table/plates, another heated up some rice and poured it out on the leaves, a third guy made up some of the hot chili pepper paste that they eat with everything, and a fourth guy fried the eels. In 15 min we were all huddled together on the floor stuffing our faces with a traditional meal complete with meat. It was a grand event!
