The rest of Sunday

As i mentioned in the previous post, Sunday's are truly a restful day in the village -- chores are at a minimum (ok, there's still the cooking, washing, getting buckets and buckets of water from the well), people are moving at slower speeds, and the atmosphere is more casual. In the afternoon, my dad demonstrated to the tool committee (the village is headed by a chief and is run thru a variety of committees who are in charge of some particular aspect of the city) how to build a simple saw, first from a kit my uncle Bill sent, and then with a provided blade using sticks as the frame.


I made an interesting observation during the demonstration that one of the men appeared to be deaf and that the others were using sign language (perhaps not a "formal" sign language, but effective) to communicate to him what was going on.
Meanwhile, a group of children gathered in our compound to observe the "too-bobs" (white people). We were quite fascinating to them! Some of the ladies and I taught some of the children to sing "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes", the "Hokey Pokey", "Old MacDonald", and we even got them doing an "O-H-I-O". And do you remember making those folded "fortune tellers" from squares of paper? We got them doing that as well.
In the late afternoon we headed to the field where the soccer game between the married and unmarried men was to take place. Quite interesting to note that there were trees in the field of play (in fact, at one point the ball got stuck in a tree and had to be dislodged by throwing rocks at it!). Hope did the kick-off -- and succeeded in kicking her shoe farther than the ball (my kind of athlete!). I'd been suffering from quite a cough and stuffy nose and the dust raised from the running and kicking was aggravating it, so I left early.

Sunday's dinner was "supper" in both a grilled and sauced format........and the day continued even longer! After we ate, the chief's younger brother and the women's president came over and gifted each of us with 2 pieces of indigo cloth to make a "complet" or an outfit -- for women this consists of one piece wrapped around the hips as a skirt and the other worn as a poncho. The men where just the poncho piece with pants. While we might prefer to "mix and match" two patterns, the correct way to wear a complet is to have both pieces of the same print. The "game" was that we had to find a match (the pieces we were given did NOT match and so we had to trade amongst ourselves to find a matching pair). We were then dressed (they cut holes for the ponchos) and ready to go.....
Dancing started about 9pm. The villagers fired up the generator for bright fluorescent lights on the village square. The watered the dust and started the dancing. I managed one dance before my stuffy nose and cough did me in and I made a retreat to our compound to collapse. Despite the dancing that lasted until the wee hours, I slept quite well!
I am amazed at the generosity of the villagers. They feel they have "nothing" yet they are so giving -- the time and interest they have for us is so great. I suppose it is truly a good situation when each "side" of the equation (villagers on one side, "too-bobs" on the other) believe they've gotten the "better" end of the deal, no?