Monday

Greetings :)

Today was a special day!  As I said earlier, we were invited to participate in a special event today.  The first part was preparation of gifts to the Gods.  This involved  a lot of what we call "crafts"  They make very intricate and complicated  items out of banana leaves, palm leaves and flowers.  I have taken several pictures and when I download them I will pass along.  While this was taking place, the men and other women were preparing various foods.  I have never seen, heard of nor eaten these things before.  They definitely do not throw away anything.  The chickens were prepared several different ways.  Some parts were boiled over fire, the feet were trimmed and boiled for broth, the hearts were us for blood which they used to fry chopped chicken parts (?) with shredded coconut.   Whole chickens, with head were put on sticks over an open fire pit.  All the vegetables were boiled  and they were delicious.  They had prepared everything with special spices and I really couldn't tell you what all.  They do use a lot of garlic.  They had some kind of potatoes that were yummie and of course huge pots of rice. 

After everythings was cooking and the gifts to the Gods were made we drove to the start of the trail and hiked back in to the  Water Project Dedication site.  The women came carrying gifts on their heads and a "Holy Man" came to bless and dedicate the clean water.  The women and a couple men very carefully placed all the gifts and lit inscense sticks.  It was very interesting, even though we couldn't understand a word of it.  We then hiked out and went back to the lunch celebration.

The lunch celebration was great!  There was probably 75 people there.  Maybe 15 families with extensions.  The water for the project will supply clean watet to 33 families.  I ate everything except the dishes with blood and the stuffing from the fire roasted  chickens.  It was very good!

We didn't make it to the work sites today but will go tomorrow.  Surprisingly, this all took up the day and we didn't get back to our hotel until 5 pm.  According to the local Habitat people, this was a special priviledge and we are happy that we got to take part.

Tomorrow morning we are going on a dolphin excursion before we leave for the job sites.  Some went this morning and said