A Friday

On Friday I had an invitation to one of my colleague's homes. I was told I was expected to be there for the entire day. I made up some excuse about how I had to spend my holiday sleeping in, and scheduled my day accordingly. When I arrived around noon with mishty tied to my motorcycle, I was promptly fed a variety of snacks including freshly squeezed lemonade, noodles, custard, and shemi. The children of my colleague all ate with me, because they refused to eat until I arrived. I could tell they were hungry! I was told that they were up at the crack of dawn waiting for me too.

The day continued with chats with the women, and being paraded around the village complex and farmland with the children. Every ten minutes or so food was brought before me and I was forced to eat. This wasn't a bad thing though - everything was delicious. We also had cultural performances by the children with harmonium, singing, and dancing. Every five minutes we were knocking down some new fruit or vegetable out of a tree - fresh olives, tamarind. I was nearly crying from the sourness, and then they would bring a green chili to "help" make it easier to eat. The kids of my colleague were extremely mischievious, and I can understand how they turned out so. They took me on a walk through their fish ponds and rice field - right into a mud puddle. A few of them fell in and got covered in mud, which drew the entire family (fathers, aunts, grandparents) to start yelling at them to get out of the field and back to the house.