What Did September 23-24

We cooked our dinner on our second night. We made crepes, pancakes and lettuce wraps. I learned later that this is popular, traditional meal but people don't have it often because it takes so long to prepare. First, we ground rice, water and turmeric together into a batter and chopped green onions for the batter. Next, we moved from the canteen into kitchen stocked with small clay fire pots. We put a layer of oil on metal pans using a brush made out of some sort of branch.Then, we scoop a dollop of batter onto the pan and swirl it around to make a thin layer. The pan is very hot at this point and I slightly burned my fingers. Next, we placed the pan on the stove and put bean sprouts, carrots, tofu  few other things inside. Once the crepe was cooked, we had to fold it while it was still over the fire. I don't know how the cooks do it because the smoke from the fire was overwhelming and stung my eyes. We also made tiny pancakes with the batter, coconut sauce and beans-these were my favorite. To top it off we had wraps with three different leafy greens, mint, the contents of the crepe and a special sweet sauce.

We talked with some university students after dinner. They are friendly, funny and extremely hospitable and giving. They are all studying English but most are at a beginner's level. They invited us to hang out in the dorms that evening. We asked where they lived and they pointed ambiguously at the forest. We couldn't find the right path around the forest so instead we walked towards the sound of music playing in the opposite direction. We walked for quite a while in the dark and crossed the street and the river when we thought the music was sounding closer. Still following the music, we walked through a random corridor with rooms on either side. It turned out to be a student dorm. Looking back, it was extremely rude/sketchy/imperialist/etc to just walk into a home on a whim without invitation/knocking/any prior knowledge of who lived there. Anyway, the students there spoke almost no English but were able to communicate that the music we heard was coming from far away, despite how loud it was and how far we had already walked. Sound must travel differently out here. It is a good thing that we didn't keep walking in the same direction because we found out the next day that the rice fields were exactly where we were about to walk through. We deliberated outside the dorm and decided to stay there. The students were really excited to meet us and they presented us with coconut candies. They were disgusting but the gesture was extremely kind considering the way we barged in. A few gestures later, they got the message that we wanted music. Somebody brought in speakers and a laptop and we danced. Naturally I was the life of the party. Their favorite song was "Gangnum Style." They also love "You Belong With Me"-Taylor Swift, "Set Fire to the Rain"-Adele, "Thriller," "The Chicken Dance," and "Call Me Maybe." They didn't recognize the Beyonce song I played. They took pictures and videos the whole time and there were two boys who could really dance well. They loved it when I flipped my hair. Once we were too hot and too sweaty, we decided to go home and back to bed. It was only 10 o'clock or so. Time doesn't exist here. We wake up around 7 am and it is pitch black by dinner time (6 pm) at the latest. We start our nights out around 7 pm and are in bed well before midnight save for the last night. The days feel incredibly long and we are able to fit several activities into each one.

The next day, we learned about the Women's Association, a group that has meetings and raises money for healthcare and loans for women who want to farm. It was nice to hear that the communities care about empowering women. We visited two households of female farmers and they both had received helped from the Women's Association to get started. The visit was really awkward though. The women had not been briefed about our visit and the University students kept answering questions for the women and the women kept asking us to compare their tiny homes to the homes we have back in the states. One of the women was scared to talk us because we were too beautiful. After the visit we played soccer in the dirt/mud with the University students. I've really lost my touch. I did help out defensively a few times though. I was all too happy to transfer over to the volleyball courts. I'm pretty good and it was a lot of fun. That night we hung out in the canteen with more University students. We had a bunch of fresh fruit and drinks and they taught us a traditional dance. The dance was basically walking around while moving our arms up and down in an alternating manner with our palms open. We taught them a traditional American dance, the hokey pokey.

this boy could move