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Another morning of roosters. Confused roosters. Really a rooster only has two jobs as i understand it. Contiribute to the continuation of the species and wake up when the sun rises. These roosters are seriously confused, not only does the sun not rise at 3 am but it does not continue to rise from 3-9 am.
Roosters aside, the day went great! We woke up and had breakfast, the fluffiest pancake ever. And fried pineapple, now that they know about Jana's allergy to life, they humour her regularly. She loves it.
After breakfast it was time for some hard work. No slacking on this vacation. First we went to see a weaving demonstration from a local woman. All the local women weave ther own tribal clothes, those of their family and sometimes for tourists. (We were each give a handmade tribal shirt). Each piece is made by hand with a very basic loom and requires about 10+ hours of work. After that we loaded into the truck with Sisun, our mahout (it is considered rude to ask someone's name here so we call him "the mahout" just like everyone else) and the man who never speaks but seems to think we are very funny. Mostly he just laughs at us and smiles. He seems friendly for being non-verbal around us.
Work: Elephants eat about 150 lbs a day of bamboo, sugar cane or whatever else they want. Since Masumai cleaned out her favourite grove we had the task of chopping down green bamboo, bundling it with bamboo sticks and bringing it back to her. Jana was given a machete, a dull one, but still a machete. Every man here has one, they keep them in their Karen man-purses, it's all very masculine. Mahout, Sisun and silent man hacked down bamboo, Jana cut it down to size and I bundled and loaded it in the truck. It took about 75 minutes to get enough. We were all scratched up and stained orange from the red dirt. We proudly returned to the village to pile up the fruits of our labor. The village women thought we were hilarious, what would a woman do with a machete? Especially a dull one?
We had a wonderful lunch at the lodge, again they fed us way more than any normal person could eat. Then Jana went to lie down as she wasn't feeling well. Sadly that's mostly where she stayed for the next few hours. Time out for Jana to recover from too much Thai excitement!
I, however, continued as planned. I went down to the river with the mahout and Sisun and we gave the elephant another bath. Less enthusiasm from Masumai this time but it was still fun. Given her repeated baths, Masumai was now officially cleaner than Jana or I. After her bath, Sisun and I climbed on board to ride her over to the next Karen village, about 90 minutes away in elephant time, so maybe 2 km.
That's where "Yaw" comes in. Masumai had eaten much of the 160 lbs of bamboo we had cut while we had lunch, the plan was for her to eat before we left so she would be less distracted on the ride to the other village. But as has been suggested, Masumai and Keebler have a lot in common, both are stubborn, selectively deaf and food focused at all times. 100lbs of food be damned, she was going to stop and eat whatever she wanted even if that meant dragging her riders through tree branches and pricker bushes constantly. "Yaw" is a Karen elephant command that means"stop doing that". It's about as effective as telling Keebler to stop stealing gum out of Jana's purse. It never works.
So a few scratches and cuts and one very slow and bumpy ride later we arrived near the village. Now "just a little walk". For some reason Karen villages are in a valley and yet somehow still require a hike up a steep hill to get there. I was led to a Karen home and climbed the steps to enter a family home and sat with the family. It turns out this was the home of the village's medicine man. We were introduced (lots of smiling and head nodding) and we settled in for the blessing ceremony. The ceremony involves sticky rice, a glass of (bottled) water, 2 hard boiled eggs and some white string.
The medicine man put rice and part of the egg into my palm, closed my hand over it and recited the blessing while wrapping white string around my wrist. He then tied it off and instructed me to eat the egg and rice ad drink the water. He placed the cut loose ends of the string on my shoulder and said a few more words before doing the same for Sisun. The blessing is done at the beginning of a new year to promote health, happiness, long life and good wishes. It was an homour to be a part of the ceremony. With the way my last year went I am happy to start this new year with such good wishes from someone so respected in his community. This would not be my last blessing ceremony of the trip.
After the cermony ended and many thanks were said we went back to find Masumai for another long ride home that involved more tree branches. When we got home I was glad to see that Jana's time out was well worth it as she was starting to feel better. Seeing Jana feeling better, Sisun put us both to work again. This time it was rice pounding. The Karen people grow all their own rice but before they can eat it they must pound off the husk and seperate it from the grain. Needless to say, that was now our job. We dutifully pounded rice until it was deterimed that we had done our job and we were released until dinner.
By dinner time several other people had arrived at the lodge (previously we had mostly been the only tenants). Most were not very friendly but we struck up a great conversation with Bat, the tour guide with the other groups. He was very friendly and enthusiastic and we talked to him for along time over dinner and after. We have been invited to visit him in his village next summer to come plant rice. Apparently it's a big deal and lasts all night. Being invited to perform free labour might not seem like much of an honor but considering his village has no guest houses we would truly be welcomed as family friends into their home.
Then, exhausted but happy, we climbed into our awful beds for our last night.
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