Had a bit of a busy weekend this weekend, what with being invited to so many local events as VIPs. On Friday morning, after the weekly Keep Fit session - which this week was aerobics, and saw about 60 members of staff, us 3 included, prancing about to some really bad dance music on a patch of mud, surrounded by tropical plants - we went up to the next village, Talunongko, for its harvest festival/ thanksgiving. We went with a few Kaliandra staff, who have a very large presence and influence in the community and had to attend for PR purposes. As is customary, we firstly met the head of the village (and were fed, obviously) and then moved on to the pendopo (meeting place - equivalent to a village hall), where all of the village's offerings had been collected, and were made to sit at the 'head table' and yep, you guessed it, eat again! We then traipsed up a hill (see photo), following all of the men carrying their offerings (which their wives had prepared), until we reached the water spring that supplies the village with its water. We then all sat around the offerings whilst prayers were said, and were then asked to eat. Again. The thanksgiving ceremony is a combination of Islamic and the original Javanese religion's (closely related to Hinduism) beliefs. Thanks are made and prayers said for the forthcoming harvest, and the continued prosperity of the water spring.

After the ceremony in Talunongko, we had the one in Gamoh ('our' village) to attend. This time there was no taking of the offerings to a spring, but instead they all went to the village leader's house. We were asked to sit in the head of the village's house, along with other important villagers and the Kaliandra staff who attended, while most of the village residents sat in the road. A loudspeaker announced things like how much money had been raised over the past however long since the last get-together (for the purchase of land on which to build a community centre - i.e. pendopo) and then the prayers. Then, of course, we ate.

In the evening we got on motorbikes and zoomed back up to Talunongko where lots of people not just from this village but all around had gathered for the celebration. We were sat at the top table (although I think we were the second most important attendees, after the head of the district) and ate (!) fruit and peanuts and weird jelly creations whilst listening to/ watching the gamelan and traditional dancing (see photo).

On Saturday, Sis and I went with a group of local women, with whom I conducted a focus group last week, into the fields to see the kinds of crops that are grown. This turned out to be not very useful for my 'study', but interesting all the same, and actually a bit of a hoot as it turned out to be what was essentially a shopping trip for the 4 women. Firstly we helped two women who were working harvesting chillies (see photo), until, after about 15 minutes, the women who we were with started just filling their pockets with chillies instead of putting them into the collecting buckets! We then moved onto a patch of sweet potatoes, which the women dug up with great enthusiasm and put into a bin liner sized bag. Next came egg plants and cassava (which involves actually pulling up a whole tree to get the roots).

In the afternoon Sis and I went to a nearby village, where an internet cafe has been set up, and then down to the nearest big town, Pandaan, to do some photocopying and print some photos. I'm really loving riding around on the back of motorbikes, but zipping around the roads in Pandaan on the back of Sis's bike was a teeny bit scary. We have a joke going where we say to whoever gets a lift on Sis's bike "see you tomorrow" in reference to the time it takes him to get up to Kaliandra in comparison to everyone else! But the scariness of being on a bike in Pandaan was no reflection on his driving, just on the way in which it is normal to nip in and out of traffic - and not just for bikes but cars too.

On Sunday we had a leisurely morning (I didn't get out of bed until 9am!) and then were picked up to go to another neighbouring village, Tambaksari, for a coming of age party. It was a bit weird because all we did there was sit (and eat) on a table by ourselves, and then leave about 45 minutes later. Apparently the boy who the celebration was for is the son of someone quite important, and all of Kaliandra's staff were to be there at some point during the day.

Research, sorry, study, is going fairly well, if a bit slowly, but today Sis and I have created a more complete research schedule, so we both know what we're doing when. I did one really good interview last week, following on from the focus group, with the man who walks up the mountain to collect mlandingan (those garlic-flavoured peas). This week I have an interview lined up with someone who collects geckos from the wild, which are then used for medicinal purposes.

As for the rest of the week, well we're having a holiday on Wednesday and Thursday! The three of us plus our three counterparts (Sis, Sugi and Udin), and maybe Agus, are going white-water rafting on Wednesday (with a company part-owned by Agus), staying overnight in a small town, and then climbing Mt Bromo (the most famous volcano in Java?) to see the sunrise on Thursday morning.