Day 15: New Years!

We hope everyone had a wonderful new years. With many prosperous wishes for you and your family's health and happiness in 2012.

Yua brought in the new year with full force! We were very fortunate to have been able to share this day with them and experience more of the Yuan way of life. The day began once more in the pews of Yua's open window church. Another three hour service, and lucky for us, Steve (the traveler from New York) had to dance for everyone just as we did.

After the service, we went straight to the water plaza in hopes that we could get the water running for this special day. Unfortunately, once the proper connections were made with the solar panels, the pump still didn't run. So some further troubleshooting will be necessary. We didn't have enough time to continue, as we had to go back to SWOPA and prepare for the afternoon's big event!

The program for the ceremony began two hours later than planned, but that is to be expected in the timeless days of village life. There was a small arena made, encircled by chairs containing the elders, us, and Steve. Everyone else filled in the remaining chairs and the area around us. Once seated, the assembly man announced that we would have to get up and walk over to a small clearing to watch an impersonation of a tribal fighting scenario. Two men dressed in nothing but a diaper and sash of animal skin (and tennis shoes of course). They pranced around shooting arrows at each others feet. They held the innocent expression of concentration and excitement one could find on the faces of young school yard boys in an intense game of Cowboys and Indians. It was quite a show, and when they shot arrows at a nearby tree we all cheered when the target was successfully hit. This is when the appearance of the drumming group caused us to return to our seats. They thrilled us with a performance and set the evening's background music (James, one of the plaza workers among them). There were also several speeches that followed, an expression of thanks to Engineers Without Borders, with intermissions of female dance groups. Their dancing was feverish and strong. As Kate mentioned to me as an aside, which I found interesting: “its curious how dancing here resembles working, while dancing in the US seems to be more of an expression of sexuality”. Regardless, it looked like so much fun. One song had even been written for us and I noticed Veronica, the wife of one of the elders among them. How special!

Then came the EWB return speech; Matt, Moses, and I walked forward to the elders and I said a few words of thanks followed by Steve. The drummers got shooed away during the speeches so the crowd died down. As we waited for the program to continue, we began dancing with the small children.To our surprise drummers had returned and a large crowd had formed around us. Moses jumped in and grabbed my hand to pull me into the midst of the group and we danced! Oh was there dancing! It was thrilling. Next Max got pulled in, and that boy sure can move, it was the talk of the evening. 

Anna

This is blog post is approved by Belinda.