This past Thursday evening 40 days of fasting was coming to and end and a 3 day party was getting ready to start. Around 10pm all the surrounding neighborhoods paraded down our street with homemade drums, large paper mache "floats," fireworks, and lanterns. We sat on our bench on the front porch and watched hundreds of people walk by our house as they celebrated the ending of Ramadan. The night continued to be filled with fireworks and the HUGE noise from bamboo cannon. Imagine about ten 12ga. shotguns going off at once, only a few feet from your front door, and you can begin to hear what the bamboo cannon sounded like. I'm surprised our windows didn't blow out! You could actually see the concussion wave of the explosions. They also ignited many homemade bombs, built of palm reeds and gunpowder. They will get your attention when they go off!!!
Friday we had a few scheduled places to be. Per tradition, most Indonesians open their home and visit all of their family and friends. Some stay for only a few minutes and then leave; others stay for hours. We were invited by both of our helpers to eat a whole meal with them. In the above picture, the young woman in the black shirt and pants is one of our helpers. Her name is Ibu Kusni. (Ibu is essentially the word Mrs. but always used to address a woman) She and her husband live with her parents. After sitting in their front room eating snacks with her dad, we were soon invited into their "living room" to partake of a huge spread of food laid out on the floor. Tradition here has the guests eat as much as they can while the hosts actually leave the room. We sat around on the ground wondering how to eat this elaborate lunch while our hosts just lurked around the corner. It was beyond humbling to be shown such respect and honor, but it wasn't the last time we would feel that way over the course of the weekend.
After eating at helper #1's house, we were invited to helper #2's house for dinner, Ibu Tutik. Once again, they pulled out all the stops and had a large assortment of food. Although we had a table to sit around at this house, the floor was still dirt. The tradition of serving a large feast and then disappearing as your guests eat also proved true at this house. Again, we were humbled as our hosts were giving us the best they could afford.
Saturday evening we were invited to one more home to eat. This family has been incredibly gracious to us. Pak Jono (pak is essentially the word Mr. but always used to address men) has already been priceless in helping me with my language learning. A few times a week I will go over to his house and he always has a patient and encouraging ear as I struggle to communicate the simplest things. He and his wife have showered us with love and gifts already on numerous occasions. Yet again as we ate our meal, we were humbled to realize the type of food we were eating, and the honor of being invited into their home to share it.
We have never experienced any holiday like this one. It would be comparable to an American Thanksgiving and Christmas all wrapped up into one. But even that description fails to portray accurately what this weekend has been like. Tomorrow, we will both begin school again; I will start unit 2 and Rebecca unit 1. We are excited to start school again and we are already blown away by how fast our time is going by here.
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