Christy got to travel to a local village with a friend of hers on Tuesday of this week. There are about 800-1000 people who live here. It's only about 1.5hours by bus from our city so it's easily accessible. It was a VERY cold and dreary day, with a threat of snow, but we bundled up, put on our rain boots, headed out and had a very fruitful day.
This is a picture of the village. The yellow things in the trees are piles of corn drying.
Here is a family hard at work in their courtyard. This is a large, but typical style, home. There may be one or more families living here. Most of the homes have a front door that opens to a spanish style courtyard in the center of the home (no roof) with all the rooms off the edges. Quaint!
We walked into the main gathering place in the village to discover preparations for a wedding feast!! They were hard at work to prepare for the 900 expected guests!!!
Two of the four pigs we saw being slaughtered.
The meat was actually steaming because it was SO fresh! I thought it had just been cooked or something but my friend pointed out that it was smoking because the meat was a warm 98 degrees and it was about 40 degrees outside!
HARD work!! They were pulling and tugging and it took two men to carry the meat after it was removed from the bone.
Headless pics and a gutted goat
Oh, there are the heads!! Sitting right next to the pot of tea, chives and intestines (or brain - not sure...)
And here is that gutted goat. He smiled for the camera :) There are a total of three heads and one body in this picture. Didn't see the other bodies....perhaps it was a three-headed goat
A group of volunteers sitting around waiting to be called to wash and cut veggies
Let the games begin!
My friend talking to the ladies about washing the veggies.
Some sweet old ladies that invited us to come to the wedding to watch them dance the next day! We told them we couldn't come so they invited us to their home instead.
My friend getting a good laugh in
Here we are in their home surrounding a coal fire pit, watching them cross stitch and eating sunflower seeds
Aren't they amazing?
More corn drying
This is what they do with the corn after it dries out and they harvest the kernels - they use it for firewood! Which is how we kept warm while we told stories to a lady and her children
More corn!
This village was particularly beautiful because of the drawings on the walls of the buildings. Looks as though these people are worshiping the tree? Perhaps...
Man with goats. This was before we found the slaughtered ones. But I think these are just cousins.
