Hospitality nation.

In the last day, I've been fed in five different houses, six different times. The last house, the Aunt of my friend cooked for over 20 people at lunch and then cooked again for 7 of us this evening. It was delicious and plentiful, and apparently effortless. Her husband mentioned that he'd done the washing up (whilst the ladies went to the market to get more food!).

Last night, I went with my friend to a Bidayu village where there was a big Gawai celebration going on. Gawai means festival, and traditionally happens around the harvesting of rice to give thanks and set spirits on good tracks for the season to come. It's warped a bit, as most things have, and now involves a lot of drinking and eating, and apparently gambling, and children letting off hand-held fireworks and staying up long past their bedtime. I wish Minstead had Gawai when I was a youngin'. So, we went along to this village. I thought I'd only be force-fed beers, no dinner or just barbeque pork, but instead was invited into four different homes, given fours different yummy dinners (and there was cake! of all types of bright colours), and four different brews of sugar-cane tuak (alcohol). Mr Incredibly-hospitable #2 laid out infront of us (whilst two trained elders were putting together the final touches of the spiritual offering of the house) a 20 year old brew, a 10 year old one, and one he'd made this year. We (had to) tried all of them, ofcourse. It was delicious, especially in contrast to the beer or warm Guiness that was the alternative. The 20 year old dark brown thick sugary goop had my favour.

Once there were no more houses that could have invited us in, we wandered to the down-town/village area where it was at. It = the Gawai house and hundreds of jolly festive people milling around, some knowing where they were going, others not going. In the Gawai house, a group of Priestesses (sacred women chosen by the spirits) were swinging on a long swing chanting, awaiting their period of trance. These women, mostly late 50s and above, had been swinging and chanting for hours. I saw a few asleep on the floor behind (where amongst the bags there was one by Louis Vutton), so perhaps they took it in turns....but still, exhausting. And they're on display the whole time. The Priest gentlemen on the other side were meanwhile drinking Guinness and smoking cigarettes. Stating the obvious does this incredible culture a dis-service though. I was told to go up from the bar to have a look when the schedule read time for Calling the Spirits and the gongs started....but when I went up, all the sacred people were sat having a tea break. At least it wasn't a diet coke break. So I went back down and continued pretending to drink my bottle of warm Malaysian Guinness. Very kindly Mr Incredibly-Hospitable #2 went on a tuak-hunt for me, appearing from the Gawai house with a glass of the sweet stuff that I gratefully enjoyed. We were meant to stay until 4am to watch the Priestesses go into trance, but tiredness overcame us at about 3am and it was probably better to let the slightly drunk tired designated driver call it a night than stay out for the spectacle. Funnily(!?) enough we got stopped by the police on the way back. They asked where we'd come from: "the kampong" (village), "OK-lah", they replied, and sent us on our way. No breathilizing. Just a smile. Oh, Malaysia. So very different from my country.

Back to foods. Also very different from my country. No cereal in 5 days, but one can get used to noodles for breakfast, somehow. I'm enjoying some delicious vegetarian food, many with exciting little bits of camouflaged fish and chicken in. When in Rome....which is quite a welcome excuse for some omnivory actually. I was given two pineapples a few days ago from the pineapple-on-peat rural development project area where we interviewed one fellow. They were delicious. (As an aside, you can apparently do a test to tell whether palm oil has come from plantations established on peat. Apparently this allows the Europeans to differentiate. I wonder if the Europeans know about this.) These people are generous, as are most people when you are a guest, I suppose. And when you have white skin amongst a darker crowd. Not to be exploited. I was told I could pass as a Kelabit today, although would need to tone down the blonde and paleness quite a bit.