Dunda Village, Part Two

It took some persuading to get the Indian girls to dance, too, but they finally did, and actually showed two dances. Unfortunately, I can't get my videos to work right, so you'll have to ignore the arrows.

Next they talked about games. This India girl showed a game similar to jacks, where she had five stones and tried to pick them up one at a time while tossing the first one in the air.

The African girls were excited at this, as they have a similar game. One drew a foot-wide circle on the cement with a stone and put a large number of small stones in it. When they tossed the stone in the air, they quickly pulled a small bunch of them to the outside. Then pushed them back in. They gradually moved more and more stones until they couldn't get them all back in with one push.

I was a bit worried about the path back down to the car, so when the others went off to tour the rest of the village, I took my time heading down the hill. (That was probably a mistake; I would have had time to do both.) I saw some freshly cut small leafy branches on the path and looked up. This woman was up in the tree cutting them for fodder. I said hello and she turned around, smiled, and talked at me. I couldn't tell what she was saying, but I tried to act friendly!

Looking back up toward the village, I saw some women returning from their grass-cutting job for the day. Grass is gathered for fodder. It is stored hanging in the branches of trees.

The college-age village girls posed with the Africans for one last shot. They all seemed to have a great time getting to know one another.

The road was extremely narrow near the village but we got through it all right. Then we came upon a truck with men gathering fallen rocks at the side of the road. He pulled forward a bit and tried to convince us we could go around, but it was clear (to me at least!) that there was no way we could make it -- not only was it too narrow, but the edge was very crumbly. So he finally pulled forward to a somewhat wider spot and parked very close to the uphill side. We did manage to get around and head on our way home. Later I learned that this was an illegal operation; the fallen rock belongs to the government and these men were probably going to use it in construction or, more likely, sell it.

We were very fortunate to be included in this village trip. It's an experience I hope we'll never forget.