Tribal Trip

On November 12, I was part of a group that helicoptered into a tribe for several days.
In the tribe, we stayed in the house where two of our party grew up as missionary kids. They had been asked to get running water hooked up to this house and the neighbouring one, so they set up a gravity-feed system to run spring water to the two houses.

There are no missionaries living there now, but there is a firmly established church which has formed many other church plants in the area. There are Bible teachers and literacy teachers in place, and the local church is growing! We had the opportunity of attending church on Sunday morning and visiting with several of the church elders.

While we were there, we spent a lot of time sitting & visiting with people. Well, visiting is maybe a bit of a stretch, for me. Quite a few of the tribal people spoke at least some Indonesian, which meant that the others in our group could all communicate with them. I did not speak any Indonesian, so my communication had to take the form of smiles and the occasional giggle. It was amazing how well that worked, though! A smile can say a lot, especially when accompanied by tender eyes and a gentle hand on the knee, which I received from several of the women.

We also hiked around a little, seeing the gardens on steep mountainsides, houses with woven bamboo walls on stilts, chickens roaming, children playing tag and something that looked very similar to mercy fights, men carrying water up from the river and women carrying babies. We saw wild poinsettias & morning glories, centipedes & snails, and groves of chocolate trees.
We bathed in the river, and enjoyed the good life. :)

On November 15, most of the group left the tribe by helicopter. Only two of us were left, and we went up to his friend's place for supper and the night. We ate rice, noodles, ubi (cassava), papaya, and chocolate fruit. Chocolate is one of the main cash crops there, and it grows in an oblong fruit. The seeds are dried (roasted?) and later ground into cocoa. As it's growing, though, the seeds are encased in a thin layer of white fruit, which can be eaten. It tasted pretty good, though not at all like chocolate! :)

We visited some more, then the men settled in one room & the women in another (actually, I had my own little loft bed/room, which was quite luxurious) to sleep.

We breakfasted there in the morning, then returned to the house to pack up & head out. We (along with another man & his little boy & their two chickens) hiked out of the tribe, then caught motorbike taxis for a short way, then got a rental vehicle (complete with driver) to bring us the rest of the way home, getting back late afternoon.

It was a really great experience!