Spiders, Spiders Everywhere...

Day 20 ("Emma's leadership" as she so kindly wrote in my journal!)
Brassieres! After another night's wonderful sleep on our matresses in rooms with not much else in them, we were off into the jungle again! This time armed with spades and other digging implements! Our task (no choice whether we choose to accept it or not) was to build a "road". Yup, that's the word that was used. As it turned it, we had to build a path... out of dirt! With hoes! It wasn't really hard work with all of us taking turns - it was harder walking there and back!
So we moved earth on a steep slope, digging up cicadas and other weird bugs, and rejoining the two parts of the already-existing path again. After our slogs came lunch, courtesy of the rainforest! Bamboo and fern was the order of the day, lovelily cooked by the women of the village who had just appeared! Sitting on big leaves by the river, this was a tasty and quite watery lunch. Longboats revved along the muddy-brown river, cicadas chirrped loudly and we were surrounded by green. I now felt as if the rainforest was home!
Today's work finished early, and after the walk back to the village, we had the afternoon off. What better way to spend it than sunbathing in the tropix?! It's not as if we could go retail shopping or to the cinema! The sunbathing was futile, as I'm not really going brown... probably more lobster-esque!
Back in the longhouses, we had some cold water showers in a spiderweb infested, dogs and chikkens peering in, fusty "cellar"-like area. It was downstairs, out of the way... by one of many toilets, which coincidentally were also fusty holes in the ground! But I'm not really complaining - it was a great experience! As shower shifts continued, we practised "The whole world" for our involuntary performance at church tomorrow!
Then came dinner! It was now customary for the village head (or other significant other community member) to start meal time with a prayer. The second he finished, he did a simple hand gesture and us lot charged up to the dinner table and tucked in! It must've looked so funny, and I only hope that the villagers thought we loved their food THAT much... and we did! It was more tasty, tender wild boar tonight, and mmm... sugary tea/coffee... and PLAN water. All this came with piles of rice and other various odd foods. It was now also customary for us to douse our rice in soy sauce. Every night, the bottle was tipped upside down and squeezed as we coated our rice in the stuff, using up all their hard-to-come-by supply!
Everyone was very much a happy bunny and night settled in as the lights went out. Cereal was thrown and chaos insued!

Squat-pooing is fun!