Gresi

We headed out to Gresi, the language closest to Kemtuik, for an indigenous praise and worship gathering.

Ethnomusicologist friend Erin came with her husband, baby and middle daughter Allegra, which was fun for the boys. We stopped at a lookout on the way..

..and then picked up Pak Jacob. Here I am with his daughter Bertha and granddaughter Esther Kalvaria.

The band: drummers and singers. The guy on the right is leading.
These ladies were the first up to dance.

After a couple of hours of singing the band took a break while various people spoke.

There was an interesting mix of greetings, community announcements and a sermon.

This is how the kids kept themselves amused during the long speeches: Allegra does something sensible and educational, Soren and Reub chew plastic and pretend to be elephants..

Jacob has a bit of a gift with babies, and we welcomed the break from holding her. Why didn't we bring a stroller?!

More dancing and then lunch at about 4pm.

Allegra finally managed to convince Soren to come in for a quick dance. He coped well with the day until about 3pm, when he had a meltdown and needed lots of hugs and reassurance, overwhelmed I think by the noise and intensity of the singing and dancing, us being pretty unavailable and the fact that lunch was delayed a few hours and we had run out of snacks!
Reuben goes in for a solo, typically unfazed.
Lovely brand new squat toilet. The boys are now very adept at using one without peeing all over their clothes.