Twilight Zone

Surreal is how I describe my village experience this week. It was so weird that I do not quite know how to explain it. It began as any other: We walked around a village and then were invited in to eat dinner and spend the night. The husband was the only one able to speak the common language so we could only smile and the woman and little children. He invited us to sit down and fairly quickly served us a meatless and riceless dinner (this is very common here because they do not have enough water to grow rice, only corn, and they are too poor to eat meat). After eating we sat on the porch and watched the children while they ate and the man and woman finished their chores before dark came. It soon began to rain (for the first time in 3 months) and then. . . it continued to be very normal. They started getting ready for bed and settled us in to the master bedroom to sleep. They had no electricity so they said that they normally go to bed as soon as it gets dark, so 8:30 and we were in bed. So, this is when the surreal happens. They did not go to bed. More people began to arrive and the house got louder and louder. A man began to sing or chant and he continued for quite some time. Falling in and out of sleep, I was not sure of how much time had passed. I looked at my watch and it was midnight. The fire was still going in the main room and it was still loud. So all through the night, in and out of sleep and dreams I fell. I was never sure whether I was sleeping or awake for the singing and chanting worked into my dreams. I dreamed or consciously thought that the man must be chanting to the spirits to make the rain stop because it was ruining the corn. But the man kept singing and then and strange noise like something being pounded or shot began and then continued. I looked at my watch again, 2:30. When were they ever going to go to sleep. So the singing and shooting noise continued, and then the sqealing noise of a pig about to be slaughtered (a common sound to my ears, but at this time of night with singing going on?) Amidst strange dreams and strange sounds, laying on a wooden board, I somehow slept until we were shaken awake at five o'clock, "Chi Fan" (eat). They had never gone to sleep. I asked them why and the girl said, oh, we don't like to sleep. So by candle light we ate pig fat, rice, and soup. I was glad that I could barely see my food, though I was able to tell that at one point I put the teeth of the pig in my mouth. That was so strange. Did they sacrifice the pig, have some kind of ritual ceremony during the night? I have no idea. Then we set off into the morning drizzle to climb the mountain back to reality. And wow! Glory it was beautiful walking through the fog on the mountain peaks.