The boys pose for a picture while dad has his morning smoke before serving us breakfast. We tried to skip out early, but he insisted that we eat more corn porridge.

Morning chores. I am not exactly sure how many people slept and worked in that house, but it seemed like a lot.

With the animals fed and evening chores done, it was finally time for the people to eat. The man in the village killed a chicken (probably for our benefit), feathered, gutted, and cooked it. At nine o'clock we ate corn porridge, a little bit of chicken, and a few bites of vegetables of the leafy variety. It doesn't seem like much to Americans, but these people gave us their best, refusing to let us help. At about 11:30 we finally settled down for the night in a bed in the middle of their one room house.

Inside the house the grandmother prepares greens to feed the animals. We were a little scared when we saw the what was in the wok on the fire, but no worries, it was for the pigs. While the granmother prepared this grub, the father studied with the last bit of light that was left coming in the door. The village had no electricity so he had to do what he could.

Once within the village, we met a man and a woman coming home from the fields. They asked for some water to drink and we rested and chatted a short while in the cool of the shade. Then the villagers invited us home. Their home was the highest house in the village. This is the view from their porch.

Stairway in Mountain

This is the path we saw that leads up through vegetables. When we got to the top of one portion the village sat before our eyes, nestled among trees and rock.

Adventures in Backpacking

Our journey started out with a change of plans. We had initially intended to return to a previously visited village so that we could bring them some pictures we had taken, but sometimes I am a little absent minded, and I forget to bring the pictures. Minus pictures, we opted to just walk until we found an interesting place to stop. Coming to a fork in the road, we wondered which way we should go, and a motorcyclist came and gave us a good enough answer.
Taking the highroad, we ventured on and met some Bunu people along the gravel path. A little farther along we saw a village in the valley below us, and though we wanted to pay the people a visit, we felt it was a little early to stop, so we continued on. In our continuing on, we saw more valleys with houses in them, but we could not figure out how you were supposed to get to them, so we kept walking. Then, in the shadow of the mountain, I saw a stone stairway winding through terraces of planted vegetables, leading to someplace mysterious. While wondering whether we should ascend, another motorcyclist stopped and told us there was a village at the end of the trail. His answer was good enough for us, so we began our first climb of many.