The annual tongue lashin’ extravaganza is on in earnest tonight, as the boys from the temple round the corner have donned their best temple T-shirts and bandannas and chewed a frightening amount of betel nut in order to do their very best work tonight. The drums are beating as I write and the crackers seem improbably close, seeming to burst just beyond our door. Virg and Mary are cowering wherever they can, the noise just too much for them to bear. Luckily this strange and cacophonous event takes place but once a year: the delirium of the betel nut boys just builds and builds till later in the night when some brave (or foolhardy) of their number lash their tongues with special forks, drawing blood and whirling like dervishes in their anesthetized dance. I hate to think how they feel tomorrow!
In the midst of this maelstrom of sights and sounds unusual, Ross and I had strapped our spare double mattress on top of the “Auburgino” and attempted to pilot it from our place to his. The tongue lashers had blocked nearly every street so we had to pull out all our wily skills from the years of living here to go down back lanes and one-way streets to get across the suburb successfully. Ross and Ains had been sleeping on an air mattress for a couple of nights so I said they’d be much better off with a real mattress: after all, they still have two and a half weeks!
Their apartment is stripped bare of nearly every piece of furniture, the shippers having removed the majority on Saturday. It must be a terribly strange sensation; still going to work each day as the year winds down and going home to an empty shell. At least now, they might sleep a little sounder!
I’ve been struck down by a most virulent “stomach bug” since Wednesday afternoon and have been virtually house bound. They’re great these euphemisms aren’t they? I suppose “shitting through the eye of a needle” doesn’t have quite the same ring! Anyway, I missed a number of farewell parties, but also a wedding we’d been invited to. Cass flew the Braggett flag and reported it to be a very strange event indeed. One of our Australian colleagues was marrying a Taiwanese woman (educated in the States, a fluent English speaker and a member of our faculty) and the ceremony and reception were quite a mix bizarre of Aussie and Taiwanese. Many dishes of suspicious origin were served and though many people tried their best, it was fare wasted on the western contingent present.
We’re just hanging in there at the moment…very keen to get home. Photos are all sorts of early tongue lashin’ stuff; the boys were just moving to the various staging grounds around the suburb at this point in the afternoon. Now, the fireworks are barking non-stop, gunpowder lingers in the air and the drums beat on…it’s going to be quite a long night!