Klieng Cot Aron Inauguration

Yesterday was the inauguration for our building project of 230 houses in Klieng Cot Aron. That is why I haven't posted much for the last week. I've been busy preparing for the ceremony. Good to have it over though.

To start with, we butchered two goats the night before to feed the people working on setting everything up. Nothing like watching 2 goats get slaughtered. The sound is indescribable. If you ever want me to demonstrate it, ask me when you see me. Goat sure tastes good when done right though. This is a picture of cooking the goat meat during the night. When they butcher an animal here, they just chop everything into small pieces. I mean everything. They go right through the bones and cut up the stomach and intestines. I don't much like the stomach. It tastes a lot like vomit. It is interesting that the men did all the cooking all night and through the morning. I asked them why and they said that the women only new how to cook small amounts of food. When cooking for large groups, the men always did it. I didn't argue.

Next up at 4AM, they slaughtered a cow. This is the unlucky beast. Sorry for the blurry picture. It was at night with no light so I couldn't get the camera to focus. I was planning on showing up and watching them slaughter it but when I woke at 3AM it was raining so I couldn't ride my motorcycle there. Too bad I had to sleep in.

So they started cooking all morning till about 11AM. This is a picture of 1/3 of the meat that came from the cow. They made a soupy dish called gule (goolay) that is eaten with rice (of course).

Gule has some coconut and cut up jackfruit or banana as well as other spices that I'm not sure what they are. Sure tastes good though. This is the men cutting up the jackfruit.

Once they had everything cut up and ready to go, they cooked it in these huge cauldrons for hours. Rice was cooked in giant pots about 3 feet tall. This is four of the six puts of meat cooking. In all we fed around 700 people for lunch at the celebration. We went a little, um, over budget but it was a lot of fun.

This is what all the fuss was about. 230 type 36 houses for the community. Everyone was very happy to be celebrating receiving all these new houses. One of the things that I am very proud of is that the house we are building is one that I would be willing to live in. If not, I wouldn't be so happy to be giving them out to people.

The ceremony started with the usual song and dance routine. I thought it was a little weird at the first ceremony I went to but I've grown to like it a little. This one was unique because the music was played live by local villagers as well. Usually it is the same recorded song. There was also religious prayers and lots of speeches. Mine was in Indonesian and I'm still not entirely sure what I said but I think it was good.

This is me and the new Bupati (District Leader). Being rather young still it is often difficult to get respect in Asia from government officials who don't believe I really am managing the project. They often want to talk to my "boss." That is how it started out yesterday but after a little while they realized that I really was in charge and things livened up a little.

The lieutenant governor and I unveiled a plaque to commemorate the occasion. We also handed out the certificates to the beneficiaries and cut a ribbon on the example house.

After the ceremony, we toured the village. On the left is the Camat (Sub-District) representative, Pak Kecik (Village Leader), lieutenant governor and me.

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'm glad its over. Now to get back to construction...