Saturday put me on one of the few basketball courts that I know of in Manado. I wasn’t playing but a spectator to a dance competition of the traditional variety. ‘Meingket’ involves several pairs of dancers and one leader. All teams were clad in similar garments (see My Images) and sang as well as danced. I can say this is the first time that I saw anything traditional in Manado. The singing and chanting struck me as something akin to Hawaiian or Polynesian. Since Minahasa is the collection of several ethnic groups of North Sulawesi, I’m sure that a little bit of this and that was included.
The dance was the same for every group and worked on precision. The one thing that came across my mind was the fact that while some of the male dancers or drummers were young, none of the female dancers looked less than 30. It may be a world fact that the young have no interest in the preservation of culture.
The rock of the maiden is where I went the next day. I really needed to finish correcting midterms and prepping for Monday’s classes but I figured I could slack and wait until my week’s worth of vacation starting next week…
The ride we took went across the peninsula to the eastern side of Sulawesi. We scampered through a few villages and a few areas on swamp that had a good amount of bird life to accompany the trash dumping on the shore of the swamp. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture. Anyhow, we took a wrong turn. No matter, really, since it took us only a few minutes to get back on track. Eventually, we found out way to the coast, a fishing village, and some shipbuilders.
The walk to the maiden rock was all of two minutes. I’ll have the photos up soon. At another angle it looks Sphinx-y, but that’s as close to a woman as it gets. We spent a little while there, climbed another hill that looks over the ocean, and split for lunch. My cohorts were interested in eating fish head. I wasn’t game but I figured I could get something that would appease me. The fish heads were listed on the menu as coming in different sizes but the waitress informed us that they only had ‘Super’ size. Check out the photo I took before the head was eaten. These were large fish heads and I’m sorry that I didn’t put something else in the picture that would show its size. Maybe another time.
It’s another tired evening and I’m more than ready to go to bed at 7.30a. Three classes for me on Monday plus an evening try at the gym. My time off will technically start on Wednesday. The only thing I have to do this coming weekend is attend the wedding of one of the office gals. I’m also looking into the grand pastime of making novelty t-shirts. Idea #1: a black shirt with white writing on the chest—Bu-Gil. It’s the contraction of Bule Gila or Crazy Foreigner. It also has the connotation of naked. It would be funny. Idea #2: use the odd cuisine here to brag—I 8 r.w. Nothing else. It looks cryptic but it is a tourist’s brag that they ate dog meat. It’s really time for bed.