Mantaaaaaaaaaab

Just when I was getting use to gringo I start becoming unanimous with Buleh. Walking down the street uniformed school children run up chanting “Buleh! Buleh!” and women grab my nose and touch their pregnant belly. All this to remind me that I am the funny looking white boy, which after a while you learn to laugh and as a brilliant man once said, simply “brush your shouldas off.” The village of Nehas Liah Bing is populated by the Wehea Dayak, with about 900 families. The village is unbelievably wonderful, the people invite you into their homes and greet you with a “Salamat Pagi” or “Ciang”. We are going to be living among the Wehea Dayak for three weeks, conducting our ethnoeocological research, as well as research pertaining to the resilience against outside influences as well as help Ethical Expeditions figure out how to best utilize their resources and energy into conserving the cultural heritage of the Wehea Dayak and the Wehea Forest. We will be meeting with BP Wehea which is one of the largest deciding factors in Wehea conservation, as well as something no one in Wehea has been able to do yet, which is speak to the Governor of East Kutai.

We were welcomed into the village yesterday with traditional Dayak ceremony protecting us from evil spirits. It had to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We were lined up in front of a bamboo alter while a dozen women in blue woven robes and the tribal chief, a shaman and two elders prepared the ceremony. The chief strode past us, having us all pat the head of a baby chick (which may sound redundant, but it was so soft and young underneath our fingers), and continue to slice its throat coating a tin plate with is ruby red blood. They dipped sixteen bracelets into the blood, and then made a small cross on our foreheads with the blood before tying them to our wrists and concluding with everyone dancing in a circle to the beat of a drum. It was absolutely phenomenal.

The Dayak culture moves at a pace that forces you to relax and take your time unlike anywhere I have ever been. Breakfast and lunches are spent sitting at a table in the kitchen watching the river flow by as women use the sediment rich water to wash their clothing. Even now I sit on a second floor deck that overlooks a dirt road. Cats meander by periodically with their misshapen tails, lightning cracks off behind some mountains off in the scenery illuminating for a moment the outline of trees decorating the far off hillside, I love that I can count eight geckos crawling the walls around me making the oddest cackling call I have ever heard, and families sit on their decks smoking cigarettes and socializing with their neighbors, cicadas and other unnamable insects chirp to fulfill the chorus of passerby sandals dragging on the dirt and people singing in houses nearby. I hate to say this, but you are all really missing out.

We were able to meet with two of the three heads of the village, talking about how the village is run and the current problems within the village and conservation of their 30,000 hectare forest. Tomorrow the biodiversity team leaves for the forest, while we conduct our research for another three weeks and meet them there. We spent the day learning about the history of landownership inside Wehea. The idea of ownership is such a weighted ideal, that it is almost impossible to define. Because of the western influence of paper wielding ownership, the lack of such here in Wehea has resulted in a multitude of problems with deforestation and palm oil plantations being fervently sought for economic means. So I am planning my ethnoecology project will focus on either the Wehea cultural relationship to land and the governance of landownership, or the relationship between traditional medical practices and medicines, and its resilience to deforestation and western influence. Ugh… I am so excited! Internet is worse than sparse, so I hope I will be able to update my blog often. I miss y’all.

Your Pa(u)l