The students were happy to see us and practice their English (they learn 4 languages in school - Balinese, Indonesian, English and Japanese) and I'm sure we caused a bit of havoc for the teachers. They gathered at the front to sing for us - we were surprised when they started with Old MacDonald and You are My Sunshine - then their national anthem.
Four of the older girls performed a wonderful traditional Balinese dance for us.
We were escorted around the village by a local tour guide; they have made a business out of displaying their community to visitors. We were served "breakfast" at a compound (where they live) which consisted of sticky rice balls with banana, banana fritters, and some other delicious foods which are hard to describe. Bamboo is used for many things here (musical instruments, artwork) but it is strong enough to use in building. They use it to support the concrete beams in construction such as shown here. This is a new community centre that is being built.
We walked around the village and over to a rice planting demonstration area. Although you see the cattle below pulling the plow, this technique is not used much any more, machines are more the norm.
After the rice is harvested and dried, it is pounded to loosen the husk, then winnowed using this technique of tossing it in a basket to separate the rice. They still may process it this way, but more commonly, someone in the village has a machine to do this.
Our final lesson for the day was a visit to Tenganan, an ancient Balinese village, one of only a few still in existence. This particular one had many crafts such as single and double weaving (ikat), basket weaving using a rattan-like reed found only in that area, painting on palm leaves, mask making. All in all a very informative school day for us!
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