China May 2009-5

5:55 p.m. Thursday
Today was a day of rest. We had a light breakfast and devos before we headed out to the tea factory. We got to see the history of tea making, we got to try some, and then we bought some. We headed for lunch-where we sat on tiny stools and I ate a chicken tail. Walk down the hill to our entertainment of the natives dancing, singing, and making us join them in various things. Everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us. The most handsome guy of the village was single and 21-I got a picture with him.
We traveled down another hill to see the agriculture and waterbuffalos! It rained a little bit on us as we traveled back up the hill. It was refreshing!
Now I'm sitting, waiting for dinner in the same place that we had lunch.
(not written down in journal-recall from memory)
Alrighty, so the various things that the villagers made us do were: we had to 'hop' with them through these bamboo poles, spin tops with them, dance, and then we sang with them. An amazing few hours.
The waterbuffalo licked my arm, probably because it was salty. One of the villagers sat on the buffalo--it was like seeing a rodeo--that buffalo didn't like it at all!
The handsome, 21 year old, heartthrob of the village graced us with his talents of voice and guitar. Pretty amazing!
For dinner, up at the same place we had had lunch, they served us watermelon as an 'appetizer'--lots of watermelon. And then we sat down to an awesome meal that they had prepared for us. And before we were done eating a group of the villagers came around to our tables with shot glasses full of rice wine--they wanted to toast us, three times! It was an interesting flavor and toast...I didn't understand anything but Sunny was right next to me translating and Cindy was also translating from across the table. The villager was thanking us for coming on our day of rest to their village and for allowing them to make us lunch and dinner. They were so greatful that we were there and that we participated in the activities with them.
We also decided to toast...some in English others in our group did Mandarin.
After the toasts everyone agreed to sing, again, to each other. We sang them the doxology--in English-- and some other Christian songs. The officials were right there, listening to us. Amazing! The villagers sang back to us some of their tribal songs and popular ones sung in China. It was truely an awesome experience.