There was a harvest festival today, “Ruwahan”,,, something similar to Thanksgiving… and I think in every town, the local people gather together, bring food, pray together, and then divide the food up & take it home to eat.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got there; if this was a Muslim tradition or a Javanese tradition; or that I would be giving a speech (=

Apparently I am the first bulé (westerner) to ever attend this event in pak Parjiman’s hometown. Ha ha. It was an honor to be there amongst all the locals- and they were all very friendly & curious about me. The village elder handed me the microphone after leading the prayer ceremony- and I introduced myself for about 10 minutes in Bahasa Indonesia. (=

It’s a funny observation, but the thing that stuck out to me the most about them, besides their friendly & calm expressions,,, was their hands. The men were mostly all farmers, working the rice fields all their lives. Men & women easily in their 80s sat all around me,, and there was a quality about their hands- you can almost see their entire lives in the wrinkles & wear of their hands,,, bent from years of working the earth.

This ceremony took place in the local cemetery actually. (huh!)

Another thing I noticed was that there were both Christian graves & Muslim graves (separated a little bit, but together none-the-less in the cemetery). Pak Parjiman pointed out that not everyone here were Muslims, but that the community was open & friendly enough to bring everyone together. The prayer was a Muslim one.