Up bright and early, as usual, for a fun day of cultural immersion in the Mountains of PNG. It was cold last night and quite cool during the day which is a nice relief from the lst few legs of our trip.
First up today was a demonstration on how to make a mumu - a way of cooking vegetables in a pit of hot rocks. Since people here are mostly vegetarian, this is an almost daily ritual for the tribes and results in a unique and flavorful meal for a large group.
First you build a wood fire and heat the rocks so they are red hot. In this case, because it was raining, we all started choking from the smoke!
After about an hour, you take the hot rocks and layer them into a pit lined with palm leaves.
Next, throw in an assortment of corn, taro, sweet potatoes and plantains, add some pork fat, cover over with the palm leaves and piles of grass.
Once covered, leave for an hour or so then undo the whole thing and eat the cooked veggies. Yum.
Along the way they were more than happy to pose for photographs.
While the mumu was cooking, we next got a (smokey) archery demonstration.
After a short break for tea, we were treated to a Sing Sing - a celebration of dance & music kitted out in traditional costume.
First up were the women.
Followed by the men (and one woman, guess which one).
Musically, it was a lot of banging and wailing. Visually, it was spectacular. I have omitted any pictures that shows members of our group posing with the performers since it makes them look a bit ridiculous.
Busy morning, time for lunch. I’ll tell you about the afternoon in the next post.