Winding Down

Two more days and 4 performances to go.

During lunch, Genee and Cha came to sit down at our table and I noticed that Gen had a look of dismay on her face. Apparently, one of the S. African guys showed them a condom and said "for later". She totally lost her appetite. Ed was at our table too and he got pretty riled up about it.

He talked to Vivienne, the unofficial leader of the group, about how we were being harrassed. It seems that the culprit was always the same guy...his name was Danger. The other guys, I believe, misunderstood friendliness for flirting and backed off when they understood that our intentions were not what they thought.

Well, Danger got in trouble and both Vivienne and the S. African Director apologized profusely for their actions. It's sad how just a few people can ruin the reputation of a whole group....that's how stereotypes and prejudisms start. But it was good to finally get it addressed...Thanks Ewa!

This afternoon we performed at the Handicraft Fair with S. Africa (always our tour buddies) and Thailand. We did Pagapir, Asik, and Singkil. Tin was now feeling really ill and stayed back at the Hostel for this performance. I did the same thing she did the 2nd night and accidentally wore my jazz shoes on stage. It didn't seem to matter though, since it was such a small venue.

While others went shopping, I pretty much ventured on my own and found the internet cafe that I wrote about in the beginning of these posts.

Tonight, we were the 6th to perform. We did Magigal/Paunjalay, Sagayan/Barong Talo, Asik, and Singkil. Kuya Rudi decided to perform Paunjalay with Gen. And again, he added Sagayan/Barong Talo that morning. Man, the boys were just getting thrown into it all....but all great decisions on Kuya Ruds' part. We didn't have the skirts, shields or swords, but they still improvised it all and it turned out great! They even hit all the shoulder jumps.

Although we performed Singkil in the smaller venues, this was the first time we did it on the big stage. Man, what a rush!!!! They absolutely loved it! To quote a Lithuanian friend..."what you guys do is amazing. You are the best." And a S. African friend, "we cannot compare you to anyone else here because you keep doing something different every night!"

Tonight was the last Nations Night, and it was so much fun! Brazil closed it out by hosting a Samba night.


When we came in, they put paint on our faces with the Brazilian colors.


The tables were loaded up with fresh fruits and some sort of Limoncella drink.

They started off by mocking each of the dance companies. We were the first. They had a girl dressed up in a "maria clara" dress doing lapay, jota, and itik moves. The guy had all these tin bowls taped on to him, like the maglalatik coconuts and had a tin man hat like the jota hats. The musicians were playing pots and pans in the background, like the gangsas.



They cracked me up when they did Easter Island. The peeps actually carved one of their gods, called Maoi, out of a log while we were there.

The Brazilians dragged a log on stage and took it behind a screen. They started up an electric saw and started throwing sawdust everywhere. In the end, they brought out their finished product, the size of our barrel man.

Here are pics of them mocking S. Africa, pretty self explanatory


Thailand, with mangalay nails and a fire eating guy



and Lithuanians, as heavy drinkers


They also had a King & Queen of the Festival contest...except we had to change sexes around. So, we did Salidsid with KC and Paulino. All I have to say is KC is one brave woman!



The PEEPS won for the King, and the Brazilians won for the Queen.

It was a really fun party and I actually didn't go up early that night! It also seemed like the hormones were on high alert that night as there was a lot of interracial love around us...mainly the PEEPS with the Brazilians and the Liths.