The River Village

Our adventure today led us to a traditional river village outside of the city. The director of the orphanage has a relationship with this community and so he took us here along with some of the orphans.  Our team loved the time spent with these kids outside the orphanage.  It was like a field trip for them.

This is a place that still has the look of what many people think of when they think of Sumatra.  There are rickety houses, chickens and goats roaming the premises, lush green fields and even water buffalo.  That’s right, water buffalo. 

The people here live off of the land.  They farm peanuts, collect rubber sap from rubber trees to sell, and dredge the bottom of the river for sand that they then sell for construction purposes.  It was a very picturesque setting along a slow moving river, complete with several young naked boys swimming in the river.  Think “National Geographic.”

Today was also the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.  For this reason we could not bring water or snacks along with us.  It would be very disrespectful to eat or drink in front of a fasting person.  So to beat the heat the kids waded into the water up to their knees to cool off. 

It was a fun cultural experience for us and since we only spent about half of the day here it was nice down day for the team to be able to relax and recharge.