On Wednesday morning we went out into the hills to get some more video of palm sugar production — the guys climbing up the tress to collect the bamboo tubes full of saguer from the night and so forth.
I got a little bit before the stupid camera decided to flash ”DEW ALERT” and shut down for an hour. This has happened just about every time I’ve tried to use the camera in the early morning, and there isn’t really anything I can do about it. It’s chilly at night, then it gets warmer in the morning and is quite steamy — it’s just how it is.
This meant that I missed a few important steps of the process, and also when a woman came past carrying a young banana tree (for replanting) in a basket on her head I couldn’t get a photo of her. I swear it was a metre tall. A hat that would be the envy of every marquee at the Melbourne Cup. She stayed chatting for about 10 minutes, didn’t take her tree off.
I spent most of the rest of the day at Om Bert’s house. We’d invited a notoriously funny storyteller, Om Niklas, down from his hut in the hills, so I shot a couple of hours of video of a bunch of guys collapsing in giggles. I foresee heavy use of the @ character (laughter) when transcribing.
I also got them to show me the directional system (again), with associated gestures. The one in the picture is taná ‘west and/or downhill’.
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