You have GOT to read this one.

I broke the ice BIG TIME with the people who live on my street today. I was walking home from the orphanage in the early afternoon, and passed by a whole bunch of people crowded around. There was a guy playing a drum really loud and a bunch of shirtless guys sweating profusely. They had formed a small dancing circle, and they would put someone in there who would just go nuts. It wasn't really any sort of formal dancing, it was just shaking your arms and legs wildly. They were like "the kid!" and put this small kid in the circle who went nuts. I was watching with curiosity, and they were like "get in here!!!" and put me in the circle. I went crazy, arms flinging wildly, having a great time. They cheered like you wouldn't believe. They thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Which actually they probably don't have. Seriously though they went nuts over it, everyone trying to shake my hand, old and young alike, big smiles all around. Others danced in the circle, then they put me in there again. They put a red vertical line on my forehead, which I assume means "he's white but we met him and he's cool".

I was like, I HAVE to take some pictures of this craziness. I went home, got my camera, and came back, and this was an insane experience. They saw my camera and they wanted me to take pictures of everyone, and I mean everyone. It turns out that this whole thing was a family having some sort of holy celebration, carrying this big flower-adorned god figure down the street with incense burning, and taking it to a small temple by their houses. They took me down this one lane, where the big gathering was. All these guys were grabbing my arm really really hard and forcing me to take pictures of their families, friends, children, etc. There were fights over who I should take a picture of next. There was so much grabbing and craziness and I had no control over what I pictures I could take, they just forced me to take pictures of everyone! It was sooooo much fun and the people were really awesome. Everyone tried to crowd into every picture and they went right up to the camera despite my pleaseto the contrary.

Then they were like "take pictures over here!" and we went to this one area and they took me to this one lady who saw me and was like "NO photos. NO." Apparently Professor Buzzkill wields a lot of power because at that point everyone was like "uh, hmmm, I guess it's time for you to leave dude."

Also, I finally learned why they keep the dried cow pies. Apparently that's the horrible burning smell I've been wondering about lately, which is to say they use them to cook.

I will post some of the pictures later.