In Bulileka Village ... .

Welcome to Bulileka village.  Villagers decorated the common area to ensure a spirit of warmth and festivity for the students arriving from USP.  We had tea and sweet baked good freshly prepared, and then retired to our respective quarters within the homes of our assigned families. 

The stove-chimney for the wood cooking-fuel is prominent in this photo.  A little girl peers out of the kitchen window at the students gathering for their tea.  You can see that the house is slightly raised to avoid flooding and that it is well constructed, mainly of wood except for the corrugated kitchen.  Around each of the houses, families have planted flowers – ixora are common.  My family-hosts tended gerbers.

A common house design with the bedroom front window and the kitchen-addition on the right. Breadfruit (the leaves in the foreground), mangoes, and coconut were planted around the village.  The mountain view in the background was breathtaking.  A river runs between the village and the mountains range, though much of the fish that was cooked was bought from the market.

Just another view of the well-kept village, Bulileka.

In the lull after arriving to the village on our first day and returning to the community hall for dinner, the boys of the village took to the pitch to challenge our USP students.

Home cooking - a feast laid out for USP Geo students.  Cassava, fish, and chicken pilau.

The villagers took turns preparing meals for the USP group, each clan taking turns.  I ate some wonderful savoury curries and tomato choka, with roti, cooked in that iTokei village.  That just goes to show the multiculturalism, tolerance, and diversity of the place.

Lobo.  A packed lunch provided by our hosts for the long journey home.  This is taro roasted in an earth-pit oven with taro leaves and coconut milk poached in a banana leaf.