Catch my ball and I will marry you!

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Corrine talked me into skipping a realxed Sunday at the pool for a Few Year's Festival in November...

And it was worth it. One of Corinne's students belongs to an ethic minority group called Hmong. He invited her to come and celebrate their NY Festival. She asked me to join and I eventually gave in. And it was sooo worth it...

We took her bike and made our way to his village, which is around 40 min out of town.
They had put up tents and stalls on a big field and were playing with "that" ball. All the unmarried young girls and women were dressed up in their traditional costumes and group/tribe (?)colours. It is a special time so everybody was dressed up real nice. Tons of beads, jewelery and high-heels(on a field!--> looked stupid to us, but they really knew how to control those killers...)

Well, the idea of the game is to keep throwing this "special" tennisball at the opposite sex to start a conversation. If you are interessted you keep passing it back and forth, if not..you simply throw it to someone else.
We had a few shots but backed down real quick (there is nothing like giving a false impression!).

C.'s student introduces us to his brother's family (he himself is from a village a 3-days walk away from VTE and staying with is brother while studying). It was then, we got put into this akward touristy situation. "Try on our clothes and take some nice pictures" Great!

A couple of hours followed, where we simply kept talking to the vilagers and watching the young ones play the game. (It shouldn't really be called a game-you can end up getting married..!)
Apart from throwing they sometimes start singing traditional songs. But not together, it is more a showing off your skills. We saw/heard 3 people out of which 2 were girls (and I have to admit I wasn't too turned on by the guy's performance..)
It was interessting to pick out who really liked someone and who didn't but did not want to be impolite. One girl was trying very hard to get the attention, started singing and always threw the ball at the same boy...but as it happens-->he was into her friend!

Cool day, but it did get boring after a while. I am quite happy I don't have to rely on this ball procedure to find a man!

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