Cultural Night

The evening of 14^th August 2014 was a much anticipated day for both the volunteers and the tepuqs. It was the night specially allocated for our cultural night.

Preparations leading to the cultural night started days earlier, all of us were thinking of what to present to our tepuqs, we wanted something fun and exciting. Upon agreeing on a very interesting song which actually started as a joke. The song was ‘Why This Kolaveri?’ by Aniruth. We began our dance practice, and surprisingly I was told to lead together with Tharunnia, for someone who doesn’t know a thing about dance, like me, I knew mayhem was about to happen.

All of us prepared to get dressed up and some of us brought traditional cloths to wear for the night. I brought a long red jippa (Indian male clothing). Everyone looked extra good that night. We had our dinner earlier and there were little bit more variety of food because it was a special night.

After dinner, everyone gathered at the long house. To my surprise all the tepuqs were dressed in beautiful traditional kelabit attires. We took our seats and the ceremony started with a speech delivered by Rhonwyn, our cordinator followed by the presentation of kabuks (Kelabit necklace) to the volunteers of Project WHEE!. Kabuks are special necklaces, they are treated with honour and giving them as presents to us means lot. Tepuq Ribet has a special kabuk just for me and I received it proudly and was very thankful to her.

My team mates; Ai Jin and Yan Chuan.

When it was time for our dance performance, we walked into the side alley of the long house waiting to make a surprising entrance onto the stage. The song started with a slow tune that was our sign to move in gracefully with the beat. Only few seconds past, the song picked up its pace and we all started rocking in our traditional costumes. Everyone there seemed to enjoy it lot and were cheering for us too.

After our exciting performance, came the performance from the tepuqs. They started with an elegant hornbill dance performance by the women of the long house and followed by strong warrior dance performance by the men. Both the dances were unique and hold their cultural elements in them. All of us were given a change to try out the Kelabit traditional dance, for some it turned out well but for some it was an awkward moment.

Our bonding with our Tepuqs became stronger as we laughed and mingled. Unfortunately for us it was our last night together as one big family in the long house.

My tepuq (Tepuq Ribet) & I in our traditional outfits