July 13: Indodana

We all met up at 10 this morning at the hotel we’ve chosen as the usual spot and got on the bus, today along with our host families. The main destination for today was a vast marshland with a cute little zoo on the side. The zoo was adorable! There were peacocks, chickens, and some cute little bunnies. After the zoo, we piled into three different boats to take a tour of the marsh.

Enahm with a souvenir from the zoo!

Siveny and Jemima interacting between boats

Amazing marshes and wetlands.

Aaliyah and Kristen relaxing on the boat.

Luke, Helena, and Somachi on the boat ride.

This hour and a half was a beautiful, peaceful excursion. We even learned about a buried city underneath a large plant-less section of the marsh. A long time ago, an entire town was flooded, and the remains are still there, far beneath the water. Next was lunch, and following the bus ride back to Metkovič we had a couple hours of free time with our host families before we needed to leave for the night.

Carmen and Kimani and our dessert!

Meeting up again, we piled onto the bus towards our next stop: the little tourist town of Gradac. Before arriving in Gradac, we stopped at Paula (our tour guide)’s aunt’s roadside stand. There, Paula’s family sold homemade olive oil, jams, juices, and other delicacies. There were delicious sweets - dried figs, candied almonds - as well as (apparently) fantastic brandy for the adults on tour.

Paula's family's organic stand.

Many singers, including myself, bought more than a few things here. Following the best pit stop so far, we went on our merry way to Gradac.

We arrived in Gradac, and went right to one of the many fantastic museums. It slightly small, only the size of one floor of a house, but it was filled with so many different and interesting items. One of which was a machine that taught children how to walk. It was a hollow wooden rectangular prism that was about a meter long (yeah I’m in metric now) with a small, square piece of wood with a circle cut out of it lodged in one of the faces of the prism, so that it could move from one side to another. It works by putting a baby in the hole on one end of the prism, and placing a piece of bread on the other side of the prism. Then, because the town is poor, the baby fetches the bread. That is exactly how it was explained to us and I thought that it was... interesting. There was also some three-stringed triangle guitar, which was also cool.

After the museum we went just up the street to the church where our concert with another choir was being held. It was as a beautiful church up on the top of a hill. We rehearsed some, and chose a program that was a mix of both secular and sacred. The concert started with an opening message thanking us that we’re singing instead of doing drugs or alcohol, and then the other choir performed while we waited outside—because of the large number of people crammed in the church. While waiting for the choir to finish their set, a thunderstorm rolled in, and it started to rain on us, so we ran around the corner to a dryer place with binders over our heads, trying to keep from getting too wet. It was pretty hilarious as we were all thinking “Oh no, not this again.” After patiently waiting in the rain for the other choir to finish, we hurried inside to keep from getting even more wet. The thunder occasionally interrupted our performance, causing the lights to flicker once, but it wasn’t too much off an issue until one of our most sacred, and many people's’ favorite piece, Indodana.

Indodana is one of the prettiest and most moving songs in our set, and right at the climax of the song, the lights went out. We continued on singing, and everyone in the audience turned on their flashlights and lit up the whole church. It was one of the most magical moments, not only of this tour, but my whole life. It was truly spectacular.

After the concert, there was a lot of hugging and crying, and a couple of impromptu songs. Then, everyone went and got their stuff, and went to the bus, and ate a LOT of pizza (Siveny ate 17 slices!). And that’s how our day went. Hope you enjoyed! :)

-Andrew & Eva

Singer of the Day: Enahm, for his calm, cool and collected leadership during the blackout.

(p.s. Sorry about the late publish! The singers had a bit of trouble finishing this one.)