Hey friends!
Sorry for a week or so without any Blog entries…. after I got home from the UK, after an amazing time at The Stand event, I got flu! So that’s my excuse for not writing for a while!
Today I was catching up on reading my friends Blogs, so I jumped on Biscuet.com. He had written a story about our mutual friend Stephen Proctor. Stephen is in the middle of Nowhere right now, working with a tribe and shooting a documentary.
Check out this amazing story… it reminded me how amazing technology truly is, and how I can take it for granted so easily… Check out the wid-eyed response of these tribal folks, when they saw Stephen using iChat.
Here’s Biscuet’s account:
“Today i was at home between my classes checking email and resting up after four straight hours of teaching. Out of nowhere i get a call on my computer from my friend Stephen. Stephen is in Indonesia. He’s doing some filming for a project that i don’t have many details on. Instead of botching the details, i’ll just leave it at that.
So Stephen calls and says, “Guess what.”
“What,” I say.
“I’m sitting on a porch in the middle of the jungle with about 40 tribal men gathered around listening to your voice on my computer.”
“WHAT??!!” I say again, but much more enthusiastically than the first.
“That’s right,” Stephen tells me, “Say ‘Aba.’”
Hesitantly, i slowly say, “Aba.”
Then, out of nowhere i start hearing a bunch of voices shouting back at me, “Aba aba aba aba aba!”
This means “hello” in their tribal language. This was incredible. What a cool opportunity. Here i am in Beijing, China talking to a tribe in the-middle-of-nowhere, Indonesia. Most of the guys i was talking to have no concept of the outside world. I’m serious, these are the kind of tribes that you see on the Travel Channel. It was nuts!
After a few minutes of talking to Stephen he encouraged the whole tribe to sing one of their tribal songs for me. Are you kidding me? Is this really happening? I started scrambling for some sort of way to record what was going on, but i came up empty.
After a few more songs and some more small talk with Stephen we decided to cut it off. As we were saying bye i think the tribe guys figured it out because i started hearing all of these guys start shouting, “Aba aba aba aba aba aba.” I guess that means goodbye in their language too. So, while they are shouting, “Aba” at me of course i am sitting here on my computer shouting it back at them. It was unforgettable to say the least.
I just hope the Chinese guy that lives next door to me couldn’t hear me through the wall. They already think the foreigners are weird enough. The last thing they need to hear is a foreigner shouting, “Aba aba aba aba!!”
So there is it! That story totally inspired me today….. You can check out Stephen’s travels at:
And Biscuet’s blog entry on this story: http://www.biscuet.com/general/aba-aba-aba
Share your thoughts and comments below!
Vicky
