Selamatan

The Javanese tradition is to have a "Selamatan" for your house just before the roof goes up. They hang bananas and a coconut on the second floor, and bury some kind of pot in the floor. They say a bunch of prayers, and then eat food. The process cleans the house, gives you good luck, and gets rid of any evil spirits. The ceremony took place in what will be our master bedroom.

Tika, Tika's Mom, sister and sister-in-law have been cooking for the past three days to feed the 43 workers at our house and others that were there to perform the ceremony. It was pretty cool. Tom and Butch were able to join us for the festivities.

Afterwards, we chose what kind of wood we wanted for the floors, windows and doors, and also had to decide on tile for the pool and fish ponds. We are going with blue and white tiles for the pool, and a greenish tile for the fish ponds. The tile should be installed in three weeks.