Singapore

Ok. So I'm on my last night in Singapore and I'm in the hostel on my own eating porrige for dinner for a very good reason! For starters, I have eaten so many different types of food over the last 5 days that the thought of going out and getting some sort of Asian cuisine was too much for my poor stomach that has been eating white rice and fish twice a day for the last 5 months! And I didn't want to break into my chocolate just yet, so the only other food I have is porrige. Well, I also ate my last banana. As to why I'm on my own - it's actually a lot less tragic than it sounds. Most people have already left, or gone out for the night. There's only one other guy and me in our room of 10 beds. It was actually funny, cos last night due to the placement of his bunk compared to mine I thought that I had the room to myself, so when I got home after dinner with some friends, I was getting into my pyjamas - luckily not the full strip - but pants at least... Lets just say thank goodness I have the bed space behind a locker, and I can't remember getting under the covers so quick in my life (other than when you're mucking around at night as a kid and your mum comes in...)
Anyway.
Sngapore. I really love it. Here are the reasons.
It's not too expensive.
It's easy to get around and transport is inexpensive.
It's very clean (except for the smokers).
Everybody speaks English.
There are probably over 100 malls. There are 38 on one street!
You can getnany food you like.
So basically, and don't get me wrong, I love Indonesia, but this trip to Singapore was really a trip to somewhere that is very much not Halmahera. Which is exactly what I wasn needing!

This place is one of of my favourites so far. Maybe it's a case of right place right time, or maybe it's all of the above points, but I've been to a few cities in Europe that wouldn't compare to Singapore. The train system is excellent for starters. The longest I have had to wait for a train here is 4 minutes. At night, day, weekend, any time. You never have to run for a train, or plan your day around timetables. It's unbelioevably convenient. And while we're on convenient - I was at a church here with 20,000 members, of which there were probably 8,000 in attendanc that morning. For communion, they have prepackaged biscuits sealed in on top of the juice cup. You get one on the way in to the church. Bam. Communion to 8,000 people in one hit. Faaantastic!

Part of China Town where I was staying. (Looks a lot prettier at night with the lanterns on, but photos turn out rubbish.)

Like I said, night photos don't turn out so great, but this is China Town and my hostel is immediately on the left behind the shops.

One of the shops under my hostel - souvenirs galore!!

There are an infinite number of reasons for the names of these biscuits... I was just happy to see them on the shelf next to each other.

Bam. Biscuit and juice in one clean package!

I think the other factastic thing about Singapore is that my old high school friend, Ellen, and her husband, Agung, live there with their 3 year old son, Dylan. So, instead of visiting some of the supposed attractions for tourists, I spent a lot of time hanging out with them and they spoiled me rotten! Every meal was a delicious experience and the company was great! I always said I hated traveling alone - and that was before I had even tried it! But now I knew it. I would seriously prefer hanging out with a friend over seeing some sights in a country on my own. I went down for a walk to the river front to see this famous 'merlion' ( for those who don't know - this is a lion with a mermaid tail.) Yeah, ok. It was pretty, with a the lights on and the pretty bridge etc, but I had no one to share it with. I took a couple of photos, but they're not really like the real thing. So after the cursory photos, I turned around and came back. Because there's no point hanging out somewhere out of tourist obligation - I'm much too old to be worrying about that sort of thing! All of that story was to inform you all that I have learned some interesting things about myself!

The night lights on the river - Singapore really shines at night (pun most definitely intended!)

Singapore's pride and joy, the Merlion (and for those of you who don't get it, it's a lion crossed with a mer-tail...) I suppose every country needs its Uluru...

Out for dinner with eyes glinting at the impending meal!

Ok, so I don't remember feeling this starved but I guess the camera captured my hidden emotions... Mmm real food!!!

Me, Ellen and Agung out to dinner (thanks guys!!)

At Christmas time the fairy lights are out all over the show. This was one set all along the entrance to one of the malls. (Once again, the photo doesn't do it justice...)

Something else I am impressed with here is how friendly all the people are. And not only the ones trying to sell you something! I've asked many a person for directions and even if they don't know, they try and point me to someone who does know. One night I was out and asked for help and this lady didn't know and said I should ask this teenager who was walking along. He had earphones in so I didn't expect much, but to my surprise he took his headphones out, put them in his pocket, told me he was meeting friends on the way and would walk me half way. And that's not all, he even made intelligent conversation along the way! I was very impressed and decided my kids are doing high school in Singapore!!

If you like natural beauty, impressive landscapes, detailed and eventful history, old architecture and a bit left of centre - then don't come to Singapore - you will be disappointed. But for a break from all of the above things and the added convenience of no flies or mosquitoes - then book a flight to Singapore. I feel fully refreshed, rejuvenated, revitalised and any other awesome re- word you can think of and will leave this place knowing and experiencing that I don't need to be in a stressful situation, or on a mission or anything more than usual to hear from God, to refocus, to redirect and go back to my place of calling knowing I'm safe in God's hands. This trip has turned out to be so much more than just renewing my visa.

Aimee

 And here are some random snippets of photo-opportunity goodness!!!

At this stage I decided that if durians weren't allowed on the trains, then they definitely weren't allowed in my stomach. Needless to say I have tasted durian, and don't feel the need to do so again. It kinda tastes like fermented onions. And I didn't even eat the flesh - I just licked it... Sorry all you durian lovers - it's just not going to happen!!

My funky, cozy hostel. To be honest, the colours were a little bit much, but it was a good location with a good feel!

Dried bananas? I don't understand who could want one of these - unless you were blind...

A taste of home. It's always cool when you find local products in a foreign country!!

You wouldn't believe my surprise to see that my Mum had met me on one of the trains! Oh the joys of camera phones! She didn't suspect a thing!!

Surviving the active volcano and 10m waterfall!!!

It’s been a long time since I made a stupid call. And it hurt. I was going to go on a trip to the volcano with the last people that went, but I was pretty sick and didn’t want to go on a 5-6hr hike and stay overnight with a head and face full of snot. So I backed out looking forward to the opportunity to go with the Careforce team. It was set. I was going. Then as the team was arriving I was in the middle of another horrible cold. But I was determined! I was taking antibiotics to try to get this thing kicked before the volcano weekend loomed! It didn’t seem to be abating, but I still had faith (? there turns out to be a fine line between faith and stupidity…) The day arrived – I had borrowed a proper pack from David and Inggun (a couple who were, at that time, considering where in Indonesia they would like to stay and work amongst the people. They will be coming back here in a week or so!! Yay!!) and in it I had a sleeping bag and an inflatable mattress, spare clothes, a small pillow and food. People laughed at me cos I had a big bag, but I made the executive decision that I would rather have a bigger ergonomic bag, than a smaller uncomfortable one. I’m not sure now if I made the right choice, but it’s one I made.

We drove about 2 hours to the place at the bottom of the mountain and then started our walk in. Already I was feeling it. My nose was running and my sinuses were hurting as well as feeling the heat a whole lot more than usual and carrying a big pack. But, I’m a second-half girl – usually it takes me between half and 1 hour to really get going so I didn’t think much about it. Until 1 hour in we were climbing up an almost vertical piece of mountainside. Then it really kicked in! This was the moment I realised I had made a dumb call and was feeling like a right fool.  Here I am. Reasonably fit, not unaccustomed to exercise and activity, struggling 1 hour into a 5.5hr walk. I was dizzy, my ears were ringing, my nose wouldn’t stop running and my heart was beating faster than I ever remember and I feel like rubbish. Thankfully Brett offered to swap bags with me for a bit and this made things more bearable. But I really think it was the grace of God that saved me. At lunch time – about 1.5hours into the walk we ate our dry noodles and I took a panadol, and spared a moment to confess my stubbornness and pride and asked God to help me get through this walk – we couldn’t turn back. Immediately after lunch the dizziness passed, my ears stopped ringing and my heart and breath returned to normal. I took my bag back from Brett and carried on. My nose was still running, but all the other symptoms cleared away and stayed away for the rest of the journey. My ears were not popping though and that was painful as we climbed in altitude, but when I would ask God to clear them, I would be halfway through asking Him to pop them when they would pop! Not just once, but at least 7 times throughout the journey. It’s a funny thought, because of all the areas of God coming in and touching my life, I never thought I would feel so close by him popping my ears!!

Finally we reached the top of the mountain and set up camp at the bottom of the volcano. It would still be about 1.5 hours up to the tip of the cone, but we would do that early in the morning the next day. After 5.5 hours of hiking with a pack (something I’ve never done before!) we were so exhausted! We explored the area a bit, checked out the sinking sand/mud stuff in the pools that had gathered when it rained. We had some dinner then prepared for bed. But just as we were getting into bed it started to rain. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the tent wasn’t leaky! It started running into our tent! And coming up under the floor! All us girls were freaking out at the prospect of sleeping in pools of water… We ran into the boys’ tent, but there were already 10 ppl there in about a 8man tent, and if you know tent sizes, an 8 man tent is probably comfortable for 6 men!! And I think the non-Australian boys were very surprised when I poked my head in and said we’re coming in!! ha ha! I do have to mention that they were drinking beer. Not for any other reason than WHY would you bring beer on a hike1?! Maybe it’s normal. I don’t know. But it’s definitely one of the more amusing moments I’ve had here. Finally the rain stopped and we went back to our swimming pool to sleep. It was at this moment that I was so grateful that I lugged an air bed and sleeping bag and pillow up the mountain because now, in our wet tent, I was going to be able to sleep dry because I was raised off the ground! Thank you David and Inggun! They had also lent me a waterproof jacket that I slept in in case it rained again. About 3 hours after I fell asleep (and that’s a VERY loose term…) there was that awful sensation that no girl wants after she’s warm in bed… Because it was raining when I went to bed, there was no nightly toilet routine and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep through til morning on this bladder. So I tried to get out without too much fuss, but lost my balance on the way out and freaked Kelly out to the max when I put my hand on her!! Man, it was funny for me – not so much for her, but good in the end cos she was keen for a toilet too! So armed with tissue paper and a torch we prepared to go bush – except that there weren’t any leaves on the bushes so cover was scarce – and the terrain was so flat there was no hiding! Some of the Indonesian guys were still awake and outside and all I could think of was if they walk this way there’s no way they could miss my lilly white rear end shining in the moonlight, ha ha! You really have to look on the bright side for moments like this!

After our little stop we went to check out what the guys were up to and they had cooked some rice, so, being a little peckish after a restless sleep we ate some of the rice, which was a strange mix of being revolting, but given the circumstances and our other options, or maybe just because it was warm, it was strangely comforting. After our tummies were fed we tried to get a bit more sleep before the 4am wake up call. This was a bit of an adventure because we were scrambling up rocks and silty paths in the dark, but if we didn’t use a torch the moon was bright enough to lead the way. After being so blindingly hot the day before, it was lovely to walk in the dark and not even break a sweat. As we got up to the top of the volcano it was just black sandy, silty stuff. Right up at the cone was the same and we had to lie down on our stomachs to disperse our weight so the edge wouldn’t crumble and we fall in to the abyss.

It was amazing and frightening at the same time! The roaring was like a huge furnace mixed with incredibly loud thunder! Inside the smoke that was ballooning out of the fire vent was lightning! All night we had seen flashing outside our tent, but I had no idea it was coming from the smoke cloud of the volcano. It was definitely something that I never imagined I would see. When we would watch volcano documentaries at school I would wonder what kind of idiots would go to these places and mess with Murphy’s law – and now I was one of them. The sunrise was stunning but in a totally unecpected way, because the landscape was so barren – it’s hard to imagine that barrenness is beautiful, and my picture doesn’t even come close, I know, but I still think it’s beautiful. You can never be bored looking at the myriad of landscapes that God chose to give us.

The hike back was so much easier. Except for the badly bruised shoulders! I ended up swapping bags with on of the fit young lads who came with us and even then my shoulders were continuously aching. But with the knowledge that halfway was well behind us it was a lot easier for me. I still needed to ask God to pop my ears, but He is faithful and continued to do so. Our problem, though, was running out of water early on the return trip. We packed what the list said, and I had a bit more than the others, but the Aussies struggled on the water front. About 2/3 of the way through the return trip we managed to ask some hunters to pick us some young coconuts so we could drink the insides. The flesh was a welcome change to 2 minute noodles too! When we finally reached the town we left our car in we went to bathe in a river. It was such a cool place where all the women were doing their washing and chatting. I’m really sorry I don’t have a photo of it! When Brett got in he said it was hot, but I thought he meant it was hot but not cold, as in the same temperature of water in lakes and oceans here in Indonesia. But when I put my foot it – it was really hot! Like, almost hotter than a comfortable bath temperature. But I was so wet and sticky that I didn’t care and got in! And it’s the weirdest sensation to have your body temp so hot and getting into hot water, but after a few seconds, it was really nice! The heat didn’t bother me at all, and when we got out it was so much cooler!

So all in all, I made it, in once piece and now that a couple of weeks have passed I have to remind myself how much it hurt, because the pain has faded and now all  that remains are the good memories and I’m afraid that if I don’t remind myself of the pain, then I might be tempted to go again sometime…

My friend Itha and one of my students, Vitro, lying down to peer into the volcano.

The absolutely amazing sunrise over the top of the cano.

Hello big cloud of smoke!! There were the occasional sparks of fire too!

The barren, yet strangely beautiful landscape in the surrounding area.

Looking in with major zoom, that is lava. Wow!

 Sorry for the long one. This one’s a lot shorter! David Hall, and Emily and Peter Krumsieg visited us for a long weekend and I have to say that they are seriously cool people! I had so much fun hanging out with them and skipping school planning to go to the waterfall which was absolutely beautiful! Give me a waterfall over the beach any day! Swimming in fresh water is unbeatable! The pictures totally don’t do it justice… This was a piece of cake after the previous weekend’s hike from hell up the volcano – 2 hours of flat walking = heaven! After we got back we stopped off to get some traditional food from a region called Makassar. It’s a soupy kind of meal where you can choose from liver, heart, lung or standard beef, mmmm. Needless to say I ordered the standard beef. It was surprisingly nice. Not amazing. But definitely stomach able.  So my last 2 weeks have been pretty amazing – definitely still loving life here – the children are learning quickly and the people who visit here are so much fun to be around. Thanks for your prayers and love! It’s less than 8 weeks until Christmas so I will see you all in Melbourne then!

I loved this section of just grass with the mountains in the background and the perfect sky!

Peter is jumping off the waterfall. He's 2.05m tall! All the Indonesians looked like kids compared to him.

The Indonesian guy, Enda, is over 20 years old but looks like a kid, ha ha ha!

One of my friends, Yulisa

The tall one on the left is unnaturally tall for an Indonesian, ha! The other two are amongst the taller half of the population.



And just like that * I'm into week 11!!

It’s a twofold statement when I say I can’t believe it’s been nearly 11 weeks in Indonesia! On one hand this 11 weeks has gone by really fast! It barely feels like it’s been that long. Yet on the other hand, I thought I was at the 2.5 month mark about 3 weeks ago so it’s been a longer than usual couple of weeks in that context! And I can imagine the next couple of months are going to fly by firstly because of a visit from the Careforce team in October!! Woohoo!! Secondly because I will have to spend a week in Singapore in order to renew my visa and that is in mid-November. Then it’s only 3 weeks until I come back home for a holiday for Christmas and New Years!!!

Living here is really easy. You wake up, go to devotions, work and come home. A typical day for me consists of waking up at 5:40am (don’t worry – I don’t actually get up until 6:00am!! There are usually 2, sometimes 3 snooze times in there!) I then brace myself for a morning wash in cold water – eww… Still can’t enjoy that! Then it’s off to breakfast at the communal eating area. It’s mostly something different every day, but the same foods come around again. Sometimes it’s rice porridge (a very bland food as you can imagine!), this lentil type bean soup (the flavours in this make me sick, it’s like a pea soup with sugar and some cinnamon in it, I tried, but when I realised my upset stomach was due to that I stopped eating it!) Sometimes we have fried rice (but not with meat and veggies in it like we’re used to), a couple of times we’ve had boiled potatoes, a few times we’ve had deep fried cassava which would be really nice like chips but they cut the pieces up really big, a couple of times we’ve had donuts and my favourite breakfast is deep fried bread, which sounds a lot more gross than it really is! However what I end up eating most is cold rice and if I’m lucky, a hardboiled egg… When the breakfast isn’t ready on time – this is what I eat. Somewhat plain and boring but it has to do if I am to eat breakfast!!

At 7.00am is devotion at the main meeting area called Asrama (or dormitory in English) where we sing some songs, listen to testimonies and someone speaks a mini message. I usually leave at 7.30am because I want to get to school to prepare for an 8:00am start. Then I teach until 2:40pm and then the kids go home. Before I came I wondered if there would be much down time considering many of the kids live here on site, but they are usually playing somewhere in the grounds and just run up and say hi from time to time – they’re really quite content running rampant on their own, and most of them understand if you say you don’t have time to play right now…



My gorgeous kids lining up at the start of the day!

Some of the kids singing in the morning before sport. On Fridays they wear their sports uniform to school.

(L-R) Wendi, Cristi, Ester in their school dresses for Mondays and Tuesdays

Some of the boys playing card games when they've finished their work. This is their Monday and Tuesday Uniform.

The evenings vary for me. On Mondays we don’t have morning devotion but we have an evening one instead. Fridays are movie nights, which I thought would be a bit boring and lots of old or Indonesian movies, but then I realised that Bali is the movie capital and that we have access here to some of the latest movies out. I really hang out for movie Fridays now, ha! The rest of the weekdays I sometimes play soccer in the afternoons from5.30-6.30 and then it’s dinner time. Other than that it’s playing cards, or ping pong, or talking with people or, lately, doing some school work to try to get ahead a bit.

On the weekends I usually play around on the internet for a bit because the internet is a lot faster then. It’s also washing day on Sunday, and on Saturdays the men’s soccer team have games in the afternoon and people pile into the truck to go and support them. All in all the life here is pretty cruisy.  The work is emotionally draining at times, but that’s just the life of anyone who works with children, but it’s not physically hard. I love the heat! It gets a bit much in the classroom at the end of the school day, but then I can go back home and shower off and feel a whole heap better!

Last week another team of people came and went, among them was Eleanor, a teacher in training who was able to help out around the school a bit, and most importantly, able to understand my ‘teacher speak’ and identify with the barriers I have been facing!! It was great to have her here, and we were lucky enough to go and visit a local school for the morning. The only bad thing was that we had to wake up (and this means get up) at 5.15am to catch the bus at 6am!! At first I felt fine, but half way through the morning I started to realize how much sleep I’d lost (like, an entire 45 mins!) and felt terrible, ha ha! The school buildings were interesting – bare concrete floors and not very visually appealing. Wooden desks and chairs and in the 1^st grade there were 30 pupils!! And the teacher made sure she told me 3 times that she has a goal to get all her children reading and writing in 3 months! Geez! I have one of her ex pupils in my class now – he’s 6 years old and is definitely fluent. He also has a good go at reading English at times too! The kids were funny – everywhere we went there were kids following and staring! If we were in a classroom, there were kids in the doorways of the classroom! When we went out at playtime we almost got mobbed just with kids wanting to see us!! I think I can identify with Justin Bieber on one level…

Visiting a school in Tobelo - Eleanor and I are in the Principal's office (check out the couch!! The main reason for this photo, ha ha!)

Some of the kids in the Tobelo school in their sports uniform. (Mmmm, pink...)

One of the first grade classes.

We got swamped in the yard!! I think nearly all 350 kids at the school were trying to get in this shot, ha!

Gotta get a shot with the kids! (How young do I look!?!? I'm not sure how that happens... Maybe I've discovered the fountain of youth...)

After that we went in to Tobelo and I showed Eleanor the market which is a rabbit warren of stalls selling such a variety of things you wonder where they obtained them!! There’s a part with a fish market, the veggie market, stalls with clothes, shoes anything you may happen to want! Following that we both got home and crashed into bed and had an afternoon nap! I’m not entirely sure why we were so tired, but it really took it out of us!

So there is a synopsis of my day to day life here! Right now I’m about to take some of the school girls to the hospital to visit one of the patients – a 13 year old girl who is paralysed from waist down with limited movement in her hands. The poor thing gets so bored all day with nothing to do – we don’t have TV’s in the rooms here… And the rain has just started so I’d better get my washing in!!

In part of the fish market.

Mmmm... Seaweed pringles. My favourite. (Actually, no, sorry, that's a lie)

These butterflies are everywhere! Josh befriended this one.

I'm a sucker for anything baby!! This little one had just hatched and so wasn't so scared as a human hand was its first experience, :)

Pictures, pictures, pictures!!!

You don't buy dessicated coconut in a packet here - you make it!! PS those brown coconuts we buy in stores are not eaten for fruit here! They're old coconuts - most people don't like them. They eat green, young ones where the flesh is about 1/4 thickness of an old one and it's somewhat floppy and soft - almost like a completely different fruit!

Why only let one person ride the bike when you can get four on!! These are some village kids we stumbled across.

Some of the many people in our car on this trip. There are 3 kids standing up in front of me too! I think there was 16 in a 9 seater.

 That is not a worm - it's a snake!! We thought it was a worm until we saw it flick out its tongue!! I thought he was pretty cute!!

Some friends at Duma lake.

This is part of the view of the lake, but a small bay bit. The house thing is a restaurant and they keep fish in nets underneath it so they can have fresh fish on order!

The other side of the lake. The water was so warm - you had to get out of the water to cool off!

Leaving Tobelo behind as we boated out to the island beach.

It turned into a gorgeous day. The coast on the far right is Tobelo.

Perfect here. In about half an hour it stormed and rained so bad we couldn't see the tobelo coast!! And the lightening and thunder were about 2 seconds apart - that's when people decided to get out of the water!! It was raining so hard I was able to wash out all salt water from my clothes and hair just by standing in the rain!!

Hello snake. He got bitten. Whoops! Not bad though.

He didn't get bitten. Neither did his daughter. Ha! Was pretty cool to watch.

One of Wendy and Eamon's kids, Lily.

One of my school girls, Ester.

Two of my school boys, Tison and Febri, they're a bit cheeky. This photo is taken on the back of a ute coming back from the wedding ceremony. Don't worry - it was only 5km away. And we made anyone 5 years old or under sit down on the tray, lol!

The bride and groom. She is wearing traditional wedding makeup. She actually looks quite different when her makeup is different.

Some more of my school kids at the reception!

Some friends of mine.

And the last one of me and the kids!! Where I look barely older than a kid myself!! ha ha!