Heading into month 2 (right on time!)

Into month 2 (right on time)

It’s Thursday, and a good day. Wednesdays are usually a drag because the children are tired and a little ratty. Thursdays are good because they usually have an early sleep because they’re so wrecked on Wednesdays! Fridays are best because they get sport in the morning and art/computers in the afternoon. I love Fridays! By Saturday I’m so ready for a day off, but then Saturday comes and I don’t have anything to do. When there’s a team visiting here then I can hang with them, or go visiting some place, but this Saturday my new friends will be gone. Dr Rob and his wife, Leanne are leaving on Friday morning along with their two surrogate family members, Joelle and Ashleigh. The four of them were here for 3 weeks and we spent many a lunch and dinner time together – Joelle also helped me in the classroom in the mornings and the 3 ladies took our Art classes in the afternoon – what champs!! Gonna miss you guys!

Lunch today was rice porridge with corn and chicken – not too bad if you get in on the soy sauce action! It’s almost not like having rice when it’s cooked like that, ha! It’s ok. I’m not over rice just yet. There’s white rice, fried rice, yellow rice, cocoonut rice and rice porridge so really there’s nothing to complain about! This week I had fish for the first time. Usually they cook it in chilli and I just can’t eat it so I pass on the fish and they usually give me egg. But this week they cooked up this nice fresh water fish and fried it and I really like it! Luckily the kitchen ladies love me so last night, they fried a fish for me with no chili!! How good is that! This morning too, they didn’t have breakfast ready when I got up there (not too early – 6.40am) so they gave me a plate of chocolate cream biscuits to tide me over, lol! If you’re gonna have friends anywhere – the kitchen is always a good place to start!!

I’m beginning to understand more and more language every day, which is encouraging, because for the last little bit I was feeling like I’d never understand! I understand a lot of words – but not enough to make sense of what is being said. And because they speak so fast, I have a delayed translation of what’s happening in my head and so I miss the next sentence, ha! But I’m getting good chunks now. The kids are also understanding a lot more English. They’ve graduated from saying “habis!” to “finished!” when I ask who has finished. They now say, “like this?” or “like that?” instead of “begini” or “begitu” when clarifying. They’re getting very good at their English numbers and apologise in English instead of Indonesian. They’re progressing really fast, which is so encouraging for me. The biggest hurdle is teaching them to read English and understanding words. As most of them can’t read Indonesian yet, it’s difficult to teach them to read English. I still don’t know what I’m doing in reading classes. But I have 1 week holiday coming up so I might have to do some brainstorming or something.

Two weeks ago we went on a trek to a waterfall. It turned out to be quite the adventure! We went up and down the same road about 3 times, took about 6 wrong turns (thanks to the local person who apparently told half our group one direction and the other half a different direction!!), and got off to a late start thanks to someone deciding they needed the car so they could get some fruit, ha! But it was pretty cool once we got there. We were close to an active volcano so the ground was all silty and when we went swimming, you sink in mud up to mid-calf which used to be fun when I was 12 but now was so much more scary, ha! After we braved the sinking mud we were able to enter the waterfall cave which was covered in billions of tiny crabs!! You’d kill about 15 with every footstep – there was no avoiding them! We jumped off the ledge into the base of the waterfall. It was scary cos it was so slippery that I kept thinking that my foot would slip out from underneath me and I’d smack into the side – but the worst thing that happened was that I surfaced and then realised I had one of the crabs in my hair! Then I could feel biting on my shoulder and I had one in my tshirt but it was in that place where you can’t reach, inside my tshirt (cos you have to swim in tshirt and shorts) so I had to swim back to shore to ask Leanne to get it out for me!! Eww! On the way back we saw a jungle dwelling which I thought was so quaint, but kind of like living in Wesburn or Gore – too far out and nothing to do.

The view down one end of the river of the waterfall area.

The cave of the waterfall. It was difficult to get a good photo of the down pouring.

Some other good news is my storage cupboard was made 3 days ago and I bought a fridge for my room! This may make me a little exclusive, but hey, I don’t drink hot drinks and for me, the colder the better! We also get very little fruit to eat with our meals, so if I have a fridge then I can buy some fruit and keep it for longer. This also means I can buy flavoured milk and drink it cold or frozen! Mmm!!! I never realised how much I would miss dairy products! You can buy Kraft cheddar cheese here but I haven’t yet been brave enough to taste it. I have some sitting in my fridge at the moment – I’m holding out because I’m not sure that I’m ready for the potential disappointment of gross cheese… I’d rather there was none at all… That being said – any groups or people who are coming out here, feel free to include a couple of blocks of Cadbury Crunchie chocolate!! Now that I have a fridge – the sky is the limit and I can ration the goodness to make it last longer J

The storage cabinet that was made just for me - I told them what I wanted and 3 days later, voila!

Looking from my doorway into my room.

Looking from the top bunk into the main space of my room. Doesn't look like much but last night I had 7 kids in there playing a hand clapping game - it's spacious enough!

A couple of days ago the medical students needed some practical training in suturing wounds, so they killed a pig (we could hear it! ‘Squealing like a pig’ is an apt saying!) and slapped in on some leaves on the ping pong table. Then they stabbed it a few times to make some wounds and cut of the back legs for ppl to work on and everybody got to work stitching up the holes. After an hour or so they finished up and a bunch of people took the pig and cooked it up over a fire out the back. Dr Leo and Dr Ellen got to practice suturing post-episiotomy. Lucky for us and them, they used a piece of foam for that one!!

Just relax sir, this won't hurt a bit!

Just some casual suturing.

Some of the kids who live here, four of which are in my class

I’ve included some pictures of my room here. It’s a sort of L shape because the ensuite is in the room, and I’ve kept the top bunk because it means I can put my washing basket up there etc. With my giant can of spray, the mozzies are kept at bay, and I also have a fan in my room which blows them all away. (A little poem for you all!)

I think that is most of what has happened in the last few weeks – things are beginning to slow down now because it’s not so new anymore. Though there are still a few things that I’m just not used to! Like people spitting anywhere outside. Even girls. I’m used to people spitting on sports fields, but outside your house, or while walking with friends. And it’s not always the drip spit, it’s often the hoik spit. Also, I’m not used to seeing adults just hanging out squatting. Kids, yeah, adults? They just don’t squat in Australia. Not unless you’re camping hard core styles. But then you don’t usually see them. It’s still funny to see it happening.

Enda, one of the cool cats here, in the sitting mode of choice. (He's just been swimming by the way...)

Thanks to those of you who are keeping an eye out for beginning readers – we’re starting to look at making our own from printed paper, so anything would be great! My health is great, although there have been 3 kids from class who have come down with a fever in the last week, so that’s not so good. Hendra (the Principal) and Mim (his fiancé) are in Manado for a week organizing a variety of wedding and school stuff.

It’s now time for me to go – hopefully this loads in one go!

Xoxo Aimee