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!

Month Two

So it appears that I have now been living in Indonesia for 2 months! It sounds like a lot like that. Two months. And it’s been a great experience thus far!

Today I was going to go for a walk up an active volcano! I say was, because I decided against it for now… I’ve had a terrible head cold and at the moment I get tired walking the 500m to the kitchen! Ha ha! I was going to see how I felt and push through – that was until I found out we’d be walking for about 8 hours total!! I thought I could make 2 hours or something, but 8… no way! I’ll just wait until the next team come through I think!

There’s another small group of people here at the moment too. Sandie – who some of you will know – has been here before and was instrumental in preparing me for this. She is a nurse and is working with the staff here and doing some training sessions etc. Dennis and Tessa are from Seattle and Dennis is a trainee doctor and Tessa is a nurse. They heard about us here from a friend of a friend and decided to spend 3 weeks up skilling and experiencing a different culture. Andrew is here for 2 weeks and his family took in one of our boys here who suffered horrific burns a few years back. Tison (the boy) went to America to get surgery and skin grafts and for the 2 year recouperation period Andrew’s family became Tison’s family. I am getting to see a myriad of people here, all with various skills and experience, but all with hearts of gold and a desire to spread love and hope!

Here’s a typical example of the Indonesian way. In the school holidays I arranged to go into town (about 50 mins away) with some friends, one of whom is getting married next week, to help her look at a wedding dress and to grab a few things while I was there. One of the other ladies had to go to the government house too while we were there. Unfortunately, the government house was closed because it was close to a public holiday or something, or maybe they just wanted to – who knows? At that time it was Idil Fitri (the end of Ramadan) but the public holidays were on Tues and Wed and we went on a Fri. So we progressed on to the house with the wedding dress. They don’t buy wedding dresses here – they hire them. And you don’t have to hire from a shop, most people know someone who knows someone who has a dress or dresses to rent. And you don’t just rent the dress, you rent the gloves, shoes, veil and jewellery from this person too!! And if the dress doesn’t fit – they will alter it for you (and then alter it for the next person too if need be!). Now, the lady wasn’t home when we got there, but we were invited in to her house and were able to sit in the lounge room for about half an hour before the lady arrived. Luckily for us she had couches. Many houses here don’t have lounge furniture – just chairs similar to our plastic outdoor settings in Aussie and NZ. During the dress trying on process, one of the ladies with us received a phone call to invite us all to lunch to celebrate Idil Fitri, and of course she accepted – on behalf of all 9 of us – and her house was another 50 mins away! Which didn’t bother me – but seemed like a lot of people and a long way for a spontaneous lunch!! The dress had a bit of a train, which on close inspection, was lined in clear plastic to that it would not catch dirt when the bride was walking. (That is probably one of the biggest shocks I’ve had here culture-wise, lol! A plastic lined wedding dress!!) But it’s gotta stay clean right, and with no dry cleaning – you do what you do, huh!

As we were leaving the dress fitting, Eka, she’s a nurse, thought it would be good to visit one of her patients on the way. But on the way there we stopped and said hi to one of the previous doctors that used to work here. When we got to the patient’s house, we were all invited in and they served us an abundance of cakes and biscuits! I felt very at home when they brought out the marble cake!! It tasted delicious! We probably stayed there about ½ an hour or so and when we left, they made us take all the left over biscuits and cakes. And I mean made. Eka was saying that they should keep them and she said they had heaps and practically threw them in our car window, lol! We were grateful for those on the way home!!

Straight from there we went to the friend’s house for lunch and sadly for me there was only spicy food and white rice, lol! (I’m really spoiled at the base because the kitchen ladies cook me egg if the fish is spicy – which it usually is – and sometimes they fry me a fish so it’s not spicy! They really look after me here!) But then my friends told our host that I can’t eat spicy so they washed a fish for me, ha! I wasn’t going to say anything, but it was already done! We stayed there for about an hour and then left. The group then decided to go to Duma, so we went there and walked down to the gorgeous lake, where, of course, everyone followed us because they wanted to see the white person. I have no desire to be famous and recognized by everyone because I’ve had a taste of it here and it’s not that cool. You pretty much can’t do anything without everyone seeing and noticing!! The kids are funny. Some of them are scared and some of them are excited. And sometimes they are really confused when you speak Indonesian to them!!

While we were at the lake we decided to go for a swim. Sure, why not?! I don’t have spare clothes, but what the heck, hey? Plus, two of the other ladies were swimming in jeans, so surely I could manage in shorts. The water was beautiful!! In Australia and NZ I rarely went swimming because it’s too cold, or I could swim but not for long. Here, the water is perfect for me! Although if you want to cool down you have to get out of the water and let the breeze cool you down. The water was crystal clear and we could see a volcano in the distance. While we were swimming a whole bunch of people came down and were unashamedly watching me. I’m not sure why – I was in t shirt and shorts, but it must have been something worth seeing. There were also these guys who were taking photos but doing that thing where you pretend to take a photo of your friend but really take a photo of what’s behind them. I clicked on when I realised that none of the photos were being taken in front of the beautiful scenery, but instead, were being taken in front of the dingy kitchen/pier thing, lol! Funny stuff!!

Following that we went to go back home via town to buy some groceries etc but when we got there, the main supermarket was still shut from the religious holiday. It was also shut on the following Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I can’t imagine any large shop shutting for that long in Australia!! I since found out that the owner’s son is in my class, and their family decided to go on a holiday to Jakarta. And while they were away – the shop was shut. Ha! How awesome is that! The boss wants a holiday, so he shuts up shop. No worries mate.

Anyway, we got home at around 7pm after leaving at 9am! I was wrecked! Especially after initially thinking we’d be gone for 1-2 hours… ha! But it was a good day.

I’m so proud of my school kids. After 2 months they are progressing well and their comprehension of English is ever increasing! It’s difficult for them to remember words, though, because many of them can’t write or read Indonesian still. We’re trying to remedy that with targeted reading groups – but without Indonesian readers, that’s really difficult. Most of our children who can’t read should be able to in terms of their age. But many of them didn’t go to school, or if they did – no remedial reading was done with them and now they’re severely behind. I’m hoping that it won’t take long and that words will start to make sense to them and then they will be away! Some of my older students who have been to school before are learning English words and are remembering quite a few. Some of the work I have them do is translating English songs into Indonesian sentences. So they translate the words they know and then try to piece them together to make sense. It’s pretty cool to see them work. They are understanding more and more English, and I have to remind myself that they don’t understand it all!! For my day to day teaching, I don’t need a translator, but if I’m explaining work, or a new concept, then Amy is my right hand girl! Other than that I have an Indonesian teacher Aide in the class, and Amy, who is Australian but fluent in Indonesian.

At the beginning of the term, children rarely put their hand up to answer a question – even when it was translated, and this puzzled me until I found out that children can get punished here for an incorrect answer!! No wonder no one volunteered themselves! But after a few weeks, once they found out that there was no punishment for incorrect answers – many children put their hands up and have a go! That’s good news!! The other cool thing is seeing the children playing games outside of school that I taught them in school – and they’re English language games! Yay! It’s things like that that are so encouraging for me! And now that we have a small selection of English readers (courtesy of Andrew from America and his mum!), we can start teaching children to read English as well. Although we still can’t access the Victorian curriculum so it’s still a bit difficult!

My Indonesian is improving and I can generally make myself understood in the language if need be. It may be riddled with mistakes, but I am generally understood! Having lessons 4 times a weeks has made a huge difference! Also, it’s taking a shorter amount of time to remember new words, so that’s cool! But still, the Indonesian people speak really fast and I have to ask them to repeat themselves quite often! Words often run into each other and I can’t separate them!! But I’m understanding more and more! They say 3 months is when you start understanding most things. If I read children’s books then I can pretty much translate the story – but books for adults use more official language and bigger words – although it’s nothing compared to English!! Through teaching it I have come to realize how seriously hard learning English is!! I am grateful that I grew up speaking it, because learning it is a pain in the butt!  I just tell the people here that many people who speak English can’t spell correctly either, so don’t get discouraged if you get words wrong, lol!

Last Sunday we caught a boat out to an island where we brought a picnic lunch and celebrated Christania’s 3^rd birthday! It was a cute island, but littered with rubbish, and we set up our base, ate and then went swimming. This time I was prepared and brought a change of clothes!! The ocean water is so warm – but sooo salty! My eyes aren’t used to it! But I got to use my camera underwater for the first time!! That was exciting! When I buy some goggles or a mask then I’ll be able to take some cool shots because at the moment the salt water is too strong for my eyes – so I can’t see where I’m shooting! Not long after we had been there it started to pour with rain! It rained so hard that we couldn’t see the coast line of the island we can from which was only a 5 minute boat trip!!! The thunder and lightning were chronic, but everyone stayed in the water because it was warmer! If the lightning/thunder test is reliable, then we were right in the middle of the storm because there was hardly any gap between the lightning and thunder!! After a bit everyone got out and huddled under the massive shelter, ate a bit more food, tried to keep warm – but wearing so much wet clothing made it difficult to stay warm. I was freezing and it amused many people that I was cold. They said that because I am bule (foreigner) that I’m supposed to be warm (because I come from a cold country!). As all my friends and family know – I’m often cold even in summer!! After a bit I thought we would start heading home so I changed into dry clothes (it was still pouring down at this stage!) but didn’t have any long sleeves so huddled up trying to get warm! Then the others went for another swim – but it was too much effort to change again so I hung out under the shelter thinking warm thoughts! Then this group of kids arrived and after about 5 mins of nervous glances and blatant stares, they finally worked up enough courage to come over and talk to me – about 12 girls under 13 years old. They tried out their English on me and were surprised to hear that I am living quite local. Then the cameras came out and they all wanted pictures, lol! It was sooo funny! Some of the boys came over too and said, “Hi Mister!” This is not unusual!! In the market place people call out that all the time! I get “Hi Princess”, “Hi Mrs” and “Hi Mr” all the time!! I informed them that mister is for boys only!!

Well, congratulations if you made it this far – it was a long one! But I thought I’d put a little more detail into this one and a few of my outings were more interesting than previous ones!

Much love!

Xoxo Aimee 

(I'm sorry!! For some reason I can't upload any photos!!)

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