Beach Photo

This is a photo of us, on the beach. No, the ocean isn't actually tilted, we had to set the camera on a crooked log for the photo. The beach is made of lots of smooth rocks, coral, and shells. Some of the shells move, they are hermit crabs. Our shell collection is growing, but we won't be able to bring it back to Australia with us!

----

This fortnight's discoveries…

- if the weather is cool, an Indonesian may serve you a glass of hot water

- the words for dog, wind, and t-shirt are very much alike

- ½ tsp. salt and 8 tsp. sugar in 1 litre of water make an Oral Rehydration Solution

- Crabs can crawl up curtains and our drying laundry

- Dave got the word for head ("Kepala") and coconut ("Kelapa") mixed up only once…

- Laundry scrub brushes are a wonderful invention

- Heather's new hobby: Gecko Poking.

- Snorkelling + big waves + rocks = bloody scraped Heather and worried Indonesians

- If you sit still on the beach long enough, you'll notice hundreds of "pebbles" moving- tiny hermit crabs everywhere

- Indonesians (of limited English) will call both of us "Mister"

- Pisang Goreng (Fried Bananas)

- An oven, in this location, is a metal box that sits on your kerosene burner

- You can fell a tree with a machete and rope… then chop up the wood the next day with a chainsaw

This week the army came to camp on our basketball court during the change of troops. A huge landing ship came to drop them off, with little boats ferrying the men to the pier. We didn't see many of them during their stay, but they were quite polite and a few took photos with David.

There haven't been any major accomplishments this fortnight; we are still waiting on approvals and finances. We have completed many small tasks, such as getting power to some of the other chalets, establishing a rubbish handling system (burn, bury, or sell), fixing leaks and pumps, and hacking down trees and overgrown shrubs.

Yesterday we had a big meal with gado-gado (vegetables in peanut sauce), tuna, rice, and cakes and bananas. Heather still had to get help cooking (as she doesn't know Indonesian cooking very well) so the whole event had a very communal feel. Several people came to the meal, including the army commandant for the island, who is leaving soon.

House Photo

This is a picture of the bedroom. On the left is our bed with the mosquito netting. There are two dressing tables across from each other, but we keep most of the clothes in the other bedroom on the bed so we can open the curtains and get the sunlight on them. The windows overlook the bay. The three small 'ventilasi' over the windows have new flywire over them (courtesy of Dave) and are on every external wall. Other ventilation is provided by the gaps around the windows and doors (and lets the geckos in).

We haven't had too many problems with mosquitos. We've been bitten many times, however, that is inescapeable. We make good use of the repellant and mosquito coils.

---

Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. Get started.

House Photo

This is a picture of David in our 'living room.' The doors behind him open onto a little porch with a view of the bay. Right in front of the desk, on the left, is the door to our bedroom. Across from it is the door to the second bedroom.

---

Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. Get started.

Where we are living

This is the front of the villa, one of the many tourist villas on this side of the compound. On the left is the gazebo. If you look closely I think you can see the bay behind the house. There is smoke behind the house because we were burning some cuttings and leaves.

---

Time for vacation? WIN what you need. Enter Now!

Random bits of life

The guys decided to fell a tree in-between the first villa and the entertaining area, using a rope and a machete. P’Adrie climbed the tree (barefoot) and hacked around the first limb they wanted to bring down. All the guys pulled on the rope, then someone else would climb the tree and whack at the limb some more. It did work, and no one was hurt, and it provided an evening of entertainment!

--

The army had been in Seram as peacekeepers after tension flared up between two villages up north. They are about to leave and will be camping in the undeveloped area and basketball courts behind the gazebo, until their ship comes. They had previously hacked all the bushes down from the courts and made a wide path down to the bay. The commandant will be staying in one of the villas. They have set up three large tents across the courts, and left. Two men came to get their pictures taken with David as they were going.

Salinity and Temperature

This is a picture of David and Andy testing salinity and temperature in the bay. It was raining that day (thus the umbrellas). Behind them is a bait boat, which catches small (bait) fish and holds them in their nets. You can see the other side of the bay behind the bait boat.

Because of internet speed (it is zooming along today at 19.2 kb per second) we can only upload one photo at a time... and I can't remember if I've uploaded this one already!

Pictures

A picture from Jakarta.

Karaoke, Indo Style!

For dinner we went to Adrie and Cici’s place, where they had the teachers and principal from their son’s private school over to celebrate his passing the exams to get into the senior high school he wanted (yr11-12). They also prayed for him. We were introduced to the (native Indonesian) English teacher at the school, who was quite nervous at speaking to us, especially when all the other teachers and the principal was watching her speak to us. Her English wasn’t great and heavily accented- now we know how people feel when we try out our bad Indonesian on them! After the meal was Karaoke, but not just any karaoke, it was romantic love songs from ages ago. Dave and I sang “Hey Jude.” Cici sang beautifully. The words to the songs were often incorrect, and since most didn’t speak or read English, their interpretations of the songs were funny!

Salamat Sore!

Hi All!

We have sporadic internet access now- when the weather is clear, not rainy, not windy (and it is rainy season here). We are happy and safe here where we are, cut off from all news of the outside world.

Our chalet is at the end of two rows of chalets, connected by a long boardwalk. On one end of the boardwalk there is the kitchen and entertaining area, then the boardwalk and chalets, and on the other end there is a gazebo. Our chalet has a central room and two bedrooms on either side of the central room. There are glass doors opposite the front door, which open out to a small patio overlooking the bay. Our bathroom has a cold water shower and the ever-present Indonesian bucket of water and dipper.

Some interesting things about our stay so far…

- Two things are guaranteed to happen each day… the power will go out at some stage, and it will rain

- The mosquitoes are not too bad, but ants are persistent

- The ants ate a hole in my pants

- Some words transcend languages… words like "shopping" and "stinky"!

- The army did some gardening for us

- All of our clothes are handwash now (no washing machine)

- The beach is made of colourful pebbles and coral

- How white are we!

- Outside of our front window, some fellows just fell off the barrel they were rowing to shore

- A cow gave birth near the kitchen last night

- You can substitute thin pancakes for Mexican tortillas (we only have a kerosene burner to cook with)

- People, phone lines, and the internet doesn't work when it is rainy

- Goats, chickens, cows, and people of all religions seem to mix fine

- Cows will eat your bananas

We are enjoying our stay so far- there isn't much work to do yet, but lots of little jobs (like removing the overgrown shrubbery and cleaning the chalets). We'll try to keep in touch, but for now it will be erratic until the internet decides to run smoothly!

Love, David and Heather (also known as "Mister! Mister! Hello Mister!" in the markets)

---

Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. Get started.

Dave gets sick

Dave got quite ill Saturday, waking up early in the morning, needing both a bucket and the loo. After a few bouts of that, our water supply ran out, so we had to wake up Andy in the other villa to get the keys to the kitchen. By then the sun was starting to rise. We will now remember to fill up our water bottles each night and keep enough water in the basin for any situation.

He had a low-grade fever but the main worry was dehydration. WTND (“Where There is No Doctor” recommended ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution). WTND is really great- a normal person’s guide to illnesses and such. Dave was on and off throughout the day, not eating much, and trying to sleep. David’s parents called in the morning on our mobile phone and we spoke to them for 15min or so. I did the sampling with Andy but otherwise we did not do much.

Later I walked down to the village to buy some sprite("Spreet") for Dave. I met lots of people on the way and practiced her Indonesian on them. One guy was concerned because a couple of our neighbor's dogs were following me but they were friendly (they spend many afternoons at our place licking the puddles). Dave and I had dinner early and went back to the villa to watch a movie on the laptop. It was not the movie on the cover, but the bad acting and silly dialogue kept us amused. My mum rang our landline after dinner and I spoke to her for a couple of minutes.

First Day on the Island

Adrie picked us up and we went to town where we made photocopies of all our important documents, and went to the bank, and ate at a restaurant built over and overlooking the water. (You could see the water between the planks of the floor). We visited the shopping plaza and markets, and stopped by the telephone company to sort out the telephone bill.

Our chalet is at the end of two rows of chalets, connected by a long boardwalk. On one end of the boardwalk there is the kitchen and entertaining area, then the boardwalk and chalets, and on the other end there is a gazebo. Our chalet has a central room with a desk, small round glass-topped table, couch and coffee table. There are glass doors opposite the front door, which open out to a small patio overlooking the bay. There are doors to the two bedrooms on either side of the central room. Both bedrooms have king-size wooden beds, raised high off the ground canopy-style. Our bed has a green mosquito net. Our room has two bureaus. The bathrooms (one for each bedroom) has a wardrobe, sink, western toilet, and a huge shower recess- maybe 2 meters wide and 1,5 meters deep. There is a cold-water shower and tap. Below the tap is a large round plastic basin and a dipper, for the toilet and whatnot.

The other chalets do not have the central room- they have one bedroom with an ensuite.

There have not been many mosquitoes, but the fleas have been a problem and the ants are becoming one!

Hello,

We got into Jakarta ok on Sunday, but about 45min late. We paid an extraordinary (for Indonesia) amount for a taxi ride to our hotel. Monday we had breakfast at a random eatery near the hotel- rice and chicken for Heather, rice and chillied potatoes and egg for David. We did a bit of wandering before arranging to meet with the business (and we were treated to a lunch of Gado Gado). It seems our flights are arranged for Thursday.

Jakarta has been an experience- smelly, but vibrantly alive. The air is thick and brownish grey, the food spicy and hot, and even the water the serve with meals is hot! We've explored the area near our hotel- shops, warungs (sidewalk eateries), and have been on some long wanders through central and south Jakarta.

Tuesday morning the streets were filled with heaps of police on motorbikes and in trucks on the move somewhere- we guessed they may have been escorting someone important. We visited the 'Museum National'- a huge, and surprisingly well-ordered museum of artifacts sucked in from around Indonesia and history. We took hours to get through it- floors and floors of it- and spent a grand total of 1500 Rp (20 cents) for the two of us.

Our hotel has provided us with a "fruit platter" of things we don't quite recognize- a mandarin that looked like a small mango, and a snakeskin fruit. Keep an eye out for photos soon!

Love, David and Heather