Returned Favor

Well, to our surprise & of course amusement, the monkey decided to return the favor & tried to groom J's hair. Shortly thereafter he evidently was worn out so just decided to sit & hang out around J's neck - pretty funny.

Grooming

After our conference in Bali, we motorbiked up to an area called Ubud, about an hr north. Here there's a Monkey Sanctuary where we got some great pix of their daily pastime...grooming each other. J tried his hand when a monkey waltzed over to his lap. (no cages here)

Field Conference in Bali

So we just spent the last week in Bali...in meetings for the most part! We did have the chance to hang out w/ folks in similar work to ourselves which was a blast - this is a pix of us w/ Matt & Abbie after watching a Balinese dance performance one night after our meetings were over. J did get up early one AM (a rarity we all know) w/ Matt & took some beach pix to remind us we were in Bali :) J & I decided to spend the wkend after the conference & have some time together before we head back to Aceh so will post those pix soon.

J's 1st Dad's Day

Well, we were @ our field conference for Dad's Day & had about an hr free time to steal away to a closeby Orchid Garden. J's recently taken great interest in orchids so was a fun trip. He's even found a wild one up in the mts where we work & brought it back to our seaside home...pix later. Anywho, interesting OTHER thing @ the Orchid Garden was an animal as well as it's poo that were on display - read below why! (hard to believe this is the world's most expensive coffee - yikes!)

(Info from http://www.paradise-coffee.com/index.htm - check it out for more pix)
Kopi Luwak are robusta or arabica coffee beans which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Indonesian Civet (family of Viverridae). This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago.

"Kopi" is the Indonesian word for coffee and "Luwak" is local name of this animal which eats the raw red coffee 'cherries' as part of its usual diet. This animal eats a mixed diet of insects, small mammals and fruits along with the softer outer part of the coffee cherry but does not digest the inner beans, instead excreting them still covered in some inner layers of the cherry.

Locals then gather the beans -- which come through the 'animal stage' fairly intact -- and sell them on to dealers. It is believed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavour through fermentation of some type.

Driving Lessons

So J has been in the process of teaching Jos how to drive in our new (to us) truck - good times!

CAMA's Office

Well, here's the guys in our original office. We just finished our field conference where all other Indo workers meet yrly. A few days before we left for our conference we found out we needed to move our office - more under "In More Detail"

Monitor Lizard

Well, a beautiful sunset wasn't the only thing we've seen lately from our home...here's a video of a monitor lizard J captured the other day...he's a smaller cousin to the famous Komodo Dragon (& yes, Komodo is an island in Indo!) You have to watch carefully. At the beginning, J is following him as he crawls slowly towards the green bush in the upper left, then the monitor lizard gets spooked and shoots out of the bush horizontally across the screen running right in between one of the goat's legs. He's incredibly fast!

Amazing

Here’s a sunset seen from our place – when u comin’? ☺

Priorities, Priorities

Here’s a mtg where the folks from the village we’re just starting to work in have written out categories of their top needs. They live in the former conflict area so it ranged from needing homes, schools, roads, to smaller projects like irrigation, cow raising, etc. They were each given a pile of the same # of beans which they used to place (as a vote of sorts) over the word that described the need that they felt like was most important. Great process for everyone’s voice being heard! (note Jos in the middle counting as well as the village chief smiling in the background)

Restaurant with a View

Lookout Mt. – Here’s us @ a beautiful lookout we ate lunch @ on our way back from the village. It’s only about 30-40 min from our home.

On the Trail

Besides having a chance to visit, we also had an opportunity to see the beginnings of the project CAMA’s planning on helping with – an irrigation system. The men from this village have already spent the last 4 months volunteering every wkend to build a dam and dig hundreds of meters of irrigation channel just with hand tools. We hiked w/ the village leader (& his daughter & her 2 friends!) about 2 hrs in the midday heat to see their preparations. Don’t worry Moms, we brought snacks & water for Baby D. ☺

Trip to the Mts

E’s sister Crissy came for a wkend to visit before she finishes her time teaching English here in Indo. We 4 (E, J, Crissy & Jos) took our new-to-us truck up to the village for the 1st time. (J& Jos usually go via trail bike) Anyways, here’s us all on the same bamboo raft (which is about 6 inches under water :) ) but w/ the village chief kindly bringing us across – he's such a great guy!

Indiana Jos

There used to be a bridge held by cables to cross this river but a flood took the bridge out, leaving only a cable behind. Now people use this old cables to pull themselves across on a bamboo raft – nice!

Big Waves

Here’s Jos dismounting from a ferry on the way to one of the communities CAMA’s now working in. Usually the waters aren’t this high, but large waves dammed up the mouth of the river, so we got pretty wet that day!

Long History

This is the prof of Community Development at the school Jos studied at – great guy! Interesting thing is that he studied under Mom & Dad D when they taught @ the school 15 years ago and now he’s teaching there. ☺ Jason's really connected with him and we're looking forward to working with him in the future.

Uno Sharks

Here E’s teaching our neighbor girls to play Uno & also a little view of our neighborhood.

Blessings

As it worked out, we got the chance to head to Medan to arrange having a truck donated to us from another NGO leaving Indo. If that wasn’t enough of a blessing, we also took the opportunity to celebrate E’s 1st Mother’s Day & stayed @ a nice hotel where we got a pix of her @ week 21...


The ultrasound below is actually Baby D @ wk 12. After that point the doctors have said our baby is too big to see all in one pix w/ their equipment, so here’s to a healthy, growing baby!

A Three Hour Tour...

So our Gilligan’s Island is only 15 minutes away from our house via boat.


Once on the island, J made a magnificent sand sculpture – ok, he just played in the sand w/ our friend from FHI.


Elissa's @ 20 wks here (& yes, women swim clothed here) :) We saw a huge sea turtle behind where she’s standing 5 mins before we took this picture!

B-day Celebration

Our teammate Jos had his 29th bday not long after we got back. About 30 of his/our friends from other NGOs all got together & celebrated.


Some of Jos’ guy friends making up a bday song for him – quite funny. (Jos is in the middle in the grey shirt)


Blowing out the candles


Jos giving the 1st piece of cake to his most honored guest which was J – good times.

Making Waves

Once back in Aceh, we found out (the hard way) that there had been a couple days of hard rain…here’s a view from our car of the waves we’re making as we swim our way home to Calang.

KK

At the Jakarta airport on our way back to Aceh we saw the newly established Krispy Kreme store & Elissa about flipped – we’re hoping they’re planning their next opening in the Calang area. ;)

Back to Bandung

Last month we had our 1st chance to return to Bandung for a quick visit after a seminar in Jakarta. We reconnected w/ good friends like Ibu (Mrs.) Bandi above w/ Elissa & Pak (Mr.) Bandi far left w/ Jason & a couple other great guys from our old neighborhood – good to see them again!

Tank Cleaning

For water at our home we have a well in our backyard from which we pump water up into a holding tank. The tank had to be cleaned so J got in his “cleaning outfit” ie: swim suit & climbed inside (& yes, he is wearing a suit despite the inability to see it!) :)

Back to the Mountains

On the road again...so after our visa run & break w/ friends & fam we got back to Calang & got back to work! Top pix is Jos doing his best on the "slippery slope of no return," followed by elephant "tracks" (looking forward to when we can post a REAL elephant pix!), 3rd pix down is a meeting in the community we're working in doing a process called "social mapping." With this process, community members use locally available materials (here - leaves, rocks, etc.) to map out their community - strengths & needs. This is great for including a majority of opinions, & especially friendly process for folks who haven't learned to read/write yet. Last pix was a truck (not ours) that maxed out the ferry...hmm, guess we won't try that way in ours!

Medan

The city of Medan, about a 14 hour car ride and 1 hour MAF flight from Calang, is the closest "big" city to us. It has things like malls, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. so our bags are usually pretty full on our way home.



Jason loves es kacang (literally translated: bean ice). It is kind of like a snow cone Asian style which he orders, despite the name, without beans (or cream corn.) It still has plenty of jelly things, palm hearts, etc. though. First pix is of Jason eating es kacang in Medan and the second one is at the stalls in Penang. Even if it doesn't sound appealing, you have to admit it looks impressive!

Time with Mom & Dad

OK, here's the last of our pixs for Cambodia - had a great time w/ Mom & Dad D! Top pix show us enjoying a fun ice cream dessert at a team meeting. (Hard to find good ice cream in Aceh) The croc got his dessert too - what is it w/ J & M&M's?! Finally, the last pix shows the school just begun by Mom & Dad in a Vietnamese village. The kids have made a visual representation of the part of the wordless book they'd just learned about - very fun! They were totally thrilled & it was fun to participate as much as we could w/o the language. We find that gestures go a long way:)

Heading Home from the Lake

Top pix is rush hour Ton Le Sap style, 2nd pix is one of the boat guys cutting a (3rd or 4th?!) net free from our propeller so we could keep going, 3rd pix shows another view of the homes on stilts (in prep for flooding) on the banks of the lack, & finally a view from inside our boat.

Ton Le Sap Lake

Ok - so back to posting about our trip to Cambodia -while in Siem Reap, we went w/ M&D D one day to the biggest lake in Cambodia to visit the Vietnamese communities on the lake.

Everything is floating here – this is a school – classrooms on the bottom, gym on the top.




These pix were taken onboard one floating home. The pix w/ the colorful background shows all the décor dedicated to ancestor worship. Mom’s teaching a song to the little girl. The final pix is us just hanging out w/ them ‘cuz we sure don’t speak Vietnamese!


While we were hanging out we saw a funny sight…a dog following “his kids” in their boat – kinda like dogs following their owners to school in the US...but wetter! On the way back the kids let him ride home w/ them. Notice the floating homes in the background…multiply it hundreds of times & that’s the communities living there.


Notice in this picture the child sitting on the tall staircase – these homes are up on stills for when the lake floods – all the way up to their porch @ the top of the pix! If you look carefully you can also see a motorbike going by in the pix - carrying 3 adults & 2 kids - pretty normal. The 2nd pix is a sweet little kid waving from his boathouse ☺

For animal lovers out there like ourselves, here’s a couple pix – 1st a guard monkey on a boathouse & a seagull (1 of many) who figured out that by following our boat which stired up the water, it could grab fish easier – J was able to snap a pix of an actual catch if you look closely.