Village Trails

Here’s 2 seemingly contrasting pix that actually have much in common…both discovered on the trails up to the village CAMA’s working in. J likes to try to grow things & when he saw a wild orchid on the side of the trail one day, he brought it back home for a fun souvenir from the mts.

The truck pix was a recent pix when J escorted about 20 village folks down to Calang to get some training on how to grow organic rice & start rubber tree plantations. First, imagine 20 people cramming into the truck (clown car style) & then on the trip, slowly sliding off the road into an unseen ditch…not a typical day in the office! ☺

Before we took off from Calang, we had a chance to connect briefly w/ our neighbors. The pix of all women was taken on our front porch when they stopped by to say their “see ya in January” greetings & the pix w/ 2 little guys is the sons of Pk Hamit (J’s closest Acehnese friend) as they get ready for school – uniforms is the norm! Just for reference, these guys were the ones that were playing jacks in our earlier post & the oldest was borrowing our bike – adorable.

Wildlife @ Our Place

We’ve got the typical animals which pass by our place daily – cows, goats, chickens (seemed a little out of place @ 1st since we live @ the beach but we’re used to it now), but there have been some more interesting “sightings” lately.

Here's a wild boar rooting through our neighbor’s garbage pile – usually they aren’t brave enough to come out in the middle of the day.


Also, J left his wet Nikes on the porch after a motorbike trip to the village the other day. 2 days later, when he put them on again, one in particular didn't seem to fit right. He took it off and found this little bullfrog. It was kind of awkward for both of them, but no one got hurt, and no one peed so all's well that ends well.

Ladies’ Afternoon

E invited the ladies w/ FHI over to learn how to make banana bread & watch a movie. They decided to make welcome/congratulations cards for CAMA’s other team members in Calang, Jos & Yuli. They were just married & are getting ready to come back to Aceh – hooray!

Tribute to Cali

Well, last week one of our neighbor’s cats who likes to stop by brought her kitten too & hung out @ our place all day. E’s holding them both on our kitchen floor while Cali nurses & then they cashed out shortly thereafter in our chair…very cute. Unfortunately just a few days later Cali came down w/ something (or ate something weird – we think something that was poisoned) & became super weak & died a few days later – really sad. Shortly thereafter her kitten died too. Not all posts can be lighthearted eh? J was really great about burying Cali – as animal lovers it’s semi-traumatic to see suffering & not be able to do anything…

FHI Crew

Here’s a pix of the group working w/ FHI (Food for the Hungry Int’l) here in Calang – great folks. We interact w/ them almost daily & have learned a lot from each other. A handful of them have been trained thru our org as well. The other pix’s of E w/ her jogging partners from FHI. (Winnie on left & Monika in the middle) Often Indonesians don’t run intensely so it’s been a perfect fit for E while pregnant. :)

Wedding Garb

Here's a side glance of traditional Acehnese wedding wear - now that's a hat!

Cute!

Here's a pix of our immediate neighbor who of course wanted her pix taken for this special event.

Traditional Acehnese Dance Garb

Recently we had a wedding in our community & some of our neighbor girls did a traditional Acehnese dance - very cool.

Monkey Bite

Well, sometimes we like to go for evening strolls thru our community for a chance to connect w/ neighbors & time to talk. This particular night we had NO idea that we’d have an encounter w/ a neighbor’s pet monkey…a biting encounter Elissa was sad to find out! Actually she totally posed that face just for the pix so don’t feel too bad …

The “Right Size” is All Relative

After playing inside, it was time to hit the road. Pak Hamit’s oldest son loves to ride bikes so we said he could borrow ours if he wanted…he didn’t seem to flinch when he saw the size, just hopped right on & rode away. Having things “fit” here doesn’t seem as important & being able to be used… a perfect fit is a luxury it seems.

Playing Jacks

Most of the time Pak Hamit’s sons & their cousin spent learning how to play jacks. Thanks Seth & Sarah for bringing those over, they are quite the hit!

3rd Language Reading…or Not

We’re in the process of reading thru the book called “The Art of Coming Home” because believe it or not, we’ll probably go thru a fair amount of culture shock coming back stateside in a few weeks. Anyways, the sons of our friend Pak Hamit stopped over & the oldest one picked up our book & began “reading.” Only problem is he may speak both Indonesian & Acehnese but not English…pretty funny.

Hand Wench

So J went to the mt. community we’re working in & delivered more cement & hung out w/ the guys there. On his way back he came across a bridge where the wooden slats had been forced apart too far for him to cross the gorge w/o falling in… so thankfully he had a hand wench in the back & put that to good work to pull the bridge back together so he could cross.

Happy 4th!

Well, it's been awhile since we've blogged - the internet access here has been pretty crummy :( Here’s E after just finishing week 28 – showing a little more!

Trekkin'

Here E & Sarah are in the midday heat making their way out to the irrigation project CAMA’s working w/ here in the mountains. This will be a future community rice field – very cool.

Philly Connection

On E’s way back into Aceh, she met our good friends Seth & Sarah in Indo’s 3rd biggest city of Medan. They came & visited us for about 5 days – it’s such a blast having friends to see us here – S&S, you guys rock!

Rules, Rules

After our travels to the island of Java for our conference, E stopped by her sister Crissy’s place to help her begin her packing up & J got back to Calang a little earlier. E happened to see this sign in a bathroom once back on “our” island of Sumatra. The far right symbol is warning against standing up on the toilet seat to use the facilities. Due to the high use of “squatty potties” here this makes sense...kinda. About as much sense as E having a camera in the bathroom we guess ;) If you’re not sure what a squatty potty is, check out our post from Nov 15, ’07.

Nomad

OK, back to our downtime after our field conference. We had a great time just relaxing over the weekend in Ubud. Here we are outside of a restaurant called “Nomad” – who says we can’t find a little piece of Mongolia in Indonesia?

In All Circumstances

On our flight from Jakarta to Bali, the flight attendant concluded her preflight announcement with, “Please pray for this flight.” Coming for the West where we have a phobia of public prayer, it sounded like, well it sounded like we we’re heading down and we hadn't even taken off! A little later we discovered they even had brochures of sample prayers for some of the major religions here – Islam, Prostestant, Catholic & Hindu. Obviously we made it ;)

Surprise!

At our field conference, our female teammembers threw a surprise baby shower for Baby D & Elissa – so fabulous! At the shower they started a list of potential names for Baby D which we’re trying to picture here, hopefully readable?! There was also a diaper pinned up on the wall to collect $ since trying to haul a lot of “stuff” across the islands isn’t as helpful...so thoughtful. :) (Notice the diaper sign says “Fill the diaper before Baby D does!) Any name ideas anyone?

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)