I've been busy :)

I know that is no excuse. I always have good intentions, planning to write, but never get to it.

So, I went away for the weekend a few weeks back. We went to Sabang, which is on an island north of Banda Aceh. The island is home of the western-most point of Indonesia. We said on the east coast, so did not make it there. It was a really nice weekend, went with some friends from work. It was a great break from Banda Aceh. We could wear tank tops and even bathing suits. So nice. We stayed it this great little place right on the beach. Generally eco-friendly and the food there was great.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

The lovely accommodations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ View from the porch

Fishing along the shore

Typical Indonesian boats

I really liked this tree trunk, wanted to take it home :)

I spent another few days in Lamno. Again, some interesting pictures...
This is the view of the mountain road from which I posted a picture in an earlier post.

These are some of the houses that CHF is building for people who lost their's in the tsunami (Yes over 2 years ago). You can see the cows think they are quite nice :)

We had an office picnic. This is a picture of the livelihoods team. This is the outfit that I went swimming in. Yes, fully clothed. No bathing suits here. And wow, those jeans must have weighed 10 pounds in the water.

Keeping really busy here. Still working on the initial implementation of the program. But i have also been pulled in to do some additional work. I am actually heading down to Calang and Meulaboh this week to do some assessments for potential locations to build/reconstruct markets. So, I am actually getting on a plane in the morning. It is only a 15 seater UN flight, but maybe that will fulfill my travel needs for a few more weeks.

We have been having some excitement with electricity here in Aceh. They are doing some maintenance on the grid in Medan, so we lose electricity once or twice a day. Supposedly we will have rolling blackouts for the next two months. Luckily we just had a generator installed at the office and we have a small one at the house (but no A/C can run off the little one). But at least it gives us lights and water - the water runs off a pump, so no electricity = no water.

Oh, the very exciting news of late is that my mother and two sisters will be coming to visit for two weeks in August/September. I have already started planning the fun trips around Aceh, Sumatra and Bali!