Rugby

Yes, I am proud to admit that have played my first match of Rugby in Banda Aceh Indonesia.
I have a friend out here who has told me about these matches on several occasions and I finally got myself out to the stadium today to play. It is one of the few sports that is played co-ed here. (All expats though) It is touch rugby so as to avoid too much injury for those involved. Most of the people there really know what they are doing, but I got a few quick pointers throughout and seemed to hold my own. Like it much of my earlier sporting history, my defense is significantly stronger than my offense (not sure what that means, but anyways...). So, I generally stayed away from trying to run with or catch the ball, but made some nice touches throughout the day.
Towards the last half of the day, I had my first rugby knock out. One guy got the ball and thought he had an open run, apparently he did not see me standing in front of him (I admit I am a short woman, but he was no giant, so not sure what was happening). Anyways, he went full force ahead straight into me and knocked me down to the ground. Not completely sure what happened except that my head hurt quite a bit and things were blurry. I stayed down for a few minutes and when I sat up everything seemed a bit blotchy with yellow spots. I was told I had a big smile on my face, so people weren't too worried.
I got back up and started to play again but was advised it might be best to sit out for a few minutes. The yellow spots thing was kinda cool I must admit, albeit a bit weird. I sat out for about 5 minutes and then until the downpour past and then rejoined the match.
Despite the bruises, a good first rugby experience.
But, as I was doing sports in Aceh... I get home and yes... you guessed it, no electricity (meaning no running water. I don't even want to get into water issues -- we have now been losing water too). Luckily we have the trusty generator so Iwas able to take a nice 'warm' shower to clean the mud out of my hair.
All-in-all, not a bad day. Although my body will likely not be so happy with me for the next few days.

*Sorry no pictures of today's excitement.

Independence Day

August 17th - Indonesian Independence Day!

A Friday off. I had planned on working the day, got in a few hours and then headed out to some neighborhood festivities.

All of the houses fly their red and white flags. However, in Aceh, things here are more about the games than about the Independence. That has to do with the fact that, while there has been a peace deal, many of the people of Aceh still feel very little tie to Indonesia and are still hoping for independence. Anyways, the games were fun. When we arrived they were just wrapping up the last of the kids games - nail on a stick, swung at a water balloon by blindfolded kids. Probably not the safest game out there.

We then had a men's football (soccer) match played in sarongs. The real excitement of the game was that when the music started the men had to stop playing the game and dance instead. Fun indeed. Although, unfortunately not the best soccer players or dancer.

Next activity was a real highlight... Men climbing a well greased coconut tree trunk. The men climbed atop of each other in hopes of reaching the top of the pole - roughly 45 feet high. As you can see in the picture, they climbed onto each others shoulders one man at a time. The challenge is that the pole is covered in some mysterious thick black grease. It must have taken about 3o minutes for the first group to get someone to reach the top - they just kept sliding down the pole.Upon reaching the top of the pole, the lucky fellow got to play with all of the goodies stored at the top. First prize - a 1 liter bottle of Sprite which he shook up and spayed all over the people below. He then pulled down the umbrellas and plastic balls. The guys kept trying to climb the second pole, but were never able to master it. So at the end of the night, they just tried to pull it down.

So, it was a fun day out.

7.5 in Jakarta

OK, So many of you have heard there was a big earthquake in Jakarta on August 8th/9th (depending on which part of the world you are located). Indonesia is a huge archipelago, made up of lots and lots (very technical term) of islands.
Banda Aceh is miles (and islands) away, so I felt nothing. Didn't even know about it until I received a message from my lovely mother saying she knew that I was nowhere near Jakarta, but she still wanted to know I was OK.
I am happy to let you know that I am just fine.
Here is a map of Indonesia for your viewing pleasure. You can see I am located all the way at the northwestern tip of the country.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/id.html

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!

Week in Review

Well, i will try to keep this post short in words, but pack filled of pictures.

Saturday we had a party at the guest house. There was a surprisingly large turnout considering the torrential downpours (it is supposed to be the dry season, but global warming has hit Indonesia). No pictures, but it was a fun time.

Sunday was another lovely day at the pool.

Early Monday morning I headed back down to Lamno for a few days of meetings with other organizations working in the area. Meetings were interesting but essentially everyone told me "Be careful" and "Good luck". Very assuring I tell you.

There is a nice guest house where we stay. Here is the picture of my home away from home, away from home. And here are the roosters that decided to have a roosting competition at 6am each morning. And this is the lovely rice fields right across from the house. They will be a lovely green later in the year. It is a nice place, but no running water (yet) and the water now is a lovely brown right out of the well. We will be getting a tank installed in a few weeks and then we will be in the lap of luxury with cable and running water and if we are lucky, the electricity will work!

OK, so now for the good stuff. We headed back Wednesday afternoon and here are some pictures along the way. Really some spectacular vistas, as promised.



So, I am not certain how well you can see this, but it is the road. Yes, that is sand and we are right on the water - that is the ocean to the left. Yeah, who knows how long this new road will last - or even when it will be finished. From what I hear they have been working on it for months. But they are moving a few of the hills on the side of the road to move it inland a bit. And that is a truck backing into another truck which got stuck in the wet sand. I am happy to say that our vehichle had no problems.

I made it back to Banda Aceh in time for yoga, phew! But would you know, we lost electricity in Banda Aceh. So, when I came home, again...no water. But this time I took my bucket bath in another room which had a smaller mandi, so I didn't come as close to falling in.

Then tonight we lost electricity in the office yet again. Oh and a nice little mouse came to join me in my office. Afterwards I went with a friend to movie night. Unfortunately, they did not inform us that it was German movie night (with no subtitles). For some reason we stayed and despite three of the eight people there being German speaker, we ended up getting partial translations from an Italian woman who had just seen the movie three times so could tell selected tidbits. Very strange I tell you. Oh, and another mouse decided to join us for the movie. This time we were all sitting on the floor and it just ran right behind our pillows. This country is filled with mice, geckos, cockroaches, ants and lots of other exciting animals! And many of them like to hang out in my house.

I'm off to the beach this weekend. I'll tell you all about it when I get back...

Earthquake #1

I experienced my first Asian earthquake on Wednesday morning. I was asleep in bed when all of a sudden I felt that a cat had jumped on me. (Taco clearly made a lasting impact on me - I have the scratch on my chest to prove it). But alas it was just an earhquake, phew...

This is the notice from the local newspaper, translated into English:

Aceh was jolt by earthquake on Wednesday early morning -
Banda Aceh - Banda Aceh and some areas in Aceh Besar, again, was jolt by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake on Wed (6/6 early morning around 03.32 am. "According to the Head of Meteorology and Geophysical Agency in Banda Aceh, Syahnan, the epicentre of that earthquake was at 88Kms to the Southwest of Banda Aceh and was in 33 Kms inside the earth.

False Tsunami Alarms

I will start with today’s excitement… Today we had two false Tsunami alarms as there was an electrical failure of the tsunami warning system in a village about 10km from Banda Aceh. We did not hear any alarms in BA, but everyone was calling each other and the villagers evacuated to higher ground. There were even rumours of the water being higher than normal (and while I am no tsunami expert, I believe tsunamis are supposed to begin with an earthquake – which we did not have – and I heard the water was supposed to retreat as the tsunami needs to pull in the water in order to create the tidal wave). Anyway, most of the national staff left to go home to be with family as people get very nervous with the threat. So, today was not the most productive of days… But actually I felt quite good as I set up a bunch of appointments to meet with other organizations to discuss their livelihood programs. So, tsunami warnings #1 and #2 were happily false alarms!

So, let’s see what have I been up to since my trip to Lamno? I am still getting settled into my position. I am starting with an initial livelihoods assessment of the villages in which we will be working, so I have been spending time thinking about the methodology and goals of the survey. I have actually been surprised by how little information is readily available on how to conduct these surveys, but still I try. As I mentioned, I am also trying to meet up with other organizations that have been doing livelihoods and economic development work in the area. I know exciting stuff.

Wednesday I went to my first yoga class in Indonesia. It was a wonderful hour and a half. I almost fell asleep at the end of the session, it was that good. But when I got home there was very little water. (I found out later that the cleaning lady had turned off the pump from the well.) So, on the one day I really wanted a shower bad, it was a bucket bath out of the mandi (it is essentially a really big sink that is kept full of water and most people use it for bathing. Out house has a real shower so I don’t usually use the mandi. And one in my bathroom seems never to be filled with water for some reason. For some reason it is also extremely deep, which for me is a challenge when it is not very full because I can hardly reach the bottom so I am hurled over the edge trying to fish out a small bucket of water. OK, enough of the painful imagery. I have included a picture of a mandi for your viewing pleasure. But please do not climb in, even though it looks like a small bathtub, it is only for entry by the buckets.) Anyways, when I am in Banda Aceh, I will try to get to yoga when I can. Not the cheapest exercise, but it is really hard for us women to do exercise here. I had asked if I could join the guys playing soccer and told that was nope. Oh well, too bad. And while I do not run, I am told that women don’t do much of that here either. I am not even sure if there is a gym when women can go. So, it is mostly walking as the only option for us and here is not the easiest place to walk. So, maybe I will actually come back plumper than when I left.

On Thursday night a woman from American Red Cross had a BBQ. They had shrimp with Old Bay Seasoning. Ah, the memories of the Chesapeake Bay. So nice. I also was able to meet more people in the community, which I just love. I am really looking forward to getting more integrated into the community to make it my own.

Friday was a holiday here – Buddha’s birthday, I believe, which is slightly ironic in a Shari’a Muslim area. But, I went into work anyways. I also started cat/house sitting for a friend who went to Bali for the long weekend. She live in an absolutely incredible house – see the koi pond off the kitchen. She has two cats, but the kitten Taco is the real pride and joy. He had gone missing before, so not sure what I was getting myself into. He is called Taco because of the Mexican mustache. That night we went back to the fancy Italian restaurant where we had my birthday. When we got there, we were informed that there would be no alcohol as the Shari’a police had raided the place, confiscating over $2,000 in alcohol. They had just received a shipment and had not had time to lock it away. Yikes! Normally if there is a raid, they get a warning, but the religious police are no part of that.

So, when I left to go to the office on Saturday, Taco went out as well and she did not come home until Monday morning. Rough few days I must admit. I got up on Monday and started to walk through the neighborhood. Then the neighbors drove by and asked if I was looking for Taco. They informed me that Taco had just had breakfast with their kittens. So I went over and scooped him up and brought him home. I am not letting him out of my sight again. (They come home from Bali on Tuesday evening.) He seems to really like my computer – stepping on the keys and licking the screen. I now have him confined to my lap. Oh no, he just jumped on the table. For some reason, he thinks my fingers are toys and she keeps trying to bat them around – even taking little nibbles. I know I have small hands, but I didn’t think they looked like cat toys. This is Taco jumping up on me this morning (the blue is my shirt)… Had to get some pictures, so happy he was home!

Saturday night I went for a cream bath with some lady friends. Essentially this entails an hour long session which includes several hair washing, a head massage with avocado cream, along with a shoulder massage – all for the reasonable price of about $5. Unless of course you have long hair for which they add 25%. Too bad they don’t tell you that in advance. While it was nice, that whole long hair thing bothers me. I think I will go for full body massages in the future. I think those run a whopping $10.50 and no extra charge for my long hair.

Sunday, I actually worked a bit in the morning and then headed over to a friend’s for a swim in the pool. I look my first Becak, which is essentially a cart attached to the side of a motorbike – sort of like a side car, but with a cover. It was such a nice day, a few beers sitting in the pool, a little sun and hanging out with friends. Although, I did get attacked by the suction tube – twice – which left lovely circular bruises on my leg. A nice mark to remember the day at the pool.

Wow…is this entry long enough?

One more thing, several people were concerned about the security situation here in Aceh (me included). I am happy to report that things here are actually really under control. The only real incidents that occur are in the villages and those are confined to blockades of roads when villagers feel that they have been wronged. Most notably, an NGO will come in and promise something and then not deliver it. So, for all of you that have been worried, please don’t be. Thing here are just fine. Probably much better than the other lovely places I have traveled over the last three years.