Five Days at the Homebase

**Because my Blog decided that posting pictures would take over an hour, I'm just going to upload all of them to my FaceBook and post a link on the last Blog post I write for you to go look at. Sorry about it!**

July 5: Our first day at the homebase, we did very little. I spent the majority of my day reading and being a social recluse. I'm discovering that although I may appear to be a extrovert, I really am an introvert. I get energy from being by myself. After lunch, a few of us loaded on to a boat and traveled to another spot behind the resort to hike to a waterfall. It took about two hours to hike to the fall, but it was so very worth it! When we got to the falls, we all swam in the cool water and jumped off from different rocks. There was a rock like seven feet from the water, thirteen feet, and like thirty feet. I jumped off all the heights. The thirty foot high jump was a little scary, but the rest was a piece of cake.

July 6: After a quick breakfast, we all left for the first part of the work project. However, there were too many people who wanted to help so about five of us were stuck doing nothing at all, but sitting and talking. A few of us decided to go walk around the island and explore. We walked for about a mile before we discovered a few old Chinese grave mounds with neat benches made of sticks and twigs. We sat there for a little break before continuing back for lunch. The Ibu of the house that we were doing the work project at made us chicken soup, tofu, rice, some weird orange drink thingy, and fish cooked in banana leafs. By the time we finished lunch and I finished helping Ibu with the dishes, there were already too many people helping make brinks for me to do anything at all. We left the island around 3:00 to go back to ******. After the dinner, we played Phase 10 and fished. One of the guys on the team caught a creepy poisonous worm/slug thing. If it bites you, it could paralyze you. Kinda sorta freaked me out a little. On the way back to my room, I stepped on a whopper nail and got a huge, super painful blood blister on my foot. One of the nurses had never seen anything like it and freaked out.

July 7: My foot was still killing me this morning and I was super concerned that I wouldn't be any help at the work project. However, I was on the last boat over to the island and was again left sitting on the side waiting for someone to need a break. After lunch (curry chicken, potato soup, and rice), I had to opportunity to help! I made one brick before someone asked to cut in. I kindly responded that I just started, but, he being a "gentleman", took my moulder thingy away from me and told me to go sit down. Poop. So much for being helpful.

July 8: I woke up to what sounded like five people rummaging through things and cussing loudly. One of them was crying. I got dressed and went out to investigate. There was a girl lying on the floor in the dining room and everybody was super hushed. Apparently, she was diabetic, but had not been drinking water, taking the pill she was supposed to, or monitoring her sugar level. Right before I walked in, she suffered a major seizure and fell to the floor. The girls who were shouting in the room were looking for the pill that she was supposed to be taking. The tour guides finally realized that there were too many people doing one project so they sent some of us to their nearby island. ****** just bought it and were planning to build a resort there and needed us to go pick-up all the trash on the island. Because locals just throw their trash in the sea, it floats to nearby islands dirtying the beach. So sad. We were only picking up trash for about 15 minutes before the weather decided that it would be okay to start drenching us in rain. Literally, we looked like we had just jumped in the sea, we were so soaked. Because it didn't take us all that long to pick up all the trash that wasn't near the bushes that the ants lived in (these ants were miserable creatures. Instead of just biting you, they would literally burrow themselves into their your skin--SO painful. It's worse than any shot I've ever gotten...except maybe tetanus), we moved into the jungle to start to dig a hole were the water purifying system would be. It raining so hard, that the hole began to fill as we were digging it out. It was about knee deep before we called it a day and returned to ******.

July 9: We did not have a work project because we were leaving for the last island on the 10th. It was just a day of relaxing and doing nothing before our brief for the last island that night. I literally swam, ate, read, continued writing my book, and napped all day long. During our brief, we were told that ******, our last island, had about a 2000 people population. The island is most well-know for their 200 year-old mosque. It is one of the most unique mosques in Indonesia because of it's unique shape--it's more like a tower and less like a cupcake. The people on the island claim that it was made from dirt and eggs. We were also told that ******has a sacred cemetery. The people of the island believe that there is someone sacred buried there. They believe that if you pray to him, he will bless you and bring you and your family luck. The people on the island earn money by building boats, delivering things to Singapore, fishing, and farming durian (ICK), cimpada, jack fruit, and rambutan. As I prepared for bed, I felt a little badly because I was getting excited to go home. After a little bit more writing, I went to bed. 

A Little Bit of Time at the Homebase and the Second Island

June 29: I was still feeling a little jet-lagged and woke up super early. I looked outside the window and was greeted by a gorgeous sunrise. I only was awake for a little bit, but the sunrise was absolutely wonderful. We had a day off to relax and breathe a little bit after our time on the island. We also had to stay there to look like we were actually tourists and not missionaries. After each island we would go to, we would have a day or two at ******* before leaving for the next island. On days like this, we would read, swim in the sea, sit in hammocks, and play all sorts of card games. We went for a jungle hike to the ropes course. The people who actually went on the hike held a ropes course race. I did okay, but I was most certainly not the fastest. After a quick lunch, a group of us sat around the table and told riddles--Black Magic, Green Mirror, Fuzzy Bear, and Triangles. Super fun. Next time you are bored, call me up. I have a bunch of riddles to occupy your time. After sitting for about four hours and reading, a group of us played a couple hours of volleyball. I, personally, love volleyball, but cannot play very well. After dinner, more card games, and a little dessert, I fell asleep in the hammock again.

June 30: Most of the "tourists" woke up early to pack for the second island before the briefing. The briefing this time was very short. We learned that the island is significantly larger than the first one--it would take hours to walk around the whole island. Similar to the first island though, the population is around 700-800 people. We would spend five days and four nights on ******. On the island, they told us, we would learn to play the kompang, play all sorts of sports, and spend some time at the leader of the villages' house. We would also be cleaning up the graveyard. In the majority of Indonesia, during Ramadan, the people clean the graveyard. The pull weeds, move leaves from the graves, stack them in giant piles, and burn them. They consider the graveyards a very sacred and, in some places, mystical place. Some people will go to he graveyard to pray to their ancestors for provision or other such needs. On ****** they have a big museum, of sorts, that holds all kids of amulet, swords, and daggers that are said to protect the island. After our briefing and lunch, we left. When we arrived, people were waiting for us, but it was pouring rain so hard, that we were quickly whisked away to the leader's house. His mansion was amazing. they had a very nice flatscreen TV and very comfortable couches. We did not wait there for long before umbrellas appeared and we were led to our various houses. Our second house was really nice! It was actually on land--the reason most houses are built over the ocean is because people would have to pay for the land they build their houses on; they don't actually have to buy the sea they build their house over. Their house is near the sea to get a nice breeze, but not too far that there are tons of human-eating bugs. The floors are tiled and even the mandi was ceramic! It was wonderful. Our Ibu was the sweetest, most talkative thing ever. She would stand there and jabber on about who-knows-what, fully aware that we couldn't understand a word she was saying without our translators with us. We would then use our basic Bahasa Indonesia and charades to try to talk back. I'm sure that if someone were watching, it would have been quite entertaining!

July 1:Ibu served us ramen and this insanely delicious hazelnut coffee. And I mean crazy good. So so so good. Since it was pouring rain the day before, we decided that it would be a great idea to go on a tour of the island. However, after we had walked about a mile about, rain started again.  We sat under some kind man's porch and sat the rain out. After the rain stopped for at least a little bit, we continued to the house that one of the girls who's birthday it was was staying at. We surprised her with a birthday cake (that tasted like the only ingredient was butter-haha!!) and singing. We stood around and told more riddles--some of them were really good!! Like the one about the guy who killed himself after he ate the bird, the one about the elevator, and the one about the dead guys in the cabin. I love riddles. For lunch, we ate catfish (a luxury actually know what kind of fish we were eating), rice, African veggie, shrimp soup, and egg patty. We barely had a siesta before we were taken to the town center to learn how to play the kompang. We played with the kids in the town center for a couple of hours. I helped them practice playing volleyball and played Do Me Ka Do, or Hanky Panky. One of the translators that was with us girls constantly decided that she really did not like me and the girls on my team. It really made this part of the trip hard for me. No fun. For dinner, we ate catfish with sweet soy sauce, squid in it's original ink, rice, and potato soup. After dinner, we went to the town center again for a little bit of karaoke. However, we were so tired after playing so hard all day that we went back to the house to talk with Ibu. It wasn't long before they all went to bed and so did we.

July 2: I was awoken be being stepped on by the translator that did not like us. After a quick mandi and an icky fish noodle pasta thing for breakfast, we left to clean the cemetery. We pulled out all the plants and dead leaves from the graves. I had a hoard of ten year-old girls helping me along with a very quiet seventeen year-old girl. She followed me around the majority of the time I was on the island. I never learned her name. After we finished burning all the leaves and uprooted weeds, we went to the local fish and crab market. The market was a floating boathouse that had openings in the bottom. Loose nets were hanging from the bottom filled with all sorts of fish, crabs, and shimp. In one of the nets, much to our dismay, we discovered two sea turtles. Remembering what our Ibu's son from the second island said about the catching and killing or selling of the coral and the clown fish, we were all super worried about the turtles. You see, sea turtles are endangered in Indonesia and, apparently, turtle soup is tasty. We asked the fisherman what he does with the turtles. He told us that he would sell the sea turtles to Chinese people. The fisherman told us that the Chinese people would offer the sea turtles to whomever their god is and then release them to the sea once again. He said that they wouldn't eat the turtles because the Chinese people would pay a lot more for a turtle for sacrifice than a hungry family would. Happy with the news, we went back to our Ibu's house for lunch (dinky, rice, kering tempe, veggies, and watermelon) before visiting the leader's house. When we visited him, his wife had made all sorts of snacks for us and had set out soda. We sat, talked, listened to music, and ate clementines for about an hour before it was time to go. The children wanted to take us to see some of the men of the village play takrow. Takrow is a Indonesian sport similar to a mixture between hacky sack and volleyball--you hit this weird wicker ball over the low net with anything but your hands. Sometimes the guys would do this cool flip twist thrust thing to bounce the ball off their chest and spike it. Suddenly, one of the girls who followed me the whole time we were on the second island, Ain, grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me under some trees. She pointed up and whispered "monet". There were like seven monkeys playing in the trees just above us! They were sitting in the trees chattering loudly. I realized that I was getting absolutely eaten alive from all the bugs that were in the grass. The girls and I left for our house so I could coat my poor legs in anti-itch cream before I scratched them off. For dinner, Ibu served us fried dinky, egg dish, rice, potato soup, and kering tempe. After dinner, we sat and talked with our family for a little bit. Our Ibu's daughter in law sat next to me and chattered happily about her marriage to her husband and her cute little kid. Such a sweet family.

July 3: I, somehow, managed to "oops" not eat breakfast. I was getting so sick of fried foods that fried bananas just did not sound good in the very least. The coffee, however, sounded amazing. It was so amazing that, despite it pouring rain, Ibu took me to the store just down the street to get a big bag of coffee myself. Because it was raining so hard, we had to sit inside the store and wait for it to let up at least a little bit. We walked over to one of the translator's house to meet up with the rest of the group to travel to the nearby island for a tour. We were not on the island for very long though. We walked to the local cemetery in which the king and queen (of who-knows-what) were buried in. They had been there for almost a century so said the man guarding the cemetery. After a few photos, we returned to ****** for lunch. We made it home before our translators did, so we went for a swim in the sea with some kids and rinsed off with water from the local well with Ibu.  She made us hard boiled eggs and potato soup, some kind of fish, rice, and some kind of spicy bean for lunch. We walked all over the island after our siesta thing, playing volleyball and wrestling with kids for hours. When we arrived back at our house near suppertime, Ibu was very excited to show us the crab that she was making for dinner. She caught it herself and was going to boil them for supper. Ibu's son decided to join us for dinner. He parked himself next to me and began to open and pull crab meat of the shells and putting them on my plate. Although I know he was being super sweet, I hate fish (or fishy things). I had to eat what he was putting on my plate. I felt so badly. Along with the crab, we were also served rice, the spicy bean again, fish, and some sort of potato soup. Ibu presented us with some traditional Malay garbs and told us to get dressed for the goodbye party. It was so fun! The Ibus were dancing with us and they played very loud music for us. One little girl came up to my crying saying that she didn't want us to leave. So sweet. When we arrived at the house, Ibu had made us some little green dessert thing. It was like a cake with a brown sugar ball in the center rolled in shredded coconut. We sat up talking until the power went out at 11:00 as normal, but Ibu pulled out some sort of power strip and plugged in a lamp. We talked until like 2:00 in the morning, joking and drinking tea.

July 4: Do you know one of the worst ways to be woken up? I do. One of the worst ways to wake up is being covered with ants and termites. We all got dressed and ate our last breakfast. Ibu served us weird rice clumps and not quite ripe papaya soup. Apparently, according to Ibu's daughter, before a papaya is ripe, it functions and tastes more like a vegetable than it does a fruit. Our Ibu gave us all a teary hug and sent us off to the dock without her. She told us that there was no way she could come with us because she would cry too hard. Ibu's daughter, daughter-in-law, and a bunch of kids who followed me around ****** the whole time we were there, accompanied us to the dock. It was a looong boat ride back to the homebase. As soon as we got there, it was time to do my laundry! I had to put my laundry in a bucket, fill it with water, and then pour some soap in it. After letting it sit for like thirty minutes, you have to rinse the clothes off and scrub them with a brush that looks like a horse curry on the ground. Then I had to move them to another bucket and fill that with water and clothing softener. Then I had to let it sit and soak for about fifteen minutes before I had to super thoroughly rinse the softener out and hang them to dry on the clothes line. It takes about two days for clothing to dry in Indonesia with all the humidity. The whole process is super hard and really hurts my back, it's kinda fun though. After washing my clothing, we had our debrief. Most people talked about their experiences on the island. We then wrote a letter to Ibu and included some pictures from our time with them. I spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing before sleeping in the hammock alone. I so love sleeping in hammocks.

First Island Stay

*Sorry this is taking so long, guys! I'm going to try and hammer these out now*
 
June 25: We began the day with a quick brief on what we were to expect for our first island--****** would take about ten minutes to walk around, there are only about 700-800 people living on the island, all the houses are build on docks over the sea changing the island's shape from a pear to something like a paramecium, and the docks are made out of long sticks hammered into the ground (in the ocean, of course) and smaller sticks and "planks" carefully balanced on top. They are not nailed to the dock so it makes walking on them both scary and dangerous. One false step and you could fall through the dock into the trash-filled sea. Because the planks were not nailed down, they changed position every day, so you can't even get used to where the position of the planks were or were the ones that would break under your feet were. ****** is very close to Singapore and it's a weird feeling being on such a poverty-filled third-world island and being able to see an amazingly gorgeous first-world country less than a thirty minute boat ride away. When we arrived at ******, we were greeted a group of people playing the kompang, a traditional Malay drum; a group of people singing; and tons of kids tossing rice at us. The kids dragged us around the island to drop us off at the houses we would be staying at. When my group reached our house, we were greeted by our Ibu, the matriarch of the house, and her seven year-old daughter Ain (pronounced eye-EEN). They served us amazing tea (Prendjak, for anyone who wants to try it--SO good), fried bananas, and fried banana bread balls. One of the boys I met as soon as I got to the dock, Rahim (pronounced rah-HEEM), came over to the house to gather us for a tour around the island. He took us back to the dock to watch the men of the island practice Dragon Boat racing. Every year around Ramadan, the people in Indonesia have Dragon Boat races. They remind me a little bit of crew. He took us to his house to meet his parents. In the back of the house, his father, or Bapak as they call them in Indonesia, lay on a huge stack of blankets and pillows. He had suffered a stroke one day when he was out fishing with a group of his buddies that left him completely paralyzed. Since then, his movement in his right arm and neck had come back. He could feel a little bit in his feet too. Rahim's Bapak told us that he believed the wind paralyzed him. He had a dream one night in which a man dressed in all white came and visited him. He believed the man to be the one who brought Islam to Indonesia. The man was surrounded by seven angels, two of them being Michael and Gabriel. The Man in white told Bapak to be a good man and he might restore his movement. Bapak asked us to come back tomorrow too. We prayed for the man and Rahim took us back to our house. Every day, twice a day, people have to do something called a "mandi". Basically, it means shower. So, in this house you had to wrap yourself in a sarong and bring your clothing with you to a little hut out behind the house on the dock. There was a bucket filled with water and a little scoop that you would have to use to pour the water on yourself to wash. Although, when in the hut, you would have to watch out for the hole in the floor--you know, the hole people (unfortunately, including myself) did their business over...ick. Because the hut was so small, we had to squat in order to remain completely hidden from people curious about the white people on the island. For dinner, our Ibu served us some kind of white fish (keep in mind, I hate fish. With a passion.), the spicy African veggie, rice, tiny bananas, and like a huge egg patty with onions cut into little pizza triangles. There are no tables and chairs for us to sit on, of course, so we sit in a circle on the floor. It is very rude to face your feet towards anyone, so we had to either sit crisscross or on our hip with our feet facing behind us. Also, using your left had for anything at all is incredibly rude and gross so we had to pass everything with our right hand and eat with our right hand only. (The left hand, you see, is used in lieu of toilet paper, and is then thoroughly cleaned, but still...you can understand why using the left hand for anything is incredibly rude and disgusting.) After dinner, we talked with our Ibu and her older son for a little bit before setting out our sleeping pads and crashing.

  

Rahim and my little friend who followed me around braiding my hair, Lena. 

 

This is a dragon boat! 

 

Dinner! 

June 26: At 4:30 in the morning, we were all awoken by the call to Prayer....not fun. I swear, that guy sang for like forty-five minutes. Ugh. Eventually, we all did fall back asleep. When we woke up at around 7:00, our Ibu was cooking something that smelled wretched. Most of our stomachs were turning at the smell. We all mandied, as you're supposed to before breakfast, and sat down to our first Indonesian breakfast--top ramen, some kind of meat that could have potentially been hot dogs, rice, and more of the Prendjak tea. It was, well, tolerable. Rahim visited our house again before school to say good morning ("Salamat Pagi!") and to ask if we were coming to the school today. He was more than thrilled when we told him that we were! At the school, we taught English to a class for about an hour and a half. We taught them Simon Says (in Bahasa Indonesia, of course), all sorts of different songs in English, and the English alphabet. We then played with them during recess. We played games like Hanky Panky (Do Me Ka Do, they call it), Red Rover, Sharks and Minnows, chalk, and they put flowers in all the girls' hair. One group of girls gave me a super sweet present--the picked a long leaf off a tree and used sap and dirt to write on it "Morgiy I love". So cute!! We walked around the island a little more before we went back for lunch. Ain was excitedly awaiting our return. We sat down to fish curry, veggies, rice, and the giant egg patty thing. After lunch, we took our siesta thing as normal. However, it was so hot that Katie and I couldn't sleep. Rahim came into the room excitedly whispering "Kelinci! Kelinci!" (kuh-lyn-chi). Katie and I walked outside to a group of kids holding a little tiny bunny. Pretty much the cutest thing ever. All these kids brought a bunny to us. Adorable! After about playing with the kids and the bunny for about fifteen minutes, Katie and I walked down to the dock watch the kids swim. It was the only place on the island that was actually relatively cool. There was a small breeze that would keep the sweat mustaches away for at least a little bit. We went and visited all the other girls and translators. At one of the translators houses, we practiced a song for the goodbye party that the people on the island were throwing for us. We also helped the ladies of the house make bread for dinner. The kids then led us to the volleyball court where some of the men on the island and some of the men on our team were playing against each other. We did not stat long before we had to go back to the house to mandi and eat dinner. For dinner, our Ibu served us a super icky fish called dinky, fish curry, rice, egg patty, and a veggie similar to a leek. After dinner we talked with our Ibu's son (our Ibu was rather shy). He was telling us about his job and his girlfriend. He is a fisherman who catches "nemos"--clown fish--, coral, and anything else he can catch and sell. It's so sad! The people are so poor that they do whatever they can to live--as I would too--, but they don't know that by harvesting coral and the clown fish, they are destroying the ecosystem therefore making their living situations even worse! Makes me so sad.

  

Sekolah

 

Ain and the little kelinci

June 27: This morning, we barely woke up to the Call to Prayer. For breakfast, our Ibu served us Prendjak tea; fried bananas; and fried tortillas with potatoes, carrots, and some kind of icky fish. Our Ibu's older daughter and the rest of our group walked to the dock to leave on another boat to go to a different island to go shopping. At the island, we bought tons of boxes of the Prendjak tea, some chocolate, and a glass of an amazing drink called Milo. On the boat ride back, we got soaked. The water was so choppy that it just drenched anyone who was even remotely close to the front of the boat. Upon our arrival back, we practiced our performance for the goodbye party--it was really not going to be that good. We went back to the house did a quick mandi and ate dinner--rice, African veggie, and fish. Again, let me remind my readers just how much I HATE fish. After dinner, our Ibu surprised us by presenting us with traditional Malay clothing that we were to wear for the goodbye party that night! After getting dressed in the clothing, our Ibu's older daughter and one of her friends sat us down and put some make-up on us. It was so fun! We walked down to the center of the island near the school to meet the others and pretty much the rest of the people on the island. The stage was decorated beautifully. We witnessed people playing the kompang amazingly, gorgeous dancing, some strange traditional dancing, lots of performances of little kids singing and dancing, a very weird cross dresser dancing and singing, and, of course, the performances from the Americans! Ours was terrible as expected. After the performances, we all stood in a semi-circle for about fifteen minutes for pictures. People began lining up and walked through the circle both receiving our thanks and giving them--"terima kasih! (pronounced tearrr-EEM-uh KAH-see). 

  

Some famous Indonesian fruits: rambutan (the red spiky ones) and durian (the brown spiky one).

Rambutan is delicious and kinda tastes like a mixture between a grape and a pear and has the texture of lychee. Durian, however, is the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth. There is nothing comparable to durian. Let's just say I would rather lick the bottom of the dumpster behind Ralph's than have another bite of durian. NASTY stuff.

June 28: When we woke up, we were all surprised that nobody had woken to the Call to Prayer. We ate a quick breakfast of eggs, fried rice, and banana bread. We surprised the family by giving them gifts that we had brought for them from home--bandages, first aid tape, candles, key-chains from San Francisco, and other such goodies. We all left for the dock followed by what seemed like thousands of children and other people on the island. They all yelled and shouted goodbye as we left on the boat for our homebase. It was about an hour and a half ride before we reached ****** When we got there, we shoved our stuff in our room, ate lunch--a weird American and Indonesian mix, and began our debrief. We shared stories from the island and ideas that we should do better on the next island. After our debrief and dinner, I went for a long walk on the beach before falling asleep in a hammock on the beach.

First week-ish in Indonesia!

Quick note before we dive in to my trip in Indonesia, because what we were doing was/is highly illegal, my naming specific places we visited and Indonesian people who we were with is completely out of the question. Instead of my writing being formed in a awkward fashion to avoid these words, I'm just gunna write as I want to, but I'm going to ****** out the words I can't use! I am more than happy to sit down with whomever and go in to further detail with them! Complete with names and places.

June 20: My mama dropped me off at LAX for my first flight to Hong Kong. I ran into most of my teammates (Rob, Katie, Peter, and Haley) pretty immediately. Poor Katie had to miss our flight because her plane from home was still taxiing around. It was like a fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong, most of which I slept, largely due to the amazingness of NyQuil (praise JESUS for Nyquil. It's seriously like the best thing ever!). I was only awake for like three hours total. It was awesome. I hate flying, so sleeping was perfect.

(Flying to Singapore!)

June 22: So, because of the time difference we skipped Thursday (the 21st). Let me tell you--weird. Very weird. We arrived in Hong Kong and quickly met up with Katie! We then flew to Singapore--amazing city. Absolutely gorgeous! We really had about fifteen minutes in Singapore before we were whisked off to ******, a second world island. We got off the ferry and all of us took a huge breath of the hot and humid air in. I can proudly announce that my first breath of Indonesian air included a big bug. Yep. Right down my throat. Lovely. We got our visas and left for the house that we would live in for the next few days during our language training. We met up with the other teams, had icky tuna fish pizza for dinner, and crashed. I felt miserably jet lagged. So tired!

(The whole team minus Rob)

June 23: Today was the first day for language training. I, who am not super good at remembering foreign languages as it is, had a super hard time the entire time we were learning. Although I knew that we would use almost 100% of what our guides were teaching us, I honestly remembered very little. And by very little, I mean I could say "Halo/hai, nama saya Margie" or, in English, "Hello/hi, my name is Margie." Pathetic. For lunch, they served us some rainbow noodles and a huge tortilla-sized ship with a ball of chicken in the middle--delicious. It was so sweltering outside that day, and especially after the ramen!, that we visited a local pool to go swimming. One of the girls on our team we suspected of having pink eye, despite her denying it. I and the girls on my team felt badly, but we had to avoid letting our eyes get in the water. After about three hours of swimming, we went back to our house to change for dinner with one of the families who started the mission program. We had hot dogs (American food!!) for dinner and played a super fun game called "Family". Seriously. You should look it up.

(Rainbow noodles!)

("Kepalla, punduk, lutut, kaki")(Head, shoulders, knees, and toes!)

June 24: Another day of language training! Again, this meant that I was sitting there, furiously writing notes, and remembering nothing of what was being taught. It stinks. They served us our first Indonesian meal today--chicken, potatoes, tempeh, some strange African green veggie, and tofu.
We took a nap after lunch and went on a "scavenger hunt". By "scavenger hunt", they really meant "let's go shopping for souvenirs". It thought it was great! I got a sarong for the beaches and showers (more on the showers later). We went out to dinner at a little Indonesian restaurant and ate noodles and chicken chips.

June 25: Last day of language training! Finally...after a quick cornbread breakfast, we left the house for the boat terminal. When we got there, much to my dismay, we had to throw our luggage over the side of the dock, down about four feet, and into the arms of the guy driving the boat. It would have been more than easy to drop the bags into the water...so scary. We, fortunately, got to climb on to the boat. It was only like an our hour and a half before we reached our home base. ****** is seriously one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been--white sands, big forest, super warm sea. Stunning. When we arrived, some ladies were waiting for us with this odd little orange sparkly juice thingy and warm rags to wipe off our salty faces. We all sat down to lunch (poppy seed chicken, some gross fish--news flash, I hate fish--, rice, and the weird African green veggie again. From there we had our code language briefing. We learned what words not to use ever and what words to replace those with. (Again, for security reasons, I'm not going to go in to specifics about what our code was. I would be delighted to sit down and share with whomever though!) After the briefing, Katie and I took a swim in the South China Sea. Guys, this water is WARM. Like 75/80 degrees. And it's super salty. No need to tread water very much at all. It's wonderful. We had a quick dinner (fried shrimp, curry beef, wheat flat bread, and vegetables stir fried in coconut milk) before we had out last meeting for the day. In this meeting we compared Islam and Christianity and two different approaches to evangelism. The two approaches say (#1) "Christianity is right; Islam is wrong. You should be a Christian or you're going to Hell"--basically--and (#2) "Both our religions have crap about them. Let's look at them together." Obviously the second one is a way better basic approach to have (mind, those aren't opening lines; more just mindsets).

(There go the bags!)

(Orange fizzy drink thing!)

June 26: Because of being jet lagged a little bit still, I woke up early to see a gorgeous sunrise. One of the guides and workers at ******, came to share about Islam with us. He was a Muslim man until he found God. He stressed the point that what Islam is in the Al Qur'an and what the Muslim teachers preach are two very different religions. He told us that in their culture, whatever the teachers say must be taken as true no matter what and, because the Qur'an is in Arabic, not in Bahasa Indonesia--their language, nobody can, or is even allowed to challenge them. The Qur'an does actually claim that Jesus is the Christ and that he is messenger and Messiah. It also correctly says that Jesus rose from the dead (Qur'an, Surah 19:30-35). ****** firmly believes that a Muslim can to go Heaven as long as he believes in Isa al Masih (Jesus Christ) and, after this amazing orientation, so do I. This was by far my favorite meeting. I learned so much! For the rest of the day, we did very little other than relaxing and packing to leave for our first island on the 27th!

(Gorgeous said sunrise.)