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.