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.