Posted by John's secretary aka Suzanne

Well firstly I must apologise for the slightly rushed nature of that last post, I tried to write some before I left for kupang but then didn’t get as long online as I had wanted when I was in Kupang.
Hopefully this should be successfully uploaded by proxy in that Suzanne (thanks Suzanne!) is in Kupang this weekend doing a big shopping trip and I’ve asked her to upload it.
Life here pretty much plods along really. It was really good to be in Kupang last weekend and just see some other bulay (derogatory term for white people) and hang out for a while. Rest assured thats not me being racist, it’s just nice to be able to talk to more than one person (Suzanne) who has the same cultural background as you every so often and make contact with the outside world, although a little less partying and a little more sleep could have been advisable, I came back feeling more worn out than when I left!
In fact Suzanne is getting a nice full weekend in Kupang which it appears is going to be a rarity for us. I was there for three days (Friday to Monday) which was due to me working extra hours last week and then it being Ede (or is is Id, I don’t know) so having Monday off. The issue is we work 8-11 on Fridays and 8-12 on Saturdays. The ferry leaves Rote at about 11 (Indonesian time, could be anytime in the day) and leaves Kupang at 8 in the morning so full weekends are something that will be tricky and without some flexibility, weekends away at all without taking annual leave would be impossible.
On Saturday night, a group of us went out to play pool and I got to experience my first ever Indonesian drugs raid! Drugs here carry the threat of the death penalty so you can imagine a raid is fairly draconian. The police just turned up to the pool hall, with no reasonable suspicion or search warrant or other such trivialities. They simply walked in out of uniform assured us they were police and claimed they could just do a raid.
It was interesting that they actually made a beeline for our table and the other table with a white person on it, thinking about it, I guess it’s the first time I’ve ever been racially discriminated against by the police, it doesn’t happen often in England as a white middle class male! We were frisked and made to empty our pockets and have the contents of our wallets emptied. Thankfully we were saved the indignity of a body cavity search however there is a fine line between frisking and fondling and that policeman came a little too close to that line for my liking.
However this was less awkward for the guys in the group who were just forced to empty the contents of our wallets which were more disorganised being a mess of old tickets and receipts than embarrassing. I got a little bit of hassle as my temporary driving license expired in a week, although even if it had expired, there is no law against having an expired licesnse so long as you aren’t driving. Having said that, police don’t need excuses like laws to hassle you here. It was slightly different for the women though.
They were forced to go into a separate room by female officers and empty their handbags, i learned a long time ago I just don’t want to what’s in womens handbags and this was a real invasion of privacy. Further to this they were forced to lift up their tops so their underwear could be checked to see if drugs had been stashed there. All in all, I htink it was a bit of a grim experience.
This Saturday is a public holiday here because it is the Bupati election, hence why Suzanne is able to leave Friday come back Sunday. I’m not exactly sure how the word Bupati translates other than big boss of the island. This is the office who decide most public affairs for the island including who the new director of our hospital will be, budgets strategy etc for all hospital life and public life in general. There is a real hope for change here I think, we will have to see. When we first arrived there was a big rally for the opposition. SO the election is on Saturday, I don’t think it’ll quite have John Snow (or whoever it is) and his swingometer but it should be pretty interesting and judging from the rally the other day, noisy. Then again, everything in Indonesia is noisy even on a sleepy island like Rote.
Being the rather sad politics graduate I’m actually looking forward to seeing all of this and in fact, I’ll even have someone to observe it with. Rich, my university friend who currently is living in South Korea is the first person to come visit doubling the current population of white males in Rote at the moment (even the hotel owners in the south have left as it’s currently rainy season), certainly in Ba’a. He’ll be staying for about a week and a half then he’s heading off to Bali for Christmas. Living in the urban sprawl that is Seoul, I he says he’s glad to just have a week doing nothing here the slower pace of life, which is good as there isn’t much else to do here!
Suzanne and I have decided to spend Christmas here, it will be a quiet but it should be a nice change. The truth is, Christmas will be so unbelievably different from anything we’ve experienced before, I guess we don’t really have anything to miss because it just won’t be like Christmas anyway.

Days 61-84

Well apologies that it has been so long since my last update, it is one of the problems of living on an island with no internet access! Suzanne went to the only local internet cafe type place the other week. Apparently its status as an internet cafe is somewhat misleading: they didn’t have any food or drinks and their one connection (Yes one! they don’t have any computers, you have to take your own laptop) wasn’t working so I can’t help but feel it is false advertising to call itself and internet cafe.

We’ve been on Rote for almost 3 weeks now so we are beginning to settle in a bit. When we arrived there has been a complication with our accommodation, the house Suzanne was due to live in with some doctors was no longer really available so we had to live in the small two bedroomed house for a week or so. After much discussion as to who would move out (not in a bad way, we just didn’t want to live together) we agreed I should move into the other accommodation on offer which is a room in a boarding house type place just opposite the hospital.
One of the real plus points thus far has been the fact I appear to have acquired a motorbike. I borrowed it from the hospital and when I tried to take it back they told me to keep it for the moment and they have not, as of yet, asked for it back. To be honest it is more bike than motor. It is 100cc of pure unadulterated power and I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t be road worthy in the UK.
For starters its horn doesn’t work and in Indonesia a horn is about as important as wheels on a bike however that isn’t the main problem. If you hold down the clutch for more than about two seconds then the engine cuts out which as you can guess if you are waiting to make a turn is a bit of a pain leaving you stranded in the middle of the road and with no electric starter you are forced to kick start it each time after you have found the ever elusive neutral. Add into this the fact I keep forgetting to turn on the fuel valve thing which has lead to many occasions of getting about 100 yards before it cuts out.
So all in all, not an ideal bike however I am really grateful for it as it gives me so much more freedom on the island. A after a week I ventured out around the island for a bit on the bike, you have to be careful as there appear to be no road signs and no maps available so you have to memorise where you have gone or face being stranded forever in the wilderness.

The bike also has no fuel gauge so I am always keen to keep it fairly full so I went and bought some petrol. Now petrol stations here are not as they are in England, when I say petrol station I mean a bloke in a hut with glass bottles of fuel outside which he will then empty into you petrol tank, rather worryingly, normally whilst smoking. Having filled up I remounted my bike, checked I had opened the fuel valve, checked my side stand was up (a volunteer left it down a few weeks ago and was badly injured when it caught on the floor as she went round a corner, so it’s my new paranoia), eventually after much trying found neutral and prepared to set off. Now all of that takes a few minutes with the man in the hut watching. So when I tried to kick start it, it would start, I tried a few times but nothing. I started to get that pressured feeling of people watching, had I put the wrong fuel in? Is there a wrong fuel here? By this point the man in the hut had been joined by his friend who were watching with some mirth so I was really starting to feel the pressure of embaressment and avoided looking at the two men. Several minutes passed with no success, I was starting to wonder if I’d have to push the bike back to the hospital in defeat. Then a voice came from the hut saying “hey mister” as I looked up I saw the man making a turning motion with his hand which at first confused me until I realised I had been sat for five to ten minutes trying to start the bike without putting the keys in the ignation as they were in my pocket. I rode off with my tail between (if that is physically possible)

of course many other things have happened but haven't had enough time to write them! will try to update again soon

Days 54-61 (Back to bali)

Sorry for leaving it another week for a post, i know you all can't survive without my regular mumblings!

Well last weekend we went to a very nice house warming party at the house of one of the office staff who had a swimming pool, it's a tough life. After sam and i went to a bar to watch rovers vs chelsea, my first match in two months, i walked in just in time to see chelsea score a very lucky goal, so annoying.

ANyway, anedotes as my last few posts have been a little dull.

I went to get my tourist license on tuesday, i need this becuase i didn't bring my international license and in oreder to be able to ride a bike out here i need to do the internal training which i can only do in bali, so need tourist license to do this.

Anyway got picked up form the office and went to the police station arriving at about 1. When we got there they bloke looked at my passport etc and talked for several minutes before revealing that i would have to come back the following day as they only issues licenses in the morning. He sat there, smoking heavily (this appears to be a key element to being an indonesian policeman) and told us it was impossible to get the license. HE had everything he need except the inclination to be helpful. We have been warned of this, it's a very bureaucratic country and so we went away empty handed.

We returned the following morning (i left language school early much to my teacher and classmates delight) and went up in time. When we got there we had to see a different policeman again with my details and fill in many forms which all appeared to be very similar. The man regarded me with some disgust (he too was smoking) until he saw my shoes (a birthday present from my parents, nothing spectactular, not like 8 inch platforms or anything) which he refused to believe were not bought in indonesia, at one point i was worried he wanted them as some sort of bribe leaving me to return home shoeless however he did not.

He instead handed me my theory test, this was a bit of a shock but was fairly straight forward and in english and i even refrained from correcting the grammer as i was worried that these 18 stone, chain smoking, revolver toting (one kept on putting his hand on his gun when he scowled at me) policemen may be sensitive and burst out crying if i did.

Having givcen my test a cursory glance and lighting another ciggarette they told me i would now have to do my practical test. This too was more than a little surprise. The guy who was sorting it out said the rules are at the whim of the director so change frtequently.

When we got to the test area my intermediatory (for want of a better word, the bloke who the office had got to sort it out) asked if i was okay and i didn't really have an option. He explained the bike won't have a clutch but will have gears as they are semi automatic. i had never heard of such a thing (hey i know nothing about bikes) so when we got there he went and talked to the bloke in charge who was sat in a booth (smoking).

The bike was there and it was a small thing barely bigger than a scooter and there was an obsticle course. My intermediatory came back very pleased as he had specially got them to let me use a bike with a clutch as thats what i was used to.

Then out of nowhere another large (and again, smoking) policeman appeared on this huge bike. It looked like somehting out of mad max and was probably like a million cc engine size (i told you, i don't know anything about bikes). In all honesty, it was big, behemoth big with a siren sticking up, a suge pannelas ( spelling) radio etc etc, basically a full police riot van on two wheels. He got off and gestured to me to use it. Now i wouldn't mind riding such a big bike given two things:

1) have more than 3 seconds to get used to it before being tested on it (it's like turning up to your driving test and being given an HGV to drive)

2) the course was designed for the ant sized bike now completely covered by the shadow of this monster. it was barely possible to visualise this monster fitting between the cones.

SO i reluctantly gave it a whirl being watch by another policeman with a clipboard who wasn't smoking when i started but was by the end, those two minutes must have been agony for him. Alas i didn't cover myself in glory but made it round without too many mistakes.

As we were walking away with my pass certifcate in hand, i told the intermeditary i thought i'd messed it up. NOw there only a few reasons i can think why i didn't fail:

1) the observing policeman had blinded himself with cigarette smoke

2) i was secretly, without even me knowing an amazing motorcyclist

3) the test has a very low standard to pass

4) because i am a westerner

5) because of the natural charm of my intermediatory and something he said..

Now obviously i couldn't say if i knew any of those to be true, they are all just speculation of course. Anyway, i have my tourist license and my international driving license should be here soon, if i had brought it with me i would never have to have seen the police or done any test (just some internal training you can't fail) so it's all academic really, a mere formality.

I've now finished language school which i actually finished with a B which is pretty respectable. Got my second day of motorbike training tomorrow (internal, unfailable) and then on sunday we fly to kupang before going to Rote on tuesday morning.

I won't have especially regular internet access but will still try to bring you all at least one anecdote a week.

Days 45-53 (visiting Roti for the first time and then back to bali)

Sorry for the delay in general, I’ve been back in bali for almost a week now and so I’ll try to tie up the rest of the trip to rote and about my time back in bali.

The rest of the time in rote was spend doing fairly menial administrative tasks and hanging around the hospital. It was a little tricky really, Suzanne has a direct counterpart and who speaks decent English so they started looking at things they wanted to do and doing ward rounds and alike. I on the other hand appear to be a link between an administrative office and senior management so will have to take the few months that VSO recommends to settle in and survey the landscape. This was a little tricky as I think the management saw what Suzanne was doing and sort of wondered why I wasn’t launching myself in.

There is also a possibility that Suzanne will move in with some of the doctors leaving me the little two bedroom house to myself which will be very nice. It’s all a little complex and probably a little dull so I won’t say any more.

Anyway, I’lll skip to the last twenty four hours or so in Rote. On the last evening I ended up on the beach playing football with a group of teenagers which was pretty cool and trying to explain to them who Blackburn rovers are, why we are better than man united, that I think christiano ronaldo is very good but I don’t like him and that it’s pronounced Rovers not Woahvers which they didn’t grasp.

It is a little weird there as you will have an audience if you stop moving for more than a couple of minutes. We were waiting to be picked up one day and heard two people discussing us, they knew where we were from and what we were doing there without us ever having met them!

Anyway, on the last day we went to settle the bill of the hotel that VSO had put us in. It was at this moment we realised that we didn’t have enough money. We had not been spending wildly, in fact virtually nothing as the doctors had paid for most of our meals, it was just VSO had wildly underestimated how much money we needed. Thankfully we had just enough other cash to settle the bill and buy the ferry tickets and spent the next 48 hours scrounging our money from our VSO manager who we were travelling back with. There is only one cash point on the whole island and that’s normally out of order, we were seriously facing the prospect of being stranded.

Our situation wasn’t quite as bad as Sams whose hotel bill was 1.6miilion rupiah, VSO had given us about 1.7 million and there were many other unavoidable expenses such as eating (about 20,000 per meal) and aiport tax (30,000 each way), so that amount of money would never be enough. Well liveand learn I guess!

On Saturday night we went out for a meal with Dinnia our managers friends, its sort of a restaurant group although in reality I think it’s just a bunch of English speakers and those who want to learn English who hang out. They were all pretty down on Kupang and I had to keep reminding them, this will be the big weekend treat for us to visit!

The very good news if that if I pay for my own in country motorbike training, then dinnia has managed to sort it out for me to be able to ride motorbikes out here. This is really good news especially as the hospital has a bike I can use, it just gives me freedom and independence. I have to squeeze in a day and half worth of training in the next week or so. There is a theory briefing which as far as I can tell from what I have observed thus far is there are no rules on the road, just make sure you’re alert at all times.

BY this point I had a pretty grim cold, this would be the problem with having your office located near a load of ill people! By the Sunday it was pretty bad. POstive was that in the airport the plane was delayed which allowed me to watch highlights of that weekends premiership matches in the waiting room. It was the first football of any sort I have seen in almost 2 months.

After the flight I was rendered completely deaf and felt like my head would explode. I don’t know the exact medical reasons but I think it’s to do with phlegm and ears (sorry to much detail I know). Now speaking and understanding a foreign language is tough, doing it whilst temporarily deaf is far harder, there are some deaf volunteers and kudos to them, it must be really tough.

As a result I actually had to skip language school on the Monday, I went in and explained to our new teacher. I felt guilty really, we have switched teachers for the last two weeks of training and dorothia is only here for a year so has started work, sam had to stay in kupang an extra day so Suzanne and a full day of language school by herself and the poor teacher developed a complex on her first day that we were all boycotting.

Since then things have just trundled along this week. Things are really sweaty of late here with the rainy reason sort of starting so it will be nice to leave for Rote. Just in preparation mode really now. Going to a VSO housewarming on Sunday then going to watch Rovers vs Chelsea, the first live match I’ll have seen in two months and the last one I’ll see for period unknown.

SO I guess in summary, it wasn’t an island prison or a island paradise, it was too beautiful for the former and too flawed for the latter.

I promise better annicdotes for the next post, I’m wary I’ve had a few too many serious posts. The internet access is limited over there so will probably post when I visit kupang.

Talked to my parents on skpye so it does work if anyone wants to ring me and remember to get that snail mail sent, I’d really appreciate it............

Days 43-45 (visiting Roti for the first time)

Well today I got to see my office, it didn’t have a desk but did have a bed and quite a few of what I can only assume were dead insects or rat droppings on the floor, I didn’t look to closely. We also met the bupati who is the local official, sort of like an MP but is very significant. The hospital were keen for us to be introduced and I managed to chat to him in fairly broken Indonesian. My office will apprarently be cleaned up by the time I get here properly and have a desk, no bed, curtains (I’m right next to a waiting room) and a lock on the door.

Suzanne and I were also shown the house on site, it’s a two bedroom little house with two sort of living areas, a small kitchen and even smaller bathroom. It’s onsite which has it’s pros and cons, the hospital is up on a hill so if you live here and have no mode of transport (still waiting to find out on that) then getting down to the market could be a little tough.

On the plus side, it definitely has a TV which possibly may have satellite. Now I know you all think it is sad to be in an exciting country and care about such things but I’ve not watched any football since I got here, that’s like six and a half weeks, I even had the DTs at times. Given the time difference, on a sleepy island like this, it’s not as if there are any late opening bars to try and catch a match in. So hey, I know it’s sad but I don’t care!

So the plan is that Suzanne and I will both live there together until we find a second house which should only take a couple of weeks. The issue with the hill also means that should you live in the town (and I use that word in its loosest sense) then you then face a battle to get to work each day. Suzanne and I both agreed that it would be much better if we didn’t live together, the houses aren’t massive and it’s just an issue of personal space. Also it means one of us can visit the other and get out of the house to somewhere else every so often. We’ll see, we’re going to ‘discuss’ who lives where when we find a second place but it shouldn’t be too bad for the first few weeks.

We also registered with the local police, well I say police I’m not entirely sure! Two blokes in normal clothes who if I’m honest, would look more suited to loitering on street corners with mopeds, came up to the hospital and we had to provide them with copies of our passports. One is a friend of my boss and she assures me he is a police man otherwise I would have thought that we had just registered with the Rote Mafia!

The rest of the day was just spent sort of chilling out really, I wandered along to the pier to watch teh sunset. This is a pretty remote island and on the whole most white folks just get off the ferry into a taxi and down to Nembrela for the surfing so in Ba’a I sort of stick out a bit. Thus far I haven’t minded it too much but I could see it getting really annoying at times. You really are a novelty and if you stand in one place for a while you can hear yourself being discussed in what I can pick up from my language skills.

The language has been much better since the employers conference, nine tenths of it is about confidence and my tail is up a bit more these days so I am much better. I’m still not great and I suspect my grammar leaves a lot to be desired but I can normally get my message across.

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Another slow day really, Suzanne is able to get on with some work sitting with the head of nursing (who speaks good English really) and talk through ideas and possible changes. My job is a little more tricky, I’m going to have to be here for a while improving my language skills before I can get really stuck into making any sort of assessment of the medical records.

My boss has ideas but they are sort of far more vague so I need to make a proper assessment. Judging from the bundles stacked in the office somewhat haphazardly (I saw a dirty food plate on top of one stack) and the lack of any sort of lock on the door, it could be a challenge.

We went and opened our Indonesian bank accounts which appeared to mean signed countless forms which I didn’t full understand, most likely I now have a bank account but there is a small chance I may have bought a small property somewhere with a 200% morgage or bought into some pyramid scheme, I just signed anything in front of me, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

In the afternoon, we went with some of the doctors and drove down to Nembrala which is the area which is famous amongst surfers for its waves and beautiful beachs. I have to say, the beach really didn’t disappoint although it was a little surreal in places. That side of the island appears to have a great love of pigs, you see them everywhere wandering around on the roads and generally getting in the way. But they also wander on to the beach and seem to dig with their snouts into the ground as if hunting for truffles.

The beach is gorgeous, like something out of an advert. We walked up the beach and went and had a nosey at how the other half lives at a very expensive hotel. The hotel is apparently the most expensive on the island and rooms cost about two to four million rupiah a night which is about £125-£250 a night.

It was gorgeous and just as we were sort of loitering in the grounds then some bloke wandered up to us dripping wet with a surf board in hand. He was American and introduced himself as Greg, the manager and instead of telling us to clear off he invited us to hang out and use the facilities. He explained it was coming to the end of the season so they had no guests so we were more than welcome to use the pool etc. He was really cool and we discussed why we were here and he told us about the development work the hotel helps with in the area. So we swam and hung out and waited for the gorgeous sunset as it sunk into the sea.

Things here will be pretty tough work wise and overall I know it won’t always be a barrel of laughs here but as the sunset I just felt immensely lucky. I have been given an opportunity that a lot of the people never have, I’m just some bloke from Lancashire of no particular note and i was sat there on a gorgeous beach watching a spectacular sunset. Like I say, I’m under no illusions about how tough this will be and it won’t all be using the facilities of expensive hotels for free, hanging out on beaches and watching amazing sunsets, but I still know how lucky I am.

After that we drove back to Ba’a and went and ate in a fish restaurant. It was my first experience since I got here of being expected to eat rice and fish with my hands, it’s a tricky one I can tell you! When we got back to our hotel it was about nine and I nipped out to try to find some bottled water and see if the rather enticing looking bakery was still open. I may as well have been trying to shop at three in the morning, the place was dead. It’s not exactly an island of late night ravers. SO it looks like it’ll be two years o early nights for me, unless I can watch the football........

Days 41-42 (visiting Roti for the first time)

I got home from the beach games relieved that it hadn’t rained, it had been muggy all day and felt like rain and my washing was out. I only brought with me about a weeks worth of clothes and having been at the employers conference and then going to kupang I had to do all my washing. This was great until I fell asleep only to wake up four hours later to find that it had then rained and all my clothes were wet and dirty. It meant I had a mad two AM rush to do all my washing and get it dry for the flight the next day.

Our flight from Denpasar was uneventful and then the rest of the evening was fairly laid back. We flew separately from Sam who would be based in Kupang as our employers wanted an extra days shoppiong. It turned out, he was staying in the hotel and rang us to ask if we wanted a beer. He came to our room and said he’d had an interesting experience the day before. He insisted we went out and got a beer before he told us.

When we were settled in a bar he told us when he had arrived at the hotel, he had gone out for a bit leaving his laptop in his room ( he thinks, although it may have been the lobby, but he swears it was his room) and when he returned he couldn’t find it. After mad ringing of the taxi firm, the hotel had a phone call demanding 500,000 rupiah for the safe return of his laptop, which in English money, is only about £25-30. He got someone from the hotel (who were very reluctant to call the police) to go make the pick up. It turned out that it only ended up costing him 200,000 rupiah but he was very relieved to get his laptop back.

Of course, the significant part of this story is that he hadn’t considered that making us go out for a beer to tell us the story, WE HAD LEFT ALL OUR VALUABLES IN OUR ROOMS!!!! So we quickly finished up and went back only to find our possessions enacted. I think he probably left it in the hotel lobby knowing Sam.

We were picked up the following morning at seven and went to the ferry port. The ferry was a very pleasant 90 minute journey and then we arrived in Rote for the first time. We were picked up and drove to a restaurant having dropped our stuff at our quite basic hotel. We sat there and dined with a beautiful view of the beach and tried to understand a joke our driver was trying to tell us which involved Clinton, Gorbachov, Habibi (former Indonesian president), a vicar, a priest and a Muslim cleric. It possibly lost something in my haphazard translation.

After that we came to the hospital for the first time and suddenly a lot of things made sense. VSO briefs a lot on being realistic and I see why now. The truth is, no matter how hard I work in this hospital and how successful I am, it will still be a drop in the ocean for the issues of this hospital. For a start, they have a operating theatre but no surgeon after he was recalled because of the recent decentralisation moves so they no longer had a MOU with other organisations in Indonesia. The hosipital is dilapidated in so many places and horribly understaffed. The staff seem really keen, friendly and committed to their jobs and helping people.

We went out with the doctors in the afternoon who all seem quite young and all speak some English. They showed us another restaurant (cheaper than the one we’d eaten at which apparently is the most expensive round here!) and we walked along a nearby beach. In the evening Suzanne and I just went out to eat and then played cards, not that exciting really.

I really can’t communicate how beautiful some of this island is and the stark contrast that has to some of the poverty I’ve already seen here.

Days 38-40 (approximately 0 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well this has been a pretty busy time. We got picked up to go to our hotel for the employers conference. Just as we got there I discovered that there was a swimming pool and I’d left my swimming shorts back at my homestay.

This wasn’t too bad as our facilitator Tjeert offered to give me a lift on the back of his motorbike to my homestay as he had to go that way anyway. You sort of feel it’s setting the tone for a fairly laid back few days when you need to fetch your swimming shorts. He typically dutch but alrightl, over the next few days he gave me a more of a first hand view of volunteer life with all it’s ups and downs. Interestingly he was actually a professional footballer up to 17 and then got realeased and realised he didn’t like being part of the football world (footballers are stupid he said) as well as admitting that he just wasn’t good enough either. He actually used to play in the same team as Jan Klaas Huntalaar for any football fans. We returned alive (barely) after I’d stuffed my oversized head into sams normal sized helmet I’d borrowed, with my shorts.

The conference was very enjoyable, I spent much time swimming and the hotel was quite posh. During the day we went through a load of VSO stuff so that both our and employers and us had heard it. My employer, Dr Rina, is really nice and speaks a little English. We got to find out some more solid details about living quarters etc. There is one, two bedroomed house available on the site and both Suzanne agreed we didn’t want to live together long term (in a realistic not nasty way) so we will both stay there until we find another place. This may end up being a little contraversal in the end, we will have to see what the search turns up in terms of other accommodation.

There are a few pros and cons each way, it’s on site which can be a blessing and a curse but there are two big issues:

1) It has two bedrooms which probably any other accommodation we find won’t and (more importantly

2) It has a TV with a satellite dish which means English football (Sepak bolah Inggris off the top of my head, apologies for spelling) will be available on.

So we’re going to have to fight that out, obviously Suzanne has no interest in the football whereas as obviously I am! I also talked to Dinnia our programme manager who is going to find out more about if I can ride the motorbike which the hospital actually has available for us to use.

The evenings were spent hanging out (jalaan jalaan) with the other volunteers, Tjeed and Steve (who was observing so he could facilitate the next one) sat out discussing everything from conspiracy theories and global warming to the rules for cricket. I actually had a couple (when I say that I do literally mean only 2!) bottles of the local Indonesian beer, bintang (which means star). It’s not exactly top class but I’ve actually not touched a drop since I arrived (about 5 weeks) so it was nice.

The whole conference was really nice although it did make all of us a little suspicious, three days in a lovely hotel with great food and a swimming pool and at the end of it they ask you to sign the three way agreement (employer, vso and volunteer) which is basically like a contract. All this before you’ve visited your placement! It does just make you a little paranoid about what lies in wait.

My mail arrived as well from the office, I unexpectedly had two peices of mail. One was from my parents and contained my new barlcay card and the other bit was a genuine surprise. It was from the Student loan company telling me apparently I hadn’t sent a letter showing I worked for VSO with a form I had to fill in so they sent me the form back. This is annoying as I asked left it to be sent along with the form (mentioning no names, mother) but what is more annoying is that they will deduct from my bank another a payment in line with my previous NHS earnings, some £250. The really annoying thing is the complete lack of common sense, they had my e-mail address on the form but instead sent a letter to the opposite side of the world which takes about 6 weeks to arrive, they will feel my wrath, I feel a strongly worded letter coming on.

I actually came away from the conference with a real confidence boost which actually helps with language as nine tenths of it is having the conviction to have a go and risk getting it wrong. When I got back to my homestay, I sat outside drinking coffee and chatting to the father of my homestay father (motorbike guy from previous posts). It was really nice and I find I can sort of get my very basic contributions across.

On the Saturday afternoon we went to the first VSO office family beach games (the asian beach games were going on Bali). We got a Bemo there which is a sort of a cross between a small bus and a taxi. The drivers showed an ineptitude I have yet not seen and we had to end up directing them to the district and then they tried to rip us off! It was really nice all the staff brought their families and we had a great time, I even got to give a yellow card for dissent to the country director (big boss!) in a game I refereed. It really was a great time and much fun.

Wanted to watch rovers but unfortunately it was a 5:30 kick off (thanks setanta, again!) rather than a 12:30 which I had thought. I couldn’t stay late as I still had to pack for my first trip to Rote and my flight was at about 11 the next morning and staying up till three felt a little risky for a morning flight.

Sorry this update is a little dull really, especially for all you sadists who wanted to hear me suffer again, but ahead lay my first visit to Kupang and then Rote, it was pretty daunting and I had no idea what it would be like, beautiful island paradise or prison island, who knows......

Days 31-37 (approximately 0.5 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well I guess this is the post you’ve all been waiting for, the one where my trip takes a slightly less enviable turn. I would like to think that thus far this blog has taken quite a high brow approach, this will momentarily be paused for this post.

Saturday sam and I went surfing and had a great time and this time I even managed to avoid the perils of sunburn however whether or not it was something in the 50 gallons of sea water I consumed (inadvertently of course) or something else, I obviously consumed something that did not agree with me. To misquote a stand up comedian called Demitri Martin, that disagreement was over how much I’d be crapping.

I spent all of Sunday and Monday confined to my flat not daring to move more than about ten feet from the toilet. This genuinely was not a fun experience and I felt pretty awful to boot. At one point (just as sam was trying to ring me to see if I was doing okay, poor timing) I felt sick as well so I was ‘praying to the porcelain god’ if people are familiar with that phrase (if not it means kneeling facing the toilet being, or preparing to be sick). At this point I am going to assume I then fainted. I make this assumption based on three things

1) I woke up a few moments later lying on the bathroom floor (and if you imagine what bathroom floors here are like, you can guess this wouldn’t be through choice)

2) I had no idea how I got there

3) I had rather an impressive bruise on my left eyebrow which would appear to indicate I hit something at speed, the Sherlock Holmes in me guesses it was either the floor, the toilet itself or the tiled wall.

A bizarre ten minute fever then followed and passed. Needless to say I was on the whole pretty ill. After a few days (including missing language school on Monday) I am feeling much better and Suzanne (nurse, fellow volunteer) even texted me today to say my recovery would indicate it was “nothing more than a mundane e-coli infection’ , this has lead me to two conclusions:

1) Never try to get sympathy off a nurse
2) I must save that text and send it back to her when she feels ill,

Having lowered the tone I may as well include a story I had previously decided I would omit as being a little tasteless. A couple of weeks ago I was returning back to my flat having just eaten out in the evening. There is a stray dog that loiters near my house and as I passed it’s alley about 6ft from my gate then it started barking and bearing it’s teeth at me.

This then awoke the neighbours dog who in an apparent show of canine solidarity, decided to bark at me (not the other dog) as well. This in turn brought the neighbour to the gate. Now most people in my neighbourhood are very friendly and will chat to me or say good morning, I have smiled and greeting this neighbour every morning with no response but an icy stare to date. It was this icy stare I was met with this evening.

All this excitement then caught the attention of the mumbling slightly odd man who sort of wanders the streets near me (I know it’s a long cast list) who then started to amble over, mumbling as he went. This was all fairly routine, although granted I normally only had to deal with one of these four but I just decided to take it in my stride. I went to the gate to find it locked.

After about 8 pm the family locks the gate which is fair enough however opening it is a tricky exercise. The gate and lock appears to have been designed by the creators of Crystal maze and involved reaching through the iron spikes and using the worlds smallest key to open the worlds smallest padlock which is about thigh high and due to the elaborate design of the gate this is a tricky bear hug type manoeuvre which involved pushing your face against the (obviously) less than friendly spikes.

Now whilst doing this I will admit I felt mildly threatened by the collective cast around me (mumbling man, icy neighbour, neighbours dog, stray dog) but has fumbling admirably. However then I felt what I guess is what a child birth contraction would feel like without the pain, from my stomach.

I don’t know much about the digestive system but this would appear to be a two minutes or less warning as if my bowels were saying to me “this can end one of two ways, you can make it to a toilet or you can not, either way I’m not bothered, it’s going to happen”. This then gave the whole situation a sense of urgency because should I not make it through the gate in time, the mildly threatening ensemble around me would become less threatening and somewhat worse, become an audience for the melodrama that would unfold.

Eventually I somewhat panniced made it through the gate (had considered trying to climb the 6ft gate with large spikes) only to find the father of my family was there waiting for me (obviously would have been another potential audience member) . Now I have been making a really effort to talk more to the family and practice my Indonesian and on this evening he seemed very enthusuatic to sit and chat with me. I basicly had to use a few stock indnesian phrases and make sure to keep moving so he got the idea I was in a rush. In the end I made it to my flat in time, just.

Anyway,I shall change the subject, I don’t think I’ve ever written a page and a half about my bowel movements before however I guess not many people have. I’m just waiting to get picked up to go to the hotel for the employers conference. I suspect this sounds more glam than it is, it’s not going to be the Hilton and there will only be about 15 of us in total.

I will be meeting my local employers (who don’t speak English!) today and spend the next few days with then although I have no idea doing what. Then on Sunday we will fly to Kupang, stay there for a few days (as that is central point for VSO in east Indonesia) then on about Tuesday or Wednesday, travel to Roti for the first time to have a visit. Spend a few days there (again I don’t know what I’ll actually be doing) then back to kupang then fly back to Bali for a two more weeks of language training before moving there.

Anyway, I hope everyone is well, might try to put up some photos of Roti when I get back, I’ll take them on a lower res so hopefully they will upload. Again texts, e-mails , skype etc always welcome. When I’m back from Roti I should have my postal address so you can all get your Christmas packages sent so they will be here in time.

Days 19-30 (approximately 1.5 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well i apologise for the lack of an update of late, i wish i could say i had been so unbelievably mega busy but unfortunately life hasn't been that exciting of late! Things have sort of settled into a daily routine now i'm struggling to think of anything amazing to write (not to discourage you from readin this and future posts!)

I have for the recent past ahd this strange feeling when i woke up in the morning that i wasn't alone in my flat. This fear was substantiated when i would role over to find a perfect life side copy of myself lying next to me made of peeled skin. The sunburn has now fully heeled and i'm fine although i did turn down going surfing again on saturday becuase i felt it foolish to burn myself just as i'd managed to stop peeling.

Well as it happens i didn't manage to get to see the blackburn vs man united match, it turns out that to get somewhere to watch it proved to complex with a general lack of public transport there and my guilt at dragging sam out till the very early hours which would be required to see ou match at the later time. Instead i went to an internet cafe to listen to it online and a rather heated arguement ensued between me and the blackburn rovers webste which eventually left me to read the incredibly dull updates on the BBC website. For anyone who hasn't done this, it is only one step above watching ceefax for the football results. Too add to my woe we lost in what in true, appeared to be a poor match.

It is very stange being in Bali, its sort of a transient phase which is nice in some ways as it allows you to have a sort of westernised experience to take the edge of the indonesian culture shock. However spending two months here is quite a long time and as a result means you can't really settle into your new life and make friends etc as you are only really passing through. It can really be quite frustrating.

Language school is going okay, i remain the dunce of the class but i've managed to convince myslef that i am only doing this as a public service to allow my fellow volunteers to feel better about their own language skills. We learnt prepositions last week which i only really mention becuase it included a number of pictures featuring the antics of a monkey and contained the phrase 'the monkey is in the tree' which reminded me of that eddie izzard rant about french ( should be the right one although youtube is blocked at the language school so i'm trusting google on this one www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY). i couldn't help but feel that me trying to explain it to my indonesian teacher in englonesian it somewhat lost something in the telling, it would appear that eddie izzard has conquered indonesia yet.

Had a meeting with the woman is is my closest thing to a direct line manager from VSO Dinnia. It was really good to actually hear some things about Roti (aside from it's hot) There are still some details to be sorted, apparently the accomodation currently on offer only has, and i quote 'limited access to running water', i don't even know what that means, is it that you can only get it sometimes or that the route to the water is blocked by something and only really small people can squeeze through the hole to get there? who knows, i guess i'll have to survey the scene when i get there. Got to see some pictures of the hospital and the office where i'll be working and read some of the staffs feedback about how they feel about a volunteer coming to work with them. So all that was quite exciting and i guess i feel like i can start to picture it a little better now.

I actually meet my employers next week which on the one hand doesn't concern me to much in that i'm sure they'll be really nice and enthusiastic. On the other hand it terrifies me as i'm all but certain they don't speak english and my language skills still ain't that hot. In fact today we learned a massive thing about prefixes which sort of blows a load of other stuff i thought i'd learned out of the water, no fun!

This evening i romanticly dined alone by candle light, this was due to what would appear to be a masisve power cut throughout this central district of the city. After several attempts the staff managed to fire up a generator which replaced the delightfully atmospheric candle light with a very load nooise of an engine. I'm writing this courtesy of the fact that my language school apepars to have huge generators especially to allow people like me to come and mess around on their internet free of charge.

Hope everyones good

Days 13-18 (approximately 3 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well this week has been fairly laid back, we’ve been off language school due to a religious festival to mark the end of fasting. As a result I haven’t been up to too much, we have been in the VSO office on Monday and Tuesday.

In something of an ingenious move last week I mentioned to one of the office staff that I lived near hardy’s supermarket and she quickly offered us a lift home as she was she was going to get some shopping. IN we hopped to her car only to discover she was actually going to a hardy’s at the other end of town (how was I supposed to know it was a massive chain? Apparently we were quite lucky, there is another one in the middle of nowhere!)

We now are fully equipped with push bikes and helmets so getting around is much easier. I was riding home the other day and saw two cats in a sort of crouched stalking position in front of me. As I approached I thought I could sort of scare them away and save the life of whatever poor rodent they were planning to savage. As I got closer they saw me and ran off and I turned to look at their target to get quite a shock.

It was a full on, massive, Indiana Jones, snakes on a plane style, huge snake! It was coiled up but at a guess I reckon (and genuinely with no exaggeration) about 5-6ft long and with a circumference something thicker than a cucumber, almost as big as that of a 500ml drinks bottle. I suddenly found a new burst of energy to make it back to the house! I would have taken a picture had I had my camera with me making use of the zoom function I can assure you. I realised rather than save the target from the cats I suspect that I saved the cats from rather a grim fate. On the whole it hasn’t freaked me out too much although I do think twice now when I walk home in the dark.

On Wednesday we went cycled over to Kutah which is the more toursty side of the island, about a 20 mile round trip on the bikes (well including when we got lost on the way home). I learned a valuable lesson, merely having sun tan lotion with you and putting it on in the morning does not stop you from getting burned by the end of the day even if it is factor 50. It was a really nice day, the sea is amazing with many waves to jump into and generally horse around.

In the afternoon we paid an Indonesian bloke to teach us some surfing for an hour. I didn’t do too badly for my first attempt, I managed to stand up and ride some waves although admittedly, I was much better when the teacher gave me a shove to help me get up to speed as the wave came, it turns out my puny arms are something of a disability when it comes to paddling yourself forward surfing. It was a little disappointing that as I was conquering a 15ft wave (okay, a slight exaggeration) I was forced to jump into sea to avoid being decapitated by my fellow volunteer Dorothea’s board. But on the whole a very enjoyable experience.

Having not really learnt the sun tan lotion lesson until it was too late, I have spent the last two days confined to my flat really with aftersun and paracetamol and rather vampire like only venturing out when the sun has gone down. Its mainly been spent doing some language homework (although not as much as I should) and generally reading and doing boring domestic things like washing. I managed to remain more of a pink than an outrageous fire engine red however I guess we’ll have to see how it goes.

Shopping here is rather an odd experience, my local supermarket and indeed all the ones I have been to have Indonesian sales people with megaphones trying to outdo each other by yelling though them about what I assume are various special offers despite all working for the same organisation, I can only assume they get commission. It does mean however yet another of your sense are bombarded as you shop. Also there appears to be no demand for shampoo for people with greasy hair, it’s all anti dandruff, I don’t know if there is any significance to this. However I’m guessing most of you aren’t all that interested in that, I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t if wasn’t for the fact I have greasy hair, no problems with dandruff and needed shampoo.

Tomorrow Sam has kindly agreed to come and try to watch the football with me, kindly as he’s not that into football. For those of you who don’t know, Blackburn are playing Man United at home which is one of two rovers games in the season that Rovers are almost guaranteed to be on TV here in Indonesia with the other being Rovers vs Man united away.

I have realised that I must have come to the worst place in the world to watch football, they are all football crazy however it really couldn’t be a place where all kick offs are so badly timed. This game has been moved to a 5:15 kick off (cheers sky/setanta....) which means it won’t kick off until 12:15 am local time and once you go back onto GMT instead of summer time, 01:15. This means 12pm kickoffs are okay, 3pm kickoffs are awkward, 5:15 kickoffs, difficult and evening kickoffs near impossible, if the time difference was more or less it would be easy to accommodate. Sorry for you none football fans, rant over.

Anyway, hope all is well, I have an Indonesian sim card but it doesn’t seem to like sending texts to England, however if anyone wanted to Skype me it would be very cheap, e-mail/facebook/text my English number if you want to.

Days 11-12 (approximately 4 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

well it's been an interesting couple of days, well actually thursday was pretty dull but friday was a bit, well, of an experience!

I was awoken at 5 in the morning by what i thought was the apocolypse until i got up to find it was actually a massive rainstorm which was flowing off the roof (carrying with it various degrees of muck) onto my freshly washed light coloured clothes which i had left out over night thinking, 'what could possibly go wrong?', well question answered i think.

When i got up a few hours later the rain had subsided and i departed for language school only to get to the door and it start hurling it down again. I have to say, being from the north i've seen my fair share of rain of the years and this was nothing like all of that! imagine accrington's annual rain fall all coming down in the space of 5 minutes but being sustained for serveral hours, that sort of rain.

Having managed to get possible the campest unbrella in the world from host family i set off. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, somewhat displeased with my achievement with blocking it's efforts from above it attacked me from the ground. On my way i had to wade through calf deep puddles in just sandals of rain water and i fear to think what else (streets in Indonesia aren't the cleanest!).

It cleared up in the day and then when i had to go home again, lashed down not so much like 'there was no tomorrow' more in a way as to make me believe there would be no tomorrow. It wasn't so much puddles the second time as all streets being replaced with calf deep rivers.

The three rules of the rainy season:

1) it will start raining as soon as you set foot outside
2)don't even bother to try and stay dry, just wear things that will dry quite quickly
3) it will stop raining when you get to the sanctuary of where you are going.
4) do not, i repeat, do not, leave your phone in the front pocket of your bag, mine is currently wavering between as life being disabled with a severely damaged screen and watery grave. Sort of a 'died after a long illness' sort of affair.

I talked to the father of my host family in engonesian (it's a language people who only have a weeks training under their belt speak) and he said the rainy season doesn't even start for another month or so and described yesterday as a "shower", however today is much better so i will take his word for it.

Further to this a colleague very kindly gave me a lift from the office to hardy's ( a supermarket) and it wasn't until we pulled up outside did it occur to me that possibly there may have been more than one, alas it actually doubled my journey home!

I'm actually sat in the language school under the guise of doing independent study on a saturday however they actually have free internet which is how you're reading this. We're off for a week now but still have to go to the VSO office for some days next week. I have to say it is slightly concerning that whenever i talk to anyone at the VSO office about Rote/Roti (and indeed elsewhere) all the balinese say 'oh it's really hot there', it's not exactly chilly here so not quite sure what to expect!

The language is slowly but surely getting better each day, i can hold the most basic conversations now if the person speaks slowly, is very patient and only wants to exchange details of my name, age, martial status, where i'm from, my family members and the colour of this book (limited to hand full of colours still). LIke i say it is improving.

I am currently still facing a battle with the language which when i've won things will be much easier (not the battle to get the offical lanaguage of indonesia changed to english, that just won't happen). My language part of my brain is basically divided into two sections, english and foreignish, therefore if someone doesn't speak english i defer back to whatever is in foreignish which has always been french. It is amazing how much french i remember, i can basically construct any needed sentance out here in french whereas ask me in england and i would have no idea. This would be good if it wasn't for the fact fewer people here speak french than english.

Anyway this is already a very long post, hope all is well.....

Days 8-10 (approximately 4 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well i'm sure you have all been waiting with baited breath for my next post (sarcasm). To be honest, it's not that exciting here right now! I'm at language school where i have been cast in the role of a dunce (complete with D cone hat and everything). It's really quite tough in a lot of ways, it's only been four days and they already expect us to know quite a lot, which i don't! i am trying my best though and today was much better than yesterday. i can read it and understand words but it's getting it stuck in my head and nailing down sentence structure.

We are expected to do at least a couple of hours independent study after our morning classes plus homework assignments so it's a bit hardcore. We do have next week off though (the school is shut, religious holiday) but that is actually quite tough as well. Knowing we're not staying here and not haveing a job makes it difficult to meet people plus, what do you do to fill your time? i've been reading a lot which is good really (when i'm not studying of course!).

I have seen two motorcyle crashes this week in the evenings which given the general road attitude of most riders is surprisingly few but still two more than i've seen in my whole life in england! they over take on both sides, don't check mirrors or blind spots and generally buzz around cars like mosquitos normally without helmets and sometimes a whole family (5 is the record i've seen!) on a scooter.

My host family has basically left me to my own devices which in many ways i really appreciate. It's nice to have your own space to just get away from everyone. I have noticed rather an annoying trend, i had been warned of the annoying 'hello mister' from locals which on the whole i just accept. However i have now noticed teenagers doing it as a way of trying to mock me in a jeering manner. I guess wherever you go in the world, on any continent, in every culture, teenagers will be tedious.

Generally i'm fine, i do ocassionally have the made panic of "what have i done?!" but on the whole okay.

We might go to a surf school next week but we have to see how it fits in with our required trips to the VSO office.

Days 5-7 (approximately 5 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well on Friday we moved all of our stuff out of the hotel and went to the VSO office. We had the usual day lf briefings before the afternoon we had a fun trip to the police station to register (everyone has too I’m not some sort of deviant!) which was a subtle mix of dull form filling and general intimidation.

After this we went to a motorbike shop which was an embarrassing experience. VSO provides all volunteers with a good quality helmet even if you’re not riding in case you have to be a pillion passenger. However as many of you know I actually have a freakishly large head so this was a long process, they kept bringing out helmets and had to keep sending them back saying “no we need bigger!”. I actually had to try on quite a few before I found one that fit my giant noggin, I could see the staff sniggering in the back and pointing to me.

Having bought my XXXXXXL helmet we were dropped off at our homestay’s where each of us will live with an Indonesian family whilst in Bali. I was the last to be dropped off and as soon as I got out the car Badra charged over and grabbed me by the hand enthusiastically showing me my room/flat. My first impressions were that it was quite nice however I didn’t have long to form this opinion.

With another burst of enthusiasm, which I suspect he is frequently prone to, Badra asked if I wanted to be shown the way to the language school so I’d know when I went. I expected he would show me on Saturday but with just enough time to grab my oversized helmet and he took me outside onto the back of one of the tiniest scooters known to man. He then drove me to the language school, a 5’8” Indonesian man in his late 60’s/ early 70’s with a 6’2” blonde European with a huge head (and helmet to match) hanging on for dear life, bumping along the road with the suspension being crushed under the strain. It also allowed me to experience the terror of pulling out and turning in Indonesian traffic, I’ll admit more than a few prayers were offered each time this happened.

Most of the weekend has actually been spent on mundane tasks such as washing my clothes (by hand in cold water) and alike. On Friday night I managed to get lost and walk what felt that half way across Denpasar before finding my turning only to then get lost in the rabbit warren which is the side streets round here. Having wandered round for an hour or so I began to consider that dying alone and lost was a real possiboility, I got a text from a friend back home asking where I was in Indonesia, a cruel twist considering I had no idea where I was at that moment in time. Eventually I made it home only to find that I had to undo the most tricky padlock in the world.

Saturday night I met up with my fellow volunteers and realised that I had been making a massive mistake for the past few days. I have no shower here instead I have a mandi (strange sort of mini bath with a bucket to pour water over yourself (see picture) and I have almost killed myself a number of times climbing up to stand in it to wash myself (which is about 3 feet of ground) and I had wondered how other, shorter folks managed. The other day my foot slipped almost causing me to do a naked splits with one foot still in the mandi, something I really would struggle to explain in a Indonesian casualty ward. Alas as I’m sure you guesed, I found out from my fellow volunteers that in fact you don’t stand in it but instead next to it and then wash yourself.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re all bored of this or already stopped reading. Hopefully this should be posted on Monday when I set up my blog (hopefully). Got my first language school on Monday.

Days 1-4 (approximately 5 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well being the organised soul that I am I’ve only just doing this, my first post and already I’m behind! To be honest there isn’t a massive amount to tell, most of the time has been just about general orientation and getting over jet lag. It is hot and sunny here which as I’m sure you all realise, I only tollerate in the name of development. Unfortunately I was hoping that most of my orientation could be done on my back in the sand next to the sea however I am yet to make a substancial visit to the beach. The beach near us has a massive coral or breakwater or something, which means that thus far whenever we have gone down it has been inaccessible because the tide has been out.

‘We’ is currently four of us who are all on induction together. Induction is happens about 3 or 4 times a year for new volunteers and apparently this is quite a small number for this. Our little crew currently consists of-

1) SSam- from Utrecht in holland- he will be an IT manager on west timor in kupang. I’m not sure if it is simply to fulfil a stereotype but he is genuinely fascinated when he sees hills.

2) SSuzanne- from Kiddiminister- the woman who I had hoped would act as my mum when she is working as a nurse advisor in Rote unfortunately she appears to have different ideas and is hoping to be the irresponsible risk taker of the two of us (her words not mine!)

3) DDorothyiea (spelling?) (Thia or if you want to annoy her, dotty)- from stuttgart and is an IT Boffin and will be working on a 12 month placement here in Bali on a database however she works for Accenture so she may start and then decide it won’t make enough money and pull out (sorry that’s an NpfIT joke, yes I am ashamed).

I’m currently sat on my porch of my hotel, we’re going to head out and get some food soon. We are moving out of hotel tomorrow to each move in with seperate Indonesian famillies for the next few weeks in Bali.

Unfortunately the photos don't want to load so you'll have to wait until later this week when i go to the office!

Introduction

Well I decided that rather than barrage people with long drawn out e-mails of my time in indonesia it would be easier for me to be a little more up to date and write a blog. The basic logic is that hopefully people can read this if they want to rather than be permentantly sending my e-mails to the deleted folder. I would however really appreciate e-mails, letters, parcels, texts and visits!

I’ll try not to make the whole thing too self indulgent but then again it is a blog so surely that is their purpose? Feel free to leave comments but on the whole please send messgaes direct to me.

Hopefully this should be updated fairly regularly however this will vary and probably dip much more when I get to Rote. Incidently it is know as Rote or Roti by most folk (apparently) however I guess the pun doesn’t really work if it’s the other spelling.