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.
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