weeks 17 and 18 (if you've not guessed, days are just too hard to keep track of

Well i've had a bit of an internet nightmare of late with regards to trying to actually update my blog hence why a glut of posts all at once. i'll try and sum up the last couple of weeks into a bite size post.

Suzanne had a whale of a time in Bali shopping and generally chilling out between injections, it has even transpire that apparently we don't even have rabies here in rote but VSO wanted her to have the injections regardless. I had a nice week of house sitting for her, generally hanging out and abusing the priviledge.

When suzanne returned she actually went to the post office and brough back with her EIGHT packages for me!! we celebrated our delayed christmas with some pasta, cheese and pesto, all rare commodities here which we had been given by friends. Thank you so much to all who sent cards and gifts. if i haven't thanked you individually it may mean it hasn't arrived yet and i have it to look forward to. post varies from 3 weeks to two and half months and there appears to be no consistancy at all, sometimes things arrive before others that were sent before!

I will fast forward to last week as actually that is far more interesting to you all. i decided to that as the sea is getting increasinly rough, i would try and brave the sea to visit kupang: i had been on rote for about six weeks straight and was starting to suffer a little with island fever. so off i trotted to the ferry port however i soon dicovered that the sea was too rough to actually travel from the nearby Ba'a harbour and instead they had decided to go from Pantai Baru (which translated means new beach which is daft as there isn't actually a beach there) as this is a more sheltered port.

I actually ended up getting a lift in an ambulance with a patient who was being transferred to kupang. after much fussing and confusion about tickets we made it to the ferry and then had a very rough crossing, i took travel sickness tablets provided by suzanne, popped in my ipod and managed to drown out the collective noise of about 40 people vomitting and finally made it to kupang with my stomach fully intact.

I had a great weekend just hanging out with friends in Kupang, there is quite a nice little group of folk to spend time with. However i got a text message on the saturday from suzanne saying that the ferry had been cancelled on saturday so i should book my ticket ASAP as it would be crowded, it turned out the office was already shut which meant getting up about 5 on sundayto try and avoid the rush. when i got there i was told the ferry was again cancelled.

This meant that there was no way i could make it back for work on monday, on top of which i was starting to feel increasingly rough with Nausea and general roughness. On monday morning, having learn from the long and expensive trip to the ferry office, i rang in advance only to find it had been cancelled yet again. i later found out i in fact got the last ferry that went and no more are expected till next week.

So eventually i decided it would be less expensive to just bite the bullet and pay the three times the ferry price for an aeroplane ticket which is amazingly expensive to say it only takes ten minutes but still cheaper than staying in kupang for a week.

On the tuesday i was en route to the airport on an ojek which is a motorbike taxi. well i say taxi, it's basically any bloke on a motorbike who wants to make some money, taxi implies some sort of regulation or system. as we were riding along i felt worse and worse, until eventually my stomach decided that 5 days of nausea was quite enough and it wanted to empty it's contents.

Now not only are we travelling at 40mph but i am also wear a full face helmet. I have to quickly tap the driver on the shoulder and remember the word for stop and then jump off the bike (with a huge rucksack) tear off my helmet so i can empty the contents of my digestive system on the side of the road.

You need to understand that white people generally attract attention and the sight of one vomitting is just too big a source of entertainment to be missed in Kupang. suddenly i had a crowd, other road users were even pulling over to watch (please not the use of the word watch and not help or assist or see if i was okay).

Then they all started asking me if i had been drinking beer last night or today (it was 11 in the morning) to which i had to reply 'no i'm just ill' in the brief respite i had between heaves. on the bright side a number of them did compliment me on my indonesian skills.

eventually i made it back to rote feeling thoroughly awful. i've had some blood tests done and i have Typhoid bacteria in my blood stream although not enough to be considered actually typhoid fever, i'm on about one third typhoid fever. Believe me, i am not keen to contract a full blown case. There has also been some suggestion of dengue due to an odd blood test result but I'm slowly feeling better and have even staggered into work which doesn't seem to tally with dengue.

I should say, even though i have felt like death, i've still not hit that massive 'what am i doing here' type low yet, i'm sure it'll come at some point. It's more of a 'i'm here and oh, now i'm ill' sort of thing.

anyway, i shall go, i have some other posts to write which i will try and update with soon.