Well consider this the response to a broken promise, I said I wouldn’t leave it as long before my next post and that was a month ago. I do have something of an excuse, my blog was actually taken offline by blogspot for some very spurious reasons along the lines of ‘our computer told us to’, probably wise not to say too much as they can clearly read this so. Anyway needless to say it has been reinstated (as you can tell by the fact you are reading this) and they run a flawless service in every way and I’d just like to say what a wonderful service they run and how they are all amazing human beings (and computers) who I cannot have enough praise for (please don’t take me offline again, I’ve just said nice things).
I also realised re-reading my lats post I left out something that happened to me on the way back from Maumere. I was just wandering back to where I was staying from eating down a hill and for some reason I was in an inexplicable bad mood. As I’m walking along I get the usual heckling from people hanging out on the streets but just kept my focused ahead with that sort of thousand mile stare and kept walking. Then suddenly there was this one voice calling out ‘hey mister’ which I just dismissed, had I been in a better mood I may have lifted my head and smiled but not that day. As I walked the guy was being very persistent saying over and over again ‘hey mister, hey mister, hey mister’ which was really a bit annoying, I was walking along thinking ‘if I didn’t look up the first twenty seven times you say it, what makes you think number twenty eight is going to be any different’, it really was getting a bit annoying.
As I said I was walking down hill and suddenly i start sliding down the hill like I was walking on ice. I manage to avoid making a total fool of myself and falling over but I look down only to see that where the street had previously been, all there was now was a sea of semi wet concrete. I looked up to see that the man who had been yelling at me trying to get my attention was in fact stood there with a number of tools and bags of cement around him pointing at the street with rather a disgruntled look on his face. I then looked behind me to see a trail of footprints made by my massive size eleven European feet all the way through his freshly laid street. I apologised and quickly left before he had chance to tell me how annoyed he was. The moral of this story, not all hecklers and just annoying, some of them are just trying to stop you from destroying their hard work!
Life on the island is pretty straight forward really, I was in Kupang for a meeting the week before last which was really good for me as it was actually the first time I have been off the island for nearly two months straight. On the whole I have actually spent nearly all of that the one town Ba’a, due to a lack of transport. After two months in such a small town, you can understand why I was starting to get that slightly crazy look in my eyes. I did have a trip down to nembrala and beaches around there a few weeks ago with my friend jefri and some of his friends. I have to be honest, I can’t really remember how I know jefri, I think I talked to him whilst watching a volleyball match then saw him at the hospital but he’s a good bloke. He practices English and I practice Indonesian so it’s a win-win scenario really. Making local friends is a really important part of settling in and although I’m a bit slow of the start with it, I’m getting there.
Actually the other week I went to jefri’s desa (village) which is outside of Ba’a for a celebration of something, I’m not entirely sure what as that didn’t really cross the language barrier. But anyway, it was a real case of ‘awkward white man in village’ but had a great time and people seemed pleased I was there. As I was there Suzanne texted me saying could I come round she needed my help but as I knew I wouldn’t be back for some time I rang her. anyway Suzanne has a near paralysing fear of snakes and had come home to find one in her kitchen and really needed my help removing it.
I couldn’t oblige so I told her to go fetch one of her neighbours who would probably be much more used to and skilled in the field of snake removal than I. Anyway, I called in when I got back to find Suzanne recovering from the ordeal, she had actually dealt with the snake herself. The reason for this was she was too embarrassed to get a neighbour as the snake was in fact little more than a glorified worm given that it was only about 3-4 inches long and she felt ridiculous fetching a neighbour with a knife (which would have been something like five times the length of the snake) to deal with it. So instead she had seized a kitchen knife and paid her own bloody tribute to the great director Alfred Hitchcock. I think by the time she had finished, the snake had become little more than a soup which she then removed from her house. I have to say, I had envisaged something along the lines of the snake I had seen in bali whilst riding a bike (see early post) but I guess, if you have a phobia you have a phobia and any size is too big
A couple of weeks ago, the any inhabitants of Rote were treated to an interview with ‘Mr John’ coming over their radios. Rote has one radio station which I had been invited to be interviewed on about Sekolah Sepak Bola: Bintang Muda (Football school: young stars- it’s the football training I help with). So anyone who owns a radio was able to hear me butcher the Indonesian language. It’s actually really difficult because my Indonesian is improving but I realised, when people ask me questions I normally actually ask questions back to clarify what they are asking however you can’t really do that on live radio so I may have given answers to all the questions however they may not have been answers to the actual questions asked which would probably give the listener quite a ‘what is he talking about?’ sort of moment. I guess after studying Politics for 4 years at uni, I’ve just got used to that old Politian trick of not answering the question asked, just answering the one you want to. I did also have a call from a friend whilst on air which was followed by a text message saying ‘I was just ringing to say I can hear you on live radio’, now personally I would have thought that would mean that was not a good time to ring me...
I’ve also sort of half moved house, as in I’ve kind of moved out but the people I’m living with don’t really know. There are a lot of reasons which I don’t really want to go into in the public domain. I’m now (sort of) living in town which is much better for me really. My sister is actually on the boat to the island as I write this and she will be staying there and I will be sort of staying in my old house for a little bit. But then I’ll be moving back into town (it’s complex I know) when jude leaves in the next couple of days. Jude is a philipino volunteer who has just finished his placement after two years in Rote, it’s a real loss him going home as I now won’t get all the gossip about the hospital (he worked in the regional health office) and especially his cooking as he’s an excellent cook and would sometimes prepare meals for me. I also have a lot of respect for him as he was the first volunteer in Rote and was actually here for 18 months by himself which I think must have been really tough.
So I should go, I’m about to meet my sister who is staying here for about two weeks (I have no idea what she’s going to do), she’s already been Indonesia for a week and has been hanging out in Bali and Kupang with friends of mine. Will try to write about our adventures (which will probably extend to doing my washing, eating and watching DVDs) when she leaves.
