March 2010 part 1

March pt1- more bad news, more tough times

Barely had my family returned from attending my Grandma’s funeral in the Isle of Man then my family had more bad news. My dad got a call that his father wasn’t very well and he had to rush down to Nottingham. After a lot of trips to and from Nottingham over the course of a week, my Poppa suddenly deteriorated and died.
Again, this had been incredibly difficult and there isn’t much I can really say about it that I didn’t already write about my grandma. It is really tough to be away at times like this not only from a selfish side of things of being away but also not being there to support your family. Either event would have been difficult for all of us but both events coming in such quick succession have made it especially tough.
It’s going to be very strange in a slightly different way when I get back to my grandma’s death as instead of going to Nottingham and him not being there, I’m not sure I’ll even go to Nottingham as he was virtually the only person I really knew there (my auntie moved elsewhere a few years ago). So in a way, it’s hard for me to even understand he’s gone. Whereas with my grandma, I will still see my granddad and have those reminders that she’s gone, with Poppa I won’t have that. it feels like a very odd closing of a chapter for the family and he will be missed. Once again, I won’t be going home for the funeral which is tough and once again I am grateful to my family and those around me.

February 2010

February- very tough
The truth is, February included a trip to Bali to meet and greet new volunteers in my position as volunteer representative (something of a significant event as they were the first new volunteers we’d had in a year) and a variety of other events but in reality, February was really about one thing for me.
I was in Kupang working on the new database for the hospital with Sam as well as trying to hand over a load of immigration documents. I suddenly, out of the blue I got a call from my dad, now it’s not uncommon for him to call me to give me an update as to how rovers have got on, but this was quite early on Sunday morning (UK time) which was unusual. Anyway, he was calling to let me know that my Grandma on my mum’s side had died suddenly at home.
She been in hospital the week before for surgery however she was apparently doing well and a week on there were no signs of infection and she was recovering well so I (and others as well) felt she was out of the woods. She had just gone home from hospital and my mum was in the Isle of Man visiting her. Then suddenly on Saturday night she collapsed and died.
Now I’m not going to pretend this wasn’t incredibly difficult, it has always been my biggest fear about being out here. However, there is one thing that was very important to me, shortly before I left the UK I went to visit my grandparents and they were really enthusiastic for my trip away. This meant a great deal to me as I knew that coming away for two years, meant that they may not be there when I got back. Back in the 60’s they had spent a few years out in Tanzania working on grasslands farming and so they had been very supportive of me coming away.
They have also been great since I came; writing to me and sending me care packages. As I mentioned in my explanatory note, one of my regrets is that I didn’t write to them more often or indeed keep this blog updated as I know she loved hearing about everything that was going on.
Things were especially difficult as I was due to hand over my passport to immigration less than 24hours later for a visa extension. The whole thing was incredibly complex so we had to make a quick decision as to whether or not I would go back (it would have been a bureaucratic nightmare).
In the end, after significant discussions with my family we agreed that I would not come back although not because of the visa scenario (paperwork can always be done somehow) but because we didn’t want to cause any additional stress for the rest of the family of me trying to make it back in time for the funeral, travelling from a small island in Indonesia to a small island in the UK is fraught with potential problems.
It has been immensely tough really but I’ve got through it. It’s very strange to think of coming home and not being able to go and see her and tell her all about my time away.
But I just wanted to say, thank you to everyone around me (although I have no idea who reads this but I mean VSO staff, other volunteers, the hospital in Rote) for being helpful and understanding and to all those people who have sent me messages, called and generally been supportive especially my family who have understood the decision for me not to come back, it has all meant a lot to me.

January no2 2010

January no.2-something interesting actually.....

Half way through writing that immensely dull post for January, I realised that on the last day of January there was one event that was of note but I didn’t want to include it with the rest of those dull things!
On the 31st of January, Anna Joy Parker and Hope Rachel Parker were born. Now as you will see from their surnames they are clearly not my kids so why write about someone elses? Well these are the daughters of my best mate Ben who I grew up with and who in fact I was best man for.
Really, I just wanted to mention it because they are quite close (plus Ben’s mum will give me a good kicking when she sees me if I don’t, I love you really Nadine but you did once give me an ultimatum of ‘you’re not coming into my sons wedding with hair like that!’ so forgive me if I fear you a little at times!) and it was quite significant for me.
Now obviously, when such close friends have kids is weird but I guess in a way this is extra strange for me for a number of reasons. Ben and I grew up there and so it’s very strange to think that when I get back he’ll be a dad, I mean I was stood next to him when he got married (actually, due to a slip of the tongue by the guy doing the marrying, I was dangerously close to being the one being married!) and it’s just strange to think of him being responsible in some way and maybe not heading off to music festivals and alike but staying at home looking after the kids.
It now brings to six the number of kids I’ve missed being born or will miss (off the top of my head, sorry if I’ve missed anyone!) in addition to all sorts of other things. Now I know this sounds really self obsessed (well it is my blog after all, surely the whole notion of a blog is to be self obsessed? If it isn’t you may not want to read any of this blog and I apologise for the misunderstanding) but really it just keeps making me think how things will be different when I get back. I am pretty young for a VSO long term volunteer (I’m not exceptional; I just took a very strange and fortunate route in) so most folks are older than me and I think your life changes a lot in your twenties. Whereas later in life when you are more settled, the things around you become more settled so being away for two years sees fewer changes.
Further to all of that, it’s just strange to think how long I’ve been away now, I mean I left nine months before Sarah (Bens wife) was even pregnant which is weird to think about and by the time I get back, those little girls will already be over six months old! Not to mention other friends babies who will be like a year or 18months old, so strange. In fact, two friends weren’t even ‘seeing’ each other when I left and now I think the first time I’ll see them when I’m back will be their wedding! (I should point out for legal reasons, that is in no way shape or form linked to pregnancy! Just a ‘weird things about being away connection) So weird.

So anyway, congratulations to the parker clan and all my other friends who have had/awaiting babies (Steve and Hariet, Jacqui and Jim, Becki and Chris, Debs and Lachy and anyone else I’ve missed!), well done, you’ve all suitably freaked me out! and to all the rest of you who are due to be married or I’ve already missed it!

Looking back, it’s quite amazing how I’ve managed to spin it so that massive events in my friends’ lives suddenly become all about me, it’s an incredible skill......

January 2010

January- An incredibly dull post about Rain, Photos/skype, Rain, mould, harassment by a financial institution, Rain, cruise ships and Rain

Firstly, this is just general, some months ago Rote’s internet connection (singular) was ungraded and we have evolved past the worlds slowest dialup to the world of what is branded ‘speedy’ internet here in Indonesia. This means that I can now webchat with people on skype and even use a webcam. So if anyone wants to talk to me (that isn’t a desperate plea!), just let me know and we can arrange a time for me to travel down to the internet place for a chat and it’s free for you (although I have to pay for the internet time but it’s pretty cheap). You will also have notice the addition of photos to the blog, unfortunately I still have problems actually logging into my blog here but it’s now a fast enough connection for me to send photos and entries to my mum who uploads them for me.
So I returned from my holiday to be greeted by mould and rain. I had been away for nearly 3 weeks (a few days in Kupang for police and work then about two weeks kicking back in Bali) and it is a simple fact of life that no matter what you do, if you leave your house untended for so long due to the high level of humidity at this time of year, everything even things like shoes will become mouldy. So the first few days are spent cleaning and washing. Washing clothes was incredibly difficult as I arrived the day before a very long and heavy rainstorm.
Essentially, that was most of my January; it was spent hiding in my room from storms. I have to walk along a balcony to get in and out of my room which for most of the year is great however during storms, it means I tend to sit in my room watching DVDs. One of the things that Ba’a really lacks is sheltered areas in which to commune. If you just want to ‘hang out’ there isn’t really anywhere to go aside from places to eat (who can eat all the time?) and peoples’ houses and as most people live with extended family and that can be a bit intense. If you think about most cities in England there are all sorts of places you can go and things you can do when it’s raining, not in Ba’a
SO not really much to report in January to be honest, I’m sure you don’t want just a list of stuff I watched and what I thought of it all?
One major battle I had in January was with a certain financial institution (I don’t want to mention who as this is the public domain but you can see what a slow month it is that this is just about all I can think of). When I was in Bali I picked up my mail from the office which is my address for official mail (things get ‘lost’ on the way to Rote). I had a number of letters that had arrived the week before from the said company which were postdated some time in October.
Now as someone who is overseas I am able to suspend payments and I already had a large argument with them just after I arrived (or rather my mum did as my proxy) because before I left I sent them evidence that I was going to be away which they denied all knowledge of. Now, despite me send them an official letter as evidence (twice, they lost the first one) I was legitimately going to be away for TWO YEARS, they decided they wanted a 12 month ‘reassessment of my overseas status’ which is annoying. The really stupid part is that I already told them post takes far far too long to get to Indonesia (if it arrives at all) so to send it to my home address, my e-mail address or indeed to call me and they do have all of this contact information.
So as I open my mail that they sent me that took about two months to arrive what do I find? I find one letter demanding my reassessment within a month of them sending me the letter and then a subsequent one informing me I missed their one month deadline and they now want to enforce all sorts of penalties and that I should sign and return the included form with evidence of my status ASAP and if there are any issues I should ring them. A few things:
1) Why, after I told them post takes so long, would they still snail mail me forms? Especially as they have all my other information and why ask for my e-mail address if they won’t use it?
2) Why set a one month deadline when I’ve told them post often takes two months or so to arrive?
3) Why do they not understand that even if I fill in their form and return it ASAP then post takes about the same period of time to get to England as it does from England?
4) Why must they reassess when they clearly have evidence that I have a two year job?
5) Why can’t I e-mail them? Phoning them and being on hold for 45 minutes (the period of time they put me on hold before I came away, apparently Wednesday 11am was a particularly busy time for them, why?) is annoying when in England but here would most likely cost me two days allowance.
I’m sorry, I know this is an incredibly dull post but just it really wound me up! Hopefully I have now sorted out the wretched thing and a pox on them all.
January also saw the arrival of two cruise ships within a week of each other full of tourists getting out to have a wander around Ba’a. Now I would encourage anyone to visit Rote, it is a wonderful, beautiful place, however organising a visit for people for several hours, I would probably think some of the beautiful beaches somewhere may be a little more appropriate? Anyway, they came, they wandered, they left and the whole thing was somewhat underwhelming for everyone here and I suspect the tourists. I felt sorry for the people in Ba’a who were organising the welcoming committee, they put so much effort in organising so much only to have heavy rain on the day which made it difficult.
I personally was hoping the boats would be full of beautiful young heiresses to fortunes, who were taking a break from their PhDs to go on a cruise. Instead it appeared to be a gaggle of older folks from England. I don’t really know why I expected anything else however despite this is was quite a disappointment to me.
Seriously, from the hype it got on the island, I was expecting some great things to write about and instead you have a post so dull I’m not even sure I would read it, a very dull and dreary month...

Top 5 driving tips

Top 5 driving tips for bali

Over the christmas period, I had a holiday in Bali and a large part of it was spent driving round the island. Now I’ve done plenty of driving in Indonesia however it turns out, going round sleepy old Rote on a motorbike is quite a different experience to driving a car all around Bali so I thought I’d share some wisdom with any volunteers thinking of driving a car round Bali:

1) When there is a single, unbroken, white line in the middle of the road and a sign depicting overtaking with a large red line through it: that means absolutely no overtaking..... that is of course unless you really want to in which case that is okay.

2) Overtaking manoeuvres should only be done when you can see the road ahead is clear, blind corners and hills you can’t see over the top of are excellent places to do so. If a car does come the other way mid-manoeuvre, remember you can always swerve back into the correct lane regardless of if there is already a car there so long as you hit your horn hard enough.

3) When using full be headlights, always be aware of the potential of dazzling other drivers. To ensure you achieve this, they are best used when facing oncoming traffic. Remember, your headlights can reflect into drivers’ eyes in their rear view mirror or wing mirrors so always be sure to have those lights on when behind someone.

4) Remember that the dividing line in the middle of the road dividing the two lanes is simply a guide and is not intended to be taken literally; the best driving position is to ensure you straddle this.

5) It is important that you should always leave a safe stopping distance between you and the car in front, especially if it has been raining. The reason for this is so that people can overtake you and swerve in front of you into this space, presumably because where they are going is far more important than where you are trying to get to.


If you can’t remember all of these, just stick with “when in doubt, hit your horn!”

December 2009

December- A bizarre injury, the impact of being overly competitive on a small island, my brush with the law and a near death experience (okay the last is just an exaggeration but I felt awful, does that count?)
Well in December, I decided that it would be good for my health if I started playing football, this it turns out was a mistake. There is a regular afternoon game on the pitch next to my house which i decided as would start playing in again as a number of my local friends play there. Now I should explain, I went into the ‘game’ (a glorified kick around on a pitch that is more dust than grass) carrying an injury which was sustained in the most hair raising circumstances imaginable.... doing my washing.
A few days before, I had been washing my clothes in my flat and managed to slice my hand. Now, washing your clothes here is no fun whatsoever, it has to be done entirely by hand unless you have the luxury of having someone else do it, which I can’t really afford. Anyway, I was hanging it out on the large drying rack on the balcony of the penthouse. As I lifted the drying rack to move it, my wet hand slipped and a jagged piece of metal that is usefully attached to the rack, slide across my hand. This left me with a 3 inch long (thats about 8cm for the metric amongst you) deep scratch across my palm which bled considerably (I now have the scar to show it’s severity). There is a point to all of this.
Anyway, I was playing football trying to bring organisation to the defence which isn’t easy, players here have never seen a game except on TV so tend to be tactically naive which normally involves holding a defensive line which is about 10yrds into the opposition half (for the metric amongst you that’s about nine metres and for those who don’t understand football, that’s a bad way to play unless you have a defender who is quicker than Usane Bolt, and for those who don’t know who he is, he’s a very fast sprinter but it poses the bigger question of what do you do with your lives if you don’t watch sport? ). Anyway, back to the point, I was playing with my hand taped up. I went up for a corner and managed to get in front of my man and lept like a salmon and was about to slam a header into the goal when I was unceremoniously sent flying by an opposition player, landing on the hard ground, ripping off the dressing and causing more than a little discomfort (it hurt!).
Needless to say, I was not happy about this because the guy had no intention to play the ball and was taunting me. Now if anyone has ever seen me play football (or indeed watch football, or play any sport) you will know that I don’t tend to keep my feelings to myself in such a situation so things were said and there were some dirty looks, raised voices and a bit of ‘squaring up’ but nothing really to take too much notice of before I decided to remove myself from the pitch to cool off a bit. AT the end, we both apologised, shook hands (well we would have but mine was bleeding) and went home. I didn’t think anything more about the whole thing until a few days later.
Now this is the point of this entire tale, I went out to eat the following night and someone asked me about me arguing with someone whilst playing football, I explained it was nothing, that it’s was fine and finished, that it wasn’t a big deal and that we’d both apologise. Anyway, by the time I went to the shop opposite my house the following day, I was asked if it was true I’d got into a physical fight with the other player and that I really didn’t like the guy! In the following days I was asked by a great number of people about the ‘physical fight’ and was even asked if I had punched him by a variety of people when I went to eat or into shops. So the moral of this story would be; be really careful if you a noticeable person playing football in a small Indonesian town, minor events can be wildly exaggerated! I’m sure that is a lesson that so many of you will find useful at some point in the future...
By mid December I was heading off to Bali for Christmas. I was staying a few days in Kupang to do some work with Sam (okay getting him to help me with some work) and then a trip to the police station for some administrative stuff then off to Bali for a holiday. The police station visit is part of VSO’s new agreement with the government, we have to now all register for a sort of a police registration at a regional level whereas previously we just had to register at the local level. Another volunteer had got theirs a few weeks before and it was a 45 minute, in/out sort of task so I wandered along to the police station with my bundle of documents and a full days plans lined up for afterwards, it turned out it was not that simple.
Having filled out all the paperwork in triplicate and submitted the photocopies of various letters and documents, I sat there expecting to be given the green light and carry on my day. instead the officer took out a book and flicked through it before stopping on a paged and showing it two me. Now I will admit that my Indonesian isn’t great but do have the ability to be able to read “a fine of 5million rupiah (about £350 but on my income it’d be over two months wages) and/or up to two years in prison for both the individual and their sponsor”. It turns out, I had missed my window of opportunity to do this by some eight and a half months and they didn’t seem to share the viewpoint of ‘better late than never’....
SO what followed were a number of slightly worried phonecalls between myself and VSO! Eventually the police agreed that they would meet with VSO as we weren’t in the wrong, it was all to do with it being a new agreement with lack of communication between agencies and it was all very complex but was eventually sorted but it did mean my programme manager had to fly out to Kupang at short notice which didn’t make me popular in the office! Apparently it was just a different policeman to the one the previous vol had seen who was more familiar with the technicalities.
So after that stress, I headed off to Bali for a well deserved break. Truth be told, I was in need of the holiday and more than anything, the anonymity. Don’t get me wrong, I love Rote and I love NTT as a whole, but it is quite intense in a lot of ways, as the only white guy in the town and as far as I know, the only white guy to have worked long term in the town, you are constantly watched and observed and talked to. You sort of live your life under a microscope in a lot of ways. So it’s nice to disappear to Bali and just not have people stare as much as they are far more used to having white folks around although it does mean you have to put up with a huge volume of holiday makers, which can be a little tedious at times. I have no problem in general with tourists it’s just Bali is to Australians what the Costa del Sol is to the English. Need I say more?

It was a really nice holiday filled with a lot of not much! eating western food, hanging out with folks, generally just having a nice relaxing time. That is aside from climbing a volcano! It’s called Gungung Agung (spelling?) Now climbing a volcano sounds like great fun but if you ever choose to do it, here is some useful information
1) don’t turn up in the town that you are starting from at 10pm if you have to get up to leave to walk up the volcano 2am, sleep beforehand is useful
2) make sure you have food already bought to eat, not many places are open at 10pm in a small village and even fewer are open at 2am and like sleep, food is a good idea beforehand.
3) Volcanoes (well this one anyway) are steep all the way up, there are no plateaus or flat bits on which to rest and resting on a slope is itself tiring.
4) Do not pick a day when there is a religious ceremony happening on a religiously significant volcano, although interesting it is somewhat demoralising two blokes overtaking you as you feel like death who have no shoes but are carry a goat/cow/other animals up for sacrifices at the top.
5) Don’t forget when you get to the top and admire the fantastic views and you say things like “wow that was hard but worth is for such a spectacular view of the entire island” that you still have to walk all the way back, which strangely enough is the same distance and the same steepness. I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it, but just remember you’re in reality only half way through your journey and the sun is on its way up making the walk back down sweatier.
6) Make sure when you park your car that you do it in a spot which will not be blocked in by people coming to the huge ceremony at the temple. Otherwise, you will return to your vehicle after a gruelling 9 hours only to discover you have to wait another 2 hours before you can shower and eat because you’ve been blocked in!

Also went to a couple of other places in Bali around the island. It’s nice to get out and actually see some of Bali, when I stayed there for language school, it was almost entirely in the hustle and bustle of Denpasar. But it really is a beautiful island however there weren’t too many funny tales! I did recently write a top 5 tips for driving in bali though for our volunteer magazine which I will post separately (so any of my volunteer friends can skip past it!).
New years eve was a bit of a damp squib to be honest, there was a bomb threat against Bali so VSO said we should all stay away from places with fun parties! Not only that, I was exhausted after the volcano (started at 2am on the last day of 2009) so wasn’t exactly rock and roll exciting!
2009 ending was a little strange in a way for two reasons for me, firstly it was the only year of my life when I did not spend one second in the UK which is kind of weird. The second reason is that now when people ask me when my contract here finishes, I have to say ‘later this year’ instead of ‘next year’, bit scary really....

November 2009 supplementary

Supplimentary- Oops I forgot an interesting tale from November!

I just realised, that I made a mistake when I said nothing interesting happened in November, there was one thing but it shows you what a slow month it was that the one thing there was, I actually forgot.
I was in my penthouse indulging in an activity which takes up approximately 80% of my free time, washing my clothes when suddenly I hear a very loud ‘thud, thud, thud’ noise. Now normally, living right by the seas front, this is just a particularly decrepit fishing boat with diesel engine circa 1915 making it’s away across the bay, until I realised it was a small helicopter.
‘The penthouse’ where I stay is the tallest building in all of Ba’a by some way so as I looking out I saw the helicopter come right over the town and then hover over the town. Now Rote doesn’t exactly have a great deal of air traffic and although in England you get the occasional police helicopter flying over your house (how close depends on the level of criminal activity you indulge in) however in eighteen months on the island, that is the first and only time I have seen a helicopter here.
Suddenly from its hovering position, and I am really not exaggerating when I say this, it started heading straight for the penthouse. I was, I will admit desperately thinking whether something had happened that I hadn’t heard about and the embassy was evacuating me or more worryingly, if it was packed with commandos who would abseil onto my balcony and mercilessly shoot me (I have a paranoid , self obsessed and overactive imagination). In the end, it actually swooped over my house close enough that had I been so inclined, I could have thrown a stone at it as it passed by before landing on the football pitch next to my house.

Unfortunately, my relief at not being assassinated, evacuated or victim of a suicide attack by an insane helicopter pilot was short lived as the football pitch is incredibly dusty (we were waiting for rain to actually re-grow some sort of grass on it) and the spinning helicopter blades whipped up a sand cloud which quickly engulfed my washing.
This felt especially unfair as I’d already panicked as it passed so close it had already almost blown half my washing off the drying stand. Thankfully I had pegged it down due to some advice given to me many years ago by a family member who’d said ‘John, always remember; if you’re living on a small tropical island and a group of commandos comes to assassinate you in a helicopter, always make sure your washing is pegged down otherwise it’ll be blown away by the force of the rotor blades’, which turned out to be sound advice....
Anyway, having cursed at my now dust covered washing, I went down to the football pitch to find out some answers (the question was more ‘why is there a helicopter here?’ rather than ‘why did you cover my washing in dust’) as to did half the town.
It turned out there had been some sort of scuffle between a military bloke and a police man and some big wig had to come to mediate. I personally thought that spending a great deal of money flying by helicopter seemed a little excessive when he could have waited 16 hours and come by ferry. Or if he didn’t want to wait until then at least just jump on a military boat and come that way, it would most likely have been as quick and considerably cheaper to the tax payer.

It was also a little strange that they flew and landed right in the centre of town (30-45 minutes drive to the police and military headquarters or the governor’s office in one of which the meeting took place) having gone across the entire town not to mention that they had flown past the ‘airport’ ( a mere 5 minutes drive from said locations) and indeed any of the countless huge fields and open spaces right next to those possible meeting locations. Strange really, I mean it’s almost as if the individual wanted lots of people to see how important he was arriving in his expensive helicopter, although I would never make such an accusation....
I should say, I have just deleted about a page of self righteous ranting from this entry because I decided that there are things that may be better unsaid in the public domain.

november

November- a nothing month

As you will all doubtless know, I am doing this retrospectively. So as I’ve been sat in my house, I’ve tried to think of anything interesting that happened in November and failed.

SO I sat down and looked through the e-mails I sent in November and it turns out that actually..... nothing happened!

See! And now some of you wonder why I don’t update often! To be honest, I think it’s actually the only month since I’ve been here that really there wasn’t anything to report.

Blog expanatory note

Blog- explanatory note

Well as I sit here in my house writing this, it’s been a long time since I updated for which I can only apologise. I’ve basically decided to put together a summary of each of the many months that have passed since I last updated.

I’m sorry it has been so long but I just wanted to explain why I haven’t got round to doing it as well as why I have decided to restart.

To be honest, I think the main reason my posts have become more infrequent leading to this huge hiatus is because as I have settled in, there have become fewer and fewer examples of me acting ineptly so there has been fewer anecdotes to share. But then if you’re reading this, you must have at least some interest in what’s going on in my life.

But the main reason I’ve restarted has been the events of the past few weeks here. As some of you may know, at the start of February, my grandma died quite suddenly at home. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it home for the funeral and it was generally very difficult time for me. But one of the regrets I had is that I know that she very much enjoyed sitting down at breakfast and my granddad would read a print out of this blog for her. When she died I felt very guilty that I had let my updates slip and that she hadn’t kept her updated with all that was going on in my life.
So it is with this renewed vigour that I am updating.

October blog

October: VSO giveth and VSO taketh away.....

Well October was a very strange month which was a result of two messages from VSO which both came somewhat out of the blue. Firstly, I got an e-mail from my manager saying that the love of my life here in Rote, my lovely shiny megapro which I loved, had to be returned. It turns out there was a clause in a contract which VSO had with another organisation which meant that the bike had to be returned to the local NGO where it had originally been placed. It was a very upsetting experience; we had become very close over those few months. We had been through a lot together; in august we even hit our first cow together after it had been hiding at the side of the road and then in what can only be described as bovine suicidal rush, jumped out right in front of us, thankfully neither of us were injured, not even a scratch on her beautiful shiny wheels. Add to that on the ‘hit’ list, 4 chickens (they few into us) and on the ‘near miss’ list there were- numerous dogs, herds of goats and a fully grown sprinting pig....

But alas, those days of freedom were over. I should point out I still had access to a bike as I would then be sharing the GL Max with Suzanne. now the sharing wasn’t so much as the bike itself. It’s a perfectly fine bike, but it’s a push at 6’2” (and let’s face it, fairly solidly built even after the weight loss) to comfortably ride a 160cc bike, so then trading it in for a 125cc bike is going to be tough. It’s possible but not especially comfortable. It also means sometimes overtaking uphill can be quite tricky. It is however still preferable to and (just about) quicker than walking.

However, VSO had not finished ‘taking away’ (I’m not blaming them for either problem incidentally!). It emerged that in fact under the new rules of our visa agreement, Suzannes job was no longer viable. This meant that at the end of her visa (in March), VSO was not able to extend her VISA. Now this was quite a blow for her really, when you consider that she wasn’t able to be in Rote for several months due to her medical dog related problems, then she had just started to feel settled and get some good work done when she was told she would have to leave early. She was, understandably upset by this.

So she started looking at alternative jobs and options, but generally not fun. In one way however, she was very fortunate; she still had to 6 months to run on her visa. There was a volunteer couple working over in Flores who only had a few days left on their VISA when they discovered it could not be extended. After some negotiation with the government, VSO managed to get them an additional two weeks in which to pack up all their work and belongings and leave the country.

October also saw my parents come to visit me in Indonesia. We had a week in Rote and then I took a week off and we went over to Maumere in flores for a week. It was great and they actually did really well as it was insufferably hot even for Indonesia, so to go from an English October to the hottest time of the year in Indonesia and survive was quite an achievement.
We didn’t actually do that much whilst we were away, I really just needed some time off so it was a lot of time spent on the beach of our hotel sipping juice and enjoying the food! As well as being able to enjoy the company of my father, someone who not only likes but actually understands English football, it had been a long time since I’d been able to talk to such a person at length!

One day however we did hire a driver and head off across Flores. Our main destination was the ‘three coloured lakes’ which are... well.. three lakes which are different colours

INSERT photo

Well actually, when we were there, it was only really 3 lakes, 2 colours. They are on top of a volcano and it’s some mineral that changes their colours. After a somewhat slow start to the day (our driver was actually about two hours late because as it turned out, he’d been up late in/losing a fight with someone) but after that we headed across Flores. It was several hours drive but when you get there, it is amazing if not really really weird. The whole thing just feels completely surreal.
After that we toured around one or two other places nearby. We went to one town well known for its weaving of local cloth (Ikat) and the driver asked if we wanted to stop and buy some my father and I shrugged and looked at my mum who said no. by this point, being off season and there being a dearth of tourists, women from all around had started to bring their cloth out. so we drove through the village until my mum suddenly said ‘actually I really would like some, can we go back?’.

So we returned to the market/selling area. Now by this point we had just driven the length of the village TWICE allowing every would-be seller to see us and come out. Now I had already told my parents this village was well known for really harassing you into sales so wasn’t overly chuffed at giving plenty of notice of our prescence!

BY the time we made it back to the buying area, the whole village had become like a scene from ‘night of the living dead’, scores and scores of women walking towards us with their arms outstretched in front of them (with ikat hanging off them) all calling out ‘cheap cheap, special price and other such slogans’.

I should also point out, although I love my mother dearly, she is a nightmare in such situations. All of these women are independently selling and my mum takes a long time to decide about purchases, in which time the crowd is getting steadily larger. When she does decide on what she wants, she then asks me to try and negotiate “X amount for these three” not realising that each one belongs to a different woman. Eventually after an eternity we return to the car with purchased ikat, as I get to the car I see that my father is stood there joyfully pointing every seller towards me.

But anyway, aside from that, it was a really nice week, it was nice to catch up with them and they even brought me loads of gifts, including a fedora which I love although I’m fairly sure most of those around me are yet to be convinced.

September blog

Blog September

Now I’ve been thinking back to September and couldn’t remember much so I looked over some old e-mails and it turns out, not that much happened to tell you all about!
However, at the start of the month I did, with my ever dependable Batman, Sam, organise a weekend conference for all the volunteers in NTT. At the time this was about 20 or so and we had to organise the entire weekend (accommodation, food, sessions etc) at about 3 weeks’ notice and on an incredibly small budget. Just to give you an idea of the scale of this, in 2008 they started planning nine months in advance of the same event!
Firstly, I should explain about the nature of volunteers. Although I love them all dearly, they can be a little difficult to organise. One of the qualities they look for when recruiting is being independent minded. You have to be to survive working in such odd conditions plus it actually makes them very good company and they are great to have around because they are always up for doing things/going places etc. However, it does make events such of this a little difficult.

I should further explain, I know that people do this because I have been one of the volunteers being organised at an event. But at such things, the majority of volunteers will, at some point in the day:
1) Criticise some element of organisation
2) Tell you how they would have done it better
3) Make some sarcastic joke at the organisers expense
Now I should reinforce, I know this because I have been someone who has done exactly that and truth be told, it’s not that bigger a deal on an individual basis and actually is normally pretty helpful and even if it isn’t, you have to be used to a bit of light ribbing. However what you forget is that when you say these things, you are just one of 20 people saying them which means even if everyone only says two out of these three, that makes forty comments a day, which kind of wears you down a bit!
Like I say, it’s really not a criticism, just a fact of life and I think is probably the same whichever group of people you get together!
But all in all, it went pretty well and people seemed to have fun and enjoy it which was the important thing. It did wear me out quite a lot though because we had to do a lot of organisation ‘on the hop’ plus just the two days solid of facilitating various sessions would have worn me out a fair bit! So all in all was ready for another holiday (having barely got back from Alor) but instead got to go back to my office and sit and read yet more medical records.......

August blog

Blog- August

So august saw the departure of the my visitors but not before the football competition. This was the under 15s competition for the island (opposed to the adult one in flores I mentioned in the last post). My team was fairly awful, which was possibly to do with the lack of quality players and partially the manager. I was coaching the football school team whereas the other coach from the football team was managing the team for the local area. It was him who decided who played for the area team and who played for the football school. As a strange coincidence, all the players who appear to have hit their teenage growth spurt as well as being technically gifted were in the locality team whereas my team was made up of the seven dwarfs plus two hobbits (it was nine aside).

Anyway, my lads were physically bullied by the opposition who were all far closer to the fifteen years old cut off age and drew two games and lost the third meaning we didn’t get out of the group stage.

I was, as anyone who has seen me watch or play football, the stereotypically overly vocal football manager. Although, as I found out, this is far far harder in a second language. At one point, I was incensed by a foul on one of my players and shouted at the “kartu pirring” when what I meant was ‘kartu kunning’ as a result, instead of telling the referee to give the opposition player a yellow card, I just shouted out ‘plate card’ (as in a plate you put food on) which makes about as much sense in Indonesian as it does in English. There was a very strange moment as the referee, all the players and the crowd which was probably 100+ all sort of stopped and just looked at me in a very confused manner....

As you will see from the pictures, I shunned the ‘crombie’ manager wardrobe and instead pose as a player in the hope that I could pass myself off as being a freakishly tall albino 14 year old who had already developed a great deal of facial hair, my plan was not a success......

Some of the crowd became prepared for my teams wayward finishing

WOMAN WITH HELMET photo

The end of august brought a nice holiday in Alor. Alor is a small island in the north west of NTT. It’s a beautiful small island famed for it’s diving (which I had my first ever try at). Had a really good time, was just so nice to get away from the hospital for a week and try something new. I should say, the diving instructor was a german guy called Tomas, he was cool but also just reminded me of the shark hunter in Jaws, he really did seem like someone who just wanted to get into the water and go mono et mono with a giant shark. Although having said that, the only photo I can find of him (with a dashing young man in the background) he looks decidedly like Bill Murray in the life Aquatic.

PHOTO OF MAN WITH FISH

And some evidence I did actually go diving

DIVING PHOTO

But I will I do look far from graceful in this photo!

I should say, I really needed the break from work. As part of my job in the hospital I had been auditing old medical records within the hospital in order to find any that were still current. This mean I had to go through all the records over five years old and see if any had been used in that time. Some of these had various drawings from when some of the doctors had become bored during appointments (a bird, a house and one time what looked like a camel) but also the always useful description of an appointment, just two words- ‘orang sakit’ which translated as ‘sick person’.

Anyway, at that time my basic day consisted of- get up, go to work, read medical records, go home, sleep, repeat. By the time I’d gone on holiday, I think I’d looked through something like 10,000 which was only about a fifth of all the records. Fun times.....

week 56 ish

July

Well hannahs departure was swiftly followed by the arrival of my motorbike. VSO has a number of motorbikes which are given to those who need them in their placements, which does not include me. However, if there are spare ones knocking about then they can be borrow and used until they are needed by the organisation. To this end I my Honda Mega Pro arrived with it’s devastating 160cc of power arrived. Now I know in England even I would mock someone calling 160cc a big bike however here it really is as big as you can get.

It makes such a difference to my life, it really open everything up. Don’t get me wrong I really like Ba’a however without a bike, you really are just consigned to the town and at the mercy of Ojek drivers. With the bike I can nip down to nembrala any time I want and generally do as I please. It was especially well timed as I had by this point moved into town into a new flat (complicated why) so it made my commute much easier. One less nice aspect was that in the first few weeks someone kindly pushed it over outside my house overnight and then a couple of weeks later, Suzanne borrowed and subsequently dropped it. It took quite a battering in those first few weeks and it took me some time to get everything fixed and running smoothly.

I forgot to add in my last post, June actually saw the departure of Jude. He’d been here by himself for about 18 months before Suzanne had arrived working in the regional health office. It was really good having him here, he had a lot of personal contacts and was always willing to help or just make you a cup of tea or coffee and sit around and shoot the breeze. The new flat I’m in is actually a different room in the one he was living in before.

The flat is basically a penthouse in the middle of Ba’a above a shop. The room isn’t massive however it does have a really nice balcony area which I have pretty much to myself. I live with three other guys but they are no trouble at all. It just makes a big difference to me having some privacy and freedom, living with the family before really was a pressured situation for me. For example every time I was ill (which is considerably less these days) I would have to have the following conversation when I stepped out of my door

'mr john where are you going?'

'I'm going to the toilet'

'oh..... but you've just been to the toilet'

' yes I know'

'you are going to the toilet a lot'

'yes I know'

'are you sick?'

'Yes'

'diarrhoea?'

'yes'

'oh do you have drugs (their answer to everything)'

'Yes (I lie)'

'good'

And it just gets a bit much every single time. on another occasion I got up craving a shower and coffee and as soon as I walked out of the door, the daughter was there with a towel in her hands. She ran up to me and thrust it right in front of my face and said:

‘Mr John, look the dog had puppies in the night and this one was born dead’

Now as a general rule, I believe still born puppies should not be displayed in public especially not about 8 inches from my face pre 7am before my bloodstream has been sufficiently caffeinated. I know they were just being friendly and concerned but I guess it’s a different culture and I needed somewhere where I can retreat to and not be harassed because I’m white. There were quite a few reasons why I decided to move which I don’t really want to go into here.

The end of June (towards the end of hannahs visit) and July was incredibly busy for me because I was made the assistant manager of the Islands adult football team for the Regional competition in Flores, it was really quite a challenge. They aren’t bad players at all however they play as what they are, people who only get to see football on TV not actually watching it live. So their understanding of movement and positioning (especially for defending) is quite poor. SO I was there to help with training and try to drill some defensive discipline into them, all of which is quite difficult in a second language.

In the weeks preceding the competition, it really was quite a drain on me. we would hold training from three until six in the evening, for six days a week. This meant I was running training for about 18 hours a week, I would have just an hour between finishing work and then starting training in which to eat and get changed. This was pretty tiring as well as difficult to actually keep the training fresh and original.

When it actually came close to the event which was to be held in Bajawa (I have no idea of spelling) in Flores, it was decided by the powers that be that in addition to the manager, coach and players that a trip leader, local doctor, a government official, a treasurer and a number of individuals (none of whom had actually been involved in the training or preparations) should be paid for to travel to the competition BUT not me. It was decided that being white, should there be any trouble with the crowd, I may get scared and run back to England which would cause friction with the hospital. This is neglecting of course that I am at least two foot taller than anyone here and have spent years going to English football matches (including away matches at leeds, being under siege by several hundred unhappy Birmingham city fans and having to run the gauntlet of Blackburn vs Burnley matches) so a little hooliganism isn’t going to scare me!

So anyway, they went without me and promptly got pummelled in all their games, which without being egotistical, I believe is because I wasn’t there. I say this because having seen them play friendlies, despite all my work with them, if I wasn’t on the sidelines bellowing defensive instructions then they were pretty frail at the back.

It did mean I wasn’t away for my birthday which was a bonus. It was pretty low key really but very enjoyable. It was picnic on the beach and then spaghetti bolognaise in the evening (another bonus of having moved, it gives much more cooking freedom). So it was an enjoyable day but it’s a bit weird having it here, it’s just not the same as it is in England with family etc, not better or worse, just different.

The end of the month actually saw my older sister Jenny and her friend Alex come to the island for a holiday. I went to meet them in Bali, partially because I’d promised Doro I’d go visit her before she left. It was really good just to hang out with them all and generally get my hit of western food before heading back.

When we were all back in Rote I think they enjoyed themselves. We had a trip down to Nembrala including having a fire on the beach one night and generally chilling out. They also went to my friend Denvers school and helped out with an impromptu English lesson which included Jenny singing ‘I’m a little teapot’, she will probably kill me for writing that and she was highly embarrassed about it, such a sterling rendition is in fact still the talk of the island. But generally I think they had fun and enjoyed seeing how I live. They were also welcomed with open arms as they brought me a handsome supply of hobnobs and other goodies as well as a load of birthday presents.

As far as I can remember that was july, I’m sure loads more happened but my brain is old and weary...

Summary for June

June

Well as I look back at my last post I realise that my ability to be reliable and update this is slipping somewhat. So what I propose, I’m going to write a summary for June, July and August so that I can get back up to date, they may not be the most interesting (I’m such a great salesman) but at leats it’s easier for me to keep on writing!

Right, to pick up hannah finally made it here after partying her way across Indonesia. It was great to see and catch up about various people best of all was that for twelve months I’d not actually heard an accent from the north of England, it was a refreshing change. She also brought with her a bountiful supply of treats from England, some editable others just practical (the essentials: kettle, hammock, dvds etc).

We went down and hung out in Nembrala for a few days which was great. We stayed at Mr Thomas’ homestay which boasts the best doughnuts available in Rote or cake for breakfast each morning and a very friendly if not slightly eccentric owner. We had a great time, there was a really good crowd staying down there who we hung out with, a birtish guy (Dave), an American (russ) and an aussie family (Danny, Tan, Leighton and jared) who were all good craic really.

So we hung out there for a few days then came back up to Ba’a. We had an afternoon in Jefri’s village which was generally hanging out, looking at paddy fields and then noticing how freakishly tall both hannah and I are in comparison to a lot of the locals when we posed for pictures.

The truth is, there isn’t that much else to tell about hannahs visit. We had a great time but we spent most of it just hanging out, chatting and chilling (which are hannahs three key life skills). But we had a good time and it was cool to just spend some time with her.

Now one slight oversight in the whole thing was the fact I actually hadn’t booked hannah’s flight back to Bali from Kupang, as I say a minor issue. So we decided that she would just chance getting a slight and we’d hope for the best, I should sya even if she missed it then she still had a day to spare. We just made it to the airport as the plane was boarding so I could run and buy her a ticket.

So all in all, not that exciting but very very enjoyable.

TO be honest, eating takeout, chilling out and chatting with hannah did take up a large part of my june, nothing else really happened aside from preparing for that and recovering from it!

week 35 to 39 ish

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.

bahassa indonesian

I know to many of you the thought of me learning another language is quite ridiculous, I never exactly thrived as a linguist but just thought I’d share what I think are some interesting things about Bahassa Indonesian.

I do struggle at times with the exact language but I’m becoming much better and using less englonesian as my vocabulary widens, I actually often can’t say what I want so have to doctor it to what I can say. At times this does make you feel like you are a little bit stupid because you just can’t articulate your thoughts well enough. Also to the great amusement of my friends and colleagues I often mix up words such as nurse and aeroplane which are perawat and pesawat. There have been a number of occasions when I have asked is it the doctors or the aeroplanes who write the medical records. Although often my pronunciation is so bad they just have to guess anyway. No errors of mine have yet eclipsed a friend who used a English dictionary and missed translated and instead of asking ‘how do much English people get paid per month in england?’ and instead asked ‘how many penguins are you given per month?’ which I didn’t really know how to respond to.

Probabaly the two most widely used words in Indonesian are ‘Sudah’ and ‘Belum which mean already and not yet and have a whole range of uses. Bahassa Indonesian doesn’t have tenses (such as past present or future) so they are used to help add a time element. However the most common time they are used is someone asks if you are married (very important in indoensia, people are normally married by their early 20s although when I asked they never look surprised at the answer) the answers ‘no’ or ‘yes’ aren’t accepted, you have to say already or not yet. This gives so many elements of life this sort of numbingly inevitable feel! Rather oddly it’s a linguistical quirk which ends up rubbing off on you in English, so even when speaking English. For example if you ask any fellow volunteers or development workers ‘have you been to ____’ in English they will respond ‘not yet’ even if they have plans to compared to in England where if I asked someone if they’d ever been to Indonesia they would only say not yet if they had some sort of plan to. Or take marriage again, if you asked someone if they were married and they said not yet you would expect them to be engaged or at least have something in the pipeline. Imagine if you heard someone who was single saying to someone they were not yet married, that would be a little weird.

The other word abused by people here is Kasihan which means sort of pity. So if you told someone something really bad had happened to you they would respond with Kasihan which is sort of ‘I pity you’ or ‘poor you’. It is a sincerely meant comment of consolation. Unfortunately for all of us who aren’t from Indonesia, it really is just asking to be used sarcastically. In fact I am yet to hear a none Indonesian sincerely Kasihan someone. Actually being English and having sarcasm coursing through my veins even when I hear and Indonesian saying it I can’t hear it as anything but pure sarcasm!

There are many other quirks. Quite usefully there is an inclusive and exclusive version of we which is Kami or Kita. So you can not worry about accidently inviting someone to something and be mean and exclude people. SO basically it’s like little brackets in English so kami is we (not including the person you are talking to) and Kita is we (including the person you are talking to), it really is very useful.

week 34 or thereabouts

Well I’m sorry for the long gap again in posts. Life here is really good here right now and I’m starting to feel settled, work is moving along well and I’ve actually got something approaching a social life now. I should also give an update on my bowels (I know that’s the only reason some of you read) and general health which has been good ever since I came back from Singapore and I’ve had no problems at all since the end of February, no illness at all. Basically I think I’ve managed to find out what was making me ill, correct it and now I’m fine.

So what’s been new since my last two posts, well not much really! I’ve settled into life here pretty nicely now.

A few weeks ago I decided that Blackburn Vs Tottenham may be the last rovers game I could watch this season so decided to go to kupang to watch it just for one night which costs a princely sum in relation to my meagre living allowance. I went to a cafe that advertises having ESPN but it turned out they had stopped their subscription the month before. So I went to the hotel krystal (fancy and expensive!) where they said I could watch it in my room when I told them I wasn’t staying there, they told me I was more than welcome to watch it in the restaurant.

Just before kick off time Sam (my long suffering volunteer friend who has a mild interest in football and lives in Kupang so is dragged along when I want to watch) and I sat expectantly only for a member of staff to tell us ESPN wasn’t available in the restaurant but we could sit in the staff room and watch it. Once we were sat there amongst the staffs jackets and coffee mugs, we then discovered that there are two ESPN channels, the one the hotel has which has 95% of all football on it and then the one that I needed! So we ended up watching it by abusing their free WIFI and finding a website that was showing it. I think the staff quite enjoyed seeing an English man jump up and down with excitement whilst watching a pixelated laptop which kept pausing and getting stuck, it was like watching it on sky digital during a thunder storm. It was all aright though as we won 2-1 with a last minute goal.

The following week I spent Easter weekend in Maumere hanging out with some other volunteers. With the situation with boats and six day weeks it makes it pretty tough to actually get off the island for a proper weekend but with the Easter holiday and the election at the same time, I had a nice run of a few days off so could go see some fellow volunteers. Maumere is on flores an island to the north of timor. We hd a great time chilling out, hanging by the beach, playing cards and generally having fun.

There was, by accident, a pretty good crowd there. A few people independently decided to go and hang out plus the volunteers that live there so there was about ten of us there. On the first day my friend teresa and I drove up to this huge virgin mary statue on the hill next to the city. It’s got a great view down over the valley and in an odd way it sort of reminded me of the lake district without the rain or indeed the lakes I suppose, but the hills at least. It was a great trip until we came to leave and teresa realised she’d lost the motorbike keys somewhere! So then followed about half and hour of searching through grass to try and find it. This place really is in the middle of nowhere and it was a public holiday so it’s not even like we could get a lock smith (if such a person exists there). Eventually they turned up. Suzanne even turned up from her recovery time in bali with her husband in tow.

When I was away, I was actually set a challenge, to make friends outside of the hospital. When you arrive it’s kind of difficult to meet people and expanf your social circle outside of your work. So with the gauntlet having being firmly thrown down, I donned my football kit grabbed my football and headed off to the local football pitch in search of friends (that sentence looks so pathetic when I read it back!). it went really well aside from the excessive sweating and what I suspect was sunstroke several hours later. It was really cool and got to hang out with the guys and start to feel a little more integrated. I’m actually looking to move my accommodation, currently I’m up near the hospital which is about half an hour’s walk from the town centre. I’m trying to move so I can meet more people as the only people I see around at the moment are hospital staff.

One of the guys denver (named after the city, I have no idea why his family have never been to the states!) invited me to start helping with his football school that he runs. Basically about 40 under 15s come on Mondays Thursdays and Saturdays and we coach them for about two hours. I was hoping to be helping but it turns out Denver had other plans, we have now split the group and I now coach about twenty 12 to 15 year olds by myself. Now my language is improving but I realised, football has a whole new vocabulary for me to learn and as you can guess the kids are none to patient! But we have fun although I realise a great deal of this is at my expense but it’s good for me. I should add as well, my main coaching qualification is that I’m white and like football which then makes me an authority.

We are actually currently organising a competition next month for under 15s which should be good. Unfortunately there is no adult league for me to play in. In fact I’ve not been able to play (but still coach) for the last couple of weeks, I have injured my left thigh muscle. I wish I could say I’d done this playing sports but actually I strangely did it walking out of my front door so now every time I kick a ball I’m in agony but hoping to start playing again in a couple of weeks, want to play twice a week in addition to coaching three times a week. We actually went to see the Bupati (sort of ruler of the island, governor or mayor type thing) about some financial help for the competition, it’s strange sat there with an important man talking about football and the utter lameness of ricky hatton.

Things have been pretty quiet without Suzanne here, she’s actually been sent back to the UK just to make sure she is fully over her operation but is expected back in the next couple of weeks. Despite her going away my boss from VSO came and we had our first quarterly meeting. It was very late as she’d hoped to do suzannes at the same time so we were sort of hanging on but then when it was clear Suzanne wouldn’t be back for a bit we decided to have it.

It was really good as it was good opportunity to get some real clarity about my work here and redirect me as to some more specifics of what they wanted me to do. work has been pretty slow up to now but I kind of feel things are really starting to move now. The meeting is fairly brutal at times, they got loads of people from the hospital there and they all had to score me on a 4 stage smiley face to sad face scale of how well I was settling in not just work wise but also more generally here including things like my social life, some of it is really awkward at times but on the whole a very useful experience both socially and work wise (and VSO don’t make me say that for anyone who is wondering or suspicious!).

So life is busy now organising the football comp, doing much work, having a social life, trying to co-ordinate maybe moving house as well as sorting out stuff for when my younger sister visits next month (feel free to send her things to bring to me although she won’t appreciate me saying that, older sister coming in August). I’ve been feeling a little worn out of late, I think I need some time off, been here 8 months working 6 day weeks with only one day off in that time but it’s actually not that. Fundamentally it’s a little bit draining living somewhere like this. Everybody sees you (I do kind of stick out) and wants to talk to you (like being famous without the fun parts!) and trying to live life in a language you are still learning is pretty draining too. So starting to think about a holiday, I know lots of you think I’m on a two year holiday but I actually do need some time off!

I promise I won’t leave it so long for the next post!

Supplementary - travel in Indonesia

Well I’ve actually been here a quarter of my total time now and having just done that huge post which contained far too many details of my bowel movements I thought I should probably tell you some more details of what life is like here for anyone who doesn’t know (sorry if you do, please don’t feel patronised, I know nothing I am saying is original or insightful and common all over Asia and all developing countries, I in no way think I am the first person to discover all of this, I just thought some people may be interested) and I thought I’d tell you about transport.

Basically it varies from island to island what is available, most have taxis, some have trains, others you can hire cars, others rely heavily on ojeks and bemos In terms of getting between islands there are (unsurprisingly) ferries and Aeroplanes. It is the last

IN rote it is pretty much just Ojeks and bemos in terms of on island transport. A bemo is sort of a little mini bus similar to one of those little ‘Rascal’ vans in the UK (made by ford I think), they have a door in the side and two benches running the length of the back and they run set routes depending on their colour and in some places their numbers. You simply hail one you want as it drives past jump in and then pay whatever you think is fair when you get to where you are going. All this sounds fairly straight forward and the idea is however it is a little more interesting than that.

It would appear that every bemo in NTT (my region of Indonesia) has been inspired by a certain TV programme and look like something off ‘pimp my mini bus’. The first requirement is a good sound system, by good I don’t mean good quality I mean good as in able to make the ears of your passengers bleed uncontrollably for the duration of their journey. The bass should obscure all other noise on the planet including the possibility of a nuclear weapon going off. Next you must decided on what stickers you want to plaster the outside with, these range from various musical artist to messages to the world, it is sort of like one giant bumper sticker to the world. Some have religious messages others just obscenities although the strangest I has seen just had ‘Hitler’ written down two windows. It is also required that said decorations should also obscure as much of your windscreen as is physically possible to make driving even more challenging.

There are of course a few optional extras, however seatbelts never fall into this category, they are never an option. Most have ludicrously long (6 or 7ft) Florissant bendy aerial type things sticking out the back which hurt if they hit you as they go past which I can say through personal experience, a novelty horn which plays a tune or just makes a strange and annoying noise is a must though. Also a great number of cuddly toys and plastic love shaped handles also help. These are an interesting mode of transport however not the most comfortable when they are crowded and difficult if you are 6’2” which means you need to learn to dislocate your knees on command and develop a thick skull for when you keep banging your head as you get in or out.

If you are feeling a little classier than or want to go somewhere that the bemo doesn’t run you can use an ojek which is basically a motorbike taxi. I say taxi that sort of misleadingly makes it sound like there is any sort of regulation of them. It’s basically just a bloke with a bike and sometimes a license (he may not have had time to buy one) who isn’t doing anything at that moment in time when he sees you and fancies making some money. I’ve had ojek drivers who are policemen in their spare time. The quality of driving is often far from desirable so if you find a decent one you tend to get their number and they become your ojek guy who you can text when you need to go somewhere. If you find a good one then you can rely on them and also know they won’t overcharge you, I recently just tried to get one from the street who tried to charge me 15 times the fair price. You tend to have them more in bigger places as put simply, there isn’t really THAT many places that you can go in Rote that aren’t either walkable, bemoable or too far to want to go on an ojek.

There is a bizarre phenomena with ojeks though, you will spend your life being harassed by them (‘hey mister you want ojek???’) and then when you need one, there are never any to be found and you just wander the streets.

Taxis aren’t big here but in bali everywhere you walk they will pull over and try and see if you need them unless, like ojeks, you actually do need them.

Boats and planes are pretty similar in a lot of ways as they are both governed by three simple principles in Indonesia

1) Never, ever, ever expect one to leave when it says it will unless of course you’re late in which case it will have left promptly.

2) Every passenger, although allotted a specific seat should try their best to all enter and exit at the same time, at speed. It is crucial to make it on as quickly as possible for reasons unknown.

3) You should always take as much as you can with you, less than 3 pieces of hand luggage is just plain embarrassing. You should aim for about 7 trying your best to include items such as

a. Suitcases the size of which should really be hold luggage

b. Some variety of livestock, normally bound or caged in some way as to cause maximum discomfort to the animal

c. At least one cardboard box tied up with black plastic bag wound into a rope like binding.

d. If on a boat, some minyak tanna (stove fuel, they don’t allow it on planes) or other flammable liquid which you should then position next to the heaviest smoker on the vessel.

e. A motorbike helmet although it is best to wear this for the entire jounry to save carrying it, this isn’t a safety thing it’s just what some people do.

So anyway, that was just some thoughts about transport in Indonesia, like I say sorry if you know it all.

Week 27

Well I here is a long awaited blog post, it’s been quite a long time since I last wrote a post but things have been mega busy. My aim is to write this post basically outlining what I’ve been up to in brief and then resume my normal detailed posts.

Well having finally making it back from kupang after my last post, I was stranded there for just short of a week due to high seas. I finally managed to book a flight back which was then cancelled as I arrived at the airport and was rescheduled for a 5am the following morning.

However I finally made it back to the island and settled back into life. It didn’t take long to resume normal service however and what we initially thought was a flair up of my typhoid again turned out to be much worse. It would appear that I contracted amoebic dysentery (AD), although the tests didn’t come back positive, I responded to anti AD medication and the symptoms were consistent with it.

The tests I mentioned were ordered by a doctor friend of mine, Meli, who I went to see about it. Straight away she ordered a stool test which is a test I have to say I have never ‘sat’ before (very bad pun I know). Now working in the hospital makes such things a little awkward as you have to give a sample knowing full well that the following day you will have to look someone in the eye who has poked through your excrement. I waited until I thought there would be no one around and went to the lab to give my sample and thankfully it was empty except for the lab bloke.

When he saw the test ordered he reache for a bottle and gave it to me, I should explain that this bottle had a neck about the size of a 5p peice and I was directed to the toilet. I never thought when I was in language school that I would ever need to work out the phrase for “there is no way I’m taking a dump in that” but I believe through broken Indonesian and the art of mime I managed to get my message across. So I went and got my sample only to come out and find that the guy had gone walkabouts which left me with a difficult choice, I didn’t want to leave my sample there and just run off, it would appear like some sort of dirty protest if he came back and likewise I wouldn’t wander round the hospital looking for him with sample in hand. I ended up having to stick my head out of the department with my arm inside holding my cup trying to find him and eventually did.

A couple of days later I had to give another sample so again I waited until I thought no one would be around and went in, unfortunately I was not as lucky this time. Instead just about the entire male population of the hospital was there on some sort of blood drive and welcomed me thinking I was there to join in. When I said I wasn’t they said ‘oh so you’re here for a blood test’ when I said no they said ‘oh it must be for a urine test’ I said no, they looked confused. They then took my peice of paper and looked at it, they then proceeded to discuss at great pace (which I couldn’t understand) and then pass the test order around to anyone who was interested. Incidentally I recently found out that there is actually literally no word for confidentiality in Indonesian. I eventually saw the lab person who wasn’t the same as the previous time who once again offered me a similar sized bottle and the same conversation ensued. This time however, it was more a case of smuggling my sample back into the lab to avoid this to being examined and passed around.

Eventually after a raft of heavy antibiotics I was feeling okay again although a word of advice, try and avoid it if you can. i feel fine and healthy now but I have decided I’m basically working my way through the alphabet of illnesses and symptoms basically right now I’m on

Amoebic Dysentery (clinical presentation)

Bacterial Bowel infection

Conjunctivitis (see later)

Diarrhoea

E-coli

Fever

Then also had

Insomnia (anti malarial side effect)

Mosquito bites,

Sunburn,

Typhoid,

Paranoia (anti malarial side effect),

Vomiting

So thats 12 out of the 26 covered off in just my first 7 months, hopefully I should have filled up the rest after two years! Already got D covered so hopefully won’t get dengue plus I’m hoping by putting Mossy bites at M I won’t have to go through malaria as well.

During this Suzanne returned to the island having received treatment in Bali on her leg. Whilst at the ‘airport’ in Rote, I got to witness another peculiarity of that service, when passengers are checking in, they do not weigh the bag but they do weight the passenger and record this. an odd move I know. I have actually over the last 7 months as some would know, lost a total of 17kg (but managed to out two back on) from 95 down to 78kg. In old money thats about 15 stone (I was a bit of a porker) down to about 12.3 stone (I think) so I would have done well on this form of weight testing now although I have stabilised at about 80kg now.

Having said this I went to a restaurant the other week and went to sit down on the patio furniture plastic chair (as just about all establishments have here) and the waiter rushed over and stopped me. He then slotted one chair on top of another explain it was needed for extra strength. I explained one would be just fine and he replied ‘how much do you weight? I think it will be more than 100kg?’ and that is AFTER I lost all the weight.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I recovered from the AB and a week or so later in Kupang, went to the Sector workshops and AVC. This is basically when all the volunteers and staff from Indonesia get together and have some days working and then some days fun. It was really great to meet everyone and had a brilliant time. The theme for the AVC was globalisation and I was even asked to present my undergraduate dissertation on the effects of globalisation on English football, contrary to what some of you may think this was part of the fun part of the week.

The only downside of the workshops/conference is it that the paperwork I brought with me from my boss for my new special 12 month visa was wrong. Well it wasn’t wrong it just one didn’t have an official stamp, you must understand that everything is worthless here without an official stamp and another didn’t have a money stamp under the signature. The latter is ludicrous, basically for a lot of official documents here you have to go to the post office and pay a money for these thing that look like postage stamps, you then stick it on and sign over the top of it and this makes it ‘official’. To be honest it just sounds like a plot by the government to make a lot of money for nothing. Anyway, eventually this was all sorted.

Towards the end of the conference I managed to contract conjunctivitis probably from the sector workshop hotel’s pool where I managed one day to go for an early morning swim, I guess it’s my own fault for trying to be healthy. This meant for a week or so I was rendered virtually blind twice a day when I had to have cream administered to my eyes. I also took to wearing sunglasses even at night, believe me I know it looks silly but it feels much sillier.

Having finished in kupang Suzanne and I went to Bali with all of the staff in order to go to Singapore for a new visa. When we were at passport control leaving Indonesia the man asked me to remove my sunglasses, he took one look at my bloodshot red oozing eyes and quickly asked me to put my glasses back on. When I got to Singapore the passport man looked at me looked at my passport, looked at me and then said ‘is this your passport?’ to which I said ‘yes’ he shrugged his shoulders and said ‘okay then’ and let me in. This is obviously a fool proof way of making sure people don’t use other peoples passports, just ask them, how many illegal immigrants I wonder have been caught with a sudden moment of honest: “no........ wait a second I mean yes!”. Although it sounds quite glamorous to have to make a quick trip to Singapore it really isn’t.

I basically only got to see about one street of Singapore. I got into the cab at the airport, went to the hotel, got some food nearby, slept (although they had something called the football channel in the hotel, pure bliss of watching reruns)and gave our passports to the agent. At this point Suzanne had to go to hospital for a check up with a specialist about her leg which appeared to have become re infected o I was left at the hotel, I checked out of my room but had to hang around with her stuff in case she would need to stay and keep her room so basically I went to the coffee shop across the road and camped in there with a book and coffee for several hours. It turned out Suzanne was going to need surgery so returned and kept her room at the hotel, the agent redelivered our passports and I got a taxi back to the airport and left. Very very dull.

I returned to bali and as it wasn’t worth proceeding onto kupang, where I would have to go to the immigration office, due a couple of days public holiday I had an enjoyable couple of days in bali and then flew back to kupang. Then followed some frustrating days in kupnag basically getting up, finding out I wasn’t able to go to the immigration office, then loitering for the rest of the day (nearly all my friends were out of town) and the same the next day, after about four days of this VSO just told me to go back to the island, I had a few days at home and then back to Kupang to the immigration office then back to rote. So that is my visa now all sorted for another 12 months.

I have now been back on the island for coming up two weeks just getting back up to date with stuff like washing and generally recovering. Work is really starting to get going which is good but all of that meant I was off the island for about 4 weeks in total. So I’m a bit behind on where I wanted to be. Suzanne has been in Bali recovering and getting regular treatment and I chomping at the bit to get back, she’ll be returning in a week or so with husband in tow who is hear for a holiday which is good because hopefully it means plenty of treats from the UK.

Right mammoth post out of the way, normal service will now be resumed.