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

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

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

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

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

2) I had no idea how I got there

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyones good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The three rules of the rainy season:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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