The past 2 weeks...

Just so you all know, I have not been affected by the most recent earthquake, which took place on the island of Java (I’m on Sumatra). I didn’t even feel a tremor. But, please remember all the unfortunate people who were traumatized by the latest disaster to hit Indonesia (which is a country that gets much more than its fair share). Right now a few of my colleagues/friends are in Jogja distributing relief supplies. Please remember them as they work insane hours to meet an overwhelming need. It’s not an easy situation for everyone involved, but FHI is fortunate to be able to help.

We’ve been busy (as usual) prepping for and then hosting another team from the US. This time they were coming for 2 weeks, and we got to go somewhere besides Meulaboh for a change. The first week they were here we worked with the school that FHI is partnered with to improve the school yard and to host a “Celebration of Learning” event where the kids sang English songs and performed English skits for their parents. Wira and I were in charge of this, and I had all these horrific visions of me being the frazzled coordinator of one of those children’s programs where everything went wrong. There’s a lot of opportunity for that to happen when the school rarely does this sort of thing, and Wira and I had never! But in the end it all worked out well, the kids were champs, and we even got to see the older girls perform a traditional Acehnese dance, which they did beautifully.

This past week we all got to go up the coast a bit to Calang. We actually worked in a tiny mountain village 45 minutes up a funky road from Calang. The people there were wonderful hosts and were a lot of fun to get to know a little bit. Our lack of Indonesian (the US team and I) didn’t even matter as the villager didn’t speak Indonesian either! The village had not been damaged by last year’s tsunami, however it had been affected by the years of conflict prior, and definitely could use the assistance that FHI provides with its agriculture programs. FHI has recently opened a little branch office up there, and the village had invited the team up for the week. We helped clean up the hillside around the new FHI house, worked on the well (now the water is just cloudy- not yellow) and worked on terracing the steep hillside. We also had a blast finger painting with the kids, making hemp bracelets and just generally hanging out. It was a real nice break to be out of Meulaboh for a while, to be up in a village in the mountains, see traditional rural life, and to be outdoors so much! Of course there’s a ton of funny stories about our week of “roughing” it, but you’ll just have to ask me about them sometime. All in all it was a great two weeks and we were all sad to see the team leave. Here’s a few photos of the past 2 weeks.