This last week saw us split up for a few days. No, don’t worry, just work related stuff! Cheryl had fun interviewing in Medan, a city of 2 million, while Chris got to venture into the central hills of rural Nias. Very different.
Chris drove up to Lolomatua, almost to the highest point of the island, some 800m up. This is a green, hilly place with few decent roads – hence need for a good 4 x 4. Gave me my fist chance to see the area where we will be working and talk to some of the local people. Much of the health infrastructure is broken down and barely operational. Most people I spoke to got drinking water from open ponds in the ground. They were pleased to see us. The evening was a welcome relief to the heat of downtown Gunung Sitoli and we got treated to the local rendition of the Beatles track, ‘Hey Jude’ (among others) on a guitar. The duet in local people’s third language was fine until they asked me and Joe (Logistics geezer and all round good bloke) to join in. Suffice to say it all went downhill from there. Does that class as Karioke? At one point it continued in pitch black as the power went out for a few minutes. No-one seemed to mind. Looking forward to going back.

Rustle in the jungle

Since my last message we found a place to move to. It was all done in a mad rush - on Sunday we didn’t have a house, on Monday we’d already started to move. So now our house is right on the sea, is quite a bit smaller and doesn’t have any garden. It's also on the main road and we are competing with traffic noise by day and karaoke by night! Karaoke is a big craze here and it seems you have to be tone deaf to take part! Still we are not out on the streets but this may not be our final resting place! This is me and Chris at our new desks. Chris has an office all to himself because he's the boss.

Haven’t spent much time on Nias over the last week as our programme in Aceh was due a visit. Me and Chris are responsible for what goes on over there too so 1 week in 5 we fly to Aceh.


We are starting a water supply project to a tsunami affected village so we had to go into the jungle to look at the water source. Earlier that week the village had restricted access as an elephant was wandering in the jungle. Her calf was injured and the village had taken it off to be looked at. That made for an unhappy elephant who could charge at any moment. We got the all clear to walk in the jungle and me and Russell headed off to the stream. On the way we came across an enormous footprint of the elephant. We were on high alert and when Russ heard a rumble in the jungle he dived for cover. It was just a bird! Russ is keen hunter back in Canada but out here he doesn’t have his shot gun! These trips can be quite an adventure as we’ve also had reports of tiger attacks, snake sitings and wild pigs!

About to be evicted

So the amazing hill top residence I told you we were living in last week; the one with the large tropical gardens, ocean view terrasse and extensive office and living space. . . . we have to move out of it! The Catholic priest that owns it has sold it to the diocese without telling us. We were given 5 days to move out and on Sunday had no place to go. Another problem is that new owner thinks this place comes with all the furniture and fittings but the reality is that we were sold it all by the previous tenants. So everything from the generator, hot water boiler, air conditioning units and even the water pumps belong to us. I can see some serious negotiation ahead.

News flash

Thanks for all your messages of concern following the recent earthquake in Indonesia. Just to reassure you we are both fine. The quake happened near the West Sumatran town of Padang, some 500km away from Nias island. It was felt by our colleagues in Aceh but they were not injured.

Head hunters

29thFeb
This update is a while overdue. Mainly due to lack of internet access. Two weeks have already passed since I arrived on the island of Nias. It’s a culture that takes a bit of time to get to understand and as we will be working in some really remote hill villages we have to make sure we get to grips with their customs and beliefs.

We are based in the islands biggest town - Gunung Sitoli which we were amazed to see has its own museum. Got the chance to be shown round by the curator on our own private tour. It has not reopened to the public since the earthquake when 100’s of their exhibits were damaged. The Chinese and the Dutch have had the most influence here. The Chinese bringing noodles and effigies of dragons and the Dutch bringing religion and the idea that it’s good to bury your dead. Before they used to prop the dead up on chairs outside their house. Glad they don’t do that anymore!

The Nias’ are renowned for their aggression and upto the 1980’s the practice of head hunting was still going on. And I don’t mean poaching good staff from other NGOs! They would take a big sword jump the fence of the neighbouring village and try to return with the head of the village chief. This would secure the hand of the fairest lady in the town. The curator could remember this happening in his village when he was a child. His father spied the head hunter approaching the village and him and some friends saw him off. You can still see houses built in the traditional way like this one reconstructed at the museum. They are strong, earthquake proof and built from local materials. Sadly they are slowly falling into disrepair and craftsman skilled in this building technique are hard to find.

People here prefer the modern concrete designs of a rectangular block and corrugated iron roof. In the rebuild after the earthquake this monotonous design is multiplying like Monopoly houses across the island.

We are living in a big hill top compound. It used to be a restaurant with a terrasse over looking the sea. It’s a great location but just too big for what we need.