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.