Romance in the sludge

18th Feb
I hope everyone had a great Valentines Day. They spilt up me and my beloved; sending him to Nias and leaving me to attend a conference on Sustainable Household waste management. Which translates as how to deal with other peoples toilet effluent! So I spent the 14th Feb listening at ground breaking ways to treat, dry and transfer human sludge. How romantic!!
Medair is actually leading the way in a closed septic system for individual households. Its much more common to see open septic systems which contaminate the high water table. Ours even has a treatment garden where plants such as bananas and papaya help to break down nasty bacteria before it’s released to the environment.
I did get to spend 2 days in a posh hotel eating lovely food, drinking decent coffee and trying to talk intelligently about sanitation. Off to Nias island soon where things are a bit less civilized.
Thanks for everyone that prayed for Chris last week. He was taken ill at the weekendwith suspected malaria. His temp was very high nearly 39oC so we gave him the malaria treatment. He is much better now and back on the biscuits to replace all the pounds he says he’s lost!!

Got the shakes

Spent most of last week in the West coast of Aceh. There is construction still going on in many places and its hard to imagine that just over two years ago everything was flattened. As we traveled the 6 hours south of Banda you pass through the NGO villages each one a bit different in colour and style. Some said it reminded them of Butlins camps and it is a bit like that. We are working near Calang where everything was destroyed; the population was halved and no infrastructure was left.
On the second day we continued South to the place known as “ground zero” by the press. Spent a day in Meuluboh where we met UNICEF (a potential donor) and caught up with some old friends from Tearfund. Meuluboh was the nearest town to the earthquake’s epicenter and it was known as “ground zero” by the press. When they rebuilt they just moved the town North to an unaffected area. Now it has big, fancy houses and wide tarmac roads.
Last night I was woken up to the bed swaying from one side to another. Just a reminder that we very close to a fault line and earthquakes are a reality.

Belts and braces

Helping out a transporter stuck in the mud!

We’ve now been in the field sites for four days! Our first day was spent with our donor! Not as bad as it sounds as he’s an old friend from back home. We knew about as much as he did…..not very much. As soon as I arrived in one project site they wanted to take me up a mountain to look at a spring they are thinking about using to supply water. I managed to hike up there but began to feel queasy on the way down. I’d just had lunch and didn’t manage to keep it down.. Not sure what the Indonesian staff made of me stopping every 10 minutes to deposit the contents of my stomach!!!! Felt much better afterwards though. Now they all suspect that I am pregnant. No chance.
Just getting used to how things are done here. It’s a constant take your shoes off put them back on. I must have done this 20 times today. The other thing is not using your left hand. I practically have to sit on my hand when I eat to make sure I don’t offend anyone. Its even bad to wave with your left hand. Then the cold bucket wash. No matter how hot it is I find it difficult to chuck cold water over my head….brrrr.
Also have to get used to the lingo of some Canadian colleagues. I was a bit worried that my Watsan manager was talking about wearing suspenders. This is apparently what Americans call braces!!

First days work

This is our first real days work in Indonesia! No we are not just here on holiday…..We were woken up at 5am to the call to prayer from the local mosque. Our body clocks are still out of sync. At breakfast I was still at 1am UK time. We are currently in Banda Aceh which is the capital of the province worst hit by the tsunami. We had to go and be checked by the police. I wasn’t sure how exactly they would do this – check my UK criminal record, phone my last boss…..? It was nothing too sinister just had to have our photos taken and get an ID card.
Spent the rest of the day in the team house in a briefing with the current Country Director. Things are becoming progressively clearer as we hear more about where we are going and what we are supposed to be doing. More and more people are turning up to join the team and today a logistician and a nurse arrived. This is great as the first thing Joe the logs guy did was buy laptops and a TV for the team house.
Our new project in Nias has just made it onto Alertnet’s website. Check out the following link! http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/220382/117026504316.htm

Arrived safely!

Yippee! Got to Banda Aceh, in Indonesia a couple of hours ago. Even better - so did our luggage, every last bag! Better still, despite being some 10kg overweight (luggage not us) we did not get charged, praise God. Took us 30+ hrs to get here, 3 flights and arrived to 35C and 95% humidity. All in all a good day but now we are tired so time for some zzzzzz.....

Smiling on Saturday

Its now Saturday and the stresses of the week seem to have subsided. We are on the way to applying for a new loan although this wont happen before we leave. We just have to trust that things will go through after we leave on Tuesday. Can now start to think a bit more about packing and preparing to leave. Had a lovely surprise party on Thursday night. Our friends from church put together an English tea party full of all the stuff we will miss in Indonesia - cream scones, twiglets and cucumber sandwiches!
We are running out of time to say our goodbyes but fitted in another farewell tea on Friday. Its quite good having our friends cook for us because since we packed up our flat we are surviving with one pan and some odd bits of cutlery.
Tomorrow is our farewell in a local pub, oh and also my birthday! Hope lots of people turn up!

Frustrating Thursday

6 days before we leave for Indonesia. Everything was going fine - flat packed up, stuff taken to Lancaster & stored in Mum's loft. New tenants found. Then the bomb dropped! Our mortgage has been withdrawn!!! This is after 3 months of paperwork, searches, evaluation and a signed agreement... some technicality that we will not be in the country at exchange of contract. We called the solicitor & mortage lender but noone would listen or reconsider. So with 6 days to go we are back to the start with buying our flat. Do we still leave knowing if we do we lose the sale, try and raise personal finance, persuade our families to remortgage their homes? I felt like weeping! Chris was out of the house when I got the call and seemed to take it all in his stride saying , 'we will find a way'. Spent the evening phoning family and friends to gather advice and cash.... see what tomorrow brings.