Weddings

Some exciting events took place in the tiny village of Pasir Panjang last week, TWO weddings. One was a lavish affair of the daughter of a couple people who work here. The front of the house, which is across the street from mine, was transformed with tables and colorful tents. There were people coming and going, and eating, all day at the house. I was awoken very early (like 6am) by the Muslim morning prayers that were blasting from speakers. All the volunteers and I went over to the wedding celebration for dinner. We walked through the tunnel of brightly colored tapestries forming a little hallway, enjoying the large buffet of good food. We sat and ate and then went up to the stage area to congratulate the newlyweds and their parents, who were all lavishly dressed. It seemed like a tiresome ritual for them to be honest. They have to sit up there all night just shaking hands and saying thank you etc. The whole village and then some showed up. There was a stage with live music, dancing, and even some karaoke. One guy got up there to sing a delightful (re: terrible) rendition of Adele’s Someone Like You. It was definitely a good idea that the gang and I had some pre-wedding beers.

The second wedding was actually at my house. My homestay mother was marrying for the second time (her first husband passed away a year or so ago). This was a much less fancy wedding. The ceremony (I heard) was simple in the morning. Our house was only transformed a bit; all the furniture was moved out and the place was spotless. I spent the previous night at the other volunteers’ house because there were so many people going though my house. Lots of relatives and people cooking, etc. It was a bit overwhelming and quite noisy. The funniest thing was that I wasn’t 100% sure who the new husband was! She had a few suitors during my stay here so I wasn’t sure which was the lucky guy. But I soon found out that night. He’s a nice guy actually. The other volunteers and I went to my house just for dinner, where we sat on a nice rug on the floor and ate with some of the family, a low-key affair. The newlyweds looked very happy indeed. I’m glad that all the festivities are over though, it was getting quite hectic and noisy in the village for a while there.

Bodoh

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I have a dog here in Indonesia. A couple weeks after I arrived this dog, who really belongs to Dr. Galdikas’ ‘adopted son’ Randa, just showed up at my house and basically never left. She kept coming back every night and would be there in the morning. So basically she’s now my dog. Ruth named her Bodoh, which means stupid in Indonesian. This may seem mean, but she really is an idiot. We call her Dough or Doughy for short, which is a bit better. She’s a really nice dog, always playing and wagging her tail. She gets super excited when I come home at the end of the day running up to me and jumping about. She also has accompanied me running a few times which is great. Anyways, there was a vet visiting here from the states and we put her to the task of spaying and neutering the dogs and cats in the area. I carried my dog all the way to the clinic one morning. We kept her in the volunteer office, although she would cry every time I left the room. Clearly my day would be all about her. I stayed in the office with her to keep her calmed down. In the afternoon the vet set about doing the procedure. I watched the whole thing, which was very very cool. I love all that medical stuff. She took over an hour to wake up from the anesthesia and then I found a ride on a motorbike to take her home, where we sat for the rest of the night as she regained her senses. I’m happy to report that she is doing just fine post-surgery! So no little feral puppies for her! She really is a great dog, although she does not like the cat that also lives in my house. And she has fleas. But other than that, it’s nice to have a dog to follow me around!

The Lye Incident

A couple of weeks ago, Sarah and I ran into some trouble. We buy these blue barrels, which are recycled after their initial use, to make hammocks and swings and climbing structures for the orangutans. I went off to make some food enrichment while Sarah set to work cutting up the barrels. About 20 minutes into her work she called me over and started saying she felt some itching and burning on her hands and feet. She washed it off and we both decided it was no big deal and went back to working. A few minutes later she realized it was really burning, as some small blisters formed on her fingertips and small red dots appeared. I went over to the barrels and also got some on my hands and leg. Soon enough, yep!, it was burning. We called Rachel, who has a lot of medical know-how, to check it out. She said the barrels smelled like ammonia or acid and demanded that we go home immediately to shower and change our clothes. Sarah and I laughed all the way home at the absurdity of the situation. Acid!?!? What!?!? However, the first thing Sarah did when we walked through the door of her house was to sit down and eat a piece of pineapple. What a ridiculous thing; her skin is being corroded by some mysterious chemical, but first, we must eat this delicious piece of pineapple. We both got a good laugh out of that. After we showered (well, mandi-ed as it’s called here), changed clothes, ate lunch, and waited out a quick rainstorm, we returned to the clinic where Rachel had done some research. Based on the chemical letters on the barrels and our various symptoms, she deduced that the material in the barrels was lye. If you don’t watch as many crime-solving TV shows as I do, lye is the stuff they use to make bodies decompose faster. Of course, this was a concentrated dose, so not too much harm done. Lye, what are the chances! Definitely a 3-rd World Problem scenario right there.

Digging A Pit

Sarah, Tim, and I spent a day digging a bear pit. There are three sun bears here, Kevin, who’s in a cage by himself, and Hilda and Dessie, who share a cage. Sun bears love to dig in the wild, the rip up logs and dig up stuff in the mud and dirt. Kevin already has a digging pit cage but the girls did not. We spent a couple of days taking apart and moving a section of their cage and then digging a big hole that we could lower the cage into and then fill with dirt. This was some manual labor at its best. The pit was about 4 feet deep and 6 feet by 6 feet wide. We then flipped the cage into the pit and filled it with logs, dirt, and peanuts. We let the girl bears in and boy did they just love it! They spend most of every day in there digging away.

Sampit

Two months into my stay here in Indonesia meant that I had to renew my visa. Tim, Sarah, and I decided to take the trip together. This hassle of a day began at 5am. We had to drive 5 hours, down some of the worst roads I’ve ever been on full of potholes and sometimes barely wide enough for two cars to pass, to the larger town of Sampit. As far as I saw, there is nothing very special or interesting to do in Sampit. We all turned in our paperwork and passports and then we waited. And waited and waited. About 5 hours later, after a quick lunch across the street, getting a couple photos taken, watching some episode of Seinfeld and Ace Venture: When Nature Calls, they finally called our names to pick up our passports. Tired and cranky, the three of us piled back into the car we hired for another 5 hours back to Pasir Panjang. It was a long, tedious, boring day, but our visas were extended! Unfortunately I have to do this trip all over again next month.

Baby Orangutans

Field Trip

 

Monday:

We were supposed to leave early the next morning to drive about 6 hours away to look at some forest that Dr. Galdikas wants to buy in order to preserve it. However, Dr. Galdikas has so much on her plate that she often runs very late to things. We waited around all day until 7:30 pm. A wasted day, but we seemed to fill the time mostly by playing Jenga. We’ve gotten very good at the game! We piled into two cars and started driving down some of the worst roads I’ve ever experienced. For the first time in my life I felt extremely carsick. I then got to sit in the back of the truck under the beautiful starry night sky. It was a rainy, wet, bumpy ride. We arrived at the tiny village in the mountains at around 1:30am. We rocked up to someone’s house, still not sure where exactly we slept. It was a large wooden house with two large empty rooms. We picked a corner and put our stuff down. We all fell asleep almost instantly, right there on the floor, with nothing but the clothes on my back and my backpack for a pillow.

Tuesday:

We awoke the next morning to see our surroundings for the first time (since we arrived at night). We were in one of the most picturesque little villages. We took a short walk through the village to a river that led right down from the mountains in the distance. The water was clear and cool and very refreshing. After breakfast we started out hike into the forest to check out the land that Dr. Galdikas wants to buy. At the edge of the forest was our first obstacle; we had to cross a swift-flowing river. Our guides got a little boat and two by two they guided us across.

The hike was semi-strenuous for a few kilometers but we were all doing this hike in flip-flops, so I felt pretty silly. We hiked through virtually untouched natural forest .

 One interesting thing in the forest were the rubber trees. The locals would set up taps on these trees to collect the slowly dripping rubber. One guy told us that he taps and then collects rubber from 400 trees daily, which nets about 250 liters per day of liquid rubber that he then sells. 

 The last stretch of the hike was almost straight up hill, which took us to the most beautiful view of the Heart of Borneo. There were just miles of small mountains and preserved forests. Definitely worth the hike!

On the way back a few of us booked it down the hill so we could go for a swim in the river. It was glorious and refreshing. We then piled back into our trucks for the very bumpy 6 hour drive back to Pasir Panjang.