What's Up Chuck?!
Tuesday and Wednesday of this week was Idul Fitri, the moslem holiday marking the end of Ramadhan and the end of one month of fasting. For us teachers it means one whole week off. Woo hoo! I tried to make an update to the weblog a couple days ago, but the internet was giving me trouble and I lost all that I had written, so this entry will account for slightly more than usual, providing I remember it all.
On Sunday someone somewhere found an injured parakeet and gifted it to Louise. Now it lives in the empty room across from Shayna's, and Hiron (Louise's boyfriend) is it's keeper.
Louise met Hiron while she, Daniel and Lucia were lost in the jungle in Wamena (inland Papuan city with a lot of tribal culture.). Hiron found them and guided them to a hotel. Since he was so chivalrous, Louise consequently fell in love with him, and they've been together ever since. Hiron is from a Dani tribe in wamena. He was raised by his mother and is a very gentle person. It is fun trying to communicate with him as Indonesian is not his first language. He has slowly been teaching us words in Dani, and hopes to help Louise, Hannah and I compile a Dani/English dictionary. We'll see how that goes.
On Monday I woke up at sunrise and hopped on the bike. I rode up to the top of the Jayapura City sign and watched the sunrise. Then I rode out to the Honda dealership to see if I could get the bike serviced. They were closed due to Idul Fitri I suspected, so I went to the big market at PTC instead. The market at PTC is a huge open-air market with everything you could ever need. I walked in under the tents and passed a table with a freshly butchered cow neatly spread over it. The cow's head was lying on the ground next to the table, with its skin in a pile next to its head. I'd never seen that before! Don't tell Camille. I walked around the market in a circle twice before I stopped at a vender who was selling various things and among them, macadamia nuts! I bought a kilogram bag for Rp 5,000 ($ .50) and ate one right there to try it - INCORRECT. When I got home I ate some oatmeal and went upstairs to visit with Hannah and started to feel really bad. Twenty minutes later I bowed down to the porcelain god and made a sacrifice of half digested oatmeal and damper (Australian pancake). I will never eat something at the market again.
Monday night I had a really nice conversation with Shayna on the balcony about life in general, and she invited Hannah and I to come on a boat with Ike's family on Tuesday. Ike is a teacher at EF who went to study abroad in Canada, and befriended Shayna. Ike convinced Shayna to move to Papua to teach English so that she could attend Ike's wedding. Anyway, I discussed it with Hannah and we decided to go. It was a good decision. The boat was something similar to a ponga- long and skinny with bamboo pontoons on either side, and an outboard motor. The boat also had a small canopy in the center, underneath which we could store all our stuff, and on top of which people could sit to get a better view. Hannah and I sat near the bow. First we motored around the Jayapura bay, into a large lagoon, where we got to look at a Japanese shipwreck from WWII. Pretty neat. Then we motored out of the bay and around to the Pacific side, where we pulled into a beach about four miles from the city. It turned out to be the beach that Hannah and I had trecked to barefoot down the side of a mountain that one day. Very nice spot and very special to be able to aproach it by sea. We camped on the beach and I body surfed the waves for a couple hours, and then we lit a fire and had a feast of roasted fish with rice and sambal (salsa). After we ate we played a game of frisbee in the water, and used the boat as a jungle gym, then we all hiked barefoot up the small river canyon there to a large waterfall nestled in the cliffs. Everyone bathed and rinsed, and when it started to get dark we turned around to head back for the boat. We arrived back in Jayapura exhausted, and Hannah and I slept for almost 11 hours.
Last night Hannah, Louise, Hiron and I very feeling silly, so we decided to have a pillow fight. The pillow fight degenerated into sumo wrestling with pillows under our shirts, which degenerated to sumo wretling with pillows padding our butts. Very very funny and very exhausting. If your lucky pictures will appear.
That's all the excitment for now! Keep reading and I'll keep posting!
-Nick
On Sunday someone somewhere found an injured parakeet and gifted it to Louise. Now it lives in the empty room across from Shayna's, and Hiron (Louise's boyfriend) is it's keeper.
Louise met Hiron while she, Daniel and Lucia were lost in the jungle in Wamena (inland Papuan city with a lot of tribal culture.). Hiron found them and guided them to a hotel. Since he was so chivalrous, Louise consequently fell in love with him, and they've been together ever since. Hiron is from a Dani tribe in wamena. He was raised by his mother and is a very gentle person. It is fun trying to communicate with him as Indonesian is not his first language. He has slowly been teaching us words in Dani, and hopes to help Louise, Hannah and I compile a Dani/English dictionary. We'll see how that goes.
On Monday I woke up at sunrise and hopped on the bike. I rode up to the top of the Jayapura City sign and watched the sunrise. Then I rode out to the Honda dealership to see if I could get the bike serviced. They were closed due to Idul Fitri I suspected, so I went to the big market at PTC instead. The market at PTC is a huge open-air market with everything you could ever need. I walked in under the tents and passed a table with a freshly butchered cow neatly spread over it. The cow's head was lying on the ground next to the table, with its skin in a pile next to its head. I'd never seen that before! Don't tell Camille. I walked around the market in a circle twice before I stopped at a vender who was selling various things and among them, macadamia nuts! I bought a kilogram bag for Rp 5,000 ($ .50) and ate one right there to try it - INCORRECT. When I got home I ate some oatmeal and went upstairs to visit with Hannah and started to feel really bad. Twenty minutes later I bowed down to the porcelain god and made a sacrifice of half digested oatmeal and damper (Australian pancake). I will never eat something at the market again.
Monday night I had a really nice conversation with Shayna on the balcony about life in general, and she invited Hannah and I to come on a boat with Ike's family on Tuesday. Ike is a teacher at EF who went to study abroad in Canada, and befriended Shayna. Ike convinced Shayna to move to Papua to teach English so that she could attend Ike's wedding. Anyway, I discussed it with Hannah and we decided to go. It was a good decision. The boat was something similar to a ponga- long and skinny with bamboo pontoons on either side, and an outboard motor. The boat also had a small canopy in the center, underneath which we could store all our stuff, and on top of which people could sit to get a better view. Hannah and I sat near the bow. First we motored around the Jayapura bay, into a large lagoon, where we got to look at a Japanese shipwreck from WWII. Pretty neat. Then we motored out of the bay and around to the Pacific side, where we pulled into a beach about four miles from the city. It turned out to be the beach that Hannah and I had trecked to barefoot down the side of a mountain that one day. Very nice spot and very special to be able to aproach it by sea. We camped on the beach and I body surfed the waves for a couple hours, and then we lit a fire and had a feast of roasted fish with rice and sambal (salsa). After we ate we played a game of frisbee in the water, and used the boat as a jungle gym, then we all hiked barefoot up the small river canyon there to a large waterfall nestled in the cliffs. Everyone bathed and rinsed, and when it started to get dark we turned around to head back for the boat. We arrived back in Jayapura exhausted, and Hannah and I slept for almost 11 hours.
Last night Hannah, Louise, Hiron and I very feeling silly, so we decided to have a pillow fight. The pillow fight degenerated into sumo wrestling with pillows under our shirts, which degenerated to sumo wretling with pillows padding our butts. Very very funny and very exhausting. If your lucky pictures will appear.
That's all the excitment for now! Keep reading and I'll keep posting!
-Nick
posted by Nick at 1:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home