Merry Christmas

Friends, I’ve left you in the dark for too long. And for good reason. Four weeks ago I contracted a cold, which lasted for about two weeks, directly proceeded by a terrible case of food poisoning. Hannah and I were up all night together in the bathroom. It was horrible, and we missed work. Then I must have re-infected myself somehow because I spent the next two nights sleeping outside the bathroom door on a pillow, and the following two days trying to keep water and food down.

But now I am better, and have regained my usual energy. W had a very nice quite Christmas here. Everyone in Papua has been playing very strange versions of our usual Christmas songs for the past month, and for a few weeks now everyone has been setting off fire works in the evenings. Christmas eve Hannah and I watched “Bend It Like Beckham.” I enjoyed it. Christmas morning we ate Dutch Baby with homemade syrup. Delicious! We opened presents sent from Hannah’s parents while we ate. Lots and lots of chocolate. Lots of chocolate. We will no doubt either be giving some of it away as gifts. Many thanks to Lena and Bruce for a lifetime supply of chocolate, and thanks to Martha for “Harry Potter” and tea. We watched “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” Christmas night; Hannah got homesick for Chicago. I kinda missed Chicago too. Maybe I will visit in the near future.

For Christmas here in Papua, everyone prepares a huge feast in there house, complete with store-bought boxes of small cakes and candies. All doors are open, and people walk from house to house, stopping in to eat and drink whatever their hosts have to offer. It’s likely here that on Christmas you will get many strangers visiting your home and eating your food. This is normal. The reason for the open houses is the belief that any visitor you have might be the messiah! Wouldn’t want to refuse hospitality to the messiah by accident!

Hannah and I taught “go fish” to three guests. The older one new some English, so we spoke to each other using broken English and broken Indonesian. It was nice to be surrounded by happy people on Christmas Day. That is a must.

Hannah and I fly off to Biak on Thursday, provided we can get a ride to the airport at 5:00 in the morning. We hope to relax away from the noise of the city. I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday and hopefully are able to enjoy family.

Much love to you all,

-Nick

Long Time, No Blog...

Hey there. It's been a while. Here's an update on what's been going on:
The beginning of last week I was sick with an intestinal virus. I contracted it from Louise, one of the teachers. Imagine chronic, explosive diarrhea... wait, DON'T imaginge that, just know that it happens, and it sucks. I wasn't able to eat anything for two days, so naturally I took a day off from teaching to "recover". Recovery basically means being near a toilet and waiting it out. Two and a half days seems to be about the normal recovery period for a healthy person. So, I'm better now, and I know what it feels like to have an intestinal virus.

Starting off my week like that made for a very exhausting week. By the time Friday came I felt like I had lived out my period of natural life, and that it was time for me to lay down and die. I didn't do this.

On Friday and Saturday we had two lovely visitors from EF Jakarta. Their names were Jean and Haviva. Jean is Vice-Lord-Boss-Woman of EF indonesia. She and her partner came to help us get started on a new General English program, and to address many of the problems with the owners that have been continually cropping up. The workshops were great, and they interviewed each person about themselves and about their problems with the owners. When it came time to have a meeting with the one of the onwers, they found that he had skipped town. Shame shame. Like a little child, telling lies to cover up lies, then running away. He's only digging himself deeper and deeper. Our hopes are that Jean can bring this new back to EF Jakarta and bring down the wrath of the Business Franchise Gods upon our owners. We'll see what happens.

Louise ended her contract on Friday and left for Australia early this morning. We all gathered in her room last night while she was packing and sang songs and generally embarrased her. We are sad to see her go. We look forward to visiting her in her new home in Wamena, only thrity minutes away by plane in January or February.

Garden report: The corn is growing steadily higher. It is almost knee high now, and the pumkins are just on the verge of starting to creep along the ground. Also, ginger has begun to sprout from a root I threw into the mud. Very exciting! Fresh ginger will be a treat.

That's all for now. Hope you all are anticipating a warm and memorable Christmas!

Ciao,
-Nick