Dan Grays log from his trip to Kenya and Indonesia in September and October of 2006

10-9-2006

This section is about Sunday and Monday the 8th, and the 9th it's the afternoon of the 9th.

I arrived to a small scam, an official looking gentleman looked like he wanted to look through my bags or something, so I'm tensing up, he took me through customs, so I was surprised we didn't stop, he was simply trying to carry my bags for a tip!  Oh, another thing, when I went to purchase a visa, I found my American money was all missing, almost $1,000!   Then I remembered I left it in the hotel room in Bangkok!  (I called them, they're going to keep it for me)!

Ok, I hooked up with Faisal, Danny, and their sister (I already forgot her name).  They took me to the center.  It's a beautiful house, with lots of Indonesian art.  I hadn't eaten all day, they fed me, wonderful spicy things on rice, we chatted and then it was bed.   It is Moslem Ramadhan holiday all this month.  It's a beautiful idea.  Nobody eats or drinks from early in the morning until late in the evening.  It is in memory of people that don't have enough to eat.  I made it through mostly on the eating part of it, but it's hot and humid, and I'm sweating a lot, and the no drinking just wasn't my cup of tea, however, I decided to remember my new Pokot friends during my fast.  Anyway, because of this, they woke me up at 4:00 am so I could eat before the day started, then I slept again until 8:00.

First arrivals were a dance class, and the morning class.  The morning class is quiet.  The dancers danced for me, and then they made Danny and I dance with them.  It was really beautiful.  After this, I took a ride on the back of the IHF motor scooter, with Danny driving!  Woe!  Absolutely incredible.  We had so many close calls, but they weren't close calls to Danny, just normal navigation!  We did have one head on collision with another motor cycle (we were practically stopped)!  After getting some Indonesian cash from the ATM, we went to buy my airline ticked from Aceh to Jakarta on Wednesday.  Their computers were down though, but we finally left to go visit some of the T.E.P. (The education program) children.  After this, Faisal joined us with his motorcycle.  His driving is just one notch "saner" than Danny's, but his scooter wasn't big enough to hold my weight!

It was heart wrenching and sad.  Fortunately, these folks have enough to eat, but to get money, they take the copper wires from the insides of old glass light bulbs, and remove all the glass from them, and then make jars of the little copper wires that holds the filaments.  Then they sell the copper for a very small amount.  This is one of the way that they make meager money.  As I understand it, the schools are supposedly free, however, you have to have uniforms, and you have to pay fees for this and that, so it excludes the poorest of the poor.  The TEP program provides them with enough money to buy their uniforms and pay their school fees so the children can attend regular school.  To learn more about the TEP program, visit the ihfonline.org website!

One of the TEP children we visited lived across a large river, with no bridge, however, there were several boys swimming in the river.  There was a large inner tube that they use to cross the river.  Yes, I got on the 'tube, and was ferried across!  Now we're in the most beautiful part I've seen so far!  There were so many fruit trees of all different types. Coconut, Banana, Papaya, Pineapple, and many others I've already forgotten.  This is really a blessing to these people.  We sat in the shade at the TEP child's front porch, and talked to them for a long while.  This was where I first broke my Ramadhan.  The TEP child went to a store on foot, and came back with a large bottle of water which I drank in front of them, but nobody seemed to mind!  I also had two miniature bananas (they come very small here, but they're delicious!), and they gave me (they made me pick it) a very large Papaya which we're going to have later after Ramadhan is over.

On our way back home, we stopped at the travel place, and they finally got my ticket, so I'm all set for the rest of my trip here.  Then we stopped one more time and purchased some

Now we stopped in at the afternoon English class, and compared to the morning class, they are on fire!  They had a lot of questions for me, one girl wanted to know if I was married, so I drew a heart on the blackboard, and wrote Dan and Roberta in it!  I explained about the seasons where I live, and they were really interested.  Faisal interpreted for me, it was really fun.

I've learned a lot about how IHF works, and I'm glad it is here doing the work!

Ok, tonight, it looks partly clear, so we're gonna try the telescope.  Then Danny and I are going to take an all night bus to Aceh (Pronounced Och-Eh), and visit the orphanage there. Please look up the children's area of the website, and select the Banda Aceh section.  Start reading the children's stories, and you'll see that many of the orphans lost their parents in the Tsunami!  It's a heart wrenching story told all too often there.  I'm looking forward to my visit there.