Tropical Paradise, Office Work, and Future Adventures

I am sitting on the back porch of my work today. There just is not enough work to fill the 10 hours I will be here today, and so I will take the opportunity to write. Having never done this job before and not having any direct supervision, how much work I think I have to do is based strictly off my impressions… but my impression is that this is quite a light day.

The heat is intense—it would probably be nicer in the air conditioned office—but my desk looks at a wall, and the back porch looks at a mango tree. Totally worth it. Next to me is an ash tray, filled every day, over and over again. There is also a half drunk cup of coffee. This is such an office of addicts. I have actually killed my coffee addiction, I think. Down to a cup to day. This is slowly getting replaced with an addiction for rescue remedy, the flower-based anti-stress remedy from the states. That stuff is amazing.

This last weekend, I got to Sabang Island, the west-most island in Indonesia. I grew up singing patriotic songs about how Indonesia stretched from Sabang in the west to Marauke in the east… so it was kind of like visiting the statue of liberty. Kind of. Only much more beautiful. My friends Lisa and Anto and I got misinformation on the boat times, and so we had to hitch a ride out with some German aid workers who were going diving that day. We went snorkeling while they dove. Then they dropped us off at a village/ resort. It looked like the set of a James Bond movie. There are tiny islands dotting the coast, creating perfect turquoise lagoons with white sand. The coral got hurt by the tsunami, but the fish are there, bright and flashing. The land mass is a series of incredibly steep hills, up and down, for the entire island. We got our bungalows, little wooden houses without even fans, but with a view of the bright water. There were monkeys on the tree next to us, hanging out and eating fruit. Even the cats and the dogs were friendly—unusual for an area where they are treated more like pests.

The only down side of the whole adventure was when we first went snorkeling off the boat with the German aid workers. Lisa and I decided to go snorkeling, and Anto, who does not swim so well,decided to stay on the boat. Right as the boat was going to pull away, Anto leapt into the water. My theory is that he wanted to look tough in front of Lisa. But five minutes in, he began to flounder. Now, we were not near a nice beach. The shoreline was large rocks, covered with barnacles, with the surf thundering over them. But Anto needed to go to shore, so he and Lisa, who was freaking out cause Anto was freaking out, swam for the rocks. They sliced themselves up on the rocks while I swam out into flatter water to signal the boat to pick us up. It was very dangerous for them, and I still get riled up when I think of what an idiot Anto was for getting in the first place. But all was ok.

And now I am back at the office. I am here for something like 10 more days, and then the next part of the adventure begins. I just got my plane ticket to Hanoi, where Craig Johnson, a friend from Cornell, has been living and working. The plan is to bike (and bus if need be) from Hanoi to Vientiane in Laos. Craig is in much better shape than I am, or must be considering he has been riding all the time, so I am a bit nervous. Then Craig will fly back to Hanoi, and I will take a train down to Bangkok. Then I can either take another train down to Singapore, or I can fly if I want to. Then it’s on to participatory action research and elite resource capture in Jambi or sun bears in Kalimantan. And no, I have no idea which it will be. Lord, it sounds so adventurous when I write it all down like this!

Miss you all.