Week two and day-off number two.
In the morning, Fern our resident Aussie Yoga expert gave the volunteers a class to relieve our aching muscles after a week of intensive labour. The session took place in our giant tent (donated by a wealthy Jakarta business man) – a great start to the day.
Will and I hired a motorbike from Andam our truck driver who shuttles the volunteers to job sites. Andam is a complete legend, permanent smile on his face and is Indonesia’s most handy man. He gave us a killer deal of 380,000R (£65) for three weeks. Eager to leave the crib and get out of Sungai Geringging I headed for the beach, a 30 min ride. The drive was amazing – mind blowing scenery but still with the added shock of the earthquake devastation. The beach was mediocure, despite it being empty. Lot’s of rubbish spanning the length, I took a 5 min walk before leaving.
pink eye
The following day I woke up to find my eyes had decided to not wake with me, they were pretty much super-glued together. After removing a handful of gunk from them, enabling me to have vision I looked in the mirror – it was PINK EYE. Or to us non-Americans; Conjunctivis. I suspected it was from a previous work site where I was working alongside a sewer.
We started the work week on our high after getting the official ‘Hands On’ tshirts – proud of our new kit we had a group photo – number up to 28! Note my pink-eye disguise.
team photo
During the week our luxury shower cubicles were completed by UK Aaron and co. – great job guys. Will and I no longer have to take river washes with the leaches.
Towards the end of the week volunteers, Fern and US Arron leave the crew – sad to see them leave. Replacing them were three babes; Lucy (UK), Rheam (Lebanon) and Elisa (Italy) – In preparation for their arrival I shaved and used two buckets instead of one to shower.
8 more volunteers fall down with the Pink Eye, including Will – Ha!
Muslim police (sharime group) pay us a visit, they have a lot of power in the area and ‘politely’ ask the project to not drink alcohol in the town and later ask for us to split sleeping quaters for male and females – meaning all males have to move outsite to the giant tent.
The internet is sadly an important part of my life being my work. To use the internet volunteers have to walk 20 minutes into town to the ‘internet cafe’ which comprises of 4 computers. These are normally in use by 4 kids on each computer playing games so there is normally a 30min wait to use one. And with the regular power cuts in the town (average 2/day ranging from 3mins to 3hours) you have to be pretty lucky to get chance to check your email. When news came that we were attempting to install internet at the crib over the weekend I was pretty happy. Work began at the end of week two. Unfortunately it wasn’t a case of plugging in a wireless router into the phoneline and then calling BT to set it up.. no, we had to have a 60ft satellite tower installed.
the tower
