Sightseeing

We had a great weekend in Yogyakarta! Cliff came to visit and we went to see two amazing temples just outside the city, one is the Buddhist Borobudur, the other the Hindu Prambanan. They're both about 1200 years old and just so beautiful.

I have now finished my Bahasa lessons (for now anyway) and will now have to start practicing. Needless to say I am very far from fluent after just one week, but at least I'm at a level where I can communicate with taxi drivers and people in the office. My new vocabulary came in handy today when my taxi driver fell asleep on our way from the airport.... If it happens to you in Indonesia, just say "Tidak tidur, hati-hati!" (don't sleep, be careful...)

*&##$%&@$#!!

They say that the sound of a baby crying has a special frequency so parents will have to attend to them very soon. However, here there is another sound that is keeping me from sleeping, studying, working, thinking, or pretty much do anything that involves my brain: mosques!! And they're EVERYWHERE and NEVER stop here. They look pretty though....

Til Bitten

På indonesisk heter lærer GURU!

Det passer veldig bra til deg synes jeg : )

Mount Merapi

I am now in the city of Yogyakarta studying bahasa. Fun but exhausting! I forgot how tiring it can be to actually use my brain...

This city is really near Mount Merapi, the volcano currently erupting and I plan to go have a closer (not too close..) look one of these days.

Indonesia!

I am now in Indonesia! So far so good - my only problem is I have no idea what people are saying to me. It became a little challenging when I got lost in a taxi, not knowing where I was going OR how to say it. So next week I am going to language training!

Right now I am in Banda Aceh, working on a damage assessment after the tsunami and conflict. Challenging! Especially since I don't know the language. Despite calling him Pocahontas until I realized his name is Ponhar, the driver here is helping me out. He's eiter the forgiving type or hasn't heard of Pocahontas (I suspect the latter...).

Another, not so good, development is that I currently have a very colourful foot in elephant size. I got a blister in the Solomon Islands that never healed and got really infected (that country really didn't do me very much good!!). So yesterday, when my shoe didn't fit me anymore, I figured it was time to check out the Aceh medical system. Fortunately there is a good UN doctor in place - who turned green when he saw my foot and pretty much said I was an idiot for not seeing him earlier... So now I am on two types of antibiotics and have to get really painful cleaning every day. Pretty stupid. As a gesture to all of you I will NOT post a picture...

Solomon Islands sadness

It's difficult to explain the tragedy here in words so I was able to get hold of some pictures (not taken by me...). Parts of the city is burnt to the ground and millions of dollars are literally up in flames.

Good news is things are calming down and security is at least partly restored by the large number of Australian troops flown in. We still have a curfew but hope that will be lifted soon.

I was hoping to post more pictures but couldn't figure out how... Will try again later.

-Camilla

Solomon Islands!

I am now in the beautiful Solomon Islands!

I wish I could say I have been laying on the beach sipping colourful tropical drinkies, but I'm afraid that's very far from the truth. So far it's been lots of work and very little pleasure but I hope that will change next week when we go to some of the other islands (at least it'd be nice to combine the work with SOME pleasure!).

One thing that hits you in the face when you get here is that everything, especially communication, is crazy expensive. Making a phone call is ridiculous, my $20 phone card lasted me 2 minutes yesterday! A sim card is almost $100 so I'm not doing that (plus it never works anyway...) If all of this doesn't discourage you and you should still want to contact me here you might be able to do so by calling my hotel - Mendana hotel - at +677 20071.

-Camilla

I am officially a blogger!

Since I am not exactly good at keeping regular email contact with all my friends, I thought I'd give blogging a try! Hopefully I'll be better at this (and keep at it for more than a week..) and since I'll be traveling a lot I thought it would be a good way to keep all of you updated on what I'm doing and where I am + share pictures and stories! If I feel like it I might even post some of my deep (..?) reflections from time to time.

xoxo
Camilla

PS: I'm sure I'll have plenty of start-up isses since I'm not exactly technical so please bear with me...