Ready for a break!

Not too much to report from this past week of operations. Its pretty manic as 5 operations are going on back to back with all these checks in between to check the health of the oyster at different points in time. The crew here manages pretty well considering how crazy it is. The Indonesian ops manager, Komang, is really great and knows her stuff. I have been working with her to check up and make sure all these checks get done and things are running smoothly. I picked up a cold mid week. Did I mention before how it sucks to be sick while in the tropics? Well it does! And of course I tried to pack light as I am only going to be here for 3 weeks and then back to the US, well I didn’t throw in all my cold medicines. Now I’m kicking myself for it. Going all natural healing gargling salt water and steaming with tiger balm-like products. You would think I am in a semi-Asian country that tiger balm would be readily available, well its not. I managed to score some menthol inhaler thing and some Vics vapor rub though. I’m trying to take care of myself and get over this cold asap. Think I’m slowly giving it to everyone I work with too. Opps! Nic has the weekend off and I’m here manning the fort by myself while he is gone. If this is how I can help him out and help out his sanity then I will work the weekend for him. He is down in Sanur taking a break. He is going to need it! I’m only here another few more days and its full on operating season here with only Nic and Komang to run it. I have been working figuring out the operating schedules in Alor and another location, Lembata. It sounds like we are going to have a busy few months, transporting gear and people here and there to get these oysters operated. Last week we did two days of xray and harvested some keshis which was fun. Mixes it up a bit. It’s the same routine operating every day. I put together a ranking system of the techs results of the good pearls they operated that you can see at xray. Some girls are really good and always get good results, but others are really dragging. It’s weird as I watch the girls that have bad results do the same exact procedure as the girls that get good results. Nic tried to explain to me that just this one operation is a small percentage of the whole season and when all the results are put together this group of girls still out perform the others.

The weather has been great here! Sunny, cloudless days, cool breeze off the water, but not too rough. Think now is the shift from the rainy season to the dry season. Still in vacay mode and trying to fight it! Seriously, 6 more days of work and then I’m down in Sanur for a day and then off to the ole U S of A (well and the Bahamas). Looking forward to Friday! The end is in sight!! Sorry there are no pics with this post (not much to take pics of!). I am working on an Indo facebook album so check it out soon.

Spoiled

Not much to report work wise from Alor. Just getting things set for when I am gone. So I finally did leave Alor, a day later and 3 hours later than I planned. Plane was cancelled on Sunday and it was a beautiful sunny day. In the afternoon it rained so we had to cancel on the muitara kids program. Then on Monday there was a delay in the plane arriving to Alor. But I did finally make it out of there. I met Evan at the office in Sanur and then we drove straight away the 3½ hours up to the North Bali site. We finally got in at 9 that night. I was up at 5 am that day, so it was a pretty long day for me! Just for the record it is possible to get from Alor to N Bali in a day, a very long day though. In the morning in N Bali I was up and ready at 7 for some operating. Spent the first few days pretty unclear of what I was doing there and Nic took some time on the third day to give me some things to do. Operating oysters in N Bali is really more of a commercial production than in Alor. They have 20 techs in Alor! All so focused and some have been operating for seven years now, so they know their stuff. I was walking around the operating room doing this and that helping the techs do little things. But then Nic told me oh no, we don’t help them. Don’t do that. So I am just supposed to tell them what they are doing wrong and help them out otherwise. A bit hard for me. Super monotonous too day after day walking around the 15 techs operating and critiquing their technique. I am still pretty bad at operating too. I did half a net (8 oysters) and it took an hour. I was pretty frustrated at the end of that hour too. Good techs can operate an oyster in about 3 minutes.

On another note! It is a Hindu holiday here in Bali at the moment, called Nypeti. Biggest holiday in Bali and pretty interesting too! On the drive up to N Bali all the temples were decorated and everyone was walking in the streets all dressed up in their garb. When I got to N Bali one of the jewelery selling girls told me the story behind the holiday. Well festival really. All the villages make an ogo-ogo, a large paper mache-esk statue (can be really elaborate!) of the devil. On Thursday afternoon the ogo-ogos are lifted on bamboo and marched to the nearest temple. Kind of like a parade really. People playing the gambalan, people all dressed up singing and marching along, and then followed by a huge number of people on motorbikes. At the temple, I guess the people give the devil all the bad things they have done. Then they run around making lots of noise to scare the devil away. I didn’t go to the temple, but this is what I have heard went on. Then the ogo-ogos and all the people are paraded back to the middle of a village and at sunset the ogo-ogos are all burned one by one. That night and the day after is a day of silence. No one works, no one drives, no electricity. People just stay in their houses in silence and mediate.
A side note about Hinduism. I had a brief moment yesterday when I was thinking… it kind of feels like my life has been leading up to this period in time. I took a course in non-western religions back at Eckerd College and I really enjoyed learning all about Hinduism. They have a story like the Bible, with all these crazy gods with special powers. Its really interesting to me that even in this day and age, people can still believe with all their might that there is a god that used to be a man and he got his head chopped off, and the only head that would fit on him was the head of an elephant. Oh and he needed wings! Hence the god of good luck, Ganesh. Who would have thought 5 years after I took that course that I would be marching in the streets celebrating Nypeti in one of the only two major places that Hinduism is still practiced in the world?

So Nic and I couldn’t operate during Nypeti so we left Thursday afternoon and went to the nearby resort town of Pemureran. There are lots of fancy resorts here on the beach with nice pools and restaurants. And when you stay at a hotel you can use electricity and enjoy the hotel, but you just can’t leave the hotel and wander around the town. Lots of tourists here! A lot from France too which is weird. I am staying at this swanky resort called Adi Assiri. Its really nice, AC, outside shower and bathroom, free massage, free welcome drink, 2 pools, and 2 restuarants (with American food!). What more could I ask for? So I’m living it up for $50 a night. Which is high for Bali, but I didn’t have much choice in this town everywhere is booked up as the tourists and expats have to stay at the hotels during Nypeti. I went out with Nic last night and had something to eat at a restaurant on the main road. But other than that I’ve been cooped up at this nice hotel and I’m kind of loving it! Such a treat for me. It just started to rain, which means more movies and TV shows to watch on my computer! I have had spaghetti carbonara and a pizza so far! Excited to see what is in store for dinner. I am going to catch a ride on a motorbike back to work tomorrow at 7. So an early morning tomorrow and back to bad food (still better than Alor, with questionable meat!) at the site in N Bali.I am also already in vacation mode and I need to not be. I need to be into this operation and really helping Nic out because he is super stressed. But the countdown is on! Really only 14 days left in Bali and then I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again….No I really do know when I’ll be back to Bali again though, on May 3rd! Ha! But ya heading to Orlando and then the Bahamas to meet James and take the boat he works on back across to FL. In Florida my parents will be home and I can’t wait to spend some time with some of my friends. So that’s all for now from my nice pad in Pemuteran, Bali for the moment!

Uh Oh Operation!

Is that the way that tune goes from the game? Haha! No it was a good operation period here though. We operated oysters Monday-Friday with the help of four Bali technicians. We operated 8,500 oysters in total! The pic above is of our operations site, Molah, where I spend most of my time. It’s a 5 minute boat ride to get over to the site. I had met them before and they were really nice to me this time. I could actually kind of speak with them this time too. Every day I would eat lunch with them and Sugi. Speaking of eating, we have been eating some pretty interesting food here lately. With our local market here going on, the villagers come and we buy what they are selling three times a week. Well we bought a goat this week. Pic above. It was pretty cute, tied up, roaming around by the kitchen. Well the next day it was goat soup! Was kind of good except for the tons of white and black hairs you had to pick out! I was eating it with the locals for lunch and I looked like such a tourist picking out the hairs, they were all just eating it up. Today we bought a very sad looking duck and 3 chickens. Oh and the hairy fruit you see in the picture is literally translated as hairy fruit or rambutan. You break it open and its delicious, kind of like a lychee. Its really been monsooning rain here again! Nuts! Crazy weather all over Indo. One of our ships has an engine prob and the other hit a reef over by Papua New Guinea. I’ve got a leaky roof over my bed and its starting to leak through again with all this rain. Oh man and the frogs are horrible! Definitely investing in ear plugs from home! We drained the pool and this reservior they like and they are still starting up at 6:30 pm. They are so noisy! I am leaving for Bali on Sunday and I’m pretty excited to eat good food again! And that it means I’m getting closer to my leave. I will be doing 3 weeks of operations there and then I fly home on April 8th. Lots to do around here, work wise, before I leave. Haven’t even started to pack yet, that’s so unlike me!

I taught English to all 139 kids last Sunday. Ya no type-o there. 139. We did split them into groups of 3 and rotated our groups around. The older kids were a bit obnoxious. Rude, laughing when someone would answer wrong, and yelling out wrong answers on purpose. I went over introductions and meeting people with them. The elementary and middle school kids wanted to learn a bit more. I started by drawing a picture of a mountain and underwater scene with trees, sun, clouds, fish, crab, etc. We went over each thing and how many were in the pic. Think they liked that. Well then I had the little ones. About 12 kindergarten and preschoolers. So stinkin cute! They really wanted to learn and you could see it when they were trying to say a word, they really wanted to get it right. I went over the numbers 1-10 with them. I will be missing this Sunday with them, I hope they have enough staff to help out with the madness. I joked around that I should put a pillow under my shirt and act pregnant because they were so much calmer and reserved when Lita was around. Maybe they didn’t want to upset the baby and be all rough around Lita. Well that’s all from this side of the world for now. Hope this rain clears up. These small planes don’t fly in this much rain….

A trip to the beach

Whew I'm pretty exhausted! Busy day today! Had a pretty good weekend all in all. I helped Tomek spawn oysters on Saturday morning and it was his birthday. It was a good spawn and the hatchery staff get so excited to see lots of sperm and eggs come out of these oysters it’s pretty comical. Well since it was Tomek's birthday we all decided to go to the beach after our half day of work. About 6 of the local staff we work with loaded up on motorbikes and we headed to the beach. An hour away with lots of stops along the way. Quite an adventure. We stopped to wait for people, stopped for water, stopped to buy a fish (which had a rope tied to it that we had at our feet on the motorbike!), and stopped to buy some firewood to cook the fish. It seemed like every time we stopped, our group kept multiplying! New workers kept showing up in groups on motorbikes. I rode on the back with this girl that is 3 months pregnant, as I thought this was my safest bet, but she was a speed demon! Always wanted to be in front of the gang. Tomek and I had no idea where we were going or how far it was, we just went with the flow. Which is pretty hard for me to do! My butt was pretty sore though after 2 hours on a motorbike that day though! When we got there, it was a pretty rocky little beach cove area with clear water. One couple was there but I think we scared them away when we rolled up....22 people and a year old baby sharing motorbikes! Nuts! Really fun afternoon though. Tomek said it was one of the best birthdays he has had. We barbequed the fish and corn on the cob, and had some rice. All with our fingers, sitting around with the locals. Very cool. I realized too we are all about the same age 20s and 30s. We did some swimming. I took the baby in the water too and she was loving it. As we ate Tomek got flour and soy sauce dumped on his head for his birthday. Afterwards we had a water fight and people got thrown in. Then the hour trip back on motorbikes with the sunset, the country, and everyone outside in front of their houses or playing in the streets. Very picturesque. Daniel didn't get to go as he had a meeting. I don't think all the staff would have been so chilled out and relaxed if he was there. We should def rent a bus the next time we go though! That night I watched a horror flick with the expats back at the house. Just a good day all around!

Today at 1 a group of the techs and I had to go to the operations site and get ready for the operations tomorrow. Cleaning and preparing oysters. Then at 4 it was time to play with the kids. It was really cool when we first started playing with them in week one. When there were about 10 kids sitting on our porch playing chutes and ladders, really quite, relaxed, chill. Well its a lil outta hand now. 105 kids were here today!! Yeah that's right 105! We were 3 people wrangling 105 kids around for an hour and a half! Basically we split into 2 groups and I had the older kids with Tini and Flo had the younger kids. Lots of yelling I may lose my voice tomorrow. I attempted to teach them the hokey pokey, but I don't think they really got it. Guess it was a lot for them to learn the body parts and then have to sing and dance about it! lol! We went over colors, days of the week, and some weather too. Weird mix of ages though. Some high school girls come and they know everything I'm trying to teach the little ones up front and they aren't really into it. Maybe we will lose a few next Sunday, wouldn't be horrible to lose a few! I tried to teach them What's up? is the same as How are you? or Apa Kabar? But they didn't really get the meaning of the slang, Whats up. I know I always want to learn slang to fit in when I'm learning another language. And I did the cha cha with the huge line of kids on the way out of the gate too. They liked that bit. It’s going to be an intense week of operating oysters, the 4 Bali techs arrived this afternoon. Wish me luck for my first smooth operation period!