To recap the last few crazy weeks...

So I’m sorry it has been forever since I have blogged.  Sounds like I am in church.  I’m sorry father it has been forever since my last confession!  Haha!  Anyways I have been swamped at work and haven’t had the time after work to sit down and type.  So back to my birthday on May 23.  We had a bbq that night with all of the tech girls that I work with.  They made a new hot sauce (sambal) that I really like called bling ding.  Its like a sweet bruschetta more than a hot sauce.  The little things around here, like discovering you love a new hot sauce, make all the difference!  I didn’t get thrown off the dock like they usually do on your birthday, so that was a plus.  I have been wanting to try bettle nut.  Bettle nut is kind of like the local tobacco.  It’s a nut that turns red when you chew it with chalk and some kind of green twig.  It makes you feel a bit loopy and you can’t feel your mouth (kind of like novocain at the dentist).  Well I didn’t want to try it in front of everyone in case it made me do something stupid.  So the other night Daniel and I sat on our porch and I tried it.  Badly!  I don’t have bettle nut chewing skills what so ever!  You are only supposed to chew it on one side of your mouth and don’t swallow at all!  Tastes horrible.  Well ya I was drooling and chewing it all in my mouth and spitting it down my leg.  Tried 2 different nuts, first one was sour and bad I think, and the second was still bad.  I’m not a big fan of the bettle nut chewing.  Tomek is a regular pro chewing at work and stuff.  Lol! 

A friend of the family that reads this blog was asking for more details about the process and what actually goes on to seed oysters to make pearls.  Well I’m sorry but I don’t think I can talk about that part of my job freely on the internet because of trade secrets and all.  Its all confidential.  Not even sure if I can be writing this blog really!  So I try to keep it brief when it comes to what I actually do at my work.  Just give you guys an overall idea.  Sorry I can’t divulge more!

The xray session is now finished in Alor.  The machine is packed up and sent back to Bali.  There were a few mistakes along the way like mixing two separate groups together and things, but overall it went pretty well and we finished on time.  Now it is just business as usual with the normal cleaning schedule until we start operations here in August.  My new vacation time is now in Aug/Sept so I can be in Alor for the ops session here.  I plan on seeing my family in Washington and spending some time with James in New England (somewhere?) over my break.  I may be staying in North Bali when I come back from leave, as they have a few crazy months of operations there.  More on the work front, we had one of our ships come to Alor last Sunday and bring us oysters.  They have already been seeded so they will just be grown out here.  Was quite a day, my first unloading.  Started at 4am and finished about 2pm.  At the first it was easy, one tank got unloaded and hung on one long line.  And then towards the end it got super sloppy with lots of small groups hung where ever!  We will sort it out in the coming months.  So these early mornings at work have left me sick.  I have a bit of a cold and I don’t even think I caught it from anyone but myself.  We didn’t have a day off last week so we have been working non-stop.  I am just all congested and tired.  Rested some this weekend though as we were back to our normal schedule with half day off on Saturday and the whole day off on Sunday. 

I have still been doing Mutiara Kids with this girl Tini helping.  It’s a bit manic.  Loads of kids show up and they are just naughty.  Yelling, kicking each other, crying.  Just bad.  They wanted to celebrate my birthday and we gave them each a little package of rice and they were all hitting each other and crying because they thought they wouldn’t get one.  Even though there was enough for everyone.  I made them an obstacle course that day and it was the first one that they had done ever I think and they liked it.  I just got done with them today and I sent this boy home early because he was being a brat.  He hit someone when we were playing a game so I had the 2 boys sit out, and then during another game he kicked someone after he said he was going to be good.  Well I set an example of him and had security escort him right out.  I said, “Dua kali!?”  Ya dua kali, kamu pulan.  Sampai jumpa minggu depan.  Means…2 times!  Yes 2 times, you go home.  See you next week.  Oh I was pissed!  So ya he better be good next week. 

I haven’t had any luck getting a sailboat.  In March it was going to be cheap, and now in June they upped the price because they found out a foreigner wanted it.  So it was $25 and now its up to $70!  Def not worth $70 and I don’t want them to feel like they can rip off a foreigner, so I can just do without.  Its super windy here in the afternoons and it kind of kills me a bit that I can’t be out zooming around the bay in the wind.  Grr…. Maybe later I will get one.  I haven’t been studying my Indonesian either.  I should be studying more, you can tell my vocab is slacking.  Just takes a lot of effort after sitting behind my desk all day to sit down and study.  I’m not in school anymore you know!  I have been crochetting up a storm lately.  I have made a hat, a scarf (until I ran out of the yarn!), and a head band so far.  Really enjoying it too.  So grandma of me!  I have been getting along with Daniel well, Tomek is still in Lembata covering for a guy that works there who is on vacation.  Daniel and I have been watching this TV series called Homeland and really getting into it.  Its pretty good.  Today we took a boat out and snorkeled near outside of bay.  It was a great snorkeling/dive spot, beautiful colorful healthy reef.  Our compressor is broken at the moment so we just went for a snorkel.  Below are some pics of people at my work.  Enjoy!  I will try to get better at keeping up with this blog.  Sorry!

Birthday loot!

Normal scene of me in the office



Traditional dress for a government event in Kalabahi




At xray



Our carpenter team





Tomek and the hatchery crew





My tech team




Our big bad security guys




Local market on site



Oh the bettle nut!

Birthday Week!

My birthday is on Wednesday and it won’t be much of a hoopla as it has been in years past.  I have a few gifts to unwrap but that’s it.  Just low key.  Usually they throw people off the dock for their birthdays so I am trying to keep it under the radar so I don’t get tossed off the dock either!  Xraying the oysters has been going well this week.  Had a small report due too.  We also had Thursday off for some holiday.  Was windy and rainy in the afternoon but no worries to me it was nice to sleep in and have a relaxing day.  Sugi will leave next week for Lembata to prepare for operations there.  I will be running the xray and operations show here for a month.  Hoping she can come back and forth from Lembata but she might have to stay there as its expensive to fly her to and fro. 

I finished the Hunger Games.  Great book!  Watched the movie with Tomek and it was a horrible copy from Bali recorded in the theater but the movie was still crap.  It didn’t do the book any kind of justice.  You just didn’t get the same feeling as reading the book.  But I did speed through that book so I will take a break before reading the next one.  Now I am reading a book by the author of the Other Boleyn Girl.  Its pretty good so far.

I also finished crocheting my beanie.  Turned out pretty cute.  Had to do it two tone orange and blue (War Eagle or Go Gators!  lol!).  I was searching for a scarf pattern on youtube and I found a great one.  Has all these hard double crochet stitches, but I did it step by step with this woman and I figured it out!  I’m a regular crochet pro now!  The scarf is going to be pretty awesome!  There is a pic of the woman on the front of the yarn label with a scarf on and the instructions are on the back of label.  So I need 2 balls of the stuff to make a scarf!  Dang it!  I’m still a newbie at this!  Frusturating I won’t be able to finish it, but I will do as much as I can and then finish it in August on my next trip back to the states when I can buy more yarn.             

News on the small sailing canoe I am trying to buy.  I have seen the perfect one that I want just off our back yard and I saw a young boy in it today.  A sailing canoe is called a kapal liair it turns out.  So I think I managed to figure out that this boy’s dad made this canoe and he will ask his dad to come to the site and ask for me so I can see about him making one for me.  Baby steps!  Has been really windy here in the afternoons and perfect sailing weather.  No one really sails for fun, they just sail to get to their fishing spot or to get across the bay quickly. 

I did yoga this morning on the porch.  It was so nice and peaceful this morning.  Mutiara kids this afternoon.  Only about 20 so manageable for just Tini and I.  I did this great antonym lesson that I thought was a good idea.  We went over words like big and small in Indonesian and English.  Its hard because it’s a good mix of kids older than 8 and younger than 5 so the little ones struggled and the older ones kind of got it.  Went over a lot of words and then they got to draw a picture explaining 2 words.  Like tall and short, big and small, or thin and fat.  About a handful of kids got the picture drawing.  The ones that did, did a good job though.  One girl is really good and drew a really great detailed picture but I guess she won the prize last week too, so I had to skip her this week!  I gave this other little girl a set of legos for the winning drawing and she was really happy.  We tried to play freeze tag after the drawing but it was some weird Indo version of freeze tag I don’t really get.  More like Red Rover, Red Rover, Send ___ right over game.  Still they had a fun time I think.  Will have to think of something else easier for them next week!

The vacation is over..

Sorry for not blogging for a while but I was back home in Florida visiting James and parents who were also home.  It was really a quick trip and very exhausting, but def worth it to have a break and see everyone.  Next time I am on leave I will have to practice my bahasa every day because it is lacking now that I didn’t speak it for that month back home.  At home, the boat James works on was down in Riviera Beach and kept in dry dock for a few weeks.  So we were commuting an hour a day to and fro to do work on the boat.  We did go to a music festival downtown and had a good night out with friends.  A couple good days of fishing, went to a baseball game, spent some time at the beach, and met up with friends.  I did get all my food cravings in as well!  Mexican, Indian, Italian, BBQ, sushi, steaks, etc!  It was great! 

I was sad to leave home with my parents there and James actually in the same state for once.  But have to remember that was a fluke, they all don’t live there all the time.  I left from Orlando and I did finally make it back to Indo.  It did take three days of flying though.  On the second day of flying we flew over Alor (last flight of the trip) and it was too stormy to land, so we had to turn around and head back to Kupang.  So I was stuck in Kupang for a night at a semi sketchy hotel.  I’m not really a fan of Kupang, a bit rough around the edges for me.  When I did arrive in Alor I made it just in time for the Saturday meeting.  These meeting with all the department heads are now taking about 2 hours.  Its good though that everyone is talking out their problems and work is getting done.  I have been messed up from the time change for about a week now.  When I first got here it was to bed at 9 pm up at 5 am!  I’m back in the groove now though and wake up without my alarm these days. 

The next day after I arrived we all spent Sunday morning at the beach.  A smaller crew than last time and a beach closer to us near the airport.  I rode with Tomek (he is a better driver now after more practice) on the motor bike/dirt bike.  We only spent a few hours there and then half hour drive back home.  Its not that nice of a beach.  The water is murky and there isn’t much of a beach.  Very local though, its packed every weekend.  For Mutiara kids on Sunday about 40 kids showed up.  So much for the 10 kids I was expecting.  Attendance has been falling over the past couple weeks I’ve heard.  But I think the word is out that I’m back.  I had a bunch of old magazines I was finished with so I let the kids tear them up and glue bits together to make collages.  At first they had a hard time ripping up magazines like they wanted just to look at all the pictures in the pretty book, but in the end they were loving it.  I had to pick two of the best (hard to do!) and gave them prizes from my mom back home.  The staff here wanted to keep the collages as evidence that they did something with the kids that day, but I said oh no!  And let the kids take them home to their families.  They were so proud, they had never made anything like that before.

My first week back at work went well.  We are busy xraying oysters for another two weeks.  Just found out we have to cram more oysters into the plan too.  I am planning operations in Lembata and Alor for June and July.  I was stressed at first, but Nic helped me get it all sorted.  Nic wants me to take care of seeing these operations run smoothly as he is busy in Bali with ops there.  Think Sugi is glad I am back.  I’ve been helping here out and overseeing the xray room some of the time as well.  She is taking an English communications course at the school in the town here.  She wants to get better at English for talking to Tomek and I. 

Tomek has been super busy making budgets and things, so I went to a meeting for him this past week.  It was to see the ibu-ibu (mothers) about why we no longer have a local market that comes here anymore.  It was at 4 pm when I had been working all day and I wasn’t enthused to go, but it turned out to be a cool experience.  The human resources girl and I met with about 15 of these farming ladies on the porch of this old lady’s house.  They were all chewing and spitting bettle nut and had their young kids laying on the ground while they picked out the lice from their hair.  Cute!  The head lady spoke to me like I was someone of privilege and was saying all these things…well I had no idea was she was talking about!  The human resources girl I went with told me later that there was a problem with the kitchen on site and when they brought things to sell the women in the kitchen would say, oh no we don’t want that, we don’t need that.  Also a problem setting the prices of things so that was sorted out in a shouting match between all the ladies for a bit too.  Glad I went and got to be a part of it actually. 

Had a pretty productive weekend this weekend.  I am reading The Hunger Games, and just loving it!  Hard to put it down.  I am about to finish it and I only started reading it a week ago.  That is fast for me!  I don’t zoom through books usually.  I bought a bad copy of the movie that was recorded in the theater, but its still something so I am looking forward to watching that after I finish the book.  I have also been crocheting a beanie.  Its turning out pretty good too for my first one.  I’m not doing it the ordinary way I guess (thanks you tube videos!) and starting from the top.  I started from the bottom and was able to close it up at the top.  Will post pics when its finished.  Daniel bought a fancy mountain bike and said Tomek and I could use it while is gone.  I went on a bit of a bike ride today on our horrible rocky roads.  Went down the road a ways and then bought some things at the local shop.  All the kids were out and about and were hollering at Ibu Tanya!  Haha!  Speaking of Daniel, his wife Lita had her baby, Kiandra.  She looks just like Lita too.  Will be fun to have her back here in August with the new baby.  No Mutiara Kids today as it was rainy.  I hung out with a few of the kids earlier on our swing out back.  They are so cute and just wanted to play.  I really thought this was the dry season now, but it has been monsoon raining here in the afternoons the past few days.  I like it rainy though when I’m cooped up watching TV, reading my book, or crocheting.  Well that’s all from this side of the world.  Hope all is well where you are!                             

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!