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!

Getting into the swing of things

Every time I think I’m relaxed ok, I’m living this crazy life in Indonesia….another minor catastrophe strikes! I had (and maybe still have) another stomach bug this week. I threw up twice in the same day and totally lost my appetite mid dinner one night. No idea what it could be from! Maybe I’m still fighting off the cold I had a while back? Well today my stomach is feeling a bit better. I'm just taking it easy with what I eat. Mostly boiled eggs, rice, bread and jam, and cereal. Don't have much energy but I did some yoga today and it felt really good to stretch everything out. My hot water is fixed for my shower too so that was great tonight to have a hot shower. The plumber that fixed my water is so freakin cute! Grandpa type, smaller than me, super skinny, big old mouth full of crooked teeth, super nice, and speaks very very softly. Pa Paulie is his name. He is Muslim and has had 5 wives. We don't think all at the same time, maybe he has divorced or some died, because we don't know how a lil man like that could handle dealing with 5 wives at once!

We had a meeting on Saturday with all the heads of each department and I'm starting to realize what my role is in Alor more. Feels like the dust has been blown off a bit, and its a bit clearer. I am technical manager, and I deal with operating oysters. But also pretty much all things pearls. Harvesting, re-operating to grow a second pearl, collecting rejected pearls from the cleaning boats, and grading pearls. Also I'm responsible for helping Sugi organize before and after operations. This includes selecting the oysters into separate sizes, conditioning them before operation, and X-raying to check how the pearl is growing. I've also taken the divers under my wing as well, and they are my responsibility now. I make their dive calendar, where they should be diving every day and collect their data from their dives. And! I am helping with the Mutiara Kids (Pearl Kids) program on Sundays teaching English to the kiddos. So a lot really! And about the Mutiara kids. The word is out that I will be teaching English on Sundays and everyone is interested, parents and kids alike. I am a horrible teacher and I know it! I’m not my mom teaching kindergarten for 20 something years! I don’t have the patience, and I probably seem rude…so we’ll see how it goes. Think I will teach them some slang English, as I always want to know the slang to fit in when I’m learning a language. Like “What’s up?”

A bit more info on the Alor staff. Daniel oversees a lot of personnel issues, finances, government, admin, sorting a lot out for Alor, he is the head. Then Tomek runs the hatchery but he has Moulia as hatchery manager and she is really good. He has also been running the cleaning boats schedules and making sure they stay on task, etc. We are making new long lines and Tomek has been putting together GPS and depth profiles to see how the bottom looks as its a couple hundred feet deep in some spots! Tomek also transports baby oysters to grow at another site a 5 hour boat ride away. He has been running those trips lately. Think he has 3 more trips to do this month!

So ya that's kind of helpful to know where I stand. I have been pretty busy at work lately getting ready for the next operation. A lot of checks to tell if the oysters are ready to operate. Oh and I even spoke a little at our meeting today. I said, "Terimah kasih semua untuk bantu dengan Molah. Molah kerja bagus untuk operasi." Basically...Thank you all for your help with Molah. (the operation site I work at, that everyone has been fixing up) Molah works good for operations. Then I asked Daniel to say some other things for me! But I'm getting there! Really can see an improvement in my bahasa Indonesia. When I explain something to the workers, be it mechanics, electricians, or my tech girls and they actually understand what I’m trying to convey, as I’m walking away I say to myself, “Yes! That’s one point for me! I’m getting this Indonesian-ness!”

I tentatively have a flight booked for my leave in April. Not definite until March 10th. I get into Orlando April 9th, and will fly out of there to Nassau probably to help James take the boat he works on over to Palm Beach. I am planning to be back in the Fort, April 25 and sticking around the area until my flight out of Orlando on May 1st. Daniel and I went for a muck dive in the bay this Sunday morning. Just an easy dive in the bay, near our long lines about 30 feet deep. I think we should call it Nudi-cutie after all the nudibranches we saw! I counted 20! Big beautiful and colorful nudis. 2 species I have never seen before either. For those of you that aren’t divers, a nudibranch is like a slug of the reef. Really wild looking little creatures. They can be orange, white, black, yellow, and neon green with different sizes of ridges all over the body. Not much else to see on the dive except for the nudis, sparse coral heads, and little reef fish. We watched the movie The Town on Saturday night. First time I had seen it and it’s a pretty good movie. I only slept in until 7am on my relaxing Sunday off. Will def be taking a nap later on today. Mutiara kids today are having a field day of sorts. Like the ones we used to have in elementary school. Relay races with flags, balancing a marble on spoon in your mouth, and doing the chicken dance! Ha! We’ll see how it goes! We aren't playing with the kids until 5pm so having a relaxing Sunday in the meantime!

Mid February

Happy Belated Valetines Day! I guess they do Valentines day here but definitely not to the extent we do at home. Before I get into this week’s post I just wanted to share 2 words used in just about every sentence in Indonesian. Sudah means already, and belum means not yet. Ya these 2 little words are used for everything! Its crazy! Have you eaten? Are you married? Have you finished your work? Etc, etc. They are also used as past and future tenses when you put them with verbs. Like it is not yet working, or it is already working. My Indonesian is slowly progressing, but I haven’t really been full on studying it every day like I should.

This week I did another 2 days of harvesting pearls and re-operating them so maybe they can grow an even better pearl after another 2 years. I also wrote a mid month report this week on what I’ve been up to so far in February. The Alor government have decided to build a harbor right where one of our main sites is and where my building for operations is. It is such a mess! The government signed the contract build this 2 years ago and just told us about it a week before the supply ship arrived to start constructing the pier! They want to turn this harbor into a major port. Pretty bad news for us, and we are trying to get them to pay us so we can move all our gear to a new site away from the polluted harbor water.

Mid week there was a birthday party at the site. A woman that works in the hatchery, her daughter had her first birthday. It was pretty stinking cute! All the village kids came all dressed to the T. They usually play with us in just raggedy clothes. Some were there with their moms that are my technicians in operations. All the kids wore Disney birthday hats and sat on 2 benches facing each other. The birthday girl was in the middle in her too big for her pink poufy Easter dress. They sang to her and then had some birthday cake. A few had presents but most just had a note to give her and they all went up (literally at once! Freaked the birthday girl right out and she started crying!) to give her their present and a kiss, and then they got their party favor…fried noodle in a to-go container! So different than a 1 yr old’s birthday in the US! I thought it was really interesting to be a part of that. Also the same night as the birthday party there was a meeting of the chief of the community and other heads of the village here at our site. We are in the process of getting the locals to have a market here once a week with livestock, veggies, fruits, and seafood that we can buy for our kitchen instead of driving the 20 minutes to the town to buy our food. The villagers really seem like they are for it, so it should work out. Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk in the village with Lita (Daniel’s wife). We went through a path and down to the water to the mechanics house (the mechanic at our site). He is a grandpa and he had lots of kids running around, along with chickens and ducks. Nice big garden and a huge tree of this fruit we like that looks like a small mango but tastes like a granny smith apple. He got the kids to collect some fruit for us. And then he walked it all the way back to work with us and wouldn’t even let us pay for it. So nice! Today is Sunday, my day off. I’ve been sick with a cold this past week so I’m just resting trying to get over it. We did play with the kids this morning. More than 30 of them! Right in the beginning a group of girls had to go to dance class, so an extra 10 of them left right away. They do come super early on Sunday mornings and wait around for us to wake up. So next Sunday we have agreed that they are going to come at 5 pm. Much better to have a relaxing morning without a bunch of kids screaming Ibu Lita! Tata Tanya! (Mother Lita, Aunt Tanya) They had fun with us. A little group of about 6 kindergarteners had leggos to play with and I think it was their first time with leggos! They were just loving it! We had other activities for them to do, but they just thought the leggos were so cool how you could stick them together! Pretty cute! They were trying to use all the leggos together to make a tower. We also had a coloring contest and played hot potato with them. After they left I laid out in the sun and took some dips in the bay to cool off. Just relaxing today, its so nice! I attempted to get the hot tub going on Saturday and just fill it up with water as a cool tub, but no luck with that maybe this week we can get it sorted out. Well that’s been my week!

The Last 2 Busy Weeks

Sorry I’ve been bad about blogging! Its been a busy 2 wks! We have been harvesting pearls and selecting oysters by size and getting them ready for the operations in March. Its been pretty full on. Wake up at 5:30 am and work until 5 pm. The harvesting is pretty cool. Some really different pearls too, a lot of huge gold ones. They are from the previous company and these oysters were huge! The size of dinner plates. I get to dig inside the oyster with my fingers and find the pearls. That bit is fun, but all the prep to do a harvest is not so much fun. Just a lot of labor intensive steps that take forever! Oh and we have been having some oyster ceviche and fried oyster muscle and it was so freakin delicious! I guess we sell it for $80/kg so that's pretty good! But we should really open a fine dining restaurant in the Hyatt and these fancy places where we have showrooms. Its tastes like a conch with the consistency of a scallop! Yum!!

I’m thoroughly enjoying my Sunday off today! I’ve been crocheting! I crocheted a square coaster so far and I’m working on a beanie now. I will have to stock up on more yarn when I get home. It is kind of relaxing and chills me out listening to music and crocheting. Such a geek I know! I’ve almost finished one book and I haven’t even broken out the paint set yet, so I’m not bored yet! Today and last Sunday the village kids came and Lita and I played with them by our house. Last week we played with play dough and origami. Today we played tag with Tomek as the monster and I was safe. Tomek is huge and scary already to these little kiddos and some of them were yanking on my clothes and even crying they were so scared of him! Lol! Then we had a drawing contest and we hid lollipops in the yard and they went and found them. We are getting more and more each Sunday. The word is out that those bule (foreigners) are pretty fun! There were 22 of them today from 4-15 years old!

My bum leg is starting to feel better. Less tight and sore, so that’s good. I did break down and call our orthopedic doctor friend back in FL and he said I tore my gastenemic muscle in my calf. But it will heal by itself and in a few weeks. So no worries there! I finally got paid and got my vacation time sorted. Sounds like I will the operations here in mid March then go to Bali and do the operation there in late March, and then be home from April 9th -May 1st. Will spend a bit of time at home and then go see James in the Caribbean, where ever he may be at that time. Things are definitely going better with Sugi. She talks slower to me, just to me, when she is talking to someone else around me its still 100 miles a minute. Think she is warming up to me a bit. I've been asking about her kids and husband and things. She gets frustrated with how things are done in the office, and explains the problems to me. You know there is drama in every job!
We received a delivery of oysters on our ship from Bali too. We took a trip out in the bay to check the depths of our long lines. That was a fun afternoon to just get out and spend some time on the ship. My boss also came in for a few days and he brought steak and sausage! What a treat! I hunted down some cheese in Kalabahi village, but its Kraft singles and come block of processed crap with more ingredients than cheese should have! Ha! My bahasa Indonesia is getting better too! This week when we did the selection, Sugi wasn’t there for 2 days and I had to work directly with the girls and give instructions and things all in Indonesian. They are all really nice and want to help me and they want to learn English too. I sat with them for lunch one day and they all wanted to pose with me for pictures on their cell phones and befriend me on facebook!

We did another muck dive this afternoon, and it was pretty mucky. Not much to see except mud and sticks and soft corals. Daniel assures us that muck diving is better in the dry season. We had time and air left so we went outside the bay and around the corner to a pretty island. The current was ripping but we did a great wall dive. Really fantastic, similar to Fijian wall dives I’ve done. Lots of colors and fish, healthy corals, and lots of action on the reef. Another busy week ahead with more harvesting and conditioning the oysters for their operation in March!