One of my favorite things to do here, as I've probably said before, is to take trips interior.  It's such a different world interior than where we live in Tarakan, and it's always a welcome break from life on the island.  Two weekends ago we went to the village of Kampung Baru, located in the Krayan area of East Kalimantan.  David was invited by the head of the Bible school there to speak for their opening services for the start of the new semester.

 From the airstrip in the village of Long Bawan it was a 15-minute ride by motorcycle to Kampung Baru.  I felt rather conspicuous, riding through the village, part of this long motorcycle caravan, all of us clutching bags and backpacks, trying to hold on to the bike without actually having to wrap my arms around the guy driving it.  Afterward I felt like I'd been for a ride on a bucking bronco.

The Bible school is named for John Willfinger, an American missionary who was killed in the Krayan during World War II.  You can read more about him here.  The school, which has about 50 students and a dozen or so instructors, teaches Bible and theology with an emphasis on evangelism.  The campus consists of a few clapboard buildings such as the one pictured above, set in a beautiful mountain valley.  The Bible school is low on funds right now, and the instructors (pictured in the top picture by the plane) have not received any salary for several months now.  In spite of that, they are a joyful group of people serving God in a remote place, and we really enjoyed spending time with them.

 

The evening service started about at about 9 and went for about two hours.  Different groups sang, and then David spoke.  After the service we got the kids down for the night then joined another service, which was just for the Bible school teachers and their wives.  It went very late, but was a good time of fellowship.  I wasn't sure how my stomach would react to rice and boiled pig at 1 a.m. but it was actually pretty good.

I wish I had a picture to post of the night sky in Kampung Baru.  There were so many stars that we had a hard time picking out constellations.  It was just gorgeous and the kids said it was a highlight of their weekend.  Seeing the familiar outlines of Orion, Plaides, and the Dippers always makes me feel not so far away from home.

Luke, who has like .02 % body fat, had a hard time staying warm and huddled by the fire a good bit.  He also had fun playing with one of the village kids' toys. 

Who needs Toys R Us?

 At the Sunday service David spoke, and afterward had a chance to speak with the man standing in the middle in this picture (that's Tim Maynard, our mechanic, on the right).  This man, whose name I forget, was born and raised in the Long Bawan area, and he has the distinction of being the very first medivac patient that MAF ever carried out from that area.  He was a young boy when he contracted typhoid and had to be flown out to a hospital in Tarakan for treatment.  He is now a police chaplain and has a ministry to inmates as well.  Our guys do several medivac flights a week, and it's cool to think how this aspect of MAF's ministry is having an eternal impact on lives.

 

I was able to spend some time chatting with some of the instructors' wives.  Veronica, pictured above, is expecting her second child.  She had such a sweet spirit about her.  There was another wife who was expecting as well, and the week after our trip we got word that she had delivered her baby, and decided to name it Holsten!  I'm not sure if it's a boy or girl, but with a name like Holsten, I'm hoping it's a boy. :-)

We totally switched gears last weekend when we celebrated Chinese New Year with our Chinese friends.  A highlight was watching the barong sai or lion dance.  Tarakan has a championship barong sai group and it's always fun to watch them perform.  Luke got a little freaked out so while we watched he waited in the car.  The guys in the costume are so good at what they do they make the lion seem like a real animal.  

Another exciting day for us recently was seeing this huge python at the hanger.  The man on the right, Pak Nelson, caught it in a nearby garden and brought it to the hanger for everyone to see.  We were kind of bummed to hear that it would be consumed the next day.  David tried some of the meat and said it was sort of chewy.  Our budding herpetologist Carter finally got a replacement snake for the one that escaped - a lovely little python that he has named Sophie - that just doesn't seem to fit a snake, does it?

Sampai jumpa,

Natalie

Fly Along

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to fly along with David in the MAF Caravan.  This was the first time I have flown in the Caravan, and what a different experience it was from flying in a 206.  It was like trading out a Go-Kart for an SUV.  The Caravan was smooth and had all sorts of cool instruments on its dash board (or whatever the pilots call it!).

It was a stormy day when we headed out, but armed with weather radar we were able to dodge the dangerous areas.  David was actually a bit gleeful to have some weather to work so he could make use of the radar and the IFR guidelines the guys use for flying through the mountainous areas of Borneo.

We did eight take-offs and landings in four different villages.  I enjoyed watching David interact with passengers and airstrip agents.  This older couple below were so cute in their funky t-shirts and solemn expressions.

The man below was quite a character.  He had a hat on that said "Indonesian veteran" on it and told us he fought in the border wars with Malaysia (back in the 40s or 50s maybe?).  He was at the airport to say goodbye to his younger brother, who was going back to his village to die since the local hospital couldn't do anything to help him.

It was touching to watch the two brothers saying goodbye, knowing that this could very well be the last time they see each other in this life.  Then later when we landed at the sick man's village, it was heart-rending to see the somber crowd gathered to welcome him home.

 

Contrasting that scene was this man on the other side of the plane who was downright giddy receiving one of our "passengers" - a pig in a poke!

The weather continued to be an issue through the afternoon but we were able to make it to all our scheduled stops.  Rice harvest had started in several of the villages and from the air we could see men and women wearing conical hats beating out rice stalks on woven mats in the rice paddies.  One of our passengers was a pastor who was returning to his village after helping his wife start the harvest in the village where they used to live.  He was leaving her behind to finish the harvest, and David and I had to laugh about that because this pastor is a very small thin man (think Jack Sprat) and his wife is a beefy lady who could easily beat him in a wrestling smackdown. She was definitely the better choice for finishing out a physically-demanding rice harvest.

At the end of the day I couldn't believe how tired I was - and all I did was sit in the co-pilot's seat and look out the window.  Every time I fly with David I have a renewed appreciation for what he does and why he's so tired at the end of a flying day.

 

Another happy MAF passenger

Sampai nanti,

Natalie 

To Market, To Market

My house helper, Orpa, has been gone for the last month visiting her family in Sulawesi for Christmas.  I'm really glad for her, but while she's gone all the jobs she normally does fall to me.  One of those is making weekly trips to the pasar, or open market.  I have been to the pasar on numerous occasions and it is a job that I am very happy for Orpa to do.  It's a smelly, damp place, with all manner of creepy crawly things creepin' and crawlin' over the food you buy.  I have come up with a list of a few tips for those of you who may find yourselves heading out to the open market soon.

Pasar Primer

1.  Go in the morning.  The smells are much worse as the day goes on, so be sure to go first thing in the morning.  The produce tends to be fresher, too. 

Now, in addition to going to the pasar this past month, I've also been learning to drive David's motorbike.  He used to own a big dirt bike and it was just too big for me to handle.  So he downsized and bought a smaller bike that is easier for me to drive (it's so small that one of our co-workers said David looks like a Shriner in a parade).  I've always been hesitant to drive a motorbike here - the traffic can get kind of crazy and I've seen lots of accidents.  I always seem to have at least one child with me when I go out, and when I shop I tend to buy a lot, and you can only hang so many bags on a bike.  But the main reason I haven't learned yet is that I'm a chicken, but I am working to overcome my fears.  It's kind of like being a teenager again and earning my learner's license.  David has put restrictions on me, like I can only go to certain places and only at certain times.  All of that to say, another reason for me to do my marketing in the morning is that the traffic is light and it gives me a chance to practice the motorbike.
 

Early in the morning lots of vegetable sellers load up their motorbikes and head out to sell in the neighborhoods.

2.  Never look down.  If you know me, you might know that I have an irrational fear of cockroaches.  It was one of the things I really worried about when we first came overseas.  Silly, I know, but there it is.  The pasar is crawling with cockroaches, mice, rats, etc. so to keep myself from screaming I find it best not to look down, if it can be helped.  There was one time I had a panicky moment when I dropped some money and I was faced with the dilemma of bending down and picking it up and risking seeing something I'd rather not, or just leaving the money there.  I realized how silly that would look to the Indonesians around me so I held my breath and picked it up, with one eye closed.

3.  Never buy a doughnut at the pasar.  I think the photo below best illustrates this.  Raw chickens are on the left, doughnuts (uncovered, unpackaged) on the right, and you can't see the flies but they were doing circuits between the two tables.  Need I say more?

4.  Take the time to get to know the penjual (sellers) you buy from.  As much as I would like to rush through, grab what I need and go, I try to spend a few minutes chatting with each person.  They are more likely to look out for you on your next trip.  The little lady below sells all kinds of greens and one day she didn't have the type I was looking for.  On my next trip she practically grabbed me off my feet to show me she'd been holding some for me.

5.   Wash it, peel it, or cook it.  The hardest part of going to the pasar for me is dealing with all the stuff I buy once I get home.  In the U.S. I would just toss whatever I buy into the fridge - but here there is no pre-washed lettuce, or wok-ready vegetables, so everything has to be cleaned and put away.  But once that is done there is a great feeling of satisfaction at having survived another trip to the pasar.

 

On to other things...last night was Twelfth Night here in Tarakan.  I am always on the lookout for fun things for us to do and new traditions to keep (and reasons to make a cake) and after reading some about Twelfth Night I decided to try it out on our family.  First I made a King Cake which I am sure is unlike any other king cake since I followed no traditional recipe (apologies to my Cajun cousins who know what a real king cake is).  Zoe helped me hide a coin in it, since the tradition is that whomever finds the coin (or bean, or whatever) is then the king or queen for the night.  The coin was in my piece of cake, though Luke was so crestfallen by not finding it, I snuck it into his piece.  So Luke spent the evening giving out royal decrees that we his loyal subjects had to obey.   We also sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas" at the top of our lungs, ensuring the neighbors would have plenty to talk about.  I don't know if it will become a yearly Holsten tradition or not, but it was a lot of fun.

Sampai jumpa,

Natalie

Birthdays and Harvest Time

November is a big month for our family, with three of our kids celebrating birthdays.  Our baby girl Zoe turned four and we had a party with the other MAF kids and some Indonesian friends.  Next was Carter, who turned 12 and instead of a party wanted to go on a pig hunt with one of the Indonesian men who works at the hangar.  Pak Nelson took Carter and David into some jungle on our little island of Tarakan, and they said the best part was watching Nelson track the pigs.  They didn't get anything but had fun hiking.  That evening Nelson went back out hunting and was successful and brought us a pig leg.

The 12-year-old

And then Luke turned six and wanted a jungle-themed party, which is a wonderfully easy thing to do when you live near the jungle.

The back of our yard looked like a jungle when we piled up branches and banana leaves that David had recently cut.

And no jungle party would be complete without kids popping balloons using a blowgun, the traditional hunting weapon of Borneo.

                         Luke's Snake Cake

Besides celebrating birthdays, we've been enjoying a time of harvest.  While the words "harvest time" used to conjure up for me images of fat pumpkins, acorn squash, and sheaves of wheat, here I have come to connect harvest with fruit.  Our friends interior have been sending out lots of rambutan, longsat, pisang, and ketimun, shown below.

But the best part of this year's harvest has been our mangoes.  We have four mango trees in our yard that sometimes produce fruit.  This year we had a bumper crop, thanks to the hard work of our house helper Orpa.  She put plastic bags over all the growing mangoes to protect them from fruit bats that like to fly in at night and feast.

Orpa and her sister leave in a few days to head home to Sulawesi for a month.  I am going to miss her so much - and not just because of how much work she does for us.  She is a close friend, and a lot of fun to have around.

And while I'm on the food theme, here are a few pictures of Luke with his friend Christopher.  Christopher's mom came over one day to teach me to make shrimp wonton soup.  Rather than throwing away the shrimp heads, like I would have done, she fried them up into a crispy snack.  They were actually quite good - as most fried things are - and as long as I didn't look at their beady eyes staring at me, I could eat them.

                            The Shrimp Heads Go....

                               ....Crruuunch!

And lastly on the food theme, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our MAF teammates.  We even had a turkey and cranberry sauce and all the other fixins.  We've decorated for Christmas and we look forward to celebrating Jesus' birth with our Indonesian brothers and sisters.

A Trip Interior

November 4, 2009

Our family spent this past weekend in the village of Long Taan in the Krayan region of East Kalimantan.  Trips interior are always a blast for our family, and this one was no exception.  We took our house helper Orpa with us.  She is from the island of Sulawesi, from a mountainous village, so it was interesting to hear her observations on how it was different or similar to her home.  We stayed with one of David's friends, Pak Ajang, who frequently flies on the MAF plane.

David, Zoe, and Luke with Pak Ajang

It rained a good bit of the time while we were there, and the river was too high to go swimming like we'd hoped.  We asked Pak Ajang what they do when it rains.  "We sleep."  Oh, that was music to our ears!  Of course the kids weren't too interested in sleeping in the middle of the day, but I snuggled down with my book (Frank Peretti's Monster, a very appropriate read for the jungle) for a few hours. 

The rain, plus being at a higher elevation, made it deliciously cold for us.  It was in the 60s - which felt really, really nice.  The last time we experienced autumn was in 2000, so it was wonderful to be somewhere in October and it felt like October should!

Pak Ajang took us on a hike to his sawah (rice field), which was about a 45-minute walk from the village.  It was a gorgeous hike, through jungle and along the river, everything green and glistening in the rain.  Zoe managed to find every puddle along the way and was quickly covered in muck.  We all were pretty mucky by the time we reached the sawah, except for Ajang and his wife - who amazingly looked barely wet at all. 

 

We hung out for a while in their pondok (small hut on stilts) and had a meal of noodles, eggs, some kind of fruit I forget the name of, and some durian.  Durian is that enigmatic fruit of southeast Asia that so many people love - and I have yet to figure out why.  It smells like something rotten, and tastes even worse - yet people here love it.  I politely slammed down a few bites - which is better than the last time I tried it (gagged and spit).  Despite the durian, we had a pleasant time in the pondok.

Carter went off with Pak Ajang and his son to explore, hoping to find a snake to replace the one that escaped a few weeks ago.  They didn't see any snakes but had fun looking. 

Any time I go interior and observe how the women live there, I come away feeling like a wimp, like Napoleon Dynamite saying "I don't have any skills."  These ladies are amazing - they carry their own firewood, cook over a wood fire, work in the rice fields, haul incredibly heavy loads, butcher animals, weave baskets and mats.  They rock!

                                 

Note in the picture above, the lady in the back with the jean jacket.  She is Pak Ajang's wife, and she carried in our food and water in a woven basket.  I carried an umbrella.  :-)

On Sunday Orpa and I led Sunday school for the village children, and David preached at the church service.  We were blessed by the different groups who sang, particularly the older people.  After church and another meal, we loaded up the plane and headed home.

Some village kids gather around for a look at Carter's Snakes of Borneo book.

Orpa cuddles a very tired Zoe on the way home.

Sampai Jumpa (until later),

Natalie