24?

The airport tarmac

Man playing the musical instrument

Another busy week just flew by.
I went to work for a couple of hours on Monday morning then took a couple hour flight to the island of Timor for work. The distance from where I live is like Salt Lake to Lincoln, Nebraska or maybe Chicago to New York, something like that. Anyway, it's not very close and it feels pretty far away, too. The climate and plants are different. The air is dry, things look a little different and there are some unique cultural things like this interesting musical instrument and hat. I had to get a picture. The instrument has strings, (I think it's 24?), around a cylender and then the strings are plucked like a harp and the shell in the back can be expanded to magnify the sound, except the one in this picture is plugged in to an amplifier! When I traveled up into the mountains I saw near so many of the homes these little huts where people hang out. Some had the grass roof all the way to the ground and some just a couple feet above the ground. Some things are the same as where I live and this is still Indonesia, but these are things that are not the same.
On my trip I got to visit the home and graveyard of one of the former kings, (I think there were 24 on the island). The king's descendants still live there and carry on the tradition though they have no real governmental power anymore. I think the influence of the king and all his relatives, which are many, are still felt in the community, however.

Welcome to the home of the king

The road up was winding and narrow and interesting with all of the hills, villages, and views. I liked the airport also with it's one runway. The plane lands and then turns around to drive back to where it can drop everyone off on the tarmac. Then a plane drives down to the end of the runway, turns around and takes off. One thing I didn't get a picture of was all of the goats for sell for the holiday on Wednesday, (which I had off since it's a national holiday). They were on practically every main road in temporary set ups. I heard that many families buy a goat and then kill it and eat it on that day. All I did was go swimming with a couple of my own children and some boys from our branch (congregation)!

Elder Pratt

There are only a couple other news items for the week: the doctor was in town from Jakarta so my wife and I went to get our remaining immunization boosters, my daughter and I seem to be getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, she even gets them feasting on her all night despite her mosquito net, we swam more on Saturday, and we had our district conference for our church on Saturday and Sunday with a visiting general authority, Elder Carl Pratt and his wife, who happen to know a cousin of mine very well.
Are there still only 24 hours in a day?

Typical hut

View from hotel room in Kupang

Island hopping

This week I was able to do some different things, some firsts for me.
I went on an assignment for a few different things to a couple of islands in Indonesia. I visited Bali for the first time and went to Lombok on a second visit. The best part is that my wife was able to come along and spend some time with me there since Thursday was a holiday (Veteran's Day).
On Wednesday I had a few different things to do and was able to spend some time at the Consular Agency we have in Bali and with the staff there. It's small, but they are very good and handle a big amount of consular services for Americans compared to their size. It was good to see where the people I work with are working and meet them face to face. Friday I went to Lombok for work and then back to Java that evening.
One of the things that the U.S. Government does for its citizens abroad is visit them if they are incarcerated for any reason to find out how they are doing and keep in communication. This was one of my tasks for my trip and something I am happy to do. Luckily, from what I've seen, there are some things that people in prison can do here that make life a little easier such as have food and reading material brought in for you, and in some cases even use your cell phone freely. They are able to take care of things that need to be done if they have a friend on the outside and keep in touch. This usually makes things a little simpler on the visit since sometimes I have even talked with the person on the phone to let them know I'm coming.

Waterfall in Bali

Choosing fish to grill for dinner

The monkey fell asleep sitting up

Terraced rice fields

The view of the volcano while drinking watermelon juice

Because Thursday was a holiday, we arranged for my wife to come. We had a good time together Wednesday night, Thursday all day and Friday in Lombok after I was done with business. We saw so many different things that I can't even begin to list them here. It was a lot of fun. We saw tourist sites, artists, volcanoes, lakes, the sea and beaches. We ate by candlelight on the beach, breathed fresh sea air, relaxed watching the scenery, and were thrilled and maybe a little scared by the fast driving down narrow streets just missing dogs, motorcycles and ladies with baskets on their head as we zoomed through. In Lombok we saw so many rice fields and horse-drawn carts as well as amazing beaches, mountains and views. In Bali we got a full dose of the musical, dance, carving, and other handicraft artistry that is part their culture. After that and a full Saturday, I fell into bed about 9:00 pm and couldn't get up until late the next morning.

Lombok near Malimbu

I'll have to do it again soon. My wife and I checked out places we will want to go in the future and with our children. I would love to hike a volcano or two, spend some time on the beach and swimming in the sea, see the monkey temple again, ride elephants, and ride in one of those horse carts. Both of these islands are less than an hour plan flight from us. Anyone want to join us?

Stuff

At our consulate we have dubbed this month "Education Month" and have made plans for extra efforts to promote education in the United States. I have been asked to help coordinate this effort which is why I am thinking about it and writing about it. There are so many little things, plus a couple of bigger ones. One of the things we like to do is go to talk to students about the benefits of studying in the United States of America, what the process is, etc. We're making an effort to get to many more schools and students over the next couple of months and trying to get all of the Americans at the consulate to go out to a local school every month. This month is the kick-off of this effort. We also have a photo contest about what education is like for the students here, plus there are some film screenings, radio talk shows, and a bunch of other things. It's a good thing and a bit different than what I usually do every day.

On Wednesday I got to do something a little different because I was asked to go to the Consulate General's residence to watch the election returns from the U.S. (As the Tuesday night polls are closing in the US it was Wednesday morning here.) It made it really convenient to invite Indonesians from the local government, university officials and students to watch it and ask questions to learn more. It was pretty fun to answer and ask questions. One student was a little shocked to find out that I don't drink alcohol as he assumed that all Americans do. He also kept asking me about the vote on marijuana in California. A lot of them asked me if I thought the president would get reelected in 2 years, which, of course, I have no idea or even care to speculate at this point. Pretty fun.

But the two biggest pieces of news come last.

The first one is very exciting and made the second one possible. After a very long time, we finally have our own things again! Most of it we have not seen for over 14 months. We have our own plates and cups and books and games and pictures and it's awesome. We also got a bunch of food that my wife was smart to buy and have sent to us. I just hope we don't use it all up too fast! There are so many boxes and paper in our garage right now. Everything came on Friday in big wooden shipping crates much bigger than the picture here but similar. Inside each crate was all of our things in cardboard boxes and paper. We still don't have everything organized but have put a lot of things away. It has made our place feel a lot more like our home.

One of the things that came was our bikes. We have not seen them since we left Utah in the summer of 2009. That summer we had not really pushed the two youngest to ride bikes without training wheels. The youngest was just a little young and not really interested and the older of the two was certainly old enough but we knew we wouldn't be seeing our bikes for a while and maybe there was a little fear there too so we didn't feel like it was something we needed to push. But both of them on Saturday learned how to ride bikes, starting, turning, stopping, everything all in just a few minutes! It was awesome. They probably rode for a couple of hours straight. It was so much fun and made us feel great that our stuff arrived just before a weekend so they could have some time to ride while it was light outside.