"Normal..."

It’s amazing how quickly things become “normal.” Today I took a host of photos of things that we now consider normal. Unfortunately I drained the camera batteries in the process and our new ones are currently charging. I did however manage to upload a few photos to share with you. The others will have to wait until tomorrow, provided I can manage to get them uploaded. I have been having some trouble getting photos to upload. Our internet connection here is rather fickle.
This photo on the left is of some kids that live at the bottom of our hill. They were really quite fun to chat with. Unfortunately most of them had rotting teeth which is very common in young children here. Parents don't make any effort to minimize the amount of sugar their children intake.

The other photo is of some houses that were built right beside the river at the bottom of our hill. There are pipes coming out of the houses dripping waste into the river below. (Hope you weren't eating while reading this...) The river is where they bathe, wash their clothes, play, pee (yes, I saw it with my own eyes) and even get drinking water. It hasn't rained here for about two months so a lot of people are having trouble getting water. There are a lot of wells running dry. So people go with buckets to the river and lug water back home. One of my househelpers is also currently without water and so she showers at our house before going home. Hopefully it will rain soon.
Hugo went to Jakarta overnight yesterday to get his motorbike license. Because our visa's say we live in Jakarta, we need to get licenses there. Just another Indonesian thing.... Also, he didn't need to do a test, he just had to pay for it. Gotta love that!

Ooopss

Today we decided to go to a store called Borma (don't ya love the name, where do they come up with this stuff?) to buy Marc a bike as he keeps using the neighbour boy's. We first went to a large import store as Hugo had never been there and my Ibu had a few food requests that we needed to fulfill. Pretty much anything is available there for a price. I was very restrained with what I put in our cart (not only because we have to tote it all home with us) but because it is quite pricey. I have to admit though, that I did splurge on a bag of Tostitos restaurant style tortilla chips for, are you sitting down?, $7 canadian. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Then when we were done there we went on an ankot to Borma. On the way someone hit the jackpot when they lifted Hugo's wallet out of his shorts pocket without him noticing. Bummer big time. So now we have to get new cards sent out here and we are out over half a million rups... By the time we realized it, we had already picked out a bike for Marc (see photo of Marc with Bike, new "motorcyle" helmet and neighbour boy-Pilan). So we got a taxi and whipped home, as whippy as you can here in the insane traffic. Thankfully no purchases were made with the visa card. I have to admit that the few times we have used our credit card here they have been careful to check the signature.
Some of you have asked about when we start school. We came as early as we did so the kids could start school with everyone else, but we didn't come early enough to start school ourselves. We don't actually start until Sept 15. We have borrowed the unit one books from one of the other families and are studying it in the hopes that we can have an evaluation done and skip unit one. We are definitely learning new things every day.

No Phone...

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted and with good reason. Apparently the last tenants of this house did not pay their final phone bill and so we were disconnected until the bill was paid today. Here in Indonesia phone numbers remain with the house.
Sunday we went to the Gereja Kristen Immanuel church here in Bandung. It is a very nice large church. They have a fairly liturgical worship service. We sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and at the end we sang the Doxology (Hymn 6). So it was nice that we at least knew two of the songs. The people were very welcoming to us. Although we felt a little like zoo animals as everyone was standing around looking at us and everyone wanting to touch or hold Marc and Brynne, which they didn’t want of course. We found out that there is a house congregation nearby to where we live. We are going to look into this as it is much closer and easier to get to. Plus a smaller group is more conducive to relationship building.
This week our neighbours have been having a well dug in front of their house. There’s been three or four guys working on it and they dug it all by hand. When it got a bit deep they set up a bamboo structure to hold the rope with the bucket on the end and down they went. They carried all the dirt out with weaved baskets hanging on a plank of wood which they rest on their shoulder. (I forgot to get a picture of it)
Bandung is a city of 4-5 million people. There are quite a few foreigners living here, but when I walk down the street there are still people who will nudge their children and point at me (with their thumbs as it is rude to point with your pointer finger…). They think that we are all beautiful and handsome. It is interesting how each culture has its own ideas of what is beautiful.
Today I went for my very first Indonesian haircut. One of the other MAF wives told me to say: Saya mau potong rabut. I want my hair cut. So I did. It’s nice and short now… They asked if I wanted a massage or a cream bath too…. Wow, maybe if I had more time. I only paid $30,000 Rups for my hair cut, that’s $3.84 Canadian. And this place is a little higher end than some of the other ones… Plus you don’t have to tip….
I realize now that I forgot to mention that we did receive the suitcase that we were missing. It came a couple days after we arrived in Jakarta, but because the MAF office was closed for the long weekend, it sat there until Tuesday….

Carrefour Ho!

So guess what we did today? You guessed it, more shopping... There are a gazillion stores here and if you're just new you don't know who has what and for what price. So today we went to Carrefour. This is a new gigantic superstore. It is like Superstore only with way more choices in electronics, TV's, washing machines, fridges, excersize equipment, toys, food, clothes.... and on and on. We bought a microwave finally. We settled for one with a big old dial on it. We figured that would probably stand up to the humidity better than a digital one and if it did break Hugo should have no trouble fixing it. Although we did get our one year warranty card and receipt officially stamped a number of times... Official stamps are big here. We also got a cordless phone as the one we have now might have spent some time in the ark... Then, this evening, drum roll please, we received a brand new fridge. I'm still in shock. I think the freezer is actually going to freeze things... I'm having trouble containing my excitement here... I think that all the other families are going to be green with envy as it has, are you ready, 12 cubit feet of storage space!!! For here, that is HUGE!! Most people only have a little freezer inside their little fridge that will hold maybe a loaf of bread. So things are definitely looking up. We have the basic amenities now.
Here in Indonesia a huge part of daily life is your relationships with those around you. Bartering is a big part of that. There are so many little shops and food carts around that you wonder how they all survive. Those who run them make relationships with people who will come back to them because of it. Stores like Carrefour are destroying that aspect of the culture. There you throw an item in your cart and pay what the price tag says. Therefore throughout the day you will interact with a lot less people. I really notice the relationship thing. I have had a couple ankot drivers strike up a conversation with me and ask me about what we are doing here and what my name is etc... They will even bring me closer to the insanely steep path to our house than the other ones. They are building up a relationship with me and so next time I need an ankot, I will hopefully look for them. There's also the guy we get our water and gas from and the guy that we buy popsicles from. It is a really neat part of the culture here.
I haven't talked about the climate here at all. There is definitely some humidity here, but not nearly as much as Papua. It also cools down quite nicely at night. We are kind of in the mountains here so that's why it's also cooler than Jakarta. Also because we live like a foot from our neighbours, we don't get that much sun in the house. This helps keep the temperature down especially downstairs. Because we are so close to those around us, we do have these shear kind of curtains in front of the windows all the time. This does offer some privacy. I thought it would bother me a lot more than it actually has. We really don't hear our neighbours much at all. We hear other things more. Like last night across the river there was another independance celebration. There may have been 50 people there (we could see it from our roof) but they had the speakers so incredibly loud that it was crystal clear in our house. We all joked about the "free" concert we could "enjoy" last night...

Ace Ho!

Brynne being spoiled by Ibu Tati...
Just in case you thought your oven was small....
First day of school!!
Today we went to Ace. This is a ginormous store somewhere downtown Bandung. It's modeled after the American Home Improvement store also called Ace. However, this store goes above and beyond Ace in America. Wow. There is stuff in that store that is so over the top and expensive, we're not sure who would actually buy it. There is a stunning aray of imported products from Brabantia kitchen ware to camping gear (like the stuff you can buy at Canadian Tire) to Rubbermaid to Swiss Army knives and I could go on and on. You can also buy a sauna, if you so desire or an enormous jetted tub with pillowed head rests.... Anyways, we were on the lookout for a few things for our house. Got a shower curtain so now the rest of the bathroom doesn't have to get soaked when we do. Got a bedside lamp so I don't have to read by the light of our pitiful wind-up flash light.
Anyways, yesterday there was a bunch of guys in our bathroom again. They took out the oooolldd horrible dipper bucket toilet. I'm not sure what they did, but it involved some loud sounding power tools and a lot of smoke. In the end the toilet was out and there was a gaping crevice in the floor. The new toilet was installed and new cement laid around it, no such thing as toilet seals here so you can easily remove a toilet if necessary, here they cement those puppies in. In addition Pac Nadi, who has been doing some work for us, installed a sink upstairs. The laundry was fixed so that my Ibu didn't have to use a bucket to fill the wash tub anymore, but in the process they broke the float switch on our holding tank so this evening after 4 kids were bathed, we ran out of water... It never ends, it's really quite typical of here. So we're now nearly done with our renovations. We are now waiting for the new doors for our cabinets to be made and wonder of all wonders we are supposed to be getting a new fridge as the one we have doesn't work properly. That is very exciting and what's even more exciting is that it is going to be bigger! Hugo is also installing new outlets as there is only one outlet per room. That doesn't really cut it in the kitchen. The only thing we could have plugged in was the fridge. Our Ibu makes rice (with our rice cooker) in Mikah's bedroom and boils water in the dining room... We haven't even been here for a whole week yet, but we've sure gotten a lot done considering where we are living!
The kids are now in school and by all accounts having a good time. The security is pretty tight there. All parents need passes to get in. There are a bunch of official looking guys wearing dark blue uniforms with white trim and large machetes and sticks that hang around the guard booth and the gate.
That's about the scoop from here I think... Til next time!

Settling In...

As the title says, we are getting settled in. Looks like we're going to be staying in this house for th entire time so we're busy making it our home. The walls are concrete so it's interesting hanging things up, but it's happening. Today we bought an oil painting from a guy that came to the door (they know where all the white folks live...). He claimed to have painted it, but before we bought one I talked to one of the other MAF'ers here and he said that there are three guys that go around and all claim to be the Rony who signed the painting. Anyways, we got a painting for a good price.
This morning we took an Ankot to one of the malls. Brynne stayed home with the Ibu's, which they love. I don't think that Brynne is going to get much excercise here as they are always carrying her around in a sling. Anyways, we went to the mall and the kids got to pick out a backpack for school. Then we brought them to this place called Jump'n Gymn. They got to play there for an hour while Hugo and I shopped. Alarm clocks were high on our list of priorities as school starts at 7:45 and we have to walk about 20 min to get there.
This afternoon Hugo met our RT. He is in charge of our area and we need to pay him $25,000 Rups per month for "security". It is important to meet him soon after you arrive and you have to give him copies of your passports.
I met with Christiaan's teacher this afternoon as well. She seems like a very nice energetic person. She is very open to learning how to use the FM and to do what is best for Christiaan. This is very encouraging to us. The kids are very excited about school tomorrow. We have found out that there is also a preschool there for 3 and 4 year olds. Hopefully we can get Marc in there when he is 3. This morning he put on his hat and backpack and asked to go to the bus stop.
Later on we met some of our adult neighbours. They were very interested in us and asked lots of questions. They really wanted to see Brynne and hold her. Everyone here is very interested in the kids. They especially love the red hair...
This morning as well, I tried to show Ibu Tati how to use the laundry. There was a bit of a problem. The hose from the water reservoir to the machine didn't stay attached and there wasn't enough pressure to push the water up into the machine. So Ibu Tati ended up using a bucket to get water into the wash tub. Just after supper our landlord actually showed up with a piece of pipe and a saw apparently to fix the problem. Gotta love it, it only takes two things to fix that problem? Anyways, they need more parts (yeah...) so he said he would come tomorrow. They need to install a switch up on the roof that you turn on and that will activate the pump down below which should give enough pressure to push the water up. As it turns out we have a well. I guess that's better than getting the water from the river/garbage dump below us...
Tomorrow we hope to get a cell phone and join the millions of others around here who have one glued to their ear...

Sunday...

Yesterday we had a more quiet day at home. Hugo did go out to meet a guy who makes furniture. He lives not far from us and we’d like to get some things made. He also met our water and gas guy. Here we only drink bottled water. Our kompor (stove) and both showers each have their own bottle of gas. So we’ve bought another full bottle in the event that one of the other ones runs out. Also we had arranged on Friday that our landlord would come at 9:00 am to install sinks in our bathrooms. Well, he showed up at 11:00 and together with three other guys installed a sink only in the downstairs bathroom. The drain for the sink is a pipe that goes beside the toilet and the idea is that it will go down the shower drain… Nice… I think we are going to add some piping so that it goes all the way to the shower drain because now there is always dirty water on the floor. Later on we got the story that if we want one upstairs we have to pay for it ourselves. This is also the case if we want a flush toilet downstairs. There is a small possibility that we will be moving so we’re not sure about spending any money on this house until we know for sure.
This morning we went to the local international church which meets at the Bandung Alliance International School (BAIS) where the kids will go. We went there just for today because we aren’t sure yet where the reformed church we want to attend is and it is not so easy for us to get transportation with our limited Indonesian. There is a guy next door to us who is willing to drive us around, but we have to meet him yet. Anyways, at church we met an Indonesian guy who is 24 and was adopted by a British fellow 10 years ago. He considers himself a Christian but says that he doesn’t know much about the Bible and maybe we could teach him. Okaaaayyy. We explained to him that he might want to go to a different church as the international church is not a church that teaches on specific passages of scripture. There is a good possibility that he will attend church with us. We’ll see what happens there. He told us that his biological family is muslim and when he was ten he heard about Jesus and didn’t want to be muslim anymore so he left home and lived on his own for five years before being adopted. His father is coming back from Britain tomorrow and he says that he will introduce us to him. I did verify that he was adopted by English folks with one of the teachers from the school. Normally, when you meet an Indonesian they will not come to your house right away. Usually you need to know them for 3 months or so. But because Joseph is familiar with the western way of life, he did come and visit with us for a while. But he did ask us when he should leave, which I thought was very nice. He took Mikah and Christiaan home after church on his motorbike and then also Aidan after Aidan got up the guts to go on the bike. Christiaan was standing on the front and the other two were on the back. They thought it was great. It is quite a walk to the school from our house so we are thinking about either renting a motorbike or buying one. I think that it will be too much for Aidan to walk all that way twice a day and be in school for the whole day every day as well. At the school/church we met both Mikah and Christiaan’s teachers and Mikah saw the inside of her classroom. It is not very large, but it is a nice room. School starts on Tuesday of this week.
We have only been here a few days but we have already acquired more language. This is very exciting as there is a chance we could skip out of Unit 1, if the teachers like us enough… and if we pass the test too of course…
Tomorrow I’ll have to teach my Ibu’s how to use my washing machine, which is up on the roof by the way. Apparently it is too complicated and fancy for them. It is exactly like the one that I had in Sentani, so not too complicated at all…. Just a lot of work as the washing tub and spinning tub are two separate tubs (make any sense?). So this week we hope to get a few more things that we need like a microwave. I tried to heat up my “oven”, which is a metal box that you put over one of the burners on your kompor and it started to smoke and stink so I quickly turned it off. Later I found out that it is a new “stove” so we need to take it, the kompor, and the gas bottle outside and put it on high for about 5 hours to burn off any paint and chemicals that are on the inside. Okay, I guess that’s going to have to happen this week sometime too. Anyways, with only two burners on the kompor and this interesting oven thing, we think that a microwave would be quite useful. I also don’t have hot water at my kitchen sink so I need to boil water if I want to do dishes with warm water, which I do. Sometimes I feel like we’re camping out here.
Time to hit the hay! Till tomorrow! Thanks to all of you who have sent us notes! We love to hear from you, it’s really exciting to get email… Once we know our mailing address we’ll post it for you.

Sunday...

Yesterday we had a more quiet day at home. Hugo did go out to meet a guy who makes furniture. He lives not far from us and we’d like to get some things made. He also met our water and gas guy. Here we only drink bottled water. Our kompor (stove) and both showers each have their own bottle of gas. So we’ve bought another full bottle in the event that one of the other ones runs out. Also we had arranged on Friday that our landlord would come at 9:00 am to install sinks in our bathrooms. Well, he showed up at 11:00 and together with three other guys installed a sink only in the downstairs bathroom. The drain for the sink is a pipe that goes beside the toilet and the idea is that it will go down the shower drain… Nice… I think we are going to add some piping so that it goes all the way to the shower drain because now there is always dirty water on the floor. Later on we got the story that if we want one upstairs we have to pay for it ourselves. This is also the case if we want a flush toilet downstairs. There is a small possibility that we will be moving so we’re not sure about spending any money on this house until we know for sure.
This morning we went to the local international church which meets at the Bandung Alliance International School (BAIS) where the kids will go. We went there just for today because we aren’t sure yet where the reformed church we want to attend is and it is not so easy for us to get transportation with our limited Indonesian. There is a guy next door to us who is willing to drive us around, but we have to meet him yet. Anyways, at church we met an Indonesian guy who is 24 and was adopted by a British fellow 10 years ago. He considers himself a Christian but says that he doesn’t know much about the Bible and maybe we could teach him. Okaaaayyy. We explained to him that he might want to go to a different church as the international church is not a church that teaches on specific passages of scripture. There is a good possibility that he will attend church with us. We’ll see what happens there. He told us that his biological family is muslim and when he was ten he heard about Jesus and didn’t want to be muslim anymore so he left home and lived on his own for five years before being adopted. His father is coming back from Britain tomorrow and he says that he will introduce us to him. I did verify that he was adopted by English folks with one of the teachers from the school. Normally, when you meet an Indonesian they will not come to your house right away. Usually you need to know them for 3 months or so. But because Joseph is familiar with the western way of life, he did come and visit with us for a while. But he did ask us when he should leave, which I thought was very nice. He took Mikah and Christiaan home after church on his motorbike and then also Aidan after Aidan got up the guts to go on the bike. Christiaan was standing on the front and the other two were on the back. They thought it was great. It is quite a walk to the school from our house so we are thinking about either renting a motorbike or buying one. I think that it will be too much for Aidan to walk all that way twice a day and be in school for the whole day every day as well. At the school/church we met both Mikah and Christiaan’s teachers and Mikah saw the inside of her classroom. It is not very large, but it is a nice room. School starts on Tuesday of this week.
We have only been here a few days but we have already acquired more language. This is very exciting as there is a chance we could skip out of Unit 1, if the teachers like us enough… and if we pass the test too of course…
Tomorrow I’ll have to teach my Ibu’s how to use my washing machine, which is up on the roof by the way. Apparently it is too complicated and fancy for them. It is exactly like the one that I had in Sentani, so not too complicated at all…. Just a lot of work as the washing tub and spinning tub are two separate tubs (make any sense?). So this week we hope to get a few more things that we need like a microwave. I tried to heat up my “oven”, which is a metal box that you put over one of the burners on your kompor and it started to smoke and stink so I quickly turned it off. Later I found out that it is a new “stove” so we need to take it, the kompor, and the gas bottle outside and put it on high for about 5 hours to burn off any paint and chemicals that are on the inside. Okay, I guess that’s going to have to happen this week sometime too. Anyways, with only two burners on the kompor and this interesting oven thing, we think that a microwave would be quite useful. I also don’t have hot water at my kitchen sink so I need to boil water if I want to do dishes with warm water, which I do. Sometimes I feel like we’re camping out here.
Time to hit the hay! Till tomorrow! Thanks to all of you who have sent us notes! We love to hear from you, it’s really exciting to get email… Once we know our mailing address we’ll post it for you.

More photos...

The promised photos...

Bandung!!

Wow! We’re finally here at our first semi-permanent place in a while. It has been quite the trip. Thursday morning we were picked up just after 7:00 by an MAF guy who had hired a taxi to drive us to Bandung. It took us 3 hours to reach our house. The first two hours were highway driving at insane speeds of up to 140km/hr. We were packed in a Toyota Kijung which is a popular small SUV here. Our stuff had been brought ahead of time by Bob and Johnny from MAF. Once we reached the city of Bandung it took about an hour to reach the top of the hill on which our house is located. This was because it was the Indonesian day of independence so everyone was out and about. We sure were glad to finally be there. Where we live, what can I say. It is unlike anything you could imagine if you haven’t been here before. You know those photos from third world countries where you’ll have a hillside covered with houses, one on top of the other? Well that’s how we live. We have to walk down a very steep path to get to our “street” and then go down it to our house. Our street is about as wide as Hugo can stretch his arms out from side to side. We have no yard whatsoever. There is a small tiled area at the front of the house. Inside there is a small living room with Mikah’s bedroom off of it. Then you enter into a tiny, tiny kitchen. If any of you think that you don’t have enough cupboard space, just wait until I post a photo of my kitchen! Wow, it is puny! Off the kitchen is a dining room and also a washroom. The toilet is not an automatic flush one. We have to pour water down it from out of a water reservoir found in the washroom. There is a shower just hanging off the wall so you could shower and use the toilet at the same time, if you so desire… At this point there is no sink in the bathroom, but we met our landlord today and he assured us that he will come tomorrow morning at 9:00 am and install one in each bathroom. Phew, I was worried that I would have to keep brushing my teeth and washing my face at the kitchen sink… Continuing on with the tour, you go up a flight of carpeted, yes I said carpeted stairs (probably to hide the bad concrete job…) to the upstairs. There we have three bedrooms and one bathroom and an open area in the middle where we have our computer desk and a couch and an area where the kids can play. The upstairs bathroom is almost the same as downstairs except that it actually has an automatic toilet… Yeah!! Then you can go up another flight of stairs, this one tiled, to go up on the roof where we have quite a view. Up there is where our washing machine is, although we can’t use it right now as it doesn’t have power or water yet… There are also laundry lines there.
So that’s our house. I have been doing a lot of shopping to equip our house as it came very, very bare… We have a kompor in the kitchen. It’s a two burner gas stove. For baking you have this thing that’s kind of like an overgrown toaster oven… haven’t tried it yet… We must also drink only bottled water so we have a water dispenser. Anyways, I was talking about shopping. Wow! It’s pretty insane here. Yesterday three of the other MAF wives took me to this brand new store called Carefour. It’s like HomeDepot, Superstore and futureshop all rolled into one. It is bigger than any other store I’ve ever seen, except maybe Costco. But this store sells way more stuff than Costco does. By the time we were done I had about 5 full grocery carts of stuff. I was very thankful for the help of the MAF wives, I don’t know what we would have done without them. Today a single woman who is a pilot almost done her language training, took me to shop by oncot (probably spelled that wrong…). Oncot’s are van’s that have benches along the inside and they have a set route that they normally travel. There are different ones for different routes. You just need to get the right one. So you share your ride with whoever gets picked up along with way. Today we were squished in with about 10 people. Apparently you can get about 21 people (including kids) into one of them…. I wouldn’t want to test that theory… This is the cheapest mode of transportation. $1,000 Rupiah’s will get you quite far. To give you an idea of how much that is in Canadian $, $8300 Rups is one Canadian dollar. Anyways, she showed me some of the local shops like Circle K and tuju satubelas (7/11). She also brought me to a very large mall with a big grocery store that sells a lot of imported items. It is amazing all the stuff you can get here if you are willing to pay the money.
After we came home we had supper together with all the MAF families living here. We ordered pizza from pizza hut again! It’s so cheap here compared to at home…
So now it is the weekend and we have to fend for ourselves as the pembantu’s (house helpers) only come in Monday to Friday. I have two of them, Ibu Mesia and Ibu Tati. They are very nice women who actually speak a little English and are very glad to help you learn Indonesian. They came in and just took over. They shopped for fresh fruit, vegetables and meat for us at the market and prepared lunch. Nasi Goreng from scratch, yummy! I am very thankful for their help as there is so much to do.
One last thing that comes to mind is the call to prayer. This happens a few times a day including 4:30 am… yes you read right, 4:30 am! The speakers are not far from our house and it is LOUD!! The kids thankfully slept right through it all but Hugo and I didn’t…. Hopefully we eventually will…. There are a number of speakers set up around here and you can hear them all wailing. None of them play the same thing and none of them start at the same time.
So that’s the first impressions of Bandung!
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Our first day in Indonesia...

Our first day in Indonesia and MAF doesn’t waste any time. We were picked up at 9:00 am and wisked off to the police station where the MAF guy apologized profusely because Hugo only had a t-shirt on and not a shirt with a collar. This is very important here when going to government offices. Then we navigated the congested streets of Jakarta to the immigration office. As we bounced and rattled and squeaked along in the MAF van, which thankfully has working airco, we had a quite a view of Jakarta. The downtown east side of Vancouver is nothing compared to this. We were a bit late at the immigration office and it was rather busy so we waited. At 12:00 they close down for an hour so we had lunch at a little restaurant around the corner. Rice and various accompaniments was on the menu along with pineapple and papaya. After that we went back to the immigration office and waited again. Thankfully not that long. The MAF guy that does that paperwork is pretty persistent. At both the police station and the immigration office we were fingerprinted and they had to write down our height and weight, eye and hair colour etc… All very important information…. After that Hugo and Mikah, Aidan, Marc and Brynne took a taxi back to the guest house. Bob, the MAF guy, took Christiaan and I to visit the german audiologist that I had been emailing with. It was a crazy 1 hour drive. Not because it was so far, but because the traffic here is insane right now. Today is the Indonesian day of independence and therefore a big holiday that people like to get prepared for. It’s hard to describe exactly what it was like. There are cars and motorbikes and these little three wheeled taxis that belch black smoke constantly. There are quite a few people wearing masks over their mouths because of the bad air. We saw people living under bridges, washing clothes in a parking lot with water they pulled up out of a well in the parking lot. People are selling stuff everywhere. Even at busy stoplights. Anyways, the audiology clinic was quite nice and has everything that we need. They even have a clinic in Bandung. By the time we got home I was rather tuckered out. So we ordered pizza from the local Pizza Hut. The pizza is a lot smaller and has quite a thick crust. The meat lovers pizza that Hugo and I had had sliced hot dogs on it… and no ground beef. It was quite tasty actually.
This morning it is currently 6:30 and we are being picked up at 7:00 to drive to our new home in bandung. We are leaving early to try to avoid some of the holiday traffic. I don’t know when I can post again, hopefully tomorrow… You never know here in Indonesia…

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We're Here!!!!

Yup, we made it to Jakarta after many long hours of travel. At least 30 hours... probably more, I lost count after a while. We had an interesting journey. In Amsterdam they tried to tell us that we were only allowed 23 kg's per person and we had to go complain, and then found out that the woman had made a mistake. Then after the luggage was sorted out and we said good-bye to mom and dad Feunekes, we ran to the gate only to find that there was nothing there. There was a plane there but it was already loaded up and ready to go. We sort of panicked, especially Hugo who after asking someone about it ran his guts out to the transfer desk, which was empty. In the meantime I found out from the same woman that the gate was changed to another one a little ways down. I tried to find Hugo, but couldn't so I just took the kids to the gate. At least we were there even though I had no tickets or anything. Then a profusely sweating Hugo showed up and we were the last to go through security. I should add that as we were travelling through Heathrow, we were only allowed to take a few things in clear plastic bags. Then we had to fight a little to get them to let us have our strollers on board and Brynne's car seat. We pleaded that we were going to have a 6 hour layover in Heathrow so we NEEDED the strollers. After a chat with the captain, we were allowed... Yeah! So we made it to Heathrow and took a shuttle from one terminal to another where we viewed the guts of the airport. Interesting... We hung around the same spot the entire time as it was quiet and had a few things for the kids to do. Then the minute we found out what gate we had to go to to catch our flight to HongKong we were off. Almost as soon as we got there we could board. Without one of the strollers unfortunately... At least we had the other. So we then had a 12 hour flight to HongKong. What a neat place to land in. There are so many islands. We had a short and pleasant stay in the airport there. Then we flew to Jakarta which took about 5.5 hours (I think...). This flight was with Cathay Pacific. I must say that we really notice a difference between Asian airlines and the rest. The service is impeccable on board the Asian airlines. Then we arrived in Jakarta and got through immigration without any hiccups (Yeah!!). We got a few guys to help us unload our luggage off the belt and discovered that we were missing the red stroller and our biggest suitcase which has most of Hugo's clothes and a lot of mine in and the electric grilling plate that I got for my birthday. We really hope that we get that one back.... After all that work to make sure that we had enough clothes for Hugo... Thankfully I found an underwear and a clean t-shirt that he can wear tomorrow when we go to the police station and the immigration. We had a good drive to down town Jakarta in air conditioned vehicles. The first thing Christiaan and Aidan did when we got out of the airport, was take off their shirts which the INdonesian guys hanging around the airport thought was hilarious. So now we're in the guest house here in Sentani for two nights and thursday morning we will drive to Bandung and get settled into our new home there!

We're in Heathrow!!

Well, we made it to Heathrow. So that's good. I have about 1 minute of internet time left....
The kids are going crazy in this tiny play area here in Terminal 1. Time to go get some food...

Last night in Holland...

It is, D.V., our last night in Holland as I am writing this. We found out earlier today that our original flight from Amsterdam to Heathrow was cancelled. We managed to get a hold of our travel agent in Canada and she booked us on an earlier flight. Hopefully this flight isn't cancelled as well. The only fun is that it leaves a lot earlier, which means we have to leave for the airport by 6:00 am and we will have another 6 hour layover in Heathrow. And... we are not allowed to take much on the plane. Certainly no form of entertainment for the kids... This will make getting on and off the plane and changing planes a lot easier as we won't have much to carry, but we are having fun trying to fit all our carryon stuff into our totes. So we aren't bringing any pillows with us anymore....
Last Friday we took Hugo's parents out for a nice dinner at Wok and Grill Mr. Hu. Nice name huh? It's a neat place. You can pick out all the raw meat and veggies that you want and you give it to a cook and he stir fries it for you and you can pick from about 10 different sauces. Delicious! Lots of sea food to pick from and for the grill there was steak and lamb and pork and chicken....
Saturday we had another open house for whoever wanted to see us yet. Quite a lot of people came. It was nice to visit with them. Today we heard Rev. DeJager preach. He used to be pastor in Neerlandia.
So the Lord willing, the next post I will make will be from Indonesia. Please pray with us that we will have a good and a safe trip. (it's about 18 hours of flying plus any layover time....)

Date Night!

Wow! Tonight Hugo and I actually went on a date. Pretty exciting really. We took the bus to Enschede. I have to say that the bus system here is really efficient. The bus often has its own lane in the middle of the road, up higher than the car lane, and the driver can change the traffic lights so that the bus never has to wait for traffic! We had a nice dinner up high overlooking the main city centre area and then walked around and shopped a little bit (not much room for more stuff in our luggage....). I have to say that the weather here has taken a turn southward on the thermometer. Today, after dusting them off vigorously, I donned long pants and socks. And when we went out I wore my, gasp, fall jacket! (It's August!!) It was quite crisp outside this evening. Anyways, after shopping we sat out on a terrace and "listened"(felt) a couple local bands play. Couldn't do a whole lot of talking so we people watched... Very relaxing stuff indeed. Only 4 more sleeps to go! Can't quite believe it....

Bad Bentheim...

Today we went to the German city of Bad Bentheim. There there is a very old castle which is first written about around the year 1050. It was neat to walk the very same paths that knights in shining armour did so long ago.

This evening I did something that I've actually kind of (gasp) missed doing. Vacuuming... believe it or not, it actually felt good to make something (besides dishes) clean!! Yesterday we went to the market in Enschede and then visited Hugo's brother Arjen and his wife Renate and their two kids. Uncle Arjen has a Ninja bike, so of course we took photos....

Only five more sleeps until we leave for Indonesia!??

Back in Enschede again!

We're in communication mode again. We spent the last week with the Feunekes family at a farm camping lodge type place in Winterswijk. It was a really nice week together. Especially seeing as we haven't seen a lot of the family in seven years, and some never before. We had quite a week. Monday was my birthday. Spent the morning cleaning the house we'd been staying in in Groningen and then we had a 2.5 hour drive to the camping. In the beginning of the week we had some rainy weather so we spent an afternoon at the local pool, which the kids thought was fabulous. On Thursday we did some shopping at the local shopping street. Really neat. On Friday we went to the Eftelling. It is a very large theme park built around the drawings of Anton Peek. There is a fairytale section where many fairytales are kind of acted out by mannequins some that actually moved too. It's incredibly well done. Then there are many different rides you can go on. It's kind of like Disney land. We discovered that Mikah has a stomach of stone and Aidan reminded us that he doesn't. He threw up before we even left the camping. Marc threw up on the way too.... They were fine after that thankfully. Mikah and Christiaan both went on roller coasters. One is called the python and is basically an entire minute of blackout. Mikah also went on the pirate boat that swings back and forth higher and higher... Aidan and I went on an old wooden roller coaster called the Pegasus. It doesn't go upside down. It just goes up really high and you loose your stomach on the way down. Neither of us got sick, but I think we were both glad when it was done.... Click here if you want to see more about the Eftelling: http://www.efteling.nl/home.aspx

Going up the first big hill on the Pegasus...

Some pics of us at the Eftelling.

Saturday we went to a corn maze in Germany. We grownups found our way throught the maze, but Aidan and his cousin Anne-Marieke kind of got left behind in the maze... much to their dismay. They were both in tears when they were found. We took a family photo there under a big tent which they had filled up with hay bales and dried corn kernels for kids to play in. They also had a skelter track there with some big skelters to go around on. Very fun! On Sunday we took the camping's tractor, a 1975 Massey Ferguson, and wagon for a two hour tour of the countryside. What a beautiful place! We came across a large group of people out for a ride in old fashioned horse drawn buggies all decked up in their sunday best.

So now we're back in Enschede for our last week in Holland. I think that we are all ready for a more permanent place to call home. We have found out that MAF has a home for us in Bandung and it has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2 storey's. Always nice to know...