Sri Lanka Bound

I leave tomorrow, I am looking forward to this trip; it will allow me the opportunity to cover programs that have never been covered before because of the security situation. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the situation does not deteriorate to a level that it will be deemed impossible to travel.

I will arrive in Colombo on the 24 March and will be attending a conference until 31 March. After that, I will join the team and spend the next three weeks getting to know the issues facing the delegation as well as covering our programs. This will be my first trip under my new title as regional communication delegate so I am incredibly excited and anxious to start.

On 19 April, I will depart for Washington, DC, for a series of meetings and a few “brown-bags” (non-formal presentations). Returning to DC will be really energizing for me. I still vividly remember arriving in DC alone and with only enough money to manage a room in a group house (money that came from my parents). I was starting grad-school and getting ready to live with a friend from Peace Corps. Three years later, I was leaving DC with my Masters, a friend from PC that evolved into family, my first consultancy under my belt, a true love found and lost and job that was taking me to Indonesia. I went from broke and alone, to leaving a world that I fought tooth-and-nail to build. It will be a great homecoming.

Following DC I will take a few days of personal time and fly to Omaha (around 27 April). I will spend the week with my family visiting and decompressing from (literally) a world of travel. I do not need to explain all the reason visiting my family is exciting and necessary for my heart and mental health. After that, I will leave for a conference in Portland, OR, from 3-6 May, and then it is back to Aceh around 9 May. I will have been gone for almost one-and-a-half months so I will have a ton of work to catch-up on…two weeks later I will leave again.

I will try to update you all from Sri Lanka. My love and my best.

Click here to read my new story it just went up on the website.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

So I wish it was that simple. Unfortunately, it is plane crashes, boat sinkings, earthquakes and mudslides. Indonesia is an archipelago unlike any in the world. A land made and continually renewed through “disaster.” The people here have come to expect and cope with the fits of nature, but when man makes his own disaster, everyone feels a different sense of tragedy. As we are all mourning those who suffered in the recent plane crash I can’t help but wonder what is next. In less than three months two boats have sank, two planes have met tragic ends, several earthquakes have plagued the most rural of populations, rains have flooded the largest cities, bird flu has bred fear and threatened local economies, dengue fever has taken more lives than all the rest combined and I haven’t yet gotten to the mudslides. Suffering is a part of daily life here, it is an unfortunate truth.

I am fine; I no longer understand what fine means but whatever it means, I am that. I have been traveling almost continually since my last post. I was in Aceh for three days but was called to the capital for a series of emergency meetings regarding a vaccination campaign. I just returned to Aceh, another turbulent and shaky flight, twisting and turning in the heavy winds.

While I have been away I witnessed several vaccinations, it was an awesome feeling to be a part of such a noble pursuit. A few days ago I took part in celebration: Indonesia is one year free of polio, a hard fought victory in a much greater battle for the long-term health of the Republic’s future. Last week I attended several meetings for a crash immunization campaign for Jakarta. The government, and a series of local and international organizations, are going to target street children and the poorest regions of the capital—who bore the brunt of the most recent floods—in an inspiring effort. I am so humbled to be a part of this. Sitting in these meetings, planning, working with the press, working with the partners: it is such a magnificent feeling to sense the goodness in people.

These are my less serious observations from four weeks of travel in Indonesia:

I met a beautiful women at a hotel bar the other day. She was stunning enough to cause everyone in the room to focus on her ungodly beautiful eyes, me being the dorkiest of hotel guests I paid the least attention—though I may have taken a private glance from time to time. After a while she worked her way over to me and introduced herself. She had an awesome looking tattoo on her arm so I asked what it meant. “it’s a number but you have to guess.” I sadly muttered “seven, seven, seven.” She giggled and said “close, it is six, six, six.” I giggled awkwardly, grabbed my bag and ran to my room—God sends his own signs.

On a recent flight, I sat next to two sweet, older, Indonesian women wearing traditional jilbaps. As the drinks came, the woman sitting near the window (I was in the isle seat) ordered O.J. I was wearing a white linen shirt. The stewardess gave her a glass nearly full. I had an instant revelation: she was going to spill on me. The women, un-happy with the amount of O.J. in her glass asked the stewardess to add more O.J. Now we entered the waiting game. Forty-five minutes later, my eyes remained transfixed on that lightly sipped glass. This wait for the spilling was almost unbearable. Turbulence, more turbulence, and the glass was now taunting me, making fun. The plane was bouncing through the clouds like a ping-pong ball but that damn glass just shook, taunting me. Finally, as the landing gear dropped and the stewardess came to collect the last of the trash my window seated friend handed her juice over, I was giddy with anticipation…

As the stewardess started apologize profusely I wore a euphoric grin, it was now over. Covered in O.J. I could finally relax.

“It was on time, only a little bit late,” the best quote from the worst press conference I have ever been a part of.

I was told on a Saturday to be at a press conference on Monday and had no clothes, went on an emergency shopping spree and ended up looking like an Easter egg. At said press conference, I was told, two minutes before it stated, that I had to give remarks to the press.

I had to take a flight in a storm the other day and was the only passenger on a 30 seater. The stewardess said, “I’m guessing you don’t need the emergency speech so have fun and let me know if you need anything.” They only took off because of who I work for, they did a great favor but it was hysterically weird being the only person on a plane;

My Frenchy is tired of my travel; she has patiently just left on our vacation without me because my newest round of travel came on too short of notice to allow me to join on the trip I had planned. We have seen each-other four times in five weeks and I may see her one more time before I leave again for 5-8 weeks.

I know this is a big blog post, sorry, I have little time. I am now the regional communicator and will be going to Sri Lanka on the 22rd of March and should be their until around the 19th of April. I may be getting access to the East of Sri Lanka which is a hard region to get access to due to the recent security situation but if I can go it will be awesome. I also have to take a few other trips during this tour and will not make it back to Aceh until May 10th or later. I am frantically trying to arrange a trip that involves two countries and more villages and cities than I can count.

Traveling as much as I have been lately is frustrating and invigorating at the same time. On the one had I am stuck staying in remote places alone, eating hotel food and dining alone, traveling alone and rarely interacting with anyone on a level beyond a surface conversation (or worse) a fractured, special English conversation. On the other hand, this is my dream. This is something that I have wanted and worked for most my adult life and it is all unfolding in front of me. It is humbling to see how much trust people have in my talents and how much God sheds his blessing on my life. Okay, I am off.

Enjoy the photos...

As the only passenger on the flight I had to keep myself busy so I snapped a few shots, the next is a personal favorite...

Pilot trying to see out the window, we are a few thousand feet off the ground as he is doing this, all smiles

The child is weighed and information is recoded on weight, height, etc. Then the child sees the needle and wonders what that’s for…

Terrific pain ensues as the child receives her vaccination

Lastly the child's finger is marked with a purple dot to help with the house to house survey following the campaign

Is that not the cutest baby face ever

I found this grandmother and daughter to be absolutely stunning. They have the exact same eyes and reaction, they smiled the moment I put the camera down

Terror and joy, these are healthy vaccinated children, if only they new that was a good thing...

Rare to see a group of smiling faces, most kids thought I was going to vaccinate them and fled in terror

Look at this studly scribe in white v-neck…