February 1, 2008

My hair on humidity (yes, my hair thinks it's a drug).

February 2, 2008

These are Papuan green beans.  They are AMAZINGLY long!  They taste like the green beans you're used to, with maybe just a slightly different flavor, but when cooked with a little salt they are VERY yummy. 

February 8, 2008

The Advantage of Wearing Pants That Are Too Short (Warning: a rant).

Part of the Indonesian culture is the love of the bidet…you know that funny French toilet that sprays water at areas we Westerners are not used to exposing to that type of treatment.  In many public toilets in Indonesia, there isn’t a bidet, but there is a hose hooked up to a faucet to use for this same purpose (also because water is more readily available than TP in many places).  And here in my office building, there is one girls’ toilet for all 25 or so of us to share, and it comes equipped with the hose apparatus and a floor drain.  To use this hose, you would have to get completely undressed (I assume because I haven’t tried it out), and I mean even socks and shoes have to come off, or else you would be entirely drenched by the time you were finished, right?  So there are times, like for instance RIGHT NOW, when I have to wait for 20 minutes, fairly uncomfortably I might add, to use the toilet, while someone can get undressed, use the facilities, basically have a shower with the hose, dry themselves with an entire roll of toilet paper (again am assuming, but basing this on the mountain of TP in the trash can by 8:00am), dress themselves, and then wipe up all of the water that they happened to spray everywhere (and I mean it gets EVERYWHERE), because the TWO of us here who are not Indonesian posted a large sign inside of the bathroom demanding that there is to be no water left on the toilet seat.  After all of that, I will FINALLY get to use the bathroom, and will probably emerge with wet pant cuffs.

Don’t know about you, but I happen to love the convenience and intended use of toilet paper, and wish others did too. 

Have a clean and fresh day!

February 9, 2008 - Lunchtime for the Smiths

Cumi-cumi bakar - grilled squid

Ikan - fish  before and after (am not sure what Eric's stomach is made of, but it must resemble steel.)

February 10, 2008

How to fly halfway across the world….a survival guide (Timika to South Dakota), by Eric

You start your trip out tired….that’s because you got up at 3am so you could get your mandatory 4 hours of work in.  You rush back down to Tembagapura to get your bags, then continue down to the lowlands.  Top speed is 40kph, and you are clocked, so you cannot make any time up driving if you are running late.  You park the vehicle and catch the shuttle for the 5 minute ride to the airport.

After checking in (it is a quaint process, NOT involving computers), you hand your bags to the gentleman who weighs them on an old fashioned agricultural scale, then throws them on the back of a wagon that will be towed to the plane when the time comes.

You then are taken to the “departure terminal”, which consists of an open-air room with chain link walls, wooden benches and a few ceiling fans, lazily spinning away at the sweltering heat.  You sit, and sweat.  At some point, the plane comes in, after some further waiting, you are cleared to hop on to the “New Delhi” bus that takes you to the plane.  The plane – a 737 (a 3^rd world mainstay) is sitting at the “gate” which is actually just an asphalt pad next to the runway, surrounded by the lush lowlands jungle.

After everyone boards, the plane takes off from the jungle airstrip, and the marathon has begun…You won’t get a chance to lay in a bed for the next 27 hours.

The flight from Timika to Bali is usually uneventful.  You are pretty much flying from the extreme east of Indonesia to the mid-western islands.  Sometimes it’s a bit bumpy, but most of the time it is clear, and many, many islands can be seen on the flight.  After 3 and a half hours, you touch down to the tourist destination of Bali…

When you get to Bali, you must go down the portable stairs, and make your way amongst airport service vehicles and baggage trucks to get to the domestic terminal to get your bags (the domestic airline won’t check your bags through internationally).  You then have to walk with all of your bags over to the international terminal, politely turning down many offers for “taksi” or “transport”.  After security checks, ticketing, paying exit taxes, airport taxes, clearing customs, you are in the international terminal.  You board the plane, wheels up and you are out of Indonesia after half a day of travel.

This portion of the flight typically has the most turbulence.  A good third of the flight is over the island of Borneo, and there are often tropical storms lingering near the island.  The flight is five and a half hours, but it usually goes by quickly.  The good service, and good food are all a novelty at this point, and it proves a good distraction until touchdown in Hong Kong.

Once you arrive in Hong Kong, you have to go through another security checkpoint.  This can be somewhat challenging, especially as the day has already been very long, you have been up for some 18 hours, your regular bedtime has come and gone.  You have to get your documents in order, laptop out of its case etc… and all you really want to do is go to bed.   After clearing security, you then make a beeline to the airline lounge.  The main order of business is to take a much needed shower.  The sweltering heat of Timika and Bali, rushing around with suitcases, going through multiple security checkpoints, sitting and waiting, standing in line, sweating the entire time has taken a toll on “personal freshness”.    You take a quick shower and grab some water (dehydration is very noticeable after 8+ hours flying).  The tiredness is really setting in now…  and you still have to get to the right gate at the right time with the required documentation, and make it though yet one more security screen.

You get on the plane, find your seat.  This is the long haul, and it is a 747.  Before take-off, you get all of the things you will need for the 13hr (going west) flight:  noise cancelling headphones, ipod, books, pillows etc…  You hardly pay attention as the giant airliner takes off…you are numb.  Fairly quickly, they start to serve “dinner”.  It is about 1am.  You just want to sleep, but you have to stay awake, knowing in a few hours you will be hungry for “breakfast”.

After eating, you settle back to get some sleep.  If you are one of those lucky people who can sleep on an airplane, enjoy, if you are not….well, there is only another 10 hours to kill.  To compound the issue, your pilot is riding the jetstream to save fuel and increase speed, which it does, but it also causes a few bumps.  The bumps aren’t scary, in a 747 they are more like wiggles, but it is enough to keep you from sleeping soundly.  You also have a very shortened day, as your plane and the sun are going opposite directions, daylight only lasts 5 hours.  By the time the plane starts the final approach to Los Angeles you are not coherent, and have no concept of time, especially when you realize that you arrived at the gate 2 hours before you left Hong Kong.

At this point, you must overnight, as there are no more domestic flights leaving LAX until tomorrow.  Two hours after landing you are in bed in an airport hotel  (you don’t even want to remember the extremely rude taxi driver who got you there, tossing your luggage around because he was mad that he didn’t get a better fare).  You sleep soundly.  Don’t get used to it. It will be the only night for about a week that you sleep well.

You get to the airport, thinking that you are almost too early (3 hours).  You quickly realize that you might have not given yourself enough time.  The line waiting for check in stretches for hundreds of yards, and there are only 3 counters working.  You finally check in, then you get to wait in another line to put your luggage onto the security scan.  You then get in another line to get through security and into the terminal.  By this point your night of rest has been canceled out by standing in line and getting shouted at.

As you are boarding the airplane, you notice that the people are dressed much more differently (oh that’s right, you are back in the U.S.!).  The flight to Denver is a very quick 2.5 hours, hardly enough to get the refreshment cart through the cabin (you wonder why they even bother…they aren’t even friendly about it…and the lady in the next row…well, she is obviously likes attention, and is under the impression that the purpose of the flight is for her to get constant attention from the flight attendants).  You look at the scenery, and remember….snow, something that you lived with every day in the past…is now a novelty.  Oh yeah, it is very bumpy coming into DIA from the west, especially in an (relatively small) MD 80.

For the first time in the entire trip, you transfer from one plane to another…without having to leave and re-enter airport security, AND you are not sweating.  For the last few months you have been sweating constantly, and to not sweat, and be in dry, cool air…well, it’s amazing.

The last leg of the flight will be on a “puddle jumper”, even smaller than 737 that the journey started on – a 19 seat King Air.  There is no jetwalk.  You walk out onto the tarmac, and step onto the plane.  There are no overhead bins.  You bring everything that you can fit on your lap or under the tiny seat.  Everything else you check, and they load it onto the back of the plane.  The ride is somewhat uneventful, and it takes two and a half hours to fly a distance that took 45 minutes on the 747.  You also realize you are not in Kansas anymore, you are much north of it.  The heating system of the airplane cannot keep up with the -46 degree outside air temperature, and you are getting cold.  You make the final approach to the airport, marveling at how the very young looking pilots can make such a smooth instrument approach in the freezing fog.

Wheels down, you pull up to the terminal, the young pilot drops the door/stairs, and you dash across the tarmac through the bitter cold wind to the terminal.  The long journey is over….or wait….it’s only halfway over.  You don’t live here anymore, you are just visiting.  You live on Papua…..????

February 13, 2008

More food pics.  This is ikan dabu-dabu: fish with fresh salsa, and one of Eric's favorite Indonesian foods.  I just like the teeth!

February 14, 2008

It was one of those moments…

when you just take a deep breath and smile.  What else was I going to do as I was surrounded by 23 Indonesian women who were giggling, speaking a language I couldn’t understand, and taking an uncountable number of pictures…and wanting me to be in every one of them?  It once again was a reminder that I was not in Kansas anymore Toto.  But it will probably be one of the most memorable Valentine’s Days I’ll ever have:  spending it with a group of twenty-something year old Indonesian women all dressed in shades of pink (because it IS Valentine’s day afterall), eating Indonesian snacks like coconut rice patties wrapped in banana leaf, shrimp fritters, and others.  What I realized from this was how happy they all were to be here, and to be together, bonding in the workplace.  Women in the workplace is a fairly new initiative here in Indonesia, and many of the girls here face disapproving parents back home for doing this thing that supposedly belongs to men. 

Honestly, I have never seen so many people be such hams in front of a camera.  :)  The biggest ham of all is Widi, who works for Eric, and she is right in front, laying on the table.

February 16, 2008

Grocery Store

Vegetables?  What are those?  We have a lovely selection of ready-made Jell-o for your convenience though.

I love the different colors in these peppers, although they are too hot for most humans (excluding Eric) to eat.

February 18, 2008

Just another weekend in a third world country

Just to try something different on a weekend, I decided to aquire some sort of allergy.  It started on Saturday with me turning into a giant bright pink itchy hive, then a trip to the hospital, followed by a shot of epinephrine (basically a pure adrenaline rush and I recommend it to any extreme sports junky), and finished with having to cut off one of my rings with a dull, rusty hand-crank saw the size of a Dremel tool.  And I'm not even exaggerating - just ask Eric, who probably has a thumb sprain from turning the crank for at least 20 minutes.  It was a fabulous third-world experience.  Today after all the steroids have taken effect, I'm only just slightly itchy all over and my skin is only slightly pink and blotchy.  The doctor and I can't seem to sort out what may have caused it.  So my theory is that God is trying to break me of my caffeine habit, and in which case, everyone around me in the mornings will suffer.  Sorry, Eric.  (It sounds just as logical as any other explanation, doesn't it?)

February 24, 2008

We decided to go to the lowlands this weekend to get rid of some of the stir-craziness.  Shopping at the art gallery was first priority for me and my Papuan art compulsion. 

Me with Nikodemous and Sven.

In Papuan culture pigs are very valuable.  They are a form of currency, and show how much wealth a person has.  This is a painting at the gallery, and if you look close enough you will see just how valuable pigs are.  And I can hear your "EWWWWWW," all the way over here.

We went to a seafood restaurant in Timika and had fish, squid and prawns.  Everything was great,  including the ambiance: your feet getting run over by a toad, and dogs peeking in once in a while to see what's going on.  We've been to this particular restaruant before, so we knew what to expect.  Still, many of the other Americans who were down at the resort aren't nearly as "brave" and couldn't believe we would trust food preparation in a very third-world place like Timika.  Everything is fried or grilled so it is very safe to eat.

After a full day of relaxing, we drove back home...back up into the clouds.  As you can see, this makes it difficult to get any decent scenery pictures much of the time, and is why we STILL didn't get any good ones this weekend. 

This is our road home.

A panoramic view from our office.  You can't see them all, but there are 10 portals going into the mountain for the underground mines.  The ore stockpile is on the right, where roughly 250,000 tons per day pours out from the underground and surface mines.  Needless to say, it's a very busy place.

February 27, 2008

Package Day

It’s a big day: the day DHL emails us and says they have a package of ours sitting in their little trailer.  It’s like that same anticipation you associate with birthdays or Christmas.  Presents!!  And even though I ordered it myself from Amazon, it’s still just as exciting because I don’t know EXACTLY what’s in it because DHL repackages everything to be sent here.  It could be beef jerky or granola bars or wasabi fried peas.  I’m getting excited just thinking of the possibilities!  And I’m really looking forward to the satisfaction of being able to open a wrapper and eat whatever is inside without having to cook it.  The next few weeks are going to be great!  I won’t have to come up with yet another combination of chicken and rice for lunches, at least for a little while.  :)

February 28, 2008

Star Trek as It Relates to Real Life

For the third time this week, my work computer has decided to reboot itself for no apparent reason.  I just moved the mouse and POOF, everything shut down, and then started back up again.  I suspect Gremlins, or Tommyknockers as they are called in underground mining; mainly they are known to us as MIS or the Computer Services department.  Two weeks ago they moved into my computer and changed the desktop wallpaper to some kind of company-related photo with statements to motivate me...and it’s locked so I can’t change it.  "Farewell," pretty picture of Montana snow-covered mountains (I kept that on there because of the snow in the picture, in order to make me think that my office is cooler than it actually is: 81 degrees).  And then they took over my screen saver, too, putting up a flashing company logo and taking away my very clever, nerdy marquee that stated, “Obey gravity – it’s the Law,” and I do not have administrative rights to change it.  

Being a nerd has at least helped me identify what it is that I have become a part of by taking this job: The Borg. 

I have been assimilated. 

Thank you, Star Trek.