A New Life

We have now been in Jabi for about 2 weeks. In this blog we want to give you a little idea of the sights and style of our life in Indonesia. There is SO much we could write about, however, we'll just stick to a few highlights and add on in time.

To explain our present situation, we are training for our respective positions: Admin & HR for Carmen and Watsan (Water & Sanitation) for Russ. The two people that are training each of us are actually a married couple. We'll train with them each until they leave in about 1 week for their contract break of one month, during which, we'll cover for them. This works out really well because we get a very good training period and a very good practice time before we then move on to our intended positions on Nias Island (pronounced Nee'-as). Starting in February, a small team will be going to Nias to set up the program there and we will join them around mid-March sometime. So far, training is going VERY well for both of us.

As to where we're living.....

This is the main Medair house and office in Jabi. The closest building is our office, the second one is our kitchen/eating area with bathrooms behind it, and the third has a bunch of bedrooms and lounge area (no couches or anything!). We have about 15 people living here including National staff and Expats or "Bule's" as they like to call us (pronounced "Boo'-lay") or white person. :) Because there are so many people that live there, Russ and I live in this house:

This is the back of our house (there's a little porch in the front) and it's actually a house built by Habitat for Humanity for a local family. Each family that lost their house got a new one. However, the person that owns this house lost both his parents - he's an 18 year old teenager. He decided that he didn't want to live alone and now lives with an Aunt & Uncle, so Medair rents this house from him. Eventually, we should be getting a toilet and shower built in the back. All the supplies are in the house waiting to be used.... As it is right now, Russ and I have to walk to the main house to use the toilets and showers, which by the way, are squatty potties and "Mandies" or these large concrete tubs which hold water that we ladel over our bodies. We're really getting used to the whole system now! This is a part of the road we walk down to get to the main base.

This is the community water spot - the toilets are unfortunately not well maintained, but at least there are some water taps and Russ & I have been using them to wash our undies. Just to the left of the blue shelter, which is for bathing, are the water taps. I must say, it's quite the bonding experience to wash your underwear by hand with your spouse at a Community Water center for all to witness. :) What fun! The big concrete foundation on the left side of the picture is where the mosque used to be.... before the Tsunami. Now there's a make-shift one built just down the road (behind the picture) right across from our house.

These houses are the types of houses that you see all over the place that were built right after the Tsunami as temporary housing. Many people still use them as many of the new houses are not yet equipped with Watsan units, hence the reason why we are here. The little teepee-looking thing in between the two houses is what to me looks like a greenhouse, but they are actually used to dry fish! Pretty cool! There's actually a lot of seafood eaten around here.

On the top, is a picture of one of the Medair vehicles. In most projects, Medair buys the vehicles, but in Indonesia they are all rented because of the way the budget was laid out by the donors. On the bottom, is a picture of Russ and his new dream truck. It's a Mitsubishi Colt. He's thinking of buying one and shipping it out to Canada & perhaps pimping it out, you know... 4X4 engine, lift kit, bigger tires, nice stereo & cool interior, shiny red metalic paint on the outside with orange flames..... can't you just picture it?? (It's actually quite uncomfortable to drive in!) Most of the time it's locals who do the driving for us - they know the way it's done out here.

Generally, every day after work, we head out to the beach:

Here's a few pics of where we swim. The waves have been quite a bit bigger the last few days than what you see here, but the water is beautiful. Very warm, but still refreshing. This beach is a nice bay and is about a 5 minute walk from our office and can make any bad day into a good one. We're getting a lot of good exercise by swimming everyday. The sunsets here are amazing as well. This is definitely a great perk about working at the Jabi project site.

This is a picture of me (Carmen) on the walk to the beach.

Well, I hope that gives you all a small idea to the type of place we are living and working in. There's so much more, but you can only write about so much at one time. At least while we're here in Jabi we'll be able to continue updating our blog. We've got a great internet connection here.... apparently another luxury for being at this site.

I hope you're praising God with us for everything he's provided!