Toraja 2.0

How am I greeted back to the pesantren from an awesome weekend? A broken modem and mati lampu. Obviously both passed, but it was still not how I wanted to return. I was also greeted with a week off from school and a bunch of little kids running around playing sports, but I'll save Muin Cup and some tangents for later.

The weekend was pretty fantastic. Jimmy arrived at the pesantren late Wednesday night. The next day he got to see my everyday life a little (though his lunch was better than normal). It was nice to be able to have another ETA see here. He didn't say too much, but I think it was a little more remote and maybe not as ideal as he was thinking (I tried to tell him!). He did see the positive things as well and reminded me that I do have an interesting situation, just not as good, or any where nearly the same, as some of the other ETAs.

After waiting for a bus, then having an interesting ride where the Indonesians decided that we had to be friends with the other two bules on the bus, we got into Rantepao late at night.

That night pretty well set the tone for the weekend: little sleep, lots of hanging out, and plenty of getting to relax with friends. As much as I like some of the Indonesians I know here, it's just different. I can't really be myself around them; some of that is self imposed, but there is simply a different level of expectations here. For me part of it is being in a pesantren and part of it is being remote. I intially thought it might be me, but I've talked to other bules and they've had similar opinions. As you'd think, being a little fake all the time is very draining, but it also means that when I/we get to let loose and meet up with American friends, we are a little ridiculous!

The highlight of the next day was walking through rice fields near Ab’s place (he stays in a hotel in the outskirts of town, near his school). This ended up with Alexa, Jimmy, Ab, and Sarah wading in a big pit of mud while I was the camera man (all my experience doing that as a kid made me not so eager to hop in). That wasn’t enough though, and next up was Sarah belly flopping into the mud for $20; I’ve got a good video below. That was really entertaining, and so much fun she did it 2x!

Dinner was us going all way across town for nothing more than fried chicken and bakso (why do restaurants even have a menu in this country?!). We were all kinda grouchy by the time we left, but got over ourselves and had another great night before waking up at 630am to go rafting.

The rafting trip started with a drive up into the hills in a 45 year old Land Rover. After that it was a steep, 1hr decent to the water. I was tired just carrying myself, so I don’t know how a couple of those guys carried everything down.
I’m often amazed here at how much physical labor gets done without a 2nd thought; the most stunning to me was seeing women making gravel. Yes, I mean ‘making’ gravel; they were bashing river rocks with hammers (no eye glasses of course!). Sometimes I wonder about this country; ‘making’ gravel seems pretty backward doesn’t it?

Once we caught our breaths at the bottom we got some details and a little coaching, at which point, I thought ‘oh, we’re going rafting. Huh, didn’t really think about that’. In other words, I had approached this trip like most things I’ve done in Indo: someone proposes something and I say sure, why not? Then I get there and realize that I’m in way over my head; I constantly find myself in this situation.
Nonetheless the rafting was TON of fun, though the rapids were pretty minor after the 1st 10seconds. One of the highlights was a cliff jump we all did. It was really interesting to see how everyone dealt with getting themselves ready to jump in; my strategy was don’t think about it, just do it (see above).

When we got back we just hung out for quite a while talking and sipping. It was fantastic to be able to sit around and chat with people about real topics for a change. It’s pretty amazing how much you can enjoy that when you don’t normally have such an opportunity.

I've put up some of the pics from the weekend up: here

The travels continue this weekend with a trip through Manado to Bunaken with at least 10 other ETAs. Should be a great time! I may try to get a post in before that