These past few weeks have been surprisingly enlightening. When I finished up school for the summer I knew I would have a few weeks to prepare myself for this trip. But never did I imagine that my passion for South East Asia could become so deeply rooted so quickly!
My reading list became about 300 pages longer yesterday when I made a trip to the library. I'm reading up about some of the corruption in Indonesia, specifically in the province I will be living in. It's really fascinating. For a 15 min synopsis of some of the political turmoil faced by the Acehnese people you can watch this Journeyman video from YouTube. Filmed in April of 2000, it is an infomative view at the situation and also allows a neat glimpse of the people, language, land and culture of Aceh. There are a few clips that may be disturbing to some.
In 2005 rebel members of the Free Aceh Movement signed a peace agreement with the Indonesian government and disarmed much of its forces. Recently however, emotions are again running high.
While I have been delving further into the contextually thicker experiences that lay ahead of me I wanted to share a bit about the simple things I will encounter during my stint in the archipelago.
The first of which is this crazy lookin' fruit. It's called rambutan (RAHM-BOO-TAWN). In Malay the name 'rambutan' literally means 'hairy' for its wild looking outer covering. Other than their other-worldly curb appeal, the edible innards of a rambutan are typically consumed raw, like you might an orange. I've heard only good things about this wacky little fruit and can't wait to try one!Another part of Indonesia that I had hoped to introduce you to is the rupiah, Indonesia's currency of choice. As of May 2008 one US dollar is worth about 9,200 rupiah. Bank notes are printed in values of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, and 100,000. Can you imagine a $100,000.00 bill??? I suppose that's what a financial crisis as catastrophic as the one that hit Indonesia in the late 90's can do to a national currency!
To provide some perspective, a hamburger from McDonald's would run you about 27,600 rupiah (about $3 in US terms).
And while we're on the topic...I wanted to thank you all in advance for your abundant financial support. I am happy to say that FH will be purchasing my plane tickets sometime today or tomorrow and it looks like I should be able to pull together the last $1,400 in time.
Offer up a prayer of praise for the provision, but don't stop there! Pray for my final 2 weeks of preparation. As my time here at home comes to a close I hope to solidify my basic grasp on the language as well as soak up as much family time as I can. Also pray for the two other guys heading to Indonesia with me, David Strivings and Craig VanKorlaar. David and I will be living together in Calang while Craig is headed to the small island of Nias. I have gotten to exchange a few emails with these guys and they certainly sound like studs!
Pray for David Curtis (he went to Indo last summer with FH) as he is on the front lines in the Phoenix office processing all of our intern stuff. He's been a huge help and encouragement and I pray that he would be similarly blessed by me.
Pray for the team that eagerly awaits its intern support in Calang. I am excited to be working with some truly awesome people over there.
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