SUNDAY 7 JANUARY:

Exploding stomach

I wake even earlier than usual, about 3.30 am, as my stomach is exploding! I must have eaten or drunk something a bit “iffy” yesterday. (Possibly the weird coloured drink we were given after yesterday’s show, possibly the fermented fruit confection, or possibly ice from non-bottled water – who can say!) A lot of explosive green liquid (sorry if this is too much information, but it was quite dramatic!) I feel pretty awful, but creep back into bed with my laptop and work by the light of my miner’s head-torch, editing and re-editing some of the final parts of the Fairbairn application and answering the most important hotmails that have come in.

We were so busy and in such a rush before we left England that I never had time to make a proper chemist list, and so we don’t have our normal entro-vioform“anti-bad tummy” stuff, no anti-diarrhea (how on earth do you spell that word?) depends whether you live in UK or USA - Webmaster stuff, and none of the brilliant Dr. Collis Brown elixir (which saved the British Army in India when they all got dysentery (again, how do you spell these – my laptop does not approve of any of these spellings!) on the battlefield). I go out and see the night security men in the hope that they might have something that would help, but no, they have nothing. They say they will go and ask Madam when she wakes. So I spend the next few hours till 7.00 between the loo and the laptop, even at one stage using the loo and the laptop together. At 7.00 Madam, the lovely Yulfrita, wakes up and is tremendously kind and gives me various pills and a bottle of bright pink isotonic liquid, which, it turns out, is bubble-gum flavoured!

Big gig, so big swig

We are being collected at 8.30 by Nina of the Australian Red Cross for what sounds like quite a big gig at Lhong Raya Stadium Barracks, and then we have a gig with Muslim Aid this afternoon at 4.15, so it is important that I get my stomach under control as fast as possible. I overdose a bit on the pills to be on the safe side – it is always a delicate balance getting everything to stop being too liquid, without bringing on dire constipation. I swig a lot of the electrolyte liquid to try and make up my minerals – my goodness bubble gum flavour is a bit much in the early morning! Repack the badge bag with more than 350 badge components – we are only expecting 200 children tops, but better safe than sorry! Nina arrives in the Red Cross 4 x 4 and off we set, me with a spare pair of trousers and a loo roll for me, in case of stomach problems.

The choice - shade or power?

We did a show at Lhong Raya in April, but in a different part of the Stadium. This time we are working just under and outside the stadium walls, opposite a whole section of temporary housing that has been built by the Red Cross. There are 2 possible places to perform – one where it will be shady but there is no power, and one where there is power but there will be no shade. As the sun is not shining at the moment, we take the risk and go with the power place, as the show really is so much stronger with the music.

Adults want badges

The children start to roll up, so I set up the badge making on the tiled steps outside the stadium (very grubby and lots of glass, but we manage to find a brush and sweep away all the glass, thankfully). The badge-making starts nice and calmly, but soon becomes extremely intense, and, despite lots of nice Red Cross volunteers trying to protect me, I am besieged again! Thankfully Haggis then starts some parachute games and that removes some of the crowd of children who are thrusting their finished designs in my face. It doesn’t look as though there are more than 200 children here, but I think some have managed to get hold of extra badge centres somehow, and a lot of the adults are insisting on having them too.

ONLY 1 PIC TODAY I'M AFRAID, AS I WAS CAUGHT UP IN BADGE MAKING RIGHT TILL THE FIRE SWINGING FINALE OF HAGS' SHOW.

MORE ARRIVING FROM AUSTRALIAN RED CROSS SOON.

Haggis works the iPod

It is time for Haggis to start the show, and I am nowhere near finishing the badges. He says he can do the iPod music changes himself this time, so I stick with the badges. Many of the children don’t want to leave their badges, but eventually we persuade them to go and watch the show and tell them they can come and collect their made-up badges after the show.

The sun has now come out, so poor Hags is having a very hot show. It looks as though the show is going really well, but I can’t hear or see much from where I am sitting, surrounded by children, with sweat pouring off me, with a somewhat churning stomach, making up the badges. There is a nice English accountant who is doing some volunteer work with the Red Cross, and he is taking a lot of photographs of the show with an impressive-looking camera. He kindly agrees to give us have a cd of photos next Sunday when we do our next Red Cross Barracks gig. (I hope to get some of our pictures of shows from 2nd January onwards up onto the web really soon – Haggis has to prepare them into a certain format and then we will send them to David Parsons, our lovely Web Master in Somerset. Hopefully the pix will serve to split up this multitude of words, which must surely look rather dense and off-putting on the site. I really will try to get this done soon, promise!)

More badge components needed

Even though I brought many more badge components than we thought would be needed, the pile of completed badge design papers looks bigger than the pile of remaining badge components. Oh dear! Oh dear! I have finished all the badge components at last, and there are about 30 badge centres still to make up. I debate getting a lift back to the hotel and collecting more components, but Haggis is now more than half-way through his show and I don’t think there will be time (much as I would like to take the opportunity of using our proper hotel loo!)

Luckily, many of the Red Cross volunteers speak good English and Bahasa or Acehnese, so after the show we explain to the children that I will take the last badges back to my hotel to make up, and Red Cross will deliver them to the children tomorrow. The message seems to get through OK, which is a relief – I can’t bear it when there are disappointed children. I took at least 350 components with me and there were 30 left undone, so 380 badge centres must have been made. I will be sure to always take not just more than I think, but many, many, many more than I think necessary in the future.

Ellen from Ireland

Ellen of the Irish Red Cross turns up, and it is really nice to meet her at last. We have been in hotmail contact since August and it is she who has been instrumental in setting up our Red Cross gigs in the barracks (this Sunday and also Sundays 14th and 28th January) and our gig at Tungkop Junior High School (on Saturday 13th Jan). She has been suffering from Dengue Fever, poor thing, and doesn’t look too well. We have heard of quite a few cases of Dengue Fever here, and are praying we will be safe. We cover our arms and legs and use a lot of spray (you get Dengue from mosquito bites) and haven’t been bitten so far, praise be. Poor Fadlullah Wilmott, the boss of Muslim Aid out here, who has been so incredibly kind to us, and who has organised the majority of our Muslim Aid shows, has had a really bad case of malaria, which laid him low for several weeks, during which he lost 20 kilos in weight. But he picked up the malaria in Vietnam, on Muslim Aid business, rather than here. We don’t take anti-malaria tablets, as they make us feel so flu-ey and horrid – so we do need to take great care about spraying – I’m sure the huge quantities of Deet aren’t good for us, but it is probably the lesser of two evils. A New Zealand couple we met on the island last week told us about a kit you can get which enables you to test yourself for malaria and includes a medication to take if you do turn out to be infected. It sounds great – we will definitely find out about this for the next Tour.

Badge practicalities

Almost clean out of prepared badge components (though we have almost 3,000 unprepared components left and there is no panic about running out of those). It really takes quite a long time preparing the badge stuff – we use the paper cutter to cut out the paper centres, and then we draw a circle the size of the finished badge in the centre of each circle of paper – the children should only draw in the centre circle as the outer bits of the paper get folded round and under by the machine, and get lost from view, when the badges are made. Then we have to put the pins into the plastic badge backs. We also have to put back the tops on the pens or they dry out - and we constantly have to go and buy more coloured felt tips as we lose a lot at each venue – which doesn’t really matter as felt tips are very cheap out here. It’s a long laborious business and takes a lot of our “spare”, non-show, time - but it is definitely worth it, as the children are always so very pleased with their completed badges.

They have so little

It gets very irritating, at times, when adults push for badges and both adults and children sneak some way of getting lots of badges rather than just one - and sometimes I find myself beginning to feel really “ratty”, and I have to remind myself that they have so little, and it is really not their fault that they feel they have to push and cheat a bit to get more – they really have had a very rough time poor things, and I just must not let their pushing,or lying about how many badges they have made, get to me. It’s fine – I must just become a bit more like a Teflon non-stick frying pan, and let it all slide off me!

Talking to the press

A journalist from the local paper (Aceh Today, I think) turns up and asks lots of questions, which we answer, and then the Red Cross driver takes us back to the hotel. My stomach realises it is now safe to revolt and explodes again, and I spend a lot of time on our lovely pedestal loo. It‘s amazing I managed to get through the morning session, really - the problem is now back with a vengeance. This morning was a good example of mind over matter! I knew I couldn’t have the problem at the barracks, so I didn’t! I hope my body will be servile and obey my mind again this afternoon!

Choice of pills

Apparently the Muslim Aid show this afternoon is going to be in an open space in the middle of town and Saiful thinks we may need a bigger set of speakers, so we ring the lovely Linda North at Yayasan Lamjabat and ask if we can borrow Yayasan’s speakers. Hags takes a becak over to collect them, and also brings back some charcoal anti-diarrhoea pills from Linda. The packet says you can take 9 at a time, but Linda has sent firm messages via Haggis, saying I shouldn’t take more than 3 at a time, or I will problems. So I take 3 of the charcoals, and a couple more of Yulfrita’s pills and several more swigs of the bubble-gum isotonic, and, my mind having ordered my body to obey, feel reasonably safe to sortie out for the afternoon gig when Marhaban and a lovely Muslim Aid driver and his really nice sister volunteer come to collect us at 3.15. Quite a long drive to the gig in Darassalam on the opposite far outskirts of town.

Darassalam

We arrive during prayer time, so have time to have a potter and work out the best place for the show, games and badge-making. We discover a nice school balai and are given permission to use it.

SHOW AT DARESALAM ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF BANDA - HAVING REMOVED THE FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS!

Balancing for bulbs

Haggis is worried that the football used in the parachute football game might break the balai’s fluorescent ceiling lights, so he gets an agile looking Acehnese to stand on his shoulders to remove them. The guy is well happy while clinging to the beam, removing the first bulb, but is terribly nervous, poor thing, when Haggis walks between the two beams. It was perfectly safe as Hags had the man’s calves firmly gripped, but the man’s face was a picture of fear – I wish I had had the camera handy. But he was pleased as punch once he had the second bulb out and was on the ground again and very proud of his feat – he and Hags formed a strong acrobatic bond!

Mozart is calming

The kindergarten children arrive, and I start making badges with them – we put on some classical music for a change, some Mozart, and it is really calming. More children arrive, but it is clearly going to be a smallish audience (we land up with about 50 children and 50 adults in the end) and there really was no need for poor Hags to trek across town and borrow Linda’s speakers – hey ho! Haggis runs some great parachute games and the show goes really well, but I didn’t manage to get any pictures as I was feeling pretty rough and remained glued to my badge chair most of the time. Still there are so many Muslim Aid cameras being used – hopefully we can get some good shots of this gig (and indeed all the other shows, games and workshops) from them.

Marhaban and the driver take us back to the hotel (with stops to buy more pills at the chemist and take the speakers back to Linda). I take my hotmails and reply to the most important and collapse into bed.