MONDAY 8 JANUARY 2007:

No show today. We were going to go round all the Muslim Aid venues to check they all had electricity, etc. this morning – but we decide to give that a miss, as I am still not feeling at all well - and anyway I HAVE to get the last part of the vital funding application to the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and various other things off to Chris in England, as this is the last time I can be sure of good internet access until Friday 12th.

Preparations

Hags goes into town to try out the credit cards (which thankfully supply cash for us this time!), buy paper for the badges, water sprays for the show and more pills for me. When he gets back we prepare lots and lots of badge bits. It’s lucky we did skip the reconnoitring trip as we only just managed to get everything we needed to do done in time to leave for the ferry to Pulua Weh.

The crossing is very rough – I very rarely get sea-sick luckily, but poor Haggis suffers quite badly. Chris, my lovely assistant, rings from Glastonbury and confirms that she has now received all the information I have sent her that is needed for the Fairbairn application – thank goodness for that – it is a real weight off my mind. She will now do a bit of a précis job and it should go off in the post to Fairbairn on Tuesday afternoon, first class with a good luck kiss.

Keep the home fires buring

We spend about half an hour talking through Children’s World’s work in England – our current Light Beam to Sound Tour that Paddy and Charlie are taking around 10 local special schools for children with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties is going really well it seems (the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation will hopefully, if our application is approved, be paying for an extension to this current Tour – so that we can take training workshops to teachers of children with PMLD at special schools that already have light beam equipment but have not had enough training,, showing them how to use the equipment with confidence and gusto and really creatively to the greatest benefit of their pupils).

We discuss the Somerset Community Fund application which needs to go off on Friday and that I will work on while I am on the island and then email over to Chris in England on Friday morning, so that she can get it to them by their Friday afternoon deadline. It’s great that the Tour is going well in England – it’s always unnerving being away for chunks of time doing Children’s World Intenational work abroad, worrying about whether it is all going OK in England – but it clearly is – we are very blessed in having such an excellent administrator in Chris and two such excellent Chief Workshop leaders in Paddy and Charlie. Chris is really wonderful, and we manage to get through a lot of planning in half an hour. I hope I haven’t been shouting too much, but I am dreadfully deaf, and an Indonesian music video is blaring here on the top inner deck of the ferry, so I need to talk pretty loud to hear myself and for Chris to have any chance of hearing me.

No hugging please

When I’ve finished talking to Chris, but before I have hung up, Haggis grabs the phone and says to Chris, “This is how the British won the war, Chris., Every other person on this deck is either throwing up into paper bags or concentrating on not throwing up, myself included, and here’s Bella making charity battle plans with you – it’s great!” I’m rather touched, and would have given him a huge hug, but hugs between the sexes are frowned on here, so I don’t.

Eventually we arrive at the port outside Sabang. It’s always great walking down the pier here, as so many people remember Haggis and his juggling from our time here last April, and we always get a great reception. Mr. Fer is there to meet us – and he has a new car – well, not a new, new car, but a slightly improved one. The back right hand seat (I always sit on the right, so that my left and only functioning ear, is nearer to conversations) had some horrendous springs that I could feel very clearly – I was always in great fear that they would suddenly break their bounds and pierce my bottom! The new back seat is far more comfortable, but he seems to have a lot of problems with the catches and locks on the doors and boot – a lot of hitting and banging goes on before they are persuaded to open! We load up, with Haggis in the front, most of the show stuff in the boot and me in the back, snuggled up to the speakers box and the badge bag. Mr. Fer turns the key – oh dear, no joy. At the 4th turn of the key though the car comes to life and we set off for a small hotel outside Sabang. When we were here in April we stayed at the Tuna Café, which was very basic but very nice, right on a cliff overlooking the sea – but they have been booked out by a big party this time.

A wow room

Mr. Fer tells us he has found another place – with a “wow” room. Goody goody! We arrive at “Freddy’s Place” owned apparently by a South African, presumably called Freddy – but he is not here, presumably he is in South Africa. Again, a fantastic position – our bungalow is right on top of a 50 foot cliff – our balcony actually overhangs the beach. I have a good look, and it seems to be pretty firmly built, thank goodness, so I don’t think we will go tumbling down to the beach. It’s a good room and the shower room has a lovely pedestal loo (placed bang next to a wall, so actually you have to sit at a very weird angle - but hey a pedestal loo is a pedestal loo, and SO much easier on my hips and knees – and having to sit a bit squew-whiff is a small price to pay!) I sit down on my side of the bed – and collapse downwards to the frame. The mattress seems OK in the middle, but there is definitely something wrong with this edge. The only other problem is that the weather is wild, lots of wind and it looks like rain later - and for some unknown reason there is a large triangle, approximately 8 foot wide going to a 3 foot high apex at the top, on the front wall, facing directly into the wind, that is open to the elements. The hanging lights are blowing in the wind – oh well, maybe the weather will calm down when dusk falls.

Dinner with Mr Fer

Having deposited our bags, we head back into town with Mr. Fer who wants to show us a video he made of Haggis’s shows our last visit – but the electricity is down in town, so that will have to wait. We have dinner at a small restaurant on the High Street that has emergency power – Haggis has friend chicken again and fried potatoes, and I have fried potatoes and some delicious kan-kung, a really nice spichach-ey vegetable. Mr. Fer has rice and a hotter kan-kung, which is also lovely. All washed down with iced Milo – I’ve never appreciated Milo in England, but here I find it delicious and really soothing for some reason. (Shades of Nanny, and nursery bedtime drinks maybe?)

Mr. Fer deposits us back to our room – in our absence, the wind has got stronger, not weaker, and the hanging lights are swinging to and fro – we get into bed and try to read the Jakarta Times (which is in English) that someone has left behind, but the wind is increasing all the time, and the newspaper flaps and flies away from our hands, and we are just too tired to bother to get out of bed to retrieve it.

The rain comes in

The wind is rushing straight in through the open triangle in the front wall, hitting the back wall and then doing circuits round the room – the hanging lights are now going in frantic circles rather than swaying to and fro! We put the lights out and try to sleep, but suddenly we are being rained on – we are not quite clear if we are being leaked on through the roof or if the wind is blowing the rain in through the triangle, but either way we are definitely getting a bit damp and the wind is still increasing. This is meant to be a bedroom for goodness sake – a room, by definition, is surely a structure that gives one protection from the elements? Not here! Oh well – we manage to find another bedcover and snuggle down to sleep as well we can – which is not very well, but never mind – it feels quite dramatic and funny!