TUESDAY 9 JANUARY:

In the morning the wind has calmed a little and I sit on the balcony and look at the beautiful little beach below us, which still has biggish waves breaking on it. I do hope the weather calms soon – there are a lot of rain clouds and we have another session to do at 4.15. I am a bit worried also that we might be delayed and not manage to get off the island on Friday on the early morning ferry – not only do we have a 4.15 show in Banda on Friday for Muslim Aid, but I will need to email my Somerset Community Fund application and my draft letter to the schools we want to offer the Fairbairn training to off to Chris in England from my Green Paradise hotspot in Banda – Friday is the latest day for the SCF application to go off. I might get lucky with the internet here on the island, I suppose, but it was absolutely hopeless when we were here last week. And we have two shows on Saturday and two shows on Sunday in Banda before we fly down to the Teunom area on Monday. Hopefully this weather will calm down soon – no point worrying really though – que sera, sera!

Must meditate

We have a nice breakfast of omelettes and huge plates of water melon, papaya and pineapple at the hotel restaurant, which is really nice, with American diner tables and benches looking over the sea. Then I go and get this web diary a bit more up to date, and, joy of joys, manage to get an hour of meditation in on our lovely little balcony with the knock-out view – a bit windy, but beautiful. We have been so incredibly busy with the start of the Tour, and with all the English grant application work I needed to do, that I haven’t managed to get any regular Buddhist study and practice in since the 2nd – and I have missed it! I really must get into a regular habit again!

After a game of “Carcassonne”, our favourite board game, we have a very nice lunch of fresh tuna with chips and proper salad (this South African guy, Freddy, clearly understands, far more than the Acehnese, the sort of things that we Westerners like to eat!) For pudding a Kit Kat (what a delightful surprise!) and a cappuccino!

Haggis on video

Mr. Fer arrives – the power is still not working in his house, so he has brought the DVD of his video here for us to watch, as our power is functioning. He has dubbed over the show sound track with Acehnese music, and the footage is a bit jerky, so Haggis’ juggling looks somewhat strange - but it is really nice that he filmed it all and is so proud of it. It is titled “Happy Memories!”

We load up Mr. Fer’s taxi again with all our gear, and bid farewell to our hosts, saying that this is a really lovely little hotel, and that we would happily come again in future - but they really must find some way to make the bedrooms actually protect people from the elements in wild weather!

SMA Dua

Mr. Fer drives us to SMA Dua, an old school that is still being used as temporary shelter for a large group of families. We came here in April and lots of people seemed to remember us. Dr. Farid, from Muslim Aid, phoned earlier to say that Marhaban, who was meant to accompany us to the venue and bring the banner, has resigned to join a bank. Shame – we really liked Marhaban – he was good fun. Farid offered to come over himself, but we really didn’t think it was necessary – the weather is quite wild and the ferry crossing would be rough, and Indonesians seem to have quite delicate stomachs on the whole when it comes to seasickness – there were a lot of green faces on our two rough ferry ride!. Farid says that Saiful (Pulua Weh Saiful rather than our lovely Sigli Saiful) will meet us there. Pulua Weh Saiful is a far gloomier character than Sigli Saiful. He looks really depressed, and our aim for the afternoon, apart from giving the children and their families a great time, becomes to make Saiful laugh.

HANDS HIGH IN THE AIR FOR A PHOTOGRAPH!

HAGS WITH MR. SAIFUL THE GLOOMY AND MR. FER THE JOLLY

TIME TO SWALLOW THE FLAME!

Haggis takes the children over the road to a grassy space to play parachute games, and I start badge-making with the mothers and smaller children remaining in the school area. It all starts pretty calmly, but becomes truly hectic once Haggis’s parachute children join us – I am squashed in on every side, without room to move my arm to operate the badge machine. I see Saiful at the edge of the crowd and beg him to go and find a couple of bottles of water, one for Haggis and one for me, as I am dying of heat. He actually smiles and laughs at the crowd around me, and soon thankfully returns with some water, which I drink almost all in one go, so thirsty am I. Two kind ladies finally understand my discomfort, and urge the children to stand back a bit to give me some space, and take it in turns to act as “punka-wallah”, fanning me with a newspaper – goodness how lovely the fanned air feels!

It is time for Haggis to start his show, and I manage, with the ladies’ help, to get the children to abandon their badges and sit down on the parachute. I make up the last 40 badges during the show and give them out at the end. Haggis hi-jacks a becak driver, and arrives with his suitcase in the becak for his first entrance, to great rounds of applause. The show goes really well for an audience of about 50 children and 50 teenagers and adults. Haggis really is getting funnier and funnier. He has very decently put the children in the shade, with himself performing in the sun – so he is his usual totally wet self at the end of the show. He sensibly always brings dry clothes to change into. I normally dry out from my sweat, but this time I had got so incredibly hot that the whole front of my black shirt is soaking, and it just doesn’t seem to dry off and I have nothing to change into. My stomach feels bad, and I sneeze 14 times on the trot (I’m a great sneezer, but 8 on the trot is my normal record!) I fear I may be going down with some sort of flu as my head is aching a lot. Fond goodbyes and then the hour’s drive to the Laguna Resort (not nearly as grand as it sounds!) at Gapang. Oh, I am longing for my bed!

IN THE PICTURE OF THE LEFT, HAGGIS IS MAKING HIS FINAL EXIT ON THE BACK OF A MOTORBIKE. I DIDN'T MANAGE TO CATCH HIS FIRST ENTRANCE, WHICH WAS IN A BECAK!

When we were on the island 10 days ago, we made sure Laguna knew we were coming back for the nights of 9th, 10th and 11th January – but when we finally arrive, there is no room ready for us. Half an hour for cleaning, they say, and promptly disappear. I lie down on the reception sofa, as I am incapable of doing anything else, and Haggis tries to ascertain which room is to be ours and find the person to clean it – but there is no one around – it has become a ghost town! Eventually Hags finds the room, which is not nearly as nice as the one we had last time – lots and lots of holes for the mosquitoes to come in, very damp walls and a filthy looking shower/mandi room. There have been 4 people sleeping here and there is stuff all over the room – Haggis eventually finds a kind hotel worker, and they pour all the mess from our room into the adjoining room next door and carry all our luggage in once they have cleaned it. I think we will give the nice man a big tip, but pay the hotel less for the room – Haggis really shouldn’t have had to clean it – apparently it looked really bad. But by the time he and the man are done, it doesn’t look too bad, except for the gaping holes for creepy-crawlies to enter. Hags goes down to the beach to eat before all the cafes close, and I demand a mosquito net and help the man put it up. It has a lot of holes in it, but will offer some protection. Just as I am going to crawl into bed, Chris, my assistant, rings from England. I was feeling so “iffy”, I had forgotten all about England. Despite it now being 10.30 pm and my being very tired, it was great to hear from her – she has précis-ed the Fairbairn funding application and it is going in the post today – yeeha! There has been an email from the Fairbairn Education Grants Officer, Jo, in response to my email to her, saying that, as long as the application is good (which I truly believe it is!), then she hopes to turn it round really fast – which is great, as we plan to start this Teacher Training Tour straight after half-term. Jo apparently postscripted§ her email, “Gve my love to Aceh – I was there 10 years ago and loved it!” So few people have ever been to Aceh post-tsunami, apart from aid workers, or pre-tsunami, because of the “Conflict” between Gam and the Government. I take it as a good omen!

Chris and I go through all the bits I need to prepare while I am on the Island and will email to her once I return to Banda on Friday morning. Everything is going really well in England with Children’s World, which is a great relief. Chris says our 18-year-old daughter Jess is well, and that she will ask her to ring me. Jess rings shortly afterwards and it is great to hear her as we had not managed to talk for a week. She is well and happy and hardly seems to be missing us at all. Haggis comes back from his beach dinner, we have a final mosquito spray and fall fast asleep!