Field trip!

This morning, the consultant Sue and I drove with our driver and translator out to a village 2 hours from Khujand. It was a desolate drive. Pot-holed road with one section washed out by a flood last July, foggy sky and dry, grazing land for miles and miles. Only some sheep herds could be seen. Once we arrived at the village there were more signs of vegetation and life.

We spent the day at the local health clinic where Sue interviewed the health workers, young women, village development counsel and men (old men since most of the young immigrate to Russia for work). She is assessing an MC child survival program. They were the nicest people. The oldest man (81) invited us to his daughter or was it granddaughter (?)'s wedding party but unfortunately we didn't have time. This man had 6 children, 24 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren and he seemed in great health. In a culture where men do not shake hands with women, he immediately came up to Sue and me upon entering and welcomed us with a hand shake. Another woman invited us to spend the night at her house - which would have been an amazing experience.

At the end of the meetings, some of the women brought out a folded up blanket which contained treats and bread from the wedding party including some sheep meet. They also gave us a concoction of beans/tomato/onions/pepper which was very good. However, out of the three of us who ate it, both Sue and the translator got very sick in the night. So far, my stomach seems to be iron-clad...knock on wood.

Long road to Tajikistan

So I'm behind in posting. Turns out that Tajikistan is the most non-technical country I have visited. I can only access the internet at the MC offices. I'll do a bit of catch-up. On Oct. 28th I started the long trek to Tajikistan. With the 12 hour time difference, I didn't arrive until the early morning hours of Oct. 30th. Between those two time points I flew from Chicago to Detroit, to Amsterdam to Istanbul and to Dushanbe, Taj. I had to spend 6 hours in the Istanbul airport and it's not the most lay-over friendly. There are very few seats and even fewer electric outlets. I ended up camping out at a restaurant where the waiter pretty much grunted his disapproval when on my second visit, all I ordered was a coffee and water.

The overnight flight to Tajikstan had me landing at 4am. My coworker had drawn me a map and given me specific instructions on how to efficiently navigate the Dushanbe airport/visa/immigration system. It only took me an hour to do it all. If I had checked luggage, I might still be there. An MC driver picked me up and drove me through the rainy darkness to the guest house - which was the most bizarre place I've ever stayed - the bathroom and kitchen were on the first floor and the bedroom/sitting rooms were on the second floor through a series of ornate wooden doors. The water that came out of the shower alternated between clear and silty but I managed to reasonably clean up before hitting the hay.

I had been instructed to sleep as long as I liked but around 11am a persistent pounding and door bell ringing started at the main gate (all residences are walled and gated). When I finally heard my name being called, I found the office secretary telling me my flight was at 2p so I need to come to the office. A quick lunch and meeting with our country director and I was on the oldest double-prop plane I've ever seen heading to Khujand - which sounds nothing like it's spelled.

The guesthouse apartment in Khujand is very comfortable and "normal" and I'm sharing it with the consultant who is conducting the program final evaluation. We seem to make very good roommates. Dinner that night was with the ex-pat office director. The three of us managed to order dinner though ended up with various successes - mine was more oil than substance.

Finally to bed after a remarkably long day. (The photo is the guesthouse in Khujand - our kitchen window was the middle floor to the right of the stairwell windows).

Last two days...

Okay I lied. Two posts for the weekend. On Sunday, my new friend introduced me to her spa experience. It was pretty amazing to say the least and I splurged. At the same time, I had a pedicure with massage, a hand massage and a "cream bath". For the bath, they wash your hair then slather on some heavy conditioner and massage your head and then your shoulders. It was really something else. However, having it all done at once made it difficult to appreciate each treatment individually. (Photo: TBA).

After such indulgence we headed to the aforementioned mega-mall where my friend wanted to introduce me to the premier movie experience. However, we didn't have enough time and the movie playing wasn't any good - but apparently there is a full leather recliner and a packaged blanket for each movie goer. All for about $10.

Monday (today) I finally had my presentation. Did it go well? I actually don't know. But now it's over with promise of doing more follow up on the project from the US. Tonight I am homeward bound with mixed feelings - it's nice to go home, but it feels too early to leave. It has been a great experience in all ways. Thanks for coming along!

The inner sanctum

It's been a week of work, work, work so I will sum up the weekend in one fell (and hopefully succinct - oh who am I kidding) swoop. Saturday morning, I headed to Pasaraya which is one of the many - and I mean many - shopping malls in the city. Truly this is a city all about shopping malls. I saw one on Sunday (not even the biggest) that reminded me of Mall of America. There are limited green spaces in Jakarta so everyone goes to the mall.

I was on the hunt for one-stop-shopping souvenirs and managed to a find a few among the two floors of handicrafts from around the country. It is a bit overwhelming to say the list that after two hours, I couldn't handle the though of doing any regular shopping for myself. In the afternoon I went over to the neighbor's house - she is also my coworker's next door neighbor and we got to talking Thursday night at a group dinner, where we discovered that she had flown to Bali on the same flight as me. I had seen her at the airport and hadn't recognized her and she hadn't seen me. I think the Jakarta expat world is actually very, very small.

So Saturday we hung out and talked until it was time to go to a pro-Peace Core party being thrown in the "Inner Sanctum" also affectionately known as Wisteria Lane (after Desperate Housewives. In the complex where I have been staying there is the apartment building (where I am), then you go through a gate to the housing complex, and THEN you can go through the big green door into the inner sanctum where anybody who has anything to do with the US embassy lives. (I may have described this before). We went at night and it was rather eerie. It was like a movie set. Very pristine, tree-lined street with no signs or sounds of life except for frogs and crickets. I was told by another party-goer non-inner sanctum liver, that the floor plans of each house are nearly identical which gives it just that extra bit of hmmm.

The sites & sights of Ubud

After a leisurely breakfast including very good black rice porridge with coconut milk and bananas, Dave and Patrick caught a bus to their next destination. It was kind of rainy out, so in lieu of bicycling (and getting really sweaty), Sarah and I hired a driver to take us to the rice terraces. When I had imagined Ubud, I had thought that you would be surrounded by rice paddies and beautiful countryside. Nope, you have to drive to it many kilometers away past lots of tourist art shops. The terraces were pretty enough but as we stood taking in the view with all the other tourists who had likewise hired drivers to take them there, some of the glory of scenery was lost on me.

Back in Ubud, we strolled the streets poking into little clothes and jewelry shops. I ended up with a Balinese style shirt which I half suspect was a demo model but I didn't have time to have anything made, and the seamstress seemed very pleased to sell it too me, so some bartering later, I was the owner. We also made time to eat at a very well known roasted duck restaurant. It was pretty good.

We had just enough time to fit in a little spa treatment before we caught our bus. Sarah was heading to a beach town - which she reported later was really unimpressive - and I was heading to the airport for a luckily very smooth flight home. Though I was borderline tickled and concerned when the flight attendant finished her safety briefing with "And let us all pray to god for a safe flight". Hmmm, always a good idea, however...

All around Ubud in a day

We didn't really have an itinerary once we were in Ubud. But what I did know was we were meeting a friend of mine from Portland who very coincidentally was in Ubud with his 13 year old nephew for exactly the same weekend as us. We had arranged to stay at the same guesthouse so Saturday morning it was great to see a familiar face.



First on the list was to visit the Monkey Temple in the Monkey Forest - a Hindu site that is home to, go figure, a community of monkeys. I am not a fan of monkeys and like other monkeys I've met, these were rather aggressive and weren't above jumping on people who walked too close and grabbing food out of people's hands - as happened to a Japanese tourist who unwisely decided to eat a candy bar in view of a monkey. She shrieked, the monkey retreated a couple feet away, opened the package and chowed down.



Afterwards we headed back to the guesthouse and rented motorbikes (automatics since I am clutch-inept) and took a little tour around the surrounding area, stopping to visit a very old Hindu temple. It should be noted that in Bali there is always a ceremony going on. There are everyday ceremonies, weekly, monthly, yearly...everywhere are food, incense, and flower offerings in handmade palm leaf containers that are woven that morning. This particular weekend was a ceremony acknowledging the return of the ancestors (who had been visiting for ten days) to the spirit world with god. So besides all the tourists in the area, there was a lot of local activity as people were dressed for and celebrating this holiday along with coinciding temple festivals.

In the evening, we caught one of the temple shows. This one was based on a Hindu story and was "narrated" by several circles of men chanting with different characters coming in and out of the circle. The show was followed by a horse trance dance, where a man with a horse head costume (hard to describe) galloped over burning coconut shell coals while music played. We had ringside seats which was great for the show, but meant Sarah and I were liberally sprinkled with soot from the burning coconut shells. (Pictures to follow).

Also today - we found the shop and healer featured in the book Eat, Pray, Love. However, due to the festivals, though she greeted us, her shop wasn't open for lunch. Sarah got her picture taken with the "celeb", and we were on our way.

Bali Bound

Friday was a partial day culminating to my very long and tedious trip to Ubud, Bali. The plan was to meet Sarah at her office at 3p, have her office driver take us to the airport, fly 1 1/2 hrs to Bali, and have the guesthouse driver drive us to Ubud. Simple enough. However, 2:30p Friday afternoon rolled around and their was no driver at my office, or taxi available to take me. I suggested someone take me on their motorbike but there was no one available. Finally, and running out of time, one of the security guards hailed a motorbike "taxi" for me and I spent 20 grimy minutes, speeding through the hectic traffic and pollution of Jakarta to Sarah's office. 1 1/2 hrs later we were at the airport where the plane was first delayed but after we sat down for a quick dinner, there was an announcement that we were actually boarding. Throwing dinner into a take-out box, and hurrying back through security, we figured out which gate to use and boarded. Upon arriving an hour late in Bali, and meeting our driver, his car wouldn't start. It died once on the way to Ubud but finally by 11p we made it to our guesthouse - where the driver requested more money because our flight was late and the guesthouse requested more for the room because the ceiling fan didn't work and we had a/c instead. Not the best way to start a "relaxing" vacation but we were at least happy to have arrived.