Friday, March 30, 2007

nothing new

hey another update...

but actually this week nothing much happened. seems like every trainee has to be sick once though....this time its gijs.... hope i will get around it. will spend another day at the beach tomorrow...

all the other trainees are leaving soon gijs. april 21.
nienke and elke april 29.
then it will only be me and ivette, but i think i will leave on june1st already....so not that much longer either....

other than that this week really not much going on. still teaching at work and in the evening. might go to singapore next weekend, but still not sure..

other than that i might go to work in the field for a week living in tents...should be a new experience, but not sure yet....

ok...g2g...

take care...and keep it comin

Monday, March 26, 2007

march is almost over

Hey,

sorry I have been unable to go to the Internet cafe the last couple of days and not keep you up to date. I am always busy during the day and then in the evenings the boys are always in my room until 1130. That’s also a reason why I am always so tired, because everything I want to or have to do on my own I have to start after that. So normally I don’t sleep before 1 and get up around 8, which should not be a problem for me, but somehow it is, maybe I m really not eating enough and I just lack energy, but don’t worry. I m fine. I will again try to upload a recent picture, so you can see I m not skinny at all. I guess I m still around 85kg, so that’s still a lot.

What else is new, oh yes I got a haircut yesterday, everyone says I look younger now, maybe I shouldn’t cut my hair anymore. Haha. Anyways. I don’t think I have had a day here where I just didn’t do anything for the whole day. Even the day I was sick I went to work, but I guess you can kind of call that an off day. Other than that I have either had to work, gone to meetings or had trips, which sometimes can be draining as well, although of course they are fun. For example this past Saturday we went to Bukittinggi again, which is probably the most popular tourist place here. We walked through a canyon, which almost made you feel like you are on an adventure holiday, because the path is really small and almost grown closed and there are monkeys around you and traces from the earthquake, but it was a really good time. Sunday was a LCP election and all the trainees feel like the better candidate lost, but I guess it would have been hard for him, because he is not so popular among members, but he had good ideas, while the winner was very popular, but maybe not as well prepared.

Anyways other than that I m still trying to lose a little weight, but I guess not as strict as before, because it really got to my substance. Haha. Now I m better.

There is still traces from the earthquake in the smaller villages, but the earthquake is not really a concern anymore. Everything is back to normal. I will probably leave Indonesia on the 1st or 2nd of june to go to Malaysia to stay there for a couple of days and then hopefully I can go to Manilla for a couple of days to meet up with Amy. That would be really nice.
So I have reached day 33 of 99. Time is flying.

Oh yes, its kind of funny, but since I got the newspaper here (English of course) I ve spent almost an hour per day reading it, because there is not much going on, which I think is another reason for me being so tired, although I pretty much meet AIESECers everyday.

Also I think my Indonesian is finally improving again and I think once the 2 pbox trainees leave it will improve even more, because I will hang out more with the AIESECers I guess. So I hope by the time I leave Indonesia I will be able to talk quite a bit.

Anything else new?
Not sure, so this is it from me now, hope you re all doing good, whereever you are right now, leave comments and keep me updated. How is life for you?

Friday, March 16, 2007

cell phone, sickness...

hey,

sorry for thos who tried to contact me the last couple of days.. my cellphone was broken, but now i have a new one, so its all good.

what else...oh yes, was sick had fever, because of malnutrition and lack of sleep, haha, i guess everyone could see that coming. was only for one day though. 38.4 had everyone scared i have denji, but no worries, its all good. i m fit and will go on a trip with the other 4 trainees, we will retreat to lake maninjau...

other than that nothing much happened. teaching english at work, at school and to aiesecers...

maybe some german in between..haha...;

i wish my indonesian would improve a little more, but i think once the trainees from the netherlands will leave in 4 weeks it will improve somewhat so should be good..

other than that this week not a lot happened. spent a lot of time at work....

i think next week , i ll be able to tell you more...

but please everyone leave comments and send emails, especially the people from germany, because i have no clue whats going on there...

Saturday, March 10, 2007

update

i forgot some things...

for those that have facebook...there are some pictures... in my album... still trying to upload,but it took me 2.5 hours to upload these 8...so dont expect too much...

also i met the canadian counsillor and maybe he will help with some donations for the earthquake victims, which would be great.

other than that i also met mr. and mrs. west sumatra....

so i m getting around...

maybe i will meet the major of the city as well...

we had a meeting but then the earthquake happened, so we ll see.

ok have to go now...take care

Life in a development country

So I guess there is always ups and downs..

currently the situation has been kind of crazy..

one of the most important historic palaces burned
a garuda airplane crashed and since tuesday probably 150 earthquakes have hit the surroundings of padang...fortunately padang hasnt really suffered yet, but a total of 90 people have lost their lives.
for me it still seems so far, but maybe monday i will go to solok, the center to help. we already packed some stuff yesterday.

Other than that... I m only doing minor things in AIESEC\s pbox (project based on exchange) project about hiv /aids... but ihope i can support nienke and gijs the other two trainees as much as possible.
after tomorrow there is two schools left. and then nienke and gijs will already leave along with elke another trainee from the netherlands... so it will only be ivette from mexiko and me, but i think ivette is pretty busy working, so we might not see each other that much....

we ll see... hopefully by then i can further improve my indonesian and i can travel a little bit in the area and maybe also get some rest. because currently i dont really have off days. which is fine... just the people that know me know that sometimes i need time to reflect, think and take a walk so the last 2 days i ve been kind of worn out, but that should be fine soon. so no worries.

and please everyone dont worry about the earthquake it probably sounds 10x worse in the media then it actually was.

my work is good as well. ,y coworkers are really nice and i hope i can improve my teaching skills. sometimes its still hard, because of the different levels of the students and also difficulties in english.

but everything should be fine and i think i ll have a good time the rest of my stay here, which i think is another 12 weeks.

what else is new?

hm... i was trying to upload some pictures,but i m afraid its not working because the connection is too slow... maybe next time... because it seems like the connectino is different everytime....

anyways.. just wanted to let all of you know... that i m good..healthy....padang is still safe and dont worry bout me...

oh yes we also had a welcoming party and i won the trainee competition...yay... LOL....anyways... hope i can help make some changes here in aiesec... we ll see...

take care,
rich