Yes, and then suddenly time flies. Another few weeks and we are going to leave Lombok. On the 18th of Februar we fly to Bali and another two weeks in Thailand. On the 5th of March we come home.
We didn’t realize that the winter in Holland would be like this. We really feel sorry for you. The news tells us everything. And we keep on sweating here………
But enough information about the weather. Here below you find the last information: for the people who had no time to read the long reports or those who wants to read the English translation which I (sorry) still going to make some day.
- First we have to clean up a mistake. In our last newsletter we forgot to put in the names of Bob and Myti. They also sponsored. On the site we put their names in the newsletter but not in the letter, you all received. Again we apologies..
- In November 2009 Hannie and Gerda visit Lombok. Hannie, we already know a long time and Gerda we meet now. We have a nice time together and drink a lot of coffee (or something else). Gerda tells us she wants to sponsor a junior high school child. We are very happy with this news and promise her, as soon as we know the new number of children we will let her know.
- In December we receive a contribution of Jacqueline and Nico Klarenbeek, a couple we also met here on Lombok. In Januar 2010 they even donate again. Thanks a lot you very nice couple.
- Theo Kleeven let us know by e-mail that he and Sjan wants to support somebody for University. A big support.
- As we could let you know last time in our newsletter, our ambassador Wim has got the promise from restaurant In den Engel for Holland, that they were holding again a Christmas action for our project.
In Januari we got the message that they collected the great amount of € 900,-. Together with their action of last year, this will be enough to help 3 persons to finish the University. We are so happy, because it is very hard to find sponsors for this group.
- Last year we used money from the school “de Koempoelan” to support 1 junior highschool and 6 people for their First year on University. What is left over will be enough to help 3 persons to finish the University. The 3 other ones have the support of the restaurant and the boy from Junior high school is now going to High school. For him we still have to find a sponsor. But we have Faith that is will work.
- As we told you befor, their was a family who had not enough food. Thanks to our anonymus sponsor, these children will get one good meal a day, for one year. Thank you very much!!!
- Pentiak Silat club Satira Pusaka from Roermond, Holland, had hold an action befor, to try to help our project. It didn’t work, but we were happy they payed some attention to our project. But al this time they didn’t give up en held several demonstrations last year. The result is the beautiful amount of
€ 500,- that we will get from them soon. They wait untill we get back to Holland.
- Robert Reijniers from Belgium tried to sponsor the project, but he had some problems with payypall. He didn’t give up but send us an e-mail and still gave a contribution. He tried so hard, we thank him for that. .
- Wally, Ine, Iris and Joey are some people we met on the market in Holland. They love Lombok too. They are following our project and read all the reports. That’s how they found out that we had a mutual friend. Andi a boy who goes to high-school and works in a small restaurant, here in Senggigi. They would love to sponsor him, but realize that we only sponsor in kampung Loco. Lucky for them there is an other project Impian Anak from the family Geurts. They were willing to accept sponsor and child and thanks to them Andi gets help. So you see how good it is to co-operate with other projects.
- The English lesson is now every week on Saterday afternoon at four at guesthouse Bumi Adytia, The number of children was variable at the beginning, but now we have a core of children and also the children from the mountain found their way to school. Last week we had 25 children. The lessons are given by Ani (the daughter of Boung and Sareah). She is in highschool and is going to university in June. I (Marijke) am just the assistent and help now and then by the pronunciation of the words. My Indonesian is not good enough to explain the grammar, but enough to help a bit.
- Joep took a walk up the mountain to get the last picture of a child. He was supported by Adi. A hard walk early morning, but in this way we could get the last picture.!
- Lat Sunday we had again a project meeting for the final things to arrange.
1. The family of Awal, the four children are defnitief out of the project. Awal carefully avoid us and don’t wants to talk to us. We decided to leave the story like this. Enough is enough. Only a pity we cannot stop him to talk bad stories about the project. We go on open and fair and hope that honesty will take care of every thing. Still we regret his children are out of the project.
2. In the mean time Jan and Dinega arrived in Lombok. We had two times diner together and we checked how many children got double sponsoring. It sames to be 5 children. But, because they get al there school aquipment from our project and the families are also really helped by the donation of Jan and Dinega, we decided to keep the children in our project. Any way because we help until University. It could be that other families get a donation, of which we don’t know. Who cares, they are so poor that they can need every help they can get.
3. In June a lot of children are going to junior high-school, highschool and even to University. The boys of the project will make sure that all the parents of these children sign a contract. This to make sure that the parents take care that their children are going to school, but also to make sure that when their child just doesn’t want to go, they pay back. It sounds very stricked, but we need rules to make sure they go to school. We learned this the last few years. At Elementry school the amount is less, so we don’t ask a contract from these parents.
4. We will start in March (after we return in Holland) to send e-mails to all sponsors. Because the system here is so slow, that we would sit behind the computer for the rest of our stay. Lombok is to beautiful for that………. We hope you will understand.
Current state of affairs:
- 51 children for elementry school
- 24 children for junior high school
- 14 children for high school
Were still 3 children are payed by spare money of the projecct.
So we are looking urgent for 3 new sponsors for highschool (€ 125,- a year)
- 12 persons to University
- IN TOTAL: 101 children are visiting school.
BE AWARE: These facts depends on the fact if all sponsors go on. Also when the children go to a
next school with higher amount.
Of course the sponsors are all free to decide if they go on with sponsoring. We will discuss this with
all sponsors personall. That is not more then polite. So in March they will receive an e-mail.
It is possible that we get more children from elementry school of the people who live here in a hired house and not officially. We opened the project also for them. Because, although we have new children for elementry school, we still have some sponsors available.
As far as it concerns further education, we are going to work with a waiting list. We will put the child in the project on the moment we really have found a sponsor. As a result we have allready 1 person waiting for University. She can go on the moment we find a sponsor. We explained this to her and she understands the situation.
Also are we going to try (after a tip of a frequent reader) to get more then one sponsor for one child. They can share the costs.
We have deeply respect for the boys here, who try so hard to make this project to a success. We are all just a couple of amateurs, but we are learning a lot the last few years. And we are proud of were we get already, realizing we just started in October 2005.
In the mean while we were doing some work for school De Keg from Venray, Holland. They had an action school for school and it had nothing to do with our project. The good thing is with this action we can help 3 schools in Lombok. The only link to our project is that all those schools have students from Kampung Loco. The amount is not yet finished, so the help will take quit a long time. As we are back in Holland we are going to report to the school.
Also we still have to go to Mangsit (sorry Albert and Gerry) to make some pictures of the school over there and talk to Iwan. He is doing the project form Albert and Gerry over there. They started up a copy of our project in Mangsit. We wish there would be more people like them.
Well this is the complete story until now and we can go out now to look at a beautiful sunset. Yes, we are staying in paradise and we realize that every day. Good luck with all the cold and just think of this: in Lombok they don’t have a beautiful springtime……….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
