Thursday 13-11-2008

Marijke
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When I get up in the morning, my ear feels really bad, I can’t put in my hearing-aid. This is not good! We decide to go to Senggigi clinic.
A small clinic near Senggigi Beach Hotel. We get there at 9, and a kind nurse lets us in. She makes a phone call and a young man, about 20 years old, enters the room.
We think he is going to do some cleaning or something, but he appears to be the doctor. He watches my ear, and explains, in half Indonesian, half English, and with the help of a drawing, that the inside of my ear is completely red and swollen because of an ear infection. We already expected something like that. I get four little bags; antibiotics, pills against the swelling, ear drops and cotton wool to “close” the ear. When I tell him we will fly to Bali next Sunday, he advises me to close my ear by pushing it hard, when we take off, because the pressure is not good for my ears. I’ve had this problem before, when we were travelling in Thailand. The heat, sweat in my ear and the hearing aid is apparently not a good combination… Now my hearing aid works perfect, my ear doesn’t.
Joep says laughing he never has a problem, that’s true.
On our way back we stop at Cuk’s house. He’s talking with Eful and the policeman we rented the motor from. Cuk tells the policeman Joep has a fake international motor drivers license from Thailand. The policeman is very interested in this… He wants to see the license. He tells us it looks very real, it’s a good fake... We laugh a bit, in Lombok everything is possible.
He asks Joep about his past, where his family comes from, and gives him some tips about how to find his family in Java. Well, this is not so important to us, now we have a lot of family in Lombok…
Cuk explains to us this policeman is not a traffic policeman, more like an area policeman. He controls a certain area, some villages, and tries to solve the problems in that area. Cuk says, smiling, because he’s not on the street, controlling traffic, he cannot earn “extra” money. The policeman confirms this. Strange, this kind of corruption is commonly accepted in Indonesia.
Joep decides to pay for the rent of the motor, and we go home. I take some medicine, and lie down on my bed, a few minutes later I sleep. Maybe because of the medicine, maybe because of the pain, I don’t know.
When I wake up, I lie down on the couch, and fall asleep again. Joep is reading a book. We have to wait for the 2 children that live on the mountain, they will come this afternoon for the photo. We don’t know what, but there something strange about those kids. When the mother arrives with the children, she tells the story to Adi. The oldest one of the kids, was victim of harassments at school. The mother asks us, if it is okay if the children go to another school. Adi tells her to visit Eful. He will join them to the old and new school, to arrange everything. I’m happy we don’t loose these children. That would have been worse.
There’s 1 girl we don’t have on photo. But Eful tells us the mother is being vaguely about this. Boung went to the family again, asked the father to come and explain what’s wrong. But he doesn’t show up. Then Eful says we should forget about this kid, if the parents don’t want them to go to school, there’s nothing we can do. It’s sad, but we can only confirm this. There are still some parents who don’t see the use of education for their children and rather keep them at home. We can not and will not force them, but we are afraid the children will regret it later, because nowadays 95% of the children go to school.
We go to the internet café to send the reports of 2 days, and meet Marianne and Nick on Yahoo chat. We chat a bit, and wish Nick a lot of success with the 7 Heuvelen Loop next Sunday. It’s great he will wear a shirt promoting Proyek Kampung Loco!
At a terrace we have a cup of coffee, and hope “our” bemo will pass by. We still haven’t got a movie of the bemo in action. We see a lot of bemos, but not the one we were waiting for. So we go home. We find the bemo in the Kampung. The driver stopped a bit earlier today. That’s up to him, as long as he takes care of the children’s transport to and from school.
We take a seat on the pavement in front of Cuk’s shop. Mariam joins us. Joep walks home, I have a talk with the ladies. June is busy working. She asked us for diner tonight, because their son, Judy, will be home then.
Then Judy is coming, He hasn’t changed a bit. Well, a bit taller, but he’s still the same cute boy. I realise he has become a bit more serious. That’s the result of the special school he goes to. Already after half a year you see the difference. I walk home with Mariam, and we see Sareah on the bruka. She tells us she’s feeling very well now. Kartini also joins us for a talk. Together with Sareah she invites Joep and me for diner at Saturday evening. That won’t be possible, Peter Geurts is coming to Lombok that evening. We will pick him up at the airport, after that we will have diner together at Cak Poer (sorry Marianne, this is not to make you jealous, only to give some information). Kartini looks very pitiful, but that’s the way it is. Maybe next year. I also tell her Sareah and she already did a lot for us, by preparing all the food for the bemo-ceremony.
I walk home, take a shower, and together with Adi we go to Cuk. The house is crowded, June’s sister with husband and 2 children are there, a friend, we’ve met him before, Eful and Boung, we, Adi and of course Cuk, June and Judy. June did a lot of cooking, we get rice, sate kambing (goat), sate ayam (chicken), two other chicken plates, and two small bowls with vegetables.
Cuk and Judy don’t like vegetables, they prefer meat. Last but not least, she brings in 2 plates with kentang goreng (French fries), especially for Joep, because she knows he likes it very much. How thoughtful of her!
Sitting together, on a carpet on the floor, we enjoy this lovely meal, eating by hand. In a bookcase we see the cashbooks from the proyek.
We ask how the bemo is doing. Proudly he shows the book keeping.
Mus, the driver, hands over an amount every day. This changes, depending on the number of customers he had. But if it goes on like this, the income will be more than enough to keep the bemo on the road! We don’t have to make a profit. Even is okay.
Cuk also tells us, he has had the first night ride. A woman from the kampung was very ill. In the middle of the night they took her to the hospital by bemo. We don’t know how she is doing now.
After diner we have a seat outside, on the pavement, where we can enjoy a little breeze. We make a design for the proyek, to put near the main road, and a design for a sticker to put on the bemo.
So everyone who wants to visit the kampung knows how to find it. We also put a logo at Cuk’s house, so everyone knows that’s the place to get more information. Well, the proyek is getting more and more official and professional.
We take the new guestbook to our home, so we can write a short introduction for the guests that will visit the proyek.
When we arrive home, we have a seat outside, at the terrace with Adi and Mariam. We enjoy the full moon and the lights and sounds of the night.
Too bad, there are some clouds, the moon sometimes disappears.
Enough for today.