On the road again

Just starting to feel settled and its time to pack up and go! After a meeting Monday with the head of our project it was determined that we would depart for our field work Wednesday, tomorrow. If you’re confused I posted a few days ago about what I’m actually doing here… So for me this means a 2am wake up call to board a 3am bus to Jakarta for a 6am flight to Yogyakarta followed by a few hours drive to Pacitan City. Sweet.

Thankfully I’m travelling with Rahmi, the undergrad tasked with translating and babysitting me. I managed to learn a few essential Bahasa phrases for this excursion, nothing remotely useful in conversation unless talking about kedelai (soybeans) or curah hujah rata rata (average rainfall).

I *should* be there about a week, depending on how quickly we are able to arrange the appropriate meetings with farmers, bankers, municipal and community leaders. However, being that we’re on Indo time and most things seem a few days delayed, I anticipate I won’t be back for 10-14 days. Not to worry, I’ve confirmed that the house we’re staying at will have a TV for soccer viewing.

This loose timetable made my packing a little difficult. I’ve got all medicine covered.. and stuffed the rest of my bag full of fruit and the closest items I can find to granola bars. I get hungry and rice more than once a day has gotten old, very very quickly.

Also spent some time today ensuring that we would have adequate funds on our sim cards for proper phone and internet service while in the rural districts. Cell phones here are far more affordable than in the US but infinitely more difficult to figure out. What a nightmare. My hatred for Telkmosel is right up there with the likes of Vodafone, AT&T, the Yankees ticket office, and New York Road Runners. I took some pictures of my packing extravangza this evening which I would post but I’m conserving my megabytes used.. again, thank you Telkmosel for creating an impossible system. Fingers crossed I won’t be off the grid for too long! And that Pacitan will bring me more sunshine, fewer bugs and far less traffic/air pollution than we’ve found in Bogor.