Here's the thing...

Felt like I reached a turning point in my trip here today when I poured a bowl of cereal this morning that was crawling with ants. I thought to myself, do I throw it out and eat hard white bread and jam, or do I ignore the ants, pour the milk on and get on with my day. I went for the latter. My sister kindly pointed out that I had failed in my last posting to talk about our most recent quake. So, here it is. We had a brutal earthquake! It was like nothing I'd been in before and we actually had to run for the doors. I have become the resident seismologist because I called it closest at a 7.8 while everyone else was insistent that it was around a 6.4. The title means that I get to speak with authority and overrule everyone else who's spouting off about upcoming quakes or seismic activity. Apart from that I'm now in Meulaboh sitting outside the UN tech tent listening to the mullah's wailing the prayer call. Kind of relaxing, actually. Flew in today with the South Afric...

Took a UN helicopter to Meulaboh. Here’s what waiting for 3 hours in the blistering sun looks like.

"Ferries are finished." The phrase kept coming to mind as I bobbed along for three hours on a fishing trawler somewhere in the 'Sea of Bastard Currents' between Sabang and Banda Aceh. ("Remember," Arief, our logistician had laughed the day before when dropping us off, "If the boat sinks then just try to float and you will wash up in Thailand or India eventually. Don't swim. The currents are bad.") The Indonesians use the phrase 'finished' to describe whatever you want that they aren't going to provide. "Chicken tonight?" "No. Chicken is finished." In our case the ferry back from the island where we'd gone snorkeling was 'finished.' Well, not finished exactly, just not coming back. It had decided - ferries have a mind of their own here apparently - not to come back for the rest of the day and to go to Meulaboh instead. Pequito problemo...our boss and the VP of the NGO was flying in from Jakarta to me...

Mmmmm...lunch!

Some houses destroyed by the tsunami.

Humidity. Mosquitoes. Earthquakes. Yep, that pretty much sums up my week. Oh, and one massive - albeit beautiful - report. I just returned from the PACTEC office (where there's high-speed internet) and I sent off this thing of beauty to the powers that be. I'm sure that it will bring me, and my teammates, all the fame and fortune, acclaim and accolades that we so richly deserve. Barring that, I'm hoping for a simple acknowledgement from HQ. Anyway, on to the fun stuff. Earthquakes. This week we've had some dooseys - all from 4-6.1 on the Richter scale. Having grown up in California I consider myself something of an earthquake veteran - meaning that I have a very well developed plan of action when an earthquake rolls in. Mostly it goes a little something like this: 1) Wake up. 2) Think to myself, 'hmmm, earthquake.' 3) Wait for it to stop. 4) Go back to sleep. See how well that works? None of this running and screaming for me, thank you very much. You might won...

Sundays are the worst. There's no church and so we spend the entire day trying not to work. However, since it's a Muslim country, everyone else is out and about their business and nothing is closed. So, today we (me and the two other expats here - two Brits and a Canadian) decided to get out - just drive and see what we could find. Since I'm the only one with an international driving license the driving fell to me. We headed out in our blue Kijang and found a restaurant in the part of town still standing. It wasn't a particularly good restaurant, according to the locals, it just happened to be one of the only ones still standing. Another good example of location being everything. Indonesian food is quite good; a lot of seafood and fried noodles and rice. After lunch we found a couple of MSF and UN vehicles across the street at the other restaurant in town so we're hoping that there's a place better than where we ate. Next, we decided to try to find the 'tank...

Indonesia is humid. I know that comes as no surprise to those of you who own a map but the reality of it is quite a different thing than the knowledge of it. And the strange thing is that there’s no other season. It’s hot and humid year round. No need for a change in wardrobe with the season the weather just stays the same and, at times, it rains more. In Medan now.

So, if you were going to choose any airport in the world in which to spend a quantity of time (read: 9 hours) then Singapore Changi is definitely the one! Free internet access, free movie theater, gardens, fish ponds, helpful staff who hang around at two in the morning to offer advice and direction, plenty of places to sit and sleep. As long as one doesn’t spit chewing gum on the carpet you’re sure to have a wonderful time.