Here's the thing...

I hadn't intended to have anything with the opening of Terminal 5 but I have always had a secret dream (you're going to be deeply disappointed by my mundane dream life). The dream goes a little something like this: I am the sort of person that possesses skills that are so inherently valuable, marketable and desirable that NGOs call me up and say, 'Get on the next plane to [insert foreign capitol here]. We're arranging everything but you must go now! It's extremely urgent.' Of course it's a fantasy as most organizations plan their staffing well in advance and avoid the cost of next-day plane flights. And, of course, I do not possess a skill set such that organizations fly me out the next day. However, sometimes...sometimes (!!) an emergency does arise and it is in the small hope that they will turn to me that I have continued to foster the dream. Well, much to my delight an organization did need me urgently last week and needed to me to come and intervie...

Well, tomorrow we're going to call it a rap on the past six months in Indonesia. Headed for London and then the States wherein I will - most likely - sink into the blogging doldrums. When I have a new job somewhere I'll be back. Here's some random pics from the last months (if you look at one a week you might not notice that I've stopped blogging): Meulaboh Grand Mosque: Playing Frisbee: Closedown Coordinator Extraordinaire: Kids with their Disaster Risk Reduction Placards: Party at Marcela's: Our Easter Egg Houses: Our organic chili project: What 'alleviating poverty and suffering' looks like: Fishing boat on the beach: Caden Jack! How did you get in here? (see...told you I might become one of 'those' people!)

Rumours of the demise of gingas has been greatly exagerrated... http://science.howstuffworks.com/redhead-extinction.htm This means you can stop forwarding the articles to me. Thank you.

So I was walking along today and out of the corner of my eye thought I saw a snake. 'Hmmm...' I thought, 'this is a good life lesson. If you see something that looks like a snake it probably is.' I'm making this life lesson number #1. For posterity, I will now record other life lessons learned in the field - in no particular order: #2: Do not stand on well covers. #3: Everything is better with bacon. #4: You are not as good a driver as you think you are. No one is. #5: You are not as good a swimmer as you think you are. No one is. #6: Never say, 'it can't get any worse' because it always can. #7: The best time to use the toilets on a plane are immediately upon boarding - or within the first hour. #8: Everyone can survive without washing for at least 4 days before becoming offensive to yourself and others. #9: Television is overrated. #10: Headlamps (torches) are not. #11: Almost no one ever knows what they're talking about. #...

We left late. I blame the Spanish that were with us because they don't read this blog and you know how they are with time. At least, that's the excuse I'm sticking with. So, it wasn't until after three that we finally headed out of town in three white Toyota pickups piled with camping gear and headed toward the Gayo Highlands - more commonly referred to by us coastal lowlanders as, 'those mountains over there.' We were attempting to reach Lake Tawar before nightfall but with a five hour drive this idea was quickly abandoned as we wound up steep hairpin turns hour after hour. It was not a drive for the faint-hearted (or stomached). The scenery gorgeous but a wrong move could send a truck of hurtling thousands of feet to the canyons below...a fact that I liked to remind those I was driving every time we ground to a halt at a 45 degree angle to shift into four wheel drive or went around a particularly precarious turn. It was calm, and cool winding thro...

You know, as one normally does... on Vatican Radio . (Yes, the Pope's got his own station, apparently).

Our senior management had a great idea to take our cooks, cleaners, guards and drivers all out to the field today to see what all the project people had been doing all this time. They wanted the people who normally stay in the office to see how they contributed to something bigger. It was a great idea. So, after a day of touring around houses and schools, meeting families and children and teachers they stopped at the floating fish ponds that I have previously described in another entry. But, instead of getting there in a canoe they put them on a raft. To make a long story short the raft flipped and trapped several of them underneath. Most couldn't swim. Some of those who dove in to try to save them couldn't swim. It was awful. No one was drowned although there were some serious bad moments in which those who were managing the situation thought there might be. Everyone involved was traumatized and several in severe shock. Imagine having been through the tsunami and now this...