2011
Winding Down
22 October 2011
A few more days of this relaxing, quiet life with Josh and Jasmin, though "quiet" may not be the right word as Jazz will wake any minute to get ready for school and the day will begin.
I can't believe how little I am doing after the full days of just last week when I was visiting Cathy in hospital or the week before when I was having 15 hour days at the Writers Festival - or even the week before that when Anne and I first arrived and I was introducing her to the joys of Ubud life and shopping. I guess it is good to be winding down. I read, I write, I translate, I swim, I shop (for groceries!) and cook, I play scrabble against the computer, do the sudoku in the Jakarta Post. The only time I go out is for morning coffee with Josh.
Today I am doing the nearest thing to "work" - meeting up with the couple, Stephen and Ochie who have set up a language school, Cinta Bahasa, here in Ubud for expats to learn Indonesian - I met them on my February trip to talk about their plans and their approach and now will see the functioning school and meet the teachers. Apparently the school is doing well. Stephen had been a volunteer graduate in Indonesia a decade ago from Canada and also worked in East Timor where Josh knew him. He speaks excellent Indonesian - married a Javanese woman, Ochie, here last year. I remember their wedding date as it was an auspicious date for weddings and happened to be Cathy's birthday too -10/10/10, the day after the Festival ended and we were partying at Café Havana. This year there was no partying on Cathy's birthday!!
The weather has changed remarkably in the three weeks I've been here - the monsoon is building up with quite heavy rain at night and the days and nights are hot and sticky- gone from needing a warm cover at night, to a sheet, to nothing at all. There is worry here that when the rainy season finally comes it will strike with a vengeance like it has in Thailand and Vietnam (which have a different time of year for their rainy season), causing those horrific floods.
Jazz has left for school now - last day before a week's mid-term break. The class is going to Kids World, what ever that is, for a fun (hardly educational!!) excursion. I am about to be paid nearly $1000 in rupiah by a Dutch NGO for the translations I did for the Festival - that will pay the next two terms’ school fees for Jazz at Pelangi School!
I can't believe how little I am doing after the full days of just last week when I was visiting Cathy in hospital or the week before when I was having 15 hour days at the Writers Festival - or even the week before that when Anne and I first arrived and I was introducing her to the joys of Ubud life and shopping. I guess it is good to be winding down. I read, I write, I translate, I swim, I shop (for groceries!) and cook, I play scrabble against the computer, do the sudoku in the Jakarta Post. The only time I go out is for morning coffee with Josh.
Today I am doing the nearest thing to "work" - meeting up with the couple, Stephen and Ochie who have set up a language school, Cinta Bahasa, here in Ubud for expats to learn Indonesian - I met them on my February trip to talk about their plans and their approach and now will see the functioning school and meet the teachers. Apparently the school is doing well. Stephen had been a volunteer graduate in Indonesia a decade ago from Canada and also worked in East Timor where Josh knew him. He speaks excellent Indonesian - married a Javanese woman, Ochie, here last year. I remember their wedding date as it was an auspicious date for weddings and happened to be Cathy's birthday too -10/10/10, the day after the Festival ended and we were partying at Café Havana. This year there was no partying on Cathy's birthday!!
The weather has changed remarkably in the three weeks I've been here - the monsoon is building up with quite heavy rain at night and the days and nights are hot and sticky- gone from needing a warm cover at night, to a sheet, to nothing at all. There is worry here that when the rainy season finally comes it will strike with a vengeance like it has in Thailand and Vietnam (which have a different time of year for their rainy season), causing those horrific floods.
Jazz has left for school now - last day before a week's mid-term break. The class is going to Kids World, what ever that is, for a fun (hardly educational!!) excursion. I am about to be paid nearly $1000 in rupiah by a Dutch NGO for the translations I did for the Festival - that will pay the next two terms’ school fees for Jazz at Pelangi School!