Leaving soon.

Well it's been awhile since the last port, and the program is almost over, hard to believe that 82 days have passed. Everyday seemed so long and short at the same time. We leave the town tomorrow morning and I will shortly get back to my Host Family to give some gifts and take alot of pictures. The last couple weeks have passed with few big moments, the last week and a half was mostly reminiscing, performing and packing. We have to put on 3-4 shows for a few towns before we go, starting on wed. ending pretty much when we leave. The time before that was spent doing the FGD's (assessments) I mentioned last time, which were pretty much a big waste of time on my part, and copmpleting the smaller projects that a few ofus have taken up during our time here. Mine were mostly centered on environment, and helping other groups and I had a brief unsuccesfull attempt at an antismoking campaign. Most of of these projects could have been done in a week or 2 in canada, but due to several glaring differerences, simple tasks like printing and laminating posters took me 2 weeks to make, translate, and leave town (twice) to get them printed. I am not the most invested in my projects either, and while I know that change takes time, especially in a place that experiences so little of it, most of these side projects have had little effect on the town. My posters numbers have dropped substantially as the stores take them down for taking away their prime seller. The recycling bins that were built filled with garbage despite workshops, signs, and clearly marked bags. We may have been aiming high for much of what we did, but I'm hoping to get in touch with the next group who can pick up where we leave off, and maybe we started the changing process. Funny how much less affected and corny change is when you are trying to accomplish something.
The performances we are doing, or at leats some of us are doing are supposed to be thank you's and goodbyes. Apparently we have a lot of them to give regardless of what we beleive. mempora has many facets set about the island and we have to gove something to them all. Many of the canadians don't have a lot of performing experince, at least not until we joined the program, and weren't happy to learn about them all. Not that we are going to have to put something together for each one, no one has to do anytthing they don't want to, but we were expecting a calm trip home with time to spend with the group and gathering keepsakes to bring home (much harder to track down than you'd think). Instead we have to sit in a bunch of govenrnment buildings waiting for specch after speech inbetween a bunch of repetitive performances. I've seen most of what we haveodne several times. The performance that we all agreed was necessary was the one in our actual villagewith all our host families present witha big pot luck afterward. It went ok. The english song was a rewritten "I will Survive" played on traditional sudanese insturments. Didn't go so well, words forgotten, poor playing, but the audience just wanted us to strum a katcapy so they got what they wanted. They seemed to like everything but Hendri's students English drama. they came to hear music not english. Too bad, he spent a lot of time and effort on it, so did the kids. He's been one of the busier people here, putting together a small library, med kits for the schools, even had an outdoor reading area built. The family is definitely going to miss him, and I think me too.
So thats a basic update. I have tried to update before, but most of the times I managed to get a computer the internet was very slow or I had to rush out. The end of the rainy season brings more and more lightning storms. Every night we get to see it play along the mountains in the distance. I'm trying to write down as much as I can about this place, take a lot of pictures and a few videos. I haver been keeping a decent journal and I plan on adding to it in the next few days. I am Back in Canada on the 2nd of March, then in Halifax on the 5th. Not much longer now. I'm definitely ready to leave Cikandang, I am not looking forward to being dragged from event to event to have my picture taken by hundreds of random people, but I don't really wnat to leave the group behind and get on with my life. I am a little worried that Canada will seem boring by comparison, and I am thinking I'll be back in Indonesia if not exactly this part of it. There is way more to see here than Java island. I hope to get another entry before I get back home, but if I don't get the chance, I'll see everyone soon.
Justin

We are about 3 weeks from being back in Canada so things are really being crunched at this point. We have been asked by the government and CWY to do a bunch of assessments from the members of the whole community for the next 2 wks. This means that a great deal of our time will be filled with interviews with various groups split into married/not married, men /women, and different age groups. Since the program is supposed to have a health orientation now and in the future, these assessments will give useful information to future groups. the gov't here has been "trying" to do them since Aug. so that we could have benefited from it but instead put it off until now. We had a workshop on how to do these assessments which involve asking the community members about what their health issues are, where facilities are, etc. While it is a good idea in theory, and may save some time in the future, there are some fundamental flaws and general problems that we are having with them. One of the main flaws is that people don't like showing up at the chosen time, usually a half hr to an hr late. We knew this from doing the environmental meetings with the same basic mission. Another is that we are getting responses like coughing and diarrhea which could all have a half dozen causes, or people who think you can get typhoid from eating too late. We aren't exactly happy because these are eating up a lot of time and they tend to be booked after our work placements in the afternoon. When the rain comes. I spent about 10 min carrying a cardboard box today in the rain fording a road that was deeper than some streams I've crossed. The box broke. No one showed up for the meeting. Apparently women between 20-30 who aren't married don't exist in that area. We were told that might happen.
My host-sister who is 20 from Bandung was in town as she is pregnant and they wanted to have a prayer circle for her. She spent the night of the circle cooking with the rest of the women (about 6) for all the men (about 25) they invited to do the actual praying. I made pancakes with a couple friends. My host family was getting upset with me because I was eating and sleeping at other peoples homes too often. Hendri explained that sleeping at girls homes was rude in this region. So I started bringing people home to eat etc. It seems complicated but actually simple; respect comes from being used by people, thus if Justin is sleeping/eating at someone elses home he must hate it in his own home. This isn't really true, but my home just isn't where people congregate and I don't want to come home at 6 when it gets dark and apparently when you are out after dark you lose fingers. I've compromised by bringing people to my place which pleases them, which gets them off Hendri's back etc. But I still eat and sleep at other homes, so on average the Host Parents will be happy with me
I have been working on the global warming front with the kids of the village up to this point and soon (providing my posters are translated and printed) I'll be working on an antismking campaign which may not be received well but I'm cool with that. Hopefully I find time to get it into the schools before we leave, many of the projects we've been attempting over the past 2 mths have resisted being done but we have some hard evidence we were here and hopefully we have made some kind of impact on the people here. Construction of 4 recycling bins have been completed, as well as signs asking people to slow down as they pass through the village. How effective they will be is depressing but at least we tried. Which is basically my feeling on the anti smoking campaign. I've learned some interesting things about Indonesias cigarettes, and people here like them a lot, but maybe a few people will listen. Either way I'm starting with the kids, they seem to be interested in the global warming lesson.
Well, I've dried a bit but since it's almost dark and the rain hasn't stopped I'm about to get wet again. But at least the computer isn't getting dripped on. A girl came and took its protective plastic sheet, and while a wet computer is never a good thing, these have all had their grounding prongs cut (the third prong at the end of an electric cord) so they already shock you when you touch them. Till next time.
Justin