INDO DIARIES 2010 - Saturday 10th July

After a day in the car, I was unbelievably tired.

We woke up just in time for breakfast. I felt bad for Ian as it was his first day but we had to start 'work' at 9am.

I had had it easy up until now, as I had blended into or rather, stole, other people's schedules. Ian met Adam and Sam too, a British couple stopping here for a couple of nights. Actually, they are staying in the forest for their month of volunteering, studying the monkeys as they are zoology students.)

There was a group of kids staying from the night before and while we were having breakfast, there had been a few shouts of 'Hey mister!', and 'Hello sir'. They were all very genki and not too shy at all to interact with us.

With some of P wec visitors

Our first task for the morning and the afternoon was to observe, photograph and document the activities with the kids. During the morning, they were going crazy on the death slide, or the flying fox as it is better know here. They were a church group from Surabaya, but they were attached to a Sumatran Christian church, so to start the day, we watched a P wec video about the forests of Sumatra, and then they began their activities.

They were unbelievably lively, adults even more so than the kids. The kids did brave the activities but there were some tears.

Flying Fox. Kids had no fear!

We stopped for snack time, which was a pure injection of sugar!! You could see the long lasting effects on the adults more than anyone else!

lopes

The snack lopes consists of rice cakes, sticky like mochi, covered with coconut sugar and then topped with cocnut. Very tasty, but very sweet.

The activities continued way past midday, for the kids and adults alike wanted more and kept dragging each other back for more and more fun.

We slunked off for our lunch at the Mess Parrot, in peace, away from the crowd. We even managed to sneak in a much needed nap, before the kids raided the education area just above us. First they played  a game in the camping area (my green paradise from the last post) with cut off bits of piping. As a team, they had to join the piping together, even though they were different sizes and make a path for small balls to travel down. They had to do this for the length of the camping ground and back again. There were three teams of about 8 kids and 2 crazy adults.

We were just watching and taking pictures.

The pipe with the holes!

Then came the water game. This was highly amusing, despite just taking pictures and watching. Into a tall pipe, the kids have to pour water, to fill the bucket it is standing in. If the pipe can fill, there is a ping pong ball inside ready to catch and help you win!  The snag? The pipes have holes in! The rest of the team had to help block the holes with just their hands! It was a great idea and a great test of team work, even if it was the messiest, wettest game I have ever seen! But, in 30 degrees sunshine, no one is complaining about being soaked!

This gibbon was in a really small cage.
 I constantly asked Rosek if it was going to be sent to Kalaweit.
He insisted it would be, but I am not so sure.

He wasn't happy at all.
A gibbon showing you his bottom means he does not like you!
This poor guy was not being treated so well, I thought.
But, I gave P wec the benefit of the doubt at this early stage.

One of the Javan Langurs.

They had more space to live in than the gibbon.

When I asked about their rehabilitation, answers were vague.

Something told me that these guys were just here to show the visitors that  there  was some sort of rescue/rehabilitation programme in place.

Suddenly, it was 3 o'clock. Our day was done. I decided to show Ian the monkeys and the gibbon too. After that, we took a stroll down to the village. He loved it; the scenery, the kids smiling, everything was great. We walked along the very same paths that Harry had shown me on Tuesday.

By the time we returned, it was already dinner time and it was not long before our heavy eyes locked up for the night, only to open for the next feed of the next day.