INDO DIARIES 2010 - Tuesday 13th July

OK, Tuesday began as normal - with the annoying sound systems blaring out from villages afar. Frustratingly, the music stops about 6.30, after you have woken up....hmmmmphh

Breakfast was good, as per. More Indo food. It's a good diet and a heavy meal in the morning, setting you up for the day (usually rice and vegetables, or fried noodles, mi goreng, my favourite!)

We continued with the signs once again. Today, was a matter of screwing them into the ground. It was rather fun for a while and we got quite into it. The team work and the manual labour proved to be really satisfying.

Sign were held up by piping. Everything was recycled here.
One good thing about  P wec!

Ian getting ready to drill holes

Asti putting the nuts and bolts in.

Ready to be attached to the poles!

Ready to go!

 When we were done, Warno, whose idea it was and whose job it is to know all the plant names, came with us as we went to add the signs.

Ian and I thought it would have been so much more fun has they just given us a picture and we tried to find the plants ourselves. Still, good ideas weren't exactly their strong point here at P wec.

Ian doing it wrong!

It seemed we weren't able to get too involved with the work, only the mundane tasks. The few occasions Ian had the sickle, he was told that he was doing it wrong. Instead of showing him how, Warno just took the sickle and the pole and did it himself.

Plant and sign united!!!

We had a list building in our opinion on Pwec, and it was getting longer, faster.

After lunch, we were supposed to organise the educational games....again! This was more than frustrating as we had provided them with many ideas (we are professionals, so it is not difficult work), but apparently our ideas were not good enough. Then, contrary to a previous promise of printing out pictures, we were told we had to draw the animal cards. I can't draw to save my own life, but I was pleased my husband suddenly revealed a secret talent!

It was all rather strange that an 'education centre', which is what P wec is supposed to be, couldn't print out simple pictures for us to make materials.

Of course, we will find out later that they are not an 'education centre' at all. It is, as I keep hinting at, an eco-tourist stop off for the more well off domestic tourist, or at least that is what it seems.

As if directed by someone of authority, Asti went to get us some drawing supplies. It took her a super long time and once again, like many a time before, we had to wait for someone to provide us with nothing to do.

Ian and I had a heart to heart about the situation. It was very off indeed. If we couldn't print pictures at P wec, perhaps we could go to the offices in Malang, to Pro Fauna. We could print the pictures, or even buy the materials to make half decent ones (so far we had been given no colour pens or pencils, nor paper).

So we decided (Ian and I ) that we should go to Malang tomorrow, Wednesday to get supplies. Annoyingly, we could have brought everything ready made from Japan or at least brought some great supplies had we been such informed.

On top of all this, we had no idea when these games would actually be used. We were supposed to go to a wildlife watching activity on Saturday and the mobile library on Sunday, but we still didn't know anything about the schools. In fact, those were the only two activities in the rather dull and depressing looking schedule.

We were supposed to go a one school today, but that had been cancelled. And, the rest of the week was simply 'educational game production'. Ugh. Friday was the one day off.

Ian was more than annoyed. He had not done one constructive nor interesting thing since he had arrived. the signs hardly counted. That was their work and it was hardly worth flying to Indonesia to cut plastic.

There was a great feeling of entrapment here. I was lucky enough to see a rainbow, it helped lift my spirits ever so slightly.

When Asti eventually returned, she just told us there were no resources.

Aaarg. It was all too annoying. We had just sat around waiting during time that wasn't 'free time' as it wasn't on the schedule, yet we were doing nothing, just waiting for a badly organised load of NOTHING.

So, we talked about the new plan of going into town and organising the materials. We continued with our jungle stories (we didn't have much else to do anyway.) In fact, we even had a laugh doing them. Asti is lovely. She was there to help us and she did. Our volunteer co ordinator was never there to help nor guide us. That was awful.

By the time we went to bed, we had decided enough was enough. We needed out. We were not being looked after at all. We had paid a lot of money to come and join the volunteering scheme, not to mention travelled from Japan to Indonesia. It was too disappointing.

Ian wanted to up and leave Thursday night, before our 'day off' and not come back....I thought we should hold out until the animal watching on Saturday and the mobile library on Sunday. At least then we would have done something....Staying the whole duration of 3 weeks was just out of the question.