Flores day-by-day

Our beloved truck, with the volcano Ineria in the background

January 24th

Group 1
Some stayed at the hotel, while the two reminding ‘healthy’ students went to Jerebuu with the truck to pick up the second group from the stay with their priest.

Group 2
We were up early to get one last bath in the hot springs of Jerebuu before we were to leave Jerebuu and Romo Bernard.

The hot spring was no disappointment this time either. After we got back to Romo Bernard and professor Stein, we had time to visit the little village of Bu’u before the group from Wangkung came to pick us up. Bu’u was not more than a ten minutes’ walk, but still it was like we had come to a way different place. After climbing up some steep stairs we came up onto the plateau where the village is located. And it was an unbelievable pretty village. The place you dream about moving to when you are from the cold north. Too bad we couldn’t stay there longer.

Indonesian style lunch packet, enak enak!

After a goodbye filled with tears we left Jerebuu and Romo Bernard. And we were back on the “Putri Salju” heading for Bajawa again. In Bajawa group one and two were reunited, and we all headed for Moni.

After six hours on the truck, only stoping to eat, we arrived in Moni; the 'insect capital' of Indonesia. Everyone went early to bed, to be prepared to see Keli Mutu in the early morning the next day.

Group 3
Woke up early to go to Mass. Arne shared a mattress on the floor of the Church with Bono the killer dog, and had at least 50 new mosquito bites from the few hours of sleep he had gotten. Before the Mass at 7 am, a group of children sang some incredibly amusing songs for us,

especially the Nasi Goreng song stuck in our heads for weeks after. The day before had taken it’s toll, and standing up for every prayer was pretty hard for a few of us. The only words we could understand from the ceremony was Norwegia and porno, but it was a nice experience nonetheless.

The day continued with borrowing of sarongs and a meal consisting of pork in pigbloodsauce with a delicious cake that looked suspiciously like a pigs ear, we still don’t know if that was intentional to scare the girls. We were offered both tobacco, arak (a little too much for some of us) and betel nut, which causes an explosive production of spit. Arne tried that too, to the villagers’ amusement.

After the food we had a gathering with songs, speeches and discussion between Arne and most of the villagers about different political and development issues. More food followed, and then the dancing was on again. Solveig impressed, while Siv was laughed and pointed at behind her back by some of the traditional leaders.

After a long programme and a lot of “just 15 minutes more” from Romo, we had to leave so we’d get back home before dark. We got followed by a group of drummers and around 30 children all the way down the new road where we should have arrived if the weather had allowed it the first day. We made one stop in a village with both a mosque and a church for some pineapple, then Arne washed off in the river and managed to get lost on the way home, but we all got there nonetheless.

Pretty exhausted most of us went to bed, while Solveig stayed up a little longer, drinking and looking at videos with the priests and Robert.

First view of the city Ende

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