Blogs from Sumba, Indonesia, Asia

I set off for Sumba with excitement and a little concern. The plan seemed easy enough but I didn't know how it would go in practice given that my fluency in Indonesian didn't extend much beyond "punya pacar?" (do you have a boyfriend?) and "umur anda berapa?" (how old are you?). I got lots of small bills changed at the bank because the ATMs give the cash out in 100,000s which are of absolutely no use in the eastern islands (or pretty much anywhere else for that matter). Getting the money from the ATMs was a mission in itself actually, with the first three machines that I tried all rejecting me. The first said "cannot comply" or words to that effect; the second said to contact my bank (eep!); the third just spat the card back ... read more

A visit to the beautiful Indonesian Island of Sumba the people here are largely Christian but the Christianity seems to be lightly laid on top of the traditional system of ancestor worship. We had to fly into Waingapu in the East of the Island; the Flight we had planned for the 13th to Tambulaka with Transnusa had been cancelled. I arrived in Denpasar to late for Merapati airlines flight which uses a bigger plane. So we booked the flight to East Sumba for the next day, flights were filling up for the Pasola. We phoned ahead to Hotel Artha in Waikabubak and he had arranged a car back there for Rp 600,000 this is high by Indonesia standards. From memory the drive takes around 3.5 hours. The landscape unfolded as promised with wonderful views and rolling ... read more

Our office at Sumba is the coolest since it has a hut on the backyard, where you can lay around and reach mangoes from the tree beside it. I spent the next morning chatting with the Sumba staff here while we pick peel and eat the mangoes. The team leader and awareness officer from Flores office also came to Sumba to attend the wedding as well. They told me so many stories about Flores makes me want to go to Labuan Bajo soooo bad! Crossing my fingers to next year. The people at the office called me to run out sometimes so I can see people bring buffalos to traditional ceremony. In the afternoon Oom Doms was ready with his motorbike so we could ride after and took a video of it. People of Sumba eat ... read more