26 Feb Victorian values

more culture clash

A long weekend of drama that we could well do without, I’m left just feeling sick and wanting to go home and forget about this place.

Friday morning a text from Thomas, asking if I will visit hostel that day and to bring swimming gear so we can take Alice swimming. He adds that he is ‘confused about his condition’. When I arrive Alice is clearly upset and Athena arrives wanting to collect her motorbike which has now been delivered to a post office on the northern ring road. She doesn’t want to drive it herself through the city and we would have to take two bikes and three people to get the new bike and the original ones back. Would work if Alice was one of the drivers but she is too upset to contemplate it so ends up with Thomas and Athena going by taxi and I stay to comfort Alice and persuade her to go to the mall with me and Tito (computer student boyfriend of Ivana one of the hostel girls). At the mall I do my western food shop and we go to a café for a pizza slice but Alice refuses anything more than a drink and seems to have deliberately left her mobile behind so we can’t pay to get it ‘topped up’ allowing her call home to her family and daughter in Sumatra.

Back at the hostel Athena needs a lift home, she is leaving the bike at the hostel while she is away for the next week. I offer to take her and to do it so I can get home in daylight means setting off without time to talk with Thomas, which is unfortunate. The following morning I hear from Biwa that they had been out in the car together Friday evening and that Thomas had been in a state and crying.

It was 7 or 8 am on the Saturday that I bumped into Pak Biwa in the office in the village. I waited for him and T.O. to finish their business and got him up to my room for my long-prepared spiel about the financial problems of Thomas and Alice (apparently not having been paid since xmas). He acknowledged that there were difficulties but was unable to discuss them without an interpreter which he would find and bring to a further confidential meeting with me on Monday. A couple of hours later as I’m on my way north with T.O. and team I get a text from Alice saying that Biwa and Wati want rid of her, Thomas is not talking to her again and she has left the hostel and is feeling alone. I reply trying to say that Thomas will have to accept that he has to choose between Biwa and Alice, but that eventualy he will take Alice – a good test for my Bahasia Indonesian! On way back to the village I text Thomas to say I’m coming over but no-one is there when I arrive. Ivana and Tito don’t know where either of them is and I simply go to bed avoiding Biwa and Wati who arrive about 7pm and either don’t notice I’m there or see my bike and assume I’ve gone out with the couple.

Sunday morning and Wati is washing all the public area tiled floors that Alice usually does and Biwa is sweeping up the leaves like Thomas usually does – a good sight but difficult to escape unnoticed so I am forced to put a brave front on and march out to my bike, saying good morning and asking if they have seen Thomas or Alice (which they haven’t but want to). Ibu Wati restrains herself merely expressing surprise that I had spent the night in the hostel. Setting off then to an internet café I find Alice only a few yards away from the hostel and who breaks down in tears, she has spent the night with Ivana and tito in his room down the street and we return there to discuss what to do. It seems that Thomas has gone off with both mobiles but has them both switched off – maybe for privacy or so that he can just check texts from time to time and avoid live calls? We text around, left right and centre, vso and his Jogya contacts to little avail, it seems he was at the hospital to see Maria Saturday morning and had the keys to her bike but had not visited Athena as planned and to give her a letter to take to an uncle on her jounies next week. We bike up to an old friend’s house on an unsuccessful mission. After lunch Alice decides to return to the hostel with all of us and is rapidly noticed by Biwa and Wati. Seems that she hid in the kitchen before being found and cornered whilst Ivana, Tito and myself were summoned to watch the execution. As Biwa berated her I suggested she might like to sit down but Biwa angrily pushed the chair to one side and forced Alice into a crouching position on the floor like a mangy dog while he shouted and Wati screamed abuse at her. Big, ballsy Ivana in tears and Tito stepped forward to hold and comfort her. For my part I was transfixed, not from any deference for local customs and culture but just mortified at the Dickensian scene I was watching. Alice was clearly told to leave the premises and to hand over her identity card and the keys to their room. I took her to pack a few things to take with her on the bike butIvana, Tito and self were called back for some sort of briefing by Biwa and Wati mostly in Indonesian of course but I was accused of possibly having had a girl in my room the previous night (chance would be a fine thing!) and banned from the hostel ( I pointed out that Maria had invited me to use her living room to sleep in if I wished but with the rain stopping I would be returning to the village after all). Biwa said that Thomas had always been paid his money regularly and on time and if he didn’t pass any on to Alice that was his affair. I excused my self and left to help Alice pack and to take her to Tito’s place where we had to wait for the couple themselves to break free from the hostel – I don’t know if Ivana got or will get her own marching orders. I don’t know if Biwa and Wati still hope to hang onto Thomas who is so useful to the hostel and for his presentations for Biwa’s enterprises.

Alice rejects the possible use of Athena’s house because it is so far outside the city and difficult to get to her classes and Tito promises to help her find accommodation the next day – I leave money to help with any expenses, it seems that she will be allowed to collect her new computer from the hostel but nothing else until Thomas turns up. A cheap canteen chair has had its seat cut, presumably by Alice when she left or was cornered at the end may have to be paid for whether or not she and Thomas are due any wages. And so back home, too late to call on Maria in the hospital for observation following her accident but expecting to be released on Monday and to text Thomas briefly to let him know Alice is safe, if traumatised and to let us help him. Messages on hold as the phones are still switched off. Hope he is safe and makes contact soon.

24 Feb Illusions

When I was in hospital in Brisbane after contracting Pneumonia in Kiribati I suffered this illusion that the televisions mounted on the ward ceiling were very much smaller and were only inches away from my face. It was a strange experience but the same is happening here, not that there is any illness involved this time. My bedroom ceiling is dark timber rafters with a white lining between and is illuminated at night by the living room light which my hosts leave on all night (the bedroom wall only extending up to about 3 metres. Lying in bed I can wake and see the ceiling rafters as a pattern about six inches in front of me even when I move my head. I can put my hand out to touch the apparition but it just floats through it like a ghost – amazing! It must be what little babies experience when their brains are still working out how to interpret perspective in the outside world. There is probably some medical term for the phenomenon but there we are, no worries, just interesting!

Moving on from illusions to delusions (of grandeur) I am, in the guise of his Munificent Excellency the Sultan of Mandungan village arranging a garden party for St Patrick’s day when perhaps I can recover some of my reputation which was sorely damaged at Pak T.O.’s birthday bash. More details to follow as plans develop.

So, back to reality where ‘my’ first two houses continue to grow in between the tropical storms, which are prone to occur when I go out on the bike but are not going to be finished this month – the toilet and kitchen features have not been worked on since that first day when it was conceded that they would have to be provided. Pak T.O. insists not only that all five will be finished by the end of March but that the other 62 government funded houses will also be completed in time for magnificent celebrations at the time of the first anniversary of the earthquake in May. Time will tell but today I am visiting a farmers group up in the hills where apparently thay are well advanced into diversifying into eko tourism and associated with their flower growing activities – should be interesting and, touch wood, the sky is clear at present so we may get a close up view of the Merapi volcano at last?

Pictures

Just photos, if we are lucky......

My retreat cabin in the hills
Staggering viewpoint for Merapi volcano - but not a good day!
the start of one of the Red Cross bamboo houses in the village

Watch doctor

Mon 19 Feb

After buying a new small battery for my little travelling clock in Godean, I am unable – do what I may to get the clock going again. I take it and the old battery with me to the hostel where Thomas fixes it so quickly I can’t see what he has done. Honestly, he must have some witch doctor in his Papuan genes!

For my part I can enjoy a little self-satisfaction in installing my virus protection programme and its constituent parts in the appropriate directories of Alice’s new computer to protect it from rogue CDs and it actually works!

Visit Andrew in his home, back from the hospital after his second operation to fix his broken bones in his right arm. The new operation apparently cost 19 million Rph compared to the 13million for the first one (which had failed) but he is not in pain this time, just bored with inactivity and depressed about his ‘job’ and ‘employer’ who does not seem to know what to do with him.

Setting off to get home in daylight I find that I have a puncture but a neighbour of Andrew’s, apparently a history student a t the UGM university helps by first borrowing a hand pump and then coming with me to find a back street repair man. Embarrassingly I only have a 100k note with me so the student takes it off to Andrew or Athena for change to pay for the new inner tube that someone else has gone to find. On his return the job is soon finished though I notice that the outer tyre too should probably be changed before long. I get change of 20k and a hopefully adequate receipt for 30k. I understand from Athena through a later SMS that she has contributed 40k so that overall I owe or have paid out 120,000 for a 30,000 repair – I really should be more careful, or was it a similar looking red 10k note? We will never know!

Going home in the dark I stick to the main roads rather than risk getting lost or running into something on the smaller lanes, miss out on the major rainstorms that have been circling, but a bit of drizzle and the bike objects strongly, stalling several times before giving in and taking me back to the village to dry out and recharge the mobile.

Cultural Clash

16 Feb Friday

Photo of the waterway route into Jogya with a motorbike 'towpath'".............. ........... ..... Tuesday late breakfast on the office terrace interrupted by the surprise visit of Thomas who has been dispatched by Pak Biwa from a nearby village to borrow my camera. Thomas has not had breakfast so he gets some toast and jam, rejecting the drinks I have (should get some tea in for local visitors) and says that Biwa has still not come up with the offer of some temporary financial help pending Ibu Wati paying the wages now over two months late. I should refuse to let the camera go but I’m rubbish at saying “no” and accept assurances that I can have it back in the afternoon or early evening at the latest.

No sign of Thomas, Biwa or the camera by the evening (why should I be surprised?). I text Thomas to say Santrika is here with her birthday suit and I need the camera but no response until Wednesday morning just after I have packed sandwiches for lunch and am about to set off for town. Thomas and Alice who has not seen my accommodation yet are coming over this morning, So I wait in, only popping out to the main road to get a replacement 19 litre water bottle for my dispenser. At one o’clock they arrive having had to wait for a motorbike to borrow from one of the hostel girls, I have managed to keep the soup hot but Thomas shoots off to some village to collect the camera while Alice and I start lunch – she picks the soup and I take the salad, which we eat on my terrace. Thomas returns without camera but we complete lunch and have quick trip round the village where my first toilet still looks disappointingly like a patch of earth with a couple of reinforcing rods sticking out. At 2pm I am committed to going out to visit Andrew, in hospital again and Thomas and Alice are of to see her birth father, currently in Jogya but suffering from a bout of malaria. I manage to topple the bike over while getting ready, due to the rucksack on my back and I break a wing mirror. I have money for needed petrol but will have to find an ATM for money before I can get the mirror replaced. At the hospital Andrew is still in theatre but Maria and Athena are in attendance, Elvie had been there earlier but had now left. I get a cooling drink while Athena goes out in search for a cash machine taking my card for my withdrawal. Andrew whose platinum pins have become detached is still having them replaced and augmented when Athena returns having had my pin number rejected three times. I say not to worry and she lends me 100.000 Rph. I am about to leave when word comes that Andrew is leaving the theatre so I am able to say hello to his semi-sedated form as he is wheeled back to his single bed (apart from the visitor’s bed) ward. I do hope to avoid being hospitalised here where as with Pak Bowo’s hospital in Sleman things seem somewhat tatty despite being a pay hospital. We have yet to find out if there will be a charge for this second operation following the failure of the first one and also if vso are going to be more efficient in making or guarantying payment. I get caught in a rainstorm, the bike objects and it’s a stop-go journey to the hostel, I reckon that because of the tendency to stall in the rain that I’m revving the engine too much so that the fuel can’t get through quickly enough. At all events I get there and borrow dry trousers from Thomas and get a glass of hot tea from Alice. Still no camera, or Biwa though and I don’t fancy driving back to the village in the rain so I text Priyo to let my host Hari know that I wont be back till the morning. I take Thomas and Alice out for a meal – it seems that for the last week they have taken to going out together, leaving the hostel un-manned and they are clearly enjoying the experience! We go to a ‘steak’ restaurant with, I would guess some re-constructed steaks, but still with chips etc and at 50 pence each I shouldn’t complain. Still no Biwa when we return so I get to bed.

Early in the morning I hear the sound of a car being started, guess that Biwa is not only back but now on his way out again so I grab my towel and dash through the kitchen into the front courtyard giving Ibu Wati who is there the shock of her life, probably lucky that she didn’t have a heart attack! Biwa appears as she screams and I apologise but ask after my camera. He refers me to Thomas who is now wide awake from the commotion and acts as interpreter again. Biwa says the camera will even now be back in the village with Pak T.O. so I start to phone T.O. but he stops me and makes acall himself telling me then that the camera will be at a specific photo shop with the pictures being printed in an hours time, or if I have a little patience it will then be returned to the hostel with the apologies of the present holder.

With a couple of hours before Thomas and I can go to the bank HQ I go to the wi-fi café. En-route at this time of day are many policemen controlling junctions and I realise in time that my usual right turn across the main road has a sign indicating ‘no right turn’ and then that the next convenient point for a ‘U’ turn also has a sign indicating ‘no U turn’ (you learn something new everyday!). Successful in updating the new virus protection but not in downloading photographs to the blog site, still I get a milky coffee and the staff are nice.

Thomas takes me to the bank, on my bike of course but him driving which is much safer although I don’t know what vso would say if asked, but I haven’t yet signed my bike agreement form that I received last week. At the bank we test my card once more to find that it works as normal despite the failure at two machines yesterday. We go upstairs to question the problem but a security guard there puts it down to an occasional computer glitch and gives us a number to call if it happens again. Midday back at the hostel and the camera arrives with someone I doubt if I have seen before who apologises and goes to speak to Biwa. Pak Biwa knows I am there and that the camera has been returned but does not come to speak to me – is this a cultural difference or is he seriously affronted by my daring to ask for it back? We may find out the next time we meet but right then he is off for a meeting with a secretary to the President in connection with his big project. I had been going to call at the Hero supermarket on the way home but rain again so no stopping and I had enough food for the evening, toilet paper getting low but no diarrhoea at present so can go shopping the next day.

On Friday Pak T.O. is giving a presentation to a group of about 70 UGM university students visiting the village, I listen in as he presents a lecture accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation extolling the achievements of Mandungan village politically (establishment of parish council and mayor), technically (electric power connection, surfaced roads etc) and in farming with the successes of the organic movement. He is as successful in working his audience as with his farmers’ meetings, picking up on which islands individuals come from and cracking well received jokes on the way. The students are much like the primary school children in the village and all jostle for a chance to be photographed with this weird foreigner – perhaps I should charge or take the opportunity to get photographed with some of the pretty women? Invited for a snack lunch in the farmhouse being partially rebuilt opposite my accommodation and which is being used to cater for the hungry hoards of students. The lady of the house accepts that she qualifies for the government assistance but says she has already spent that amount on the initial repairs and internal reconstruction work. Like everyone else in the village she sees me as a walking pot of money, as does T.O., Ratiman and Co. and one could start to wonder how much the friendly atmosphere is based on unachievable expectations. A trip to the supermarket after lunch finds some long grain rice to accompany the spices just received from Hazel although Priyo says its not for eating unless it is cooked in a particular way with desiccated coconut. I turn down an invitation to join T.O. when he gives a lecture to the UGM university on Saturday (he is billed as ‘professor Supratio’), I will go to Godean to post my first batch of postcards and a bit of shopping.

13 Feb Building progress!

After some prevarication and arguments about whether people need and want toilets and, if five families get them courtesy of vso then everyone will want one, hard man Ratiman has finally given in and the first toilet/kitchen area has been marked out, some reinforcing bars are evident and I was shown where the drains will go. It may indeed set a precident since the 62 houses being financed by the government are each getting more money than my five.

Up in the hills my first retreat cabin made of bamboo but on a coconut and concreted stone base is progressing apace – and with little regard for my drawings. The coconut wood base frame is unsawn, untreated and still with its bark (that which hasn’t been eaten by insects yet) let alone cut to measurable dimensions. It is being jointed with mitred ‘joints’ probably held with nails or gravity but boss Biwa is happy and the men seem to understand the bracing of the bamboo frame as a means to aid construction but we wait to see and again I need to revise the drawings to match what is being built!

Going into Jogya yesterday I tried to follow the large watercourse that runs a couple of kilometres from the village and would appear to pass the wi-fi internet café not far from the hostel. All well for the first part, the ‘towpath being ideal for motorbikes and with views of the countryside and with Merapi volcano smoking away instead of the advertising hoardings and traffic fumes of the Godean road. Got across the ring road, and another to connect to the waterway still but then one road junction with no apparent route on the other side – must have a closer look next time.

Got hold of some postcards at last for some of my non computer friends back home – next to see what the postage costs! Also Pak T.O. and Hari my host are happy for me to have a party on St Patrick’s day so I can start planning in good time. Had to lend Alice some more money to get to her classes since their wages have still not been paid since December. I tried to have a private word with Biwa but just as we were about to sit down in a quiet café Ibu Wati fang and came shooting round to take Biwa to the airport in connection with some visiting Dutch relative (she used to be married to a Dutchman) so that put the kibosh on that plan – no idea when I may get another opportunity.

Now to try some photographs again....... No, no go again today!

7 Feb Creative accounting

No pics getting uploaded again!

The first five new buildings in the village following the earthquake were completed in October last year, financed by a national consortium of banks. Following the belated confirmation of government aid to build 62 houses in the case of Mandungan 1 the reconstruction committee included those five in the claim for government money releasing the original donation for other uses. I have little doubt that the new uses of the money are to the benefit of the community but have had a growing suspicion that something similar may be happening with ‘my’ houses. So a day spent researching the government approvals comparing names of families with my own list and the individual sites attributable to different categories of rebuilding. Much relief on my part to be reassured of the propriety of my sector of the work. The fact that the first of my houses is more than twice the size agreed (despite being for a single person household is excused by the Dukuh as being because a community meeting room is also being incorporated but at no additional expense to my donors. The Dukuh, busy working barefoot on site is also unaware that the houses must incorporate toilets and drainage arrangements, still he knows now and Pak T.O. certainly knows.

On the veranda of the office the lads are busy dismantling the motorbike and sidecar that has been retrieved from the scene of Bowo’s incident with an oil tanker which has left him in the Sleman hospital with a broken arm and leg and some face damage which is not good for a public entertainer but at least no head damage and he should be out in a couple of weeks. The bike is now being fitted with some new parts and rebuilt as a single machine, dispensing with the sidecar.

A meeting with a Catholic charity group is deffered by me on the grounds of a tropical rainstorm which means a bike journey would not only be unattractive but positively dangerous. Sister Inez is quite happy and I’ll see her later in the week. Two student teachers working at the village school, teaching English to the primary classes call round to invite mein a day or two to meet the students (in class, they already know me outside of course). In the evening my bean stew with fried croutons comes out well but I lose two games of chess against T.O. who I have yet to beat.

30 Jan Party Time

Have been urged for some time to keep 30 Jan clear all day for Pak T.O.’s fiftieth birthday but Biwa has different plans telling me first that T.O. has changed his birthday to the 31^st (having been born at midnight) and then that the party would not start till the afternoon. He wanted me to accompany him to a meeting with the builders of the study centre cabins. I claim that I must ask and get approval from my boss T.O. but Biwa said he would clear it at a meeting in the village. At all events I am up early for a forecast 5am start on the Biwa journey but for only the second time in Indonesia things are ready before the set time and I have to rush without breakfast, putting on my executive trousers for smartness (and an air of authority) and to hide the bandage that I have now applied to my exhaust pipe burn that refuses to heal over. And so speeding through the countryside with Biwa, Wati who doesn’t want to lose her car and wants to share in the planned surprise, and Thomas. The landscape is attractive even in the dark with the trees, small farms, paddy fields and bright starlight that could not be appreciated in Jogyakarta. As the dawn starts to break, with cockerels and ducks waking up to be heard through the open windows we see Merapi volcano standing proud but like a factory producing clouds. About an hour sees us at the Ketep pass on the west of Merapi in a visitor centre and park for viewing the volcano. Quite attractive and only marred by a few garish adverts (for pot noodles) which apparently provide an 8 million Rph annual income to help the maintenance. It was developed a few years ago by Biwa and a few friends with finance from the then president Ibu Megawati and is apparently run by the local government as a tourism project bringing visitors and their money to the district ( I bet Pak Biwa still retains some interest in the venture or the site itself though!). All misty though and while the cloud rises a little to reveal the near landscape of terraced rice fields, small villages and clumps of woodland the volcano itself remains elusively invisible. Thomas and I visit the ‘museum’ where disappointingly a couple of models of Merapi and a collection of old photos comprise the bulk of the display. We have a breakfast provided by Wati – biscuits pot noodles and sweet tea but still the cloud does not lift to reveal the volcano which I am assured is usually there – will have to return on another day or maybe it has something against me every time I approach.

After a couple of hours and taking photos we move on to Kopeng village on the north face of the volcano where a friend if Biwa has a number of cheesy oil paintings of the President which Biwa want to have photographed so he can give a print to T.O. for his birthday (lucky chap!). Thereafter on to the site of the Muslim study centre cabins where the builders have been ploughing on apparently as directed by Biwa, not to my drawings, although admittedly Biwa has only had a cursory inspection of the requested drawings. Nevertheless he happily agrees to change the location of the toilet and the kitchen and to incorporate holes in the concrete slab about to be poured for drainage and the water supply. Bamboos for construction have been assembled, 5.5 metre lengths though my design requires 6 metre+ so redesign needed ( this is just trying ti keep up with the actual building!). Also to give more headroom in the kitchen and toilet Biwa proposes to extend the ‘dormer’ feature to the point where we are building a standard box but with a decorative ‘A’ frame feature at either end. I also reckon that any revised design for future units should cater for disabled access which is just not possible with this first model, standing as it does up on metre high stone pillars.

Back to my home village with Thomas who wants to borrow the usb memory stick to get the president’s photos printed, driven by one of the Muslim sponsors of the study cabins who is an old friend of Pak T.O. In Mandungan the extra canopies and temporary street lights are being erected, the band is setting up and testing the sound system and 300 plastic seats are being set out for the party. Savour my breakfast cornflakes at last rather than making lunch and at 7 o’clock take a seat to watch the visitors arriving. The first outsiders arrive about 8pm with most rolling in at 8.30 for the traditional Javanese music and dancing girls. Visitors include the Dukoh, of course but also bigwigs form the local government and police (why should I worry about my out of date driving licence?!) and farmers from a wide area across Java, those from Pakis recognising me as an old friend.Biwa and Thomas turn up eventually but need to keep the usb because their printing has not yet been achieved. I say I will collect it the following day and Thomas and I retire to my room for a beer (the street party is surviving on warm tea) and chat. It seems that the hostel has been inspected by prospective purchasers from Jakarta, which gives T hope of being able to become manager properly with the owners in Jakarta leaving him in control. The President has given the ok to Biwa’s plans for a think tank study centre, to be known as the Adam institute (first man on earth Adam not Adam Smith) on a hillside site from where seven different volcanoes can be viewed and where any group who thinks it can offer a contribution to improving Indonesia’s fortunes can deliberate in peace and quiet – I’m dubious but am an old cynical westerner so what do I know? Biwa is apparently excited though and chasing loose ends up with T.O., Ajikusomo (the next president intended?) before flying of to the capital on Thursday. It is admitted that the president is restricted by the need to get the support of the ruling party in the government, which is not his party. Back on the street the party show is in full swing, sweet little girl on stage being interviewed by the MC and food being served to all the guests – this must be costing more than a wedding! Happily Thomas and Biwa have returned to Jogya before I find myself on the stage for a song and dance routine with a sexy looking vivacious entertainer. Survive however and get to bed soon after midnight. The party lasts not much longer and the motorbikes in the overflow bike park that my front garden has become leave with only a couple of visitors deciding to sleep in the portico – not drunk mind you, this has been a totally tee-total event (apart from my private quarters).

Building progress?

27 Jan

Bapak T.O. confirms that plans to start building ‘my’ first two houses on Monday are on schedule but supply problems with everybody, and their dogs building at the same time mean we have to use 8mm reinforcement instead of 10mm. I reckon that the only difference is in the size of earthquake that the house will withstand and give approval to relief of T.O. and Ratiman. Do further work on the drawings for Pak Biwa’s retreat cabins – there is no provision for disabled use and with the substructure already built, adaptation is not practical but mark two design for future cabins can hopefully be modified. Running out of food, check round the corner for eggs but seems they have already gone to market, ‘tomorrow, we will bring them round to you’. Off to Hero supermarket on the bike to find vegetables for a stir-fry and for soup and smoothly back to the village for a salad lunch. Siesta with the fan on but still sweating, this must be the hottest day yet surely! My leg wound is still not healing over as I had expected with leaving it open to the air and while there is no inflammation or infection due to antiseptic cream I consider wrapping it up. I have bandages, antiseptic wipes but it seems no actual dressings in my kit so I will wait to consult fellow volunteers next time I’m in Jogya. Go out on the bike for fresh air despite the helmet, all through the agricultural countryside and along the irrigation canals. There is virtually no open uncultivated land; it would be difficult for hot air balloons to find any landing space, which is a pity because it is such a beautiful landscape. Live stock is either feed in its pens or on the roadside verges, so no fields of grazing sheep or cows, at least in this part of Java – maybe partly the result of a population density of nearly three times that of the uk! At all events so much for the ‘rainy season’, have only needed my rain cape twice so far and while my fridge defrosts reliably during power cuts that coincide with the tropical storms it is now going to have to be switched off to stop it icing up completely.