Teaser

A week of conferencing in Bali comes to a close this evening, culminating in a night out on the town with all of the other volunteers from around Indonesia.  There are 15 of us in total, all working in Nussa Tenggara Timur (a southeastern province consisting of three large islands, of which Flores is the largest and most highly populated).

Unfortunately, despite the fact that tonight is one of those rare and elusive Fridays where I don't have to be up early for work on Saturday morning (I'm still getting used to the 6 day work week), I will instead be heading to the airport at 3:30 AM on Saturday to catch a 6 AM plane ride to Singapore for the day.  Apparently Indonesia has grown tired of me after nearly 60 days of muttered complaints and it's now time for my visa run.  I will be traveling with one of the other volunteers who arrived at the same time I did in October.  Don't tell her this, but I had asked if the flight could be scheduled so as to give us the longest possible time in Singapore and it appears my request was taken to heart by the staff responsible for booking our flights.  We will be in the world's third most densely populated country (and second most densely populated city-state: can you name them all? Vatican City is another one) a full twelve hours and I'm hoping to make the best of every single one.  We'll see how things go.  The other upside of a 3 hour plane ride is that it will give me the chance to actually sit down, unpack and work through the last few weeks in a way I haven't had time to yet...or that I have been avoiding.  I'm not sure which yet.

Expect to be shocked and amazed as I regale you with tales of triumph and woe relating to:

• my new digs in town
• workplace integration
• my backyard neighbor's obscenely loud collection of chickens
• living not-in-english
• what it looks like to party like a rock star in Ende
• my Indonesian to-do list\
• and (maybe) much more