So, it has been some time since my last post and a lot of things has happened.
First I have met a great new friend - Dennis from Denmark. Last week we went to the best trip to Singaraja (Lion King) saw the Gitgit, Air Panas and other great places.
A few days later Hery from the office in Lombok picked me up and brought me to Lombok with him. It was four days of unforgetable experiences.
The first day we went swimming on a beautiful beach, drived around the beautiful island and went to several craftmen places which were really interesting to see. The next day Hery and I met with his great friend Erik from central Lombok. We went to “Paradise Beach” the most beautiful quiet spot where sadly a lot of human trafficking takes place. After the sunsset we had a long drive through the mountains, when seeing this place I realized what sadness is! What used to be green and lush mountains, now stand out as deserts with no animal life left, no water for plants or humans only several burned marks from the illigal logging. This discovery really touched something inside me which I will newer forget, phure sadness.
We arrived at Eriks house, welcomed by his kids and wife. I changed to some more traditional clothe, since this is much more proper, I borrowed a beautiful handwoven skirt which takes five days to make. After a few hours and a lot of discussions I realized that a lot of people are trying to establish a long term plan for reestablishing the damaged forrest, and it was easy to feel that a few people in the area makes a lot of damage and a lot of people try so fight against the problems. The main idea is that they try to plant huge areas with new trees and hopefully this is going to help in the future.
The next day I woke up to a noise of machinery working, I soon realized that I was sleeping next to a gold mine and the neighbour was really kind to show me around the place. After breakfast we went to Eriks kids school, the class were about to have english lesson so soon I had to teach 12 years old kind english for an hour, nice and i think they enjoyed it as musch as I did. After school Erik brought me to a place nearby where they are weaving the most beautiful traditional textile scarfs. As mentioned one piece takes around five days to finish, I got my self the most unique and adorale piece of art work. The ladies in the small village was kind and curious, we had a small talk and a great laugh when I tryed to work a bit on a piece, it is a dificult task if you should not mess up the work.
Maybe I should mention that this is the first time I have tried to drive “lady style”, defenately not a relaxed feeling sitting sideways on a scooter bumping down the hill.
Next, I was invited to have a small speach about the democracy and economy in Denmark for the organization focusion on recovering the forrest. I especially loved the comment about if is was legal to have more wifes in Denmark, most of these guys have between 2-5 wifes so they looked pretty scared when I told them in a certain tone that it is illegal in Denmark and if they were event thinking about it in Denmark they could be sure that the girls would kick their ass on the street for that unproper behaviour! But they were all very interested and it was defenetialy a lesson bringing another perspective on life.
The next day I had to hurry back to Denpasar since my pass port expired and there came some problems with that. A bit of a shame, at least the problems are now solved.
Enjoy the pictures at jessiedarlings.tumblr.com :)
Jessie