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So it's been a while between entries (more than 6 months I think) and it's not worth trying to catch you up on everything but I will mention a few highlights.
Firstly, I have now been here more than 12 months which is both scary and amazing. I remember thinking before I came here that 18 months seemed like a ridiculous amount of time and now I am thinking that I need more time here! There have been a number of significant goodbyes in the last 6 months including Drew, Sam, Ali, Heidi, Chris, Chris, Ruby and Mark and there are several more pending in the next couple of weeks. The biggest of these being my flatmate Claire who has finished up her 12 month assignment with a small NGO and returns home to Melbourne. I will be very sad to see her go as we have had a lovely time living together for the last few months but I have no doubt that we will see each other again somewhere in the world.
Her leaving means that I am once again moving apartments (for the 5th time I think) in Taman Rasuna. Moving in with Naomi, a former AYAD who has stayed on with her organisation and will be here for a while yet. All these departures mean our crowd over here has diminished significantly but there are some new AYADs arriving in late July who will hopefully boost our numbers again.
One of the biggest highlights of the last 6 months was the travel I got to do to a couple of places for some high performance training: Medan (North Sumatra) and Makassar (South Sulawesi). Meeting the kids in their home towns was lovely and also gave me a chance to meet some of the other people who are invovled in helping us to establish cricket in places other than Jakarta and Bali. An earthquake off the coast of Sumatra put a slight dampener on my trip to Medan but otherwise I had a great time, including introducing over 60 girls to cricket from one school in 2 days! Was exhausted but so worth it. In Makassar I got to work with some girls who have been playing cricket for quite a while and it was great to see their natural talent and potential - they certainly gave some of the boys a run for their money!
Most of May was spent preparing for our under 17 national championships, of which I was tournament director. In between all this preparation I did manage to fit in a fabulous weekend in Bandung, a large city west of Jakarta, with some of our favourite AYADs. It was a ridiculous weekend with great food, some stunning scenery, a night in a bar on top of a mountain overlooking the valley and ended with barefoot dancing in a small nightclub much to the amusement of a large group of Indonesians, who I suspect were not impressed by our dancing.
Just before the national championships I had Mum and Peter come to visit me for a week in Bali and Jakarta. It was so nice to see them over and show them a bit of my life (although my life doesn't normally involve fabulous villas in Bali). We explored Ubud and Seminyak, watched the famous kecak dance at the Uluwatu temple, shopped, swam and ate. They only had two days in Jakarta but that was enough time to fit in the Grand Mosque, dinner with the AYADs, Social House, shopping, massages at the Four Seasons, the old city, dinner with Praks and some other people from work and seeing my home. Was very sad to say goodbye to them knowing that they're moving to the Solomons very shortly (making it slightly more difficult to visit) but I am so glad they got here.
The week of the national championships was CRAZY. Pure and simple. Worked ridiculous hours to fly in the best 120 kids from around the country plus two teams from Singapore. They played 5 days of great cricket and the best part was seeing how much the kids have progressed in the last 12 months. This tournament was my introduction to cricket in Indonesia when I arrived here 12 months ago and the improvement in the level of cricket being played is unbelievable. West Java were eventually crowned winners in a close and exciting final, which was made all the more special because they played it in front of the CEO of the International Cricket Council, Haroon Lorgat, as well as other members of the ICC development committee. (at the same time as running the national championships we were also hosting the ICC development committee meeting! talk about doing a lot at once!) We received bucket loads of praise for all our hard work and the work of everyone involved over here and impressed all the ICC delegates! Cricket in Indonesia is now well and truly on the ICC map :)
Since then have been recovering and travelling again! I had one of my best weekends here in Kupang, NTT (eastern indonesia) a couple of weeks ago with some of my favourite people here. We went to visit Mark who was living there as an AYAD, in a house, facing west, right on the ocean! Caught up with Drew and Sam there as well, two ex-AYADs who are spending 6 months travelling around this amazing country, and was great to see those boys. We all had one delightful night on Pulau Semau, a small island off the coast of Kupang, where we star gazed, hooned around on motorbikes, provided some entertainment for the locals and swam with turtles. Kupang also has amazing night markets, so full of life and noise and smells! Was very hard to leave there and come back to good old Jakarta but came back much refreshed and rested.
Last weekend we had another Tiger Island weekend which was fantastic except for the evil biting fish (they drew blood). Next week I am off to Bali for work for a week and then 3 days after I get back, the first of my lovely ladies rolls into town for a month of catch ups, volcano climbing, tropcial island relaxing and some partying!
And now with less than 6 months remaining here I am starting to ponder what comes next. At this stage there are no definite plans but I certainly wouldn't mind staying here longer if the right offer came along. Besides all the stories I am hearing about the Canberra cold are not making it very appealing to return to that! Apologies again for the lengthy gap between updates, but as you can tell from the above I have been a bit busy (and this was just a snapshot!). Will try and write more regularly from now on, love to all at home!
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