Spirits

I haven't posted a non-school related post for quite awhile, so here are a few updates.

My best white friend in Indonesia moved to a different island on Wednesday, so it's been an emotional week, on top of being sick-ish for the past five days.  I only got proposed to once this week, but that's up from zero last week. I bashed my knee really hard on my desk and now it hurts to walk. I think I'm going to finally buy a guitar after almost 5 years of borrowing. It snowed a lot in America. I found some extra work for my helper, so now she has some extra income for her family, which I'm super excited about! She's such a great lady. Our girls and boys basketball teams were both UNDEFEATED the entire weekend at the IISSAC championships and both brought home trophies - boys for the fourth year in a row!

So now that an update is out of the way, there is something else that I really want to write about. There's a certain part of Indonesian culture that I've just been reminded of over and over again lately. I don't know if I'm becoming more sensitive to it or if it's just happening more or what. It has to do with demons and spirits.

Six different things have happened to me or to people I know just so far this year. Here are the stories.

1. I have a friend named G. He's Javanese and he lives in a house with dirt floors. He came to me earlier this year and asked me to pray for protection for his family. He said a tuyul was stealing their money. A tuyul is a Javanese spirit that takes the form of a child and is specifically used by its "master" for stealing things. One can buy a tuyul relatively cheaply from a witch doctor. A tuyul, obviously, can be very beneficial to its master, but the master must care for it as if the tuyul were his own child. If he doesn't, the punishment is very harsh. G's family had reason to believe a tuyul was in their home because a substantial sum of money went missing. G's mom had received some money which she had put in an envelope beneath her pillow before going to bed one night. In the morning, 1/3 of the money was missing. That day, G's dad got paid. Since he suspected there was a tuyul on the loose, he put his $100 in an envelope, sealed it, put it inside a box, put the box inside his wardrobe, locked the wardrobe, and slept with the key in his pocket. In the morning, he opened the envelope - still sealed - and found that $25 was missing. I asked G if he was worried about his money being stolen. He said, "No, because I have a picture of Jesus hanging on my wall. The tuyul won't come in my room". It didn't, and since that time, no more money has gone missing. But they still don't know who the tuyul's master is. Most likely someone they know.

2. Also early this year, I was driving to town at dusk when I saw someone crossing the road. I was still quite a distance away, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It wasn't until I got closer that I realized why. He was demon possessed. I've seen several possessed people here, but this one was different. I can't really explain why. Maybe because I didn't expect it. Maybe because he looked right into my eyes as I drove past him. Maybe because as he looked at me, he arced his body strangely as if he was in pain. Maybe because for that split second, I felt like I was in a nightmare.

3. In my closest group of friends, there are three of us white people and thirteen Indonesians. We call ourselves Team AA, and we spend every Saturday night eating dinner and hanging out together. We are a crazy mix of three different religions (Christian, Catholic, and Muslim) and three different nationalities (Indonesian, American, and German). One of the friends in that group has a close friend named U who sometimes hangs out with us when she's in town. I like her. She's super sweet and gives amazing massages. But she's extremely animistic, and for lack of a better term, I guess I'd call her a medium. She's very open about it, and she'll tell us when there are bad spirits around and she talks about our auras a lot. I go back and forth on whether I believe her or not. I'm very skeptical. But something she said a few weeks ago really made me stop and think. She said that everyone in Team AA has spirits that follow them - not evil spirits or good spirits, just spirits - everyone except the three white people.

4. Two weeks ago I was driving home from town. I don't remember where I'd been, but I was coming home later than normal, and most people had already gone to bed. When I got closer to my neighborhood, I noticed a lone man standing on the side of the road quite a ways up. Again, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I thought it was probably a crazy or demon possessed person out wandering the streets. He was facing me and not moving at all. I braced myself to pass by, giving him a wide berth, but once again, I was not prepared for what I saw. I'm pretty sure that what was standing on the side of the road was a straight up demon. It looked like a partly decomposed dead body. It had no face. I didn't believe what I'd seen, and when I turned to look back, nothing was there.

5. Friday, a friend of mine had her car stolen (Casey and Sharon read: Hesty). She and her husband rent their car out to make a little extra money, and if needed, her husband serves as a driver as well. On Friday, someone rented the car and wanted to drive it himself. He took it to Semarang, a neighboring city. While he was there, he was hypnotized by another man who convinced him to turn over the key and registration. That man disabled the GPS, most likely changed the plates, and last  I heard, the car had still not been found. I've heard of this happening more than once with people stealing motorbikes, cars, money, etc. The Javanese say to never let your mind be idle because when it is, that's when people can hypnotize you. But if your mind is full of thoughts, nobody else can get into it.

6. Also on Friday, I was talking to my helper, Ibu Sri. She asked me to pray for a lady she knows. The lady is over 100 and she is trying to die, but she can't. So for the last two weeks, all she has been able to do is lay in bed, crying and screaming in pain. The reason? There is a spirit inside her that won't let her die. It used to be a very common practice for Javanese people to buy spirits from the witch doctor that would give them extra strength or long lasting beauty. And they say it works. But the problem is that the spirit never leaves you, and it keeps you alive when you are ready to die. In most cases, the spirit has to be cast out first, but that in and of itself is very painful and pretty much guarantees death for the affected person. Ibu Sri is very concerned for this family because even though they are all Christian, they won't call a pastor to come and pray over her. Instead, they called in a witch doctor all the way from Jogja. He came and did whatever it is he does and said that she would die on Wednesday. The whole family took the day off work to be with her. That was a week and a half ago. She's still alive and still in pain.


I don't tell you these stories to scare you or to thrill you, but so that you can KNOW. I realize that the issue of demon activity and spirits can be a pretty controversial topic for a lot of people. Many westerners refuse to believe the stories. To be quite honest, I probably wouldn't believe a lot of them if I hadn't seen as much as I have firsthand. If you choose not to believe anything I just wrote, that's fine. If you think I must have an overactive, paranoid imagination, I understand. But don't be fooled - the power of darkness is very real and very much alive, whether you choose to believe in it or not. And just because it manifests itself one way in one culture doesn't mean it looks the same in every culture.

We have a saying over here. In the West, Satan wears a three piece suit. Here, he shows his face.

IISSAC

There are 6 or 7 major international schools on Java and Bali that take turns each year hosting various athletic events that all the schools participate in. This weekend is the big international school invitational basketball tournament (that we have won for the past 3 years in a row, ahem...). So roughly half of our high school students and staff left last night to travel to the far east end of Java to compete at Surabaya International School. Games start today (Friday) at 3 and continue all day Saturday and for much of Sunday.

Now, the weird thing is that we have Monday off so that players and coaches can rest after their weekend full of traveling, playing, and traveling some more (it's about a 7 hour bus ride to Surabaya from here). But we do not have Friday off, even though half of the school is gone.

I'm not teaching anything today. I mean, I had ONE student in AP Calculus this morning. We finished his homework together then played cards and chatted for the rest of the 95 minutes. Good talk.

I went to bed after midnight last night.
I wore jeans, flip-flops, and a hoodie to school.
My cell phone is on, and not even on silent.
I've been playing games on my tablet for the last 30 minutes.
And I ate rice out of a plastic bag for breakfast.
That is how much I care today.

WHY AM I AT SCHOOL?!

A Ninth Grade Take on Polynomial Division

"Although I find synthetic division easier, I'm just not comfortable with it. It's not the long division I grew up with. However, if a problem requires me to use synthetic division, I'll do it, of course. But I won't like it."

Kids Say the Darndest Things

1. With a 10th grade Indonesian student at lunch.

Student: What is it like to live in a small town?
Me: Do you mean here in Indonesia or where I grew up?
Student: Where you grew up.
Me: It was OK. It was pretty isolated, but I like living in the country.
Student: How big was your town?
Me: Like 250 people.
Student: You mean 250 thousand?
Me: No. Just 250.
Student: *silence*
Me: A little different from here.
Student: So what do people do there?
Me: Uh... Work. And shoot things.
Student: Is everyone Christian?
Me: Most people would probably say they are. Or Wiccan.
Student: What's that?
Me: I dunno. It's like a form of witchcraft that a lot of teens where I'm from are into.
Student: Oh. They're also into pregnancy, I've heard.

2. During 9th grade Algebra 2 with a Korean student.

Student: Is this correct?
Me: Let's see....... Oh, you forgot to multiply the denominators here.
Student: Yeah, I've decided not to do that anymore.
Me: Okaaaaaaaay, why?
Student: Multiplying denominators is too mainstream for me.

3. During a charity concert (Sorry, you'll only get this if you speak Indonesian).

Student 1: What did the Indonesian chicken say when he crossed the road?
Student 2: I don't know, what?
Student 1: Ayam goreng home!!!!

4. A different Indonesian student (9th grader) at lunch.

Student: Do you know why the British were such formidable foes during the Revolutionary War even though their military tactics were not optimal?
Me: Um... No?
Student: It's because they could use their muskets to fire 30 rounds per minute.
Me: I don't think that's possible...
Student: Oh, yes it is! They trained the soldiers to be able to!
Me: But that's a round every two seconds....
Student: Yup! Pretty impressive, huh?

5. Same student at lunch.

Student: I have a question. It's a genuine one. What's the difference between Alpine yodeling and cowboy yodeling??
Me: Cowboys yodel?!

6. Still the same student:

Student: Would you rather fight a bull shark or a nurse shark?
Me: Definitely a nurse shark. They are far less aggressive.
Student: Correct. Did you know a man was once chased onto land by a bull shark? He was only saved because the shark eventually died due to lack of water consumption.

7. Yup, the same student.

Student: I like to drink my tea black.
Me: Um. OK. Why is that?
Student: It gives me the advantage of not wasting time adding sugar.

8. Dorm boys at lunch.

Student 1: Aw man, the sambal (chili sauce) is gone!
Student 2: It's OK. Sambal will ravage your butt.
Student 3: What does ravish mean?
Student 2: I didn't say ravish. I said ravage. BIG difference.

9. During Algebra 2 class.

Student 1: Miss, would you ever have plastic surgery?
Me: I don't think so.
Student 1: Koreans do it all the time.
Me: Would you do it?
Student 1: Maybe.
Student 2: Did Michael Jackson have plastic surgery?
Me: Yes, definitely.
Student 2: How did he make himself white? Did he get new skin? Or did he put something in his old skin to make it white?
Me: I'm really not sure how that works.
Student 3: Is it true that they froze his body so he can be brought back to life?
Student 4: No, I think they already melted him down to make Legos.

New Buy

So I bought a tablet. Of the Samsung variety. And I pretty much love it. So much that I am even posting this from it. Because I can. So now anytime I travel, I can post and be online from anywhere that has WiFi or cell phone signal. This makes me happy.

Technology is basically amazing, and I am so thankful for it.

And P.S. If you have Line, KakaoTalk, Skype, or Whatsapp, you should send me your info because I have all of those on here too. Kthanksbye.

Geometry

Every year, when we do the unit on ratios, proportions, and scale factors, I have my Geometry class use the world map hanging on the back wall of my classroom to calculate the distance they currently are from where they were born. This is a pretty neat project to do in a multi-cultural setting. And it gets them out of their seats, using rulers, applying scale factors, and doing math!

In this class of 20 students, I have:
9 Koreans
4 Indonesians
3 European-Asians
2 Indians
1 American
1 Canadian

And here are their birth places:
Seoul, South Korea (6)
Semarang, Indonesia (3)
Jakarta, Indonesia (2)
New Delhi, India (2)
Surabaya, Indonesia
Kwangju, South Korea
Geneva, Switzerland
Ottawa, Canada
Salatiga, Indonesia
Shimla, India
Bandung, Indonesia

Eight of them were born in Indonesia, and six were born in a country other than their passport country! I really love being surrounded by so much diversity on a daily basis. These kids are so different from their American counterparts, and I have so much appreciation and respect for their life experiences!

A Father

This is Pak Kur. He is a guard at the school where I live and work. A little more than a year ago, he invited me for the first time to come visit his village, meet his family, and see his rice fields.

The thought of just going to the house of someone I only marginally knew from work seemed a little strange. But as time passed, I talked more and more to Pak Kur at school, and I got to know him and to hear stories of his life, his village, and his family. In turn, he also listened to my stories of growing up in America and living as a foreigner in Indonesia. He didn't stop inviting me to his house, but I always managed to come up with a reason not to go. You eventually reach a point though when it just becomes rude to turn someone down so many times. Luckily for me, that time came right at rice harvesting time. Pak Kur spent awhile one day in the middle of last year telling me how much longer it would be before panin (harvest), and he once again invited me over. I grew up on a farm my whole life, and I was attracted to the idea of getting out of town, working with my hands, and learning how to farm a crop I knew nothing about. So I agreed, on two conditions. 1) He had to let me work in the rice fields, learning to harvest. And 2) I wanted to bring a friend. He quickly agreed to both, and thus began my adoption.

I loved working in the sawah (rice fields). After harvest came planting. I went back to help with that. After planting, naturally, came another harvest. I also helped with that one. I tried to be a quick learner and a good worker, because I wanted to be a blessing to their family. I taught some of my friends how to plant and harvest as well. In between planting and harvest (a span of about three months), I would still go visit from time to time, often taking friends with me who were curious to learn about rice farming or village life, sometimes just spending all day talking, eating, and walking around the village. 

I got to know his entire family - and I mean ENTIRE family. His wife and three children, his 80 year old mother, most of his six older siblings - even the one who lives on Sumatra, his nieces and nephews, his father-in-law, three of his wife's brothers, his daughter's boyfriend, and many other more distant relatives and family friends. 

Pak Kur long ago decided that I am a part of his family. He tells everyone that I am his daughter. Not even his adopted daughter. Just his daughter. I am invited to all family events - and expected to attend. When there is a family problem, I am either consulted or, at the very least, informed and asked to pray. When I travel, I need to tell Pak Kur first where I am going, and he will SMS me often while I am gone to make sure I am safe. If he notices my lights are on until late, he will SMS me and tell me to go to bed. If my lights are not on in the morning, he will SMS me and tell me to wake up. When I'm at his house, he tells me to "go help mom in the kitchen". And he takes great joy in teaching me Javanese so that I can communicate better with his family. 

So all that to say I've known for a long time that he considers me a part of his family. But last night was the first time I saw how really serious he is about this. Last night was the first time I got in trouble. 

I left to go to PA (Bible study) at 7 while Pak Daniel was still the guard at the gate. While I was at Bible study, two other friends both began to text me saying that this was the ONLY night this week that all three of us were free at the same time, so they wanted me to come over after Bible study and watch The Bachelor with them. So I went over there after PA, at about 9:30, planning to be there an hour and be home by 10:30. Well, the episode they'd downloaded ended up being an hour and a half episode, AND it stopped working in the middle. At about 10:30, when we were still trying to get the file to play, I was thinking about heading home, but they convinced me to stay. I mean, it didn't take THAT much convincing... Because, well, I'm a sucker for Bachelor night. Long story short, they finally got the file to work and we kept watching. I didn't keep a very close eye on the time, and at 11:30, I got an SMS from Pak Kur, asking where I was. He had come on shift at school at 11 and noticed that I wasn't home yet. I told him whose house I was at (since he knows all my friends by now) and that I would be home soon. The show ended and the three of us chatted a bit, and I ended up going home at midnight, which is super rare for me on a school night. Turns out, Pak Kur was on night shift at the back gate. As I pulled up to the gate, it swung open slowly, and Pak Kur was standing there ominously, arms crossed, blocking my entrance.

"Jangan. Pulang. Malam malam."

(Do NOT. Come home. So late.)

I apologized, and explained to him where I was (literally just down the street) and why I had stayed so long. He understood, but told me how worried he had been and how it's not safe to be out so late at night.

After lecturing me, he moved aside to let me in, but then he stopped me again. "After I got home from work this morning, I went straight to the sawah and harvested rice until mid-day. Then my niece's school called my brother and said that she has skipped school for the last 10 days. She's 17. We think she's been leaving with her boyfriend. I went into to town to her school and confirmed her attendance. Then I went to her boyfriend's school - because I know his family too - and checked his attendance record. He hasn't gone to school yet this semester. When my niece found out that her family knew, she said she wouldn't go back home to the village because she was afraid of being beaten. So I had to go find her, talk to her, promise to protect her from her father, and bring her home, then talk to her family too. Then I went and found the boy and had to tell him that if he EVER does this again, I will call the police. I spent all day doing this. I didn't rest or sleep. Then I came to work tonight and Daniel told me that YOU HADN'T COME HOME YET. I worried. Don't do this again."

Then he handed me a bag of rambutan (fruit) he'd picked and brought for me and told me to go to bed.

I felt REALLY bad for making him worry. I mean, I almost cried because I felt so bad. I don't deal well with people being upset with me. But I felt very loved. 

This morning, he SMSed me to make sure I didn't sleep through my alarm since I went to bed so much later than normal.

Nobody can ever be like my real parents. But it is nice to know that someone here cares so much.

today

This morning, I woke up and thought to myself, "Holy cow, it is February, and I STILL haven't finished my Bali post that I started writing a month ago."

And then I finished it.

So enjoy. : )

Bali dong…

So FINALLY, here is my blog update about my New Years trip to the lovely island of Bali! This year’s trip was a little different from last year’s because instead of having 10 people, we only had FOUR.

I have to say that while I miss the many friends who came last year (who are now living all over the world), traveling with a small group is MUCH easier. This year, we also had only two guys and two girls, which made hotels, meals, and transportation MUCH easier to arrange. Also, we stayed in only two different locations rather than three. We spent the first five days of our trip in Ubud at our favorite place, the T-Houses.

We then moved to a city called Seminyak – a new location for us - for the last five days. Yohanes has had his left foot in a cast (due to falling down the stairs at his home and breaking his foot) since early December, so we were planning on having a very laid back and relaxing vacation.

I’m thankful that we weren’t planning on doing a lot of activities - I ended up getting very sick for two days, and the weather was fairly inclement for most of the trip – so nobody was disappointed when we spent lots of time hanging around our hotels. We did rent motorbikes at both places, so we managed to get out and see some sights, but many of our days were spent simply reading, ordering food in, talking until late at night, watching Rocky I – IV, playing card games, and just enjoying time spent with each other.

One of the most fun things we did on this trip was geocaching! I’d never tried it before. If you don’t know what this is (I’m surprised by how many people don’t – I thought it was a pretty popular thing) let me explain a little bit. Basically, anybody can create and hide a “cache” at a certain location and post the coordinates on a website, usually accompanied by a simple clue. Then other people, using GPS, come to the location and try to find the cache. In every cache, there is a small notebook and pencil so that every finder can leave a message. There are also small souvenirs inside, and as long as you leave one, you can take one with you. My favorite part of every cache was reading the notebook. People from literally all over the world had written in each notebook we found, and it was fun to read their little messages. Here is a visual rundown of the five caches we found.

Cache 1. Using the GPS on Peco’s phone, we drove out of town and found that the coordinates put us in a small village. The clue said that the cache was located in a community center above an art gallery and that we didn’t need to climb to find it. We found the gallery and asked an employee how to get to the second floor. She directed us to a staircase around back, and we found ourselves in a really neat open air room with spaces to eat and hang out, ping pong tables, musical instruments, and even a community library! It took a little while, but eventually Melanie found our first cache – it was hidden in the woodwork!

  

We hadn’t thought to bring anything with us to leave in the cache, so we all began to search our bags and pockets. Our options were: half used chapstick, half used hand sanitizer, my camera, some coins, or Peco’s cell phone. We ended up deciding to leave the hand sanitizer and take a little mushroom guy. He had a tag on him claiming that he was a travel bug and that we could go on-line, enter his ID number (printed on the tag), and see where in the world he had been. That seemed like a good adventure.

Yo, our resident cripple, became our resident note-writer. None of the rest of us really knew what to say, and since he was fairly immobile, we decided that his contribution would be to speak for us.

After a rousing game of ping pong and making friends with random animals that we found, we decided to take a group picture and head out.

On our way home, it started to get very overcast, so we stopped at a random roadside Indian restaurant we found way out in the rice fields. Just as we were sitting down at our table, the skies opened and it started POURING. This picture really captures what the weather in Indonesia is like during rainy season – 8 months out of the year.

The following day was the only day of the trip that it didn’t rain at ALL, so we made the most of it and found THREE caches.

Cache 2. The coordinates of this cache put us at a small pura (Hindu temple) by the side of the road. The clue told us that the cache was in a bottle within 10 meters of – but not inside of – the pura. Peco was the one to find this one, and he had it opened up and out by the road before I had a chance to take a picture. So after we were finished there, I made him re-enact his find for the camera. It was oh, so dramatic.

And here is our illustrious robo-cop (his words, not mine) writing our note…

It was about noon, and we were VERY hot and hungry at this point. I think our note writer got a little tired… and snarky.  Also, by this point, after reading the notes that other people left, we began to notice that many of them used curious abbreviations. So we made up some of our own.

We decided that the tiny, not-quite-waterproof bottle was no place for our little mushroom friend, whom we’d grown attached to. So we left nothing and took nothing from this cache.

We headed back into town for lunch at the infamous Warung Ibu Oka – some of the best spit roasted pork on the island. In fact, it’s SO good that when we made a deal on the first day of our trip to ONLY eat at restaurants we’d never tried before, we agreed to 2 exceptions – the Cuban restaurant (because we wanted to Salsa) and Ibu Oka. This was our fourth time staying in Ubud, and we realized how stuck on our favorite restaurants we’d gotten. Thank goodness for exceptions to rules though, because the pork here never ceases to satisfy.

We expected that it would be raining by the time we finished lunch (the usual progression of weather here), but it still looked pretty clear, so we decided to try and find another cache. I was SO thankful for the amazing weather that day, because what we found at the next cache makes it onto the list of the top five coolest things I’ve ever seen!

Cache 3. This was the hardest cache to find, because the clue simply said that the cache was at the top of the stairs. I mean, that sounds simple enough… But when we reached the location, we found over THREE HUNDRED stairs! And they were all broken up into 12 or 15 different sets of stairs going in different directions! We searched around the top of the first set of stairs, but without knowing what exactly we were looking for, we were getting frustrated and decided to move on a little further. So we went down the first set and found two more sets of stairs – one going down in front of us, and another going up to the right. According to the GPS, we were pretty much right on top of the cache. But once again, without knowing what kind of object we were looking for, we were pretty lost. So we went down the next set of stairs. The GPS still showed that we were extremely close to the cache. At that point the stone walls of the staircases ended, and we found ourselves surrounded by rice fields.

We searched around in the mud for a bit but found nothing. So we went down one more set of stairs. Now the GPS showed that we were getting colder. So we went back up to the top and poked around some more. By now, several out-of-breath people had passed us coming up the stairs. Intrigued, I asked someone what was at the bottom. A nice lady told me that there was a temple and that we should go down and see it. So since we were having no luck with the cache, Melanie and I decided to check it out. We kept going further and further and further down into what appeared to be a gorge with view like this:

Eventually, we started to see Hindu statues like these:

And then we found ourselves at this doorway, where a sign asked us to sprinkle ourselves with holy water before proceeding further (confession – we didn’t).

After we passed through the doorway, the hike continued going further downward. Finally, we came to a bridge over a river and caught sight of what was just around the bend.

What’s that back there? An 11th century Hindu temple + burial grounds carved into the face of a mountain? Yes, please!

I told Melanie that I felt like Indiana Jones. She felt like a jungle princess. She thinks these statements are very indicative of our personalities. I agree.

The history of this place ASTOUNDS me. I mean, how did people in the 1000s even BUILD these?! There are DEAD people buried here? People who walked the exact same ground that I was standing on, but ONE THOUSAND years earlier?! What are their stories? What sights did they see? What tales could they tell?  And how different would my life be if I had been born in THAT place at THAT time? When I stand in places like this, my heart beats a little faster and it gets a little hard to breathe as I contemplate all of these questions. It’s a little overwhelming to think about, really.

But anyways, back to the cache. We got an SMS from Peco saying that he’d found the cache up top, so we panted our way back up the 300 stairs. When we got to the bottom of the first set of stairs – where there had been one set going up and one going down – we went UP the second set of stairs that we’d skipped earlier. There was a little café up there, and the cache had simply been sitting on top of the fridge there! Peco had asked the waitress if she knew anything about this cache (it’s really hard to explain geocaching in Indonesian…), and she just handed it to him! We never would have found it if he hadn’t asked about it.

This seemed like a much safer/drier location for our little mushroom friend. We decided not to take anything with us though. When we got on the travel bug website to check our mushroom out of his last location and into this one, we learned that before we found him in the community center, the last place he’d been in was France!

And here is the note we left with our curious abbreviations.

Using his interwebs, Peco noticed that another cache was located very close by. Since the weather was still holding up, we decided to try to find it.

Cache 4: The GPS coordinates led us to a resort and a helpful groundskeeper named Pak Ketut who was very curious about why we kept looking under bushes and peering through windows. The resort was very beautifully laid out with lots of gardens and tropical plants. But unfortunately, there was no clue given for this cache, only the coordinates. And with so many hiding places and darkness quickly approaching, it took quite awhile to find the cache. Yohanes and Pak Ketut gave up on us and sat down by the parking area to chat. I felt bad for abandoning Yo, so I eventually came and sat with them as well. I started taking pictures of the many snails I found while we waited for Peco and Melanie to find the cache.

  

Peco eventually called us to tell us that he had a feeling the cache was located in the resort’s restaurant. I’m not sure why he thought that, but since Yo and I were closest to it, I went to search. And I found my first cache!

Much like the cache #3, this one was located in a box on top of the refrigerator.  It was relatively small with only a few objects inside of it.

There was nothing in there that we were too keen on having, so for the second time that day, we left nothing and took nothing. Yohanes did write in the notebook for us though. We had figured out one of the commonly used abbreviations from previous caches, so Yo decided that we would look much more professional if we used it too. “TFTC!”

Once we found the cache, it was much easier to explain to Pak Ketut what we had been looking for this whole time. He had never realized that it was there, and he and I enjoyed looking through the notebook together and reading messages from people of many different nationalities.

Since it was nearing dark, we headed back into Ubud for dinner, and this ended our cache adventuring for the day.

The next morning I woke up with a fiery sore through, a hacking cough, a headache, and an upset stomach. I spent most of the day alternating between the toilet and the couch. I slept on the couch that night, knowing that I probably wouldn’t get much sleep at all and not wanting to keep Melanie awake or infect her with my disease. My entire breathing system was plugged up most of the day, but by night, it was flowing like a river. I managed to use every bit of toilet paper in the house (1+ rolls) three squares at a time as tissues (because there were no tissues in the entire house) during the night. By about 4 AM when I still hadn’t slept, I ended up just rolling over onto my side, laying 10 squares of toilet paper on top of each other under my nostrils, and just letting everything drain out. I think I slept for about 30 minutes before I woke up to find my head in a small pond. That was my longest stretch of sleep all night though!

I’m extremely thankful for patient, caring friends who made sure I ate well and went to town to buy me tissues and medicine and took good care of me. They also put up with having no toilet paper for a few hours before housekeeping brought us some more!

The morning after my sleepless night, we were due to check out of our T-House and move to Seminyak. There was one cache left in town that we hadn’t found yet though. It was located in a school for handicapped children. We’d actually gone a few days before, but since we were on vacation and had no concept of time or date, we didn’t realize that it was the weekend and the school was closed! By now, it was a weekday. I was feeling pretty rough and decided to stay home and pack and rest, so the other three went to find the cache. I sent Melanie with my camera, so even though I can’t tell you my firsthand account of finding the cache, I can at least show you the pictures!

Cache 5: We knew the cache was inside a school for handicapped children, but we didn’t know where. They found it at the top of a set of stairs. It looked like this:

This one had a LOT of travel bugs! Peco took one, planning to transfer it to another cache we knew of in a city we’d be passing through on our way to Seminyak later in the day. I’m not sure what they left in this cache…

This is possibly my favorite picture of the entire trip. Yohanes as the scream.

And here is the note Yohanes left.

So about that cache I mentioned… We rented a car to drive us to Seminyak, but on the way, we detoured through Sanur to eat at Mossimo, one of our all time favorite Italian restaurants! I had rested a lot that morning, but somewhere during that time, my lungs had filled up with lots of stuff that rattled with every breath, so I was having a hard time breathing and I just felt very weak overall. I couldn’t taste anything, which was really sad, because I’m sure my lunch was amazing. After nearly passing out at the lunch table (I’m being literal), I got a second wind and we went hunting for the nearby cache. Unfortunately after looking on top of walls, around gazebos, underneath rocks, and in many other places, a curious neighbor came out and told us that some other white people had been there recently and that they had found something and taken it. After further research online, we found out that we were not the only group that week to not find the cache. We felt disappointed, but we were glad it wasn’t just our lack of cache-finding skills that prevented us from succeeding.

After all of those adventures, the rest of the trip seemed quite tame in comparison. Once we got to our hotel in Seminyak, I fell asleep immediately in what can only be described as the greatest bed I have ever encountered. It may not be much to look at, but sleeping in this bed was like sleeping in a nice little cloud. Mel and I both said that we wished we could bring it back home with us.

Our hotel in Seminyak was set up like a small apartment. The guys stayed in one room and the girls in another. We had a shared bathroom and a small kitchen space. The really great part for this trip was the super comfy couch and flatscreen TV! While we were in Ubud, we were guaranteed at least a few hours of sunlight in the morning. Not so in Seminyak. It rained pretty much ALL day EVERY day. One morning, I woke up between 4 and 5 AM (yay for being sick) and it was already raining. So we bought decks of cards and lots of movies and ordered in Dominos Pizza and rotisserie chicken from the deli and many other delicious dishes. In fact, we only ate out in Seminyak once the whole time we were there. We drove into town and found a Japanese restaurant where we took our first tourist-like pictures of ourselves! Also, it is extremely difficult to get boys to take a nice picture – even the grown up ones.

And then, FINALLY!

And then Peco decided to dress up his chest hair with my hair clip. So that was extra special.

We rang in the new year in our hotel in Seminyak. The rain let up shortly before midnight, and the manager told us there was a nice rice field just a short walk from our room, so we headed out to watch all the fireworks and count down. Some friends from back home on Java were also in Bali and had come to our hotel to celebrate the new year with us. When they called a taxi at about 12:30 to take them back to their own hotel, they were told that all taxis were full until 7 AM!! Bali is such a mad house around the holidays! So we ended up cramming a couple of extra girls into our giant bed for the night for a New Year’s sleepover!

Peco left a day before the rest of us. On our way to take him to the airport, we decided to stop off in Kuta for our token meal at Hard Rock Café – the most expensive restaurant I’ve ever eaten at in my life. Since I taught my helper how to make burgers and can have them any time I want now, I wasn’t craving a famous Hard Rock burger the way I usually am. Instead, I just had pulled pork nachos. SO GOOD! I couldn’t even finish them all… It’s a good thing the closest Hard Rock Café is in Jakarta – a 14 hour bus ride away – or I’d be poor.

We took a few more pictures – in front of the accordion, naturally. The three perennials! Again with the faces…

The two girls! I think this is the first picture we’ve taken together in two years of knowing each other!

While we were waiting for Yohanes to get down the bazillion steps at Hard Rock and make his way to where our car was parked (Peco ended up carrying him), I jumped across the street and took this ONE picture of the beach. I refused to leave Bali without going to the beach at least once! Our driver was very concerned about why I was standing out on the beach in the rain, and he followed me and asked me to come back to the car with him.

Then we were off to the airport where we said our goodbyes to this goof…

FAR too early the next morning, the remaining three of us were back at the airport, ready for our trip home. We found this most amazing Christmas tree in the entryway! Isn’t it lovely?

Later that day back at home, it rained. Vacation felt very over. The end.