Adventures in Panga
I went to Panga yesterday by helecopter to attend the dedication ceremony of the houses that are finished there. The ceremony was pretty interesting. It took an hour after the start time for the anyone from the village to show up. This is really odd as everywhere else I've been the people are there about 2 hourse before the start. We had to keep yelling over the loudspeaker for people to come. When we did get going, the Country Director for SP gave a great speach about how hard it is to work here and no one else wants to do it but we are there because we love the people and care for them. Then the sub-district leader got up and said he wants us to build 250 more houses and a mosque. Then the village leader got up and said he wants us to build the stores and shops that were lost and took up a collection for the mosque. No thank you's or anything. I was a little suprised by the attitude of the people. We still have to love them though.
Late that afternoon we went to the beach near Panga. It was good to get to a beach again. In Meulaboh I live 5 minutes from a really nice beach but never get there. I guess since its rainy season there isn't much reason to go right now. We had a great time splashing in the waves and throwing a frisby.
Sunday we went hiking up into the hills to visit a waterfall. We rode our bikes as far as we could but had to stop at a village when the trail got too bad for bikes. The village kids all decided they wanted to join us so we had "guides" to show us the way. As we were hiking for about an hour to the waterfall, my achenese friend told me that the field and hills we were in were a place where GAM and the Indonesian military would often fight. This was happeneing until about 2 months ago. We could see bullet holes in the little huts around the area. They said it was very similar to Vietnam. So we finally made it to the waterfall and it was just beautiful. About a 15 foot drop that you could jump off of into a clear pool. We hung out, got some sun and swam for an hour or so. Then we decided to take the other way back that went up through the hills. The trail was really wide which suprised me until the boys pointed out some elephant droppings. They said there were often elephants that used the trail. A group from SP that did the treck a couple weeks ago all got leeches and everyone except me ended up getting leeches on this trip as well. I guess it was because of my really awesome boots (thanks Arvin!) The treck was amazing and I was suprised at how beautiful and perfect everything went.
Once we got back Corwin and I were asked to drive a truck back to Meulaboh to get it fixed. What was wrong with it you might ask? The gas had water in it so the engine was running badly. Any time we tried to accelerate, the engine would stutter. 3 bumpy hours later we were stopped by a huge yellow truck that had fallen off the road. We waited about 20 minutes while the tried to pull it out of the river but eventually gave up. Another 30 bumpy minutes and we were safely home.
What a great weekend.
Late that afternoon we went to the beach near Panga. It was good to get to a beach again. In Meulaboh I live 5 minutes from a really nice beach but never get there. I guess since its rainy season there isn't much reason to go right now. We had a great time splashing in the waves and throwing a frisby.
Sunday we went hiking up into the hills to visit a waterfall. We rode our bikes as far as we could but had to stop at a village when the trail got too bad for bikes. The village kids all decided they wanted to join us so we had "guides" to show us the way. As we were hiking for about an hour to the waterfall, my achenese friend told me that the field and hills we were in were a place where GAM and the Indonesian military would often fight. This was happeneing until about 2 months ago. We could see bullet holes in the little huts around the area. They said it was very similar to Vietnam. So we finally made it to the waterfall and it was just beautiful. About a 15 foot drop that you could jump off of into a clear pool. We hung out, got some sun and swam for an hour or so. Then we decided to take the other way back that went up through the hills. The trail was really wide which suprised me until the boys pointed out some elephant droppings. They said there were often elephants that used the trail. A group from SP that did the treck a couple weeks ago all got leeches and everyone except me ended up getting leeches on this trip as well. I guess it was because of my really awesome boots (thanks Arvin!) The treck was amazing and I was suprised at how beautiful and perfect everything went.
Once we got back Corwin and I were asked to drive a truck back to Meulaboh to get it fixed. What was wrong with it you might ask? The gas had water in it so the engine was running badly. Any time we tried to accelerate, the engine would stutter. 3 bumpy hours later we were stopped by a huge yellow truck that had fallen off the road. We waited about 20 minutes while the tried to pull it out of the river but eventually gave up. Another 30 bumpy minutes and we were safely home.
What a great weekend.
posted by Randall Knutson at
8:41 PM
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