Pontianak

Arrived in Pontianak about 5 days ago. A bit different than Bali, traffic is still chaotic but not as much as Bali. Pontianak seems like a big city without bit buildings. It's dirty, stinks, classic Indo. People burn mass amounts of garbage all the time, and you see a bunch of random goats going through mass piles of garbage on the sides of roads. Freddy and I are staying at the YWAM base here, he has friends there. Very basic, made my $8/night room in Bali seem like a 5 star hotel. Everyone is super nice here though, a few speak decent English, a few very broken English, most I try to communicate with through facial expressions and body language....pretty much we pretend to know what the other is talking about. Some people will talk to me in Indo, I explain "no Indonesia, English", so they keep talking thinking things will change and I'll understand them eventually. Ridiculous. They were nice and even found me some toilet paper after looking for a while. I hate to be a Nancy, but honestly if I can use toilet paper, I will. I don't like there bathroom system, a hole in the ground, a bucket and water to wash yourself with after....I didn't even see soap...sketch. I'm staying in room that's 10'x10'....and there are 4 of us in there!! They're super nice though and let me sleep in the only bed.

Our room

Freddy and I helping cook dinner

Yeah, not much happening here. The base is about 20 minutes outside of Pontianak, pretty much get to town to use the internet and check stuff out when I can find a ride, rest of the time I hang out, talk to a few people, play badminton, ping pong, get whooped in chess, a lot of lounging. I go for adventures when I can....there is a guy Tino there who took me to his church on Sunday, went on the back this little scooter. The helmets here are crazy, pretty much toy helmets, they would do nothing in a crash. Went to his church, I didn't know they were going to do this but they asked me to come up from and tell about who I am, where I come from....AND my whole life story. Tino translated, it was crazy. I think we are going to try and visit a village around here sometime and then I think we're taking a night bus for 12hours to a city called Sintang??

Oh yeah, thanks for all the bday wishes, meant a lot!! I wasn't going to say anything about my bday out here, but Freddy found out about it a day before (someone asked how old I was). He told everyone and they made me a few cards and bought me a few treats from a bakery. Oh yeah, and instead of fish, rice, and stewed seaweed type stuff (the usual) they cooked me an egg sandwich!! It was funny cuz I make them every morning (can't handle the rice, stewed seaweed stuff, etc) and they think I'm weird. I even bought cheeze and ketchup, beautiful. So yeah, bottom line is that it was very touching. I'm really going to miss the team here....