Greetings from Manado… our new home away from home.

Although hard to believe, we arrived in Manado, North Sulawesi a week ago already. We were escorted here by KoemKoem from the CUSO Indonesia Office, and met at the airport by 3 folks from Yayasan Bintang Laut (our partner organization).

Bintang Laut is a baby, but seems to have grand potential. As a group of committed, concerned professionals, they have existed for a year… on paper, as an official organization, we arrived just months after it’s inception. Some of you will remember that when I signed on with this CUSO position (a year ago already!), my placement was to be with the Bunaken National Park Board. Well, that partnership dissolved, as things tend to do in the heat of tropical countries (it seems perhaps due to some politics that I couldn’t hope to understand at this point), and this new affiliation formed. The Bintang Laut staff are friendly and fabulous, and have been very welcoming… between them, they have a great deal of experience and expertise, and it seems that with the well-intentioned dreams that they have, and these good people at the helm, they should go far. I say all this based on what I’ve understood thus far, which, may or may not be entirely accurate.

On that note, I should mention… those 6 weeks that we spent, studiously learning bahasa Indonesia during language training… although helpful to make ourselves understood, do nothing to help us understand the Manadonese in informal settings! In the first place, they speak bahasa Manado, a dialect of bahasa Indonesia (although I’m not sure I see any similarity beyond a few words)… and to complicate matters, they speak it SOOOO quickly, there’s no hope of understanding! I try to keep reminding myself that in two years, we should have some idea of what they’re saying – of course, by then it’ll be time to go home! I do keep getting compliments on my bahasa Indonesia, which does little to comfort me.

So, we have found a homestay in the hills of Manado (AWESOME view) that we will use as a base for our house hunt – which is probably a more daunting task than facing learning another entirely new language! We haven’t decided whether we will live in the city of Manado, or on one of the islands within the park (most likely Bunaken itself). It’s the same old struggle of course, the conveniences of the city vs. the tranquility of the isle. Manado is a city, and given that I’ve never been partial to cities (especially hot, dirty, tropical ones), and irrespective of the fact that the islands have fresh water issues, I think we’re leaning toward a place on the isle… but I see my dreams of a bamboo bungalow on a palm-lined beach slowly slipping away! As far as work is concerned, either option is valid… the Bintang Laut office is in Manado, but all of the schools and the Environmental Education Centers are on the islands. We had a brief tour of part of Bunaken Island with Ibu Meity (director of Bintang Laut) on our first day here, during which we got our first glimpse of the incredible coral reef just off the island! The boats are equipped with a rudimentary ‘viewing portal’ which is lowered as they near the reef… then all of a sudden you are looking down into another world: a myriad of colour, shapes and sizes, countless species of coral and sea sponges, not to mention FISH! It’s a fairly unique wall formation which drops off suddenly from 2 meters to a deep dark abyss. Can’t wait to go DIVING!

So we will let you know more as we sink into our new life here… we are anxious to find a home, and truly settle in, so that will be our focus until we find something suitable. Keep sending updates – it’s great to hear news from home!