Where Did All My Hair Go?

On Tuesday I went to Maumere on a mission: to get a haircut. My last haircut had been months ago and I decided it was long enough. After a quick search I found a hair place that charged 12,000 Rupiah for a trim.

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Lunch in Indonesia

Upon arriving on the island of Kisar (our first Indonesian stop) it became quickly apparent that the locals were very friendly and eager to meet us. Most were very excited to see visitors, pulling out camera phones to take pictures of us.

On the second day at the island, Halley and I were walking along the beach when a group of locals began calling to us. Since the majority of the locals do not speak English and we do not speak Indonesian, hand gestures were often used to communicate. The locals motioned us over and after some greetings, my first response was "No Rupiah"( Rupiah is the Indonesian currency). The locals laughed and informed us that they were not trying to sell anything but wanted us to eat lunch with their family. The family was very large with around thirty people in and around the tent.

We agreed and followed them to their eating area. The eating "tent" was a structure with no walls, a blue tarp roof, and a clear tarp floor. Inside the tent was a table on one side with large plastic containers holding food, and on the other side was a log covered by a tarp to sit on.

Lunch was yellow rice with cooked fish and a very spicy pepper sauce. We were given wicker basket plates lined with a piece of paper and were motioned to serve ourselves.
We realized that no one in the tent was wearing shoes and there was a pile of sandals outside so we took our shoes off and entered assuming that was customary. After serving ourselves, we sat on the log in the tent and were motioned to eat even though no one else had a plate. We insisted that they eat with us but in their culture the guests eat first. It was quite an experience to eat while a group of people watched and took pictures, but the delicious food was well worth it.

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My Journal: Part One.

It has been over a month since I joined the WTP and one of my first things I did when joining the crew was purchase a personal journal. The pages are mostly filled with events on the boat and personal thoughts.

The journal has come in handy several times. Amanda keeps a ship's log and I use my journal to help jog memories of events. It also comes in handy for entertainment when looking back at older posts. So I have decided to share some highlights of memories for the first month:

- Losing my luggage
- Weird personal dreams
- Adam's dreams (Jason Mraz's Bar Mitzvah??)
- My first sun downer
- Figuring out the pressure cooker
- Various bumps and bruises
- Disaster using the head (still having nightmares about it)
- Low flyovers

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