Paradise is no longer lost. We found it! Pulau Weh, Indonesia it truly perfect! Normally we say a place is great if it has great people, or delicious food, or amazing wildlife and scenery, or is inexpensive and a good place to get some GROW work done. Well, the small, northern most island of Indonesia has it ALL!
Great People: Everyone says hello, good conversations, gives you that extra little helping of food because they see you like their cooking, tells you (good) directions to their competitors if they think it will better fit your needs, and are genuinely interested in you, not your wallet.
Delicious Food: Coconut Curries, new fruits and nuts, and fresh homemade donuts every morning. What else do I have to say!
Amazing Wildlife and Scenery: I am writing this from the porch hammock of our bungalow which is directly above one of the most amazing marine life habitats we have ever seen. In the first thirty seconds of entering the water we saw over 20 varieties of brightly colored tropical fish. After only a short time more in the water we had identified multiple kinds of lion fish, spotted sting rays, huge octopi, giant moray eels (swimming!), beautiful anemones with clown fish (Nemos), lots of bright blue Dori (blue tangs) as well, huge trigger fish, stone fish (amazing camouflage), parrot fish (enormous and all colors of the rainbow), scorpion fish, trumpet, barracuda, needlenose, lobsters, crabs, manta shrimp, banded coral shrimp, beautiful moorish idols, butterfly, flounder, grouper, jack, sea snakes, giant clams, nudibranch, pipefish, damsel, surgeon, hermit crabs, gobies, blennies, sweetlips, christmas tree worms, feather dusters, sea urchins, really cool sea cucumbers, star fish, and those are just the ones I can identify and then remember to write down. While diving, add sharks, turtles, a school of devil rays, and some of the largest sea fans we've seen, to the list. WOW! Also as I am writing this there are wild monkeys playing in a tree less than 10 feet away from me. Loads of entertainment but no fun when they steal your coconuts or throw your water bottle off the porch.
Inexpensive and a good place to work: The wonderful bungalow I mentioned above: $5. The delicious food: we normally split a $1 meal. The great diving is a little pricy for us at $25 so we only did it once, but the amazing snorkeling is 100% free! When the power is working our porch is one of the best offices we have ever had.
If it wasn’t that we missed our friends and family and that there are no immediate GROW projects here, we would find a hard time coming up with reasons to leave. Paradise has been certainly been found.
Samosir Island on Lake Toba in north Sumatra is a popular destination for any backpacker heading through Indonesia’s biggest island, and for good reason- it is a beautiful volcanic crater lake with clear waters and tranquil atmosphere. The Batak people that comprise most of Samosir Island’s population are affable and always smiling, the food is fantastic, and the list could go on. We got all these benefits in our time there but that’s not at all why we went there- for us it was to work on a farm. Working and collaborating with farms has treated us very well, and nowhere more so than in Silimalombu, a small village which our host Ratna Gultom is attempting to transform into an “Ecovillage”. Ratna herself is an inspiration in the way she thinks and acts- a great role model coming from within the community that is working to make a difference for future generations. She frequently sponsors trash pick-ups along the lakeshore and bottom, has planted hundreds of trees, teaches the 3-5 year olds of the village, and is changing the way people think about their interactions with the environment.
Our main activities outside of the usual harvesting food for sale or for us to eat, weeding, mulching, or cooking were twofold: building a demonstration composting area and building a solar dehydrator. While Silimalombu is blesses with extremely nice good soil, there are already signs of the slash and burn methods, chemical use of fertilizer and pesticides rapidly deteriorating the land. Rich organic mass grows everywhere but is seen more as a nuisance than as an asset for growing wonderful soil. Most of this project involved a lot of shoveling manure amongst other things as part of it was to clean out a out-of-use biogas unit that was full of probably 300 buckets of liquidy buffalo manure. Most people don’t travel the world to shovel shit, but it seems we do! And even more surprising; we love it!
The dehydrator was a really great project in so many ways. The people of Samosir dry many things, particularly fish from the lake, but also cacao (chocolate beans), nuts, water reeds for weaving, and a host of other things. But it’s the tropics and when rainy season attacks there is always a mad scampering of people out to the nets of things drying in the sun to cover or collect. Bugs and animals often spoil the drying meat or run off with it for a nice afternoon snack. With the dehydrator not only will the drying be more efficient, but it also saves space (stacking 11 trays vertically instead of having everything laid out side by side) and means you can just let things sit through the rain storm unhindered.
Traveling and meeting the people is great, but when you get to help them and have a positive impact on their lives, it is fantastic! The enthusiasm of the community for what we were doing was great! Like every great technology, it starts with just one but I wouldn’t be surprised if a future visit to Silimalombu we would see one in every yard! Although the entire community will not be using this initial prototype, it didn’t deter the many people who came out to work with us on it (including curious kids that sometimes made the work a bit more difficult!). We also give a special thanks to Lena, another volunteer from Germany who was also indispensable- especially as a source of good conversation and fun.
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