Today’s original plan was to see the Portuguese fort but since I was still jatlegged, I decided to allow myself an other day just to be a bit more lazy. I woke up at stupid o’clock,about 7am and just turned right-left-center till about 9.30am. As I woke up I had a quick shower and mama made us breakfast which was fried rice with egg and some sort of veggie patty. Basically we again just talked and talked about all sort of things with Katherine and Harry. We talked about death,she told me about a place in central Sulawesi,called Turaja where people live for the death. And when I say that,I actually mean it. The funeral there cost so much that every living person is saving for that 1 days when they or their loved one passes away. First of all,they have to buy buffalos. The more money you have,the more buffalos you can buy. They basically got the blood out of the dead person and put some preservative stuff into them instead. Then they seat or lay the person down and from that moment they still handle them as a living person. They take food and coffee for them,they talk to them,etc. Then they do this until they have enough money for the funeral and also all the family members visited the dead person. After all good to go,they get the buffalos and pigs and other animals they can find and they have a massive massacre. That’s basically a sacrifice for the dead. The people’s bodies then will rest in giant rocks or they put them in a mass grave and cremate them with all the hundreds of bodies. It’s lovely,no? Living with your dead family member for an other year or so? I guess it’s an other way to accept death and deal with someone’s loss. They see it differently. They believe in the afterlife so they celebrate instead of being sad.. maybe they deal with letting them go with keeping them in the house longer..even after they passed.

We also talked about jobs,hobbies,sports and I found out that here in Indonesia men can have up to 4 wives. So if they leave one,they can re-marry without being divorced,up to 4 times. I’ve learned a lot more about Muslims behaviour around this area which surprised me a tiny bit. We also talked about travels and her country,my country and of course we still tried to sort out some planning to Togian and Raja Ampat.

We knew we have a dinner invitation to Harry’s friend so we decided to leave at around 6pm. After a good 20 mins drive we got to their house and they made us lovely food with fish,chicken,rice,egg,vegetables. Apparently chicken and any kind of other meat except fish is very expensive so we felt actually very special that we got chicken. They sat us down first so we could eat with the kids then the women ate and finally the host.

Indonesian people have big but very simple houses where the bed could be a mattress on the floor, the kitchen can be very small to compare to the house and the toilets are basically squat holes in the floor. They don’t normally have shower or hot water so they use a little pot or like a water measure cup and just take the water out from the little pool they have in the bathroom and pour all over themselves. It’s a very refreshing and quick way of showering without wasting too much water. It’s actually quite good when it’s hot (which is 98% of the time). Also,I find the squat toilet much more hygienic since you don’t actually come contact with anything. You just pull your trousers,knickers,squat and done 😁 easy,simple,quick. 😊 But It’s not for everyone. If you like your hot (proper) showers and long sitting on the toilet while you are reading a newspaper or playing on your phone,perhaps you should visit a different side of Indonesia or just a different country.

Its getting late once more. Sun comes up about 6am and goes down just after 5pm. Tomorrow is beach cleaning… please see the photos of the place I live in.