Incisions and losses

Well, I finally ran out of luck. Life took a turn for the worse. A series of most unfortunate events. Anyway you put it, the last two weeks have in some ways been more suboptimal than the others.

It all started with an unfortunate incision made into our newly installed multi-family prototype digester. The incision was made by a foot and happened very quickly - I was suddenly holding the person connected to the foot in my arms and helping her out of the smelly interior.

The week continued with the loss of my wallet. It ended with, what I thought, would be a short trip to the hospital, to investigate some newly acquired stomach pains and fever chills. I was quickly diagnosed with appendicitis and was, just a few hours later, lying in morphine induced relaxation mode on the operating table. After another incision and extraction, I was an appendix poorer, but very happy to have it over with. I got a high fever for the next few days and was worrying a bit when the doctors starting debating if it might be Dengue, Typhoid or Malaria, that I might be suffering from. Turns out it was probably just an infection caused by infectious tissue still left in my body or that popped in during the operation. I have now tried three types of Indonesian antibiotics and one of them seemed to work. And boy are they strong.



Daily shower routine, taken in bed.

Enough of the health-talk. I have been completely surrounded by helpful, caring and cheerful friends during my stay here at the hospital. My room became somewhat of a social gathering place and even a number of work-related meetings, where held in the couch next to my bed. I was brought flowers, sweets, fresh fruits, DVD's, books and of course good company. Albeit the great attention and care I've been getting here at the hospital, I am really looking forward to leaving. I will be picked up and dismissed (or whatever the term is) within an hour.

To complete the story and bring you to the happy ending, the digester with the great hole was operated on March 18. Thanks to Wawa's nimble fingers it has reached full recovery. I am maybe one week away from stabilisation. Hopefully this will be enough time to complete what I came here to do. My wallet is still lost somewhere in the wilderness of Lembang or in the urban jungle of Bandung. Happy enough ending for me.


Pre-op. preparations

Nice and tigth seal. Can you figure out how it was done? Not so easy, eh?

New sounds, fried banana, and the cycle of life

My composter has been invaded by ants. Apparently this happens if you load it infrequently, or add a bunch of sweet things, like watermelon. There is an indonesian saying: Ada gula, ada semut (There is sugar, there is ant). So I spent the morning fishing watermelon pieces out of my composter and adding yet another ant-colony to the backyard of my house. Ants are extremely fascinating by the way. There are ants who live underwater, ants that can direct the way they fall, ants that build rafts, ants that herd caterpillars (they lead them to feeding areas in the daytime and bring them back to the anthill at night and then massage them so they excrete delicious honeydew). As if this wasn't enough, they thrive in almost all ecosystems (save marine and arctic ones) and are believed to constitute around 25 % of the animal terrestial biomass! Wikipedias ant-page is very entertaining...



Learning new languages and being here in Indonesia, there are a lot of new sounds in and around my head at the moment. Here are a few songs that I've been humming lately:

Ojeg Cunihin - Motorcycle-taxi playboy (sundanese pop song)
Aduh bagja Pisan (Wow I'm very happy)
Narik ojeg ngalarisan (I'm bringing my first ojeg passenger)
Nutumpakna guelis pisan (A passenger very beautiful)
Hate sok seseredetan (My heart is beating fast)
Keur Kasalameutan (For safety...)
Nuguelis kedah nyeupeungan (beautiful, grab on to me)

Tikus Kantor - Office mouse
Iwan Fals is indonesias bob dylan, without the harmonica.

Bubuy Bulan (trad. Sundanese song)
A song that I think is about various ways to cook celestial bodies (e.g. the moon, the sun and the stars), but I could be wrong. Also the video is really funny.

Speaking about cooking, here are some of the many things that I have enjoyed running through my body the last few months:

Spicy sambal peanut sauce, fried green beans, yellow rice, brown rice, fried banana (yes, I really do like it!), bala-bala (fried vegetable cakes), fried tempeh, fried noodles (yes, very many things are fried), gorengan (fried flour chips), fresh milk with cane sugar and of course everything that Wawa's mother cooks (I don't think I have had the same meal twice, and every time it is just as delicious).


Listening to a foreigner trying to sing Ojeg , is much more interesting than going to school...

Cicalung dangdut session

Just one of the many delicious meals with Wawa and his family

A quick run to town

A massive thunderstorm has just pulled in over Bandung, so I am writing this on my unconnected lap-top and will upload it in a while. I have spent the last few days in Cicalung. The project is moving along well. I just finished a presentation that I will be doing next week for my examiner Kjell Aleklett and his research group Global Energy Systems. Take a look at it here if you are interested to see the latest transformation of my thesis project (password: biogas@lembang).

Matt and Meghan have come and gone. We did a lot of exploring by foot, played a bunch of cribbage, exchanged books and made guacamole. It was very nice to have them here and it made me feel just a bit more at home than before (nothing better than having guests to boost you perception of knowing a place). I guess they are now somewhere east of here, maybe between Bali and Lombok. Meghan is writing a blog (and Matt is writing some of the captions to the photos) where I am sure a bunch of photos from their visit will appear shortly. I have left my camera at home for the last week as Meghan seemed happy to do the shooting.

I am on my way back to Cicalung this afternoon (I just popped down to Bandung for some clean clothes and a few hours or so of internet). Yono is coming by to pick me up fairly soon so I better get my stuff together.