Coonbert

    This little guy was wandering alone on the middle of a busy road.  One of our family members scooped him up before he got hit.  Before he was taken to the rescue shelter, Kaelen and Kenan got to spend a few hours with him.  They named him Coonbert.

 

Porky

   My days here are never the same.  When we visited a lady who received a wheelchair from Access Life Bali a few weeks ago, one of her nephews invited me out to see his new pigs.

   I helped him water them, and we cleaned out their pen a bit.  It was gross.

   Raising pigs, goats, and chickens is a great way for families on the island to earn some extra income.

No Big Deal

   When we first moved here (a long time ago), big snakes were a novelty.  We'd get excited, kids would be a even mix of excited and terrified.  Many photos would be taken.  Now it's kind of old hat...
   Recently while registering for our half marathon race packs, there was a guy holding a yellow python.  I tried to gather the kids to get a picture with the snake, but no one really cared.  Kenan only came and stood with me because he likes me, not because he was interested in the snake.
   On a side note, we were enthralled when we saw a squirrel the other day.  Those are pretty rare here.

Add this to the list...

***NOT A POST FOR DOG LOVERS.  PLEASE DON'T READ OR CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO MAKE IT BIGGER***  

   Lots of times here in Indo, something happens that is quite normal.  Totally ordinary...
   Then it hits me, that often the most normal things here would be considered bizarre or unacceptable back in America.  I've often thought of keeping a list of those bizarre things.  Although I still haven't gotten around to making that list, we saw something the other day that definitely belongs on it.

   We were sitting at a stoplight.  Waiting to make a left-hand turn onto a busy road.  Before the light turned green, two government workers rode past us on a motorbike.  The bizarre part of the story is that they were dragging a dead dog on a rope behind them.  They also made the turn, speeding off with that poor dog dragging along behind them.
   The context of the story is that there continues to be a problem with Rabies on our island.  People have died after being bitten by rabid dogs, so there are still drastic measures being taken. 

C'mon Man!

   I was heading to a friend's wedding reception in the mountains.  I was on the motorbike, and I was needing to a break for some lunch.  I stopped by one of my favorite bakso mobile food stalls for a bite to eat (Bakso deserves a whole separate post, I will work on that soon, you can click here if you need to know what it is sooner than that).

   There are wild monkeys in the trees near this food stall. You have to be careful not to put anything down (keys, phone, bag), because the monkeys will take it.  It was a hot day, and I was thirsty.  I got a water and quickly finished about 3/4 of it.  After digging into some bakso, I went to finish off the water... and it was gone!

   I spotted the guilty party.  It was a monkey sitting about 20 feet away from me.  He was holding my water, just relaxing.  He casually opened up the bottle, and took long, slow sips while looking at me out of the corner of his eye.  I'm not sure if he was looking at me because he was afraid I was going to try and reclaim my water or if he was trying to taunt me :o)

   So when in Bali, be careful not to leave items unattended. 

   For those keeping score at home, the score is monkeys 2 - Jon 0.  The first item taken was a pair of Kristi's glasses.

Fruity

Oh my!

   This is a photo of Kaelen with a fruit bat.  It does a bad job of capturing the bat, but an excellent job of capturing Kaelen's personality.

Eight Legs

   I've eaten plenty of octopi here in Indo, so I wasn't surprised to see one for sale.  However, it was the first time I've ever seen an octopus for sale in an indoor setting.  It was even nicely wrapped in plastic and clearly labeled with the weight and price.

  
  

We brought you Snack!!

We didn't eat the snack (snake).

   Like life here sometimes, this will be confusing.  Try to keep up...

   As has been highlighted on this blog in the past, it is very cool here in Indonesia to incorporate English into advertising, everyday conversations, Tshirt designs, etc.
   One of the words that is widely understood is snak (that's the English word SNACK and it sounds almost the same when an Indonesian says it and a regular American person says it). 
   We were visiting a friend's house last week when they had another guest stop in for a visit.  Upon entering, the other guest said, "Kami bawa snak".  Which we thought meant, "We brought a snack."

   But actually, instead of stealing the English word SNACK and inserting it into the Indonesian language, the guest was actually stealing the English word SNAKE!

   We were unaware of this fact and were fully expecting a SNACK as this young girl pulls a baby python (SNAKE) out of a small bag!  It was quite a surprise...

   But after the initial shock, it was fun to hang out with that little python.  The girls' father found the python in the rice fields.  They will raise it and keep it as a pet.  The little girl in the picture is 4 years old and is the one that spends the most time playing with the python.
  

The Other Kind of Traffic

   Kristi and I recently made a trip to the island of Flores.  We were visiting a friend that used to work with us at Access Life Bali. 

   Flores is much more sparsely populated than Bali, so we ran into a different kind of traffic there: cows and goats.

   On a side note, this road ranks up there as one of the worst I've ever been on.  Maybe only rivaled by the bad road conditions when we visited Haiti.  This road in Flores featured several obstacles that I truly didn't think we were going to get past: crossing a river, going over a bridge with big holes in it, land slides, dense vegetation that at times seemed to clock the whole road, etc.  It was bad...

  

"Friends"

Baby Lizard

   It is funny how much we have gotten used to the almost constant movement you see out of the corner of your eye here in Bali.  We (not including Kristi) missed seeing these guys while we were in America. 

   Mostly it is little 'friends' like the one in this picture that are responsible for the movement - they like to dart around the walls, hide in cabinets, under furniture, inside folded clothes, etc. 

   I have convinced our kids that lizards are good to have in the house.  They eat mosquitoes, spiders, and all kinds of other bugs.  Kristi still needs some convincing...  you can click here if you need a reminder of Kristi's rocky relationship with the lizards.

And the Winner is...

A hawk flying in West Bali National Park

   National Geographic had their first annual photo contest for drone photography.  Oddly enough, the winning shot came from Bali. 

   The guy was lucky enough to get a shot of a hawk flying past his drone.  The picture is from the western part of the island.  On this part of Bali, there is a large, sparsely populated range of mountains that has been designated as a national park.  That is where you can find the rare and endangered Bali Starling.  It is also where the last tiger in Bali was killed back in 1937.

   You can check out the other winning shots by clicking here.

Dengue Fever: One of Fastest Growing Global Health Threats

   
   One of our city's familiar sounds is the approaching drone of a fumigation fogger spewing thick white plumes of insecticide, part of so-far futile efforts to arrest a spiraling dengue fever outbreak.
   I remember shortly after we moved to Indo, our neighborhood was fogged, and the thick smoke entered every room of our house.  I had no idea what was going on...

   Dengue fever, a mosquito-born virus, is less lethal than Ebola, but  in a worst-case scenario causes internal bleeding, organ failure and death. It is spreading so far and so fast, The World Health Organisation deems it one of the fastest-growing global health threats, contracted by 50-100 million people each year. Like the Ebola virus, it has no vaccine to prevent it or drug to treat it. And while it is endemic mostly to warm, humid areas of the globe, the range of the virus could be widened by infected travellers, as well.
   While Ebola has killed nearly 5,000 people this year, mainly in West Africa, with an estimated 13,000 infections, dengue kills up to 20,000 annually, and 40% of the world’s population live in dengue-risk areas.

   Indonesia saw 121,000 cases in 2013, up 30%, with 871 dead. The virus is spreading from urban to rural areas.
    Indonesia has released genetically engineered mosquitoes whose offspring are sterile in hopes of controlling the Aedes aegypti mosquito which carries dengue, but the method’s efficacy remains unconfirmed.

       Most of this comes from an article on the dengue-ebola comparison, you can read the full article here.

Flying Dragons

I ran into some interesting wildlife today...  

   Pak Kadek and I drove out to west Bali in order to help one of our coworkers install a submersible pump.  The install went well, and a community of about 75 people now has access to water.  The most interesting part of the day was when Pak Kadek, who was telling a story about something, bolted mid-sentence up a hill.  He grabbed a stick as he was running and pinned something to the ground.  We all followed.  Half confused, half curious. 

   He had seen a black scorpion cross a path and wanted to catch it.  Usually scorpions in Bali tend to be small, but this one was relatively large (about 5 inches long).  On our island, the bigger the scorpion, the less you have to worry.  The word on the street is that the big ones don't really hurt if they sting you.  It's the small ones that have a dangerous sting. 

   About 30 minutes later, I was telling a story about something, and I saw a brownish blur fly past me, from left to right.  My eyes tried to follow it, but it was a small 'landing' sound that drew my attention to a nearby tree.  It was a lizard!  He scurried up the tree and out of sight.  I had heard of flying lizards but had never seen one.  I was a bit embarrassed to even suggest to my friends that I 'thought' I saw a lizard fly past me (Living in a different culture tends to bring on plenty of ridicule, so I try to avoid intentionally sounding like an idiot).  

   But I had to ask... turns out there are plenty of gliding lizards in that part of Bali.  I got home later in the day, told Jaiden and Kenan about it, and then we looked up this video that tells a little more about the 'Draco' lizards.  

That Ain't Snow Either

    This is Kenan in the picture at the right.  He's swinging his hands in a futile attempt to get rid of the flying bugs that invaded the restaurant where we were eating.  The bugs are called laron.  They are the reason we ate our dinner in the dark that night... Here's why:
    They are a type of termite and they appear every year around the start of rainy season.  When the sun starts to set and lights start coming on, all the laron come out and swarm around any lights.  Apparently they come out in search for a partner, and if they are not successful in their search, their wings quickly fall off and the poor little guys die within a couple of hours.
   This is great for lizards, geckos, and monkeys.  They all gather around the lights and have a feast.  It's fun to sit and watch the lizards go wild eating all those bugs.
   It's not so great if you're eating dinner outside with lights on over your table.  Literally hundreds of laron will converge on one lamp, so you're bound to get some of the bugs on your plate.  This is the reason that many restaurants will just turn off their lights for the hour or so that the laron come out.  I guess it's better to eat your food in the dark than to eat bugs in the light...

   On a side note... Monkeys and lizards are not the only ones that enjoy eating laron.  People like to gather them up and fry them for a crispy snack.  They put big buckets of water under lamps in order to catch them (like in the picture on the right), then they drain them, then they fry them.  Yum!

Bad Ideas

***THIS MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUNG KIDS, PLEASE READ RESPONSIBLY***

   We had some visitors at our house recently.  They were from Australia, so we took them out for a nice dinner (you gotta treat the Aussies right).  We were about 20 minutes away from our house.  We pointed to a large area of vacant land with lots of trees and low lying bushes and said, "That's where the man was killed by the python last week." 

   It's not very often that you say things like that, and it felt odd to even utter the words.  But it was true... A 14 foot python had been spotted in an area of trees near a recently closed hotel.  Some local security guards were recruited in order to find and capture the big snake.  One of the guys helping in the search did find the python.  He grabbed it and carried it out of the trees.  It's unclear whether his intent was to sell the snake or take it home to show to friends.  In the whole process of getting it out to the main road, the snake strangled the man and escaped back into the forest.  Several of the other men witnessed all this happening, but could not or would not help.  That part is also unclear...

   The python is still on the loose.  The local authorities have warned residents to be alert while in that area.

   Big snakes are not uncommon here in Bali.  It's always a possibility that you might see one while walking through forests or rice fields.  I have a friend that lives up in a mountainous area that raises pythons.  He has 30 in and around his house! 

Worms

We have to deworm again.  The bummer this time around is that it's not because we just feel a bit tired and worn out or have black circles under our eyes. 

This time we have seen, and felt, the 'evidence' of our little parasite friends.  It has been a 'unique' experience (and by unique, I mean really gross).

Komodo Behaving Badly

 

 

   (This is a recent story from the Associated Press.  Komodo Island is a couple of islands to the east of Bali.)

   Two people have been taken to hospital after being attacked by a giant Komodo dragon that wandered into the office of a wildlife park in eastern Indonesia.
   An official at Komodo National Park, Heru Rudiharto, said the 2-metre-long Komodo dragon attacked a park ranger after walking into the office on Tuesday. It then attacked another park employee who came to help him. Both were badly bitten and were evacuated to a hospital on Bali Island.
   Rudiharto said the park ranger was also attacked by a Komodo dragon in 2009. Endangered Komodo dragons can grow longer than 3 metres . Fewer than 4,000 are believed to be still alive. They are found in the wild primarily on the eastern Indonesian islands of Komodo, Padar and Rinca.

Sacred Monkeys

 It was a Sunday, and we were heading to a town about 30 minutes from our house.  We go by this area fairly often, and we saw something that looked a little out of the ordinary.  There were about 300 people crowded together... stopped on the side of the road, walking around the base of some trees, and buying/selling drinks and snacks.  They were all doing the same thing: looking up.

We often encounter large crowds of people like this in Bali, but the strange thing about this group is that they weren't wearing their ceremonial clothes and there was little evidence of a temple/religious event.

I stopped and started asking around.  People were saying that there was a strange monkey that appeared in this tree (top picture) several days ago.  The monkey was actually there when I stopped, so I got a good look at him too.  Most monkeys in Bali are relatively small, gray, and live a long ways from here, but this monkey was big, red, had a long tail.  The people in the community said that the monkey was a spirit manifestation of some kind coming to visit.  They said if this was the case, then obviously the spirit had come for a reason (to get something, receive offerings, give blessings, etc) and that's when I looked a bit closer and saw lots of offerings at the base of the tree and more people saying their mantras and offering sesajen while we were there. 

Funny thing is, there is a zoo very close to this tree.  It is not the most modern zoo in the world, to say the least.  It also has about a dozen of these exact same type of monkeys.  Big, red, long tail...  I could imagine it might be a possibility for a cheeky monkey to escape.  Most of the local residents would never have had an opportunity to visit the zoo, so they didn't know about this possibility.

When I talked to a guy at the scene about seeing one of these exact same monkeys at the zoo right down the road, he just laughed.  He says a zoo escape is probably what happened, but I'm sure he went and did an offering and said a mantra... just in case.

Just Plain Weird

 I visited a wheelchair recipient with two of the ALB ladies, Made and Yati.  As we walked into the front yard, this dog caught us all by surprise, and we all started cracking up.

The dog had eyebrows, at least it looked like that at first...

Upon further investigation, the man of the house had recently started using hair dye to cover up his gray hair.  He had some extra left over, and he decided to try some on his dog.  Genius... pure genius.

Proud Owner

   I was driving in a pickup through the mountains two weeks ago, with a 100 pound pig in the back.  As I stopped on the side of the road, to check on Lucy (the pig), I just smiled as I thought back on all the things that led to this point in life: on an island in Asia, stopped on the side of the road in a mountain village, petting and talking to a pig while all the people passing on motorbikes stared at the white guy talking to a pig...

   I was taking Lucy to a friend that lives in north Bali.  He has some slight disabilities but is determined to work hard to provide for his family.  He already has one pig, but it was small and not producing enough babies.  He needed a good one, and that's where the partnership started.  So he'll raise Lucy for me, and in return for taking care of Lucy, he gets the piglets (minus one for me) each time Lucy has babies.  It's a great setup because he has a sustainable income, and I get a new piglet every once in a while to share with someone else. Lucy should be getting pregnant soon, so that means I'll be getting another pig soon...  and will probably end up hauling that pig through the mountains while contemplating all the things that brought me to that point in life.