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So schnell vergeht ein halbes Jahr!

La daabacay: 28.06.2018

Ku biir Wargeysyada

Our half year is almost over. And, no wonder, it went by in a flash.

Not surprising at all: White-capped thrush.

Originally, we had planned to work here in the PCBA in East Java for half a year and then travel around. But plans sometimes need to be thrown out the window. And since we realized after just a few weeks in Indonesia that we would like to stay here longer, we put our travel plans on hold for now. Unfortunately, the visa we obtained in Germany is only valid for half a year, so we definitely have to leave Indonesia at the beginning of July. Those are the rules.

And since we are already on the move, we are taking a 3-week vacation. One of the few countries in Southeast Asia that I have not yet visited is Laos. For inexplicable reasons, a flight to Da Nang in central Vietnam was the cheapest option, so we will fly to Da Nang via Singapore on July 5th. From there, we will travel to Laos overland. That's the plan. In Laos, we will have about 2 and a half weeks to explore the country. As always, with a backpack on our backs and only a rough plan. On July 23rd, we will fly back to Singapore to submit our visa documents at the Indonesian Embassy. At the moment, the documents are still being prepared by Taman Safari and will be sent to us digitally when they are ready. We hope that the documents will arrive on time, otherwise we may be forced to take a vacation in Singapore. If everything is approved, we can re-enter Indonesia and continue working here. The visa will initially only be valid for half a year, but we will no longer have to apply for a new visa every month. So keep your fingers crossed that everything works out!

That's our plan so far. Since nothing major has happened in the past few weeks, I would like to use this blog to introduce some local animals, the new and quite successful Australia exhibit at Taman Safari, and Indonesian curiosities.

A few weeks ago, the Australia exhibit at Taman Safari was opened. The Australiana Zone consists of several enclosures for 4 species of kangaroos, emus, wombats, and in the future also koalas and cockatoos. In addition, they show flying foxes, black swans, and various reptiles. The enclosures, in our opinion, are very well done, some of them almost oversized for a handful of kangaroos.

The path to the Australiana Zone, which Stephan and Roy are looking at. On the left is the Baobab Hotel and in the background is Mount Arjuna.

The huge roundabout in front of the Australiana Zone, the purpose of which we do not know. A Korean restaurant is supposed to move into the airplane in the background soon.

A view of one part of the kangaroo enclosure. Crocodiles live within the small wall around the visitor bridge. However, the wall is only about one meter high and absolutely no problem for kangaroos to jump over. Will that work?

Part of the enclosure for Grey Giant Kangaroos and Agile Wallabies, which is so huge that you have to search for the kangaroos. The emus also live in this enclosure, but fenced in and in a relatively small area.

Part of the Wombat enclosure - without wombats. They prefer to sleep in their indoor enclosure.

For people with fear or disgust of small creatures, the next pictures are probably rather repulsive. I always find it exciting to see what crawls and flies here, especially since everything seems to be much bigger here.

Caterpillars:

Spiders:

This one was particularly clever and caught one of our little creatures.

Beetles:A rhinoceros beetle.

A fat beetle. Or something roach-like?

Other creatures:

A praying mantis that seemed to want to help me work.

This is just some kind of flatworm. I find them particularly fascinating...when they're not in our kitchen...

...or behind the house. Like this snake that was slithering around in front of our door.

The Javan Pica. This species is also offered at bird markets. Fortunately, it lives here in the secure area of Taman Safari.

Lastly, the Javan Kingfisher. This is the first and only photo I have of it, even though it often stays near our house or near the bird ark.

Since we have been in Indonesia, we have noticed a lot of things that can sometimes seem strange, illogical, or funny to Germans or Westerners, or just simply interesting. Especially in construction, not everything always seems clear. Roy and I have often smiled or laughed when we discovered something peculiar. But there are also things here that are less funny or that annoy us extremely. First and foremost is the 'recycling system' of the Indonesians (unfortunately not only the Indonesians). The motto is 'burning'. Everything that people no longer need or cannot dispose of in any other way is burned in front of their own homes, preferably in the evening. That means paper, plant material, plastic - anything that is flammable. Everyone knows that this harms the environment and health. But not in Indonesia. And so every evening countless Indonesians smoke out their streets. The annoying thing is that the security guard who watches over our house also burns everything. Not during the day when we are at work, but in the evening or at night when we want to sleep. But at the moment, our sleep is already being disturbed. Not by the muezzin, we have long since gotten used to that, but by weddings. It seems to be the best time to get married right now, so we are being bombarded with booming bass and sometimes terrible singing from 5 a.m. to late at night. Earplugs help against that. But when the apartment smells of smoke, I can't think of sleep either. Fortunately, both things are kept within limits and we also have peaceful nights when only the cicadas annoy us.

Everything that doesn't make it into the flames ends up on the ground somewhere. This is in front of the entrance to our bird ark. I always wonder how shoe soles or whole shoes end up in a place like this.

In Indonesia, there are incredibly many things made of plastic. Sometimes this also proves to be an advantage, because during the rainy season, things made of leather, fabric, or wood quickly deteriorate. We learned that in our first weeks here.

Another phenomenon in Indonesia is that people express their group affiliation through matching t-shirts. In Taman Safari, we constantly see groups wearing the same t-shirts. It often looks like the groups are on a motivational outing. There are games, music, and group dances. And all of this in the zoo. But the best are the families in matching outfits. Sometimes the shirts even have slogans like 'We are one family' or 'Our team is better than yours'.

This group even had their own DJ blasting them with loud music.

But it is typical for Indonesia that as a 'bule' (white person), you often have to take photos with locals. We ourselves are often stared at in the park and occasionally someone shouts 'Bule' (meaning 'white person'), but fortunately we are rarely photographed.

One of our security guards really wanted a photo. Well, there are nicer pictures.

I also noticed these things in the park:

There is a handwashing instruction at every sink. It's a good thing in itself, but I don't quite understand why adults need to be explained how to wash their hands.

This control panel looks like it's from the 1930s. But the park is only 20 years old. Fortunately, this is not a roller coaster.

This is just a beautiful view of Mount Arjuna. With the adventurous slide in the foreground.

But the most inexplicable things are found in construction:

First everything is built according to plan, only to be demolished again.

And once it's built, it fails the practical test.

A freestanding sink is also a way to save space. Or whatever.

Or construction sites are only half-heartedly secured and can be freely accessed. No need for everything to be perfectly straight.

And it's no wonder that the craftsmen are constantly taking breaks ;)

Finally, here are some pictures that didn't fit anywhere else, but I still want to show them.

The best juice shop. After playing soccer, we always get a juice here. I always get Jambu (guava) and Roy often gets Nanas (pineapple). Soccer won't start again for a few weeks. The colleagues still need to recover from Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr ;)

To show the dimensions of a papaya delivery to the feed house. Tons of papayas are fed every month. In Germany, such a papaya probably costs 7 euros, here only about 17 cents.

This is the old emu enclosure that I showed in a previous blog. Now a new group of lions lives here. Without the emus!

This beautifully shaped workbench was made by Roy himself using only scraps from the construction workers.

Here we are testing the security of our fences and gates. The guys were pretty quick, so there will soon be upgrades.

Sometimes when we leave work, we come across the elephant parade, which often consists of 5 or 6 elephants. Usually, there are also two camels and 2 ponies following.

This is the vacant house on our residential property, right behind ours. We've never been inside, but even from the outside, it looks quite spacious and luxurious. At night, however, it's really creepy here. Supposedly, there are ghosts everywhere. There is supposedly a headless one and a dog haunting our house, and two children haunting the lower building.