The Sphere Effect

A week on finds me flat on my back in bed with a nasty bout of ’something most traveller’s catch within the first week of a tropical country’ or so I am told. Actually I spent some time on Saturday morning gloating over how healthy I was feeling and how I had gotten over the hill of the first week without getting sick.

So after the last couple of days of fever, chills, aches, pains and other symptoms which I could but won’t mention, I am slowly coming around and starting back on the slippery slope to healthiness.

Last week I managed to catch up with Michael, a friend I had met in India earlier this year. He invited me away with a group of friends to an island off the coast of Aceh - Sabang. Eager for every new chance to see something new, and to meet new people, I eagerly accepted! But unfortunately had to leave early on Saturday due to horrible sick feeling in stomach… the rest was history.

But more about last week. I am working with a small Indonesian Foundation, whose goal is to provide employment to the local Acehnese people. The foundation has managed many projects since the tsunami, and currently runs several different businesses including handbag manufacturing, quilt manufacturing, card manufacturing, jewellery making, training centres, internet services, micro-finance, plus sponsorship of orphans and many other projects as they come up.

I have been living in a luxury guest house, most recently with a couple from Newcastle in Australia (Dan and Jo) and with Louise who is from California. Louise is here for a short while as she and her husband Roy are marketing the hand bag products made by the Acehnese in the USA. I could write a lot more about this, but she has a web site which says a lot more.

http://www.laga-handbags.com/

There are a couple of stories on this website - particularly Hanna’s story, which are really interesting, particularly since I now know and work with Hanna. She is lovely!

There are also lots of really nice handbags on the site, so if anyone in Perth or Sydney is interested let me know … I can hook you up , and it will help people in need in Banda Aceh.

As for me personally, my main projects while I am here include re-writing databases so that they are a little more useful, creating new ones, training people in some computer skills, and helping set up some new projects. It’s all very interesting, but I still don’t know what I’ll be doing at the end. I’ll just wait and see.