Friday, May 15, 2009

Day 04 / Exploring

Our first view of the island...

Brendan, Andrew and Nick with the locals..

Soccer is everywhere, even in the middle of an island 100 miles off the coast of Indonesia

Typical village living

I'm sure most of these people are somewhat familiar with digital technology, but they still liked looking at the pictures we took of them.

All over the beach were weird patterns (that looked like crop circles) formed by crabs or ants..

This guy carved an entire canoe from a tree by hand

During the afternoon, we all went out and had a session at Burgerworlds. I managed a few waves on my new 6'8 that Brian Wynn shaped for me. It worked great out there because there was so much wave face to ride on and the wave itself was pretty powerful for being such a mellow wave. Everyone hopped out after about an hour and headed back to the boat. Carrick told us Bear was going to head home to spend the night with his family who lived on an island nearby.
Everyone loaded up with cameras, sun screen, and hats. We were the definition of surf tourists. After a 10 minute boat ride Bear dropped us off on the beach of his island. He took the boat back out, anchored it in the bay and swam in to meet us. The first thing we noticed (besides how beautiful the island is) is how friendly the people are. As soon as the young kids who were playing in the lagoon saw us they started waving and all came to say hello. Nobody once asked us for a handout, but there were alot of smiles and giggles and we did hear them call us "tourist".
The village has about 3,000 people living in it. There were a few shops where they can buy clothes and supplies for everyday life. The main road is paved with concrete and we did notice the sign that Surf Aid had been there to help out at one point. We were told that everyone had a job to do in the village. We even saw a man carving a canoe from a hardwood tree using only a small stone. He was very kind about all of us standing above him as he was working and obliged for a few photos.
Once we got to Bear's house, they invited us inside. It was vey scarcely decorated - just some of his sisters drawings and a few wooden swords on the wall along with a picture of Jesus (most of that village is Christian). It was really hot walking up the trail to the house, and it felt really good to sit in the shade. Their houses are all custom made from hard woods taken from the jungle. The wood is all planned by hand and some of the houses even had marble tile floors.
We headed back out and noticed there were a lot of sports going on. The local kids have a soccer field set up and we walked past a house where two guys were playing ping pong on a wooden table with paddles they made themselves. Really cool..

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