Cutest boy in Banda-Aceh

Aaaaah, lovers! How I’ve missed you. And how you’ve missed the blog. I had to let it lay dormant for a while, hope you understand – it was getting too big, too commercial. With this re-launch, however, I’m taking it back to basics. Blaaaaow! Real talk.

When you last heard from me I was about to leave Liberia. I have now traded that world to one marginally different, Banda Aceh in Indonesia – known from Åtta Dagar, Dokument Utifrån, and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, most often in conjunction with the GAM-independence movement or the tsunami. The UN-office I work for has as its task to coordinate the work of the Tsunami recovery community here and, it is hoped, consolidate these efforts with those relating to the peace efforts. These are two separate processes that they’d like to converge. Like dat.

They’ve worked me like a dog so far – I literally had to go to a meeting 2 hours after I arrived. As such I haven’t really gotten around in the city that much except in the boring safety of huge UN jeeps but enough to offer up some initial observations.

Observation 1: You may think that the call-to-prayer is quaint, I thought it would be. Maybe so during normal circumstances, but during Ramadan here in Aceh it’s not. It’s not so much the institution itself that I blame – although the frequency of call-outs does seem a bit excessive (it goes on all day and night practically) – It’s the soundsystems, the genius that decided that an 8-year old girl would scream out the verses part of the day, and the aggressive style that it’s launched in sometimes – they sound an air alarm in the morning! (No joke). It’s 11:35pm right now and it literally, yes literally, sounds like a broken radio that sometimes breaks off into feedback. I’m being exorcised of my orientalist tendencies, good.

Observation 2: There are more mopeds/scooters here than I’ve ever seen. More than in rush-hour footage from China? Yes! More than outside Lillå-gården on a disco night? Yes!
*Shit, this is ridiculous. If you could hear the feedback now. Haha, Unbelievable. Get the soundman. Turn up the monitors. Whatever, just fix that damn mic.*
Anyway, the bikes drive like crazy and often have a whole family ride on them. On the “wrong” side of the street.

Observation 3: If my travels have taught me one thing, it is that I have two distinct features: I am white and I am a giant. Regular readers of my Liberia entries may remember how I was daily greeted with or called upon with “White Man!” Here people (girls and boys, men and women) marvel less at my paleness, and more at how huuuge I am. Women, who I was told would be very shy and barely look at foreigners, giggle and point; guys make growling bear sounds. Would “Pale Giant” be a bad MC-name? Probably. “Big White?”

That’s all I’m going to write today. Sorry. But don’t worry, I will be back soon enough. This time with pictures. I miss you all very much, so please give me some e-kisses in the comment section. I’m gonna go play some tennis now: our offices are in an old decrepit hotel of some sort and there’s a tennis court here where, I am told, there are pick-up games between the whites [“boolay”] and the locals.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. As some of you may have seen there was an earthquake on Sumatra the same night that I arrived. We felt nothing here and, in general, feel pretty safe should there be tremors here. As the UN-security brief says: “Earthquakes do not kill, buildings do.” Our offices and our the place I live are all single-storied buildings with light roofs + they stand on fundaments that are supposedly earthquake-safe. See mommy, it’s nothing to worry about.