cant post, planning lessons...

i think everyone should learn to dance like this:

the kids come to school next week...

i was just perusing myspaces when i saw this pic...

hopefully my kids will be sweet obedient little boys who are motivated about school and dont swear, blaspheme or bully each other... hmm i just need to remember:

indo- dedicated youth- anak medan ke jakarta...

10 youth from medan (including myself) embarked on a journey to attend the National Youth Conference in Jakarta, THREE DAYS on a huge 8 level ship... (the port of belawan is the port nearest medan)

we had a lot of time to kill before the ship actually took off so we went exploring and took photos... outside the first class cabins (unfortunately the doors were locked so our dreams of using the 1st class bathrooms were shattered)

we were in economy(1) class, thats is 2nd from the bottom (at least we were not "non seat" [actually 1 of us girls was but the boys swapped with her and they all shared so she'd have a bed] like some economy passengers who had to sit/sleep on the ground)!! this is us in our section of the deck, and the view out the window.

as the ship takes off we wave to nobody in particular...

and continue our exploration and photo taking :)


that is the singapore skyline you can see in the distance... and then somewhere along the trip in the middle of nowhere we decided to pick up more passengers... me doing a bit of national geographic

our "neighbours": this is is fajar and i falling off the side of the ship, clearly... and his little siblings and cousins, they wanted to learn the step dance so here we are on top of the ship in the cafe area getting a lot of weird looks from the other passengers (as if i wasnt getting enough weird looks for being a bule [which translates to something like albino] i thought i fully blended!)


papa helmi (in the village you call someone by the name of their first child, so this guy, berita, his daughters name is helmi, therefore we call him papa helmi) was given the task of making sure everyone is safe (jakarta is not the safest of places to be), sweet guy, apparantly there was something dangerous about taking this photo...

the ship made a stop in batam, apparantly that was pretty exciting, so we took more photos


when we reached jakarta we jumped on a bus (similar to the ones pictured in indo- public transport) and travelled for around 2 hours to puncak where the conference was held.

Mona's Dream

Mona's Dream is a feature film that tell the story of Mona and her family. She was 16 when she was arrested in the Iranian city of Shiraz along with many other Baha'is. The Islamic Republic of Iran had set out to rid their country of the Baha'i Community, the largest religious minority in Iran.

The film chronicles the courage and bravery of Mona, her father, and her companions as they face the irrational hatred of the fanatical clergy of Iran.

Please click here and then follow the links to "digg" the film so that it can get to the top of the favourites list and hopefully make it sooner to the screens so everyone can hear the story of Mona and these other brave Souls!

indo- i got a hair cut

indo styles!!

well, that is, thin (there was like 3kg's of my hair on the floor after he was done but my hair hadnt gotten any shorter!), layered, and with a side part...

ok so the hair dresser didnt do the side part but later on that evening the medan girls attacked me and made me indonesian (they ALL have side parts)!

The Ulos (traditional indonesian scarf thingy) was part of our costume for this lovely Batak (people from north Sumatra) dance that we performed.
The next day it was looking less curly and bouncy and more thin...

indo- public transport...

one night shanthi and i caught the bus back from the village... this is no ordinary bus- it is packed to the brim (ok not as bad as india but still) and the guy who you pay and stuff just hangs off the side of the bus, sits on the roof, shuts the door with his feet... we called him monkey boy!i guess the bus above was too full so more people decided to hang out on the roof too...

indo- pimpkan mobil-ku

english translation: pimp my ride (literally car)note the lack of back doors on this "5 door", perhaps even 8 seater, car... one of Shanthi's friends did up his car, which is apparantly very common in indo to drastically change many things about your car... I sat in the front because i was "so big"... i swear they are all so small, i'm regular sized!

indo- spot the kitten

The strange thing about all the cats in indo is that they all have really short tails. is it because they are diseased and drop off, or do people cut them off, or do they evolve to just have short tails in order to prevent the disease and the people from making their tails drop off...?

Indo-village

I actually want to eat these kids!!

My rellos spend a lot of time in the villages doing children's classes and junior youth groups etc. I had the privelage of going several times and teaching the kids and JY "Heads and Shoulders (knees and toes)" to help them learn English and then the quote by Baha'u'llah (translated into Indo) "Let your eye be chaste, your hand faithful, your tongue truthful and your heart enlightened..." to link the English they just learnt to some moral teaching.

This is us with our faithful hands (setia=faithful)

They also held a mini concert while I was there. Sweet kids!

Julia was leaving to return to Malaysia after being in Indo for 5 years... the kids (and her) were pretty upset!

Indonesia- Nana goes to India

I got to Indonesia a few days before my cousin Shanthi (in indo, not to be confused with my cousin Shanthi in aust) got home from serving at the Bahá'í House of Worship, the Lotus Temple, in India. A few days later her sister, Ileana, went for service there too...Nana's flight was at the crack of dawn but we decided to get up and see her off anyway :)