Diary - 20120706

20120706, shock on the hill

        Terrible day really! All of us just start our trip with tired muscle and legs. Without enough sleeping (I wake up at 5:30 and do my laundry for a hour), I feel terrible in the morning.

        Start at about 9:30 am and walk into the rain forest. Just after a short period of time. Elton feels that he cannot make it. He just wants to turn back immediately. But Arne keep pushing he forward. (Elton got some  problems)

        We divide into two groups just like yesterday, because Arne thinks we’re are behind and need to speed up. We just bring another guide and pass the original team. I tell Marco to watch out for the whole team. When we reach the top, it’s quite surprising that the local people burn down the forest to make room for tobacco just because it grows well with much higher quality. I think that local people don’t know that’s really bad.(the figure above)

        After that, we keep climbing up and try to reach our destination. When we get about 2000 high, Arne’s leg feels really bad. And the time ran out. So Arne decides to turn back. It takes us about 4 hours to get back.

        The most scaring thing is that we thought we are far behind the original group, but when we get back to the start point, we are informed that they haven’t come back yet. It’s getting dark and the clouds cover the whole sky. There are some lighting and it seems that it’s going to rain. The only thing we can do is to ask the teacher and the guide in our team to go into the rain forest to find them.

        One hour past, they finally come back. THANKS GOD!!

        They just cross the river again because the guide cannot find the original way and he doesn’t have a tool to cut off some grass in the road. It takes a long time for them to move along the river; it seems that their shoes can never dry.

        After taking bath, I start to check my legs and I find lots of wound! Maybe it’s because I slide too many times. Nine hours walking for almost 10 km in the forest, sometimes you cannot see any path there and you have to go straight up and down.

Diary - 20120705

20120705, get into the rainforest

        Since Apple Jia (our adviser)  gave us a shock about making noise, coming back late last night, don’t think in different way whenever you go to any other place. We just act like we are tourists here. So I start to think about the program now.

(1)   It should make connection with the rain forest

(2)   Local knowledge, let the kids know the world they live, compared with the development world. Which one is better? Or which part is better?

(3)   What we can do else? (create a LAN here?)

We did the real trekking in the rainforest today. It takes about seven hours to finish it. They were two local guys with us. Arne asked Setyo, Victor and I to stay behind the team to watch the situation of whole team and find some wild perennial crops.

In the very beginning, the road is quite hard to walk. Sometimes we need to grab some trunks or sticks and swing, so I can just focus on walking safe. But after we start to go down to the river, Victor and I found some interesting food and seeds.

It was getting dark and dark, but we were still far behind the end point. Arne form another group consist of Victor, Setyo, Apple and I. He started to build a way by himself and try to stay in the same side of the river.

We had no choice but just kept staying in the group. At about 7 pm, we were far behind the original team. I could see the beautiful sky and fire flies around us. It’s kind of dangerous because it was totally dark and we could just use three flash lights to figure out a way home. At about 7:15 pm, I felt a little hopeless, but I still told myself that something bad won’t happen to me. I had to trust Arne and just follow his instructions. When we told the guide to cut the tree and make a path on a big truck, Victor and I thought that Arne is really a crazy person. At that time, Setyo just wanted to quit. As a team we should stick together until the last moment, I told to Setyo. Finally we found the way home.

Human builds up their technology by observing the wild perennial crops and copy it. Use technology to process wild perennial crops for food or money. The best technology knowledge is here in Blengkejeren. In the past we may think this is a bad city compare with more USA, but now we spend lots of money and effort to look for some green technology like local knowledge here. The kids here are the luckiest one because the most advance technology is just near them. My responsibility is to tell them they’re the best one, just don’t become a person in the industrial city. It’s useless in the future. Try to find the value of their homeland and environment.

Diary - 20120704

    

2012-07-04, walk and talk!

        Why can engineers just create product in his office? They should go into the field and see the real situation.

        All of us were divided into 5 groups for South, North, East, and West four different directions. Try to engage with the local people and find out at least 30 way points about the food, trees, technology and education. Maybe this is the activity that let the local people know us. At the same time let us get familiar with the environment.

        I am still thinking about the relationship between the activity and the rainforest. I thought that what we just prepared in Taiwan is unsuitable for those kids now. Need to remake the PowerPoint files we have prepared in Taiwan.