Dear reader,

Welcome to my new blog!

From today on I will start posting pictures and comments  about my indonesian experience in Lombok and the Yayasan Anak Oasis (Children's Oasis of Lombok) regularly.

I am glad that you found your way to this blog and I hope you will enjoy reading about my experiences and the peculiarities of Indonesia.

Since this is already my 18th day in Indonesia (time flies here!) I had a head start and could already get a good first impression of what is awaiting me during the next year.

Here some particularly indonesian facts I experienced first hand:

They are everywhere!

1. There are more motorcycles than people. Don't ever try to drive a car in Indonesia. No european person would be mentally prepared for this chaos and the carelessness of everyone else.

2. Never depend on the internet to work. If it does, it is most likely slow enough for you to do your shopping while waiting for a website to load.

3. A marriage means major traffic jam because of the entire weddingparty doing a march on the streets after the ceremony.  Motorcycles just continue driving off roads, whoever is not driving a motorcycle is screwed. Unfortunately people here marry a lot!

Wayan Uni's wedding

4. There is no place for trash. So what do we do? Drop it or burn it! (I especially had to get used to this...I just couldnt bring myself to just throw my trash anywhere---but then it started to pile up..)

5. Everything here is pelan-pelan (very slow) and punctuality is secondary.

6. You can get a nice meal for less than a euro but everything else but food is expensive (sometimes even for german standards)

7. People shower twice a day and COLD!

I hope these few facts gave you a first impression on the indonesian mentality and sparked you interest. Of cause more will follow soon!

This is what it looks like everywhere

So that's it for my first comment.

Best wishes,

Lara