http://webosiq.t35.com/

After a month or two.

Now first off, I assume nobody will read this anyway, but thats ok because I feel I need to write it anyway. Maybe I will work on this and send it to CWY, so they can get a look at how a participant feels in a more personal way. But thats not really what this last post is about. This last post is about life back at home.


It's now late july, 4 months after my return. I no longer feel so weird as I did for the first few months and I feel that I'm actually going to start doing something with my life. In order to convey this feeling properly I will have to tell the story of my return home.

So I'm back at Singapore, this time for a few days. I have just spent 3.5 months in an all Muslim area where it would be unsightly for a girl to wear a sleeveless shirt, or anything that stopped before the knee. In Singapore it is A) very westernized, everyone speaks English and wears what they want to wear, and B) very warm (33c, but we didn't notice as we were used to it). This means short shorts, spaghetti straps, mid drifts and exposed thongs. We were taking double takes with our jaws to the floor.

At first I had this feeling to brand them 'sluts'. But then I realized, "no wait, this is what I'm supposed think is normal". Reverse culture shock? This was just the beginning. I then thought about the Indonesians. If this is how I view it after only 3 months think of how they view out country. A bunch of sluts and sinners. And people wonder why the middle east is pissed at western society. It's the same reason we think they are a bunch of overstrict prudes. I quickly decided that everybody should mind their own business about other peoples cultures, because it's nobody's fault and once you live their you can quickly adapt their opinions as your own.

I get off topic. Sluts in Singapore. I get over it, but I still, in the back of my mind have that view of the world. Every time I see a girl in the street wearing a miniskirt it bugs me a little more than it did before.

So we get to Vancouver. Yay! It's weird to be back and it feels surreal. If any CWY planner reads this, the debrief was BS. I'm not saying that because it wasn't planed well or had boring activities, it's just that nobody cared. Everyone was jazzed about getting home, seeing families and getting on with their life. The debrief just seemed like something in the way. I would suggest just filling out all the forms and being given a booklet of country specific information concerning the return process. By this I mean 'you've been in a Muslim country for a while so guess what, you may see girls as sluts'. Naturally more intelligently put than that, but you get the idea. Just a book for people to pick up if they need it. We got a booklet, I skimmed it and found it was a book for all programs and didn't hit the details I wanted. Haven't touched it since.

2nd night in Vancouver people went out drinking. This, in my opinion was a bad idea. I do not drink and as soon as I realized people were just getting drunk, I left. I got woken up to the fools in my room crashing about being loud, and continued to stay awake to make sure nobody died. One guy took a bath, he barely could stand and wouldn't listen to reason, so I was up listening making sure he moved every few minutes so I new he hadn't drown himself.

At this point in my head I'm thinking "My country is f'in stupid, a bunch of drunk idiots". Yet another example of reverse culture shock.

The next day we fly home. I'm coming down the elevator and I see my mom, dad and sister waving at me with a big welcome home balloon. This was a great feeling. My dog was pleased, she was running around like crazy. We talked about lots of stuff, shared pictures and stayed up way too late. I saw a few relatives, a few friends.

My friends. The hardest part of my return was my friends no longer being so close. Big goodbyes but little hellos, I had drifted away from their circle, and didn't get calls to 'come hang out'. It's something that happens. You have to be ready for it. Took me a few months to figure out where I belong. As of right now I have half the real friends. I haven't done anything new in order to meet new people, but school is coming up, and I have no doubt that there is where they lay. I had this grandiose entrance planed for myself where everybody was expecting me and wanted to know everything, and I would teach them all the dances and all these other things. In reality nobody cares but your immediate family. After the 3rd story people move on with their own lives. Don't expect anything. That's a big thing I would tell future participants. The book may say people will ask you lots of questions, but that's probably just going to be your mom. You may get one or two, or have to explain something. After I told my friends about the earthquake, most of them stopped caring.

I didn't do anything out of the ordinary that I hadn't done before I left. This was a mistake. You are different, you must seek different things. I felt like crud until I did. Like, the maybe I should see a counselor kind of crud. I did one thing different and bam! I felt good. So thats what I've done, changed it up a little. We had a sort of reunion planed for next week. All the Canadians. It fell through, everybody has lives, and CWY is over. Moving on from that is really important, it let me adapt better.

Thanks for reading, it's been an adventure nothing like what I expected.
Joshua Dimitri John LeBlanc, over and out.

Evac.

As some of you may have heard, there was an earthquake in West Sumatera. Some of the news said that the epicenter was Padang, this is only half true. There were 2 epicenters, one halfway between Padang and Bukitingii, the other in the dead center fo Batusankar. Padang was bearly hit. Batusangkar is where my village is. Nobody in my village was hurd, but some of the houses are cracked and walls are damaged. Now for my expirience:

I dint feel the first shock, I was on the road to bukitingi and in a car and dint notice. We got to Bukitingii (where we were having our debreiff). We dint think much about the quake and went to our rooms in the hotel, mine was on the 3rd floor, and i decided to take a nap.
So sudenly there is a small rumble that brings me semi awake. It's not that big at first but were are just awake to figure out what is going on. The shaking gets bad... fast. Bad enough so that people downstais and outside start to scram. We fly out of our beds, people are yelling about getting the outside, but we have 3 flights to go down, and that taked time and it was shaking so bad you couldent get footing, and you think you spinning becase EVERYTHING is shaking and falling and scraming. We went from in our beds, down 3 floors, and out the door in about 30seconds.
By then the earthquake had stoped, but then everyone was in the streats, most crying, some fainting and everyones blood running. We call the goverment in charge of us and they say to go to Padang, because Padand is not shaking bad and is safe. So we get some cars organized somehow (in indonesia you can get people to drive you anywhere, you just got to pay them enough). But then we have to get our things, so we are running upstairs to get thing we left in the room like bags, shoes (i spent a half hour in the street with no shoes). That went ok and we got in our cars, we had to fill up on gas, we did it quickly and keept going (we also refild all fluids, just in case). We drive, hit traffic, get past it hit more, but this traffic is not moving, becasue there is a bridge down and a landslaide covering the whole road, we turn back up to the nearest comunity ish thing. We end up waiting there about 3h trying to figure out how to get to Padang, aftershoks every hour, everytime it happens people scream and shake in stress afterwards. Differnt plans come up, like riding to the landslide then trying to hike throuh it as fast as possible then getting a ride on the other side, but how dangerus is that compared to staying where we were waiting for another big earthquake that could come at any time. Eventualy the driver says there is a designated safe area near by and that he can drive us there.
We get there and it turns out to be an abandont rail station, flat so no landslide posiblilties and no buildings in the traks so they cant fall on us either. We camped out there for a bout 4 or 5h, made a big fire with the locals, tried to eat some food. A few of us were on the tracks when another smaller shake happened and the tracks vibrated and threw us up, again freaking everyone out. To top it off we were closer to the volcano, and at that point it did not seem like a good idea at all.
The road was now clear between us and padang, but there had been landlids there that demolished cars and killed people and it was likely to happen again if another quake hit. The drivers with us would not drive us, so we called people in charge and within an hour we had 2 busses come from Padang and pick us up. Everyone everwhere was sleeping outside and it was pure insanity.
We finaly got to padang at 11pm safely with all our luggage intact.
I couldent sleep for more than an hour or two at a time because every time the be jiggles a little I was remindede of running out of bed and trying to get down thoses stairs not nowing if the next step the building would crumble away under my feet.
The next day we were chaken but not to bad and set just to finish our week and a half long deebreif. Then they called a meeting at 10am that morning and there they told us that CWY decided that the area was not safe and that we are to be evacuated back to Canada, and that half of us (me) would leave 5pm... that night. Repaking a goodbyes to people we spent 6 months with and might never see again were cramed into one hell of an afternoon. More people crying, now for differnt reasons.
So I got on my flight (to Jakarta) and when we get there where did we stay? the freaking Shariton. 5stars. We went swimming and had hot showers and dint sleep all night. We could ot help but laugh at the situation, the night befor train tracks, now swimming in a bueatifull pool with turtle fountains.
We got another flight to Singapore this morninig and I am here now. I'l got to Tokyo in about 2and a half days and then bee home probably on the 13th, as loong as out last minute bookings hold.
It's been one hell of a rolercoaster ride, but I made it out while keeping a smile on my face through the whole thing, I'v never smiled so much.
At any rate; Bee home soon and I can tell you all the other helarius events that I cant fit into words. See you soon!

Last Post From Indonesia?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

WHOA!!!!
So it's almost over! All our progects are basicaly done, we just spend our time prepairing for our final culture show. Most of my time is just chilling out, half packing trying to figure out how to get my stuff back home.

Pagairiun Palace Burnt down a few days ago, it's the biggist tourist spot in west sumatra, we were there the day befor it burnt down! It's super crazy, all thats left is the hardwood framing. It had metal points and it got hit by lightning, and with thatch roofing it went up in flames. We actualy could see the fire from our village.

So I'm getting home on the 17th, it's one hell of a flight from vancouver. I fly 6h to toronto, wait 2h, then fly an hour to ottawa. Plus 3 hour lag, I leave at 8am, and get home at 8pm. I seem to remember getting to vancouver in 6h, now it's 9 back. grr.

I bhout a bunch of videogames; Naruto 3, NFS underground black, Tenchu 4, Blody roar 4, Pimp My Ride the game, Guitar hero 2, and others, all for a dollar each. :P

So yeah, 6 days left in Gurun, 17 days till I'm back home.
See you soon!

Short time.

HOLY COW! only 13 days left in the comunity!!!!!!! And only about 23 days till i'm sitting in my underpants in my basement!

We are finishing up our projects. We also are planning on a time capsule and coming back in 20 years and breaking it open (it's incased in cement an brick attached to our monument). I'l probably put some cranes and maby a little ninja inside. It should be fun... if we remeber.

I'v almost master all the dances. I need some work or my drum dance but thats about it.

Excited to come home soon, thats for shure. It's 22 air miles from here to my house, with 10h stopover in japan and a day or two in vancouver. I'm tiered as it is, I think i'm just going to hybernate when i get home, but I know thats not going to happen, considering it's St. Patties day, and If i spend the day with my parents by 10 i'll probably feel the urge to see frends. who knows.

This might be my last post in indonesia, if not it's my second last. Thanks for reading and see you all soon, just in case.

Finishing stuff up.

As we approach the end of our program we are begging to finish our work projects. The outer road is now paved and finished. The library is a week or two from completion. We have visited most of the schools in the area.

We still have a lot of work to do to finish up everything but there is stll fun stuff to look forward too. Tomorow i'm going to be on the regency radio doing a call in show. Ridiculus. Chinese new year is comming up, so we're staying a night in bukitingii (which is where i am right now, just on a day trip, something to do). After that we have 2 weekends then we start packing. I still dont know how i'm going to get my stuff home as hokey bags dont seem to exsist unless there name brand and 700,000rp. I'm going to take a look at the market today, there should be some cheep bag somewhere.

One thing that drives me crazy is white person prices. We have to fight every time to get regular price. Little agravating. Oh well.

About a month til i'm back.

Taylor is not the name of a girl

So the most intersting stuff that happened this week was fabric and tayloring. Andy and I turned some sarongs into a pair of pants and a scarf. They look good. reaaal good. Today we also sealed the deal on our kimonos. White under black ontop, hopefully it looks as good as the pants. I have to say, buying fabric and getting it made into clothing is much more satisfying than just buying clothing.

That pritty sums up all I'v done in the past few days. I also changed the rest of the us dollars I had. So i'm now up to 550,000rp, with 300,000 comming soon i'm nolonger worried about money so much, unless I go crazy and decide to buy another sword, that at this point seems unlikly. Really, the mony only has to last me till march, at wich point I can use my viza and pay it off when i'm home. That also seems somewhat unesesary.

My body has fully aclimatized, i no longer feel hot all the time. This is bad because it's going to be very cold in comparison when I get home.

My mom and sister have apparently gone swimming with dolphins and have touched a shark. Ironic how they go on a 5h plane ride, touch a shark and swim with dolphins while i'm on a 16h flight time 30 total plane ride to the other side of the world to pick up garbage and till roads. Just kidding I'm not that bitter. Only a little. :P . Our last week is actualy like hanging out doing nothing on a beach or villa, looking forward to that.

I'm thinking about getting more cloting made soon, it's super fun.

45days by my count if i remeber right? see you soon.