Arrival in Mensubang

Arrived in Mensubang via Bayangan (another village) today, after one of the most heart-stopping experiences of my life. The road from Cali to Mensubang is narrow, slippery, rocky, and hilly; we traversed this road with motorbikes and luggage. I often had to get off the bike and walk up hills, and a few times we skidded off the road. My Indonesian friends are totally fine with this kind of travel – they’ve been riding motorbikes since small – but my heart was in my throat the whole trip! To make a bad situation worse, my motorbike driver races bikes (“grass track”, the Ketapang equivalent of NASCAR) and he kept trying to show off his mad speed skills with the buleh on the back of his bike. In the middle of the trip, it started raining and the roads became muddy as well as slippery.

Despite the stressful trip, everyone arrived in Mensubang safely:

Here, we stay with the Kepala Desa in a beautiful house by the Pawan River. Unlike the river that runs in front of Cali, the Pawan is huge and important not only to village everyday life, but is the main mode of transportation for people that live along it. Canoes (sampan), motorboats, speed boats, and fishing boats can be seen on the river at all hours, and few people travel by motorbike. Mensubang spans both sides of the river, but all the houses are sprawled out along only one side, while community rubber farms are on the other side – there is no bridge to the opposite bank so all commuting to the rubber must be done by boat. The toilet and river are one in the same, and all drinking water is taken from here as well (and boiled before drinking). To my incredible surprise I didn't get sick in Mensubang, and I now have improved respect for the power of boiled water.

The best part of the river is the fact that I can swim in it!!! After the long motorbike ride swimming was a wonderful way to let go of all the stress and mud collected during our travels. The 7-year-old daughter of the kepala desa is a great swimmer, and we played in the water together for about ½ hour until it got dark. Tomorrow we meet with important village members and check out the village area.