Eat Until Stupid

Or, in Indonesian, "makan sampai bodoh." That was the theme of the reunion dinner with my field team (and a few extra friends) last night. We all met at a restaurant called "Italian Restaurant" in the old part of Pontianak. In this case, "italian food" must be taken very loosley to mean "shabu-shabu" (see Wikipedia on this subject). After everyone, except over-Americanized and on-time me, arrived about 45 minutes late, we loaded our plates and stuffed ourselves with self-cooked vegetatbles, shrimp, random pieces of meat, mushrooms, and rice. For the field teams, this was a reward - they have been in Ketapang for almost three weeks, mapping landholdings in some of our study villages, and they returned to Pontianak on Friday for rest and data entry. We have two new team members, and have (sadly) lost a couple of my longtime teammates to other pursuits. Windi is pregnant, and due to have a little girl next week. Tono got a job with the Department of Forestry, and will start work in April. Even in Indonesia, where the constant weather makes life feel unchanging, life shifts unexpectedly!