Thursday: Meetings Inspiring

Can you guess where I am? Keep reading...

Today we had more meetings. This email will be quick because I have to pack for Bali. We are leaving straight from our site visits tomorrow. There is a slight change in plans for Bali. I was planning on travelling with someone but as it turns out we have different expectations for our trip. She is looking for cheap $12/night villa and I am looking for Spa and Luxury (D and Becs keep it to yourself). We are flying together but then splitting up. C'est la Vie.

Today we had meetings to disucss our project. These are three girls who were rescued by our projects from trafficking. They have amazing stories and happily they are going to middle school now. They are all beautiful. The picture below is of a young man who was working as a child in the footware industry in the early 2000's. He was working in dark, dusy and hazardous conditions and he is now at the University. He is also an artist and a writer. He was doodling a beautiful drawing on a piece of paper and I asked him if I could keep it and he said "yes". It was significant to me because he was doodling the name of my office. They are all really special kids.

Our meetings were being held at another government office and they had the same kind of toilet I wrote about earlier. This time I took a picture. I had to use the bathroom so I tried it out. I am just no good at this. It was disgusting and a mess and I won't say anymore about that! You squat down and pee in that hole and then use the water in the bucket to flush it down. The whole floor is wet and messy. Uck!

After our meetings ended at about 5pm today we went back to the office with the driver. We decided to go out to dinner with a colleague and on our way he stopped off at Obama's elementary school. It was great. There is a plaque right outside the building, you can see it on the left. The school is beautiful and really well kept for the visitors/tourists I'm sure. In one of the classrooms I peaked in they had a huge movie sized poster of Obama right in the middle of the class. It was really fun.

Bec's this is for Jake. He will be happy to know that Chili's is in Jakarta. Isn't that crazy. They are also really BIG on dunkin donuts. The shops are EVERY WHERE. I think they have more dunkin donuts than Boston. They also have oddly KFC and Tony Roma's. Wierd right?