Hari Merdeka

Today we had a big celebration for the independence of our country. The actual date of independence is the 17th of August, but the celebration was held on the Sunday the 19th because the 17th fell on a Friday and people wanted to pray more than have a party!

The celebrations actually were going all weekend with some events on Friday and videos and music being shown at the local volleyball field every night. On Sunday we joined in a big parade which marched around the neighborhood. Each section of the community had built a small replica house which they filled with food and carried around the neighborhood, dancing and singing and when they finished the route they all ate food together. It was great fun, with loads of music and dancing. There were also many strange bearded ladies dancing around! Aunty Paula's section of the community actually won because she got up on stage and danced in front of the whole community!

After the parade there was more singing and karaoke contest in the afternoon. They also played lots of games for kids and adults like eating a kerupuk (a large prawn cracker) held from a string and sack races and tug of war and the even had a greasy pole and men tried to climb it but kept on slipping down.

Bath

One of Caden's new words is bath (barf)! He loves the bath and takes every opportunity to take off his clothes and jump in the water!

On our way back from Singapore, he looked out the window, saw all the clouds and the ocean and it must have looked very inviting as he was looking out the window, nodding his head, and saying "barf, barf!"

Singapore

After our time in Chiang Mai training we had a wonderful few days in Singapore organising our visas, Here are some photos of me playing with my friends!

Chiang Mai

After mum and dad finished teaching in Cipanas we drove to Jakarta and spent a night there before we jumped on a plane and flew to Chiang Mai. After a 3 hour flight we arrived in Bangkok and then changed planes to Chiang Mai. We stayed in a guest house which was really nice and mum and dad had some training while i played with my friends. It was particularly wonderful to see my friend Liliana from Australia who I met at OC in Singapore about 8 months ago! We had a great time playing together and visited the night market together and enjoyed Thai food! Mum was very happy and kept on going on about Pad Thai and Roti - she was very happy!

After a week of training at that place we then had the main conference for our organisation at a nice resort also in Chiang Mai but a bit further away from the centre. It was really nice with loads of food and two swimming pools! A fifty meter pool for the big people and a kiddies pool for all the kids. I was just able to stand up in the kiddies pool and had some great swims until i got a bit of a cold and started coughing and producing green snot! Mum and dad keep on wiping my nose with a tissue - it is so embarrassing! Mum and dad said they learnt alot and felt greatly encouraged to get back into language study again! The other funny thing was that the conference was called DAL - everyone had dad's name on their name tag, it was very confusing!

Dad was particularly excited by these geckos which were about 25cm long and climbed up the walls, he wanted to catch one but he was a bit slow!