The team has been doing some real story hunting lately as we wiggle our way into unthinkable situations and interview some very prominent people.We’ve gotten to talk with the Head of Reconstruction and Development, as well as a few directors of the Tsunami Destruction & Research Mitigation Center here in Aceh. We also managed to pull some strings to get some aerial shots done. They really speak to the rebuilding and the growth the city has been a part of. As a special bonus, we got an exclusive interview with the Mayor of Banda Aceh on Monday (in his air-conditioned office - a treat on a rather hot day).
(Becca in the Mayor’s office)
We owe a lot of our experiences, appointments, and successes to our Acehnese friends who have been very instrumental in helping us find places and people using their networks. We are continually grateful for the crossing of our paths and wish to thank them for all their help!
On the village front: We really feel a part of the community now, rather than strange, white-skinned outsiders. It has been a lot of fun to see the children’s faces go from a look of confused bewilderment to smiles that light up with excitement and missing teeth. It seems like every time we wander from our houses there are always a few kids that shout our names (or “Mister”) and ride their bikes (that don’t have brakes) over to observe us. There have been several afternoons spent on the porch communicating via signlanguage and Indonesian-English dictionary searching in attempts to answer simple questions.
The memory cards and hard drives are being put to work. This is all a great joy for Chris who now has over 300 gigs on his computer of photos and interview videos.. Backing up the photos/videos on an external hard drive takes over 2.5 hours… Yikes.
