Peter in Padang

On September 30th last year, a major earthquake hit the west coast of Sumatra here in Indonesia. Over a thousand people were killed, mostly around the city of Padang. I've spent the past four days in Padang working for UNICEF on a video showcasing their work here since the disaster.

From Peter in Padang

I got the job through some parents at the Green School who are freelancers. This week I've been traveling with one of them, Josh the photographer (that's his picture above), as well as with a writer from Jakarta and a media person from UNICEF. Because Josh was shooting stills, I didn't bring my still camera. So the only pictures I have from this week are the ones Josh took, both from a year ago when the quake happened, and from this week. Click on any of pics here go to a small gallery.

From Peter in Padang

Padang is half-way up Sumatra on the west coat. It takes about an hour and a half to from there from Jakarta (Bali is another hour and a half flight from Jakarta). Padang is known throughout Indonesia for it's food. It's spicy, and piled in bowls, usually in the window of the restaurant. You go in, they put the food on the table, and you only pay for what you eat. Very smart. We had some good seafood while here, at a restaurant right next to the beach.

Anyway it was great to see another part of this vast country (remember 18 000 islands!). So much more to see...

From Peter in Padang

A trip North

Bali is a small island... a tiny dot compared to it's Western neighbour Java. It's 90km by 140km long. About the size of PEI (isn't everything?). But for such a small place, it's incredibly diverse. There are, of course, beaches and rice paddies... but also forests, lakes, and mountains. And the mountains, well they're volcanoes. Seven of them. The last eruption was 1963... so here's hoping one doesn't blow while we're here! This past weekend we drove North from Ubud past some of these volcanoes. It was a bit cloudy so we didn't always have great views, but it was nice to feel the mountain air. We were only planning to go for one night... but we ended up driving right on through to the North coast, and spent a day and a night at the beach over there.
Here's a slideshow from the weekend.

A trip to the beach

Bali has some nice beaches, but it isn't like the Caribbean where every beach looks like a post card. You have to know where you're going...

This weekend we went to the beach near Padang Bai with a few families from the Green School. It took about an hour to get there from Ubud, heading East. Along the way we stopped at an important Balinese temple - which happens to be next to a huge cave full of thousands (millions?) of bats. After getting slightly lost, we finally found the lovely hidden beach. We had to trek down a steep path to get to the white sand... which meant the beach wasn't crowded. The waves were a little rough as it was windy on Sunday, but the water was warm and the sand was white.

Here's a slide show from the day.

Green School

As it's the start of the school year in Canada, I thought I would do a short post today about where Emmet, Myles and Austin are going to school: the "Green School."

It's a school that was started three years ago by John and Cynthia Hardy, a Canadian and American expat couple who have been in Bali for over 25 years. They made a fortune in the jewelery business here, and then sold their company about 12 years ago. When their daughter was getting older, they weren't satisfied with any of the international schooling options on the island, and so they decided to open their own school. The emphasis was, of course, on being green and sustainable, but they also brought in people with experience in Waldorf/Steiner schools, and so there is some of that too. And then they also decided they needed to be solid academically, so the the school follows the Cambridge International Examination curriculum. A little bit of everything...

But what makes the school so unique is the setting and the architecture. It's set on a large plot of land next to a river... essentially in the middle of a small forest (jungle?). And as John Hardy is a big proponent of building with Bamboo, they built the entire school out of bamboo. It's really quite amazing. Here are a few pictures from what they call the "Heart of the School," the main building of Green School.






Emmet loves the school. He told me today he likes it better than his last school, Ossington Old Orchard, which is remarkable because he really liked OOOPs. He's got a great teacher who has been teaching in Bangkok for the last few years, and who Emmet likes a lot. I think he likes the school because he gets to be outside a lot, but also feels like he's learning. And as the school is very international, everyone is from somewhere else, there's lots of different accents, and that, I think, is cool.

Myles and Austin were a little lukewarm at first about school... but are now into it. Although Austin especially misses Toronto and their last teacher Mr. D. But, they did tell me today they like their class and their teacher. They are doing work in the garden outside their classroom once a week, and are enjoying that. Today they had soccer practice at lunch, and then phys ed right after... and what could be better than that.

And that's all for Green School for now... I've put together a short photo essay on a day in the life at Green School for the boys. Click on the arrows to watch it on this page, or click on the pictures to open up the web album (larger pictures).



Bye for now,

Peter