First time in Maumere

Firstly, apologies for the long gap between posts, it’s been a busy week !

Last Thursday and Friday, we all had the pleasure of meeting representatives of our future employers for the first time at a workshop run by VSO in Denpasar. The two day workshop included sessions on cultural differences, practical subjects such as finance and accommodation and also an introduction to VSO’s “cross-cutting” theme of disability. Each volunteer, regardless of the specific programme area in which we are working, is expected to come up with some initiatives to raise the awareness of disability in their placement. For some, this is easier and more obviously achievable than others but for others it may be something as simple as a short session to highlight the difficulties that a wheelchair user may have in gaining access to a building (assuming of course that they have managed to negotiate the treacherous or non-existent footpaths to get to the building in the first place !). The workshop was a great success and the opportunity it provided to meet our future employers for the first time in a “neutral” venue was an excellent investment by VSO. There were also plenty of opportunities for socialising, including a bowling night which is best glossed over.

On Saturday, we (Peter and I) flew from Denpasar to Maumere on Flores (via Sumba) and checked in to our (pretty basic but clean) hotel in the centre of Maumere for our one week orientation visit to Maumere. On Sunday, our two hosts from the hospital, Marlina and Yani, took us on a motorbike tour of the town and surrounds and showed us the house which has been allocated to us. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get inside the house as the doctor living there was out and his pembantu (housemaid) quite understandably wasn’t willing to let us look around in his absence. However, the house seems fine from the outside – it is about 5km from the hospital on a quietish street very near the town centre. We hope to get inside the house to take a look before we leave to go back to Maumere so we can decide what we may need to buy in Bali that is not available here.

I'll post some photos later on today.....