Back to Australia, Back to an unfriendly Reality

As I commuted "home" today, business suit-clad and bundled up, on the Melbourne city tram, listening to head phones to drowned out the background noise and slightly wet from the seemingly constant cold rain, exhausted from my 8:45am-5:15pm job as an Executive Assistant, I got excited. Sitting next to me was someone reading a South America Lonely Planet; the bible. Too many times in my travels I would bump into people reading the bible, and befriend them over conversations about the best restaurants, guesthouses, or just simple directions, only to find out that they are going the same way I am going, and immediately we would become best buds. Well the girl on the tram didn't share my excitement, said "yeah" a few times, and proceeded to get off at the next stop. It was then that I began to realize that people in the "normal" world just aren't very friendly. As I rush to my tram and shuttle through city life, passing other people in all black outfits, I feel like I am attending a fast moving funeral, but there isn't a body. Why is it so hard to smile at someone else, or have a welcoming conversation? People are too busy playing with their iPhones, reading their electronic books or are most of the time, just blatantly avoiding you, and in doing so are missing what makes us human - connections. It is unbelievable how beautiful the world is, not only because of the beautiful mountains or beaches or other scenery's, but because of the people I have met. And it all started with a simple smile and a hello. The quote on my daily calendar today ironically read: Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. – Mother Teresa


I have only been back in Australia for a little over two weeks, but already I am going through travelling withdrawals. As my tan peels away and my body freezes in the Melbourne weather, I realize how much I miss Asia: the chaotic driving, the kind smiley people, (and even the pestering salespeople) sticky rice, noodle soup, cheap accommodation, but especially the other travellers. After I left Tasikoki Wildlife Center I headed to the island of Bunkanen off the northern coast of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia.

I didn't really know what to expect, except that another traveller, who I can't even remember now, had told me along the way that the scuba diving there was beautiful, so I had written the word "bunaken" down on a piece of paper and decided to venture there. I had accidentally left my lonely planet on the airplane so I went to the first guesthouse near the boat dock.

As it turned out, Bunaken did have the most amazing scuba diving i have ever seen, but what it didn't have was a lot of people. Luckily in the two rooms next to me were a dutch family of 5 who "adopted" me for the week and pretty much let me tag along in everything the did, play in every board game they played, and ultimately probably thought I was stalking them, when we coincidentally shared the same outgoing flight to Jakarta.

The highlights on my time in Bunkanen consisted of a "dolphin watch" tour, which turned out to be more than I ever expected, as literally hundreds of dolphins dove, flipped and swam around us; when some friends I had met came back from their fishing trip and had caught a 300lb black marlin, which tasted delicious too; and of course because the sheer coral wall which surrounded the island was so amazingly beautiful, I scuba dove 4 times.


I had to spend one slightly scary night alone in the city of Manado before my flight to Australia. When I say scary, I just mean that Manado, a city on the northern tip of Sulawesi Island, isn't a place spoiled by tourism, so I was clearly the only white person for miles. Not to mention my hotel room had mildew on the walls, smelt of cigarettes, didn't have one window, and had the type of bed I knew I was going to get bedbugs from, so I sat at the desk chair for hours. In the streets, people would stop me and say "my friend" and ask me questions about where I am from, and others would just point or laugh. I did a good amount of shopping, buying up cheap clothes before I head back to expensive OZ, and then retreated back to my hotel room. The next morning I met up with my Dutch family at the airport and hung out with them until we parted in the Jakarta airport. I had my last cheap massage and boarded my plane.


I have heard Melbourne is a great city, in the summer. What I didn't realize as I got off the plane in my flip-flops (Australians call them thongs) and a tank-top (these are called vests) is that I had arrived in the middle of winter. I still haven't come up with some masterful equation to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, but its around 13degrees Celsius everyday, which required me to spend a ton of money on boots (maybe I should change my blog to walkamileinmywinterboots?), jackets, gloves, etc. I did quickly got a studio apartment in a suburb called St. Kilda, and started a temp job in the business district of the city. I am still getting used to the Australian sayings like, "too easy", "how ya going" and "heaps", and the expensive cost of just about everything. I have been to an Australian footy game which is a combination of soccer, rugby and American football, and out to dinner a couple of times, but for the most part have been trying to save money.


Although it is nice to be settled for more than a couple of days in a westernized culture, I am eager to get back on the road. Only 3 more months and I am on to South America. Wooo hooo!!!

Cleaning up the World's Mess, One Shovel at a Time

If you'd asked me a couple of months ago I would have said "you couldn't pay me enough to shovel bear poop", so today I am wondering why I paid to scoop up a poo-trifecta of bear, monkey and bird droppings!! "Volunteering" here at the Tasikoki Wildlife Center in Northern Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, isn't exactly volunteering, it costs money (about $1,000 for two weeks.) This money goes to pay for my room, food and of course is a donation to help the animals they are so desperately trying to release back into the wildlife. My first night I was sure I made a mistake; there was a spider the size of my hand in the bathroom (which I wasn't allowed to kill, because the animal lovers also love insects); I was told I had to be up at 5:45 to work for 8 hours shovelling poop, scrubbing the algae of the inside of concrete ponds and cleaning out all the monkey enclosures, our entire dinner conversation consisted of talking sadly about the plight of animals; and I was also told there would be no meat served, because if we loved animals we wouldn't eat them.

I came back into my room and said to one of my roommates, "I think this place is far too 'hippy' for me!" Little did I know that in just two short weeks I would make some amazing friends, laugh more than I have in a long time, enjoy every laborious task (well kind of), and feel passionately about saving our world's wildlife and ecosystems. I never thought it would happen to me, but it has.


When my parents asked me what I was doing for work at Tasikoki I told them jokingly "feeding the animals papayas in the morning, and cleaning up papaya poop in the afternoon", but it does pretty much sum things up. I have been working 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, feeding, cleaning, scrubbing, and plucking branches for the animals to eat.

I have gotten dirty, sweaty, covered in substances I don't want to think about and bitten by more bugs than I can count (every time I look there is either a mosquito sucking my blood or an ant with its head buried into my foot, or on a couple occasions partying in my pants.) I also said to my parents in the beginning, "I am not sure I even like animals enough to do all this", but I never did mind a little hard work, so I pressed on with my duties.

Eventually, I grew to love the two orangutangs Iz and Bento who had the habit of peeing on me through their cage every time I walked by, the sun bears Binbin and Bonbon who had the nastiest poops, Betty the noisy Siamang always screaming for a mate, and the other 30 primates and hundreds of birds the center has. What I started to understand was that my money, and my hard work, was helping these animals to live a better life, and hopefully with mine and future funding be released back into the Indonesian wildlife. I probably complained more than any volunteer Tasikoki has ever had, I will admit that, but at least I kept everyone laughing.



Living in my American Bubble, I often forget that the world is suffering in so many ways or that there actually are people willing to fight for it. Willie Smits, the man who opened Tasikoki, is an inspirational man who has devoted his life to saving the world. Seeing that the animal trafficking problem was not the fault of the poor man who needed to feed his family he created a solution that, until I visited his factory and saw it functioning, was beyond my one-tiered thinking. He bought up land around northern Sulawesi, planted palm trees (which when tapped daily, will produce gallons of juice a day, which in turn can be used for making palm sugar and also can be turned into ethanol which can be used for electricity for their homes), and watched as people protected the forrest growing around their crops. Now this area is thriving not only economically, but also ecologically, and of course the orangutan population is no longer in danger. If you have time check out the talk he gave (in the link at the top of the page), it is truly inspiring!!!
I suggest everyone get involved in Willie's plan to help save the world, whether it is buying palm sugar (which also has some amazing health benefits as compared to white sugar), donating food or money to Tasikoki or just getting educated on what can be done. We can change the world on step at a time, even if you start by shovelling poop!!





Today I am off to Bunaken, an island north of here to lounge on the beach and scuba dive for a couple of days before I head back to Australia.




Me and Bemo, the center's loved dog










The view from the center