Another weekend in Soroako

Things are going well here. At times though I feel as if I am spinning my wheels when it comes to work but that is because I am too impatient and the models I am working on take so much time. But I do feel progress is being made. This coming Thursday I am scheduled to fly down to the SE part of the island to Pomalaa, the site I have been working on to see first hand the property, how they are mining there and to help show around some process auditors from the Engineering firm, AMEC. I'm really looking forward to this trip and will make sure I take pictures of the mining as it apparently is different than here at Soroako.

Now that I have spent some time here (now about 9 weeks altogether over the last year and a bit) I have met a lot of people and made a lot of new friends. One of the first was Rolando, with the Internal Tax Audit department. This morning, for the second week in a row we went golfing together (he has lent me a spare set of clubs he has with him). Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I can't show you photo's of the course. It is quite challenging with a number of water hazards. Today was especially humid so I was soaked in sweat pretty quickly. Scored a 52 on the front 9 and 54 on the back. Not bad for the second time out in months!

A recent arrival here in Soroako is a fellow by the name of Andrew, an engineer with the firm Beca, out of Auckland, New Zealand. We met soon after his arrival and have discovered that we have a lot in common, including wives who quilt and who, when they found out we were first coming here, asked that we pick up some quilting fabric for them!

Needless to say I had to show Andrew around to the few places I had found starting with the F Market, at what the Expat Canadians refer to the "Sears Mall" (the main aisle has a roof over it and therefore is the closest to a shopping mall like back home). There I took him to a small shop that has some fabric and from where I got some batik for Janice my first time here.

After looking around there we then drove to Wawondula, as it was market day and I also wanted to go back to the little dress shop I had found there my last trip.

This is Andrew on the left standing at the local "hardware store". We didn't get there until after 2pm and they were starting to shut things down due to the heat of the day.





And here is my favorite shop - "Diana Butiq"! I'm not sure if the woman who runs the shop is named Diana but she recognised me right away when we walked in! I bought several more sarongs, this time keeping to just ones from Bali which I plan to bring back as gifts. Note, if you would like one too, please email me and let me know and if you have any favorite colour. I can't promise though as I do have limited luggage space.





After looking around the market we then drove to Wasuponda, the next village down the road. For those of you that I gave my travelogue to at Christmas time you may recall that the village name literally means "pineapple on rock" and just as you enter the village is this statue of - a pineapple on a rock! Some of the local kids came over to say hi. One thing about the people here in Indonesia, they sure are friendly!





After we returned to Soroako Andrew suggested we go for a swim at the "yacht club". While there we met up with Warren Flannery and his wife as they were preparing to go sailing on their catamaran. They used to live in Thompson then Warren quit and joined Potash Corp. in Saskatchewan and now is back working for Inco here in Soroako.







Some of the other engineers working for Beca arrived later on to cool down after a game of indoor cricket. That is Matt on the right getting ready to go wind sailing.

Now I apologise to all of you back in Thompson who I see are experiencing -38 degrees C in that I am NOT bragging about the weather here! But I now fully appreciate why just about every Canadian I have met here loves the place. It may not have a lot of amenities that we take for granted, such as shopping malls and wide selection of goods but it in effect offers the best of Canada 365 days of the year as far as weather is concerned. Until next time!