Updatelah

Hmmm, just completed all my exams in a big chunk. Have one more big assignment to write in Indonesian now and then I am done.... 10 days till Jakarta and I am so disorganised it isn't funny.

On Sunday and Monday I made my interpreting debut with AusAID- don't get excited I was doing simple logistical stuff, unlike some of my compatriots who were in surgeries (i don't have enough faith in my abilities to do that). Anyway it was interesting, and the guys in the team (mainly men) are really top Aussies, hell ocker, and interesting to talk to. They also bribed us with Australian chocolate and paying for our lunch he he he.

Anyway my interpreting highlights have been as follows:

1) Having to explain to the naval commander running the field hospital (which is a half-finished basketball stadium) that he needs to do something about the people who are washing their clothes in the toilet out the back.

2)That he needs to do something about the raw sewerage emanating from a toilet in close proximity to the hospital, while I was pointing at said sewerage.

3) That he needs to stop helicopters from landing so close to the AusAID installment because it might cause severance of electrical cords (true) or cause dirt to enter the medical equipment (lie- but more effective in achieving desired outcome)

Anyways, this guy wearing navy uniform and loads of badges just stared at me like I was an upstart of a 23 year old Australian girl with average Indonesian and no uniform and what the hell was I telling him for. Which wasn't far from the mark. But the helicopters started landing further away.....

Anyway, my head feels distinctly fluish. Not surprising really.

My immediate problems in life are as follows- where am I going to find a shop selling suits in my size now that all the big malls in town have fallen down, where am I going to find shoes, and where am I going to find the one book in existence written in English on the Indonesian legal system which was impossible to find before the earthquake and it seems, will be more impossible to find now.

Aduh. Sampai nanti.