Karate kid and concrete houses

This is Main Street in Katiet. No room for cars -- that's my kind of main street, especially after three months in Jakarta! One of the local kids is striking a karate pose for the camera.

There were two major types of houses in town: wooden ones with thatch roofs, and concrete ones with corrugated metal roofs. Apparently people want the concrete houses because they're "modern" and look like wealthy people's houses, even though the wooden ones are more appropriate to the insanely hot climate (and much nicer to look at, in my opinion).

That same preference is part of what caused the high death toll in the Yogya quake. Houses made of stuff like wood and bamboo are more earthquake-resistant, and they're less catastrophic if they do come down on your head, but people don't want to live in the kind of houses their grandfathers lived in. The concrete's always whiter on the other side of the fence, I suppose.

Your basic paradise

So this was our real destination - Katiet, population 400 or so, a surf mecca and your basic tropical paradise. Katiet has one of the world's most famous surf waves, called Lance's Right. You've probably seen it in advertising, even if you've never heard of it; it's one of those perfect, glassy tubes surfers love to play in.

Under the tree are Dave Jenkins, the guy who started Surf Aid, and Brendan Hoare, a consultant who was arriving for a pretty cool two-week study of agricultural practices to figure out how to help the locals achieve a more varied and healthful diet.

The staples here are taro and banana. They don't provide enough nutrition, so kids' growth is stunted. The interesting thing is, it's not quite clear why their diet is so limited. It appears the Mentawais were forest-dwellers until relatively recently. They may have moved to beachside areas like Katiet because the food in the jungle had been depleted, or they may have been rousted out of their former homes by a 1950s campaign to "civilize" indigenous tribes. At any rate, they aren't great fishermen, and they don't have a strong tradition of working with the soil to make it more fertile, so they aren't making full use of the resources around them. That's what Brendan is hoping to help them improve.

Big pile of stink

It must have been durian season in the Mentawais, because there were little heaps of them all over, exuding their vomitous odor. Apparently the durian season in the Mentawais is opposite to that of nearby Sumatra, so if you live in Sumatra you get to enjoy them twice as often as most Indonesians. Lucky Sumatrans!

Durian does have a very sweet taste, but I find it outweighed by an accompanying flavor that's like a cross between battery acid and garbage. I should try it again now that I'm here, since I've only ever tried it in the States, and traveling thousands of miles rarely improves a piece of fruit. They are famously banned from hotels and public transportation in Singapore, which actually makes me a little more sympathetic toward the durian.

Fish stand

These young guys were selling fish across from the Surf Aid office on Main Street.

Main Street, Tuapejat

There are lots of satellite dishes on the big street in Tuapejat, but not too many cars. This was our first destination, after taking the overnight ferry from Padang. Tuapejat is the capital of the Mentawais. I'm pretty sure I saw a population sign saying around 1500, but I haven't been able to confirm that on the Net.

If you ever want to feel like, say, Tom Cruise or Jennifer Aniston, go to a town like Tuapejat and walk around being foreign. Marketplaces erupt in wonderment. Babies stare; older children point and shout. This can be fun if you're in the mood, and annoying if not.

Surfers versus malaria

So I'm heading out to the Mentawai Islands tomorrow to do a story about Surf Aid International, a surfer-funded group that helps local people in remote surfing destinations get healthcare. It'll be kind of a mad 3-day dash across the islands, so it's not quite a vacation, but I'm really looking forward to getting out to a rural area. If there's time, I'll also try to work on a story about preserving the local culture.

The story will be for the NPR sports program Only a Game, one of my favorite shows to work for.

Speaking of stories, I don't think my leper story has aired on World Vision Report yet, but the VOA ran a somewhat different version. Here's a link.

I don't expect I'll have internet access on the Mentawais, but will definitely post pictures and stories when I get back next weekend!

Central post office

If you're trying to send some baby clothes to a friend in the States, and you don't have a box or tape or any kind of clue about the postal system, you can go down to the big central post office near the train station and just squint in confusion at the signs. In a moment someone will pop up out of nowhere and offer his assistance. For a small fee, he'll run around getting the paperwork done and cutting down an old box so that it holds your stuff securely. Then, for the finale, he wraps the box in a thin sheet of plastic and sews it closed with a big, homemade needle.

It's pretty impressive, and eco-friendly, since all the materials are scavenged from the post office. And he has a much better chain stitch than I ever acquired in all my Home Ec. classes!