Adventures in Papua- Day 2

If you base a day on how it starts, Day 2 in Papua was looking to be a rough day. The plan was for Dad and Jim-O to pick the four girls up (Leah, Sally, Molly, and Steph) from our guesthouse at 5:45 am to take us to the airport for the first flight out (scheduled for 6:30). Well, little did we know, Molly was in charge of setting the alarm the night before and hadn't taken into account the fact that the phone did not automatically adjust for the hour time difference. Thus, the girls awoke to Jim-O revving his engine, shouting "hello," and banging on the locked front gate. Groggily, Steph looked at the phone (which still said 4:55) and went out to see why he was there so early, explaining that dad had told him pick up time was 5:45. He boldly proclaimed it was already almost 6, and said he'd be back for us shortly, so hurry up and get ready! We pulled a little Home Alone speedy-get-ready action (I'm pretty sure Molly actually added the background music from the movie) and were ready to go by the time he got back.
Well, turns out our hustling was somewhat in vain because after getting to the airport and weighing in (we took the teeny tiny planes that have to be balanced and not overstuffed!) we ended up waiting for a solid 45 minutes before we even made our way out to the planes. At about 8 am the first (bigger) plane finally took off with about half the group (all of the "youngins" except Steph made the cut....) and all the luggage. Their plane flew straight to Serui and was about an hour long flight. Meanwhile, the rest of us (Steph, Mom, Dad, Caleb, Daniel (aka Bernie Baker), Birage, Will, Nate, Charity and Stephen) stood around and waited and waited for the remaining two planes to be ready for take off (scheduled departure time for plane 2 was 8:00, plane 3 was 10:30). Around 10 am, plane 2 was finally ready, so Steph, Mom, Dad, Bernie and Caleb piled in with a handful of native Yajasi workers (missions aviation organization). Our plane was smaller and couldn't fly as high, so we took a different route that included a layover for refueling. The flying was smooth, layover was quick, and before we knew it (2 1/2 hours later) we were in Serui with the rest of the group. The third flight didn't have so much luck... they took off around noon, got caught in a thunderstorm, had to turn back to where we had our layover, and then didn't make it to Serui until 5 pm, having not eaten hardly anything all day! All part of a day of Indonesia travel, right?!
Meanwhile, while waiting for everyone to finally arrive, the Wacek gang made our way over to a Rumah Kopi (Coffee House) where Molly, Leah, and Sally had already built a friendship with the owner and some local kids. We hung out there for a little while, enjoyed the sounds of a tropical thunderstorm, drank some overly sweet coffee (Although Leah did make an attempt at ordering some coffee black.... it went something like this:
The shop owner: "How about just a little sugar?"
Leah: "No, no sugar, please."
Shop owner: "Just a little?"
Leah: "Ok, that's fine. Just a little."
When it finally arrived it was just as sweet as the first glass she had had that morning. Haha. It's the thought that counts, right?)

Once the rain stopped and we were sure Leah was still all in one piece after coming inches from wiping out on slippery pavement TWICE, the final portion of our group had finally arrived and we all headed next door for some dinner. With our tummies full, we decided to take a trip down to the water to watch the sunset. Despite doubts from Dad that we'd be able to see any sunset, we walked out onto the pier and were able to observe one full of beautiful colors, all the while dodging traffic from an unloading cruise boat that had just docked.

After the sunset, we ventured over to the pasar (market) to buy some fresh fruit, a flashlight, some knee-high socks and batteries. After some great bargaining and successful purchases, we started back toward the hotel.
On the way, we passed stand after stand selling "beetlenut" (the Indonesian version of chewing tobacco, though a lot less convenient to chew). Since my brother's (Tim's) ONE demand of Molly during this trip was that she try beetlenut if it was offered to her, she took this as her opportunity to make him proud. So, we casually (a group of 7 white-skins whom everyone was already staring at) walked over to a table run by two sweet ladies and kindly asked them how the process worked. They tried explaining and then through broken Indonesian/English, we got the point across that Molly was looking to try it (and Sally ended up going through the process, too! Leah started, but gave up at step one.)
The ladies walked them through step by step. First, crack open and peel the nut with your teeth. Then, chew the nut (which tastes like wood, according to Molly). While chewing, find some mysterious white powder (we later discovered it was lime) and using a bean-like vegetable, scoop the powder into your mouth and continue chewing. Continue adding the powder and bean and chew, chew, chew until the spit is red. Now, this practice of chewing beetlenut is an overly popular one in Papua (much to the demise of any dentists in the land), but apparently Orang Buleh (white people) doing it in the middle of a market is quite unheard of. How do I know this? Well, we can start with the crowd of 300+ that gathered around to watch the event. Or, the fact that the first time Molly spit red, all of those onlookers cheered and clapped loudly. Also, it could be that traffic was literally stopped and cars were honking and drivers waving when it started moving again.
The night ended with a few intense rounds of Skip-Bo in the hotel cafeteria and then some comfy air-conditioned bedrooms. As you can see, when you travel with a group as awesome as ours, a rough start to a day doesn't mean anything!