Saturday, April 14, 2007

Where I live
In the month of December till February in Bajawa area; there is a cultural event called REBA. This is a traditional New Year celebration for people especially for Ngadanesse, one of the ethnic groups in Ngada Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province. For some of you those are not familiar where the location of this province, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) is located eastern Bali. It can be reach by flight and boat.
Ngada Regency is one of 16 Regencies in Nusa Tenggara Province. The width is 3, 037,88 km² . Goegraphically Ngada Regency is located 120º 45'BT east langitude and 8º- 9º south, latitude. It borders are: Flores sea on the north Sawu sea on the south, Ende Regency on the east and Manggarai Regency on the west.
It has tropical climate with two seasons are rainy season from october to April and dry season from May to September. The rainfall varies between 122 mm - 252 mm in the rainy season and between 8 mm – 62 mm in the dry season.
The series of mountain and hills are the specialty of Ngada Regency topography. The wellknow mountains are : Ebulobo (2.149m) , Inerie (2.245m) , Lobobutu (1.800m) Inelika (1600m) , and Lambo ( 1.631m).
The Flora and Fauna of Ngada Regency is varies , the population of Ngada Regency is 223.503 people (the year of 2000). Most of them still take care of their tradition, culture, and has lively hood as farmers. The beautifull nature, the unique tradition and culture are the tourism destinations that can be enjoyed.
That little information I took it from the ‘old brochure’ that my workplacement made. In some of my update, I did explain about the condition of the Bajawa town, a small town uphill where I live. The season of rain is almost over, and the temperature getting nicer.

Out of town trip
Because of my work, I have chance to travel quite a bit to outside of Bajawa town. I went to Riung (the north coast) many times already, south coast many times as well. It is so interesting to see how different the landscape and culture. In Ngada, there are at least Four major ethnic groups which are Ngada, Soa, Riung and Nagekeo. From this four major ethnic groups, there are so many languages that people still using it in daily life.
I went to Manggarai Regency for my weekend holiday. I rode my motorbike and it was interesting to see different area in Flores. Manggarai has more density of forest and the culture is not that ‘complicated’ compare to Ngada Regency. Manggarai Regency is the regency where the archeologist found the Homo Florensis, it is in Linga Bua café. I did have a chance to visit there, because of time and the weather that was not permit me to go.
Fun part? Two weeks ago, a friend from CUSO office came to have his holiday in Ngada and we went camping at one of the white sandy beach island in 17 Island Marine Park in Riung. It was fun; we stayed in that remote island for wo nights with some friend from Riung. The main activities: cooking, fishing, snorkeling, and the last night when we there we bought fish from fisherman that were around and we had a big feast while the moon accompanied us that night. It was a beautiful nights.

Work?
Thanks to Court who brought me the new laptop for me that I bought through friend in Jakarta; So, I can do my work better after couple of months I had limitation to do my job. Recently, I am still working on making a tourism map and some posters for the promotion department. In the other hand I help the cultural department to design some new ideas of archeological sites as a research based tourism and public tourism sites, which will be a long process. During my ‘spare’ time I do still working with the Naru alternative health Center, and Local Guides Organization. There are some funs and happy parts, but also some part of the time that I found unpleasant as well. But this is the balance of love, life and living right?
One of the fun part working with the naru group, we had an open house for marketing purposes, It was fun when we prepared everything and the result was okay, but the result for team work building was great. We had ‘nalo’, a word for gathering and have some meals and drinks, after the programs finished.
So?
I will try to write more to update my blog and if you have any comment you can write to me directly to my e-mail address: murdawa@shaw.ca. More than that, if you interested in visiting this area, please to not hesitate to contact me and I can help you to get around in the area. Peace!