Tuesday 18 April

As we don't have a show till late afternoon, we manage to fit 2 dives in, which is a lovely treat. We see lots of eels, lobster and a wonderful octopus among other wonders, and I spot the tiniest and most perfect juvenile Angel Emporer fish.

I make up lots of badge centres, hopefully enough for SMA Dua today and for Iboih tomorrow, and at 4.00 pm we head to SMA Dua Camp near Sabang. This is the camp in a school that Flo and Thessa wanted us to visit. They have arranged for Children of Sumatra to drive us again, which is great. Flo can't come as he has got a badly upset stomach, but Thessa comes and is a great help.

Going up!

First we had been told there would be about 15 children, then, after Thessa had dropped by the camp earlier today to alert them that we were coming, it looked as though there would be about 40. Word has obviously got round, which is great, and when we are arrive there are about 90 children and 120 adults. I start badge-making while Haggis sets up the Show and then runs some parachute games.

The badge-making starts calmly enough, but I am gradually beseiged. Not only are children coming back for second badges, but I'm being deeply harried by the women. Just one for each child, I say, but they mime to me that they have 3 children. Well, bring them here and I will give them one each, I mime back. Goodness it would be nice to have a translator who could explain the situation well to the people. Failing a translator, next time we must get, written in Bahasa, on a big board various bits of information: Only draw inside the inner circle; put your name and decorate it beautifully with as many colours as possible, or just draw a design; hand your badge centre in, and go and watch the show and collect your completed badge afterwards; please bring the felt tip pens back - we need to use them with more children in another camp tomorrow; each child will get a badge - you don't need to push or shove - every child will get done; you can't have more than one badge, otherwise we won't have enough for the children tomorrow and the next day; I'm afraid we don't have enough badge components to make them for adults, just for the children. That really would be very helpful - if people would take any notice of it!

Deeply harrassed

Anyway, right now, lacking translator and explanatory board, I am besieged and running through the badge centres horrifyingly fast, and I need help. Luckily Thessa is over by the parachute. "Help!", I yell, and over she comes. I give her the badge papers and ask her to just give them out to newly-arrived children. That done, I can press on with making up the badges. One or two of the adults realise I am sweating like a piglet, and every so often they tell the children to give me a bit more space. I leap to my feel every so often to see what is going on elsewhere, and see that Hags is doing a bit of juggling workshop. Next time I look out, he is gathering back the boom sticks and is on the verge of starting the Show. It takes me till about half-way through the Show to finish the badges - every single paper badge centre was used - at least 160, which is a good 70 more than the number of children in this camp. I will have to make some more quickly tomorrow before we go to the Iboih Camp. Poor Thessa looks very stressed from having had to hand out the badge centres - she, too, was deeply harrassed by the women, and felt unable to say a firm "No" to them - part of me feels quite gleeful that someone else now knows how stressful badge-making is most of the time!

Wild but great fun

The Show is going really well and the audience are loving it. Haggis picks a wonderful girl for the spinning ball routine, and she does the trick with great panache while standing on one foot! The fire routine goes down a treat, and then Haggis disappears to his "dressing room", pursued by lots of children - no chance of privacy for a shower today! I gather all the props and equipment together to ensure it is safe

and try to keep an eye on it all, while taking photographs of the children - they love being photographed here and keep getting into new poses and begging me to photograph them. A bit of a wild camp, but great fun, and we can see that they really enjoyed it.

Bumpy ride

A long and bumpy ride back to Gapang Beach (at least I'm sitting in the front with the driver - it must be far worse in the open back where there are no proper seats!) We pass by Sabang's only ATM which was broken yesterday, but is prepared to emit 500,000 rupiahs this evening - unfortunately this is only £35. We are trying to gather enough rupiahs for the helicopter flights down to Aceh Raya - the UN flights only take rupiahs or dollars, not visa cards, so we are going to have to rush round Banda Aceh's ATM's on Thursday morning trying to get enough rupiahs together. (Michael is paying us back for these flights as he wants us to go and inspect the IDES housing for him, but that doesn't solve the hard cash situation right now!)

Deep fried trevelly fish, rice and lovely kangkun (Chinese spinach) for dinner and an early bed.