What a nice goodbye. It was truly nice to go to my own going away party, complete with cake and pastries and sugary drinks. Karla gave me a painting that Sandro had done of two local girls walking down the street, and the community development team gave me a purse made in Acehnese style with a beautiful stitching pattern. It is black which suits me well also. It is an organization that feels very human in its dedication to its mission. I enjoyed being part of the Mercy Corps team, if only for 2 months.
So remember at the beginning how I thought maybe I'd lose a few pounds - well, no, not exactly. The food was so delicious, and so not like anything I could ever make myself. 
So this is my last night in Banda Aceh - Friday night - and I left on Saturday. The Engineer finished pricing the restaurant design and so I wanted to make sure that before I left, I showed them the updated design (including additional tables) and discussed costs. The restaurant is in budget - assuming the exchange rate stays favorable to the US dollar (it has gone from 9200 rupia:1 $ to 12400 rupia:1 $ - big difference). We talked about what was included in the price, the materials, windows, security roll down doors, refrigerators, equipment, furniture, etc. Using the entire budget means that there won't be any money left for other projects. But in my opinion, quality is important and doing things right. I think they are happy to see progress as over the weeks we went from information gathering to actually having a design that should be built in the coming months. The engineer said that the project could be built in 6 weeks. The village thought this was too fast. I tend to agree seeing as how it's so important to source materials locally, even if it means that procurement is slower. We also talked briefly about the updated master plan. I showed them images of things that I didn't get to at the previous meeting. It's such an exciting opportunity for them. The potential is so great, seeing as how they can take the profits from this restaurant, then this eco-resort, and invest it into the community. Emily said that MC is going to have a group come work with some of the villages on co-operative management. I think this is hugely important and I wish I could attend these sessions myself. In my real estate development class, the professor always emphasized that many projects fail because of underestimating the cost and complication of operations in the long term. Hopefully the MC community development team will remain involved with this village. I really enjoyed getting to work with this community. I wish I spoke Indonesian...Anyway, I look forward to hopefully receiving photos of the project as it gets built. Such a fun project, and a fun job to work on. 
So I ended up spending half my weekends on the island of Sabang, but the weekends that I spent in Banda Aceh I spent walking around a lot. It's such a pleasure to visit a place that is so welcoming to tourists. There is such a mutual curiosity. So many places that I've travelled to are over the tourists - we're probably a pain in the ass and I guess the curiosity can disappear quickly. I just really like being exposed to all the new things, the new scenes, the different plants. Traveling allows me to see my surroundings more intensely. At home, caught up in the craziness of schedules and busy life, I can sometimes stop seeing my surroundings. I guess that's true here also, but my time is short and things are still new to me.
It's a strange feeling knowing that 50,000 or so people are buried under the grass here. This is located by the ocean in the midst of where so many died in the tsunami. It is in Banda Aceh. There is another one of similar size elsewhere. Two mass graves which collected the 130,000 or so bodies.
