Flores

We decided to break away from the pack of boats that were part of the rally.

We skipped the next stop on the schedule and sailed through the night to put some distance between us and the fleet. It was worth it. We arrived at a village called Maurole on Flores island which was a planned stop for the rally but not for another week or so. The head of tourism heard that a boat had arrived in the bay early and asked a fisherman to take him out to our boat to meet us. He invited us to dinner with him at the home of the head of the district. We accepted of course.

The home was very simple but the nicest in town. All we saw of it was a sitting room which sat 6 people comfortably and a dining room that had a table but no chairs (we ate in the sitting room). The wife of the district head official cooked the meal but did not eat with us. The food was simple. There was fish soup, BBQ fish, rice, cooked carrots, Chinese greens and papaya. Luckily the tourism guy could speak very good English because the district official could not speak any (or did not try to speak it) which I found strange since English is taught in the schools at a young age.

The next day we walked through the village. The streets were lined with hundreds of bright colored flags obviously fresh out of a box because they still had the creases in them where they had been folded. We thought the flags must be for the boats coming the following week in the rally but found out later that it was Indonesia’s Independence Day (Aug. 17, 1945).

The flags contributed to our feeling of being a two person parade. From almost every house be passed, we were greeted with the usual “hello mister” (at least 150 times). Children ran out to the road to meet us, waving and laughing. Adults pushed their children forward encouraging them to say something in English. We were often asked where we were from and at least 50 times we were asked “where are you going?”. When we tried to respond in English “just going for a walk” no one understood. We consulted our English/Indonesian dictionary, which we constantly have at the ready, and found the phrase “Jalan Jalan” which means going for a stroll. This seemed to satisfy them. By the time we reached the other side of the village 1 km away, that side of the village no longer asked where we were going. They just said: “Canada?” and “Jalan Jalan?” Obviously the word had spread faster than we could walk.

Just outside the village we came across a rice field. We sat in the shade of a tree surrounded by bright red dragon flies and watched the people work the soil with their hands. It was making my back ache just watching them.