News from Chiapus

Wednesday we accompanied Karmele, Iing, Asep and Acep up to Sumadang outside of Bandung and stayed at a friend of a friend of Karmele's way up in the hills. The house was owner built in the traditional style on stilts, with walls and ceiling from woven bamboo mats and a floor of flattened bamboo stalks laid out paralell to each other. It made for a nice flexible feel beneath your feet.

We were there to meet with the forestry department and some biology students from the university to discuss possible strategies to attack the trafficing in lorises. That is a story in and of itself.

We are at the guest house office here and it's been raining steadily for about an hour. A military helicopter went down in the mountains here and there has been search activity all day. I'm not sure what the status is at the moment but the weather is worsening.

The jungle territory beginning a few hundred meters from the IAR headquarters is extremely dense and if you don't know your way it is apparantly very easy to get lost. Although the jungle is brimming full with liquid and things to eat if you don't know how to make use of it you might just wander around until you die of starvation as several have done in the past. I spent my childhood in near the wilderness and have always prided myself for having a good sense of direction and being able to quickly get a feel for the lay of the land but on the day excursion we took, even though we only went one direction and almost always up the mountain I quickly had the feeling I wouldn't be so sure if I had to find my way back alone. That was just a short walk.