Idul Fitri approaching

So the brave and reverant souls of Aceh have a couple of days left with their fasting. I came to the realization since I last posted that the toughest bit of the fast isn't the absence of food, but the absence of liquid, including water during the day. I actually considered fasting for a day for solidarity with people here but the lack of drink idea put me off. I think for many here the prohibition of smoking during the daylight hours is probably the toughest thing - that has more benefits than the spiritual ones for sure.

We are coming to the end of the fasting month and the biggest celebration of the year here - Idul Fitri. All Indonesian people have today (Friday) off and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are also holidays next week. The most important day is Sunday now I believe after the exact timing was finalized by checking the moons cycle. We visited our friends from the other house last night and preparations were well under way. Everyone makes a lot of home backing which is then offered to guests who cruise around on the big holidays. The plan for most people on the big days is a lot of time in the mosque, and a lot of time eating cakes/biscuits at home for the rest of the day.

Rachel and I have been keeping ourselves entertained settling into the new house and also getting our application for residency in NZ for Rachel together. This includes such enjoyable things as doing detailed medicals for Rachel and getting police records from places we've lived for more than a year. The FBI was pretty easy actually and that is on the way, unsurprisingly the Indonesian process is long, stupid, beurocratic and generally annoying. We had to get various pieces of paper together (CV, letter from employer blah blah blah and then we had to start going around the various police departments to get letters recommending we be given a letter saying we had behaved in Indo while here. First the local police in the town area wanted a letter from the head of the village which was easy. The local police were very nice too. Then the regional police needed to see all the other paper work. They were a little annoying and my application also got mixed up with the Red Cross' beaurocracy which wasn't helpful. Now we are in the process of waiting for the regional police to give us a letter recommending that the national police write a letter to us saying we have behaved... if you didn't get bored reading that try waiting in an official's office or driving across down to get every little document mentioned.... so definitely nothing will happen for a couple of weeks now as we wait for Idul Fitri and its fall out to finish.

For a bit more positive news I can report that I am heading away tomorrow for a kayaking trip on the Asahan river again and also it seems that Rachel has got a month long contract working with UNDP to evaluate a large program they have had here.