Day 1 family is a good thing ...

MONDAY 5:45 AM.   Water sun food family..repeat.

Sitting on the edge of Toba, waiting for the sun to rise. Sleep was restless and our room is a bit rustic. But...I don't mind and its so ok.

We met Lois and Daniel at the airport got in our taxi and DROVE. It is a long ride, not that it is so far but the roads are really that bad and the towns we go through that small. We talked and talked and talked and talked and soon we were on the ferry at dusk and then we were in the arms of family.

In Lynden, most everyone I know enjoys this thing called extended family. It is pretty amazing to belong to a group of people who are from every corner of the world and I belong...just like that. It is pretty wonderful.

We ate, we talked, we drank...we wondered who belonged to who and what is their name. 3 kisses for the Dutch, handshakes and hugs for the US.

Late to bed and early to rise....Today we go to the waterfalls...all 46 of us.

High...all of it, the smells, the plantations, the broken attempted indonesian, the smiles on the faces of the familiar but unknown, the beauty and the mess. The chichaks and roosters, the nasi goreng and gado gado and fruit. The stories and the laughter and being family.
Lows...loudness in the night from our neighbors.
LSN: Rubber trees are really skinny and palm trees for coconut oil, really fat and short.  LOTS of them...Toba is the highest volcanic lake AND the island in the middle we are on..as big asSingapore.
Being in a family is a really good thing.

5:30 pm...what a great day. After some spectacular coffee and wonderful breakfast and meeting the Canadian contingency who came last night we were off on our boat to
See a Batak village, see some school kids, go to a waterfall, swim in said waterfall, come home and crash. Talking and visited and eating and swimming and burning our skin and talking some more. Cousins, Aunts, brother, sis in law, husband sand more cousins...listening in Dutch, practicing Indonesian...crying and laughing.

I'm laying on the bed and smelling smoke, hearing motorbikes, feeling burnt...being with family. It's so good.