Yesterday, I was at the first stakeholder meeting, to share our plan and receive information of different authorities of Sumba. It did not take long until I realized… this was not going to work as we had planned! I got a lot of information about the different areas, and what is there to see, but as our group planned to research water sport activities we had a big struggle.

Asking stakeholders and young students who had lived their whole life in Sumba did not help us in any way. All they do at the beach is swimming and fishing and they do not know of other possible activities except for surfing at one certain point with THE Ali. I did not expect that there is literally no information. In the research plan, everything sounded logical and now we have to face that reality is not always the way as we expect it. Sitting together with my group, we are still trying to figure out how to adapt our research and what to focus on now. We have to consider that Sumba is really new and underdeveloped with tourism. It has beautiful areas and a lot to offer, but coastal tourism and activities are still to be developed. Anyways, I am still excited about the beaches and coast, because in reality they are as expected… BEAUTIFUL!

This was the first challenge we had to face. In the evening, I also found out that the transport possibilities are more complicated as well. Because of the road conditions, we are not allowed to travel on motorbikes. Therefore, we have to rely on cars with a driver. At first, I thought that is okay. As we were given a phone number of someone who could arrange transport, that should work out.

Here comes reality again!

Harry, whose number we got, has one car with a driver for 7 people…. While we are with 25 students! After discussing with all the other research teams, we now searched online for more contacts and drivers and hopefully we all have an opportunity to go to different places.

Sometimes it is annoying or exhausting when reality “rears its ugly head” and does not meet your expectations, but that is what travelling and also research is about. You can learn and grow from it or you can cry about it. It is your choice! I take on the adventure and cannot wait to face even more obstacles to find new creative solutions solving them.

Many greetings from Sumba, the Island with many faces.

Written by: Devin