Today we had our first breakfast at the beautiful island of Sumba! After a traditional breakfast with rice, noodles and bananas at 7 o clock, we got picked up by our bus that brought us to the Sumba Hospitality Foundation. This foundation is located at the north-west of the island and is founded by Inge De Lathauwer. This foundation is also a hospitality school for students from Sumba that cannot afford other education. Here they learn about tourism but in a sustainable way. The whole foundation is sustainable: the foundation grows its own food in a garden, they are 100% on solar energy and they learn about and conserve their cultural identity.

When we arrived at the location, we got a presentation about the foundation and their school, after that Harald and Rico told something about our study program. After these presentations, the floor was ours and one person of every group had the chance to pitch their research ideas for the coming weeks. There were not only people from the foundation, but also different stakeholders from different hotels, NGO’s etc. When the group presentations were done we had some time to talk with the stakeholders that were interested in the subjects. We asked a lot of questions and got great ideas and suggestions for our further research.

They prepared a really nice lunch for us and gave us a walking tour over the property. Here we could see the farm, the compost area, the kitchen and the solar panels. The students were very nice and lovely and we made Sumba house music by clapping, shouting etc. This was really fun and a good way of breaking the ice. After this fun activity we had some time to present our research ideas to the students as well, of who we got also some really good insights.

At half past three the day was done and the bus took us to the beach where we could relax until the sun went down. It was a really beautiful white sandy beach and blue water and there was almost no one around. After the sunset we went back to the Sumba Cultural House hotel to eat and to go to sleep!

Written by: Bo