With the start of this very warm and sunny Thursday, our first research day has begun. Every group went off to new destinations and the challenge (we call it adventure) of arranging transport and gathering data starts. Our group is off to the Oro beach hotel close to the city of Tambolaka, owned by the lovely woman Franziska and her children.
The main man for getting transportation in Sumba is Hery. Call Hery and he will arrange a car with a driver for you. Even when we went to a local woman to ask her a question for our research she said she would call Hery for a car for us. Our driver Julio did not speak any English, but through the help of Hery and notes of the names of the places we wanted to go to, we managed to get around. Most of the time a car is necessary because everything is located quite far from each other. Also the roads on Sumba are very unreliable, they change from being paved to just sand and from being smooth to having holes where even the drivers need to concentrate to not crash their car. Locals mostly get around via motor bikes, where being with three or four people on one is not something the police will arrest you for.
The English level from our driver Julio is the perfect example of the main level of English of the Sumbanese people – almost not existent. With our level of Indonesian being not existent either, getting information mostly goes through the luck of meeting people that do speak English and them helping you with translating. At the restaurant Gula Garam, the only wifi spot in Tambolaka, we met the students from STP Bandung. The students from this tourism school located on Java are one of the most open hearted people we have ever met. After talking with them for what has been maybe only half an hour we got ourselves an invitation to the town they are staying at, them offering to arrange a home stay for us, and the agreement of sharing data. Being spontaneous is the main key here for getting your information.
With the first day of the research being at the end, getting back to the beach houses over the bumpy road and enjoying some of the best food ever made, the first research day has ended in a success and great contacts and plans for the following days are to come.
Written by: Anna Praat
