Do you want fries with that?

During my trip to Indonesia this past summer, I had the chance to eat a traditional Batak meal. The array of unique foods was served over a generous portion of rice. Clockwise starting at 12, you'll see potatoes and carrots along with pork chunks, curdled water buffalo milk (white), salty fish (whole), raw lake fish (yellowish color), and curdled pigs blood (reddish color). I enjoyed the taste, kept it down, kept it from running too fast through my system, and passed the test to become an "official Batak."

Laundry

Noticing this young woman washing clothes in the ditch while the water buffalo grazed nearby, I was reminded why I enjoy the conveniences that Maytag brings to my home.

People

Beauty

As I've had opportunity to travel throughout SE Asia, I've been amazed by the beauty of creation. That which has been created by God and that which has been ordered by man weave together to create a tapestry of diverse and incredible beauty. My recent trip to North Sumatra provided another glimpse into the richness of beauty found in this part of the world.

Children

Farmer

In Batak culture, the women are the ones who work hard on the farm while the men usually just sit around and drink coffee. We had a chance to visit this 82 year old lady who still farms, despite the fact her husband has passed away more than 8 years ago. She grows oranges, corn, potatoes, and various types of cabbage.

Here she was drying corn in the sunshine with her orange grove in the distance.

Here granddaughter was helping, with counting kernels in appears.

One friend remarked, "Wow, look at her bloody gums!" The red is actually not blood, but the result her chewing on something called "daun sirih", a type of leaf believed to have medicinal benefits, as well as being mildly addictive. Batak village women chew on a rolled up ball of these leaves, often adding tobacco and other types of leaves, to "keep them calm and relaxed." Apparently it has similar effects as nicotine. Don't think I'll suggest my future wife use it.

Lake Toba

My travels recently took me to beautiful Lake Toba. Here's a glimpse:

"Lake Toba (Indonesian: Danau Toba) is a lake and supervolcano, 62.5 miles long and 20 miles wide, and 1,666 ft at its deepest point. Located in the middle of the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra with a surface elevation of about 2,953 ft, it is the largest volcanic lake in the world. In addition, it is the site of a supervolcanic eruption that occurred 74,000 years ago, a massive climate-changing event. The eruption is believed to have a VEI intensity of 8. This eruption, believed to have been the largest anywhere on Earth in the last 25 million years, may have had catastrophic consequences globally; some anthropologists and archaeologists believe that it killed most humans then alive, creating a population bottleneck in Central Eastern Africa and India that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today." (according to Wikipedia)

This picture was taken from an island in the middle of Lake Toba. That's right, we were on an island in a lake that is on an island in the ocean.