We arrived to meet Efrieda’s parents, nieces and nephew and we were welcomed warmly.
The home is a bungalow, with dogs and chickens and a black cat. I was a bit worried about hygiene as we don’t have their immunity and the facilities were basic. No furniture indoors and a few chairs outdoors. We were given a room to ourselves with a bed. The rest of the family sleep on mats on the floor in the main living area.
There is no running water as such, the water comes into a cistern in the bathroom from a stream (if it’s been raining), washing of everything is done in the lake. There is electricity and they have gas rings to cook on.
Efrieda’s family are Batak, which are an Ethnic group thought to have moved to the area from Taiwan via the Philippines some 2500 years ago. There are a number of different tribes and a specific group live around Lake Toba I believe. The Batak have strong traditions that are slowly being eroded by the modern world. Various people have colonised Indonesia including the Dutch and it looks like German and Dutch missionary’s brought Christianity with them as there seem to be hundreds of churches.
Efrieda who we call Ibu (meaning woman) showed us around the families small holding, she has three pigs, lots of chickens and a variety of fruit trees including, Avocado, coffee, Durian, Cocao, Snake Fruit, turmeric, ginger, maize, chillies, Cassava and this is a very versatile plant, roots and leaves used for humans and animals. She pointed out cinnamon shrubs. All the time we were serenaded by cicadas.
Tatjana assisted Ibu in the kitchen as she prepared a meal. The pestle and mortar was very old and made of stone, and it had been a wedding present to Efrieda’s parents and used before. Just using it was a workout.
I sat chatting to mum, who is about my age. Most of the conversation was on Google Translate although she has some English l have no Indonesian, or Batak.
Over the next few days we settled into a routine. Tatjana was much more sensitive to our hosts needs, much more than I so I followed her lead.
The Travelling Bee 
Found the cat!! Batak houses are awesome (still look like galleons to me). I would have thought there would have been loads of jobs to experience helping out there?! And that pig looks like a right character 🙂
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