Tonight I want to share with you some thoughts, at a more personal level.
I’ve been living in Ampana for a month, which is the closest city from the port to go to the island.
Of course I came here before, but it’s the first time I am here for 4 weeks in a row.
Most of my time is not spent on the island, laying down on a hammock and sipping coconuts, as some might expect (including me).
Globally, my job consists in coordinating people, buying the right materials and equipment, signing contracts, creating content, talking to potential investors, creating connections with locals, solving problems, solving more problems, talking with the architect, making a marketing plan, trying not to go bankrupt before we even open, finding boats to ship things to the island, aaaand, sometimes, going there myself to make sure the workers understood the instructions and do things in the right way (sometimes I have good surprises).
I have no idea how I am able to handle all of this, and this is by far the hardest thing I have done in my life, but to be honest, I think I just love it.
Not the same kind of love of the people going to Bali for the first time, who need to say on facebook: “oh my goood I loooove Bali”, nah.
I mean the kind of love that makes you face who you really are, and pushes you to become better, while having to “accept and understand each other.”
Yes, I do feel lonely sometimes, and even if it’s often fun to be the only “white dude” in the village, and take pictures with random people, it’s also a bit tough.
Locals are adorable and loving, but as much as I focus on our similarities rather than our differences, the cultural gap can be hard to handle when you live here for a while.
I don’t complain about it, I embrace it.
I live in a house that has 3 bedrooms and cost me around 70€/month.
It comes with an “indonesian bathroom” so I’m showering with a bucket, and use the same bucket to flush the toilets (I promise you we build real bathrooms on the island).
It has a metal roof and no ceiling, and of course it doesn’t come with any aircon. When it’s raining, I can’t even hear myself speaking.
I hired the owner of the house, a 40 years old widow, to cook, do my laundry and clean the house. She also does shopping for me sometimes.
She has two kids, one of them is 9 years old and can drive a motorbike.
It costs me 30€/month (she asked, I didn’t negotiate).
The signal is so bad in the house that I bought a signal booster, so I can get a decent data connection.
Sometimes, it works well.
Sometimes, I go find wifi in town.
I love this house because I live in similar conditions as locals, except that they live with their family, and that they all outsmart me when it comes to manual skills.
Right now it’s Ramadan, so we hear dozens of prayers every day on the speaker, and I have no clue what it says, but it’s so loud I feel like the imam is in my living room singing (he is not there, I checked).
It’s also harder with workers, as they basically live at night (to eat and drink), and are super tired during the day.
They start eating at 6PM, so I can’t find any proper food outside before that time.
It’s cool though, they seem so happy when they can finally eat again after sunset.
Most of them tell me I can’t understand how hard it is to fast because I’m not muslim. I haven’t told them I used to fast 20h/day every day for a few months in a row. I was drinking water, though.
Wherever I go, everyone is super friendly with me, and I suspect some local girls use the same excuse to get my contact… “So I can teach them English”… Happened 3 times in the past week.
Lately, I get contacted by at least 2-3 new potential investors per day to invest in the project. I think it’s because of the blogpost I shared a few days ago. Some people resonated with it and want to be part of the adventure.
It’s a bit pressuring to invest with other people’s money, but it gives me a sense of responsibility, and I have a deep feeling that I don’t want to disappoint them.
I would invest more of my own money, but I already invested all of it in the project.
I am not scared anymore.
I mean, things are super straight forward from now on: all I can do is to do my best and do everything I can to make this a success.
If it fails, I would still walk away with the insane amount of knowledge and experience I am getting while building this.
If it succeeds, the potential of this project is so big I still haven’t dared to tell it to the investors, because I don’t want to over promise and under deliver.
It’s not only financial, it’s about the positive impact we could have on the whole region.
But good things take time.
In the beginning of the year, I wrote that my main goal for 2019 was to improve my patience.
I didn’t know I would take myself so seriously.
Yesterday, I showed to a worker the exact place where to put the tiles for the shower. I literally drew it on the sand, and he just had to put them exactly there.
Today, he was super proud to show me how he put them under the toilets because it looked nicer, but then he didn’t have enough for the shower.
You can’t get angry at them, or they just feel pressured, and leave.
And good workers are (very) hard to find.
Yes, he is good. And well intentioned.
So instead of screaming at his face all the frustration I was feeling and how much of an idiot I thought he was for not being able to just put tiles where I ask him to..
.. I took a long, deep, breath.
I told him: “Thank you for your work and for taking the initiative to put the tiles there, however we have a very specific plan and drawings to follow, and I would appreciate it even more if you could focus on following them.”
It sounded worse with my Bahasa Indonesia, but I guess it worked, since he directly started to change the tiles location to where they belonged.
Anyway, I don’t know if anyone will read that far, but if you do, thank you for reading and trading some of your attention to read my stories.
I hope you enjoyed this one.
Thank you for your support, it’s always very much appreciated 🙂
To be continued.. 🏝