Rebecca serves with her husband, Brad—pilot/mechanic and base manager—at the Palangkaraya floatplane base in Kalimantan, Indonesia. She enjoys getting below the surface to the heart of things, whether it’s during a history lesson with her kids, over tea with an Indonesian neighbor, or through her writing. Rebecca blogs at http://www.rebeccahopkins.org/news/.
The day the eclipse was…eclipsed
For once, it seemed like I was in the right place at the right time. Palangkaraya, Indonesia. One of a handful of places in the world where a rare full solar eclipse could be seen last week.
And I’m a girl who can’t resist Right Moments.
Tourists and scientists from around the world […]
I take a sip of the sweet pink juice my neighbor offers me and ask her where she’s from.
She says a name of a place in Borneo.
“Oh, where is that village?” I say.
“It’s not a village. It’s a river.”
Of course. Kalimantan (the Indonesian name for Borneo) is known as the “land of a thousand rivers,” and […]
For the past few days, I’ve been on the hunt for “oven parts” in the piles of boxes in our new house here in Palangkaraya. It only just occurred to me today to ask Brad what exactly “oven parts” look like.
“Like a regulator.”
Right. Got it. And I do. It’s one of the many things I […]
I was you.
It’s hard to believe it was nine years ago. I got off that plane on that small Indonesian island to the blanket of heat and the MAF team of strangers waiting for us. I climbed in the car and saw my first views of Tarakan—the palm trees, people staring at me through the […]
“Remember that place we stayed in Homer, Alaska?” Brad says. “How there were seals right outside our window and we’d walk the beach and watch the whales?”
I do. We traveled there from our bush Alaska home of seven months. It was late fall, cold already but also low season, so few people were there to […]
I tilt my head back in the salon chair and wait for the cold water to hit my head. And all these memories wash over me.
Please excuse my very corny, clichéd analogy—I get this way whenever I move. There’s something comforting about cheesy “Friends are friends forever”-type songs and heart-felt cards written by hand […]