radityaman

12.07 – 13.07.2013

Tomas and me finally arrived at the Farm House. It was around 5pm. We walked upstairs, and found out that the group got bigger! There were bunch of people playing UNO at our room, like typical new friends trying to get to know each other. We said hello and introduced ourselves. There were: Michael from Switzerland, Monika from Poland, Mabel from Hong Kong, Fenglie from Malaysia, Vilma from Finland, and a fellow Indonesian, Della! It was nice meeting all of them. But as we chatted, Zoe from AIESEC told us that there would be a TYPHOON coming in the night. We were strangers from typhoon, were kinda looking forward to it. Such amateurs :p

Monika, Mabel, Vilma, Della, Fenglie

Alex & Rin hadn’t arrived yet. We were starting to worry and the AIESEC guys were a bit upset. Finally they came at around 7, very late, and got some speech readied for them J. We heard they did nothing in Taipei, Zoo was closed, Gondola closed, missed the movie, it rained so hard, but they had meal in 101 food court (that’s why it’s the worst idea ever!)

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We spent the evening playing some games to get to know each other. The classic “never-have-I-ever” game! Meanwhile, the last member just came by the doorstep. Her name was Sjoerdsje from Holland. Nobody could pronounce her name right, so we just called her Syusyu. She came with scooter in heavy rain, soaking wet from top to bottom. Her arrival was the point where Typhoon got bigger (everyone still blamed her for this).

10pm. Wind was blowing hard. Michael and me were like, “c’mon man this is not typhoon, pffft! back home we call this raining hahahaha”.

1am. Our room window flew.

The moment we realized we were fuc*ed

The rooms were all wet; we had to move the mattress downstairs (huge one).

We slept all together at the living room, on the floor. In the morning villagers woke us up to evacuate! It was raining really hard and the nearby dam just collapsed. We packed our valuables, and evacuate to a nearby community center.

Officials at the center

Refugees :p

We had to wait for around 5 hours there. But everyone was well prepared! There were lunch boxes provided for us at lunch, and some officials were always there to help us. Time flew, and the rain stopped. We were allowed to go back, and as we were walking home we realized the neighborhood was really messed up.

Fallen trees every where

Collapsed Dam

Even though it sounds bad, but it was awesome experience. We were actually relaxed during the process and even laugh at the typhoon (I know, foolish foreighners). Michael even had time to dry his sausages (Yes, literally Switz Sausages). It was great because it brought us closer together, even though it was just the first day but it was an exceptional one! Then we realized, it would be our job to clean the surroundings.