Jakarta Baby Revisited

I am presently typing with one hand because my other is helping to cradle our three day old baby. Ada Rose Duell was born at 4pm in Medistra hospital, Jakarta, Indonesia on the 17th of May. She is presently making little sheep like sounds while sleeping.

Emmerson is growing nicely into her big sister role, We were a bit curious to how this would go because of some of the comments made by Emmerson about her prospective little brother or sister. When I told her that we were going to bring home a baby - she looked very concerned shook her head emphatically and said "no baby". Wayan, Emmerson' s nanny, told me that Emmerson said "give the baby to Lelise?" - who is another nanny of friends of ours. More to come later as this one hand typing is getting quite unpleasant.

Here are the vital statistics and my initial thoughts on the birth of Ada.

Sex:Girl

Name: Ada Rose Duell

Weight: 9lbs

Length: metric - Alicia figured out the poundage and told me - I failed the metric unit in the 5th grade and have no idea what the centimeter equivalent is so ignored this bit of data.

Ian here reporting for Alicia. We (and yes, I realize I did basically nothing - my duty this time around was to fan Alicia when she got hot - but am still going to use the inclusive plural) were expecting quite an ordeal due to our experience with Emmerson, but what a difference.

Emmerson took something like 36 hours to have - Ada didn't (I don't know when women officially begin counting the hours - have to wait for Alicia for that data)

The epideral with Emmerson didn't take - the epideral with Ada knocked Alicia's lower half into a very content state of being. At one point she said something like "I think something is going on, can you get a nurse" - the baby was already visible!

Emmerson took an hour of pushing with intense pain - the nurses had to tell Alicia when to push with Ada because she could barely feel the contractions.

Emmerson finally arrived, bleated like a lamb once or twice and then slept for several days all bundled up in her wrap - Ada came out screaming like crazy and had already removed her wrap five minutes after being placed in the incubator.

Emmerson had a fine mist of blond hair - Ada has a huge mop of black hair

After Emmerson, Alicia was a sweaty mess - less than an hour after Ada, she was eating dinner and watching American Idol

I came home and showed the video I took of Ada on our macbook to Emmerson and told her the name of the new baby - she looked intently and said her name, so hopefully she will be a good big sister.

Alicia is doing fine - impressively beautiful even after pushing out 9 lbs of kid. Ada is wrinkly and beat up looking but I am expecting her to pan out fine.

Burrito baby.

Excited big sister and mom

Celebratory sign outside our apartment - typically done in Indo.

Jakarta to Kalimantan

Can not locate these pictures anywhere .... too bad - actually, I think I uploaded many onto a powerpoint ... will post those but am missing many so the write-ups don't relate to some of the images but want to keep the write ups for memory sake.


Mining is big business in Kalimantan as evidenced by this sign that greets arriving visitors in the airport. This is the first sign that you see as you enter the airport from the tarmac.


This picture is taken from the lodge that is built into the slope of one side of a valley. At the base of the valley is a group of mandmade islands where the orangs that are being rehabed live. On the other slope are enormous cages that house the rehabed orangs waiting for reintroduction into their natural habitat.

The ecolodge - very impressive.

The fire tower provides for an excellent survey view of the area and of the work being done by the Samboja group.


Dave H. making a commando style exit from the "Jungle Truck", which was needed to navigate many of the muddy roads in the area. It was a Mercedes Benz truck made for farmers back in Germany. It was widely used in Germany during WWII and is often modified to serve safari adventures.



An orang on one of the rehab islands. You can not get too close to the orangs as they must break their relationship with humans to successfully be reintroduced into the wild. Also orangs are very susceptible to human diseases, another reason for keeping the distance. One of the islands has several orangs that have hepatitis - they will never be reintroduced into a natural habitat as they could easily decimate a population living in the wild by spreading the disease.

We played a friendly match against the Samboja team. They played some nice football and the pitch was huge - actually it had no side boundaries and the ref was quite willing to let play progress well into the underbrush bordering the field - definite home team advantage

Samboja refers to an area in Kalimantan about an hours drive from the capital city, Balipapan. About fifty years ago the area was clear cut by logging companies and left to fend on its own. The results were typical of deforested areas: soil depletion, species loss, and hearty fast growing "weedy" plants covering the previously forested landscape. The Samboja organization, part of BOS (The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation), consists of three different projects; orangutan and sunbear rehabilitation and with the orangutans, eventual release back into their natural habitat, reforestation of the area with hardwood trees, and an ecolodge. We took our students to Samboja for a week so they could experience first hand a very interesting and unique aspect of Indonesia.

Planting teak trees. Difficult work as the scruff that has grown up in the area is quite dense and needs to be removed in order for the teak saplings to successfully take root and grow.

Preparing seedling soil pots in the nursery. One of the highlights of this part of the trip was sampling the various fruits growing in the nursery area. When the head gardener noticed my curiosity in the different fruit trees, he began taking me from tree to tree, giving me fruit to try - very exciting as several types were new to me.

In the honey bear compound.