This week I was in Palak Siring. Much different than the other villages. Of course, they are all different. This week I lived on a river. Kind of like home in Lillington, but I was much closer to the river. If you are interested in the house where I stayed, you can check out the following videos. My first video is of the street where I am staying and the river and became an Introduction to Palak Siring Village. This one was interrupted by two young girls, so I made other one of the outside of the house Palak Siring Outside of House . Below are pictures of the house. I rented the house from the Grandma. She was in Jakarta. The translators stayed with me. The man and woman in the middle are the mother and father of one of my translators.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

What makes this village unique is its population of dwarfs–little people. There are 24 dwarfs in and around the village. I tried to find where the most dwarfs lived. The information I found said China has the most and the city of Itabaianinha in Brazil has the largest city population. From what they said, no one has studied the gene mutation here. What I found interesting is many of them have the same mother AND all the dwarfs are males. The woman pictured below has 10 children and 7 of them are male dwarfs. The women carry the gene, but they have male babies that are dwarfs. I saw 8 of the 24. They were so tiny. As you can tell from many of the photos I look huge–I weigh 120 pounds at 5’3″ so you can tell how small people in Indonesia are.

• 

• 

Not sure if you have noticed, but I do not say negative things about the people or places I visit. This time I struggled. You can tell by the way my video of the village for this week ends Walking around Palak Siring Village. They guys in the video are my translators. Below you see pictures of the long-tailed macaques, who are tied up in the yard. There is a baby tied to a post and two adults. The mother is tied up near the baby, but she cannot reach it. They send the monkeys up the tree to collect coconuts. The other photos are taken around the village. One way they make money is fish farming. I took a few photos of the houses at the fish farm.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Most farmers here are rice farmers. The family of the house I lived in are rice farmers. I spent one morning planting rice. It was fun, but I can tell hard work. They were planting by hand. I have a tractor and the rows in my garden are not close to as straight as their rows! The pink eggs are from the Golden Apple Snail, which is an invasive species. They were introduced in the 1990s. They are all over the fields here.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

One reason I am here is to study what people think about environmental issues. People catch the eel pictured below and eat them. That is not really the problem–they have been doing this for centuries. The problem is the palm oil plantations up stream are causing more run off into the river and the sediment is killing them. Now they only catch small eel.

If you need strong teeth read on!!! The betel nut (which is a stimulant and addictive) you see below is used to for strengthening your teeth. They dry it and grind it up. They mix the ground up nut with tobacco and betel leaves (not the same plant). They brush their teeth with this potion to make them strong. NOTE: They also chew betel leaves to prevent cancer and treat headaches and diabetes. However, before you go out and get some betel nut and make a paste you might want to take a look at this. If you are not in for looking at a website about what they paste does to your teeth then take a look at these photos! My translator said your teeth might be yellow, but they will be strong. Yellow!!! OMG–much worse than yellow.

• 

• 

Goodbye to Palak Siring Village. The people were friendly and curious. I learned a lot!