These are the people in my neighborhood...

I'm occasionally (or actually, all the time) accused of not having any people in my pictures. Can I help it if my camera keeps shifting to the landscape & trees? So, in my last week here, I made a special effort & here are some of the people I've worked & played with in Sulawesi. Enjoy!

On the porch with Pak & Ibu Hussein at their house. Pak Hussein is the head of his village & also works at Hutan Pendidikan. On this day, Ibu Hussein gave us some delicious sirsak & introduced Kirsten to the wonders of durian fruit (she likes it).

Aya (left) & Emily (right) in the forest last month - Australian teachers who lived in Maros for a year & are now readjusting to life back home. Frequent visitors to the forest, I miss them.

Random schoolchildren- not personal friends, but so cute.

Nasri, Kirsten, Joel & Ikram. Joel is an Australian teacher working in Maros & Ikram is a friend (& maybe my future business partner) from Maros - which, incidentally, is the city I travel through every week to get from the forest to the university in Makassar.

Traffic jam at the swimming hole.

On my last weekend at the forest, it was great to have several friends from Makassar come up for a hike and overnight stay. We went for a long trek in the woods, punctuated by a swim. Let's see - picture above has Titien, Ruud, Jasper, one of Ruud's & Kirsten's children, Marilke, Ipin, Joel, Abby, Annie, someone else, someone else, someone else (we met some other group swimming when we arrived there).

The next day, breakfast at my house. Kirsten &  others (Kir is the white one, newly arrived from home to make sure I get back to Canada).

The Dean and members of the forestry faculty treated me & Kirsten to dinner at a seafood restaurant as a thank you & goodbye. Great people to work with - among others I hadn't met, we have Pak Restu (the Dean, in the blue shirt), Pak Muzrisal, Pak Millang, me, Ibu Yanni, & beside Kir on the other side, Pak Supratman.

And, of course, the management team - Tim Pengelolaan Hutan Pendidikan - Nasri, me & Wildan.