Hi all from Caroline, Gardner, and Mari!

To kick off our time as Leaders of the Week, we woke up bright and early to pack and depart our homestay at Lake Toba. Our homestay families gifted us beautiful Bataknese shawls made on their looms. After saying our goodbyes, we piled into another dump truck and drove to meet our bus. From there, we were brought to a pizza joint for Gardner’s 18th birthday! After a delicious lunch, we boarded a small passenger boat that brought us across the lake to meet our bus. After a brief drive, we arrived at Jangga Dolok, the site of our next homestay, and got settled in. That night we had some delicious chicken with rice and vegetables, before being surprised with a birthday cake, then calling it a night.

The next day, we learned about the traditional Batak houses we were staying in. Most have been standing for 250-300 years! In the afternoon, we played games like Bananagrams and Truth or Truth, while we waited out a rainstorm.

Very early the next morning (6 am) we got to milk water buffalo! A few students were even able to get some milk out, which was pretty difficult for our unpracticed hands. We then had a brief cooking lesson, where we learned how to cook the buffalo milk to make suspended cheese. We then went back to bed.

A couple hours later we woke up to participate in a cooking class competition. We were told how to make fried banana bread, then got to actually make it ourselves in a friendly girls vs. boys competition. The cooks from YesSumatra judged our creations and declared a winner. (Drumroll pleaseeee!!) The girls won! We will keep our bragging humble, but we did have superior texture, taste, shape, and cooked-ness. After eating our treats we met with dance coaches and were taught a Bataknese dance. That evening we performed the dance at an event that also included dances from the kids of the village and professionals. Our homestay mothers dressed us in traditional dance clothing and hairstyles. Our performance was as to be expected having only practiced it a few times, but there were lots of smiles. In the end, everyone got up and danced together to the live music!

The next day was our last full day in Jangga Dolok, so we wanted to make it count! We loaded into another dump truck for a fun and bumpy ride down to Lake Toba. There, we loaded into 2 person kayaks and set off on an adventure! After a couple of hours of paddling (and more than a couple of *purposeful* capsizes), we made it to the largest waterfall on the island. We met up with the large, and most importantly, motorized, boat for lunch. We spent the early afternoon swimming under the waterfall. The big boat brought us back to the dump truck, and we pretended we were surfing as we made our way back to our homestay. During our Evening Circle, we wrote thank you notes to all our friends from YesSumatra. On the 11th we headed back to Medan for the night then said our goodbyes to Sumatra and our newfound friends there and finally boarded our flight to Bali!

Hey fam, I can’t wait to talk to y’all in a few days. I miss you all so much, and Bennett Happy Birthday! Have an amazing sweet 16, pls send pics, and don’t crash my car. Give Teetee and Mickey and Bridget hugs for me and tell Sake and Ginger I say hi!

Much love❤️Gardner

Miss you fam! Talk soon 🤟🏼 -Mariella

Hi y’all! There’s lots of good passion fruit here, so we’re chillin’. Olive juice 🤙🏼 – Caroline