Our scout group went to Indonesia with Australian scouts, to try to do something to help Bolong, a native of the country. His fellow Indonesians say he is crazy because he uses his time and money to fish and take care of turtle babies. This man would spend long hours fishing while his wife prepared the fish for the baby turtles. D1 - we arrived on the island (Gili Meno) in the afternoon, and were shown to where we would pitch our tents. We then went to the hatchery (see photo). After viewing the hatchery, we ate dinner, and some of us went with the leaders for a night walk. Little did we know this was to be our nightly routine. D2 - after breakfast, we were broken up into groups, and sent off to do work around the island. My first task was to go fishing. Unfortunately the boat was too full, so i stayed and helped Mrs Bolong to prepare fish to feed the turtles. In the afternoon, i went to the fresh water lake with one of my leaders and taught the Australian scouts how to test the quality of the water. to consider if it could sustain life. We found that the water had less dissolved oxygen than what we have in Singapore water, but they still had fish and tadpoles in the lake. The sea water was similar to the water in Singapore. But there was a lot of rubbish in it. That night, together with my patrol, i walked around the island,. The point was to look out for turtles coming up to lay eggs. Boring night: no turtle, no eggs. D3 - This morning, my patrol picked litter from the beach and surrounding area. we picked up piles of litter. The locals laughed at us and said some things, that did not sound very nice. I was determined to learn Bahasa so i could understand what they were saying. According to one of the leaders, the locals felt we were doing stupid things because rubbish is always there. In the afternoon, my patrol was to pick litter from the sea. This was a scary thing for me, as i am not a very strong swimmer. My Australian buddies assured me i would be fine. It was difficult to pick litter from the sea as the litter was often tangled in the coral. Tugging and pulling it would damage the coral. D4 - In the morning, my patrol was free. This was probably because we were scheduled for night patrol last night (it was only then that i realised that i had done an extra night patrol - my patrol was not to do turtle patrol on D1 and D2). Since i was not scheduled to anything, i decided to accompany our leader who was doing the water quality monitoring lessons. She was happy for us to go with her, and she made us teach the session, as all of us had already done our water quality testing in Singapore. To introduce it to the Australians was an experience, and getting them to share their thoughts was fun. My patrol was doing water quality testing in the afternoon, so the task fell on me again to handle the session. We brought rubbish bags as we went up and picked up litter on the way, in an effort to beautify the environment a bit. D5 - community day. all of us went to the local school and interacted with the local children. We played simple games with them and encouraged them not to litter. We also told them that they could support Bolong, by telling him when they saw turtle nests. After the school visit, my patrol went back to feed turtles and wash the tanks. All in all, we did many things that we hoped would have a positive impact on the environment. We helped Bolong fishing, cleaned his tanks, fed the turtles, cleared the rubbish from the land and sea, and attempted to find turtle eggs. We talked with the natives who could speak English, and we attempted, by mime, to educate the young kids about why they should conserve turtles and not sacrifice the eggs to the black market. We also managed to raise money so that Bolong could buy a freezer. This way, he could store the fish he caught - often he needed to control his fishing because the fish could not last (photo) Through the activity, i saw that there are others less fortunate than i, and i learned therefore to appreciate what i had. I also realised i was inadequate in many ways - like my inability to converse with the locals, my lack of skill in swimming. I was worried that the actions we made would be short lived, that it would be forgotten. if i could go again, i would definitely prepare better before - it is important to be able to converse with the local people, and to have the correct skills. i would not want to burden my buddies to have to take care of me so i would need to improve in my skills. I hope to come back again, especially to help build the new tanks that Bolong is dreaming of. He wants to expand from his current 4 tanks to 10 tanks so that he can keep the baby turtles longer - the older they are, perhaps they would survive better out there in the open sea.