Indonesia Trip

This morning I took a drive with Bapak Willy to some of his family's farm land. Much of the farm land in Indonesia that I have seen is cut into hills using terraces. Valleys wander through the hills; often you find yourself surrounded by plants while being able to see thousands of plants on the hillside opposite the valley. Most of the land owned by Bapak Willy's family contains orange trees (as well as some banana trees and avocado trees). On the hillside we were on, it was literally orange trees as far as the eye could see. I took the first picture looking down the row of trees to try to capture how it felt like the orange trees went on forever. Another example of the beauty in creation.    A few thoughts jumped out at me. There are so many oranges. It's currently orange season. Who is going to pick them? We only passed one worker in the fields, and he was busy doing something besides picking oranges. The standard orange in Indonesia doesn't have to be colored bright ...

Today we took our first trip out to Java Bite's (the company run by REI in Indonesia) new facilities! They are located in Gadingkulon, which is about 20 minutes drive from the office in Malang. The picture below shows the 5 engineering interns standing in front of the facilities. The bigger facility up the hill (left in the picture) is for fruit dehydration, and the smaller facility down the hill (right in the picture) is for cold storage. The buildings are close to being completed, but there is still some construction happening. This post will be mostly pictures.  The bigger facility for fruit dehydration is for both production and training. Java Bite currently operates another production facility, but this new facility will be able to output significantly more product as well as train local workers about how to work in food production. The first picture below shows the front of the building where raw materials will be received. The second picture below shows the side of the ...

It has been a full week. Language learning every morning, project work and/or training sessions every afternoon, and prep for training sessions and/or conversations with my host family every night. This post will focus on the engineering projects for the trip. For the techy folks, I hope this post will be helpful. For the non-techy folks, sorry, I hope this post won't be too boring (take a look at the pictures at least). The two projects I am working on are microwave vacuum dehydration and cold storage. I think I have a good grasp on the background and deliverables for each project.  For the microwave vacuum dehydration project, the problem we need to solve is holding a vacuum while simultaneously rotating the turntable tray. It is fairly well researched that for microwave dehydration, a vacuum is extremely helpful to lower the boiling point of water, thus preserving the quality of the dehydrated fruit. It is also fairly well researched that to energize something using microwaves, ...

The other interns and I have been eating dinner quite often at a street stand near our homestays. Pak Han makes the best nasi goreng jawa (fried rice) that I have ever had. Hands down. I have had it more times than I remember. I tried mie goreng jawa (fried noodles) for the first time last night, and it was also high quality. The basic ingredients always stay the same, but each time there is a different kind of meat. In addition, you can select the spice level, which ranges from none to impossibly hot. Each meal costs 10000 IDR, which comes out to about $0.70. Amazing.  It may seem strange that this post is exclusively about food, but since food is such a large part of Indonesian culture and conversation, I think it's necessary to include. Food is foundational in Indonesia. Different foods signify different occasions and events (the wedding of a dear friend, for example). Conversations with family and between neighbors happen around food. Food here is loved and never taken for gran...