Today, we established a new reading garden in Flores. The 10th Rainbow Reading Gardens in Flores is located in Iteng, Central Manggarai. Iteng is a small town in Flores, surrounded by mountains and rice paddy fields. What makes this town unique is the beach! So, this town has mountains and also beautiful beach, too! How lucky the people who live in this town…! Rainbow Reading Gardens in this town is located in a local’s house. It’s a house of Mr. Man. Mr Man is a teacher of Paka Elementary School. He is willing to “sacrifice” his guest room in his house as a reading room for the kids. We feel so touched by his good will! Thank you so much, Pak! This morning, I was accompanied by my friends from Labuan Bajo to meet the school principal. We wanted to tell him about our plan to set up Rainbow Reading …

Nara Village is a tiny village located in West Flores. From Labuan Bajo, one needs to take a car/motorbike and drive for about 2 hours, continued by walking for another half hour, passing a dirt and rocky path. My friend Andreas from Germany still joined us on this trip. Pak Avent, our coordinator for mountains area and his wife, also joined the fun. Today’s agenda was… opening a reading garden for the kids in this village! Yeayyy!! Nara Village has around 70 families inhabitant. The village is cute and lovely, surrounded by trees all around. There is only one elementary school in this village, with around 40 students, ranging from 6 to 12 years old. We got together in front of a house in the small hill. The children sat nicely on a mattress, waited for our “speech”. Just like in any other villages, these kids got very excited when …

It was such a beautiful day… the sky was so blue and the sea looked so calm. We departed from Labuan Bajo to Kukusan Island by a small fisherman boat. It took us only 30 minutes to get to this small island.. what an easy ride, especially with such a stunning view all around, we didn’t mind staying on the boat longer! Me, Junaedi (our coordinator for islands area) and Andreas Schuck, my good friend from Germany who’s holidaying in Flores and dedicated some of his holiday time to be involved in Rainbow Reading Gardens’ activities, used those 30 minutes to prepare the books for our new reading garden in Flores. Yep… this time was for Kukusan Village! The only village on Kukusan Island. Kukusan Village is a tiny little village with only around 70 families inhabitants. There is only one school in this village, an elementary school with 40 …

We continued our journey from Rinca Island to Papagarang Island, both located in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. It took us around 45 minutes to 1 hour on a slow boat. It was an enjoyable journey because the wind breeze made the temperature cooler a bit and the beautiful scenery of the National Park all around have successfully spoiled our eyes. Papagarang Island looked very dry compared to Rinca Island. The village itself (Papagarang Village) has a big problem in getting fresh water. The people have to buy water from Labuan Bajo every day. Even for taking a shower, they usually just dip themselves in the sea! Some of them rinse themselves with fresh water afterwards, but most of them don’t. Life is a bit tough when you don’t have access to clean water, isn’t it? Same as the location in Komodo Village and Rinca Village, Rainbow Reading Gardens (Taman Bacaan Pelangi)’s location in Papagarang Village is also located under a local’s traditional …

After opening 4 reading gardens in 4 different villages (Roe, Melo, Nampar Macing and Komodo) in West Manggarai, West Flores, we decided to open more reading gardens in other remote areas of West Flores, Indonesia. This time, we decided to open reading gardens in Rinca Village (on Rinca Island) and Papagarang Village (on Papagarang Island). Both of these villages are located in Komodo National Park. So, now, all the kids who live in the villages in Komodo National Park (Komodo Village, Rinca Village and Papagarang Village) can enjoy reading good children story books at Rainbow Reading Gardens (Taman Bacaan Pelangi). Yipppeeee!!! Today, me, Katherine Demopolous – my friend who works as a journalist in Jakarta, Junaidi – my best friend in Flores, William, Wawan – an English teacher who volunteering in another area of Flores, and a group of band members (Hendry, Berto, Oday) went on a small boat to go to Rinca and Papagarang Islands. We’re …