Let’s celebrate one year of blogging! Time passes quickly but some things never change: like in my first blog, I am currently troubled by hay fever. In this year, I wrote 82 posts which attracted 212 comments (in all fairness, 43 comments were by myself :)). On average, the blog has attracted 300 to 500 monthly visitors.

Most of these hits come from the Netherlands, but there are readers in the USA, the UK and even Asia. Some of the blogging highlights include the announcement of my Fellowship, my Wacken trip and Dutch dietary habits, followed by a quite hilarious discussion in the comments with the owner of a picture that I used to illustrate this. I have written blogs from a variety of locations on three continents, including Toronto, Boekelo and Singapore (cities of the world :)). Some topics have returned several times, such as my love-hate relationship with science and the weather. So far, I have tried to post something every 5-6 days and at times have struggled to come up with something. But I have enjoyed writing them and of course reading other peoples comments. Blogging is a great way to procrastinate!

The airport is rapidly becoming my favorite place to write blogs. Quiet, heaps of time, it is a shame internet access is typically so bloody expensive (I am currently paying £4.50 for 60 mnts. Fortunately I am overlooking the runway of London Heathrow simultaneously for nice views of landing planes).

I am doing the last leg of my trip before returning to the academic frenzy called the Broad Institute. I look forward to being there again. A fresh start, marked by a bunch of resolutions such as “work smarter, not harder”, “integrity will be rewarded” and so on (No, I did not read any management books recently but might be influenced by Far East spirituality). I have also gained inspiration on other aspects and have some important decision making to do, including deciding where I am going to be next year. Let’s keep the suspense up: it might be any of the places I have visited in the last seven days plus my destination of today.
But first, let me congratulate my friends and loyal blog readers Eric and Maartje who became parents this week. Special thanks to Maartje for respecting our agreement of giving birth just before my visit!

	Flying in a ten seater was not nearly as scary as I imagined; hiking the Papuan highlands resulted in some bruises but nothing serious. View some holiday pictures here. Mulia, a small town in the highlands of Papua where tourists are not welcome, was enchanting. Staying with the healthcare organization MDM gave the opportunity to closely observe how difficult the work is that these organizations do, their problems being very un-western.
HIV infection in the local population is on the rise, yet Papuans refuse to use condoms as they regard it as a means of the Indonesian government to get rid of them!
The local hospital was only one place where we encountered carriers of the virus. It is harsh to realize that the future for the indigenous population is not very bright, as they are being overtaken by an Indonesian population with which they share neither a history and culture nor descent.

In a few years, less than 50% of the people of Papua will have Papuan blood, making Papuans a minority in their own country (imagine this in your own country!). Indonesians, once being colonized, are now the coloniators. It led Remco (my host) and me to wonder which would be better: pushing the Indonesian government to open up the region and allow influx of foreign tourists and money, creating awareness on the ‘Papuan cause’ but also resulting in spoiling locals with Western habits. Or alternatively, conserve their culture which has hardly changed in the last thousand years but at the same time slowly going extinct. Not a choice I want to make.

Trips like these should be encouraged: they make you feel very humble and spoiled. Now I am on my way back: today it is Biak to Singapore, part three of a seven leg trip to Boston; blogging from the airport in Jakarta. Strange to see all these very different cultures in such a short period of time, but it is great to have the opportunity.

After a successful conference on computational biology, I left Singapore last week to travel to West-Papua (previously known as Irian Jaya). The overnight flight took about ten hours, including a several hour waiting period at Jakarta airport and two stops at two smaller islands in between.

The last part of the trip was beautiful, flying over the rugged terrain covered with tropical forest that make up a large part of West-Papua. I was greeted at the airport by the usual crowd of taxi drivers and hotel runners. One guy was particularly friendly and asked where as I was from, my name, if I was a tourist, and so on. He looked funny and I figured that he wanted to sell me something, or get me into a hotel but he left without offering anything. I was informed by local expats here that he was probably somebody of the intelligence service, as Papua has seen a fair amount of political struggles. An interesting experience, and one of many more here.
On Wednesday I will fly out to the highlands to meet the Dani people, a tribe of Melanesian decent (like the aboriginals) which makes up the native population here. They are best known for their habits of eating missionaries and wearing penis gourds. I think that is going to be very cool (but very wet too:up to 10.000 mm per year!). In the mean time I am trying to some urgent work for one of my projects. Quite challenging with only a dial-in connection available!