Ihoped the first sounds in the morning were just isolated movements and everything would get quiet again so I could sleep for another hour. Before I knew it though, the music started playing next door and we were putting away our bed.

After tea and crackers for breakfast we walked around with the camera taking pictures. I hoped we could get some good early morning light but unlike the day before, the sky was grey.

Tuai told us the longhouse had found a monkey. We were totally psyched to take pictures. (Joan: I was thinking we'd finally see a monkey in the wild). We walked out into the dawn light and saw a very stiff monkey--hanging from a wire. An old guy was skinning it. It would soon be food. Apparently they had shot the monkey. We took some pictures anyway.

We found some longboats under construction, stored under the longhouse near Room No. 1. We saw a long board that comprises the hull of these boats sitting next to a boat that was nearly complete. The hull board was over 20 feet long and carved out of a single piece of wood. It had a slight dish to it.

A little bit past the longhouse were a few pens holding about 10 pigs. They made a lot of noise as we approached. Between the pens was the dump. It smelled pretty bad there.

The kids were all at school so we didn't have the entourage we got used to the day before. I wasn't sure what we were going to do all day. I didn't want to just lie around in the great hall waiting for something to happen.

We kept walking around. Badul appeared and strolled with us, occasionally sending a rock into the woods with his slingshot. We tried to ask him why he wasn't in school. He said Tidak Sekolah! (No School!).

Eventually we ran across Sebastian, one of the guys at the party we found our first afternoon. He sat with a few others working on a fish gun. They were working on the spear using a hammer, pliers, a nail, a file, and a heavy part from a boat engine for an anvil.

We watched them for quite awhile. Sebastian told us about a place two days' journey away with endless, huge fish. Every fisherman has a story like that I guess.

Sooyau came by and we talked for awhile. The rest of the gang suddenly was talking about something and Sooyau got involved in their conversation. Apparently they were having trouble with a generator and wanted my help. Around Nanga Bangkit you could probably find 20 of these Yamaha generators. Just about every household seems to have one to power their TV. I have never so much as started one ofthese generators, let alone repaired one. I was sure they would have tried all the obvious things by now.

But try explaining that to someone who barely speaks English and believes you fix stuff for a living. Rather than decline I figured I could at least look at it and act like I was trying to fix it. Scratch my head, take a few things apart. Scratch my head again. It was already broken so I couldn't do any harm.

So four other guys and I went out front and made a circle around a broken generator. One guy pulled the starter a couple of times. Nothing happened. I looked in the gas tank. It was bone dry. I said, Petrol? They looked too and someone went for gas. I figured it had another problem but had been sitting for a long time, and maybe they had siphoned out the gas for another generator. Fuel was very valuable at Nanga Bangkit.

Someone came back with a leaky plastic bottle of fuel and put about a pint in. They closed the lid, pulled the cord and Vroom -- it was running.

Everyone got quite a chuckle out of it. I don't think I got any credit for fixing it but at least it was running when I left. I had avoided losing face.

They weren't finished with me yet though. Sooyau informed me that his uncle's generator also wouldn't start. We walked down to Sooyau's uncle's place. I tried the gas tank trick but this one was full. So I tried to look knowledgeable as I inspected the controls. I knew enough from lawn mowers and Cox engines to look for a choke. I pulled the starter a couple of times then moved the choke and tried again a few times. The sound of the engine never changed.

The spark plug stuckout of the side. I said we should look at that. It took awhile but they finally found a deep throat socket and got it off. It looked fine. We pulled the starter cord and watched for it to spark. That worked fine too.

"Shoot!" I said. I was hoping it would be the spark plug. Now we would have to dig deeper. We unscrewed the front panel. Behind it were just a few wires to the electrical outlet and switches and ... half a bushel of rice. (Joan: I remember everyone yelled Nasi! (Rice!) at this point). I carefully cleaned out the inside but that didn't have anything to do with the problem. But cleaning it out may prevent a fire in the future.

I took off the fuel line and looked inside the carburetor with a flashlight. Everything looked OK. So I just started taking more stuff apart. Actually I had Sooyau and his uncle take the stuff apart. I just said, "let's take that off" and they did it. We reached a place where there were four large philips-head screws, completely stripped. I figured they would never come off. Also I figured they had tried to fix this thing many times before. A bad sign.

But Sooyau and his uncle worked expertly using a striaght edge screw driver and a hammer to loosen and remove the stripped bolts. Otherwise I would still be there trying to remove them. Inside, however, everything looked OK.

There was one more part left to check. Anyone who knows anything about internal combustion must know what it's called but I don't. It's a can that the fuel flows into. Inside the can is a floating valve. I figured that somehow this regulated the flow of fuel into the carburetor. The can had a lot of fuel in it and also a lot of very fine dirt. I cleaned it out with my hand and then gave it to Sooyau's uncle to clean more thoroughly.

We put everything back together and on the first pull it started. I was a hero. I think they actually thought I fixed it. If I did anything, it was give them the courage to take it apart. I think the dirt was the problem. I'm pretty sure they would have cleaned that if I hadn't been there. Nonetheless I was willing to bask in the glory.

Joan watched while we worked and probably could have "fixed" it just as I had. She talked with Tuai while I worked. (Joan: He kept saying Eric was an engineer and I think the title had a lot to do with what he thought Eric could fix. So I said Eric was an engineer with computers, not generators, hoping to save Eric embarrassment if he failed. Tuai asked if computers were like televisions. I said No. But it was too late. He made the link in his mind. Eric didn't find out until later when Tuai asked him to fix his neighbor Belikau's TV).

As soon as we finished with the generator, Belikau waved in a frantic enthusiastic way for us to come into his place. He showed me his TV. The sound was fine but the picture almost non-existent. It was just a dim yellowish snow in the general shape of people moving around.

Everyone at Nanga Bangkit has a big TV antenna on a tall pole out front of the longhouse. A long cable leads intothe household to a small signal booster box. Another cable goes from the booster to the TV.

I figured the problem was with the signal so I had them take the antenna down. It was OK. I took apart the booster and nearly broke it. I spent about half an hour fixing what I did to it. I cut the antenna cable, stripped clean new ends and rewired everything. Still no change. Finally I took Belikau's TV over to Tuai's house. It would not even turn on over there because Tuai's generator was off. I felt really stupid for forgetting that. Tuai's wife laughed at me and then turned on the generator. But Belikau's TV still didn't work.

Finally I took his TV apart and played with the part I always thought you were never ever to play with, the color booster knobs. With these I was able to get an awful but recognizable picture. (Joan: I was somewhere on the porch thinking, Darn, The Spell is Finally Broken. Eric won't be able to fix this one. But then he came out, saying he was close, that all he had to do was adjust the color. He wanted my help since he's a little colorblind. I tried but it seemed like the choices were minimal. The picture could be either black-and-white, blue-and-white, green-and-white or pink-and-white. We chose a dignified shade of blue-and-white).

Belikau was extremely thankful. I was thankful that I could do something for him. I asked if I could take his picture with the TV. He was happy to comply but first had to put on his shirt and Penn State baseball cap. I was sorry he put on his shirt. He had amazing tattoos.

Word got around. Now there was another TV someone wanted me to look at. This one was much easier. They had wired both leads from the outside antenna to the same terminal. I fixed it in about five minutes. They were thrilled, although the picture was still not great.

Perhaps in years to come Tuai will tell his guests, "Once we had an American here. He played a French Horn and he fixed a generator and two TVs." Maybe that's more than they'll say about me in any place I actually did paid work as an engineer.

Next: Big Party

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