Week 6: The Last Registrants

If my little family and I could settle in Indonesia, if we could make a living by introducing this beautiful country to tourists from all over the world, if the money we raise could help the children of our village build a better future — these are the dreams that carry me forward. Pre-registrations are now closed. Nearly thirty adventurers from all walks of life have been won over by our group holiday offer on the island of Java. People from the north, south, west and east, young and not so young, boys and girls, singles, couples and families, able-bodied and disabled. The diversity of our list is heartwarming and truly reflects my wish to make this project as open as possible. Now we just have to hope that the newcomers, like the earlier ones, will be available on different dates so that we can form several distinct and well-balanced groups. If everyone wants to travel in August, as is starting to look likely, we're going to have a problem.

The Couple from Marseille

At the start of the month, a member of a Marseille association that organizes sports and cultural activities adapted for visually impaired people in the region had replied to my promotional email. He said he was interested in my offer, promised to share it widely with his association's members, and to get back to me about his own plans. I hadn't heard from him, or from anyone else in the Bouches-du-Rhône, since then, and I thought he had changed his mind. I was wrong. He called me on Tuesday to tell me he was increasingly drawn to a trip to Southeast Asia next summer. He'd like to come with his partner, but she has a phobia of cats. I confirmed that felines are fairly common across the Indonesian archipelago, especially in the villages, but that we would do everything we can to keep them away from his beloved during our outings. He is originally from Algeria and has already traveled extensively across the Maghreb. He won't feel too out of place among the thousands of mosques on this island, where Islam holds great influence.

One Marseillais May Hide Another

A few days after that conversation, on Sunday lunchtime to be precise, a young woman with a slight southern accent brightened up my meal. She was calling because she had heard about Java Horizon through the association I mentioned in the previous section. She too is of Algerian origin and loves to travel. She has already been to Thailand as well as Japan, where she played a concert with her experimental music band. She would love to come with her husband, who is blind like her, and their thirteen-year-old daughter, who is passionate about Southeast Asia. When I mentioned that Bandung is the temple of street food, with food stalls on every street corner, she told me her globetrotting teenager would be over the moon. So am I, at the thought of welcoming this little family into my world on the other side of the planet.

The French-Speaking German

In February 2025, I interviewed a blind woman from Toulouse who is a keen Esperanto speaker for an episode of my podcast Les voyages à l'aveuglette. She told me all about her passion for the language and invited me to talk about Indonesia at a congress of blind Esperantists that was to be held in June, a few dozen kilometers from my home. A German man who speaks excellent French attended my talk and was very enthusiastic. More than a year later, just as I've officially launched the concept I presented to him that day, he got in touch and told me again that he wants to come with us. He has already roamed Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, among other places, and the 18-hour flight doesn't scare him. He's an expert at this kind of getaway, and I can already picture him right at home amid Jakarta's sprawling traffic jams.

Coming up this week

With the pre-registration list almost finalized, all that's left for us to do is polish the few presentation documents we plan to send to our future clients. We'll ask them to read them carefully so that everyone officially comes on board fully aware of all the details. We'll also send them the final dates so they can choose the slot that suits them best.