A Year of Living Dangerously

The plane ride home

2005-08-26T16:09:00.000-07:00

I’m on the plane on my way home. I figured that since I really started this blog on the plane ride to Indonesia, this would be an appropriate time to write this final entry. It also happens to be convenient – since I’m stuck in one place for 18 hours (that’s just the Hong Kong – Toronto flight, the longest leg).

I’m not really sure where to start. Would I do this again? Yes. Definitely. I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant and, if possible, I would extend the stay. I began to feel like I was really beginning to have an individual impact on things about halfway through the stay. It would be nice to have longer to make that impact more lasting.

How am I feeling?
I was nervous on my way over. I’m kind of torn on my way back. Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing family and very much looking forward to school (Sloan rocks). But there is so much here that I still want to do. And I really love working with Frans & Gina.

Also, for the record, at no point while I was gone did I feel like I was in any danger. I’m sure when I get home, I’m going to get a lot of “I’m glad you’re home safe.” But to be honest, Indonesia is a big country – one of over 200,000,000 people. There are a few dangerous parts – but what country doesn’t have that? In the US, I know there are parts I should avoid. The problem with Indonesia is only that we, being so far away, don’t know which those parts are. As long as a person uses their head, they should not let fear of the unknown stop them from doing things or going places. Anyway, I didn’t feel like I was in any real danger at any point.

Best parts/worst/hardest parts?
Best part was probably walking quietly and alone down the dirt road in the Monaco complex in Sirombu and watching the children play between the houses, seeing how happy the villagers were and knowing that Sirombu will be a real community again.

Worst was realizing how slow projects go and that it is not because of resource constraints or geographical barriers – it is entirely due to bureaucratic crap.

Hardest part having to realize my own limitations for help and to stop and think through gifts – not just jump into them. In other words, my immediate reaction is you need a teacher? I can do that! But in reality, with my education and skills, I can do more for people in administrative capacities.

What did I miss most from the US?
The food. It’s not that I didn’t like the Indonesian food – because I did. Rendang is a new favorite. And the sea food restaurants ruled! But the lack of bread and vegetables created a different diet base that I just wasn’t used to.

What will I miss most from Indonesia?
Besides Frans, Gina & Maggie? And besides the work and especially traveling to Nias? Uh, my maid! You know, I only ever met her once – the day after I arrived. Since then I have actually never seen her. But my clothes magically appear in my closet – clean and pressed.

Did I meet my goals and expectations?
My personal goals for this trip started with using my skills in ways that add the most value to the victims of the natural disasters. Early on, we received a request for volunteer teachers from a school in Aceh. Reading the report, I was hit extremely hard by some of the facts and my initial reaction was to volunteer myself to be the teacher. Thinking about it later that day, I realized that with my education and background – I could provide more value to more people by applying my business knowledge to projects than by going immediately to the front line as a teacher. My background in operations finance and my education from the MIT Sloan School of Management are unusual assets and I that I can do more good for more people by not jumping at the first opportunity. I hope that the path I choose going forward will be one that takes advantage of what I can offer.

Secondly, my background is in operations finance and my goal is to transfer into relief operations after completing my MBA. This summer is an opportunity for me to experience working in the non-profit/international relief world. Is this an industry I really do want to work in? Can I handle seeing and working on projects that are emotionally heart wrenching? Yes. And I love having work that has meaning.

Lastly, and this is the area that I believe I have learned the most, I wanted to learn how to work directly with people who have been affected by the natural disasters. It sounds a lot more simple than it is. These people have lost everything and you need their help in order to help them. If you give boats and they are a shape that don’t work with the currents of the local water, they won’t be used. Or if you build them a house and put a western style toilet in it (which they may not have ever seen before and is not their custom to use), they may believe you are trying to change their culture. Learning how to help people effectively (giving them what they need and will use) is important for understanding other people in general, as well as learning about international relief work.

What did I learn? Did it complement b-school studies?
I think I already covered what I learned. But did it complement b-school? Yes, very much so. B-school teaches a lot of how to run a business efficiently. It does not teach how to work with people – especially ones with different levels of education or political agendas. (Well, you can take 1 or 2 classes on this stuff, but it is not the primary focus of school). The project management side of work was not challenging for me this summer, nor the business proposal creation side. What I learned was how to socialize ideas, deal with bureaucratic obstacles, and how to translate for 2 parties speaking the same language but not understanding each other. This was an extremely practical addition.

What now?
Oh man. Well, besides the obvious of moving back to Boston and starting classes, I will be looking for a field administration/operations/project management position. Granted, these don’t recruit at business schools and I don’t have a ton of industry experience to offer, so this will be a challenge. I guess I’ll start by talking to anyone and everyone I meet, see what I can learn and where I can go.

Wolfgang has also asked me to help him. I am not exactly sure what he will need and how I can fit in, but I have volunteered to do what I can. I know he talks a lot to potential donors and it would probably be very helpful to have another person who has been on the ground for people to ask questions of. What else he’ll need help with, I’m not sure.

Anyway, I’m going to go take advantage of the movies. If anyone has any other questions they would like to see answers to here, please feel free to send along!

-N

2005-08-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

Waka Shorea at night, looking back from the pier

2005-08-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

The beach and pier at WS...

2005-08-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

my bungalow at Waka Shorea

PLEASE - No Massage!

2005-08-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

People often ask me why I’m alone, to which my response is that no one else wanted to come, but I still wanted to go – so there I am! This surprises a lot of people. They say I have a lot of courage. I don’t know if it is courage or just plain stubborn – I want to see something and dammit, I’ll do it all by myself if I have to! Well, this was exactly the situation with Bali – so there I was all alone for 7 days.

But, traveling alone is always a great adventure. If you keep an open mind, you often end up having great conversations with really unusual people. And people, in general, are incredibly open and friendly, as long as you smile and say hello.

This past trip to Bali was certainly no exception. I let a lot of nice people and ended up doing things and seeing things that wouldn’t have happened if I weren’t friendly and keeping an open mind.

Itinerary:
Leave Jkta Monday morning
Picked up at the airport, drive to Waka Shorea (4 hours)
3 nights at Waka Shorea
Thursday - transport to Ubud (4 – 5 hours)
3 nights Guci-Bali Homestay
Fly home Sunday night

The Waka Shorea resort (www.wakaexperience.com, www.wakadive.com) is a tiny, exotic place located in northwest Bali, in the middle of a national park. It is the only resort in the park and there is no road leading up to it. There is one small track that a motorcycle could use, but otherwise, everything needs to be brought to the resort by boat. There are a total of 14 bungalows (sleeps 2) and 2 villas (sleeps 4?). That’s it.

Because it is in the middle of the park, the resort developers were very restricted in what they were allowed to affect. There is no gardening – everything is left completely natural. Pathways to the restaurant, activities (dive) center, the spa, and to the bungalows have been cleared. Aside from that, everything is exactly as it was before the resort was constructed. (It must have been difficult to build without affecting things.) And let me tell you, the natural environment there is drop dead gorgeous.

The climate is very different from what I was expecting. It is not in a tropical rainforest. The northern side of Bali is actually dry half of the year. The southern side is less effected by seasonal weather changes – they enough rain year round to keep dense, thick foliage blooming. The northern side has monsoon season and dry season. This is the height of the dry season and it hadn’t rained there in the past 2 months.

Because of the climate, the ½ dry, ½ wet years, the foliage is really unique. The plants have to be able to deal with not getting any water for a year. Many of the trees loose a lot of their leaves and then come back to life when the rain hits. This and the breeze off the ocean means that there are very few mosquitoes. Very nice.

Since it is in the middle of a park – there is a lot of wildlife. The embroidered wall hanging in each bungalow politely clarifies the do’s and don’t’s of dealing with the animals. All over the resort, there are deer trails. But the dear are shy and will run at the site of you. If you do run into a wild pig though, just keep still and they will leave on their own. Tuck your mosquito net under your mattress – this will keep snakes and lizards out of your bed. And always close and lock the door to your bungalow – to keep the black monkeys from stealing any shiny objects.

The staff is small and extremely friendly. And they know your name before you even step off the boat onto the dock. “Hello, Miss Nathalie! Ibu Nunung called us and we spoke about your diving instruction in Jakarta and your open water experiences here. Would you like to plan your dive? How about tomorrow at 10?”

Most of the guests are European – mostly Swiss and French. This was fun because I was able to speak German with many of the Swiss. I was the only single person at the resort. There were a few families, but mostly the people were couples – many on their honeymoons. And, this would be a really beautiful place to spend a honeymoon.

Oh I found the resort just browsing on-line and was attracted by its isolation and proximity to really good diving. I then subsequently emailed and asked about rates and the owner (Andy) emailed me back and offered a really good deal. He also organized his own driver, Paul, to pick me up at the airport and transport me to the resort AND introduced me to Ibu Nunung in Jakarta, from whom I took my scuba lessons. Very nice.

The first day, I arrived. I learned that Andy, the owner, would be showing up that Thursday. So, upon arrival, I spoke with the manager and extended my stay at WS for one night so I could meet him. No problem. I’d be spending 4 nights at WS and 2 in Ubud.

I showered, changed, sat down by the pool, ate a club sandwich and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours. It was so pleasant.

Dinner was awesome and served down on a deck, among trees bordering the beach and 20 feet from the water. Despite the high prices charged for the hotel rooms, the menu was quite reasonable – and really good. I bought a bottle of decent white wine ($15 - made in Bali), which I had a couple glasses of that night, and finished the next.

I passed out by 9 PM and didn’t wake until 8 the next morning.

I woke up in the morning because I thought there was an animal in my bungalow. I slowly peaked out from behind my mosquito net and, nope, no animal in my bungalow. There was, however, a bunch of black monkeys playing on my roof and on the deck outside. Then I saw this shadow leap up and slap itself against the window three times, screaming, and then jump away. Yep, national park. Black monkeys are very shy though and not aggressive at all, where grey monkeys can be periodically. And they were just playing. I was not worried at all. I did get a good video of one of them though.

Breakfast, also served on the beach deck, was great. Fruit, juice and pastries come with the room, but eggs and such are á la carte. Of course, Indonesian prices - $2.50 for a mixed omelet with roasted potatoes, toast, a piece of bacon, a sausage, a roasted tomato, and a slice of ham. SO good.

Went to the dive center and met my dive instructor – July (a man, but pronounced like Julie). The dive center, by the way, has 2 baby turtles in buckets on their deck. They rescued the eggs and helped them hatch, but the turtles are still too small to be released into the ocean. Another month they said. The little guys were each about the size of a Big Mac.

July
Thirty years old, Indonesian, with shaggy, longish hair. Walks around all day barefoot, in board shorts and no shirt. Multiple tattoos. Permanently bloodshot eyes. Speaks good English. Big smile and loves to laugh and joke. Has been the head dive instructor at Waka Shorea for the past 5 years (since it opened). He is from a local village and lives there with his girlfriend – coming to the resort every day by boat. July is awesome.

Anyway, I stayed at Waka Shorea for 4 nights – 3 full days. Each of the full days, I had a great breakfast, went scuba diving at 10 AM (2 dives), back by 2 or 3, showered, cleaned up, relaxed and had dinner. It was really a great life.

Scuba diving rocks. It’s a totally different world. And this area literally rivaled Finding Nemo. There were so many fish, it was so cool. There were millions of fish all over, big, small, so many. Lobsters. Sea horses. Bright colored fish. Camouflaged fish. Corals of all different shapes, sizes and colors. Garden eels. Garden eels are really cool. The shrink into their holes as you approach and then come up again slowly after you pass. I’m going to look to see if I can find a picture of them on the internet.

Oh, and lots of my favorites – clown fish. I love watching them play in anemones, in and out, and so brightly colored. And some of them were friendly! I got close enough slowly to a few that they let me touch them and say hello. They swam up to my mask, almost as if they were saying hello. SO GREAT! Unfortunately, at one point while I was checking out a clown fish, my knee accidentally brushed some fire coral. I got a pretty severe burn that blistered over on my right knee. It was worth it though. I love clown fish.

I was only supposed to do 4 dives, but since I extended my stay a night, I got to do an extra 2 dives that 3rd day. So great. I have a new passion!

The third evening/late afternoon I was there, I went walking on the beach in the afternoon. I went down along the shore and sat under a tree. I sat there for at least an hour and a half, just pleasantly enjoying the fresh air and thinking. I was out of sight of all man-made objects and people. It was just me, the water, and the beach. It was very soothing.

Unfortunately, it started to rain. So I went back to the dock and sat on a chaise lounge under a bamboo awning, and continued to be idle. One of the activity center guys, Supar, came over to chat and I invited him to sit down.

Supar
Supar is really tall for an Indonesian – probably 5’ 11”. 26 years old. Decent looking. Totally single. He speaks about as much English as I speak Indonesian – which made conversation fun. We taught each other a lot of words. He has also been working at WS for 5 years – as a snorkeling and mountain biking guide.

We talked about his family and his work at WS. He invited me to go mountain biking. I told him I was planning on diving the next day, so it would have to be early in the morning. He said that was no problem, what time? I said, uh, 6:30 AM?

Well, 6:30 the next morning, I was on a mountain bike, off along a trail with Supar. The trail we took was flat with the exception of a few little dips – so it wasn’t a lot of work going up and down hill. But, it was really bumpy and rather slippery. There are a lot of land crabs that make baseball-sized holes all around – that resulted in the majority of the bumps. Then there was one short portion that had a lot of roots.

First we went down one really narrow path (I got scratched enough by the bushes to draw blood on my left arm and leg) and saw the sun rise on the beach. SO beautiful.

We saw monkeys and deer and then, 2 iguanas! So cool. Supar said that was very unusual. It was probably because it was very early morning. One of them was really big.

Then we went all the way down to the closest village and through farm land – banana trees, coconut trees, chili bushes, and a bunch of other crops I didn’t recognize. Past some cows. On to the main road and we stopped at a temple.

Then, much to my surprise, Supar introduced me to his father. His father tends the temple. It’s their family’s temple. His father has a really really great face with lots of character. I wish I could have taken a picture. It was so naturally friendly and wise. And then his mother came around the corner and said hello as well. She then cooked us breakfast of fried rice (most Indonesians eat fried rice for breakfast), served with Sprite. So thoughtful. Not part of the standard mountain biking tour I’m sure.

Did I mention I haven’t ridden a bike since high school, at least? I really don’t remember the last time I rode a bike. Getting started, my right foot slipped and I now have 2 big bruises on my right leg (in addition to the coral burn). Well, I was totally fine all the way out, and all the way back – well, at least until we got back to the resort. As soon as we got back, I promptly took a header. Handle bar in my chest. Also jammed my shoulder and that was stiff and sore for the next few days.

After mountain biking, took a quick shower and then went scuba diving for the final time. I was totally beat that afternoon.

That last night, I went down to dinner and met up with Andy, Ari (Andy’s cousin), Maurice (general manager of all the Waka resorts), and Rafeal (visiting from Spain, a friend of Maurice’s). I was not expecting such a large group.

Andy
Andy is Indonesian – a mix of Indonesian and Chinese blood though. About 5’ 9” and 37-years old. Another friendly smile. Went to boarding school in the states, followed by both undergrad and MBA from George Washington University. Quite the entrepreneur and comes from one of those Indonesian families that have all sorts of businesses. His family has an elevator business, a couple of steel mills, a resort, and a few other things. He and his brother run the business. What’s nice is all of the people who work at the resort really liked Andy and kept talking about how much integrity he had – a demanding boss, but rewarding as well. That was very cool. He loves outdoors sports, partying and meeting new people. Always buying drinks for people sitting near or around him or just filling up their glass with the bottle of wine on the table.

We enjoyed the great barbecue served down by the beach and then took a couple bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne out on the dock. We sat on pillows, drank wine and talked. Much of the conversation was about business and ideas about the resort, but it was all interesting and fun. It was a really great evening and I finally retired a little after 1 AM.

Andy had been insisting that we all get up at 7 the next morning for breakfast and then snorkeling (at his favorite snorkeling spot) before I took off to Ubud. I got up at 6 so I could pack and prepare. Of course, everyone was hung over and moving slow (me included) the next day. We didn’t make it to snorkeling before I left – but the (the 4 men) saw me off and went afterwards.

The road to Ubud was very windy. Being hung over with 5 hours of a really twisty road sucks. Andy’s driver, Paul, also took me to Ubud. He’s another cool person – friendly, honest and efficient.

By the time I got to the Guci-Bali homestay, it was about 4 PM. From the street, I was a little concerned that I had made a mistake. There is a tiny cement path pointing the way down a walk and there was a huge tree in the path. The whole thing looked sketchy. But I decided to at least have a look before bailing. The place is totally cool! Gorgeous on the inside. Beautiful gardens.

I met Yuaman, the artist/owner guy (he walks around in a sarong around his waist, no shoes, no shirt). He was watering the garden when I came and promptly showed me to my room. I was supposed to have a bungalow, but they were all full – so I was to stay in a house (normally 40€ per night where the bungalows are 12€). I took the upstairs room in the house – fully open air. Table, chairs. Queen sized bed on one side with mosquito net around it. View of the gardens to one side and un-tamed jungle-y land to the other. It was gorgeous. And the 12 € includes breakfast. Wow. www.guci-bali.com (found through Lonely Planet)

I promptly took a nap on the couch. I really wasn’t feeling very well and think I even had a low fever that afternoon, followed by stuffed-up, coughing and sneezing that night. I think it was just too much sports (diving & biking) the day before followed by a long night and an early morning. I went out that evening just for dinner and then came back and went to bed early.

Ubud is an artists colony in the higher, mountainous area of Bali. It is known for not being touristy, but for being more quaint and for having great shopping. I had no particular goals for visiting Ubud except to enjoy the atmosphere. Well, that and shop of course!

The one thing I did want to see though was the Monkey Forest – a park in the center of Ubud, which is a sanctuary for grey monkeys. Tourists (and there are a lot of them) are warned not wear any jewelry, not to tease or provoke the monkeys and not to hide any food from them (they will find it).

I didn’t wear any jewelry the next morning when I set out from the homestay. And I didn’t buy any food. It was just me with a small purse and bottle of water. I bought a ticket and quietly walked into the forest. Nothing was in view as I came in, but then I turned a corner and saw tourists gathered around an area and monkeys just all around them. Like a hundred of them. Old ones. Young ones. Mothers with babies. They hung out and scampered around, fighting for bits of food brought by other tourists.

I went to a benched area, sat down and just watched. I set my water bottle and papers down next to me on my right side. I hadn’t been there 2 minutes, when one of the older monkeys came up and took the water bottle. He clearly knew to take the plastic top off to get at the water. I just sat and watched. Stunned. I didn’t realize that the monkey would be interested in my water bottle. I thought about helping the monkey open it, but decided against that – it was a wild animal and there was no way to know how it would react.

Well, since I didn’t move or back off, I think the monkey was concerned I might try to take the water bottle back. The next thing I knew, it attacked me! It grabbed my right arm, bit it, and scratched my face. I, of course, shouted “Hey!” and the monkey took off with the water bottle.

One of the local men (a sort of Monkey Forest park ranger – dressed in a sarong and an embroidered polo shirt) came around and surveyed the situation. Looked at me, decided I would be just fine and kind of chatted with me for a bit.

The bite on my arm didn’t break the skin at all. My face kind of stung a little though. A few minutes later, I put my finger up there and felt it – it was bleeding very lightly. I would go seek out some attention after the park. I did sit there and watch the monkeys for a little while longer – all the while being very careful not to all one to come within 6 feet of me. Some of them were really cute though – especially the babies. But not the older, mean ones. Grrrr. Damn monkey.

I stayed maybe another 20 minutes and then walked to the nearest pharmacy. The pharmacist lent me some rubbing alcohol and a mirror and then sold me some iodine. I also just happened to have some antibiotic ointment in my purse (left over from Nias – Wolfgang gave it to me then for my leg). Alcohol, iodine and ointment later, I was all cleaned up. Since it was just a scratch from the monkey’s paw, he said I had nothing to worry about. If it were from a bite, I would need to get a rabies shot and be highly concerned about infections. The scratch would be just fine.

Side note: It is now 5 days later and the scratch is healing just fine. It won’t leave a mark at all.

I spent the rest of the day poking in and out of shops and bargaining at the market place. I did stop and have a really nice lunch including a seared sea scallop asparagus salad, a tempura noodle dish, dessert and a mai tai ($25 total). It was lovely.

Tracy – I ordered the mai tai only because I was thinking about the lunch we had on the north shore of Kauai.

Andy called around 4 and asked me if I would join him for dinner. He would come pick me up in Ubud. I said sure! We were supposed to meet some of his friends, but they ended up being busy. We went to a hole-in-the-wall rib shack just north of Ubud. He said he hadn’t been there for 2 years, but remembered loving the place. It was really good.

We enjoyed beers and ribs and before we knew it, we were hanging out with people from all the tables all around. We had Australians, Brits, Austrians, Indonesians, locals, expats, just a whole big group. We ended up talking and having a wonderful time until 1 AM again. Then Andy (with Paul driving) gave me a lift back to Guci Bali.

Next day, I squeezed more shopping in before hopping a shuttle back to the airport. I loved popping in and out of all of the stores there. Really great boutiques. And I think I pretty much finished x-mas shopping for the year! I know it’s early – but very good prices + cool items = great presents. Plus I won’t have to worry about it in the fall.

Side note: I was chatting with Nenns on IM when I got back and talking about the cool things I picked up for people. She was concerned that I was thinking too much about other people and not getting anything fun for myself. I said, “oh no, don’t worry. One for me, one for the fam, one for me, another for me, one for the fam, another for me!” Just kidding. I did get myself a couple of cool items though.

So, let’s re-cap. On a vacation I planned for relaxation, I have:
- sunburns (really not surprising despite the waterproof 30 SPF coppertone) (also, the sunburns are healing now, so I itch all over)
- 5 open blisters on my feet (the one on my left 3rd toe is infected and orange from all of the iodine I keep putting on it)
- cuts on my left arm (biking)
- a BIG black bruise on the inside of my right thigh (this one looks the worst, but really doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as many of the others) (biking)
- a cut and large bruise on the outside of my right knee (biking)
- a severe coral burn (gotten from a poisonous coral when I was distracted by clown fish) just above my right knee (size of a grapefruit) blistered & swollen
- cuts along my left shin
- cuts on my left arm (bushes while biking)
- tender spots on my left hand where I had to dig 5 small splinters out from under the skin (the dock and the ribs shack)
- my butt (among other things) is really sore from the bicycle seat
- an abrasion and baseball sized bruise just below my right collar bone (biking)
- a very stiff and sore left shoulder (biking)
- AND scratches above my right eye from the monkey

Andy offered me a free massage at the end of my time at Waka Shorea – and I turned it down. It was very thoughtful, but with all of the bruises, cuts, blisters, swollen, and tender spots – I’m not sure what the masseuse would do for an hour. Oh, well – the outside of my right thigh seems to be fine. Maybe they could just work on that for an hour.

Bali was a lot of fun. And I’m proud of my war wounds.

An exhausted, happy Nathalie finished up her vaca in Bali and headed back to Jakarta. Only 1½ weeks left. Pretty crazy. I can’t believe how quickly it has gone and I’m a little nervous about the crazy amount of work I have to finish up. I don’t know really how I’ll accomplish it all.

Bali was an absolutely beautiful place. And if I ever get married – I could see myself renting out all of Waka Shorea and having a very private, small ceremony there, on the beach. That would mean that I have to meet someone I want to marry, but that is just a small detail. The resort is really extraordinary. And Ubud is beautiful and fun as well. I highly recommend both places to people who want a great vacation.

But, what is interesting, is that despite how beautiful it was and how relaxing (and I was catered on hand and foot), it was anti-climatic and almost a bit disappointing after the trip to Nias the week before. The vacation in Bali was beautiful. Nias was really magical. And Nias had so much meaning. While I walked around Bali, I mostly found my thoughts back in Sirombu, re-living moving the families in and seeing the Hinako islands.

Well, I have another week and a half to see what else I can do to help. Indonesia is not over yet! Speaking of which, what am I doing dallying around here? I need to get back to work!

2005-08-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is your key. Don't lose that!

2005-08-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Gina & I help a lady unlock the door to her new home...

2005-08-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome home!

2005-08-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

a wet but happy Nathalie!

2005-08-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

View from Hinako

2005-08-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang

2005-08-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Erwin

2005-08-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

A Million Star Hotel

2005-08-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I’ve been avoiding writing this post. This post is about my final trip to Nias – which ended over a week ago already. Granted I’ve spent the last week lounging in Bali, but I’ve sat down to write this a few times and haven’t gotten very far. I’m not struggling because the trip was bad in anyway. Quite the opposite – it was truly extraordinary. And maybe because it was so unbelievable, I’m not sure how to vocalize it. Maybe it’s because I’m worried that actually trying to explain my feelings, they words will not do them justice – perhaps even make the events seem trivial. I’m not really sure, but I have been avoiding writing this.

I know I posted the itinerary just before we left. If you look at that – you can see we had our work cut out for us. It was a very large group going:

Gina, Frans & I
Fiona (UBS – United Bank of Switzerland)
Fiona’s bodyguard
Ibu K (I never got her name right – from Singapore)
Phillip Johnson
Erwin (from Conservation International)

And we would be meeting Wolfgang and Kris in Sirombu.

Tuesday – travel to Medan
Frans left early in the morning and spent the day in Aceh. He met us in Medan that night. He needed to go to Aceh to check out potential manufacturing sites/workshop locations for the project with Warwick Purser – handicraft production.

PJ arrived in our offices around noon. We hooked him up with internet while Gina and I finished the few last minute things we needed to do before we could leave.

PJ very clearly has been burned by big corporations using his knowledge and throwing him away in the past. He is therefore very skittish and worried about loosing knowledge when he doesn’t really know a person. F, G & I have managed to gain his trust. It took a while, but he completely understands now that the only interest we have in VCO is if it can help the Sirombu community. Anyway, the point is, now that he trusts us and we’re taking him to Sirombu – he was like a little kid. So happy and excited for adventure. It was really fun hanging out with him.

It was also obvious that he really has been broke and hasn’t had many luxuries in his life. Gina went with him to his hotel room to make sure he understood everything. The novel concept of using the plastic card to open the door and turn on the lights, etc.

Anyway, on the plane to Medan, PJ & I got right to work. He told me all about his successful tests using a cold process for VCO extraction – in other words not drying the coconut meat before expelling it, but instead expelling it and then spinning the oil out of the milk using a centrifuge. This is awesome because the driers were the bottleneck in the last process and that could be eliminated. Also, ¼ the electricity is needed for the new process. This is all good news.

Met up with Frans in Medan and we all went to KFC for dinner. We then went to Fiona’s hotel to meet her, but she arrived really late. By the time she got in at 11PM, we had time for introductions and then went back to our hotel room and went to sleep.

Fiona
Fiona (27) is British, about 5’ 10”, with curly short blond hair and green eyes. She went to university in Dunkirk, where she studied French, Spanish and Linguistics. She said she was very anti-big corporation when she was in college and never expected to end up working at a place like UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) in Corporate Social Responsibility. She now has a 6-month contract in Hong Kong coordinating the bank’s donations to tsunami-recovery projects. She is interesting, nice, and young – we spoke the same language.

Wednesday – UBS and PJ meet Sirombu
Oof, early day. Flight is at 7AM, so we met at the airport at 6AM. This is also where we met Erwin for the first time. He showed up with a small backpack and a CI vest and hat.

Erwin
Erwin is Indonesian, thin, about 5’ 8”. Big wide smile. Smokes. Very quiet. He works for Conservation International as a “policy maker.” That’s what he said. I’m not entirely sure what that means though. He’s been with CI for 5 years now and says he really likes his job. Erwin is a funny guy, because one minute he’s right behind you and the next he’s completely disappeared. Throughout the trip, I really had to keep my eyes on him because we periodically lost him. At one point we even had to send a task force member to search an area for him. But, very concerned with his job and the environment – very serious about inspecting the coral and the trees. Oh, and he could sleep anywhere.

On the flight to Nias, I ended up sitting next to Fiona. It was nice because it gave us a chance to chat, where we really wouldn’t be spending much time together for the rest of the trip. We had different objectives and she would be working more with F&G, while I focused on VCO with PJ & Erwin.

We talked about our respective pasts and I told her a lot about UID and some of our other projects and what the organization is doing from a broader perspective. I showed her the VCO proposal and then also showed her the videos that Frans & I had put together.

We had quite the caravan going to Sirombu from Gunung Sitoli – 3 vehicles. PJ, Erwin & I in one, F, G & Yedi in another, and Fiona, bodyguard, Ibu K in the third. We could have gotten by with only two vehicles with the number of people, but we needed more because of the various departure times. PJ & I talked coconut the way there as well as a lot of other things.
So great to drive into Sirombu and see all the roofs of the houses. The houses looked really good – all with doors, all painted, electricity, etc. The flooring and the furniture still hadn’t arrived and the water wasn’t hooked up yet, but aside from that, the houses looked really good.

It’s funny, when Fiona was first planning her trip to Sirombu, her secretary emailed Gina and asked if there was a resort or hotel in the town that could be reserved. Gina told us all about this – so funny. Gina of course replied politely that she would arrange accommodation for Fiona.

This story about the resort had been shared around and I don’t know who was the person that said it – but someone commented that “Fiona asked for a 5-star hotel, but instead she got a million-star hotel.”

I think that is the nicest way of saying that you are so far out in the boondox that you have no choice to sleep under the night sky – one that beautifully shows millions of stars and no pollution.

I like million star hotels. Sirombu certainly has a beautifully clear bright sky at night.

Oh, the houses were also where the whole group would be staying for the few nights that we were there. We could sleep there until the move in day, no problem. To many of us to stay at Fona’s Aunt’s house. They (ZTO) even had AC hooked up in the few bedrooms we would be sleeping in. J

Wolfgang and Kris were snoozing in one of the houses when we pulled up. They seemed to have learned a lot and enjoyed the past 4 – 5 days learning about potential economic recovery work in Sirombu.

We had lunch upon arrival with the principles of the schools. PJ and Erwin explored around the houses and talked to the task force members while the meeting was going on. I was called upon to video tape.

The scholarship program that we UBS is sponsoring through us actually only covers 10% of the students – just the students who were affected (lost their house/family) from the tsunami. The other 90% of the students live inland enough that they were not affected.

One of the questions that the principles asked Fiona, of course, was if she could help the rest of the students. The unfortunate response was that the money she had to give had been donated by UBS employees to help the victims of the tsunami. Therefore, it unfortunately is out of her control, but it cannot go to the other students, because they weren’t affected.

It was difficult for me to hear this answer, as I’m sure it was for the principles. I understand it of course, but is just a side of humanitarian work that I hadn’t experienced yet. I’m sure I will see a lot more of this – money being left in trust for specific uses – as I continue work in NGOs.

After lunch, we headed down to the pier to start a tour of Sirombu. “We” included Fiona, bodyguard, Ibu K, PJ, Erwin, Wolfgang, Kris, various task force members, Yedi, the drivers for all of our cars, F, G, & I. Quite the group.

It was perfect timing for PJ & I, because a shipment of copra was just coming in from the Hinako Islands.

Kopra
Kopra (a.k.a. copra) is smoked, thick coconut meat. It is de-husked, de-shelled, smoked and then bagged in the islands. It is then shipped in bulk format to some central industrial hub, where it is then processed into coconut oil. It is different from VCO though – in that it is highly processed and bleached and all-sorts of things are done to it. Through the process, it looses its aromatic quality as well as the majority of its nutrients. It smells.

I’m really glad that we got there at that particular time, because I was really able to see what kopra is. Up to this point, I was rather confused about what kopra really is and how it is processed. We also got a view of how the bags were brought up to the pier. It took 2 men with a weird rope pulling system to pull a bag up from the small ferry-boat that brought the bags to the pier from the larger boat.

F&G spent time showing Fiona et al the pier and explaining its uselessness. I had a few minutes to catch up with Wolfgang. When Wolfgang had come to our offices, we had shown him the videos we had made of the Sirombu schools. I remember watching his face and the shock/disgust at the school conditions was very apparent. So, I was curious how he was handling the last few days in Sirombu – how he was dealing with seeing the living conditions first hand.

Wolfgang, who had been all smiles and friendly up to that point, turned with a very solemn expression and said, “I watched a boy die yesterday.” Wolf had been doing research, and in the process, passed close to the nearest clinic. He decided to stop and check it out. In the clinic, there was a man with a rather blank expression, who had brought his son in for treatment. Unfortunately, there were no doctors or nurses on location that day. The next nurse would be stopping in that evening.

The man had brought his son in and the boy had malaria. He was clearly very close to death. Wolf said the boys eyes were rolling back into his head and then would come back and then would roll again. The only thing that the attendants at the clinic could do was give him an IV with fluids. They had nothing else they could do.

Wolfgang & Kris asked the father if they could take the boy to the hospital in Gunung Sitoli. They though this might be the only chance for him, but it would be hard long ride. The man was willing to sign a release giving Wolfgang all necessary authority and no liability, but the man wouldn’t come. Apparently, the man had 6 other children at home and all of the other children and his wife all had malaria. His entire family was dying around him and there was nothing he could do. And the mosquito didn’t even have the grace to bite the man too and put him out of his misery.

The child died within 10 minutes of Wolfgang’s and Kris’ arrival at the clinic. They didn’t even have time to get the boy into the car.

By this point, talking to Wolfgang, I was in a state of half shock, half bawling. The poor boy. The poor man!

Wolfgang said he hadn’t shared this with anyone else yet. I was the first. It’s not the kind of story that when people meet up and say “hey! How are ya?!” you can just lay on them. He told me because I had expressed a real interest in how the past few days had been and what he had experienced.

I think Wolfgang’s experience at the clinic was similar to my reaction to the little albino boy last visit – one that just totally rips your heart open and changes your perspective for the rest of your life. I think of the little albino boy every day and hope we can find some way to help him.

We both managed to regain our composure after about 15 minutes – at least well enough to focus on the work we had to do right then. I think my spirit was kind of shot for the rest of the day though.

We, then entire group of 15 of us, then walked further up the point towards a group of villagers processing kopra. We got a good first-hand view of them de-husking, de-shelling and then tossing the meat over their shoulders into an elevated shelf where it was smoked. They burned the husks underneath to create the smoke. They were really efficient at extracting the coconut meat.

One of the task force members, Peni, spoke to one of them and then next thing we knew, he was 40 feet in the air – up a tree getting coconuts for us to drink the water of. So cool. He just flew right up the tree. Peni (who I had met on my first visit to Sirombu and we had already become friends) turned to me and said that the man, the one in the tree, is both deaf and dumb. What a day of reality checks.

PJ oohed and aahed over the fragrance from the coconuts. Good quality coconuts. Will make good VCO. He then commented that the empty government building at the end of the pier would make a good factory.

We (the whole big group of 20 or so) then walked through the ruins of Sirombu Village – where the tsunami destroyed everything. After that, we headed to the tent village, where Fiona spoke with a few children. And after that, we all went back to the houses to relax a bit after a long day, mandi if desired, or whatever before dinner.

After dinner – Fiona, F, G, Wolf, and Ibu K had a meeting about the scholarship program and the economic recovery proposal. PJ and I sat on the porch and discussed VCO.

Top things we needed to focus on the next day:
1. health of trees
2. coconut acquisition – process and price
3. logistics of delivery of coconuts
4. logistics of transporting finished VCO
5. manufacturing site

Another big concern is on-going management of the facility and on-going ownership. Obviously, the donors will want the facility to be owned by village, but it needs to be under the control of someone with management experience and interest in seeing it be profitable. This is a going to be a mind-bender for me. Certainly not something we could solve that day.

Thursday – Hinako Boat Trip
Thursday the crazy entourage of the day before split into 2.

Team 1:
Led by F & G, the team included Fiona, bodyguard, Ibu K, and Yedi. They took Fiona to the schools to see them in session. After that, they returned to Gunung Sitoli for a meeting with local government officials there. Fiona then flew back to Medan that afternoon. F & G then met with Ama Herti in Gunung Sitoli.

Ama Herti
Ama Herti is a member of the task force and about 50 years old. He is also a local government official in Gunung Sitoli and has played a very important role helping UID work with the government and also socialize the projects with the villagers.

After meeting with Ama Herti, they (F, G, Yedi and Ama Herti) came back to Sirombu and met with all of the task force members and Peter and some other ZTO workers. They planned the activities for Friday’s moving in ceremony.

Team 2:
Led by moi, included PJ, Erwin, Wolfgang, Kris, Peni, and Ama Vike. We hopped a charter boat out to the Hinako Islands to inspect the coconut trees on the islands.

Man was it a gorgeous day. Sitting on the roof of a boat, cruising out over the ocean, it was just stunning. The boat can hold 25+ people. It was a substantial boat that we chartered. $60 for the day.

PJ forgot his flip flops on the mainland. We get off the boat, “where are your shoes?” He had taken them off while waiting on the beach, and forgotten to take them with him while he boarded the big boat.

Ama Vike tried on my sunglasses while we were on the boat. He really liked them. I said he could keep them. He was really touched.

Like the west side of Nias, the Hinako Islands were also raised about 2 or so meters out of the sea during the earthquake of March 28th. As a result, all of the islands now have a new beach of coral rocks around them. Makes a rather unusual landscape.

The Hinako Islands are also famous (besides for their coconuts) for being fantastic surfing, in fact some of the best surfing in all of Indonesia. The smallest wave is 5 meters apparently. Surfers come from all around to go here and they love it especially because it is so remote and unpopulated – no competition for waves.

Interestingly, the rise of the islands has changed the locations of the best waves because the face of the ocean floor is now different – so the water reacts differently and breaks in different places.

The islands are cool and breezy. They are on the Indian Ocean side of Nias.

The tsunami didn’t affect the islands very much. The water just passed right over the islands in the form of a big swell. The villagers told us it came up to their waist. They were all able to get to high ground before the water came. They were lucky.

We landed on the island and had to walk a kilometer to the village. Along the way, we passed the remains of a cooking oil facility. The facility had stopped production before the tsunami hit, for unrelated (and also unknown) reasons. The facility had it’s own pier. It had been in production for many years, so we know that the village could support a facility.

What surprised me as we walked along was that the houses looked really nice. Many of them were trimmed with carved wood and clearly buildings that people had loved and cared for. Additionally, many of the women we met were wearing gold jewelry – and no small pieces.

We reached Ama Vike’s house in the center of Hinako Village and sat down on the porch. Slowly, men from the village gathered, including the village head. PJ led the discussion, mostly in bahasa, asking all sorts of questions and extracting the information he needed from the men.

PJ really is an impressive guy. He had all of the men captivated and involved in the conversation. He was so friendly and honest and also effective. Good at working with people. He really impressed me.

We learned that the people of the Hinako Islands are relatively wealthy when compared to most of Nias and they are the wealthiest of everyone in Sirombu District. They are land owners – and it is very profitable land with lots of good quality coconut trees.

In fact, the people of Hinako do not know how to climb coconut trees. They consider themselves above that. They hire tree climbers from another village to climb for them. The tree climbers are the sort of migrant workers of Nias – they work in the rubber factories when needed, climb trees when the time is right, etc. The tree climbers either get 2,000 rupiah for climbing the tree and cutting down all of the coconuts OR they get 1/3 of the profits from kopra sales (but that means they have to do all of the husking, de-shelling, smoking, bagging, and transporting themselves). The land owners get the other 2/3.

Interestingly, production of copra from Hinako was estimated at 150k kilos of copra per month pre-earthquake. If you estimate 4 coconuts per kilo of kopra – that equals 600,000 nuts harvested each month. That’s a lot of coconuts. The volume we are talking about for the VCO is 3,000 nuts per day – or ~60,000 nuts per month. Learning about the capacity for kopra production at least eased us of any concerns about being able to support our coconut requirements.

However, kopra production has dropped to approximately 80k kilos per month (320,000 coconuts) after the earthquake. Apparently, the tree climbers are suffering from trauma, or in other words, they are scared of something further happening and are therefore avoiding the island. Ama Vika assured me that if we offer a good price for the coconuts, that enough climbers would come to support our needs.

A few minutes later, out came a glass with a slightly yellow-ish liquid in it. The villagers press their own coconut oil – for cooking and consumption at home. They do not market it. PJ got ahold of it and immediately started swooning over the aroma. Ina Vika (Ama Vike’s wife) had pressed it. She immediately started prepping water bottles of the stuff for us to take back with us.

While we were talking, Wolfgang and Kris left and went and examined the town and the school. They took my camera with them and got a good look at the post-earthquake conditions of all of the buildings.

Wolf and Kris told me later that they spoke with a teacher at the elementary school and the teacher said that they didn’t need any help. Wolfgang took a look around the school and saw broken ceilings, floors and desks. The conditions were much better than those in Sirombu, but none-the-less not good.

I didn’t get to see the school (only the pictures), but 2 things frustrated me about this. First, that the teacher wasn’t more concerned about the conditions. Secondly, with all the gold jewelry and money in the community – why do the villagers let their children go to school some place like that. Gina explained to me later that the villagers feel the school’s condition is the government’s responsibility.

After a while, I thought about this second point more and realized how hypocritical I was being. How many well off families let their children go to a school that is hurting for money and don’t help? Granted I’m not a parent yet, so the scenario is not directly applicable. But it just hit home that it is not really a problem in Indonesia, but really a problem world-wide.

Also while PJ & I were talking to the men of the village, Erwin was off somewhere. Who knows where. But he did show back up with some palm leaves. He must have found someone to show him where the bugs were getting at the coconut trees. He said that it looked to him like some sort of worm was eating the tree and that he would take the leaves back to Medan for analysis.

Finally, also while we were talking, one of the task force members was standing not 10 feet away poking at a tree. The next thing I knew, he handed me a fresh star fruit – right off the tree. Very cool. Tasted great!

Ina Vike made us lunch – rice and fried chicken. Funny thing, Wolfgang and I were both disappointed that we were served chicken and not fish. Good fish is not common in the city, so we get excited for it. However, for the villagers, it is every day food. To honor guests, they serve chicken. By giving up a chicken, they are also forfeiting all of the eggs that would be produced by the chicken. It’s a big honor. Different perspectives.

After lunch, Ina Vike presented me with a straw bag – purple and yellow colored with red corners. The weaving of straw bags like this one is a traditional handicraft of Sirombu and the Hinako Islands. She had made this bag herself. I was totally touched. I think it may be the nicest present I’ve gotten in a long time!

We made our way back through the Hinako Village after lunch, towards the boat. We stopped to examine a well – now dry. Because the island is lifted, where there used to be water, there now is none. They are working on relocating water sources and had found a good spring out on the coral beach. An open air mandi was constructed down there around it. It was more open than anything else.

It was such a beautiful day and the water was such a gorgeous, crystal clear blue, all of us non-native-Nias people swam out to the boat. The task force members and locals watched in amusement. It was glorious. Once we got to the boat, we proceeded to climb on board and then dive off the roof. So much fun. I, of course, cut my leg on part of the boat and ended up with all sorts of bruises from this. Completely worth it.

We didn’t get back to Sirombu until rather late. We made a couple of stops along the way and at one point lost Erwin. We had to send someone with a motorcycle to find him.

The group that went to the islands had really good spirit. It felt like a team and like a coherent expedition. We had learned a lot and had a really great time in the process.

The day was also special for me because it was the first time I was out and about in Nias with out Frans and Gina. In a way, I almost felt like a teenager allowed out of the house by herself for the first time. And it was because of me that PJ and Erwin were visiting the islands – because of a project that I had done all the research for, the writing, everything. This was my trip. And it felt really good! Not to mention the fact that it was outdoors in a stunning place on a gorgeous day – the types of days I dream of.

We had fish for dinner that night. J And PJ and I sat up late talking about the proposal and what else needed to be done for it to be completed. F & G got back really late from Gunung Sitoli and then proceeded to hold a meeting. They didn’t finish their preparations for Friday until the wee hours of the morning.

Friday – Moving Day
Goodness, I’m sitting here thinking about how great this day was and I’m already getting choked up. Okay. Here goes.

I actually got to sleep in a little – this was a nice break for me.

I woke to find Gina performing traditional medicine in our bedroom. Her neck, she said, was really tight and she couldn’t turn her head to one side. She said it was really painful. So, she was using a peppermint balm, putting it on her skin and then rubbing it with the edge of a coin. This resulted in big red lines. I don’t have any clue what it is for or how it works, but I hope she feels better.

I spent the morning downloading and editing photos from the 2 days before. This way my memory space would be completely clear for that afternoon.

Frans went with Ama Herti and talked to the local government. With the help of the local government, they chose 14 families to move into the new houses that day. The families were chosen based on need – starting with widows with children, then elderly and then families with really young children.

Each of the families then had to be visited individually and told the news. Frans said that he cried at each house – just so happy to tell them and they were so happy to hear. They were requested to be at the houses at 4 PM, when a signing ceremony would take place. After the ceremony, they could move in when ever and at whatever pace they would like.

A couple of the families were also asked to be packed and ready. We wanted to capture some video of families moving out of their tents and taking the tents down and moving all of their belongings. People were more than happy to help with that. After lunch, I helped prep the ceremony site – putting out the chairs and picking up the garbage from around the buildings.

Side note: I did the garbage collection naturally because it needed to be done. But I think it made a big impact with the task force members and the people I work with there. I think they were all surprised that I (a westerner and a woman) was willing to stoop to that – simply because it needed to be done and the site would look better with it complete. It’s a small thing for us, but several remarked afterwards.

I also noticed that this trip, all of the locals had been treating me as one of their own – no longer a stranger in a strange land. It was a really great feeling. I was included and people were happy to see me. Even one of our drivers immediately asked if I had come when F & G got off the plane. It was nice to feel so accepted.

Around 3 PM, Gina & I piled into one of the cars and drove to one of the family’s tents. They were packed – they had less belongings as a family than I took to Indonesia for the summer – and ready to go. 3 children, a husband and wife. Their tent was a gigantic blue tarp held up by bamboo poles. The local children enjoyed helping to rip that thing down.

We went to a second family and picked them up as well. They didn’t want their tent to be touched – they decided they didn’t want to touch it, not even look at it. And they had a relatively nice tent. There was a husband, his wife, her sister, and 3 children again in this family. So nice.

That second family also happened to be tented right next to the oldest lady we were moving. She was to get a home too. She was partially lame and taken care of by her only son. He was deaf and mute. After the ceremony, Gina and I helped this lady walk and find her new house. We got to help her turn the key to her new home. It was really really great.

Okay, I’m tearing up again. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The “ceremony” wasn’t extravagant. A few local officials made speeches. Frans spoke. Forms were signed and keys were passed. Finally, a blessing was said both in English and in bahasa, blessing the new houses and the tenants.

Afterwards, the families were allowed to walk and find their new homes. They could move in whenever they wanted.

After helping the elderly lady to her home, I kind of walked quietly up the road between the houses and just watched everyone. I saw kids playing between the houses. One was running around, holding the keys in his hand, waving them in the air.

It’s a real community. It’s not just for walls and a roof. These are nice houses and the people like them. They looked happy.

I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of really expressing the magic of seeing people – people who had lived in a tent for more than 7 months – entering their new homes for the first time.

That night, as F, G, the task force, and I all feasted on 2 gigantic fish (roasted over an open fire), we could see lights on and people going to sleep in the houses. They had already moved in. This was now their home.

The housing project – 240 homes + a clinic + a school + new piers – is a BIG project. Frans is managing the entire process, with Gina by his side all the way. I had the opportunity to help with it this summer by writing many of the updates and participating in the planning meetings, etc. But, I just helped. This day meant a lot for me. I can only imagine how much more magnified it was for Frans & Gina. They have worked so hard to make this happen. Seeing people move in was amazing, knowing it’s because of F & G (and a little me) made it magical. It was magical.

This was now definitely my last trip to Sirombu this summer. (Notice I did not say ever!). I really can’t imagine a better way to close it.

On the road again...

2005-08-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we got some great news. Phase I of the virgin coconut oil production proposal was approved. Phase I entails full, in-depth research about the site, logistics to and from, financials, etc.

Because it was approved, we are able to bring Phillip Johnson (PJ) with us to Sirombu today, as well as an environmental expert from Conservation International. We will take a good look at the environment and the health of the coconut trees – make sure they can sustain long-term health through harvesting.

This was particularly exciting for me because it has been a project I’ve been spear-heading since I arrived in Jakarta and it will also mean that I can complete the Phase II proposal before leaving Indonesia.

Excerpt from Phase I proposal:
Virgin coconut oil (VCO) production is a simple process that is only possible where there are abundant natural resources of coconut trees, which Sirombu and the outlying Hinako Islands have. The process requires relatively minimal capital investment and it creates a healthy product with reasonable profit margins. The process will also provide employment and training for the necessary skills is minimal.

With the profits from production, UID is considering establishing a micro-financing program in Sirombu. This would allow villagers to take out small loans for things like a sewing machine or fishing equipment.

The Phase II proposal, which will take the production facility through start-up, is going to require a lot of work.

SO, we’re leaving today for another (and most likely my last) trip to Sirombu. We have a very busy agenda:

Tuesday 2nd:
- fly to Medan

Wednesday 3rd:
- fly to Gunung Sitoli
- drive to Sirombu
- lunch
- tour of the village, tents, ruins, pier
- tour of housing, schools
- scholarship program discussion
- viewing of potential manufacturing sites
- viewing of coral beaches

Thursday 4th:
- boat trip to Hinako islands
- view villages
- view coconut tree groves
- check health of trees

Friday 5th:
- move first 18 families into new homes! Yay!
- drive back to Gunung Sitoli

Saturday 6th:
- fly back to Jakarta

I’ll be back in Jakarta on Saturday and Sunday and will tell you all about it then! Signing off…

Nathalie

You know you've been living in Jakarta too long when...

2005-07-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

So last week, my maid didn’t show up one of the days she was supposed to. This wouldn’t really have been a problem for me, except it was right after the weekend of scuba diving lessons and right before I was to leave for Nias. In other words, I needed clean t-shirts for Nias and I didn’t have any. I was a little flustered because I had to re-think what I would take with me to Nias.

It wasn’t until this week, when I was home, that I realized I know where the washing machine is – it’s in my apartment. And I know where the soap is. AND I know how to use washing machines! If I had really wanted my t-shirts, I could have just washed them myself. It’s not like I don’t do my laundry all the time back in the States.

I think what shocked me most was the fact that the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. It was the first sure sign that I had become too used to having a made and very accustomed to this lifestyle and culture.

Of course, I was chatting with Tracy over IM that night and told her about this. She offered to do my laundry for me for a few weeks after I got home, if it would help me re-adjust to the American culture more easily. I told her to stuff it.

I was reading a humor book last night about funny real-life stories that happened here in Jakarta and quirky people who live here. It is written by an expat who opened and runs a bar here. At the back of the book, there is a couple of pages entitled “You know you’ve been in Jakarta too long when…” One of the comments is, “when the footprints on the toilet seat are your own.” Unfortunately, I don’t remember any more of them, although they were quite funny and I got 90% of the references. Well, I think this laundry situation fits into that category.

Frans and Gina used to have their own company before they joined UID. They were wedding planners. They said the largest wedding they have ever planned was for just over 4,000 people. I was floored. Then they said that the average was 1,200. How much does this cost? ~$35k USD. In Indonesia, that kind of money goes a very long way. They feed all of the guests and generally there are more than 5 bands and dance groups. There is always an MC and the event is practically a theater production.

I have been invited to 5 weddings since I’ve been living here myself, although I have not been able to make it to a single one. I also don’t know the people getting married, only friends of the cousins of someone who is married to someone who met the bride once. The family will send out 400 invitations and then triple the number to get the number of expected guests, because it is common for everyone to bring their kids and neighbors and friends. Unbelievable.

Frans said because the weddings are so large, there are always a few people a the wedding that do not know anyone. They crash the wedding for the food. I didn’t believe this until Frans said he had done it! He and his friends, back when they were young and broke, would put on nice batik shirts and go crash a wedding. They would go in a larger group, but enter the wedding in small groups of 2 or 4. Then they would meet up inside and act like they hadn’t seen each other in a long time. This way it would look like they know people at the wedding and that they belong. The bride-side would assume the groom new them and vice versa. He said on good days, they would even get pictures with the bride and groom! How many times have you done this Frans? So many he has lost count. I told him he could justify it as vocational training and market research for his subsequent career as a wedding planner. He laughed.

The early part of this week was absolutely crazy busy with work. Since we just got back from Nias, we needed to update the various donors on progress that has been made. Plus, we need to go back to Nias next week, so we’ve had to plan for that.

Next week when we go back, we’ll be bringing with us one of the donors for the Scholarship Program, as well as her body guard and translator. Also coming will be 2 gentlemen proposing an economic recovery and vocational education program to the same donor. They are from a different organization, Next Step, not UID. And finally, I’ll be bringing PJ and an environmental specialist from Conservation International. We are doing a deep dive on the VCO production facility. After this I hope we will have enough information to finish the full proposal.

On Tuesday, we were also taken off-guard by a request from one of our donors to meet with Warwick Purser.

Warwick Purser
White-haired older gentleman with fantastic style. He runs a handicraft business here in Indonesia that supplies lots of products to Target and other larger retailers back in the States. Lives in Puri Casablanca. Married, but not children. I did hear he’s in the process of adopting a 12-year-old boy from Aceh who was orphaned during the tsunami.

What is most interesting about this spur-of-the-moment business meeting was that Warwick and I did a double take when we met. Richard McHowat had told me about him when we met for lunch because we both live at Puri Casablanca. Richard thought we would enjoy talking and might perhaps want to meet for dinner. We hadn’t yet caught up with each other though. Being introduced to each other here at UID was quite a surprise.

The proposal we’d be working on – handicrafts in Aceh – has 2 big components. 1) It requires meeting the high shopping season in Indonesia, which is coming up in late October and early November. People buy each other gifts for the Muslim new year then. 2) It would provide more professional training around the handicrafts and skills that already exist in Aceh, bringing them up to a standard that would provide sustainable employment and industry long-term.

UID’s role will be to find/build and sponsor the workshop (the actual building) where production would occur. Frans is looking into this right now. One partner offered a potential location on some land where an orphanage is currently located. There is enough space to also build a workshop and the orphanage would be willing allow the workshop, if skills and training was provided to the children. This is very much just a possibility and no way beyond even initial thought stages, but it is a great possibility – and very much an integrated project.

One of the best parts of working with United in Diversity is the fact that the projects are not just a one-time hit. I mean, we don’t just donate boats and then leave. UID’s projects are meant to have a more long-term lasting effect. Provide a workshop with jobs, but that also teaches local children skills. Provide boats, but also nets and maintenance and also technique education. THAT is United in Diversity.

Similarly, we had another introductory meeting this week with an organization based in Colorado Springs → Next Step. The organization is a partner of YCAB (one of our partners) and they have been recruited to make a presentation on economic recovery for Sirombu. The leader of the team is named Wolfgang Fernandez.

Wolfgang Fernandez
Venezuelan by birth, but has lived all over the world. He speaks Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German and Dutch. He lives in Colorado Springs, where his children are, although he’s divorced. He travels here to Indonesia a lot. Very friendly. Very direct. Very smart. Very level-headed.

Side note: When we first met, Frans introduced me as from MIT. Wolfgang asked, “and MIT stands for?” He knew the institution but wasn’t really expecting me to be from the school. I think he thought that it might be some other organization with the same letters that he just didn’t know about. His expression when I said, “Massachusetts Institute of Technology?” was priceless.

They asked us a lot about our work in Sirombu and what we knew of the village. They have not yet been there and were trying to come up with ideas of programs and industries they can start. They will provide tools and training and more.

Wolfgang turned to me, just a few minutes in the meeting, and asked, “You’re the MBA. What would you recommend for starting for industry?” To which, I paused, and said, “Well, focus on the natural materials already in place. For example, cocoa grows all over the island. It could be harvested and organized. Another option is additional vocational training for the fisherman – teach them different fishing techniques. There is also a traditional handicraft of grass woven mats – organize the women to make those for sale. Also, look into patchouli oil. The plant can be grown there, bailed and processed in Singapore.” (These were all ideas that had been brought to my attention one way or another over the last 2 months. Also I found out later that Frans is already working on the vocational training for the fishermen).

One of Wolfgang’s other questions was whether we thought Sirombu was the right place for an economic recovery project, or if he should stick to Gunung Sitoli, the capital. Gunung Sitoli would, of course, be easier logistically. Our answer was that the people in Gunung Sitoli already have a lot of help and they naturally have a lot more options, just because it is a city. Sirombu villagers do not have many options. No companies come there. There is no tourism. To help the village, things need to be started there. So, of course, it may be a little more difficult geographically, but it will have a comparatively higher benefit for the community. It also adds another facet to the integrated community solution for Sirombu.

On that note, about the logistics to Sirombu, I’ve heard a lot of surprised comments about the work that we are doing in Sirombu. The village is extremely remote. It is often ignored because it is just “too hard” for the NGOs to get to or really work in.

What is interesting about that comment is there are a lot of reports about relatively little actually being accomplished in Aceh. It is said that the bureaucracy there is overwhelming and making work virtually impossible. Where as in Nias, a more remote location, we already have houses up and we’ll be moving people in.

It appears in development work that it is not natural obstacles that are the most difficult to cross, but bureaucratic and social obstacles.

2005-07-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

:) at Borobudur

2005-07-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

The monkey god was the star of the episode of the Rama and Sinta story that I got to see. He was fantastic.

2005-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Ramayana ballet. This picture is my favorite from the weekend. I love the colors and the traditional costumes.

2005-07-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Prambanen temple, at night. (My camera rules! I'm so glad I splurged on it beofre I left the States.)

2005-07-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

A hand painted batik that I bought. This is me and the artist (or at least the guy who said he was the artist in order to get me to buy - I've become so cynical of tourist traps). It is beautiful though.

Ballet under the light of the full moon

2005-07-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

So after the whirlwind trip to Nias, I went directly to Yogyakarta (pronounced joke – ja – kar – ta) for the weekend. Through the Lonely Planet guide I have for Indonesia (thanks to Nenns!), I booked an adorable little “home-stay” – like a cheap little family run motel, but in a house. It was about $15 a night (which is actually a lot for most home stays), but it had air-conditioned rooms, western style showers, old antique furniture, and loads of charm.

Link to photos for the weekend: http://www.clarkcolor.com/share/p=196251122297169232/l=54677346/cobrandOid=1003

The two nice girls that ran the front desk didn’t speak English, which was awesome for me. I had to work with them to plan my entire weekend, all in bahasa! They organized getting me a car and driver on both Saturday and Sunday, as well as a ticket to the ballet on Saturday night.

While Jakarta is the hub for business in Indonesia, Yogya (short for Yogyakarta, pronounced joke – ja) is considered the cultural hub. Specifically, it is home to the batik industry and art. Batik is made either from silk or cotton and it is painted on with bright colors. Different types of wax are used to stop or control the dye from affecting certain areas during the rounds of dyeing. The result is a painting or beautiful pattern. (see picture of me with a hand-painted batik I bought).

Friday, I went to the bird market and explored many of the batik shops on the main drag. The bird market in Yogya is famous for having an incredible variety of birds, including illegal ones. If you ask nicely and show that you are not police, they are sometimes willing to let you see baby eagles and such. I didn’t try asking. I was alone and a little shy and this was my first stop on my first trip alone in Indonesia. But I did see a lot of beautiful tropical birds.

The batik shops on the main drag had batik in all different sizes and shapes. I was just looking and browsing, staring at everything. There was so much, I had no clue where to even start. There were a few shops with some beautiful 3-piece, silk, hand-painted sarong sets. I kind of watched as one of the shop ladies helped a customer and saw how the different pieces were draped on a person. SO beautiful. I thought about getting one, but where would I actually wear it? C-function?

After spending the afternoon shopping, I used my guide book to pick out a café for dinner and man did I make a good choice. The food was okay, but the wall décor was just extraordinary. See pictures. One of the waiters, seeing how interested I was in all of the art, brought me around the corner to an art studio – the owner’s art studio.

The owner is a young man, maybe 25, obviously extremely talented and has enough entrepreneurial nature to be making a good living off of it. He does oils, batik, and tattoos. In addition, he owns the restaurant and has a small home stay.

He had one particular batik that I would have bent over backwards to have. Unfortunately, he liked it too and was unwilling to sell that one. It is the picture of the 3 masks in my photo album.

Dinner was lovely and I crashed hard.

Saturday, I started with exploring the Kraton – which is the sultan’s palace. Yogya still has a Sultan and the Sultan is the Governor of the Province of Yogya. It is the only hereditary title left in Indonesia. It was interesting and beautiful and very palace-like. After the palace, I visited Taman Sari, which is the bathing pools of the Sultan and also very beautiful. I expected to see Greek gods and goddesses lounging around eating grapes. See pictures, I bet you can pick the place out. A little more shopping and lunch and then I went back to the hotel and took a long nap.

That evening I went to the Ramayana ballet. Rama and Sinta are the Romeo and Juliet of Indonesian folklore, except it has a happy ending. The full ballet is performed over 4 nights and only done under the light of the full moon (so only offered once a month). I saw the second part. ABSOLUTELY amazing. And SOOOOOO beautiful. Behind the stage was the famous Prambanen temple, which is the biggest Hindu temple on Java. The light of the moon lit up the temple behind the performers. It was really quite extraordinary.

Sunday morning, I went to Borobudur, which is the largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia and possibly the largest in the world. It is huge and very cool. It was built between 750 and 850 A.D. and then was abandoned soon after. It wasn’t re-discovered until the 18th century by a Dutch explorer. It was covered by volcanic ash for a long time. It has beautiful stories carved into the sides and hundreds of statues of Buddha.

Many Indonesians stopped me and asked to take my picture. Felt like a movie star, but I hear the picture thing is normal for westerners in Indonesia.

After Borobudur, I had a time for lunch and a little more wandering around Yogya before I had to fly back to Jakarta. It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend as a typical tourist.

Now back to the chaos of the non-profit world…

The fish are our friends!

2005-07-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

Gina announced before we even left Jakarta that she was not going to take a bath while in Sirombu. "You don't mind if I smell, do you?" She had not gotten over learning that there were fish in the well where we stayed last time. “You know what fish do in water?” I just laughed. I intend to bath. It’s so hot here and you never get away from it, plus mosquito repellent and sun block. Very sticky.

It’s been almost exactly one month since my first trip to Nias. It is amazing for me how accustomed I have become to Indonesia. The trip to Nias was now like clockwork. Well, not exactly clockwork, for there were a lot of hiccups, but I was completely comfortable with each phase.

We were delayed landing in Medan because of rain. And then bumped on our flight out in the morning because of rain. And then we were delayed again because of rain. Of course I’m looking out the windows and thinking that this is nothing compared to some of the snow storms during which I’ve landed in the Northeast. Anyway, I guess it’s all relative and what you are used to. I’m also not a pilot.

Under ordinary circumstances, delays are difficult to deal with when traveling for business, but this time it was worse. There was a holiday taking place on Nias – “Children’s Day.” I don’t know much about the holiday, but it meant that all flights were booked leaving Nias from Friday until Tuesday. SO, we were only scheduled to be in Nias from Wednesday morning until Thursday afternoon. Arriving Wednesday afternoon made it really tight to get to Sirombu, do our work and get back. We actually got to the airport only 15 minutes before the flight took off on the way back. They practically grabbed my bag from my hands as we walked in the door.

I did meet a very good looking, Australian surfer on the way over though. I noticed when we were first checking in and he ended up sitting next to me on the plane! I’m never that lucky. Named Adam, he’s a professional life guard and gets 8 weeks off every year. This year, he’s spending 5 of them in Nias, staying with a local family and spear fishing for his dinner. Maybe I should drop out of business school… (just kidding, Dad)

Of course, I have a horrific cold. So here I am sitting next to this tan, blue-eyed, Australian surfer and I’m sneezing and sniffling the whole flight. And then the pain in my sinuses was so bad as we were landing, I was tearing up. Such a great way to make a first impression.

Yedi, a member of our task force, met us at the airport. Our first stop when we landed in Gunung Sitoli was at Meta’s fathers’ house. Meta, again, is another member of our task force. This was where we spent our last night during our last trip. This also seems to be where Yedi lives. I was all confused for a bit, but Gina finally explained to me that most of our task force are members of the same extended family.

This is also where the well is being dug. Yedi told me they have drilled to 18 meters and have not yet hit water. They are going to keep going until 24 meters and if they don’t hit water, then they will try another spot. They weren’t drilling when we were there because it was raining.

Side note: I would have taken a picture, but all there was to see was a single pole, about 4’ tall, sticking out of the ground.

Meta’s father works for the local government in Nias. He recommended to Frans & Gina that the local government help choose the families to move into the first houses completed in Sirombu. This would help prevent jealousy between families. The government is also closer to people and has the means to determine which families most need. Additionally, it would foster good relations with the government.

Everything around socialization and politics of aid work is really fascinating to me. It is a side of life I’m very much not experienced in, coming from finance. It never would have occurred to me to ask the local government to make this decision for us, but I can see its win-win benefits. This is also only one example of the kinds of things I’m learning.

Next it was on to Sirombu – the 3 hours of turbulence.

Yedi was in the car with us. First couple of hours were pretty quiet, but towards the end we were talking and laughing. I don’t even remember what about, but we had a really good time. Oh yes, I did tell everyone the story that the first time I was in Sirombu, during the task force meeting, how the word “America” kept coming up. I, of course, didn’t speak Indonesian very well then (and still don’t for that matter) and thought they were talking about me. I had no idea why they were talking about me, but was cool with it.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I realized they were saying “Ama Ika,” which is the name of one of the task force members. Missed that one. When I told everyone this, they all completely lost it. I can appreciate the humor in it too.

Some how the topic of the fish in the mandi (well) in Sirombu came up. Yedi explained that if the fish are alive, then you know that the water is not contaminated. I was impressed. Very logical. If there is a dead fish floating in the well, you know it is probably not a good idea to use it to bath in.

Gina immediately changed her opinion about the mandi. She decided the fish were a good thing and loudly declared, “the fish are our friends!”

From the road, we could see that construction on the houses is proceeding very well. Houses are complete and look great. After stopping for lunch/dinner of noodles, we walked around the construction area. There are still a few things that need to be done before the houses will really be livable though: 1) furniture, 2) linoleum/vinal floor covering, 3) plate covers for the electrical outlets. Also, construction is still going on right next to the completed houses, so if we move families in – there is danger with the construction equipment and the children.

While it’s difficult to pass tents while on the way to inspect completed houses, I know that it is just plain unsafe for the families right now. Another month and we should be able to section off the completed area sufficiently to allow some families to move in.

Also, the donors are getting anxious, understandably. They have paid for houses and they know that the houses are complete. It is hard to understand why the houses can not be moved into unless you stand there and really see the danger.

We learned upon arriving in Sirombu that the seas/ocean was too rough because of the rain for us to go to Hinako. I was disappointed because we needed to do fact finding on the elementary schools in Hinako and see how many new houses are still needed. However, we were really crunched for time at this point because of all the delays getting to Sirombu. If we missed our flight back, we wouldn’t get another until next Wednesday.

We spent the night at Beni’s house (Beni is another task force member and Fona’s cousin). This is the house we stayed at last time – Fona’s Aunt’s house. Well it turns out it is also Beni’s house. Everyone’s related.

We slept again in bamboo shelter. I had real trouble sleeping because the mosquitoes were eating me alive. Even with insect repellent on, I couldn’t lay still.

Around 3 AM, there was an after shock – only 4.3 and it was over in less than 10 seconds. It was the first earthquake I’ve ever felt. Last visit, there was a 5.5 and I slept through it.

The next morning, Gina mandi'd. "The fish is my friend!"

Ama Ika (task force member) showed up with 4 coconuts. We spent probably 45 minutes examining the different ages, cracking them open and getting good visuals of the meat. One of my major tasks for this visit was to examine the coconuts and figure out how many we could get on a daily basis, sustainably. It looks like we’ll be able to get about 10,000 coconuts per day of the exact age we need for virgin coconut oil production. This is enough coconuts to produce adequate quantities of oil for a facility to function profitably.

Next steps for VCO is to obtain funding for a Phase I – which would be about a month of research. It would require bringing Phillip Johnson out to Sirombu, along with an environmental expert to check on the health of the trees. We would do a deep dive analysis on the optimum quantities and best logistical routes, etc.

After that, a Phase II (or final) proposal would be made – detailing the specific financial investment required and exact processes, logistics, outputs, etc. If Phase II is funded, then equipment would be ordered and the facility would be built, etc.

If everything goes well, we could have the Phase II proposal complete before I leave Indonesia (which is exactly 1 month away now). This would make me very happy. Initial reading on VCO was given to me the day I flew into town. I know more about it (right now) than anyone else at UID. It would be very cool if I could get it to fly before I have to leave.

We spent the morning visiting all of the schools involved in our scholarship proposal. Gina spoke with each of the principles individually about getting updated information. In the mean time, Frans and I got video footage of the schools and Sirombu village to put together for the donors. Frans did the shooting while I narrated.

Side note: As soon as I can get some of it edited into good clips, I’ll try to post it where people can download and see.

I had already seen the schools, but it was still disturbing. Some of the children don’t have real shoes – they wear flip flops. The high school has metal walls, dirt floors, and a palm-thatched roof. The teacher has a blackboard about 4’ x 6’ to work with, nothing else. There’s a big field in front of the middle school and apparently they don’t have a lawn mower. Instead, they get all of the middle school children out in a line with machetes to trim the grass.

Despite all of this, the children are so friendly and seem so happy. Maybe they don’t know anything different. Maybe they are content. I can only try to imagine how they do it.

While driving between the middle school and the elementary school, I noticed that there some children playing on the side of the street. I asked Gina why they weren’t in school. She said that they probably could not afford the “school fees.” School fees are only 20,000 rupiah per month – just about $2.

It breaks my heart to see kids not going to school because of that. It makes me want to jump out of the car and just give that kid the $2. At the same time, I don’t really know enough about that one child’s circumstances and also how other children and other children’s families would react. They have to struggle to put their kids in school. Who knows what they have to go through.

Our current scholarship proposal that is being funded actually only covers the children that were victims of the tsunami. In other words, only 10% of the students in the school. The rest of them live far enough away from the shore that they were not affected. Gina turned to me and said that she really wants to find donors to cover all of the students. But she’s starting with this and then working from there. A complete scholarship program for all of the children would get the few out of the streets.

Baby steps.

When we came to one of the elementary schools, Frans & I went into one of the class rooms. Children were diligently working on their exercises. One of the children, I noticed, had blond hair. I thought he was a western child, but when he turned around, the shape of his eyes showed he was Asian.

He is albino. I didn’t catch his name or get to look at him for long, but I just happened to briefly glance at his arms. The skin was red, scarred, crusty and flakey. It looked like he had suffered from severe, repeated sun burns. An albino child with no protection from the sun here must suffer extraordinarily under the sun of the equator. He’ll probably get skin cancer before he’s 15!

Frans & I had to continue taping and finish up to make it to the airport. We didn’t have time to dally at all around. In the car, on our way, I turned to Yedi and asked how many doctors there were in Sirombu. It turns out there is only one for the entire district (county). One!

I then asked Yedi if he would do me a favor. Would he please see if he could get the doctor to visit the little albino boy? I gave Yedi all the cash I had with me ($50) and told him to email me if it costs more. I also asked him to email and tell me if the doctor recommends anything. I’ll do what I can to get that boy help. Sun block? Long sleeved shirts? Poor little guy!

My second trip to Nias was successful in that it was productive. However, it was just as heart wrenching as the last. I hope it never affects me less.

Internet Connection...

2005-07-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

The internet connection really is unbelievable in the office. Sometimes it takes me 5 minutes to open an email, let alone download an attachment. Anyway, while I wait, sometimes I resort to playing a game of solitare, if I have nothing else to work on while I wait. The problem with this is that by the time the email is open, sometimes I’ve forgotten why I had opened the email in the first place. It’s a problem.

And I’m using a webmail server for my UID email account, which takes a long time to load. The program automatically logs me out of the email account if I haven’t done anything with it within X-many minutes. So if I’m having a not-so-intensive email day, I often get logged out and have to reload the program.

Anyway, the time I lose logging into email and waiting for items to download is truly amazing. I know Gina & Frans don’t have better connections. Poor Maggie has the same speed connection, but also has an ancient computer. She is also copied on all emails sent by F & G, Thang, me, and anyone else sending a UID-related email. I can only imagine how much time she loses everyday waiting for the server.

What kills me about this is it is not just the time lost waiting, but because everything is slow – you lose your train of thought and your momentum on work. It has happened a couple of times that by the time I’ve managed to open an email, I have forgotten why I needed it.

Really, if I took the time, I could estimate how much time is lost by F, G, T, M, & I and it would probably be equivalent to one full-time hire’s salary. It would certainly be enough to warrant the purchase of an additional server (or 2 or 3 or 8) to service the building. While labor in Indonesia is cheap, and in other places it makes sense to pay less for the connection and have the people wait, UID does not have that luxury. Frans & Gina and Maggie are all well-educated, efficient people. Their time is valuable and the work they do is important. Not to mention the fact that I feel like my time is being wasted by something as easy to fix as internet connection.

I do understand that the internet connection, our office space and our (well, their) salaries are donated. I do not mean to be ungrateful for donations. But, the value of a better internet connection is less than the value of the time of the people employed. This is a waste of donors’ money.

Another big problem that UID faces is dealing with is verifying the accuracy of data. We had a phone call with the elementary school in Krueng Raya, during which the principle was begging for help. He said that the building was non-functional, there were no doors, no chairs, tables, etc. I believe I wrote about this in a prior post. I don’t think he was being dishonest, but when we sent someone to the school to take pictures (we were supposed to go ourselves but were unfortunately re-routed last trip), we found that the building was in tact. It also looked like he had all of the tables and chairs that were necessary to operate.

Perhaps the principle was concerned about additional students registering because his school has no tuition, where other schools in the area don’t. Maybe he had some other reason. But unfortunately, we have to create our proposals based on facts that we can verify. And all of the proposals go out with our names on them. If any of the proposals have faulty or misrepresented information, it is our reputation that will suffer and we won’t be able to get funding for any projects.

Sometimes, explaining to the donors exactly why we need to travel to the project sites multiple times is difficult. I’ve heard Frans & Gina struggling with phone conversations, trying to explain UID overhead charges. It is not their salaries that are being covered (that’s already taken care of). And UID is not trying to make a profit on any of these projects. But still these charges (travel, data verification, etc.) are a constant source of questions from the donors.

In fact, UID actually only charges 3% overhead. Everything else comes out of their endowment (what little they have from their current backing). I think it is truly amazing what F & G and everyone here pull off given the amount they charge.

Side note: The United Way charges 10%. I remember this from working with them at General Mills and they were very proud of their minimal overhead.

Anyway. Enough about the troubles of being a small NGO. I think I’ve made my point. Good news! I read in the paper that GAM (the separatists in Aceh) have come to an agreement with the Indonesian government about not ceding. This is great news because it means that things in Aceh should calm down. I was really glad to hear this. Granted, however, it will probably be a long time before things are completely safe and friendly, but this is a step in the right direction.

The rising oil prices have created something of a crisis here. I don’t really understand the whole issue, but I know that the Indonesian government has stopped running the fountains and non-essential lighting in downtown Jakarta to preserve electricity. This is especially noticeable because it gets dark here by 6PM.

Side note: Since we’re so close to the equator, apparently the sunset and sunrise times do not change significantly throughout the year. Mentally I understand this, but it still is weird.

The other day I decided to google Paul Jordan (the security guy I wrote about in a previous post). I knew he was a published author, but was not expecting to come across any of his works online. Here’s a link to one: http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/peacekeeping/anecdotes/kibeho.html It’s first hand account of the genocide in Rwanda. Not for reading by the faint of heart. I had Maggie print it out for me and I read it while on the way to work the other day. I was a mess by the time I got to the office. Unbelievable. Reading this hit me harder than watching Schindler’s List.

I got an email from Tephanie Longo the other day – a close high school friend – through Classmates.com. It was very cool that she contacted me and I emailed her back. While I was on classmates, I was looking around and decided to click on Stacia George’s profile, thinking “she was really cool. I wonder what she is up to.” Well, Stacia works for USAID and lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I couldn’t believe it! SO COOL! I sent her an email and am hoping to hear more about what she is up to.

I’m really loving my job here and am beginning to think I want to join the Red Cross or UNDP or something similar after school. I was just shocked to see a high school friend doing exactly what I want to do. Very cool.

On that note, the summer is more than half over now. It has gone so fast. And so much of the rest of the summer is packed with things I already know I have to/want to do. I already know that I’m going to miss it.

This past weekend was rather quiet. I had dinner with Rita on Saturday night and Saturday and Sunday, during the day, I took scuba lessons. I’m going to take a little bit of time towards the end of my stay here in Indonesia and go to Bali. I decided that I would really like to do some scuba diving while there, and in order to save money, it was cheaper to take the classes here in Jakarta. So, I hung out at the bottom of a swimming pool all weekend.

We leave tomorrow for Nias again. Agenda:
Tuesday, July 19th – fly to Medan
Wednesday, July 20th – fly from Medan to Gunung Sitoli
- Meeting in Gunung Sitoli (see well)
- Travel to Sirombu
- Take boat to Hinako (a tiny island off the west coast of Nias)
- Visit elementary schools in Hinako, see if they need to be rebuilt
- Overnight in Hinako
Thursday, July 21st –
- Return to Sirombu
- Check on housing construction progress
- Return to Jakarta via Gunung Sitoli and Medan

Anyway, so I’m off. I’ll post again when I return.

Well-Off...

2005-07-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

We just got a phone call saying that the well is being dug today. And apparently, they will be able to use it by tonight! I can't believe how quick that is...

2005-07-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

This is Febe. She is the daughter of one of our task force members and lives at the house in Ginung Sitoli (the capital of Nias) where the well is going to be dug.

Reminder of the story: last month we went to Sirombu (on the west side of the island of Nias) to check on the progress of the houses we're building and do fact finding on other projects. On the ground there, helping us, is a team of 10 local men.

One of the men on the task force lives permanently in Ginung Sitoli. Their house is fortunately still standing, but the houses of some of their relatives are gone. There are now 12 people living in his house. And the water system in Ginung Sitoli is completely broken now. They have to purchase all of their water locally and bring it into the house in buckets.

We learned this the morning after they welcomed us to spend the night at their home. That night I had seen one of the girls carrying in 4 big buckets to fill up the mandi in the bedroom they provided us. I made sure to use it since they had gone to the trouble of carrying water in. It wasn't until after I bathed that I found out they had to purchase the water.

To dig a well in Ginung Sitoli would cost them only about $250 USD. The family didn't have that kind of money though. Febe's mother was in the kitchen baking cakes that morning, so that she could sell them at the market and try to make a little extra money.

This family was considered well off prior to the earth quake. They are now struggling to put food on the table. This well will hopefully releive a little of the pressure.

Thank you again!

A well for Febe

2005-07-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

I got to make the coolest phone call today. I’m tearing up even as I write this. I got to call the family in Ginung Sitoli and tell them that we raised all the funds for the well! And then we asked for their bank’s routing number so we could transfer the money, which we did this afternoon. Yedi, our task force member, who took the call was stunned on the other end. After maybe 5 seconds of silence, I got “thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!”

THANK YOU SO TO EVERYONE WHO MADE THIS POSSIBLE! It was a truly incredible feeling to be able to call them and tell them this.

We’ll be going back to Nias (to Sirombu and Ginung Sitoli) next week. I hope we’ll be able to see construction in progress. And maybe the next time we go back in August, it might be done!

Wow. Okay.

2005-07-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

I finally got a picture with an umbrella boy!

2005-07-12T23:47:00.000-07:00

an orchid growing outside the house we stayed at

2005-07-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

Ndung's kids and a couple of neighbors

2005-07-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

2 of Ndung's boys on one of his oxes...

2005-07-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

rice fields

Pirated Movies...

2005-07-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I’m totally cut off.

Everyone who knows me, knows I love watching movies. I don’t watch much TV, but I do love movies. Well, Indonesia is known for being home to millions of pirated cds. They are sold in kiosks in the mall and even in local grocery stores. Some places you can get them for as little as $0.70, other places you get up-scale pirates for closer to $2 (these still include the bonus features).

The good news is, however, most of the kiosks where you buy the movies have DVD players – so you can have them show you the quality of the pirate before you buy it. Make sure you’re getting something that is watch-able.

First of all, I’m trying to keep from becoming totally obsessed with them and buying all of them. I know I could easily go nuts and then end up never emerging from my apartment. I have, however, allowed myself to be drawn to a few – especially the ones that are not yet out on DVD in the US. I’ve watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

So it’s bad enough that I have full access to a personal vice. BUT, I went out and bought a totally cheesy movie yesterday when I had an evening to myself – First Daughter ($0.70). So I was enjoying it until about ¾’s of the way through, it started skipping and jumping to the next scene. It went through the last 20 minutes of the movie in less than 20 seconds. I was totally pissed. AND, because I was ¾’s of the way through the movie, I was dying to know what happened!

So today, dying to know what I was missing, I went to the mall and spent 2 HOURS tracking down versions of the movie at the kiosks. All of them skipped at the same place – clearly manufactured from the same faulty copy.

I can’t believe I just spent 2 hours searching through pirated DVDs to see the end of a cheesy movie.

Okay, so this past weekend, Maggie (the secretary for UID) invited me to spend a long weekend with her family in Puncak (pronounce = “pun” like the “u” in pudding and “chahk”). Puncak, I guess you could say, is the Jersey shore of Jakarta. Traffic was unbelievable. I mean I thought Jakarta was bad. Well this are seems only to have one main road and everyone is on it. The police periodically shut down traffic in one direction to relieve major stoppages in the other. It sucks being on the shut-down direction. There were a couple of times that we left the house to go to somewhere and gave up because the traffic was so bad.

We stayed at a 3-bedroom house in a development there. Totally cute.

Who all went? Maggie & I obviously. Maggie’s driver. Maggie’s sister & brother-in-law. Maggie’s nephew and neice-in-law and great nephew (Jeriko – 11 months old and adorable). And finally Jeriko’s nanny.

Oh, more about Puncak. It is up in the mountains (well, old volcanoes really) about an hour south of Jakarta (if there were no traffic). It took us about 3 to get there though. Oof.

The climate is totally different there. It gets cold at night – down to 60-ish. And it get steaming hot during the day. And it rains a lot. And the volcanic soil, rain and sun helps everything grow. Every single flower I have ever known was growing the gardens at these houses – from impatients and marigolds to orchids and tropical flowers. Also, the temperature doesn’t change year round and there is no real rainy or dry season. So, plants can be planted at any time and will grow happily. There are a lot of nurseries there and they export to all of the cities nearby. The weather was absolutely perfect in my mind and I spent quite a bit of time laying on a matt in the yard.

I got my first look at real rice fields. The gardener (Ndung was his name) for the house that we stayed at was willing to show me around. He took me back to his house and introduced me to his wife and kids. So cute. And then brought me to the field where they grow their own rice to eat. He was very nice and I really appreciated his openness. I took a ton of pictures of his kids though, always showing them the shot afterwards. They would scream and laugh. Having a digital camera is great.

So what did we do there? We did some shopping at a local factory outlet. It was weird shopping in Indonesia through Gap & JCrew t-shirts in Indonesia (all under $4). I picked up two very cool skirts and 2 nice tops. Maggie’s brother-in-law took me to the arboretum one morning. We walked for about 4 kilometers and went to see a very pretty waterfall. Aside from that, there was a lot of time spent playing with Jeriko and talking and hanging out. It was a very pleasant weekend.

As was my last weekend hanging out with Maggie, this one also proved to be a culinary adventure. I can handle unusual food, but I prefer to have maybe one weird thing along with a bunch of things I know and enjoy. Well, most of it was stuff I had eaten before, in one form or another. Uh, most, like frog legs and eel. But, I never had goat satay before or rabbit for that matter. We also had fish-head soup and oxtail soup, mashed-fish sausage thingies, and some sort of boiled gourd with chili sauce. The real kicker was the cow intestines though. I thought it was sort of vegetable dish. I managed to swallow it, but I lost most of my appetite for the rest of the meal. Think rubber terry-cloth and you’ll have an idea of the texture of the intestine.

I had Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch today.

Oh, Puncak is also known for being one of the best places in the world for hang gliding. Don’t worry, I didn’t go hang gliding. But I was really curious about it and how much it would cost. So on our way back to Jakarta, we stopped at the top of Puncak Pass, which was where the launch site was. Unfortunately, we were there on a Monday and hang gliding is only done on weekends.

But they were doing para-gliding! So anyway, I went para-gliding! Which is effectively coasting down in a big parachute. It was very cool. We probably were in the air for about 10 minutes. Oh, and it was only about $25. I have a video. (Don’t worry, the flight was tandem, so I had an instructor attached to my back the whole time).

People who know me also know I’m scared of heights. Um, yea, I was a little nervous. Especially after they told me that what I needed to do was run off the cliff. That was a little difficult to stomach. But it was totally worth it. We were flying. Just cruising over tea plantations.

Anyway, back to work today. Frans & Gina were back in the office from their trip to Singapore to meet with one of our donors. It was good to see them again. We have a lot of work to do. Oh, and we’ll be going to Nias again next week. I’m looking forward to that.

2005-07-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

getting ready for para-gliding

2005-07-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

An example of an Indonesian tail-less cat...

Indonesian Cats Have No Tails....

2005-07-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

So I was reading the newspaper at the café this morning as I ate breakfast as I often do and I noticed that the paper had a small section (maybe 1½” x 3”) that listed the expected weather for the day. It listed many of the local cities and then next to the cities it had whether rain, clouds or sun was expected. The thing that got my attention here was the fact that the temperature was not mentioned. I guess it’s not really an important factor here – it’s always hot. All people really need to know is if it is going to rain. So totally foreign to me.

And here’s another thing that cracks me up – most of the cats in Indonesia are either missing their tails or they are crooked and broken off early. I’ve asked a bunch of people but no one seems to have a real answer for why this is. I think it must be hereditary. I have a picture of one; I’ll try to post it later today.

Anyway, I’ve been here in Jakarta almost 5 weeks now. I can’t believe how quickly the time is going. So I figured I should take the time to post some better information about United in Diversity, their mission and goals, as well as more specifics about my role and specific contributions.

United in Diversity (UID) was jointly founded by MIT Sloan School of Management, University of Indonesia and Sinar Harapan. Their motto is “Achieving Indonesia’s Progress Against All Odds” and their goal is to integrate the business sector with the efforts of civil society and the government. More specifically, their role is to promote education and industry that will help advancing Indonesia’s sustainable development and improve the quality of life for all its people.

The NGO was kicked off in 2003 with the United in Diversity Forum – a conference held in Bali. The welcome address of the conference was given by Megawati Soekarnoputri, the President of the Republic of Indonesia (at the time). The conference was said to be unbelievable. Sloan’s Professor Thurow was one of the speakers.

UID’s 3 Directors are Frans, Gina and Thang. Guiding them is the steering committee of 5 people – Cherie Nursalim (who offered me the job here) of the Gajah Tunggal Group, Aristides Katoppo (referred to in earlier posts as Pak Tides – very cool guy) of Sinar Harapan, Martani Huseini, the Vice Rector of the University of Indonesia, Frans Seda, the Senior Advisor to President Megawati, and Marzuki Usman, Founder of Indonesia’s Capital Market. In addition to the steering committee, UID also has an Advisory Panel, which includes people from MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, Kyoto University, General Electric, and the World Bank. (This is not an all-inclusive list). More information on the Steering Committee, the Advisory Panel, and UID’s friends and partners can be found at their website: www.unitedindiversity.org.

Side Note: Senior Associate Dean Alan White of the MIT Sloan School of Management is part of the Advisory Panel. This is his connection and how he forwarded my resume to Cherie and how I got my position this summer after I pitched him on what I wanted to do. Things finally become clear…

One of the projects they are just starting right now on the educational side is with System Dynamics – the management science pioneered at Sloan. UID wants to put together a course for business leaders in Indonesia about System Dynamics, bringing an MIT Sloan professor here to teach. Very cool.

Side note: I’m taking Professor Sterman’s class this fall!

Another project that they want to work on is a 2nd edition of The Indonesian Dreams: United in Diversity in Transitional Times. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9812103724/qid=1120651042/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4433479-8803338?v=glance&s=books
This book, by the way, was edited by my roommate and colleague here at UID, Thang Nguyen. I made sure to get a copy before I left for Jakarta and have read it. It’s very good and thought provoking.

In the wake of the tsunami, UID’s sponsors and partners requested that UID spearhead reconstruction projects for them. UID’s mission is primarily an educational one, but in response to the needs of the people, they have taken on small-project relief efforts temporarily.

So this is where I fit in. My role here is primarily to take over a large portion of the project management for UID’s relief efforts. The staff has been focused on relief for the past 6 months and have, as a result, neglected their duties to the stated mission of the organization. With my help, maybe they’ll have a little breathing room so that they can work on the projects aligned with their mission statement.

Projects that I am currently (as in this week) working on (it changes from week to week) include possibly establishing virgin coconut oil production in Sirombu, the rehabilitation of the middle school in Aceh – providing teachers, scholarships, and building repairs, and finally a food aids proposal for 18 villages on the island of Nias. These 3 projects are all in the proposal stage, which means we are doing the necessary fact finding – trying to figure out exactly how much money is needed to support the projects and what the best strategy is for implementing them.

Think: writing mini-business plans.

The virgin coconut oil production has been the most complicated so far because it involves manufacturing processes and exporting from a remote town. I’m enjoying the challenge but it is a reality check on how complicated it really is to start a small business. Luckily, for that one, I have a great expert oil extractor who is helping teach me what I need to know, Phillip Johnson. PJ designed the process and the equipment that we are going to use if this project gets funded.

Phillip Johnson:
PJ is also a character to talk to. He’s about 50-years old. British, but hasn’t lived there for years. Has a wife and daughter here in Indonesia. He’s brilliant and humble, but talks in circles because he knows so much – all about nutrition and health. We’ll be talking about coconut oil one minute and the next I’m being taught the health benefits of ozone. The kicker is he’s primarily self-educated. Anyway, great guy to talk to, but plan extra time.

Well, that’s a little more about what UID does and what I’m actually doing. It’s 7:30. I’m out of here for the day!

Professional Standards People!

2005-07-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m sorry it has been so long between posts, especially considering I’m not out of town. But man have I just been swamped by work.

Let’s start with the good news – since my last post where I talked about the well, I’ve had 8 donations of $20. I only need 13 total (5 more) to make this well happen people! Come on! Drop me an email!!!

We got back from Nias last Tuesday and I had one day in the office (Wednesday) and then spent both Thursday and Friday at a conference. Just trying to catch up from being gone and then being out another two days, I’m so behind. It’s primarily because the trip was for updates and fact finding – therefore donors expect reports and information soon after we return. Therefore, the conference was ill-timed for putting those reports together. In fact, after the conference let on out Thursday, I worked until 10PM.

Oh, Wednesday, I did meet up with Sean Palacio for dinner. He’s a friend of Bridget’s (Bridget is a close dancer-friend from Minneapolis) and he happened to be passing through Jakarta after being in Indonesia for a wedding. Dinner was great and he was super nice, but after dinner, I worked until 3AM. And then this past weekend, I had 2 very long work meetings all day Saturday and spent all day Sunday editing photos for work.

Okay, no more whining. The point is, I’ve been working a lot. To be honest though, I’m loving my work here. I feel like I’m really using my skills yet learning a lot at the same time.

Now, on to the meat of the post – the conference. The conference I went to was the Reconstruction of Aceh, part I of the Post-Tsunami series. I think I posted a link to the conference website in my last post. I was very much looking forward to this conference because it had really great speakers and a great agenda planned. The entrance fee was set at a whopping $1295 USD, but luckily I managed to get a student discount and an NGO discount.

You know how, for the most part, high prices reflect high quality? There are some cases where high quality can be found affordably, but when the price is high, one really does expect high quality. Well, that was certainly not the case here.

To start, over half of the speakers cancelled. OVER HALF. Unbelievable. And it wasn’t as if the organizers gave a substitute sheet at the beginning of the conference (as they do for subs at Broadway shows). Just before the speaker was about to come on, they would announce that such-and-such person couldn’t make it and what’s-his-name would be taking his place.

There were cell phones ringing throughout the conference and at 2 points, men had actual conversations on the phone while a speaker was presenting. Nothing started or ended on time and many of the speakers had no concept of their allotted time. The slides were too big for the screen. The MC (or conference chair) had the personality of an SEC 10K Filing – lots of information presented in an anal retentive fashion and completely lacking personality. He was also difficult to hear and did not have any command over the audience or the speakers. Just plain lacking all MC qualifications. Man, if only the Student Affairs office were here now. They would eat the conference organizers alive.

Okay, so it was poorly organized. That would have been forgivable if the content was at least decent. OH MY GOD! PAIN! LOTS OF PAIN!!!!!

I’ve had speakers that put me to sleep before, but this was a whole new level of torture. Some had slides. Many didn’t. Some could speak legible English. Many couldn’t. Some presented on their specified topic. Many didn’t. None of the government people presented on actions – they talked about their targets and policies. I think the absolute kicker was the one speaker who hadn’t been told he was supposed to present in English. He was trying to translate there on the spot and his slides were all in Indonesian. He really didn’t know how to speak English either.

That was how horrible the conference was. And I was determined to sit through every single second of it in hopes of finding bits to make the whole investment of time and money on my part worth while.

So, despite the pain and torture of substitute speakers and English that sounded more like a history of the world presented by a Canada goose, there were a few brief shining moments: the World Bank gave 2 excellent presentations, the logistics and communications presentations were also informative (if duly presented), and there was an absolutely outstanding presentation by a security consultant – Paul Jordan.

Paul Jordan:
Probably about 40ish. Good looking. Spent 10 years in the equivalent of Australia’s Navy Seals. Led a medical relief team into Rwanda during the genocide there. Was on the ground in Aceh the day after the tsunami. Lived in Aceh for a year a few years ago. Speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia as well as something else which I don’t remember. Tall. Confident. Surprisingly optimistic and friendly - considering the things he's seen and been through.

Brief highlights from Paul Jordan’s security presentation:
- Be aware of where your people are and who they are talking to at all times
- Do you have the capability of extracting or evacuating your people if necessary?
- Travel with more than 1 vehicle – if one gets stuck or breaks down, you have a back up
- Best intelligence you can get is from the local people - treat them with respect and they will respond in kind
- Cell phones work for Banda Aceh, use handheld radios outside of the city
- Don’t automatically accept or request military escort – that could make you a target
- Have a good trauma first aid kit with you
- Bring extra food, water, fuel
- Check your spare tire – is it in tact and have air?
- When doing security management – start with an assessment of needs, this will limit unnecessary spending and unnecessary restriction of activities
- Have a medical evacuation plan
- 1st line medical – teach your people first aid
- 2nd line medical – local care facilities – know what their capabilities are
- 3rd line medical – closes good hospital that can handle all medical needs
- Pre-deployment briefing
- Fill out detailed medical forms – keep one copy at headquarters, one at branch
- You need to know who is allergic to what
- Fill out missing persons information
- Know when it is safe to be outside and active
- In Banda Aceh – inside before midnight and don’t leave before 5AM
- Outside Banda Aceh – inside before dark and don’t leave before dawn

Paul Jordan also gave us an update on what happened with the International Red Cross worker (as I mentioned in a prior post – this incident was why we cancelled going to Aceh).

The incident took place in Lhokseumawe, which is about 4 hours southwest of Banda Aceh (the opposite direction from Krueng Raya, by the way). It was after dark and there was a group traveling including this IRC worker. The separatists asked these vehicles to stop and they didn’t. The worker wasn’t killed either, just injured.

Paul said it was a wrong-place-wrong-time problem, not a direct attack. He also said that GAM has made it known that they won’t harm international aid workers that are clearly marked (like I was with my vest saying “Relewan” – or “volunteer”). He said that it wasn’t in their best interests.

This whole presentation was both fascinating and made me feel a lot easier. It almost made up for the complete waste of the rest of the conference, almost. I also happened to be at his table for lunch one of the days. He gave me his card and offered for me to call him if I were ever concerned about traveling up there.

At one point he also mentioned to me that he feels safer in Banda Aceh these days than he does in Jakarta. Since it is just such a big city with so much going on, it is much easier to get into trouble here. Banda Aceh, he said, the people were simple, nicer, and it is just easier to control your environment there.

Anyway, he’s totally nice and I hope he’ll take me up on my invitation for dinner next time he passes through town.

Oh, his company, AKE, is a world-wide security consulting firm. They teach certified pre-deployment courses which cover safety and first aid. I think if I decide to continue with this type of work, I may try to take one of his courses. Probably a wise investment, as Dad would say.

That’s all for now, I’m heading to bed. I hope this post makes everyone feel a little better.

An open-air mandi with fish in it...

2005-06-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, where to start. Today is Tuesday, June 28th. We finished our work in Nias and we are supposed to be in Aceh today, but we are going back to Jakarta instead.

3 days ago, an aid worker from the International Red Cross was shot and killed by some of the activists in Aceh. It happened except that it was on the road from Banda Aceh to Krueng Raya – the one we were supposed to take. The International Red Cross, the Indonesian Government and GAM (the rebel organization in Aceh) are currently in peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland. It is thought that the shooting/current uprising is to draw media attention to GAM’s position.

The Acehnese are not only wary of foreigners, but also of Indonesians of Chinese decent. I think I mentioned in one of my prior posts that Chinese colonists came to Indonesia 3 – 4 hundred years ago and that there is a lot of tension between the Chinese Indonesians and the Malay Indonesians. Well, this is a very extreme sentiment in Aceh. The Acehnese are worried about anyone who could potentially make them change their lifestyle or try to take over. The point is, the danger is not just for me as a foreigner, but also for Frans and Gina, who are partially Chinese and look it.

Another factor was that the BRR cancelled their meeting with us. The BRR is the government organization with whom we need to register all of our relief activities. If that meeting was still on, we would have flown to Banda Aceh for the meeting and had Nana and Pak Mustafa (the principle of the school we’re trying to help) meet us in Banda Aceh. We would request that they bring with them all of the information we need for the proposals we are working on. But since the BRR meeting is cancelled, we’re not even going to risk that. We’ll go back to Jakarta and maybe fly Pak Mustafa to us sometime in the near future.

So we will not be going to Aceh today. Frans assured me that when things cool down a bit, we will try again. Better to be safe.

While we did not make it to Aceh, our trip to Nias was very productive.

Goals of work in Nias:
- Boat project – this is part of the larger Sirombu village project. We’ve already provided 40 fishing boats and will also be providing a larger vessel to carry the produce to market. We needed to verify that the delivered boats were being used and get pictures of the type of vessel we want to purchase.
- Housing project – another part of the larger Sirombu village project. We’re just beginning construction on 240 houses for villagers. We needed to confirm progress on the houses we constructed and make sure our timeline going forward was still realistic.
- VCO production project – part of the larger Sirombu village project. This project is just in the beginning stages. We needed to locate appropriate land for the production facility and verify that the type of coconut indigenous to Nias was appropriate for the process we intend to use.
- Food Aids – not part of the Sirombu village project, a standalone project for all of Nias. We needed to verify continued need of food aids, assess possible acquisition of the food in Ginung Sitoli, and locate the appropriate distributor.

We arrived on Nias Saturday morning – landing around 8 AM. We were met at the airport by one of the task force members – Meta.

Fona & the Task Force:
Our work on Nias is with 2 major partners. ZTO, whom I’ve already described, is the contractor that is building the houses and Geoff is the head of that. Clive is his foreman on the ground. Our other partner is Fona. Fona is a man of Sirombu who lives in Jakarta now. He is very well respected within the district and has very strong ties to the people. He is our contact for gathering all of the information we need to make the project happen as well as our guide in socializing the project with the people. Fona has a task force of 10 local men supporting him on the ground. I met all of the task force men over the course of the 2 days.

Before we left for Sirombu, we had a few errands to run in Ginung Sitoli. This included stopping at the largest grocery store in town to check on the possibility of purchasing the food for the Food Aids project on Nias Island. You can see from the pictures in my album that the “grocery store” was no bigger than one 20’ x 20’ room with boxes piled in the middle. Ginung Sitoli is not a small town (I asked the population, no one knew), so this kind of surprised me. But it is not part of their culture to shop at large stores – these people go to the local open-air markets with lots of stalls because competitive pricing is easier to get that way. Anyway, after spending about 15 minutes at this store, Gina & I came to the decision that we would have to purchase the Food Aids in Medan and have them shipped to Nias. This small store was not big enough to handle the quantities we need.

Ginung Sitoli, by the way, was hit very hard by the earthquake and the impact is still extremely visible. Reconstruction is taking place – but it is obviously going slow. There is one area (see pics) where everything collapsed completely. Now all that is left is a field of cement rubble. In other areas, you’ll see 2 standing buildings then the next is a roof sitting on the ground. We passed a couple houses that were leaning worse that the Tower of Piza, but still being used as a house.

After the grocery store, a couple more quick stops and a pause at Meta’s parents’ house and then it was on the road to Sirombu. Sirombu is only about 50 miles away from Ginung Sitoli, but it took us over 3 hours to drive there. There is pavement in some places, but it is marred with pot holes like a bad case of chicken pox. In other places, it is completely broken. It was 3 hours of big bumps. Frans & Gina slept although I don’t know how they did it. Included in the album I put up is a picture of one of the bridges we crossed. The vehicles had to be aimed at the 2 logs that would support the left tires. Some of the other parts of the road had been reinforced with sandbags. I thought the sandbags were cemented rocks, but then I looked closer – nope, we were driving on a road supported by sandbags.

By the way, we were driving in a mini-van which we rented in Ginung Sitoli for ~$70 per day. Why so expensive you ask? Isn’t it Indonesia??? The mini-van came with a driver.

There were wooden houses along the road. Sometimes we would go almost as much as a mile, but then another house would appear. 95% of the houses were make-shift construction using bamboo and wood planks. Many of the houses didn’t bother with doors. I guess they didn’t have anything worth stealing. Frans said that the wood houses withstood the quake much better than any of the cement/brick ones because they were more flexible. There was actually surprisingly little apparent damage from the quake along the road – with the exception of the bridges (but those have all been rebuilt).

We also passed a lot of local women carrying things on their head. It looked like something out of the jungle book.

We arrived in Sirombu around 2 PM and went straight to the housing construction area. The houses that are being constructed are nice! I was really surprised that for ~$3,000 USD, you get a fully-functional 2-bedroom duplex. The construction is very efficient and very strong. It clearly can be constructed quickly as well. (again, pictures available in album).

The process for building these houses is simple:
- prep the land & infrastructure
- insert cement columns into the ground
- slide cement wall panels between columns
- cement in between panels to fill in the cracks
- pour floors
- attach roof
- put in windows/doors
- paint
- voila!

While the houses were impressive, it was also clear that we have a long way to go before 240 will be completed. If everything goes on schedule, we could be done as early as mid-October – but that is subject to weather and the rainy season just began. The good news is that we don’t have to wait until all 240 are complete to be able to begin moving people out of tents and into these houses. Hopefully we can move the first families by mid-July, but that depends on whether we can be sure that the families and children will not be endangered by ongoing construction.

We spent about an hour walking around the housing construction and then headed for the pier. The earthquake lifted the western side of Nias Island by about 2 meters. The river that ran through town is now only a stream in a huge bed. But even more than the river, the beach is dramatically changed. There is about 100 meters of coral before the ocean begins. It all used to be covered by the ocean. And the pier is now completely useless – it is way to high up to be reached by the boats.

My pictures show a small vessel that was making a trip from Hinako (a very small outer lying island) to Sirombu, bringing people and goods. The boat was anchored about 100 feet from shore and there was a man using a small fishing boat to ferry people and goods to shore. Even with the ferry, no one made it ashore without getting wet up to their necks because the ferry couldn’t get close enough to the shore due to the coral.

The building of a new pier is included in our total Sirombu Village project – it was a late addition because it was only made useless after the 3/28 earthquake where the project was originally planned after the 5/26 tsunami. It won’t be built until the housing construction is complete though – first things first. Plus the plans are still under revision to make sure the engineering will withstand further earthquakes and tsunamis.

Looking at the yards and yards of coral that are now exposed to the sun was also a shocker for me. I know that coral takes thousands and thousands of years to grow and that we are loosing a lot due to illegal fishing techniques and harvesting, etc. I can only imagine what the snorkeling was like prior to the quake.

Later in the weekend, Fona mentioned to me that the coconut trees are hurting. Some are even dying. Frans said we’ll need to make a report and send it to Conservation International. Maybe they can provide some insight into what could be done for the environment. I think suffering of the trees is also linked to the rise of this side of the island. The depth to reach water must have changed and the trees’ roots probably do not go deep enough. The trees are close to the ocean and are probably used to being able to access water easily. I hope that with the start of the rainy season, the trees will get enough water to survive while their roots grow deeper. This is all speculation on my part though. We’ll put together a report and see if we can get someone out here to look at the trees.

After time at the pier and looking at the houses, we went to the canteen near the construction area. Frans said that the canteen is where UID people always eat when visiting Sirombu and that it’s the closest thing to a restaurant in town. We brought a couple of cases of instant noodles with us from Ginung Sitoli. The nice lady at the canteen would boil water for us and prepare our ramen noodles for us.

The canteen also prepares dinner for the 30-some-odd workers that ZTO brought in to build the houses. Many of the workers are local, but some had to be brought in as well. While we were sitting there, they all showed up and were served rice with something green, I didn’t get a close look.

By the way, all the workers liked me. I got a rare glimpse of what it must be like to be a model or a famous actress or something because they were all staring. I even was given a long hand written note by one of them, in English, saying he wanted to meet me and talk to me, etc. They see western men periodically, but I think a blue-eyed western woman is a real shock for them.

Fona arrived in Sirombu around 6 PM and we had dinner and talked with him until late at night. Around 8:30 or so, we shifted from the canteen to Fona’s Aunt’s house – which is about 2 kilometers from shore in a not-tsunami-affected area. This is where we would spend the night.

The house has one large room, 3 bedrooms, and a kitchen area in the back. The mandi (shower/bathroom area) is outside behind the house. 10 people lived there, with 2 pigs, 1 dog with 5 puppies, and 1 cat with a kitten. The family was considered pretty well-off by Sirombu standards – the pigs and the amount of space they had were the determinants.

In front of the house was a bamboo shelter with a kitchen. Since the earthquake, the family sleeps and cooks here. They are afraid of the house, especially this week. The tsunami happened exactly 6 months ago and the earthquake 3 months ago – they believe that a third could come this week some time. Great. We slept in the bamboo shelter with the family. (see pics)

The discussion with Fona that night was very productive. One of the first things I asked was whether the food aids were still needed. It is now about 3 months after the earthquake and we have a donor who wants to give food. It can no longer really count as emergency food and we see people working. So the natural question is if the food is still needed, or should we direct the funding towards another project.
Fona said that the food was definitely still needed. While the people may be farming and working again, it will be a while before they see the fruit of their labor or can harvest the crops. In the mean time, however, they still need to eat and the food aids will help support them. He continued saying that a man or a woman will starve if they don’t have food. But if their children are starving – without food aids, they might be driven to crime. He has a very good point.

Another topic that came up as we talked is the difference between a large NGO such as the International Red Cross and UID. The IRC has incredible amounts of funding at their disposal and they create reports after project completion to give put up on their website or give to major donors. We, on the other hand, have to create a full, detailed proposal to be reviewed by donors before funding is approved and then we have to answer scrutinous questions throughout the duration of the project. Plus, our donors are mostly successful business people – who are used to high quality reports and information. They don’t really care about the amount of money as much as they are very concerned about providing a high quality project that adds value to the people.

Amongst all this work to keep the donors happy, it is also our role to make sure that the end result is not some labeled relief project complex. Our end product needs to be the Village of Sirombu. We have to keep in mind that anything we build has to fit with the culture of the people it is for. This requires explanations and socialization to both victims and donors. The donors want to provide a high quality house with a bathroom – a step up from what the people had before. The victims are used to mandis located outside of the house. In the case of Sirombu, a compromise was struck by putting the mandi outside of the house (although enclosed in a room) and putting a squat toilet in the floor. Some of the villagers had never seen and/or were not used to a squat toilet (they just used a hole in the corner of their mandi). Explanations had to be made about the benefits of the mandi. Anyway, this whole mandi issue happened during the design phase of the houses and before I came for the summer, but it is still a prime example of having the talk both the donors and the victims into meeting each other halfway.

Side note: the word “mandi” refers to the entire bathroom as well as to the actual tub-like construction that holds water for the bath.

Sleeping in the bamboo shelter resulted in a lot of mosquito bites for me – despite mosquito repellent. In fact by the end of the trip, I was completely covered. And I still itch now (days after leaving). If I didn’t know I was immune, I would think I had accidentally caught the chicken pox.

Life in Sirombu is very simple. Breakfast consisted of ramen noodles with a boiled egg.

In the morning, I used the mandi at Fona’s Aunt’s house, where we spent the night. Oh man, was that an experience. Okay, so it is an open air mandi (pic in album) – a square bamboo enclosed area with a cement floor. The door was an opening in the bamboo with a cloth that slid across, definitely not completely covering the opening. On one side there was a well that you throw a bucket into and haul up water. Then use the scooper to scoop water from the bucket onto yourself to bath.

Frans told me afterwards that there were fish in the well.

That morning, we went back to the beach and to the pier. We were hoping to catch some of the fishermen using the Delasiga boats provided in May. We happened to arrive just as some fishermen were coming back and we got to see them carrying and counting bunches of fish. (Pictures of fish not yet posted, but coming). They carried them in bunches of at least 20, tied together at the tails. Then they were hung over the handle bars of their bikes and carted away.

None of the fishermen that came in were in one of our boats, but we met an owner of one. He offered to go pick up his motor from his house to put in the boat, after which he could take the boat out to sea and we could see it in action. The process took a couple of hours but was very interesting to watch. (again, pictures of this not yet posted, sorry)

While they were doing that, I walked through a few trees and ended up at the

On the way back, we stopped at the elementary school. Frans & Gina had both been there before, but wanted me to see it. School is not in session now – the kids are on holiday. Gina said it best when she stated, “It looks deserted. But it’s not!” The three-room wooden shack had wholes in the walls. Each room had one or two blackboards and wooden tables and chairs. (Pictures of this are up though!). The concrete on the floor was broken and there was trash all around. About 90 students go to school here – 30 in each classroom. Outside there is another small shack with holes in the walls and roof – it’s the administration building. And at the end of the school yard’s field – there was a long narrow, totally pathetic building. Those were housing for the teachers.

Seeing the school was probably the hardest thing I had to swallow during the trip. We didn’t stay long, but it was enough to really take my breath away.

From the school we drove to the middle of where the town is now – really a village of tents next to one government building and a couple of small market stalls. I had asked if we could stop at the tents so that I could take a few pictures of the current living environment – tents after 6 months.

The tents were lined up all around with barely a few feet in between. There was on central area of grass where everyone hung out and the kids played. But the tents were everywhere! I couldn’t believe how many!

Before taking pictures, I always ask permission and, if it’s a child, I kept some little hard candies in my pocket to offer them. Well, I didn’t have too many and once the kids figured out that I had them, they disappeared very quickly. The tent village was packed with women and children. The men must have been out working. Once we made friends initially, the children were all very excited to have their picture taken. They especially liked the fact that I had a digital camera and could show them what they looked like afterwards. Potentially hours of amusement.

Frans brought out a box of ramen noodles we had in our trunk along with a few snacks and gave them out. It went very quickly though. We quickly talked amongst ourselves and decided to leave the tents and go acquire some additional food to give them.

We picked up:
- 5 cases of ramen noodles
- 2 cases of small snack things
- 6 small soccer balls (my idea)
Grand total: ~$15 USD

The distribution of food created almost riot conditions in the tent village with people grabbing and pushing and hands and yelling. I couldn’t believe it. Afterwards I remember thinking about how excited I can get about free food. I guess this is the same thing, except extreme because they get handouts so rarely and because of their low standards of living.

This process of passing out food was also a big reality check for me. Like I mentioned earlier, one of the projects I was working on was figuring out how to distribute food aids. I now had an idea of how difficult this would be. If this is the reaction to a few cases of ramen noodles – making sure ~$200k USD of food packages get dispersed one per family in 18 villages would be quite a task. I’m very glad we have Fona’s task force – who we established would be able to do the distribution for us.

During the distribution process, I was alternating between staring at the chaos in shock to being hounded to take pictures of various kids. Some of them were very funny about it – insisting on a photo, putting on a blank/sad look and then smiling and laughing about the results. At one point, I got kind of annoyed at one little girl who wanted picture after picture. But then I stopped and reminded myself that I had a digital camera and could always delete and, in the mean time, this was making a young girl who lives in a tent happy.

We eventually ripped ourselves away from the tent village after about an hour of this. Lunch consisted of ramen noodles eaten at the canteen.

That afternoon, Frans, Gina & I sat in on a meeting of Fona with his task force. He said it was the first time the entire task force had met since the 3/28 quake. I didn’t understand most of it because it was in bahasa Indonesia. I’m learning, but I’m not that good yet. The meeting was at least 3 hours long and I tried to sit patiently and see if I could learn something. What I did note, however, was that the entire task force really consisted of very intelligent, capable, honest men. We’d spent much of the weekend being escorted around by various members. It was now great to see them in action (or at least discussing it). Having these guys as our crew on the ground is really a godsend.

We packed up and headed out. For dinner, we stopped on the way back to Ginung Sitoli at a little restaurant place (barely a step up from the canteen), where we had ramen noodles.

We were on our way to spend the night at Meta’s father’s house in Ginung Sitoli, and then fly to Medan the next day, followed by Jakarta the following day.

While we stayed in a room in Meta’s father’s house, we were still in for another big shock. While I was getting ready for bed, a teenage girl hauled 4 big buckets of water into the mandi attached to our room and filled the mandi with clean water. We found out in the morning that the family had to go out and buy that water for us. Prior to the quake, they were connected to the government’s water system and paid the government a monthly fee. The community’s water system was destroyed in the quake though. Now, they actually have to buy all of the water they need to use because they don’t have a well. And to dig a well would cost $250 – which they don’t have.

Side note: This fact kind of shocked us. At that point, Gina, Frans & I decided that we are going to make that well happen for the family. We won’t create a project and put it through UID – it’s too small. We will just organize a collection ourselves. (We could just pay for it the three of us, but that could be interpreted as showing off). So, we will be accepting donations of no greater than $20 per person to this small well-digging project. If you would like to pitch in – please drop me an email!

At some point during the 3-hour long turbulence back to Ginung Sitoli, everyone except the driver and I was asleep and I had a sort of surreal moment. I realized that I had been thinking about coming to Indonesia and helping these people for months now. And even before that, I have wanted to explore the undeveloped parts of Asia. And I’m here. I’m in Asia. On the back roads of small, out-of-the-way island, seeing things I’d never even imagined.

As I was thinking about this, the driver popped in a cassette into the van’s tape player. And the song that came on ended up making me cry. It was one I remember vaguely from when I was a little kid. Read the lyrics below and substitute the name of any one of the places we’d been over the past few days for the word “London.” You’ll know why I had to wipe away a few tears…

How can you tell me you’re lonely
And say for you that the sun don’t shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London.
I’ll show you something that will make you change your mind.

2005-06-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

Gina & I with some of the local children of Sirombu Village...

2005-06-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

meeting local children at the tent village in Sirombu. These people have been living in tents for 6 months now. We're trying to change that as well as improve the school for the children. More info to come tomorrow, in the mean time - check out the rest of the album at http://www.clarkcolor.com/share/p=716281119975191048/l=52077971/cobrandOid=1003

Electricity 3 Days A Week

2005-06-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we leave for Aceh & Nias. Pretty crazy! I’m very excited to be going. Okay, here’s the itinerary:

Friday 6-24
- depart office for airport ~ 12 PM
- flight departs Jakarta ~ 3 PM
- arrives Medan 6:05 PM
- purchase supplies for the trip in Medan
- overnight in Medan

Saturday 6-25
- depart Medan 6:30 AM
- arrive Ginung Sitoli (capital of Nias Island) 7:30 AM
- rent car and drive from Ginung Sitoli to Sirombu ~ 4 hours
- spend day viewing houses, checking progress
- take pictures of fishermen using boats already delivered
- overnight in Sirombu

Sunday 6-26
- spend morning finishing up activities and information gathering from yesterday
- possibly move a few families into new homes
- depart Sirombu for Ginung Sitoli ~ 1 PM
- arrive Ginung Sitoli ~5 PM
- overnight in Ginung Sitoli

Monday 6-27
- 12 PM depart Ginung Sitoli
- 1 PM arrive Medan
- overnight in Medan

Tuesday 6-28
- 7 AM depart Medan
- 9 AM arrive Banda Aceh
- rent car, buy supplies
- 1 PM meeting with BRR
- 2:30 PM depart Banda Aceh
- drive to Krueng Raya ~ 1 hour
- dinner with Principle of middle school of Krueng Raya
- overnight in clinic in Krueng Raya

Wednesday 6-29
- visit school
- pictures with orphans
- gather information necessary for proposals (both school and public health)
- 3 PM depart Krueng Raya and drive back to Banda Aceh
- 6 PM depart Banda Aceh
- 10 PM arrive Jakarta

So that’s where we’re going. It’s an awful lot of transit time to get 24 hours on the ground in two different cities. But the flights to these remote areas only happen at certain times each day.

So what else has been going on since my last post – which was about this past weekend?

Work has been very busy. Monday I spent a large portion of the day working on the itinerary and budget for our trip, so that they could be submitted to Catharina and Cherie for approval. I also spent almost a day putting together another housing update presentation for our donors, including an updated construction timeline and an invoice for June.

I also re-worked the Public Health Project proposal that Nana gave us on Sunday. She is incredibly intelligent and had more than enough data included in proposal, but it was the first one she has ever written. As a result, it was just a little disorganized. I reorganized it and tightened it up to where it now looks pretty close to finished. The budget is the only tenuous portion left. She’ll be joining us in Krueng Raya and I will review the budget portion with her then.

The crux of this proposal is that there are no trash cans or dumpsters in Krueng Raya. On top of that, there is no system for removal of trash either, so even if it were collected in trash cans and dumpsters, it would not be hauled away. As a result, Nana said that there is garbage strewn all over town. The piles of garbage are breading grounds for bugs, mosquitoes, and bacteria. The garbage has also clogged the sewers and contaminated the rivers.

The AMSA (Asian Medical Students’ Association) Clinic in Krueng Raya, where Nana works, has noted a distinct rise in treatment sought for skin allergies, skin infections, dyspepsia, and acute diarrhea. They believe that this is due to the garbage problem.

The project recommends educating children and women about the benefits of a healthy living environment and installing garbage collection and removal services. The total project is currently budgeted at $100k USD and includes part- or full-time employment for 26 villagers.

When I had completed revising the proposal I showed it to Gina and she liked how I presented it. She also said that we have almost all of the information needed before sending it to donors. But, she also said that finding financing for this project will be very difficult.

I was slightly surprised at first about this comment, but then I thought about it a while longer. A clean living environment and health education is important, especially when it gets to the point where it affects the health of the people living in the community. But garbage removal is not an area that will attract donors. People want to give scholarships to children or build houses for the homeless. This will be a more challenging sell.

Side note: By the way, if anyone reads this and might know an interested donor, please feel free to email me! Nathalie.Butcher@unitedindiversity.org

Then Gina mentioned that we are also looking for funding right now to cover the overhead costs for the AMSA Clinic in Krueng Raya – the clinic where Nana works. It was set up by Conservation International and will eventually be taken over by the community, but the community can’t afford it yet. The clinic’s staff thinks that they need another 6 months of overhead coverage before the local governments will be able to support its ongoing operational costs – which, by the way, are only ~$2,750 USD per month! The clinic is mostly staffed with volunteers. This money covers medical supplies, electricity, food, water, and a couple of employees. It’s amazing how far money is stretched out here.

Also interesting to know is that the clinic runs off of a generator. I was just told today that Krueng Raya is only supplied with electricity three days out of each week. The supply in Aceh province is limited and rationed out. Apparently the villagers have gotten used to this and have learned to work around it, but we were warned so that any volunteer teachers we find for the school project would know before they arrived. Unbelievable.

So other interesting things this week: Yesterday, I was running late for work and came out of my apartment and the service elevator was sitting there open, waiting. So, I got it and pressed the button for the lobby. Well, I’ll never do that again. On the way down, we stopped about 6 times for various building employees to get on or off – one specifically with a large wheely-trash can. I have no idea what they were saying (my Indonesian is not that good yet), but it was obvious they were amused at finding me there. I insisted that they get in and use the elevator despite the fact that I was in it (which they were very hesitant to do). It’s not their fault that I broke protocol. And waiting for the elevator to go all the way down 25 flights and then back up waste a lot of their time.

Frans explained to me later that the guy moving the trash can could have lost his job if the manager of the building found out that he brought the trash can into the elevator with me. I’ll politely wait for the non-service elevator from now on.

Frans also told me more about his time in Holland yesterday at lunch. He left Indonesia when he was 17-years old and stayed with his Uncle in Amsterdam for the first couple of months. But after that, he moved out on his own. He stayed in Amsterdam for 8 years. During that time, he made enough money, doing anything he possibly could, to put himself through University and cover all of his living expenses. He told me that his family could have supported him and he could have stayed in Jakarta, but he wanted to do this by himself. He explained to me that is how he learned the value of real work and the value of earning things himself. The story was very impressive. Then he said, “and Gina too!” She did the same thing, and worked as a maid in order to support herself.

I know a lot of people who support themselves and put themselves through school – but it is still impressive to hear. AND, they both did it in a foreign country.

I also had lunch with Richard McHowat this week. I met Mr. McHowat at the Mercantile Sports Club at the top floor of the World Trade Center (the one in Jakarta). The sports club reminded me a lot of the University club. Effectively – an urban, golf-less country club.

Richard McHowat:
Mr. McHowat is about 6’2”, blond and in his late 40’s maybe? He likes to talk. He is the President of HSBC in Indonesia and a friend-of-a-friend of Dad’s. He has 2 children, one currently studying in Italy. He is Scottish (lost his accent though – it’s British) but is really taken with southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. He lived for a while in Thailand, went back to London for a “stint” and decided he had to get back here as quick as possible. Loves Indonesia, especially the fact that everyone knows their place. He’s off for a 4-week trip to Scotland, so I’m lucky I caught him.

We had a wonderful, 2-hour lunch. He did most of the talking and told me tons about expat life here in Jakarta and his experiences and what the Bank is doing. He also told me that the Bank just funded and built a clinic one of the tsunami hit areas in Sumatra. And they did it in record time.

To construct the clinic, they used old shipping containers. They designed the building in modules, lining them up and cutting holes for doors and windows where necessary. Then transported the containers separately and put the building together on site. It has its own generator, water purifier and living quarters. It’s fully self-sufficient and operational. 10 weeks from funding to opening. Good work!

It was a very nice lunch. Mr. McHowat is very interesting, fun and generous. I look forward to meeting up with him again when he returns.

Alright, well, there is always more to write, but I have to go pack to leave for tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be able to upload while I’m gone, but I will be taking my laptop and keeping my journal while I’m gone. SO, you should be able to expect a good portion of the trip report as soon as I return, if not all of it.

Oh, one more thing. When I get back from the trip, I'll be spending Thursday and Friday of next week at a conference. Check this out: http://www.adrtsunami.com/index_aceh.cfm. I'm paying the entrance fee out of my own living money for the summer - but I know it will be worth it (plus I talked them into a killer discount because I'm a student volunteer). Anyway, I'm very excited because this will give me an opportunity to learn about the logistics of rebuilding the entire Aceh Province (as opposed to the small projects I'm working on - which are still good and valuable, but a totally different scale). Anyway, I have a lot to look forward to and to talk about.

Signing off. See you next week!

-N

Street Jockeys and Umbrella Boys

2005-06-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a long post. I had an extremely busy weekend and have a lot to talk about, so, let me get started….

Friday morning we had a 2-hour meeting with Zero-To-One, the non-profit construction company building the houses for us in Sirombu. We went into the meeting with the goal of establishing a monthly process and a long-term timeline.

Side note: In a previous post, I spoke of one of UID’s partners – a non-profit construction company that was founded because the president’s son had died in the Bali bombing. ZTO is that company.

Introductions were made and I took a backseat role for a while as I watched and learned.

Geoff:
Geoff, the president of ZTO, is a tall, white-haired Australian man of probably 65 years. He has lived in Indonesia for almost 30 years now and speaks bahasa Indonesia fluently. He wore a simple open-colored white button-down dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, with black pants. His forearms showed huge muscles, a tan, and tattoos. I feel like he ran offshore drilling platforms when he was younger. Needless to say, very direct and very strong (physically & personality).

It only took about 10 minutes to really see what the problem was. It was like a video clip out of my communications class. Geoff and Frans were both saying the same thing, but it just wasn’t connecting because there was a communication gap due to the culture.

You see, Frans & Gina are both polite to extremes. Frans ends almost every email, including to me, even if it’s just a note saying we’re going to lunch, with “Please call me directly if you have any needs for I would be honored to help. I stand ready to serve you. Very sincerely, Frans.”

Geoff wants things simple and clear. Frans wants to make it such, but he’s so used to being polite. After about 10 minutes of watching, I finally stepped in and said to Geoff, “what I think Frans is trying to say is that he wants to make this process as simple for all as possible. Lets talk today about establishing a process and a time line that we can follow and we won’t have to go through this again.”

Geoff was very cool with that. Gina and Frans both breathed a sigh of relief. And in the meeting we got the progress report process set up, along with a future construction timeline. We’ll be able to pay Geoff in advance going forward and get the reports to the donors done in a timely fashion. It was a very productive meeting, but just needed some help to get started.

Friday evening, I met up with Fitri & Yuyun, the girls I met at the café in my building last Sunday and we went to dinner at a bar called Aphrodite. Also along with us was Fitri’s little brother (19 and very shy) and an old friend of hers – Nando (28). Aphrodite is an “expat” bar – and was crowded with Brits, Aussies and Americans (all male over, generally over 30 but under 50). It had lacrosse and soccer up on big flat-screened tvs and also had 2 pool tables. To be honest, I did wonder a little why this place would be interesting to Fitri and Yuyun – 2 nice respectable Indonesian young women. Maybe Fitri thought I would appreciate it. I did enjoy playing pool.

What really put me off at first was the number of very young Indonesian women wandering around in outfits that I would deem totally inappropriate. Not only did they show a little too much, but they were also totally inappropriate for a sports bar. 4-inch heels with sequin black halter cowl-neck tops.

These old guys with beer guts (and totally unattractive) would not get anywhere with women here in the US, but here, they have gorgeous young women to date. And these young women enjoy being with guys that can afford to buy them dinner and drinks and have good jobs. It makes them feel like they are hanging out with important people.

The guys like it. The women like it. They’re happy with the situation. Why does it bother me so? And who am I to really judge?

Saturday was my tour. I was very excited about that. When Daniel picked me up, he told me that I was the only one on the tour today. This was both a blessing and a curse. Yes, we could go at my own pace, but it also meant that his sole focus for the entire day was me. And it’s his job to be friendly to people and try to get them to give him more business, anyway, he was just extremely eager.

The tour was very good though. It was a good mixture of enough history and knowledge with just walking and looking. I took quite a few photos, three of which I posted here last night. The rest of which can be seen through this link:

Link to photos of tour of Jakarta: http://www.clarkcolor.com/share/p=292191119223187229/l=51248108/cobrandOid=1003

I think Daniel found it weird that I wanted so many pictures without me in them. I really like to try to capture what the place was like though. I guess it’s the artsy side of me coming out. There are a few of me though, as you can see.

Okay, so the first part was a quick stop at the National Monument. We were there too early though, the gates were still closed. And then it was on to “Glodok” – or the large market in China Town. It was really incredible – you can buy anything imaginable there. And it goes on and on. And it was just packed with stuff in every corner.

Although the Chinese descendents in Indonesia only make up at 10% of the population, they control close to 80% of the wealth. (I knew this part before the tour). The Chinese that emigrated to Indonesia were very entrepreneurial. And while they’ve been in the country for 300+ years and no longer have any ties to China and don’t even speak Chinese, this is a big source of resentment for native Indonesians (which are actually long-ago descendents of Malaysia). Past presidents have been very lenient to this minority, because the president knew that they controlled the money and knew how to make money. Anyway, the point of all this is that China Town in Jakarta is actually one of the more affluent areas (relatively speaking).

Next it was the Puppet Museum. Very cool. Apparently traditional Jawa (the island that Jakarta is on) does not use theater or dance to relay history or stories nearly as much as puppet shows. This museum housed both wooden and leather puppets. The photo album contains a picture of an Indonesian man (I don’t remember his name) holding what looks like a very elaborate fan – it is actually a leather puppet of the Tree of Life. The man’s father actually made that particular puppet by hand, in addition to the puppet I’m holding – which is Rama. Rama is the Indonesia equivalent of Romeo (except with a happy ending) and he is riding a bird to go rescue Sinta (Juliet). I couldn’t part with the puppet I’m holding and it just accidentally followed me home. My puppet was also hand made by that man’s father. Oh, and the man is 4th generation puppet museum curator and puppet artist. Very cool.

After the puppet museum, we went across the street to the old Dutch town hall. It was nice, with a bunch of very old antique carve wood furniture. And then to Café Batavia – which was very cool. It is one of the original expat hangouts in Jakarta and it is just drop dead gorgeous. I felt like I was literally walking onto the set of Casablanca.

From there we went on to the docks – where wooden sailing ships transport lumber from Borneo to Jakarta. There is nothing mechanical used – all of the wood is transported on and off the ships by hand and the boats have no engines. There was a huge long line of them too. And just piles and piles of lumber. When we got there, most people were breaking for lunch. You can see I got a couple of pictures of some dock workers eating lunch. (I always ask permission before taking their pictures). They were incredibly friendly and seemed to like seeing me around. You can see how smiley and nice they were in the pictures – despite the fact that they were having rice with some flavored water for lunch. The people here amaze me constantly.

Moving on (still a long way to go with this post), Daniel get a local fisherman with a small boat to paddle me across the harbor to the fishermen’s village. The harbor water, I might add, makes the Hudson look like Aquafina. Truly grotesque with garbage floating everywhere. Makes me a little nervous about the fish that are pulled out of that water. I’m hoping all of the sea food I’ve eaten has come from water a little further out. Anyway, you can see in the photos this little old man that paddled me across the harbor. And people were looking out of their huts as we passed and waving at me. Again, amazing.

The fishermen’s village was not the lowest level of poverty in Jakarta, I was told. I’d hate to see what the worse areas look like. This was pretty bad. Tight living quarters. Pathways so narrow and it was a definite maze. All the kids that we passed were saying “hello mister” to me – the only 2 words in English they probably know. The smell could have been nicer. Definitely a fishermen’s village.

That was the end of the tour. We ended a little early – because I was the only person on the tour we went pretty fast. And I was back at my apartment by 2 PM, at which point I went to CarreFour to do a little grocery shopping. As I picked up everything I was looking for (including 1 pirated dvd - $0.60), I noticed how comfortable I’ve become here. Don’t worry Dad, I’m still extremely careful to watch myself. I just mean that I know how to direct the taxi to go where I want him to. I was completely comfortable finding everything I needed at the store and asking where things were. And it didn’t bother me I was the only blue-eyed person I saw.

After a quiet afternoon, Ted & Rita picked me up and we went out for Thai food for dinner. Ted was back from Kuala Lumpur.

Ted:
Very tall and must have been a red-head, although it’s now fading. Kind of on the reserved/conservative side, although very talkative. Not quite what I was expecting for a man who left Texas to marry a woman on the other side of the world (not that I really knew what I was expecting). But you could tell they married because they really loved each other.

We talked about my work and how I knew his sister Mary. He also told me a lot of things he had learned/noticed being an expat here in Indonesia – things you would only know if you lived here and were not visiting. Probably the funniest thing I heard all weekend was about “street jockeys.”

There are certain roads in the business district of Jakarta that are only allowed to be used by carpools of 3+ people or public transportation during certain times. This rule was announced in 1999. Soon after it was announced, a new form of entrepreneurship appeared. Boys stand on the side of the road holding their pointer finger up. These boys can be picked up, driven across town and dropped off where ever – all so that you can add an extra person to make the carpool minimum of 3 people.

Rita then added that her brother makes the maid ride in the car while his driver takes him to work – then they are three: the brother, the driver and the maid.

This had me in stitches. I just couldn’t believe it. So funny. Actually, almost as funny as the “umbrella boys” that I saw for the first time last week. Umbrella boys magically appear with large umbrellas as soon as a downpour starts. There seems to be absolutely no reason to carry an umbrella in Jakarta – since for $0.50 you can have a boy follow you to where ever you need to go with an umbrella over your head. I will get a picture of me with an umbrella boy at some point before I leave Indonesia.

Ted, Rita & I had a very nice dinner out. They are really extremely nice people. And we also talked about possibly going to hike/climb Krakatau – a volcano in west Jawa. That would be super cool.

After dinner, they dropped me off at home and I turned around and went out clubbing with Fitri. It was fun. We went to 2 clubs – both with cover bands singing all sorts of stuff – Latin, American, all sorts of things. The second place had by far the better band, but the first place was fun too in a really cheesy way. OH, and at the second place – the band played “Oye Mi Canto” – which was our theme song in Patagonia! So cool!!

Man was I beat Sunday morning. Dad actually called and I very sleepily answered. I did roll out of bed in time to be dressed and cleaned up before Frans & Gina showed up with Melissa, Jemimah and their 2 nannies. Those 2 little girls are SO cute. Sangat lucu sekali!

Link to photos of my life in Jakarta. It includes a few pictures of both Melissa and Jemimah, as well as a picture of Ted, Rita & I out at dinner:
http://www.clarkcolor.com/share/p=592201119260456846/l=51322917/cobrandOid=1003

We all had lunch and then Melissa, Frans & I went swimming in the pool here at my apartment. It really is a beautiful pool – with both a great water slide and a water fall. I’ll take pictures at some point and add them to the above album.

Melissa is very shy and very observant. She didn’t say “boo” to me most of the day. But I think she liked me. She told Gina that I looked like Barbie! I think it was the blue eyes. Totally cute. I believe I was the first westerner she has ever seen.

Nana showed up around 3 PM with her brother.

Nana:
24 years old and very mature. She is a medical student from Yogyakarta who has been volunteering in a clinic in Krueng Raya. Her father and brother are both also at this clinic helping. She is UID’s key contact in Krueng Raya and has supplied a lot of the proposals that UID has worked on from Aceh.

We discussed the school in Krueng Raya that we are going to visit as well as an environmental proposal that she recently put together. The environmental proposal is to work on waste disposal – which is currently not happening there. They believe that the recent rise in skin and bacterial related sicknesses is due to the garbage everywhere. This proposal will help address that. Finally we also discussed the clinic’s operating expenses, for which there is no funding after the end of June. Granted the local government needs to take over these expenses eventually, but in the mean time Nana asked us to help her find donors.

Nana is damn impressive for a 24-year old medical student. Very inspirational.

Alright, I’ve covered what I did and saw this weekend – although unfortunately not with depth of thought. Here’s the annoying thing about traveling: there’s so much that I want to share with everyone else that by the time I’ve covered just the actual events (and not really much in the way of thoughtful commentary), I’ve already written 6 pages. Makes me kind of feel bad for the people that read all this. But then again, you all don’t have to read every word – feel free to quit whenever you get bored. This blog is as much for me as it is for all of you. Okay, so while this blog entry didn’t have much in the way of in depth thought, I’ll admit that I didn’t really have much in depth thought this weekend anyway – too darn busy.

So, here's to street jockeys and umbrella boys! I'm going to bed. You're just going to have to wait to hear about today (Monday)...

2005-06-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

The fishermen's village on the harbor's edge...

2005-06-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

Crossing the harbor...

2005-06-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

Me and the curator of the puppet museum.

2005-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

all of Indonesia....

2005-06-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be good add some perspective to the places that I'm talking about. Here are maps that show where I am and where I'm going...

It's all about perspective...

2005-06-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

Traffic here is totally unpredictable. Last few days it has take over an hour to get from the apartment to the office. This morning, it took less than 20 minutes.

I’ve been going to the gym every morning. I still don’t like the heat and by the end of 25 minutes of cardio, I’m dripping. But since I’ve been told that it is not safe to really walk around in Jakarta, this is my only exercise. Even with going to the gym every day, I’m still concerned that I’ll blow up like a balloon.

This morning, I found my way over to the Park Lane hotel, which is right next door to the apartment buildings I live in and there is a path through the garden that connects the two buildings. The path has 2 gates that are only open during the day and a guard at the door to the hotel. The Park Lane is gorgeous inside, by the way, and swarming with wester business men. Anyway, I went in and up to the front desk and requested tourist information. They only had a single tour brochure on hand, but it’s a nice looking one and judging from the hotel – they probably only would allow reputable companies.

Anyway, I spent a bit of time looking at the brochure and decided to call and see if I could reserve one for this weekend. They asked how many people and where am I staying. Then I was promptly told “Daniel” would pick me up at the Puri Casablanca Apartments at 8:30 AM on Saturday. Wonderful and how simple!

My tour: The “Old Kampoeng Batavia Heritage Tour” includes the old China town with open markets, the original Dutch Jakarta Town Hall (with under water jails!), and the Indonesian Puppet Museum. I’m very excited.

In the office I’ve spent the last day working on the new proposal for volunteer teachers for Krueng Raya (the town in Aceh province). Gina spent an hour on the phone on Tuesday night with the principal of the school. Afterwards she had to take a breather to collect herself and then sat down and explained the conversation to me.

The information we had gotten earlier was a little mixed up, which I was really glad to hear, but it is still sad. Out of 350 students, only 19 died as a result of the tsunami (as opposed to only 14 survivors which was the original message). But, the teachers are gone, that was correct. The school is fortunately set up in the hills slightly, so it was not destroyed by the tsunami. However, it is damaged by the earth quakes – the walls and roof are cracked. Plus, the school was used a temporary shelter and base for emergency aid. All of the chairs, tables, and doors are gone as a result. Basically, the victims took and used anything that wasn’t cemented into the foundation to build shelters.

On top of the lost teachers and current barren, damaged state of the building, enrolment has actually increased. Krueng Raya was the only public school in the area that did not charge tuition. As a result, many of the children who could formerly afford to go to a tuition-based school have now re-registered in Krueng Raya schools.

Gina said that it was very difficult to speak with the principal. As he talked about things, he was crying and every other sentence was “Please help! Please!” Gina wants to help, but had a lot of questions that we need answered if we are going to get funding. Gina turned to me afterwards and said that this is the hardest part of her job – keeping it together while extracting necessary data.

The proposal we are drafting has 3 major components:
1. 8 volunteer teachers + 1 volunteer staff member
-Salaries, living expenses and a new barracks for housing included
2. Building reconstruction
-Repair walls, roof, floors, water, sewage, electric
-Provide chairs, tables, blackboards, doors, and teachers’ desks
3. Scholarship
-For all students – cover books, school supplies, uniforms, daily lunch
-For new orphans – child support

So far I’ve put together the structure of the presentation and started setting up some excel files to calculate the funding needed. We need a lot more information though in order to make the official proposal. So, we will be going to the school to have a first hand look and get estimates for fixing it as well as acquire data on the number of students now registered in each grade, etc.

Frans immediately chimed in and said that we need to go to Nias as well to check on the progress of housing construction and hand over the first complete houses. So, we are going to combine the two trips – go to Sirombu first and then Aceh. The Governor of North Sumatra will be visiting Sirombu on June 26th. Frans thinks this is an opportune time for us to go to Sirombu (face time with the local politicians helps make giving easier because they know who you are and the kind of things you are doing).

SO, it looks like I’ll be making my first field trip from ~ the 24th to the 30th! That is, if we can get the itinerary and budget for the trip approved by the powers that be.

It’s a pretty quiet past 2 days for me here, primarily because Frans & Gina are buried under donor questions. The donor for the Sirombu project is having a board meeting tomorrow and needs all sorts of status updates and scope change answers so that he can present effectively to his board.

This is a whole new world for me – the world of a small non-profit and how they have to respond to their donors. I mean, small companies are at the whim of their customers, but here since everything is given with no real product in return, it’s just a whole new level of courtesy.

The office here has “office boys.” They are young local men (in their 20’s and 30’s) whose responsibility it is to run errands and make our lives simpler. They make the copies, fetch us coffee and water, food at lunch time, and pick up after us.

I needed to mail a small birthday present today and asked Maggie for packaging so I could take it to the post office and mail it. She sent an office boy out and he returned with wrapping paper. I laughed. It wasn’t what I was looking for, but I hadn’t communicated my needs clearly enough. So then I tried to explain that all I wanted to do was mail it. While in the office there were multiple boxes that could have worked, Maggie had one of the boys build a box just the right size. Then instructed him to take it to the post office for me and have it weighed. Then he brought it back with descriptions of the different rates and speeds. I chose which one I wanted and back the man went to the post office with my package.

Between the office boys and the maid that irons my pajamas, I feel really weird. I’m not a princess or someone who needs to be waited on hand and foot. It actually embarrasses me to have to ask them to get me water (I haven’t figured out where the cooler is yet). But Frans and Gina have explained to me that I if I don’t ask, they’ll feel like I don’t trust them to even get the water and that’s their job. I guess I’m so used to being the lowly analyst who makes the copies before the meetings that this is not something I’m taking to easily.

Thang’s response was to say just be thankful for them and appreciate the fact that you are privileged enough to be able to afford a maid here. However, Thang did go on to comment that there are a lot of expats that live here simply because they can afford things like that.

Frans and Gina responded to this that people need jobs here. And these men appreciate the job because it pays the same as construction and they are indoors in air conditioning with nice people.

I guess it’s all about perspective.

It reminds me of the nice customs agents at the airport. The US agents have a reputation for being difficult, cranky and not happy with their jobs in general. Many of my Sloan friends have confirmed the trouble they’ve had going home and coming back. However, entering other countries is a relatively painless process. I think this may be partially due to the fact that in the US, working at the airport is not a sought-after job (lots of weird people who don’t speak English). But in third world countries, people consider themselves lucky to have such a job (air-conditioned building, sitting down, with benefits). Like I said, it’s all about perspective.

My maid ironed my pajamas...

2005-06-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

So, for one of the presentations I am putting together, I learned that the construction company on the ground in Sirombu is a small non-profit subsidiary of Kojo Construction. Frans explained further while working on an invoice for the construction. The subsidiary, known as Zero-To-One (ZTO), was founded by the president of Kojo Construction after his son was killed in the bombing in Bali in 2002. Apparently, the father opened his son’s laptop and the desktop said, “The most important thing in life is freedom.” The father founded ZTO in memory of his son to build homes the victims of terrorism and natural disasters.

I’m in tears again. I think this is part of being in the non-profit/aid world – hearing both beautiful and tragic stories all the time.

Both taxis to and from work were fun rides yesterday with very talkative drivers that wanted to teach me bahasa Indonesia. They both asked if I was single and for my phone number as well. I just laughed and said “no, no!” They were kidding, I think.

My maid ironed my pajamas.

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that Rita told me she and Ted were in Phuket when the tsunami hit. Apparently, there was some discussion about Ted going scuba diving that day and had decided against it because he was too tired. If he had gone, he would not be here today. Ted & Rita were down at the beach and saw the water receding. Ted knew immediately that they had to get to high ground, and they did. They were very lucky.

In the Jakarta Post today, there were two articles that caught my attention. The first was an article about the unemployment rate in Nias. Since the earthquake of March 28th, the unemployment rate has risen 125% to approximately 50% of the population. The two major industries on Nias are farming and fishing. While the land and water are still around, the earthquake destroyed the trading and storage facilities vital for selling their produce. Additionally, there are ~5,400 boats that were destroyed or damaged and have not yet been repaired. Some ~2,000 people are managing to make a living by foraging for scrap metal in the destroyed houses. The scrap metal can then be sold to fencing companies for $0.08 per kilo. The government worries that the high unemployment will result in dramatically rising crime rates.

The second article I noticed was about relief housing construction in India. The government allocated $23 million to build 10,000 new houses to replace those destroyed by the tsunami. It was also a priority for the government to get the houses completed prior to the onset of monsoon season. However, the only building materials that were available for acquisition and shipping quickly and cheaply enough to pull this off were metal sheets. The iron effectively turned the houses into ovens in the summer heat of southern India. Also, in order to construct these houses, incredibly large plots of land had to be cleared and nothing was done to protect the soil. As a result, the dirt paths between the houses will become mud when the rain hits. The floors of the houses are also dirt and the houses are expected to catch the water, creating deep mud inside the houses. And without forests and foliage, there are threats of mudslides and houses collapsing. The people don’t want to move into these places, they would rather stay in the tents. Everyone believes that it was a total waste of tax payers’ money.

This last article reminds me a lot of talking to Prof. Rigobon about how to rebuild destroyed housing effectively. Do you build 10,000 crappy houses or 200 decent ones and the rest live in tents? I don’t know the full circumstances of the Indian government, so I hate to pass judgment, but the information in the article is disappointing.

It also makes me proud of what UID is doing in Sirombu. The houses being built there are by know means extravagant, but they meet the needs of the people and do so rather economically. Each house is costing ~$3,000. Plus, Frans told me today that they build a few different example houses in Sirombu and let the villagers choose which one. Frans said this was important for acquiring the trust of the villagers and making sure that the houses UID build would be used.

Some other government, I don’t remember which, also donated boats to Sirombu fishermen. But because of the specifications of the boats, they are sitting on the beach, ignored. The boats don’t meet the needs of the fishermen. UID is very careful to make sure all aid they provide is in the form that the people can and will use.

Back to work for me – I’m working on a GANTT chart timeline for the next phase of house construction in Sirombu. The chart will be used tomorrow by one of our donors in a presentation to their board.

Weekend #2 - out'n'about with locals...

2005-06-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

I had a very busy, very fun weekend.

Maggie, the secretary in our office, invited me to dinner Friday night with her family and to spend the day with her on Saturday as well.

Maggie:
Maggie is 55 years old and has never been married. She has a small house in west Jakarta, where she lives with her maid and her maid’s 4 birds. She was the second-to-youngest of 7 children – 5 boys and 2 girls – many of whom live within a few blocks of her. She spends a lot of time with her neighbors and family, especially hanging out with the little children. She also has a driver who drives her to work and waits until she is done and then drives her home everyday. She said sometimes her nephew or someone borrows her driver during the day though.

So Friday night, Maggie’s driver took us to west Jakarta where we met Maggie’s family for sea food. Maggie’s older sister, Margaretta, was there and Margaretta’s husband, son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Margaretta is an English teacher, and she teaches only privately in her home – mostly to students studying to go to college in the US. Two of her sons (she has three, one lives in America as an engineer, the other two are here in Jakarta) learned English from her and are also English teachers. Everyone was very proficient.

Sea food is quickly becoming my favorite of Indonesian food. I’ve always loved dive restaurants and these places are awesome. They are always open air and you walk in past bins of all different live fish and crustaceans. You can stand there and pick which fish you want to eat. Someone always orders for the group and then as dishes are ready, they start to appear.

Side note: All Indonesian restaurants, not just the seafood, seem to have no concept of what is an appetizer or a main course. They don’t time the main courses to come out with each other. When the food is ready, it is served. Simple. Done.

We had fried fish, steamed little peal-your-own shrimp (so good, served with a hot sauce very similar to tobasco for dipping), some shell fish that I have no idea what they were, soft shell crabs, and some big hard shell crabs. Man was this dinner just amazing!

After dinner Maggie and Margaretta dropped me home.

Maggie also had a friend in town for the past two weeks – Maria. Maria is from another island and was here for a wedding. She’ll be leaving in a couple of days. Maggie intends to take her to lunch, shopping, and then dinner tomorrow and asked if I would like to come along. I said of course!

Saturday morning around 8 AM, I got a phone call from Maggie saying she would pick me up around 11:30 AM. She also asked if I would like to spend the night at her house. It kind of caught me off guard a little, because in the states it’s generally only done if you live too far away for traveling home that night. I accepted however, because this would be a great opportunity to see life at a native Indonesian’s home.

Shopping, lunch, and dinner were all very fun. Her sister and her sister’s husband were also along for the day. They were all so very friendly and all in their late 50’s/early 60’s. I very much felt like I was spending the day with the grandparents of a close friend – especially because they wouldn’t stop feeding me. Everyone knows I like food, but really it was perpetual. It was fun though – because we had all sorts of things I either don’t normally have (like frogs legs or Japanese noodle soup with boiled calamari) or things I’ve never had before (black rice popsicles).

When we were back at Maggie’s, she lent me a “daster” to wear around the house. It was, I guess, a house dress that is supposed to keep you very cool in the heat. It very much reminded me of some of the night gowns that are put on baby dolls – just a tube of fabric that is gathered at the top. I looked like an apple because the thing stuck out over my chest and then hung down to about my knees with no shape – just two little tiny legs sticking out the bottom of a gigantic umbrella/tent thing.

Oh, she also offered me an opportunity to bathe before going out to dinner. I accepted, but had to ask her to show me how. You see, traditional Indonesian bathrooms (“mandi”) are quite different from western-style showers.

Since I can’t seem to post pictures right now (although I did take a picture of Maggie’s bathroom – while she laughed at me from behind), click on this link – it will bring you to a picture of a “mandi” (a traditional Indonesian bathroom) on the web. http://www.wanderingstars.com/99-00/home/images/002_11.jpg Maggie’s is much nicer than this one, but you can see the tub of water and the scoop.

Basically, there is a tub (or large sink) of water (always left full) in one corner of the room. The floor slants slightly down towards one corner. You scoop the water out of the mandi and just throw it on your self while you stand in the corner. Once you are all wet, then you soap up, and start scooping again to rinse.

If you are careful, you actually don’t really need to use much water to take a bath this way. It’s probably great for the environment in addition to being a source of major confusion for westerners.

In the morning, Maggie and Wenni (another friend of Maggie’s) gave me a lift home.

Rita called me to confirm our lunch date for 11:30 and promptly showed up.

Rita:
Rita is the wife of Ted Frank, brother of Mary Frank – who set up my bank account at HSBC. Ted and Rita happen to live in Jakarta and Mary recommended I look them up. Ted just happens to be on a business trip for a few weeks in Kuala Lumpur, but I will meet him when he returns. Ted & Rita were married 11 years ago, when Rita was 37. They met when she was working for KPMG and training in utilities in the States – he worked for one of the gas companies she audited. They kept in touch and a couple years later they were married and he moved to the Asia Pacific for her. They spent 5 years in Kuala Lumpur, but since then have been back here. Ted has 2 children from a previous marriage, the elder is studying in Italy currently. Rita is 48, but doesn’t look a day over 40 and is very fun, generous and laid back.

Rita and I grabbed lunch at Plaza Senayan and then walked around for a bit. We then saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie). And then went to Sarina, which is a building where there are a lot of Indonesian handicrafts – beautiful stuff. In all, it was an extremely pleasant day.

Rita dropped me back at my place around 6, and I grabbed some of my books and went downstairs to the café to read and study bahasa Indonesia.

While I was sitting downstairs, I met 2 girls about my age. I had seen them last week at the café as well and they asked my name and then invited me to join them. We must have talked for at least an hour and a half. They are both super cool and very pretty. One of them, Frita, owns a salon in Bandung. She lives in Puri Casablanca on the weekends. The other,, and I grabbed some of my books and went downstairs to the café to read and study bahasa Indonesia.

While I was sitting downstairs, I met 2 girls about my age. I had seen them last week at the café as well and they asked my name and then invited me to join them. We must have talked for at least an hour and a half. They are both super cool and very pretty. One of them, Frita, owns a salon in Bandung. She lives in Puri Casablanca on the weekends. The other, Yuniarti, works in purchasing for a large diamond drill manufacturer. They both speak English very well (it seems everyone here does). Yuniarti doesn’t live in Puri Casablanca, but her sister does, and she comes often on the weekends to visit her sister and Frita.

Anyway, they were both super fun and invited me to go out with them next weekend. I hope it works out. I really want to meet some people my age – and cool single girls like this.

Anyway, to bed by 10PM so that I won’t be a zombie at the gym tomorrow morning ~6AM.

End of the first week - pretty quiet

2005-06-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve given up drying my hair. It is curly and frizzy no matter what I do. The waves and body the humidity creates is actually not that bad though – looks decent. I think it only looks okay because my hair is pretty long - the longest I’ve had it in a while. It settles into long waves and ringlets. If it were shorter, it would have a couple of kinks and stick straight out.

The American Embassy was pointed out to me as we passed it today on the way back from lunch. It has high black walls with all sorts of electrified wires on top. It looks like a real military base in the middle of a jungle or war zone. It was enough to make me feel intimidated about approaching it. Not that it’s open anyway. It’s still closed. I did register my trip though – since you can do that online though.

Sam sent me an email asking me how safe I feel when I’m alone (not with people from work or people that I live with) and the answer is I feel okay. Okay, not great, but not scared either. I'm careful to watch everything, my purse especially, and I don't venture far from areas that I know. Most of the time, there are so many people around that I doubt anything big would happen (like direct mugging). I stick out like a sore thumb here and everyone looks me. But that fact also unnerves me. As I learn more Indonesian and learn my way around, I'm sure I will feel more comfortable.

In the malls or shops, I feel fine. I just don't wander around outside without specifically knowing where I'm going.

I've learned enough Indonesian that I can give directions to taxi drivers and ask for help when I need it. I don't yet know many of the streets in Jakarta, and so if we leave the 3 or 4 I do know, I get lost immediately. The fact that the roads do not turn logically compounds the confusion. For example, to turn right (remember they drive on the left side of the road so think about making a left turn in the US), first they veer left - exiting the road they are on and merging onto the road they want to go on, and then they pull a u-turn in the middle and you are going right. There are very few lights, and lots of merges, over-passes, round-abouts, and one-way streets.

Not much really going on in the office. I’ve drafted a couple of presentations and an introductory proposal for the VOC production and I’m waiting to hear reactions.

I’ve made a few mistakes in Indonesian that the people in the office find very funny. Generally just word substitutions – “lusa” for “lupa” (the first is the “day-after-tomorrow” and the second is “to forget”).

I had “street” food today. Everyone here has warned me to wait a good week or so before trying the street food – just because stomachs not used to Indonesian food don’t generally handle it very well. People say that you have to slowly adjust to local food here. Anyway, Frans ordered satay for lunch from the street and it was great. It’s now 4 hours later and no bad reaction yet. Thang said to wait, it may still hit. I think I’m going to adjust okay though.

Uh, plans for the weekend. Maggie, the secretary in our office, has offered to take me around Jakarta tomorrow. She said her cousin has recently moved here and she will take us both to see some of the sites. On Sunday, I’m meeting Rita for lunch. She is the sister-in-law of Mary Frank, who works at HSBC and set up my bank account. It was very nice of Mary Frank to connect me with her brother and sister-in-law and I’m really looking forward to meeting her (someone outside of work). That’s it for the weekend. I’ll hit the gym as well, of course.

Tuesday & Wednesday - 6/7 & 6/8

2005-06-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

Getting to the office is getting easier. I’ve actually managed to give broken directions.

The word in the office this morning is to avoid all 5-star hotels and large malls. There are supposedly cars with bombs in them in the city.

On our way to the meeting with Ibu Mimis and the Ambassador from Timor-Leste, Gina showed me a proposal that just came in. It is from Krueng Raya, a town on the east side of Banda Aceh. Of a middle school where 350 students used to attend, 14 are still alive. To make it even worse, all of the surviving children are now orphans.

All of the teachers are missing as of 12/26 as well. The proposal asks for volunteer teachers and for funds to pay them and for their living expenses. It mentions that the school building was also destroyed, but the proposal does not ask for money for that. They just want teachers for now.

Gina said that it is easier to find Math and Bahasa Indonesia teachers than to find cultural and/or religious teachers. This is because to teach culture, they need to understand the local culture of Aceh. Frans said that the children there did not understand him when he tried to have a conversation with them. They speak Achenese.

The people of this town are currently living in barracks. There are no houses left and none have been constructed. Gina said we’ll probably have to figure out appropriate housing for the volunteer teachers as well.

By this point, both Gina & I are tearing up. “We have to help them, Frans, we have to. These are just children!” she said.

Gina then told me that this was one of the best proposals she had seen. It had a one page summary, typed, and then charts of supporting data – listing the names of the teachers now missing and then children that lived. Contact information was also provided.

Proposals often come to UID either hand-written or just by phone. They have no supporting data, they just need help. The problem is donors want to know where their money is going. The donors don’t really need a lot of information, but they do need basic information to base their decisions on. But often the victims don’t have the information, don’t know how to provide it, or just plain aren’t ready to gather the information. If the donor wants a picture of the remains of the house that was destroyed, sometimes the victim isn’t ready to take the picture (that’s if they have a camera – probably not if they don’t have food or a home).

Gina gave a good example of how the donors often send an inspector of some sorts before making a large donation. The inspector is just supposed to verify that everything the donor has been told is true. Two destroyed houses? Check. How much did you use to make per month? Check. It is easy to see how the victims feel like they have no integrity left and are forced to be beggars. These are people who used to support themselves, own small businesses like a corner store – not necessarily much, but they had dignity. And then if the donors are providing continued help – funding a building project or such, they want updates on progress. The victims sometimes feel like they are being baby-sat.

Gina explained to me how UID writes many of the reports and tries to act as mediators between the victims and the donors. Often, she has to try to explain to victims that if the donors ask questions, it’s okay. They just want a little information to know more about who they are helping.

She says UID’s role is to make it happen. Anything it takes, just get the volunteer teachers to those surviving 14 children.

We met up with Ibu Mimis at the Ambassador’s office. We were shown into his office and brought drinks while we waited for him to appear. As I mentioned in my last post, according to Frans, Timor-Leste is surviving on aid right now from the UN. As we looked around the Ambassador’s office, the TV, printer, fax, and computer all had a sticker on it that said “Donated by the United Nations.” Very sad.

The Ambassador, Rev. Arlindo Marçal, joined us after a bit. He was maybe 50-years old and very soft spoken. His wife is Canadian and she and the children are currently in Canada on a summer holiday.

Ibu Mimis brought a sample of the coconut oil and gave it to the Ambassador. She then spoke about what the manufacturing of VCO requires and how it helps the economy. She also spoke of the recently-proven health benefits of coconut oil.

The Ambassador was interested in going forward however he did want to know why we were interested in Timor-Leste. What were our motivations? Why Timor-Leste? He was obviously and understandably concerned about having his people exploited. Ibu Mimis and Frans spent time describing their respective foundations and the work that they have done in the past. This reminded me of the victim distrust that Gina had explained to me just a few hours before.

We will be moving forward with developing of a proposal for VCO in Timor-Leste. The first step will be to send a 2-page rough proposal providing additional information to the Ambassador. I am to write this and have it reviewed within the week and then sent to his Excellency. After approval of that, the next step will be to go to Timor-Leste to view potential locations and analyze needs further (I won’t be able to go because my visa is for a 1-time entry into Indonesia. If I leave, I may not be able to return).

Back in the office yesterday evening, we learned that the ministry of trade had been evacuated because of a bomb threat. Thang said not to worry – that the ministry of trade is a long way from here and nothing happened anyway. Thank god we don’t work in a an attractive building. Our building is very old and does not attract attention. It also does not have any prominent offices.

Frans showed me some videos of Aceh and Nias just days after the disasters. I was bawling. There were fields of bodies lined up where they had run out of body bags. And then it showed driving along and there still being bodies all over – in the streets, everywhere. After seeing that I called it quits for the night and went home.

Today has been a quiet day in the office. I am focusing on the draft of the proposal, as well as writing this journal entry. No meetings out of the office. The internet connection was incredibly slow this morning – even slower than normal. I check the download speed = ~500 bytes per second. That’s 30 kbs per minute! It is taking me over a minute to open each email and it took me almost 30 minutes to download a 600 kbs file that was mailed to me. This is not important for the blog, but its annoying the crap out of me.

Oh, I did have a conversation with the button-pusher guy in the elevator. They employ someone to sit in the elevator and push your floor button for you. Crazy. Anyway, I managed to get out the floor number and say good morning properly. He asked me if I spoke Bahasa Indonesia and I said just a very little. Then he asked me how long I’d been here and I managed to respond 5 days. And then he asked me if I was from Holland and I said no, I’m from America! Sounds silly, but I was beaming when I got off!!!

Note: Since Indonesia was a Dutch colony for close to 300 years, many of the Bahasa Indonesia words are similar to Dutch. Therefore, often the Dutch can kind of understand Indonesians. It was therefore a compliment for him to ask me if I was from Holland – because it means I understood a lot better than he would expect from an American.

Not really much else going on here today. The internet is down, so we all are leaving a little early (5:30, as opposed to 7 PM like yesterday). The day starts later here and ends later.

First day of work - 6/6/5

2005-06-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Hit the gym when I got up, showered and had breakfast at the café downstairs. Scrambled eggs and hash browns ($3 incl bev) – first American thing I’ve eaten here.

Thang had some work to do and wasn’t going into the office yet, so I took a taxi in by myself. The poor taxi driver didn’t know where the office building was and I didn’t recognize the route or the building well enough to tell him where to go. He had to stop and ask directions 3 times. I felt bad. But, while I may not have been able to tell him where to go accurately, I did now know enough Bahasa Indonesia to apologize profusely.

On the desk in the office – 1 glass of water waiting, some office supplies and 1 roll of toilet paper. ? Apparently, you need to take this with you when you go to the bathroom. And when you use it, you throw it in a small waste basket next to the toilet. You do not flush it. At least they are western style toilets.

The internet connection in the office puts a whole new meaning to the word slow. I’ve been timing the loading process, and it seems to take at least 45 seconds to load a web page.

Frans gave me a business plan to take home over the weekend. It was for setting up a virgin coconut oil (VCO) manufacturing facility on Natuna Island, which is a small isolated Indonesian island very similar to Nias. He asked me to review it because it is the same process they want to use for coconut oil on Nias.

I read it on Sunday and I’ll admit I was intrigued by the process, but the business plan was clearly written by someone without much business experience. I took some notes on the questions I had.

When I came into the office this morning, I learned that we would be meeting with Ibu Mimis (Ibu = Mrs.) that afternoon. Ibu Mimis is the lady driving the instillation of VCO manufacturing on Natuna. She is also the wife of Bapak Tides (Bapak = Mr.), who is on the UID Steering Committee. I spent the morning organizing my thoughts about the business plan to ask relevant questions at the meeting.

We left for the meeting with Ibu Mimis a little after 3 o’clock, which would take place at her home in south Jakarta (reminder – the office is in the north). It took us 2 ½ hours to travel the maybe 40 miles to Ibu Mimis’ home. Jakarta traffic.

We were at Ibu Mimis from about 5:30 PM until almost 9 PM. She is a fascinating older lady, who clearly has learned a lot about coconut oil in order to set up the facility on Nantuna Island and help the local economy there.

Her house is incredible, beautiful inlaid marble floors and couches with raw silk pillows, floor to ceiling windows one next to the other wide open with floor length curtains in between each all looking out to the garden. You could just walk out any of them into the gardens. The house was just stunning and very much what I thought a nice Indonesian place should look like. What did surprise me, however, was the fact that it was down a little street, no bigger than an alley and on either side were shacks of the poorest living conditions. Granted, you couldn’t see this from inside the house, but so close is the poverty. And this seems to be very typical in Jakarta – a beautiful house then shacks then an apartment building then shacks.

Conversation there would kind of touch on a topic and then vear off and discuss something else for a while. Then it would come back on point and talk a little more about the coconut oil production. Each question I asked would be answered, but then it would bring up some other story. And through the evening, demonstrations of different things kept coming out.

First she brought out half of a young coconut with the husk still on. We were able to see the husk and try the coconut water and meat. She told us that coconut water is sterile because it is protected within the shell of the coconut. One time, when she was trekking, one of her friends became extremely dehydrated. A local medicine man cut down a coconut and fed it to this man intravenously, as if it were saline, and the man lived.

She also brought out a bottle of syrup that she has produced on a local island in an industry she started there for the people. She mixed it with soda water for us to drink. It was like a cross between gingerale and champagne – sweet but with very fine bubbles. It was fantastic. She gave me some to take home.

Ibu Mimis then brought out samples of coconut oil, both hers and a number of competitors. She showed us the differences – hers is thicker, sweeter smelling and has a higher lauric acid content. Lauric acid is found in high quantities in breast milk. It has a lot of properties which promote good health, including encouraging the development of anti-bodies.

Ibu Mimis invited us to join her tomorrow for a meeting with the Ambassador from Timor-Leste in his office downtown. She is proposing to begin this same VOC industry there. Apparently, this is an interest of Prince Albert of Monaco (UID’s primary donor of late), so it makes sense for us to join. We will be helping with the efforts at his request, despite UID’s mission is to help Indonesia (not other countries).

Side Note: Timor-Leste (East Timor) was originally a Portuguese colony. When the Portuguese abandoned it in the 70’s (?), the people of Timor-Leste came to Indonesia for help. Indonesia took the opportunity to make them another province. Since then, they have been fighting with Indonesia to regain their independence. They wanted help, not acquisition. They’ve been war torn for years and as a result have no natural resources or anything. Frans told me they are possibly the poorest nation in the United Nations. Frans said that they are surviving right now on aid only.

Towards the end of the evening Bapak Tides joined us, her husband. He is a character – obviously very smart and very philosophical. He spoke first of the larger social implications of the aid efforts we are planning. He explained potential jealousy of other villages when they see the installation of VCO production in Sirombu (the target town on Nias). Why did they get a facility and not us? Or why did they get boats and not us? We were hit too. It makes sense and is definitely something to consider.

Then Bapak Tides started talking about rivers. When you look at them from above, they look like they are going neither east nor west, but merely wandering without direction. It is only when you view them from a vertical perspective that you realize they are following 2 unique and distinct principles: 1) find the lowest point and 2) seek the path of least resistance. I understood fully, but couldn’t help but think how this conversation is similar to the river – it’s going somewhere but I have yet to discover its purpose. Well, he then asked me to take a look at UID’s mission statement when I have time. He said that it is currently too broad and the projects completed so far look as if they have no actual purpose. Perhaps because I have not the history or personal goals with UID that I can see a pattern and perhaps I can help focus the mission statement.

All this time while Bapak Tides spoke, Ibu Mimis was not sitting still. She saw me scratching where a mosquito had bitten me and first got me aloe vera and practically put it on my legs for me. Then she brought out bug repellent. And then spoke to one of her maids and meringue cookies appeared (made with coconut flour – a byproduct of VOC production). She pointed out that nothing is wasted. I felt like I was sitting and trying to listen to Grandfather Butcher talk about something interesting he had learned and Grandmother Butcher was fussing around me the entire time.

Towards the end of the evening, she brought us on a tour of the house and gardens. They have thousands of books on the second floor of their house – which they have archived alphanumerically like a true library. She pointed out ceceks – small lizards which are impossible to rid an Indonesian house of. And then out to the gardens to sample all of the Indonesian herbs direct from the bushes. Quite the tour.

Ibu Mimis sent Gina & I home with samples of the virgin coconut oil, bottles of nutmeg syrup, and boxes of the meringue cookies. We stopped for pizza on the way home. Then Frans & Gina dropped me off at my apartment and I immediately passed out.

Ibu Mimis:
60 years old. Part of the royal family of Central Java – the only part of Indonesia where the governor of the province is actually royalty. Actually, a sultan. She was an interpreter for Sukarno when she was younger – both French and Dutch. She has her own foundation for over 30 years now. She opened a local airport in ’66 in Papua. After that her father said she was no longer Javanese – now Indonesian. Likes to trek and run expeditions. Headed a sailing expedition from Indonesia to Vancouver. Built a 20 meter traditional Indonesian vessel, will probably donate it to a museum.

Bapak Tides:
67 years old. On the steering committee for UID. Owned a newspaper when he was younger. During Suharto’s regime, newspaper was shut down and he was imprisoned for 5 years. Very philosophical. Great laugh.

The weekend...

2005-06-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

As in all weekends that I have experienced in new cities, this one was pretty quiet. The grand total of my activities included the gym (twice), the Indonesian equivalent of Kmart, dinner with Thang (Sat night), and a whole lot of reading and writing.

Yesterday’s experience at the “Kmart” (actually the French store Carrefour) was fun. The store was just swarming with people. Think grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving and multiply that by 2. And it was ridiculously loud. But check out these prices!

Taxi (to) $1.10
Taxi (from) $0.90

12 hangers $0.60
128 Mb jump drive $24
Hair dryer $5.20
Speakers for laptop $7
3 plastic bins $3

4 pkgs ramen $0.28
3 apples $0.30
3 bananas $0.15
2 mangos $0.14
3 oranges $0.33
2 yogurts $2
2-ltr btl orange-mango juice $3

Grand Total: $48.00

I’ll admit that since I’m really used to exploring new places on foot, the thought of exploring a city via a taxi takes me aback. I’m sure I’ll become more adventurous each day as I learn more about the city. I have to be out and about starting tomorrow as I head to the office to begin adding value.

This afternoon (Sunday), I’m sitting downstairs at a café in my apartment building. I’m sitting outside on a covered patio/hallway, enjoying the heat and the humidity. It has showered a couple times today. My hair is curling.

The café sells wrapping paper. No books or gifts or flowers or anything. Just wrapping paper. *insert confused look here* Oh wait, they also sell 2 different cards. That makes it all right then.

There are two little kids racing each other back and forth down the long patio/hallway area. The older one is on roller blades while the younger one is barefoot. Surprisingly, the first time, the younger one beat the older one. Fast little kid, but he won because the older kid couldn’t stop when he had to turn around. The older one has since figured out a way to turn more quickly and the younger one is killing himself to keep up. They both look Indonesian, but they have been yelling at each other in a mix of French and English that they both understand. The whole thing was very funny to watch.

A gaggle of other little kids have passed throughout the afternoon, of various nationalities – some Chinese, some Indian, a little French girl, and a couple of American or British (can’t really tell them apart yet) – all with their Indonesian nannies in tow.

More on Jakarta:
Jakarta is a very green city. By that, I do not mean that there are parks all over the place. Quite the opposite. I may have only noticed 1 park since I’ve been here. The foliage is just out of control. It grows on its own and it grows all over the place. Thang said that if a bamboo stick were planted in the ground here, it would grow.

The call to worship rings 5 times a day and is audible from within the buildings. The morning one has not yet woken me up, but I invariable stop and listen the rest of the day.

Thang also explained to me why everything is so loud here. Apparently, Indonesians are all slightly deaf, so everything has to be loud. He recommended speaking up when talking to the taxi drivers especially.

A little girl no more than 14 months in a little pink dress just passed, toddling after a pink ball.

Ah, the life of an expat... back to reading.

The first 48 hours...

2005-06-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing. I’ve been here for less than 2 full days and I know this is going to be a long post. Like I said in my last post, I really had no idea what to expect when coming here. Even so, Jakarta is not anything like I was expecting.

So, let’s back up to where I left off – which was just before getting to Hong Kong. I don’t have much to say about the layover in Hong Kong – I was only there for 3 hours. I spent most of the time trying to learn a little bit of introductory Indonesian. The airport has really great views though. Hong Kong is very much mountains rising out of the sea with sky scrapers clustered around the edges.

I saw a very faint rainbow – just enough for me to notice it and smile. I thought that was very auspicious. When I went to Austria as an exchange student (the first time), I saw a rainbow the first day I arrived. Anyway, I think it’s neat that I’ve seen rainbows every time I’m taking a plunge into a new culture.

Moving on, the flight to Jakarta from Hong Kong was very short and easy. It’s amazing how a 5-hour flight felt like nothing. I read Thang’s Indonesia Matters most of the way. It has a fantastic summary of political history of the last 50 years in the beginning. With that, and some of the other reading I’ve done to prepare, I actually feel like I know more about the modern history of Indonesia than I do of the US. Scary thought and probably not true – but his summary was very informative and clearly written.

When I got off the plane in Jakarta, there was a man waiting for me at the end of the jet way. I didn’t recognize him from any of the pictures of people from UID and he was dressed in a uniform. It turns out he works for the airport and his job is to help important people through customs quickly. He knew everyone at the airport and whisked me through customs with almost a wave of his hand. It was very cool. I felt very important.

By the way, the plane said it was 94° F when we landed.

Thang Nguyen was waiting for me at the other side of baggage claim along with Arief, who also works for UID. Welcome to Jakarta!

The plan was to take me home, let me shower and then head out to lunch – probably with a few other UID people (Frans & Gina). Thang also commented that I didn’t very much. This made me very happy – as I take pride in not being too girly and packing very efficiently. (An MS taught skill).

Arief has a car & driver. Very cool. Arief’s car was the one they took to the airport.

The Puri Casablanca apartments are just east of central Jakarta. It is a tall complex of 4 apartment buildings. It has a guarded gate and the guards open the trunk and doors of every incoming vehicle – apparently checking for bombs. Arief explained that this is required before entering any parking area in Jakarta and started after the 2002 bombing. It weirds me out, but I’m sure I will eventually get used to it.

I got a full tour of the apartment complex later that night. It has tennis courts, multiple pools (one for laps, 2 for fun, includes 1 waterslide), a gym with yoga classes, 2 small restaurants, and a convenience store – all air conditioned.

Side not: I used the gym this morning (Sat morn). It is small but well-equipped. It has 3 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, a bike, a stair master, mats, weights, and a personal trainer. AND, it’s free to residents! I’m sure I’ll be in there quite often. The only draw back is the fact that it’s so hot here, despite the air conditioning, that after 20 minutes on the elliptical, my face was purple.

Okay – so my apartment. Apparently, it belongs to Cherie Nursalim, not Thang. Thang is a guest here, like me. It is a 3-bedroom, sparsely decorated place. But it is very nice. It has marble tiled floors and a very nice dining room table with 6 chairs in the main room – but nothing on the walls. There’s a large TV, a kitchen, and a maid that comes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – for a ½ day. She does all the laundry, ironing and quietly cleans the entire place. She is very nice, but doesn’t speak a word of English. This is good though – someone for me to practice on! I’m totally spoiled.

I have a small bedroom for myself, which has a twin bed – nicely made up in a pink flowered spread. There is a small closet with a couple of shelves and a night stand. I also have my own bathroom – complete with shower and western-style toilet. But, there is no shower curtain. I’m not sure if all bathrooms here have no shower curtain and this is customary or if none was put up in there. But there isn’t a rod for one either. Anyway, I’m getting used to getting the bathroom a little wet.

After I had showered, we (Thang, Arief, me, and now Frans & Gina) went to Plaza Indonesia for lunch at a Thai restaurant. Everyone is SO nice and funny. They are obviously great friends and enjoy hanging out together. And they are all fountains of knowledge and willing to help and share.

We then went and tried to buy me a cell phone – a process which ended up taking us to two malls and a couple of hours. But everyone seemed content to help get me set up. I know I certainly appreciated it.

I think the most surprising thing for me was when we emerged from the mall at 7 PM and it was dark – like pitch black dark. That was very weird. The daylight hours don’t change here at all. The sun rises around 6 AM and sets around 6 PM every day. It makes sense, but I was just not expecting it.

Frans & Gina have a mini-van. Oh, they’re married by the way. They also have two little girls. So cute.

Anyway, Frans & Gina dropped Thang & I back at the Puri Casablanca. Thang told me he was going out to meet a friend for drinks, but before he left, he showed me how to check my email from the apartment. Then he left me quietly at home. I sent a quick email saying I was home safe and passed out.

Next day. Friday. First full day.

On Thursday, we were discussing some of the projects they were working on and I must have seemed eager for someone said something along the lines of “not unless you want to start tomorrow!” To which I said “Yes! Sure!” Anyway, they were all surprised at how eager I was to get started and suggested perhaps I just come into the office during the afternoon to meet people. There was no way to know how well I would sleep that night. So, the plan was to go to the office in the afternoon. No other specific to-do’s.

I ended up sleeping a full 12 hours – from 9 to 9. I woke up briefly at 2 and was wide awake, but I took a Tylenol PM and went right back to sleep. I didn’t have any trouble really getting a full night sleep last night either. I guess I managed to screw my system up enough by not sleeping on the way over that it was just kind of in pause-mode until I resumed a sort-of normal schedule. Anyway, I seem to be handling the time change just fine.

Spent the morning unpacking and then Thang took me to his favorite Vietnamese restaurant in south Jakarta. Vietnamese food is very clean and fresh. It is not fried and it includes a lot of vegetables. It was really good. He introduced me to the owner of the restaurant, whom he referred to as his adopted sister. By this, I later learned, he meant they had adopted each other. She was an older lady, probably in her mid 50’s, and clearly quite a lady. Her husband had worked for a bank and they had traveled all over before being located in Jakarta some 25 years ago. They have been here ever since. Last year they retired and she opened this restaurant.

From here we went up to the office in north Jakarta.

Note about getting around Jakarta:
It seems that Thang takes taxis everywhere. And they seem to be totally affordable. Base rate when the meter is turned on is 4,000 rupiah (approx $0.40). After lunch we took a taxi from south Jakarta to north Jakarta – probably a good ½ hour in transit and the grand total, including tip, was 40,000 rupiah (~$4.00).

The traffic in Jakarta is unbelievable. You know how on islands, driving is very relaxed. It goes at an extremely fast pace and 3 seconds before hitting the vehicle coming the other direction, they kind of wave and are like “OK mon, I’ll go dis way, you go dat.” Okay, now combine island driving with LA traffic. NOW, you have some sort of concept of what the traffic is like in Jakarta.

And while we’re at it, the lines on the roads are not even acknowledged. All the cars just weave in and out and around. Sometimes there are 4 lanes, but 6 or 7 actual lines of traffic moving on the road.

And there are motorcycles ALL over. Dude, motor cycle riders here are the bravest people in the world. With the way the traffic weaves here, the motor cyclists could be squashed at any second. They fit through the darndest little gaps and push aggressively to the front. They go faster than most of the cars. Think of the little squiddy monsters from the Matrix.

I asked at one point if I should stick to the taxis or if people ever take the buses or walk. I was quickly told never ever to walk any where and then told not to take the bus either. And while we’re at it, also not to ride in certain taxis. The blue ones are okay, but I should avoid many of the other color taxis, especially the red ones.

UID’s offices are on the executive floor of another company, inter-mingled with their people. The other company is a family-owned conglomerate – Cherie Nursalim’s family. I thought she was full-time Conservation International – but now it seems that is just one of her hobbies. The conglomerate does all sorts of different things, although its major business is tires. It also owns the Puri Casablanca apartments. Surprise! Anyway, UID is under Cherie’s protection until it can stand on its own two feet – that is why the offices are intermingled.

There were few people there when Thang & I arrived. Frans & Gina were off meeting with lawyers. Arief was also gone. However, I was introduced to Catherine (“Cherie’s other half, here in Indonesia), who runs the office. She was very nice. And I met Sylvie – Catherine’s assistant, who made up my bedroom. And I also met Maggie – who organized my visa. Everyone speaks excellent English – very impressive. Activities are done as much in English as it is in Bahasa Indonesia (the official name for Indonesian).

When Frans & Gina returned, I spent about an hour and a half talking to Frans about projects to work on. It was fascinating. However, during parts of the conversation tears were welling up on my side. This is just the beginning...

We spoke of the Island just west of Sumatra, called Nias. It is the only place in Indonesia that was devastated first by the tsunami and then again by the earthquake on March 28th. Not many people there died during the tsunami because of the oral history taught from parent to child. The history told the people that when the sea recedes, they should run to the mountain. As a result, the only people who died on Nias were not locals. However, the tsunami swept everything away. Then the earthquake flattened whatever was left. The earthquake also destroyed all of the roads – they are now cracked and disjointed. Frans said that the people there have no desire or will to start rebuilding their lives. They think “what’s the point? It’ll all just be flattened again with whatever else is coming.”

Unlike the tsunami, the earthquake did kill a lot of people on Nias. And all of the traders (all Chinese) who did not die, left. The traders kept the economy going there and were the only real link to the outside world. The locals (all Indonesians) primarily fished for their livelihood. Without the traders, there is effectively no capital movement on the island. The economy is at a standstill.

UID’s goal is not only to try to provide food and shelter, but they also want to restart the economy there. They want to give the people something to work on, something to provide hope, to see their efforts have results and see their lives get pieced back together.

Nias is covered in coconut trees. One of the thoughts is to try to create an industry based on the coconut tree groves. I looked this up online while I had a minute yesterday and there are tons of things that can be made from coconut trees. The entire tree can be used. I read that from the roots, a toothbrush can be made that is supposed to have great health benefits. Brooms can be made from the hairy husks. Oil is produced from the fruit. And the sap can be processed into sugar. Frans intends to get me started working on developing a business plan to start an industry based on the coconut trees. I’ll have figure out what is needed to really process the trees and what the island already has. We’ll have to go to Nias to really understand the needs.

This is just the project I’ll be starting with. I have my work cut out for me and a lot of reading to do this weekend.

Around 6:30, everyone finally started packing up. I couldn’t believe how late they worked on a Friday! Talk about work ethic. I’m going to be busy this summer. Anyway, we (Frans, Gina, Thang & I) went to dinner just around the corner.

We went to a really neat local restaurant where you pick out what you want to eat and then they’ll cook it and bring it to you. More specifically, there’s a bin of fresh fish and you can pick the actual fish you want to eat. Frans & Thang ordered for all of us and man was it fantastic! Spicy clams, grilled shrimp, grilled fish, calamari and some sautéed vegetables. I think I might have a problem here. I’m going to have to work out a lot to survive the awesome food this summer.

Frans & Gina gave me a ride home after dinner. Thang headed out for the night. I came home and hit the sack by 9:30.

Goals for Sat: go to the gym and go to the supermarket.

Thang Nguyen:
Thang is 33 years old and about 5’ 11”. He is Vietnamese and apparently was a trouble maker when he was young. But when he went to Hobart, apparently he changed dramatically and lived in the library. He studied International Relations and then got a masters degree from Johns Hopkins, where he focused specifically on Indonesia. From there he spent a few years in Switzerland with the World Economic Forum, which is where he met Cherie Nursalim. Cherie recruited him to work on the United in Diversity Forum and afterwards kept him on with UID. Now he works part-time for UID and is a part-time freelance writer – writing columns on Indonesia that are published in newspapers across Asia. His writing is available for reading at his blog: http://thangthecolumnist.blogspot.com.

Thang is very animated and energetic.

Frans & Gina:
Both grew up here on Jawa. They met while they were studying in Amsterdam. After returning, they started their own company – wedding planners. Weddings are huge, week-long affairs here in Indonesia. They were hired to help coordinate the UID Forum and after that were hired full time to stay with UID. They live outside the city – about 20 kilometers away (although they say it takes them sometimes as much as 2 hours to get to the office because of traffic). And they have two little girls – one 4, one 9 months. Frans is maybe 5’ 7” and is very smiley and jovial. Gina is 5’ 9” and quieter, very sweet.

June 1st, 2005 – on the plane.

2005-06-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

From the map projected on the TV screen in front of me, it looks like we are close to flying over Tokyo right now. I’m on the 20-hour flight from Toronto to Hong Kong. It stopped in Anchorage to refuel, but we were not allowed off the plane, and I had taken a Tylenol PM so I slept through it anyway. Something I didn’t count on, although it is logical, is the fact that the flight from Toronto to Hong Kong left at midnight and is therefore entirely at night. This is because as we travel west, we are out running the sun. It’s logical now that I think of it, but I guess I didn’t understand it because I’ve never flown this far before. I was expecting there to be a short day time and a short night, but that will occur flying the other direction. When I fly home I’ll fly out in the morning, fly through the day and through the night and land during the day – but it will be the same day that I left because of the international date line.

Anyway, so it’s a long flight.

So I guess this “blog” thing needs a proper introduction. I’ve named it “A Year of Living Dangerously” in honor of the 1980’s film based in Jakarta with the same title. I believe it starred Mel Gibson and Sigorni Weaver. I’ll have to check. But it was about the political unrest there. Granted I won’t be there a full year, but anyway.

I intend to use this as a journal of my activities over the summer. I figured putting this together online would make, in the end, a great memento for me as well as an opportunity for everyone to read as I go along (as opposed to getting a typed and edited version post trip, as with Patagonia).

Heads up: not all of the posts will necessarily be added exactly when the activities occur, such as this one – can’t upload from the airplane. But I will try to keep up as best I can and I will also try to post on a very regular basis – so that everyone knows I’m okay. I know everyone is worried.

ALSO, this is not meant to be Pulitzer winning literature here, it is meant to accurately reflect what I am doing and feeling. I therefore will rarely proof read. Please forgive grammatical and spelling errors.

Turbulence. Woohoo!

Now a little bit about where I’m headed and how I got into this. Back in January, before school began with the second semester, I was working on two things: 1) finding a summer internship and 2) working to secure sponsorship for the Sloan Leadership Expedition – Patagonia.

For the internship, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for but I was aiming for something in logistics and/or operations. I’ve always enjoyed projects and tasks that require organizing multiple steps with a major goal in mind. For example, running the registration tables at Showdown, baking wedding cakes, organizing trips, etc. I enjoy seeing all the pieces fit together and I have a lot of patience for details and time intensive work that produce things that are, in my mind, extraordinary. Many of the things I really love are tasks that most other people to not see the effort as worth while but appreciate the end product. Hence why I believe that logistics and operations will be a good fit for me.

Now the fundraising activities for Patagonia never really amounted to much, but the process was very educational for me. I’ve never had much interest in most marketing activities and have never been good at selling things either. I think my general enthusiasm for things I like has an actual negative impact in convincing other people. So working with Dan Brenninkmeyer (a Patagonia expedition teammate) to develop a value proposition was good experience for me. We talked of how sponsorship would provide exposure at Sloan for companies and how the expedition would add practical real-time decision making experience. But enough about the Patagonia proposition. The important is that I was working on calling companies and asking for money for the expedition.

Like I said this was in January and therefore also only weeks after the terrible earth quake in the Asia Pacific area and the resulting tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people. As I was working on the pitch to ask companies for sponsorship, I began feeling guilty – thinking that the companies should really be giving the money for people who didn’t even have drinking water. I was thinking that maybe we, the leadership club, should change the purpose of the trip to go help in Asia. But as I thought about that, I also knew it would be impossible. First, we had limited time – maybe 8 or 9 days that we could actually use to make an impact. Organizing the trip would therefore use more resources for coordination than actual value would be provided in the end. Second, the timing of our efforts would also work against us – the area would still be in emergency reaction stage. So, these factors added up to changing the trip = not valuable or helpful.

But that still left me wondering what I could do to help. I don’t remember the exact point when the light bulb lit up and I put the two together, but it hit me. At first it was along the lines of “wouldn’t it be cool if I did I helped organized supply routes and disbursement?” But I wrote it off as impossible and unrealistic. But for some reason, it kept coming back to my thoughts and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be something I think I would really enjoy and something I think I could add value to. Non-profits and volunteer organizations are notoriously full of do-gooders with little business knowledge. An MIT student with an operations finance background might be really useful. And everyone knows how much I love adventure – and that’s exactly what this would be.

I know I’m getting a little long winded here, but I feel it’s really important to do proper justice to the thought process that got me on this plane to begin with.

Once I had this idea, my next thought was, “no how the hell do I get into disaster relief operations? Do they recruit on campus???” I started with sending an email to my Sloan class and contacting the Career Development Office (CDO). And from there I started talking to every connection I could think of. I searched alumni, called my friend Kristie in DC, sent a note to Dean Schmalensee, talked to professors and friends for ideas. The CDO suggested contacting Social Responsibility contacts at other business schools. Elisabeth Job that suggested I put together a pitch book – which I think was actually one of the most influential steps. I set up that pitch book so I would be ready – 5 slides including what was going on, where I could add value and what my limitations (timing, financial) were.

Dean Schmalensee responded probably a week after I sent the email and passed me off to Associate Dean Alan White. I later learned that Dean White is responsible for Sloan’s Asian recruiting, marketing and other activities – which is why I was sent this direction. I set up a 15 minute interview and brought in my resume and pitch (in color of course) and did everything in my power to show I had thoroughly thought through my request and that I could add value.

I must have impressed Dean White because he asked for electronic copies of the pitch and my resume and sent them along with an email to Cherie Nursalim, a contact in Conservation International in Singapore. The next day I had an offer from Conservation International to find a place for me to help them in Indonesia. Very exciting and very quick turn around.

Over the next couple of weeks, I emailed and spoke with Cherie. She was very helpful and very responsive. They said they could not cover my expenses, but then offered to provide me with housing. Dean White then offered to cover my plane ticket out of his personal budget, if I would help with a class on socially responsible business practices during the Sloan Innovation Period in the fall. I couldn’t believe it, but that was enough – I was going!

More turbulence. All over. Time to Hong Kong – 3:05. Nope, bump, bump, bump.

The initial email was:
Hi Alan,

If she's interested, she could be immediately put into an important project linking up civil society, business and government initiatives that will map out the medium to long term 10-15 year plan reconstruction for Aceh providing tens of hundreds of jobs in an environmental and sustainable way. At the moment most people are just rebuilding thousands of houses and boats in separate projects risking illegal logging of protected Aceh forests that could also risk future landslides etc. There is a lack of business-driven masterplan to bring more long term value-add to the populace eg. Aquaculture industry, eco-tourism industry etc that's protective of the environment with Aceh forests, mangroves and marines under jeorpardy and ultimately impacting sustainable livelihoods. Poverty in Aceh would be fertile breeding ground for extremism. This opportunity of opening up of Aceh ought to be embraced with long-term strategy, so the outpouring of goodwill may be rewarded and not dissipated.

Conservation International head Peter Seligmann www.conservation.org just returned from Aceh with CI and UID peoples on the ground who continue to provide logistics and critical relief works, he stopped by Singapore to duscuss with Enki and I the follow up where he would like to work closely with UID on this. As you may know Enki is involved with CI and major corporations as Walmart, BP etc are also part of this group making amazing impacts in conservation in developing world by linking poverty reduction to conservation. I believe she would learn a lot from this and contribute to a critical cause which if Aceh initiative can be successful with the whole world watching, there will be positive ripple impacts to the rest of Indonesia and other developing world.

If there are possibility, even other MIT professors or students can be roped in. We will certainly share this with John Sterman and Otto Scharmer in case they have advice or students interested to participate too.

Warm thanks,
Cherie

As I learned more, I found out that there were a lot of people already help coordinate the governmental activities. Where they needed specific help was with coordinating private company donations. To do this, Conservation International would place me with their partner in Indonesia – United In Diversity (UID. www.unitedindiversity.org). When this was first decided, there was no one else working on this area. I believe in late February, I received an email stating that a gentleman named Thang Nguyen was now obtained to head up this area and I would therefore be working for/with him.

I also began researching Aceh and Indonesia, recent (like 5 years recent) political events and economic circumstances so I would be prepared. Indonesia is a country of 201 million people spread over 13,000 islands. They have very different cultures, financial circumstances, religions, political beliefs, virtually little in common. The country’s motto is “United in Diversity.” Aceh is the most northern province of Sumatra and also one of the most rural areas of Indonesia. Islam, the country’s predominant religion, originally entered Indonesia through Aceh. Aceh is heart of Islam in Indonesia and very fundamentalist. They’ve also tried to cede from the nation a number of times, starting, I believe in 1953. So there is political unrest in Aceh. But there is also political unrest in the rest of the country – more specifically the student riots of 1998.

Since 1998 there have been a lot of efforts to ensure peace. Included in this was the beginnings of a small NGO known as United In Diversity. (Yep, the one I’ll be working for.) They led the United In Diversity Forum in 2002, a conference which brought together political leaders, scholars, business men and philanthropists world wide to discuss aiding peace in Indonesia. What’s interesting is included in this forum was Thang Nguyen, whom I’ll be working with, and Lester Thurow, a professor of economics at MIT Sloan. (Unfortunately, Thurow is on sabbatical this year and I have therefore not had the opportunity to meet him.)

Side note: there was a book written by the participants of this Forum, presenting many of the issues and points brought up. It was edited by Thang Nguyen. I have a copy.

The point of this long bit of information are: A) I’m going into a very unique and hard-hit country, B) United In Diversity is on the fore front of leading peace reforms in Indonesia and will be a great place to work and C) it looks like Thang Nguyen will be a great person to work with and learn from!

Alright, so up to now, I’ve provided a good deal of background of how I got into this and what I know about what I’ll be doing. Let me see if I can put down how I’m feeling and my expectations for the next three months. Honestly.

First, I’m nervous about what I’ll be doing. I know the UID & CI people have done their best to really put into words what I’ll be doing to help. But the thing is, it is SO far outside of my life experiences to date, that I don’t have a clue of what I’m really getting into. I mean, yes, I understand their descriptions and technically what I’ll be doing, but I’ve never been to Asia and never lived anywhere where the majority of the people do not speak a lick of English (Austria and Germany were different languages, but everyone speaks English there – many better than I). I don’t know what it is like to be in a politically unstable climate or a religiously conservative one. This doesn’t mean that I’m scared. I’m not. I just really don’t know what this is going to be like. At all.

Second, I expect to be hit really hard by some of the things I will see. For example, I think I’ll see a level of poverty that I’ve never seen before. And I expect it will be more extensive than I ever imagined. I know that it very protected growing up in the States and many of us don’t have any comprehension how some people in the world live. I don’t know how I’ll react. Will I become jaded or cynical? Will I change my career path? I don’t know, but I hope I will be a stronger, more aware and more giving person as a result.

Third, I expect I will learn a really humongous amount – learn about what is needed to recover from such a huge disaster, learn strategy for making recovery possible, learn about politics surrounding accepting aid and who is involved, learn how to accept help and how to give it effectively. This is of course in addition to learning about the Indonesian culture and hopefully how to speak some Indonesia (I love languages).

All this said, I’m actually surprisingly calm. I was a lot more nervous when going to Germany in college. But, then again, I’m older now, even if this is very different circumstances.

For those who know me well, they know that this trip is actually not out of character for me. I have a tendency to jump into adventures head first, focusing on the potential, perhaps naively. I am not afraid and I want to see everything the world has to offer. But you know, I am aware of this side of my personality and try to take precautions as a result. When I think of all the experiences that I have because I have been willing to take these leaps of faith, I’m happy I have this side of my personality. I know that many people I’ve spoken to over the past few months believe that this trip is a little rash, but in the end, this will be worth it. I don’t know if I’m really making my point clearly but basically it boils down to the fact that the benefits of this trip outweigh the risks in my mind and I’m not going to live my life with my head in the sand, in fear of what might happen. But, I will also do everything I can to remain safe this summer. I really do appreciate all the concern my friends and family have voiced.

And I will be posting here regularly so everyone can have a basic place to look and see that I’m okay.

Okay, this entry is rather long, but it was vital to launch this summer with appropriate background and introduction.

Before I close up this entry, I want to thank everyone that helped make this happen: Dean White, Ms. Nursalim, and especially MS&D. I know this is going to extraordinary and I really really appreciate your support helping me make this possible! I hope I will make you proud.

Nathalie

PS. Tumtum, Birdie & Julilla, I’ve been listening to the new music you introduced me to while writing this.

Disclaimer: This entry may be edited at a later date to reflect corrections learned about the facts included. Spelling mistakes will not be corrected. : P

2005-05-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's me

2005-05-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

Me!

Packing Up

2005-05-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm in East Aurora right now, at Dad's - hanging with the kiddos and fattening up on MS's cooking. I fly out tomorrow night from Toronto. SO, I'm in the process of packing up my bags right now. I've got my clothes all sorted out, now it's just the process of organizing all of the other things I'm taking with me - for example: my traveling medicine cabinet includes cipro, anti-malarial, benedryl, pepto, tylonol PM, asperin, oxycodine, and a bunch of others that are less appropriate for public posting. Anyway, I'm a walking pharmacy.

I'll put together a proper introduction post when I'm on the plane - lord knows I'll have 29 hours to write it. In the mean time, this is an initial post to see how well this whole blogging thing will work.