Week 1 -- Part 3

I figured that not everybody would be interested in reading only about LATIN and the exciting work I am doing for them. So today’s update will mostly be about what has been going on outside of work.

For the most part I’ve been house-hunting and sleeping with a little bit of eating thrown in. The heat really seems to take my appetite away so I haven’t been eating any big meals. Lunch is provided every day at LATIN so I haven’t had to worry about that meal at least. For breakfast and dinner the options vary. While at the hotel I was getting breakfast every morning there, but now that I am crashing at Melanie’s house I will have to find my own breakfast. This has been surprisingly easy. Melanie lives in a housing development and throughout the day there are food carts wandering through the community selling meals. They even have bells and little tunes playing to announce their coming, like the ice cream truck back home. But since most Indonesians are Muslim and their daily schedule is dictated by prayer times, breakfast is an early affair. The early morning prayer is supposed to happen after dawn and before sunrise. I’m not sure exactly what time that is, but I do know that the first breakfast cart came by the house at 6:30 this morning ringing his bell.

Dinner hasn’t been quite as easy. A few nights ago I went to an outdoor restaurant which was little more than some tables under a tarp. I had no idea what I was ordering, but Ayam Goreng Spesial sounded like it would be good. I assumed that Spesial meant special and that therefore it must be there specialty. It turned out to be fried chicken and when dipped in sambal, the chili sauce that Indonesians put on just about everything, it was pretty good. Unfortunately my stomach did not agree with my taste buds which lead me to believe that some of these outdoor restaurants may not be up to Health Code standards. Luckily my doctor gave me plenty of antibiotics just in case this happened. Since my stomach is still a little unstable I just grabbed what I thought was a bag of chips at a kiosk last night. They were called “Fries” so I assumed they were a potato product. Pretty soon I’m going to learn to stop making assumptions because they turned out to be some sort of styrofoamy, crisp-like thing that was in the shape of a hollow french fry complete with dipping sauce. Of course the dipping sauce was not ketchup like you would think, but more sambal.

Like I said at the beginning of this post I’m not doing much else these days. The house hunting will probably be put on hold for the weekend, but I’m cool with that since Melanie is letting me stay at her place while I look for my own. Even today there is hardly anyone at the office so it seems that Indonesians enjoy there leisure time to the fullest. I guess I’ll just have to learn to do the same.

Another day, another rupiah. Week 1 -- Part 2

I should probably save the cynicism for later in the internship, but right now I am not getting much work done as we are still in the planning stages of what I will do exactly. I really want to do a good job here and don’t want to feel as though I am wasting any time or money. On the other hand I should be aware of the different pace of life and the heat doesn’t always put me in a good mood either.

I’m still settling into the workplace and also looking for accommodations is taking up a lot of my time. But I’ve been reading over reports given to me by LATIN and am starting to get an idea of what they are about and how they achieve their objectives.
At first I assumed that a NGO that was involved in forestry issues would be all about conservation and preservation of the forests. But LATIN is more focused on making sure that the resources of the forest are managed in a sustainable manner that provides for the communities that live in and around the forests. While LATIN does recommend that certain areas of forest be preserved as natural forest, habitat for wildlife and as water sources, they also recommend that certain areas be used for the planting of crops to provide for the community. As the economy grows in Indonesia the population is moving towards the urban areas and manufacturing and service industries start to take precedence over agriculture. This leaves rural communities to be ignored and their needs marginalized and not represented in government policy.

This is where LATIN comes in to help empower the rural community to formulate sustainable resource management plans and to facilitate negotiations between the government and the community so that the needs of the community are addressed in government policy.

The government appointed forestry company Perhutani seems to be LATIN’s arch nemesis in the arena of natural resource management. Perhutani oversees the management of 30 million hectares of forest on the island of Java and they tend to focus their energy and policies towards economically valuable resources such as teak and mahogany trees that can be harvested for wood. This leaves community access to the forest in question and the needs of the rural communities that have traditionally lived of the land are ignored. LATIN works with the community to develop a plan to present to Perhutani that includes designating land for their use, as well as identifying land to be preserved and benefit sharing plans to distribute the gains from the natural resources.
LATIN also encourages the community to develop its skills and resources so they are using the forest in a sustainable way that benefits them for the work they are doing. This has been evident in the village of Saninten where LATIN worked to develop a community based natural resource management plan that included designating land to be used to grow herbs that are then processed into an herbal medicine that is sold in the city.

This is only a superficial summary of the situation and the work that LATIN does, but I’m sure that by the time my internship is over I will have a much more in depth understanding of the issues and the stakeholders involved. And I’m also sure that by that time you will all be sick of hearing me talk about nothing but community based natural resource management plans. At least I will have moved on from my obsession with the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra though.

corrections for Week 1

Oops, I'm making mistakes already.

Correction #1 - The girl from Quebec who is also working for LATIN is named Melanie. My apologies to her and her family for the sufferring and hardship I have put them through.

Correction #2 - In the intro to my blog I misspelled Canadian. Cheers to Mary Beth Hall for spotting the typo. It should be corrected now.

the inauguration post - Week 1

Hi everybody, let me start by thanking you for visiting my blog. I hope it is interesting and entertaining for you. Now, down to business.

I am in Bogor, Indonesia now. In fact I am at work in the LATIN office, but since I don't really have any work to do right now I am just writing this post and doing some other stuff on the Net. The office is in an amazing open-air building with a red tiled roof. It definitely lives up to the idea of a tropical paradise with bamboo trees surrounding the building, workers going barefoot inside and cats and chickens strolling around the office. I'll try to post some pics of the office in a future update.

I had my first meeting with my new bosses this morning and now have an idea of what sort of work I will be doing for LATIN. Essentially I will be copy editing the English translation of their website and a promotional pamphlet/booklet, as well as offerring design tips for both. Both the website and the pamphlet/booklet are meant to promote LATIN internationally and locally. They hope that their message will reach other NGOs interested in similar issues, as well as funding agencies that can offer help. LATIN began as a general environmental group, but has since settled into sustainable community forestry which they feel is an important issue here in Indonesia. They want to share their knowledge and experience with other groups and get a feeling of how their work fits into the global context of natural resource management. One area in which they have done a lot of work is in mediating between the governement and forestry companies and the communities that rely on the forests for their livelihood. In the past there has been little to no communication between the various stakeholders involved and LATIN has opened up dialogues and presented strategies to help manage Indonesia's natural resources.

I am not the only Canadian intern working for LATIN at the moment. Their is a dude from Ottawa named Patrick doing research on rural development and how the community uses natural resources to gain their livelihood. He will be here for a few more weeks and he spends most of his time in a village gathering data and doing interviews and forums. There is also a girl from Quebec named Melissa who I haven't spoken to yet, but I understand that she is a CUSO volunteer and will be here for two years.

Although I now have an idea about the work I will be doing my main focus right now is settling into life in Indonesia. I will be looking for more permanent accomodations tomorrow and hope to start getting an idea of the layout of the town. Bogor is a smaller city compared to Jakarta, but is high-density in terms of population. There is a lot of traffic, but the LATIN office is on the outskirts of town in a wooded area and the only disturbance besides the chirping birds is the military airstrip nearby which accounts for the occasional roaring jet overhead. It seems like a relatively flat landscape and I am considering getting a bicycle to get around on.

Technically I guess Indonesia is the Third World, but they still have malls with KFC and Macdonalds alongside the street food vendors and rickshaws. As well there are a lot of really nice cars on the streets. The heat is noticeable and the humidity doesn't help, but it helps keep the bills for hot water down I suppose.

That's all for now. I'll try to update regularly, or at least once a week while I'm here.