Back from Saninten village -- Week 2 -- Part 2

As I mentioned last time I left Bogor for a couple of days to visit the site of one of LATIN’s projects. The site was the village of Saninten near Pandeglang in West Java. The village is located below a volcano and is where LATIN is helping the community form a natural resource management plan to present to the local government.

Natural resource management is an issue here because the surrounding forest is owned and managed by the government, but the local community needs to use this land to gain their livelihood. LATIN has helped to facilitate discussions with the government and helped teach the villagers to use the land in a sustainable way. They have also helped the village women’s group develop a cottage industry to help generate income.

It was a three hour drive from Bogor to Pandeglang where we met up with LATIN’s local employee, Sarif. After hanging with him for a bit we headed to the village. This is where Patrick, a master’s student doing research on rural development for LATIN and IRDC, has been staying and doing interviews with the locals. Even though the village has been hosting another Canadian for a few weeks now, my presence generated quite a bit of excitement, especially amongst the children.

While we were inside eating dinner and discussing Patrick’s work the children would crowd around the window trying to get my attention. I quickly learned the word for foreigner, “bulah,” since the children were constantly using the word in reference to me. After they learned my name it was no longer “bulah,” but “Meester Chris.” I felt as though I had just stepped into a Joseph Conrad novel. Eventually we had to go outside and entertain the kids by taking pictures of them since they were becoming a distraction to the meeting. It wasn’t especially important for me to be involved in the meeting anyways and I had come along mostly to get photos that would illustrate LATIN’s work.

The kids were wild to have their photograph taken and I’ll be coming home with a good number of shots with these kids. It was difficult to get a good shot because the kids would swarm as soon as I put the cameras to my eye. They all wanted to be at the front of the photo, so the next thing I knew they were all about two feet in front of me and it was impossible to get them all in the frame. I even let them use my automatic camera to take photos of whatever they wanted. I think they will turn out to be more photos of shoving, grinning children.

Unfortunately Patrick had spoiled the children with his digital camera since he could show them the photo right away and then delete the hundreds of photos he took to keep the kids happy. I was a disappointment to them with my old fashioned, film cameras. I did get some good shots of Patrick with the kids though. I also have several pictures of the women of the village making Jamu, a medicinal herb. They process the raw ingredients in one of the women’s kitchen and then sell the product. Jamu is some sort of energy, vitamin type powder that people drink to improve their health. I tried some and it had a very strong spicy flavour, but I’m not sure it gave me more energy.

Bananas are one of the crops that the village harvests and they made sure to show us the many ways that they use the fruit in their diet. Whenever we were visiting a house or having a meeting there would be plates of bananas in front of us. They gave us boiled bananas, fried bananas, banana chips and the standard raw banana. I never thought I would eat so many bananas in my life. Coffee is another local product and we had some of the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life. Although many of you know I don’t usually drink more than one or two cups of coffee in a year and may be asking how I would know what a good cup of coffee tastes like in the first place.

I also saw my first “Osama bin Laden is a hero” t-shirt in the village. I also saw a car with a “Fuck America” decal across its rear windshield in Bogor not too long ago. Despite the ominous nature of the shirt and the decal I haven’t encountered any negative attitudes from the Indonesians. In a culture where it’s highly improper to allow any negative emotions to show it was odd to see these anti-American attitudes being displayed so openly. It’s also odd to think that a country where harmony is so valued also has several separatist revolutions going on. But I digress.

I felt very welcome in the village and plan to return at some point to do interviews with the hope of writing a story about the village and its relationship with LATIN. Although trust is an issue for the villagers hopefully my relationship with LATIN and the village’s experience with Patrick will help the process.

I’m still searching for publications to pitch these stories to, so if anyone has any ideas about publications (print or online) I should approach just post a comment.

The First Weekend – a Recap

The weekend was pretty uneventful. During the week at work I was surrounded by people all day, even though I was hardly able to communicate with them it was still a sort of social interaction. But over the weekend I was reminded that I have no friends here and I don’t speak the language, so even if I did have somewhere to go or someone to see I wouldn’t be able to get there even if I tried. It was a little disheartening to realize this, but I also realize that I have three months to go here and things can only get better.

The weekend wasn’t all doom and gloom though. I went to the Bogor Botanical Gardens with the secretary from LATIN, Pagitta. She is very nice and speaks English very well. She also studied journalism in university and will be helping me in my PR work for LATIN. Hopefully once I’m gone she will be able to continue functioning in a PR role for LATIN. If she does, I’ve advised her to ask for a raise. We talked about all sorts of stuff while walking through the manicured landscape that was formerly the backyard to the presidential palace. We even talked a little about religion, which I had been wary of talking about since I didn’t want to offend anyone. I asked her about it being illegal to be atheist and how you can only marry within your religion. She felt that it helped to keep relations between the religions peaceful, while I felt that mixed marriages would foster understanding. She didn’t convince me and I certainly didn’t convince her.

The gardens are a popular spot for picnicking for families, as well as serving as a tourist attraction. There were huge indigenous trees all through the gardens that had been allowed to grow. The gardens also serve as a sort of natural preserve for plant life. At one point we were sitting on a bench over looking a huge lawn with families picnicking and children running around. There was a huge group of trees across the field that was swaying in the breeze. Their rhythmic motions gave the impression that the jungle was breathing. And with this image in mind it was easy to imagine the jungle as a living organism that was capable of thought and aspirations just like any other. It may have been the heat, but I started to think that the trees were pulsating with life as they yearned to grow and reclaim manicured lawns and landscaped gardens that had once belonged to the jungle.

After that we went to the mall and the AC got me thinking straight again. The mall was like any other with fast food, teenagers and a central area where a band was setting up to play a concert. We didn’t stay long enough to check out the show, but we did hear the bass player’s sound check. I had an urge to cheer and yell something like “Kick-ass bass solo!” But I really didn’t need to attract any more attention to myself and Indonesians tend to be a little on the conservative side, so I thought it better to try and fit in.

Sunday was really mellow since it rained all day, so I stayed in and did a lot of reading. It was actually pretty convenient since there were food carts coming by all day, I didn’t have to leave the house to get a meal. And I didn’t want to leave because this was some serious rainfall. There were times where it seemed that all the water in the surrounding area had been lifted out of the lakes and rivers and then dropped like a wave onto the town. In other words it was really heavy rainfall. The rain has been reminding me of home on the Wet Coast though, so I don’t mind it at all.

Today I’m back at the office and getting more into work. I’ve presented my plan to Arif, my immediate supervisor and he seems pleased. We laid out a plan to generate promotion for LATIN through some serious PR work. In the next little while I’ll be hunting down publications to pitch stories to as well as getting together press releases to send out. I still have a lot of research to do to get a good idea of what LATIN does, so I’ll be doing that too. Check your e-mail boxes because I’ll probably be asking some of you for help in finding publications that may be interested in publishing stories about LATIN. I’ve already pitched to the Kamloops Daily News, but they’ve stipulated that they don’t want me pitching to any of their competition as well. I don’t know if they consider the oMega as competition, but I’ve also agreed to write a feature for them for the July 6th issue. It’s a slow start, but I feel good about it.

I’m off to Pandeglang tomorrow to visit the village where LATIN is undertaking one of its projects. It’ll be a short trip and we’ll probably only stay over one night, but I’m excited to see more of the country and to interview some of LATIN’s people working in the field. I’ll be taking lots of photos over the next few days and hopefully I’ll be able to post some photos on the blog soon.