chris in indonesia

New Trip = New Blog

2007-06-07T03:43:00.000+07:00

I've finally got going on my Central America trip blog. Check it out at:

http://thrucentralamericawithchris.blogspot.com/

Second to Final Post

2005-12-02T09:27:00.000+07:00

Since I am no longer in Indonesia I figured it was time I ended this blog. I started it initially as part of the requirements for the internship/course credit aspect of my trip to Indonesia, but I want to continue blogging and I'm planning on starting a new blog as soon as school is over.

I vaguely remember a few posts back saying something about a concluding post to my trip. I never really got around to it and with a semester of school between me and the experience I've realized I haven't got much to say. The trip was a blast and living in a foreign culture was a whole new level of traveling, one that I'd like to do more of. But I am ready to move on and end the student part of my life. I feel like I've got a lot of big decisions ahead of me and I really want to start this next chapter of my life off well.

My friends at LATIN were really great and I enjoyed many conversations with them, but now the few phrases of Indonesian that I managed to learn will probably go the way of my high school French; I'll always remember some of it, but won't use it.

Indonesia really is a beautiful country and I've been saddened by the political situation there, its hard to reconcile the tropical paradise I lived in for three and a half months with the powderkeg of religious and social unrest portrayed in the media. Bali is something entirely different from the rest of the country and violence has been spread all over the archipelago, even 6km from where I was living. But the people I lived with and worked with rarely talked about it, either it was common to them or they didn't want to alarm me. I never felt that my safety was an issue, with a whole city street staring at the bule at least I knew that I would attract some attention if something happened to me.

I may go back someday, but there are a lot of other places I'd like to see for the first time before I start to re-trace my steps. So keep an eye out for my new blog, I'll be posting a link as soon as I get it up and running. I've been trying to think of a theme for my new blog beyond a personal journal, since I just don't think my personal life is that interesting. Any suggestions?

Could It Be Possible? More Photos . . .

2005-10-24T08:13:00.000+07:00

I've just posted the last of my Indonesian photos in my online photo albums. Well, actually . . . I am about to do it. If all goes well, you'll be able to check out some photos of me and my Indonesian family. The other white dude is a VSO volunteer from Holland working for LATIN.

Some More Photos

2005-10-11T05:21:00.000+07:00

I've just posted over 100 pictures from my 3-day hiking trip in Garibaldi Provincial Park with my old friend Park Ranger Craig Baillie. We hiked in from the Whistler ski resort to Russert Lake and spent a couple of days in the mountains. Lots of great shots of mountains and such. Go to my photo albums at http://community.webshots.com/user/thegreencross

A Few More Pics

2005-09-17T05:10:00.000+07:00

I've been real busy getting over my jet-lag and now getting ready for school, but I took a little time to post some more photos. The pics are from the weekend I spent in Yogyakarta and some from my time on Gili Trawangdan in Lombok. As well there are shots from the Environment Education Day LATIN was involved in.

I've been reflecting a lot on my experience and at this time I can't say much about it. Now that I am re-adjusting to life in Canada the lessons I learned in Indonesia are a little out of focus. I plan to write a post that will synthesize my experiences over the summer and put the whole trip into perspective. Don't hold your breathe though, I am still moving into a new place and getting other issues settled here in Kamloops.

A Two Week Holiday -- Paradise #1 versus Paradise #2

2005-08-23T12:26:00.000+07:00

I am back in Bogor now after almost two weeks spent in the tropical paradises of Lombok and Bali. Because I had to pay to get online these last two weeks I figured I would wait until I got back to the office to post again. So here goes;

Paradise #1

I flew straight from Jakarta to the capital of Lombok, Mataram, and then hopped a taxi to the ferry that would take me to the Gili Islands. I heard about these islands from Melanie, the CUSO volunteer, before she left and she was right when she guessed that I would like the place. The three islands (Gili Trawangdan, Gili Meno and Gili Ayar) are three small islands off the northwest coast of Lombok. There is essentially nothing going on here except tourism. The islands are covered in restaurants/bars and home stay/hotel/bungalows. Every few days they have a huge party that lasts all night and into the early morning at one of the larger bars. During the day it’s all about snorkeling and diving and lying in the sun.

When I first got to Gili Trawangdan I was totally blown away at finding one of these backpacker’s retreats where everything is directed towards pleasing budget travelers who like to have a good time. I spent the first night sitting on a raised platform with a thatched roof and a small table surrounded by pillows for sitting. I sat there for a good while just watching people stroll by and felt like I had found a hidden paradise where all your wishes would come true. But then I noticed people excusing themselves from their dinner guests to talk to their office on their cell phone at the table next to me and I realized that I was in a place that wasn’t quite perfect.

I spent a lot of time in the bamboo bungalow I rented on the quieter northwest coast of Gili Trawangdan, a couple of days I never even left the grounds of the resort but just sat on my porch watching the surf and then eventually the sunset. I spent another day walking around the island twice, once around only took a couple of hours and I had all day to kill so I went around again. When I finally had enough of relaxing by the beach I took a snorkeling trip to three sites around the three islands. First was Trawangdan where we saw coral and fish, then Meno where we swam with sea turtles and then Ayar to see giant clams. After lunch on Gili Ayar we headed back to Trawangdan. I got a wicked sunburn on the whole back side of my body while snorkeling and had to invest in some Aloe Vera gel, which is expensive in touristy spots like this. (Not really expensive by North American standards though)

I guess I have been spoiled by low prices in Bogor because it turned out I hadn’t brought enough money to stay in Lombok as long as I wanted to. The only ATM was back in Mataram and I didn’t want to start running in circles with the limited amount of time I had. So once I had changed all the American money I had brought into rupiah, and then duly spent those rupiah, I was off to Bali where the tourist industry is a little more developed and there are ATMs all over the place.

Paradise #2

I had bought a ticket that would get me from the Gili Islands all the way to Ubud in Bali. From about 8:00am until 7:00pm I traveled by boat, then bus, then ferry, then bus again to get to Ubud. The sudden shift in culture was a bit of a shock, but in a pleasant way. From the ferry landing to Ubud you could see the profound difference in a Hindu culture than other parts of Indonesia. There were temples and little altars everywhere, with the accompanying offerings. There were also a lot of dogs around for some reason, or maybe it just seemed like a lot since there are so few in Java (on an unrelated note dog is a delicacy in parts of Java).

In Ubud I got a nice room in a home stay and then went walking. Just about all I did in Ubud for the three days I was there was walk around and check out the amazing, traditional stonework and brick-style architecture. I also went to see a Gechak dance (or fire dance for the tourists) and was totally enthralled. The dance incorporated themes and characters from the traditional Hindu legend of the Ramayana, including Hanuman the monkey god (the only one I remember). Some Japanese tourists sitting next to me were nodding their heads in time with the rhythmic chanting of the male singers and when the show was over the applause went on for a long time. A man announced that the show as over and it was easy to understand why they had to make an announcement since few people left their seats as though they wanted to see more.

I also went to the Monkey Temple Forest which is a sacred place as well as a monkey reserve. There were fat monkeys everywhere eating bananas that the tourists gave them. I got a little freaked out when a few monkeys were chasing me down some steps screaming their little monkey heads off, but I caught up with a larger group of tourists and they left me alone.

Next was Kuta, which could be best described as saying that the “Hello Meester” I am usually greeted with was replaced by a “Hey mate.” If you haven’t guessed already I’m saying that there are a lot of Australians there. Bali has been described as Australia’s playground/backyard and Kuta is at the centre of it all. It was all shops, bars and beach from what I saw while I was there. Kuta is another one of those places where for the right price you can do whatever you want, legal or illegal. I found this out quickly when I was getting a ride to the hotel and the driver offered me a 17-year-old Indonesian girl for sex. He didn’t get the hint that I wasn’t interested and he kept trying to sell me on this girl. Thankfully we got to the hotel soon and I never have to see that guy again. But it wasn’t the end of the propositions. Whenever I was alone in the bar, it wouldn’t be long until an Indonesian girl sat down with me and started chatting. I didn’t mind the company, but when they quickly brought the subject of conversation around to my marital status, it was clear what they were getting at. When I said that I didn’t have a girlfriend their response was always “Maybe you will find a girlfriend in Kuta.” I didn’t want to judge too harshly, but it can be frustrating when the only people that want to talk to you are prostitutes. I understand that they see all the money that tourists are throwing around and sometimes they’ll see other Indonesian girls married to a foreigner which equals an instant upgrade in quality of life and citizenship in a developed nation, so it’s hard to blame them for wanting something better for themselves.

The people I really feel for are the vendors that work the beach. All day long they walk up and down the beach, under the hot sun, saying “Excuse me,” then telling you what they are selling and how good the price is. When I would lay on the beach watching the surf and soaking up some rays it would be “Excuse me, you want mango,” “Excuse me, blowgun, very cheap, five dollars,” “Temporary tattoo, last two weeks,” “Excuse me, you want massage,” “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream” all freaking day. The part that makes me feel bad is that they are saying the same thing over and over, thousands of times a day, and most of the time people say no. Something like that would get me so depressed, but I guess the lure of foreign dollars can make you do anything.

I understand now what a resort island is, it’s a place where everything is for the tourists. Your labour, your dignity, everything is sacrificed to please the foreign tourists and to entice them to spend more money. After living so deeply in a culture it was hard for me to not be disgusted by the behaviour of some of the tourists in Bali. To me it seemed very disrespectful and arrogant to order Indonesians around and to do things that would be considered to be very offensive in Indonesian custom. I guess that’s why I enjoyed chatting with Indonesian vendors and prostitutes more often than other tourists.

After getting a more thorough and balanced sunburn it was time to head back to Bogor, where I was welcomed by a steady downpour (Bogor is after all the “Rainy City”). In two days I’ll be back on a plane on my way to Canada.

Stickers I designed for LATIN

2005-08-05T15:20:00.000+07:00

Week 13 -- ". . . where everyone knows your name"

2005-08-05T15:14:00.000+07:00

This is my last week at LATIN and I’m both happy and sad to be finishing here. I’ve really settled in here in the last while. On the way to work and on the way back home people are shouting out “Hello, Meester Chris!” There are a group of kids who live in my neighbourhood who all come running out and say hello to me over and over as I walk home at the end of the day.

While I’ve experienced so much here, there will always be stuff I regret not doing. Like learning the language; when the VSO volunteer was here the other week he did a little introduction speech in Bahasa and it got a good response from the group. Unfortunately language training was never going to be a part of my placement and with everyone at home and work speaking some English it was easy for me to get by without learning to speak the local language. But I know that being able to speak Indonesian would have really enriched my time here.

Last weekend I attended the Environment Education Day that was set-up by LATIN and some other groups for a bunch of students from Jakarta. They all had hats and shirts provided by the Women’s International Club (WIC), and I managed to score a hat. It was cool to see some of the work done by LATIN. An environmental club from the local university was doing most of the activities with the kids, while the ladies from the WIC chilled out. The ladies came back to LATIN for a catered lunch and they all asked me the same two questions, “How long have you been in Indonesia?” and “How do you like it?” I gave them all the same answers, “Three months,” and of course “I really like it here.”

My attitude towards my time here has been flip-flopping lately because I’m not sure how I feel about living in another culture so deeply. As a tourist you tend to stick to touristy spots with other tourists, but working and living here has been very different. When people here tell me I should do something the “Indonesian” way I get a little resentful and want to tell them that I am Canadian and have my own way of doing things. But before I say anything I think about how we treat foreigners in the west, what with demanding that they speak English and such. While everyone here has recommended that I learn to speak Bahasa I never felt really intense pressure. It’s been enlightening to see things from the other side and there are definitely parts of the Indonesian culture that I really like and admire, but I know that any Indonesian mannerisms I picked up will fade pretty quickly once I’m back in Canada.

The other day I was zoning out while watching TV and started thinking about the fact that I’m leaving here in a few weeks. But it felt weird to say I was going home. I’ve been calling my home stay here home, and once I leave I’ll be moving around more. I decided that the concept of home is pretty fluid to me. By default my parents’ place in Victoria is the closest thing to home just because I lived there the longest and since moving out I’ve moved almost every three or four months. The last two school years in Kamloops have been the longest I’ve stayed in one spot in quite some time. You could say I’m a wanderer and I’d agree since I’ve been feeling good lately about my little holiday to the islands of Lombok and Bali coming up, just because it’s a chance to hit the road again.

These last few days at work have been somewhat frantic with my being a confirmed procrastinator. I presented the website to Arif, along with a press kit in English I put together to introduce interested people to LATIN. There are still some details that need to be updated or clarified for both the website and the press kit. When I get back from Bali I’ll be back in the office for a couple of days to help them get all the material totally done and ready to be put out there.

Then I will be on my way back to the Great White North. I’ll arrive in Vancouver around noon on August 26th, so if anyone wants to pick me up at the airport and give me a ride to the ferry terminal just send me an e-mail and I’ll give you my flight number and a more specific arrival time. It may seem a little shameless to ask for a ride like this, but I know that I’ll be super jet-lagged and I’m not looking forward to dragging my luggage, along with my tired ass, on two BC Transit buses to get to the ferry.

Week 12 -- Borobudur Temple and Yogyakarta

2005-07-26T11:04:00.000+07:00

I was glad to get away from the office last weekend since I've been stressing myself out over finishing the website. I made plans to meet Lis, a former employee of LATIN, in Yogyakarta in Central Java. Called Yogya for short, it's like the cultural capital of Indonesia. There are a lot of universities and colleges in the city, as well as musicians and artists. Although I was only there for two days and one night I could feel that this was a very cool city and I would love to spend more time there.

I took an overnight train from Jakarta on Friday night. It was an "Eksecutif" train, but third class, which meant that our seats reclined and there was A/C, but just about everything else was broken. Even though everyone was sleeping under their tissue-thin blankets they still left the lights on for the whole trip. I knew I wouldn't get much sleep, so I had a book to read.

The first thing we did once I had arrived in Yogya was head to Borobudur Temple. I've always liked Buddhism since I visited the Deer Park in Sarnath in India, where the Buddha gave his first sermon, so I really enjoyed visiting such an important Buddhist temple. Unfortunately it was very crowded since it was a Saturday. Most tourists just used the main staircase to get to the top as fast as they could, but we took the proper route which is to circle the temple clockwise one level at a time until you reach the top. The sculptures along the walls tell a story and you can only follow the story if you follow this route. On our way up we had time and space to look at whatever we wnated, but once we reached the top the crowds made it difficult to see everything or get a photo without a bunch of tourists in the frame. On the way out we had to go through a maze of souvernir stalls that seemed endless until you got to the end. We were also invited to attend the festival of a million candles that was happenning that night, which we graciously accepted before heading back to Yogya. It was easier to just not show-up then explain that we were actually planning on going to a performance at another temple on the other side of Yogya.

Now I can check off another of the Wonders of the World from my list of things to see. I've seen four of the Forgotten Wonders from the list hyper-linked above, four of the Modern Wonders and one Natural Wonder. Post a comment and tell me how many you can check off.

After lunch we headed for the next temple, this one was Hindu and there was supposed to be a musical performance going on but we were too late. We had to sneak in to get a look at the temple before the sun went down and then security kicked us out.

That night I found a nice restaurant near my hotel with a band playing while I ate dinner. There were a few other foreigners there and the menu had both Indonesian and western food. I had a steak, my first in months, and a couple of beers. The whole thing cost me less than US $5 before the tip. I was hoping to check out the nightlife in Yogya but I found myself dozing off in my chair at the restaurant so I headed back to my hotel and crashed out.

Lis and I spent all day Sunday in Yogya visiting the King's Palace and the shopping markets. Apparently Yogya has a king and visitors can come to his palace. The markets were pretty crowded with shoppers and merchandise. I bought a batik shirt and some other stuff, as well as oleh-oleh (= gifts) for everybody back in Bogor. I got 2.5 kilograms of salak, a fruit with a snake-like skin. Uti mentioned to me that the salak from Yogya is very good so I figured they would appreciate me picking some up. It has a taste that reminds me of Jolly Ranchers, not any specific flavour just the sweetness of Jolly Ranchers in general.

Eventually it was time to hop the train back to Jakarta, which was surprisingly on time. I got into Jakarta at 5:30 am and then another train back to Bogor and I was home at 10am Monday morning. After dropping off my film to get developed and dropping off the oleh-oleh for my friends at the office I was in need of some serious sleep.

For more pics from my day at Borobudur Temple go to my online photo albums.

Week 11 -- Rice Paddies

2005-07-20T13:38:00.000+07:00

I wish I could take credit for this photo, but it's not mine. I found it while going through the digital photos that LATIN provided me for the website. The colours in this photo really caught my eye and I think a wide-angle lense was used. Plus I really like rice paddies, something about the perfect flatness of green in neatly laid-out, square plots.

Week 11 -- An Encounter with Indonesian Bureaucracy

2005-07-19T13:09:00.000+07:00

The relaxed, easy-going, deadline ignoring lifestyle of Indonesia has sucked me into her lazy clutches. When I first got here, I was staying at the office later than anyone else, except the office boy who had to wait for me to leave so he could lock up, and I spent each day laying out my plans for the three months.

Now I sit and chat with everyone for a fair part of the day, I leave the office at 4pm instead of after five and I have totally lost track of the date. Which may sound nice, but when you forget to check the expiry date of your visa it can turn into a problem.

Like an amateur traveler, I misunderstood my visa to mean I was allowed to stay until July 27, but that date was the last for using the visa. It turned out the 60 days I was allowed to stay expired on July 6, but I didn’t find this out until I was at the Immigration office asking for an extension. They pointed ou that I had overstayed my visa and was in violation of "Article-something-point-whatever" of the criminal Code. What came next was very frustrating and annoying.

Pagitta and I spent all day Friday at the Immigration office filling out various forms and getting endless photocopies made. The Immigration office doesn’t do any copying for you, instead they send you next door to a photocopy shop that I’m assuming gives a healthy kickback to the Immigration office for all the business that is sent their way.

The worst part for me was trying to explain to them how I misread the visa, which they just couldn’t understand. They even mentioned that I could have been arrested, which I took as a threat, but I think they were just trying to explain to me how important it was to check your visa. A couple of times I almost lost my temper, but I knew that wouldn’t help anything.

When they finally finished typing up their report, they asked if I wanted to make any comment to go on the report. I told Pagitta I wanted to say, “This sucks,” but she realized I was joking. I caught the Indonesian word for sorry in what the Immigration official said to Pagitta next and realized they wanted me to apologize. So after my official apology was reported we were allowed to go and then come back on Monday to pay the fine and get my visa extended.

The fine was in American dollars, but they still accepted the equivalent amount in rupiahs. I don’t want to say how much it was because I’m still pissed about it and I’m trying to forget the whole thing. Melanie suggested I bribe someone, but I’ve never been good at that sort of stuff and I don’t want to encourage corruption because it really screws over poor people who can’t afford to bribe officials once it becomes the norm.

Today is Tuesday and I finally got my passport back with my extended visa, which is only for one month. And once you factor in my overstay it’s really only three weeks more and of course I am staying longer than that. So in two weeks I get to go back and apply for another extension.

(Insert sarcastic comment here)

Week 10 -- Something New/Different

2005-07-15T09:33:00.000+07:00

For a change of pace I've decided to start posting short stories about little episodes of my life here to give everyone a break from longer updates. Here's something that happenned a while ago, but still brings a smile to my face.

Uti (my landlady/Indonesian grandmother) and I get along really well and she is always laughing at something I say or do. Her grasp of English is really good and we talk about all sorts of stuff. The other day she complained that she was forgetting her vocabulary, I was silently amazed she knew a word like vocabulary considering she still asks when I'm going back to America even though I answer that I'm going back to Canada everytime. Anyways back to the story.

It was a lazy afternoon and Uti and I were the only ones home when Mickey's cell phone started ringing. Uti doesn't move around so fast and she wanted me to get the phone and see who it was. But of course the display was in Indonesian and I had no idea what it said. By now Uti and I were both in Mickey's room by the bed looking at the phone. I passed it to her so she could read it, but without her glasses the words were too small for her to read.

She got me to read the caller ID for her, but my pronunciation was so poor she had no idea what I was saying. In fact she found my attempt to read Indonesian so funny she smacked me on the shoulder as she started laughing. But she is so wobbly on her little 68-year-old legs that the force of smacking me sent her flying back on the bed with her legs in the air, laughing the whole time. Now both of us where laughing away at each other. We never did figure out who was calling.

That's it. You may not think it's so funny, but I still laugh when I think about it.

Week 10 -- Motorcycles, Monkeys and CUSO

2005-07-13T10:01:00.000+07:00

The best part of my weekdays always happens in the morning on my way to work. After taking two angkuts, I grab an ojek for the home stretch to LATIN’s office. What makes it the best part of my day is that the road is less crowded and I can feel the wind in my hair as I ride on the back of a motorcycle. On a clear day I can see the mountains in the distance, usually the mountains are hidden behind clouds. And all along the road are trees and rice paddies until we get closer to CIFOR and then we are under a canopy of trees and jungle the rest of the way.

I’m not implying that the rest of my day is awful, but it’s better in the morning when everything is still possible and there haven’t been any disappointments or frustrations. Like yesterday when the power was on and off all morning, causing me to lose the first two drafts of this update, and then finally went off for good for the rest of the day. Or when I have a great idea for the website but then realize I can’t figure out how to make it happen with Dreamweaver, assuming it’s even possible in the first place.

Of course on the weekends I leave all those worries at the office and this past weekend was no exception. Nina and Pagitta from the office invited me to go to the Schmutzer Primate Center in Jakarta, so I got myself into tourist mode and loaded some film into my camera. But rather than spend the weekend in Jakarta this was just a day trip.

We went on Saturday and the place was packed with kindergartners and Teletubbies, thats me above with two of them, as well as picnicking families. The primate centre is located within the boundaries of the Ragunan Zoo but is a separate entity. This was good because the zoo is an unholy mess filled with trash from picnickers. The primate centre is a little cleaner since they have a bag check and security that won’t allow anything within the centre except cameras. You couldn’t even bring in a bottle of water. The primates are obviously a bigger draw with tourists since the facility was fancier with overhead walkways and tunnels for viewing.

We spent the whole day there and I realized it was the first time I had seen primates up close and I was struck by how their expressions are similar to us, especially in the eyes. Unfortunately all the primates were behind glass or a cage which means all my photos are through the bars of a cage. It makes a statement about how the primates are imprisoned for our enjoyment, but sometimes you just want a good, unobstructed picture. The gorillas were the only ones in an open air enclosure, but they spent most of their time in the shade or back in the trees so we didn’t see them much.

After getting lunch in Jakarta it was time to head back to Bogor. I was exhausted after spending the day on my feet in the pounding sun, but it was worth it. The only disappointment was that I didn’t get to ride an elephant at the zoo, the riding elephant only works on Sundays apparently.

Now you may be wondering why I mention CUSO in the title of this post, I had been trying to keep this under wraps until I had made a decision, but everyone here at LATIN knows already. And since they are the ones I was trying to keep this secret from it doesn’t matter if I talk about it here now.

The deal is that Melanie, the current CUSO volunteer at LATIN, is leaving prematurely which means CUSO still has some money left over in their budget. So they asked me if I would like to continue working here at LATIN as a CUSO volunteer for another six months or so. It’s a great opportunity for me, but also a difficult decision. I’ve been dragging out my education for quite a while and with the end so near I was hoping to finish it off and get on with my life.

I haven’t made a firm decision but I am leaning toward returning to Kamloops in September. Now I just have to think of a very nice way to say “thanks, but no thanks” to everyone that has been so nice to me here.

To see more photos from my day at the primate center click here.

Week 9 -- More Photos

2005-07-05T12:47:00.000+07:00

Here are two photos from my weekend in Palabuhanratu. The first I took out the door of the bus as we cruised past some rice paddies and the second is a surfer at Cimaja Point in Palabuhanratu. To see the rest of my photos go to my online photo albums.

Week 9 -- Oops, Just When I Thought I Had This Blog Figured Out

2005-07-04T15:56:00.000+07:00

You may notice the similarities in the last two posts. I thought I lost the first one half way through and started again, but apparently they both got posted.

You're all pretty smart so I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Week 9 -- A Little Fun in the Sun and A Little Work

2005-07-04T14:43:00.001+07:00

Last weekend I went off to Palabuhanratu, a popular surfing spot on the south coast of Java. I've wanted to go there for a while but I wanted to make sure I could pronounce the name of the town before I went there. When talking about my plans with friends at work I would say “Pa(lahahummnruhbubbhalala)ratu.” It was almost funny how I couldn’t learn how to say the name of this town. Eventually I got it and I was on my way.

It was a three hour ride on an ”ekonomi” bus which meant no A/C and they crammed on as many people as they could. It wasn’t uncommon for the aisles to be packed and even people hanging out the doors as we drove along. The driver had an assistant that was responsible for collecting passengers and fares along the way. When he saw people along the side of the road the bus would slow down and the assistant would jump out and try to get more passengers. Then he would shove them on the bus and jump back before it took off again. The bus never really stopped completely, it was all pretty crazy.

Once in Palabuhanratu I took an ojek to a hotel that Melanie had recommended. The ojek driver got me right off the bus where I had been dozing so I wasn’t too sharp right then. I’d been warned that they would try to overcharge me, but when he said six (as in 6000 rupiah, or so I thought) I agreed. Seven thousand rupiah equals $1 CAN, so I thought that six was reasonable given my prior experiences with ojeks. But when he dropped me at the hotel I figured out he meant 60, 000 rupiah. I laughed in his face and said “No way!” He took the 10,000 rupiah I gave him and sheepishly said thanks.

The hotel was a popular place for surfers, mostly Aussies, and a few of the older ones seemed to have been there a while. The older ones didn’t stay at the hotel, but hung out in the bar/restaurant all day as though they owned the place. You could tell they were regulars when they came in and demanded to watch rugby on the TV even though the younger guys were in the middle of a surf movie. If they weren't actually surfing they spent the rest of their time talking about surfing, watching surfing movies and reading surfing magazines. It was a familiar scene to see a slightly drunk old Aussie telling a young surfer about the local waves.

I felt a little shy being around all these deeply-tanned, muscled surfers and felt it was obvious I didn’t know the first thing about surfing. One of the hotel employees even said he could tell I wasn’t a surfer because my skin was too white. One of the bartenders told me she thought I was a doctor because of my glasses, beard and the fact that I read a newspaper in the bar instead of a surfing magazine.

On Saturday I took a surfing lesson with a local surfer. I’ve always wanted to surf and I love watching surfing movies, even Hollywood ones like Point Break, North Shore and Blue Crush; and I figure I’ve learned just as much from those movies as I did from this guy. When we got to the beach he pretty much just strapped the board to my ankle gave me some pointers in broken English and then I was in the surf. He gave me some more advice along the way but mostly he just told me to keep paddling. Although the waves were small my arms were spent just paddling out and by the time I wanted to turn around and paddle even harder to catch a wave my arms were rubber. Most of the day was spent with the teacher yelling to paddle when I knew I had no strength left. Life has been too good to me these last two months in Bogor. Technically, you could say I caught one wave but when I tried to push myself up I went nowhere and ended up just riding the wave on my belly. Real surfers would probably say I was being generous by calling that catching a wave, but it was the closest I came. I still want to surf though and told my teacher I would do tonnes of push-ups in the next few weeks before I go back to try again.

The bus ride was pretty similar on the way back to Bogor on Sunday. We saw the results of two traffic accidents along the way with police and mangled cars on the side of the roads. Before going home I went and got some photos developed so hopefully I’ll have more photos online soon.

I’m back at work today and am feeling that I need to get some work done since I would like to finish at LATIN at the end of the month. The website is coming along, but I just realized the other week that I need to re-do the Indonesian version as well. I just need to change a few things in the main template but it will be slow since I’m not sure which words correspond for the navigation bars and such. I also have a deadline for the oMega on Wednesday that I am sorely unprepared for, so the next couple of days will be writing and re-writing to get that together. I also need to find a computer shop that will scan my photos and put them on a CD so I can get them online to be used with my story. Like all my roles of film there are shots from what seems like a long time ago, as well as some from this past weekend, so there isn’t a lot of continuity.

Week 9 -- A Little Fun in the Sun and A Little Work

2005-07-04T14:43:00.000+07:00

This past weekend I went to Palabuhanratu, a popular surfing spot on the south coast of Java. I've been wanting to go there for a while but I figured I better know how to say the name of the town before I go there. Whenever I would talk about my plans with friends in the office I would say something like "Pa(hmmmnunbubbhala)ratu." It was pretty pathetic, but I got it eventually.

It was a three hour ride on an "ekonomi" bus, which means no A/C and they cram in as many people as possible. It's not uncommon for passengers to hang out the door. The driver has an assistant that is responsible for collecting fares and passengers. Anywhere between the beginning of the trip and the destination the driver would only slow down and his assistant would jump out and run around yelling the destination to get passengers, then he would shove them on the bus and jump in as the bus took off again. Along the ride there would be hawkers jumping on too. They would push their way onto the bus and try to sell stuff and then jump off again before going to far. Besides the conditions on the bus there was a lot of great scenery to see if you had a window seat.

Once in Palabuhanratu I went to a backpacker's hostel reccomended by Melanie, it was called the Green Room and was popular with surfers. The best surf spot around was only a minute walk away from the hotel. The bar/restaurant was pretty empty most of the time except for a few older Aussie surfers that seemed to live in Palabuhanratu. All the younger guys were out surfing. It was a familiar scene that a young Aussie would be checking in or eating and the old Aussie would be telling him all about the local waves. It was easy to tell that these older guys had been there a while because they would walk into the bar and demand that the surfing video on TV be turned off so they could watch rugby. The next day it was Wimbeldon.

Brief Explanation

2005-06-30T13:36:00.000+07:00

These last couple of posts may be confusing so I thought I would explain quickly. I've been trying to post a picture for my profile and it took a few tries to get it right (hence the "still trying" caption) I finally got it and deleted the first attempt which is why there is a space below. And I've already told you more than you care about.

Check out my photos here.

2005-06-30T13:29:00.000+07:00

still trying

2005-06-30T13:16:00.000+07:00

Week 8 -- More Photos To Be Seen

2005-06-29T14:18:00.000+07:00

For more photos you can click here. Or use the link in the menu for "My Photos at www.webshots.com"

Week 8 -- Photos from Way Back #3

2005-06-29T09:20:00.000+07:00

This the LATIN office, everyday I've worked here I've been in awe of this building. Visitors always mention the beautiful building and peaceful surroundings here, especially if they are coming from Jakarta or any other large city. My work area is located on the second floor.

Week 8 -- Photos from Way Back #2

2005-06-29T09:14:00.000+07:00

This me with a bunch of kids in Saninten village in West Java. LATIN has a project in the village and we went to visit. These kids were crazy for cameras, it was tough to keep them from mobbing me whenever I raised the camera to my eye. I know it's out of focus, which is weird cause it was taken with a fully automatic camera, but I like it anyways.

Week 8 -- Photos from Way Back #1

2005-06-29T09:07:00.000+07:00

This is one of the first photos I took. To the left is the Bogor Botanical Gardens and the right is a bustling shopping area. And towering over it all is a billboard for an Avril concert from a month ago. Why is the "r" in Avril so small?

Week 7 -- Indonesian Media links

2005-06-23T08:51:00.000+07:00

I've added a couple of links to The Jakarta Post and Laksamana.net, 2 English-language media sites from Indonesia. It's been interesting for me to read Indonesian media after reading about the censorship that was present during Soeharto's New Order government (which ended in 1998, so things have been improving slowly) in a couple of books that Mickey loaned me.

I read the print version of The Jakarta Post every weekday. There is a news stand on the way to work that gets it especially for me. I've read that you have to read between the lines (or "lies" as some people say) to get the real story. With most information coming from government sources it's good to read the governement quotes with a healthy dose of skepticism. All in all it's a good paper except the crossword gets harder later in the week. I would think that by Friday they would give us working stiffs a break and make the crossword a breeze. It would put us in a good mood for the weekend.

Laksamana.net is on the Net only as far as I can tell. It's a little more critical and has a lot of stories criticizing government corruption and abuses of the law. I guess the government censors don't have high-speed internet or something cause they haven't found this one yet.

Check them out for the latest news from the archipelago. And I promise I'll have photos soon.

Week 7 -- Random Notes

2005-06-22T10:00:00.000+07:00

Work has been moving along in the same groove, or is that rut? Anyways there is not much to post about so I thought I would just relate a few random occurrences and stuff with no real topic, theme or meaning.

Stuff I do;

I’ve started talking jive to unsuspecting Indonesians. Angkot (mini-bus) drivers, guys on the street, anybody. Usually it’s when I’m stuck with someone for a bit and I know they don’t speak English well enough to understand any of the junk coming out of my mouth. I call them all “Cheech,” and say stuff like “Whazz up, my man?” I haven’t pulled out “shizzle my nizzle” yet, but it’ll happen soon. The great thing is that Indonesians are so polite, for the most part, and therefore they just smile and nod like they enjoy my BS. It’s almost like a conversation except I’m not really saying anything and they aren’t really hearing anything. Next will be throwing out high-fives to everyone who shouts “Hello, Meester” to me on the street.

Stuff I see;

Cockfight. That’s right and I’m not talking about anything organized or set up as entertainment either. You know when you see a boxing match and they call it a fight but it’s really a sport with rules and equipment and everything. But then you see a street fight or bar fight and you’re like “Whoa that was real.” That’s what I saw except with roosters. A couple of the neighbourhood roosters threw down on each other in front of my house over the weekend. I imagined they were duking it out for turf rights or to claim all the hens as their bitches. They were all ruffled feathers and rooster noises until one turned tail and ran. Just like people.

Indonesian reality TV. They have this show where a dude dressed up as Mr. Moneybags from the Monopoly game comes to the house of a low income Indonesian family and demands they pay back their crippling loan immediately. He makes them cart all their valuables out into the street so he can add it all up and show the crowd how poor they are. Then when they can’t feel any lower, or suicidal, Mr. Moneybags says he will pay off their loan for them and everybody cries. The whole ploy isn’t very believable since there is a huge crowd attracted by the cameras and the host is seriously dressed like a cartoon character.

Annoyances;

I got some photos developed the other day. I wanted to get them on a CD so I could easily upload them to my blog. They told me to come back in 30 minutes, but 45 minutes later they realized they couldn’t do it. Something was wrong with their software. So I asked for prints instead, which meant another 30 minute wait. Eventually I got my photos and they all suck. Digital cameras have really spoiled me. Some may be decent enough to post though, I just have to take the time to scan them into the computer. So check back later and I’ll hopefully have some photos from a month ago for you all to see.

Week 6 -- The Weekend Trip That Took Five Days

2005-06-16T15:13:00.000+07:00

They have a saying here, jam karet, literally it means “rubber time.” It’s a phrase used to describe the attitude of Indonesians towards time. Essentially they don’t follow tight schedules, but believe that time is flexible and there will always be more time to do the stuff you didn’t get around to doing today. It sort of explains why people don’t feel the need to come to work everyday, or stay at work all day when they do come. I got a crash course in this philosophy over the weekend.

Friday after work I caught a train with Nina from the office to Jakarta. The train was late, of course, but it was the weekend so I didn’t care. In Jakarta we met Rendra at the station and together we all walked to Jl. Geksa, which is the backpacker hostel/nightclub part of town. To get there we had to walk past the American embassy. There was a barbwire and cement median blocking off the lane closest to the embassy wall and soldiers with guns and other security stuff. I asked if it was like this because of the recent threats, but Nina said it was always like this, there are demonstrations here at least once a month.

Jl. Geksa is just a street that has a lot of cheap hotels and bars that foreigners like to visit. I found a room at the Hotel Borneo, the last room they had, and then went for dinner with Nina and Rendra. We found a place to eat and were constantly badgered by panhandlers and buskers while we ate.

After dinner Nina went home, she is Muslim and wasn’t interested in going for drinks. Rendra and I hit a couple of bars looking for a game of billiards, but we couldn’t find an empty table so we just drank a few beers and talked. He said I drink fast, but I was only one beer ahead of him. Rendra is Catholic and the grandson of my landlady so I slowed down on the drinks and we eventually headed out. Rendra helped me find my way back to my hotel then he took off.

I snuck out for a few more drinks after Rendra left since I was still up for some adventure, but didn’t want to ruin my reputation at work. I went to another bar on Jl. Geksa where there were singers and a fair number of people. Within seconds of ordering a drink at the bar I was approached by a transvestite barfly. She was pretty friendly and I didn’t want to be rude, but the whole time I just wanted to ask “You’re a boy, right?”

I joined her and four sisters at their table and we laughed and drank until the bar closed. The transvestite kept giving me back rubs and making none-too-subtle remarks about “dancing in the bed” and “massaging my pants.” After I paid my tab I made a quick exit back to the hotel while the transvestite was in the bathroom.

The next day I went shopping with Nina at a big shopping mall. Each floor was designated to certain products, like sports, furniture, handicrafts, etc. We wandered around for most of the day and I bought a batik shirt for the wedding we were going to the next day.

That night Pak Adi, the driver for LATIN, picked us up in Jakarta and we headed out for the wedding. There were seven of us all together. We headed west to catch a ferry to Sumatra, but it was dark the whole trip and didn’t see much on the ferry ride. We spent the night in Lampung on Sumatra to get some sleep and wash up before the wedding. But this is when we found out the wedding was actually in Krui, another seven hours drive away. So we loaded back in to the van and headed out.

The seven hour drive took nine hours. We dropped our stuff off at a friend’s house where we would be staying and then finally made it to the wedding. The actual ceremony had already happened but we were there for the party at least. There was a band playing Indonesian pop tunes and it seemed like the whole town was there to listen. We didn’t stay too long since we had been driving all day and were planning on heading back the next day.

The next morning I woke up feeling horrible. I had a wicked headache and hobbled to the shower like an old man. They took me to a doctor who said I had a “throat disease.” Whatever it was he gave me a bunch of pills that slowly eased my suffering. The long drive home wasn’t much better though, every bump in the road tossed me out of my seat and it felt like my brain was bouncing around in my skull.

We drove all through the night again so no views from the ferry and arrived in Bogor in the morning. I took the next day off work to recover. I’m back today and took the last of the medication at lunch today. I feel fine, but the drugs really mess with my head. That’s why this post is so lame.

Week 5 -- Part 2

2005-06-09T08:46:00.000+07:00

This will just be a short post to let everyone know I am still kicking it here in Indonesia. There is not much going on at work this week, so I haven't got much to say.

There has been very few people in the office this week. It's usual for people to go to the field to visit project sites, but it still feels weird with only five people in the office. It also means a relaxed atmosphere. The girls fry bananas with chocolate sprinkles for dessert after lunch and again for an afternoon snack. It may be LATIN, but working for an NGO is slack. The dress code is casual, hours are flexible and the hierarchy is loose.

Arif, my immediate superior, has gone to Calgary for a conference and will also be checking in with Nick (my TRU course advisor for this internship) I hope Arif has good things to say about me. It's hard to tell if they are happy with me because they are so polite. It's hard for them to make demands and ultimatums, and they definitely won't get mad. I don't think I've seen a single angry person since I have arrived in Indonesia. But I still read about angry mobs and bombings in the paper. It's like these outbursts of violence and hatred are total anomalies that burst out spontaneously from nowhere and then disappear again behind the easy-going, friendly Indonesian personality just as quickly. Or maybe the "never angry" attitude enforced by their culture causes Indonesians to repress their emotions until they explode into riots and violence. Who knows?

The strangest incidence of violence I read about happenned at a Muslim school. The parents found out that the headmaster had been having sex with students when one of them became pregnant. The angry parents then formed a mob and burnt the school down. I didn't understand why they attacked the school instead of going after the headmaster. Now none of their children have a school to attend. Not that I think attacking a person would be better, but their anger seemed somewhat misdirected on that one. Of course, mobs aren't usually known to use logic and rationality.

I've only seen Sopu, the executive director of LATIN, a handful of times at the office. The second week I was here he was sick, the next he went to East Java to visit his mother and now he is in Jakarta. I'm not implying that he is skipping work, but I just find it odd that the main authority figures of the organization are rarely around. Can you imagine a Canadian workplace with no boss present, it would be anarchy. Or at least very little work would be done. I can't say what amount of work is being done at LATIN since I don't really know what most people are supposed to be doing in the first place.

On a more positive note, my computer is back from Jakarta and it has a new CD drive. I'll be diving into the website re-design now and I've also got an Internet connection so I can send more e-mails to help promote LATIN. It's only been five weeks and I'm all set to do some work.

Week 5

2005-06-06T12:59:00.000+07:00

Last week was pretty busy around the office with a couple of workshops taking place at LATIN. The workshops brought a lot of visitors to our offices from LATIN project sites and VSO representatives from the UK who are based in Bali.

The first workshop was on promoting good forest governance through knowledge sharing between the various project teams from Pandeglang, Kuningan and Dompu. It was quite a festive atmosphere and there were more people in the office then usual. By that I mean more of the Bogor employees were present than any other normal day at the office. As well there were representatives from each project site. The workshop was done in Indonesian so I had to sit with Liz, who is the most proficient at English from the LATIN staff, so she could translate for me.

It was interesting to watch the interaction in the workshop and the dynamics of the group. We started by introducing ourselves and everyone was impressed that I could introduce myself in Indonesian, but not much else. The whole thing started with an introduction/presentation from Arif. People would come and go as they pleased during the workshop for drinks or to do other stuff. Arif would even jokingly ask for permission to continue his presentation if people got to talking amongst themselves. There was also big plates of goodies on the table for us to eat. They all looked like sweets, but I quickly found out that the Indonesian idea of sweets is quite different than ours. I was eating a little cake/pastry thing when I found out there was a chili stashed in the middle. It was like a booby trap. I was munching away and was suddenly assaulted by this burning in my mouth. I started coughing up a lung and had to leave the meeting for a bit to drink a lot of water. As usual everyone else thought it was hilarious.

For lunch there was a big spread and everybody took their time and enjoyed each others company, as well as the food. After everybody from each project had done their presentations they got into groups to discuss their individual lessons learned from their projects and then presented those to the group. The whole workshop was really focused on discussion and sharing of ideas rather than sitting and listening to whatever the head honchos want you to know. When we were done we all had dinner at the office to. One thing I love about traveling is discovering new foods. We had little skewers of chicken and goat called sate that were awesome. At first I was cautious and only took one of each, but I took a handful of skewers the second time around. The meals at LATIN have been a great way for me to explore Indonesian cuisine since there is always an assortment of dishes to choose from. I usually skip the organ-based dishes, such as chicken hearts, but the vegetable dishes have been excellent and they eat a lot of tofu here. I even tried dog meat at home with Mickey once, but I couldn’t swallow it. The taste, consistency and the vision of my dog in my head added to my apprehension and I spat it out.

Also during breaks in the workshop I was working on getting Dreamweaver software downloaded on to the computer I use so I could start re-designing the LATIN website. We initially tried getting the latest version off the Net, but the download would have taken days. Nana had an older version at home on CD so we used that instead. I’m looking forward to getting started on the website since that is something I can do on my own schedule without waiting for anyone else to do something first. I am still waiting for my computer to come back from Jakarta, where it went for the weekend to do the publishing of LATIN’s journal. Since I am a computer mooch I am also ripping all of my CDs onto one of the computers here so everyone can enjoy some new music at work. I was worried at first that I would be breaking some censorship laws by bringing the Beastie Boys into Indonesia, but everybody here already knew them anyways. I also had a great conversation with Liz trying to explain musical genres like punk and surf-folk.

The next workshop was on Friday and it was a session with two VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas) representatives to prepare LATIN for a VSO volunteer from the Netherlands due to arrive in August. The whole thing was very similar to my pre-departure orientation with the Centre for Intercultural Learning (CIL). We talked about different cultural values associated with time, individuality and a persons perceived place in their society. It sounds like heavy stuff, but it was all communicated through interactive games and discussion. It was hard for me not to cheat too much since I knew what was going on and I didn’t want to take away from the LATIN staff’s learning opportunity.

The best thing I got out of that workshop was a brief conversation with John and Martin, the VSO reps, about VSO and living in Indonesia. VSO sounds like a good group and I was picking their brains for information in case I want to volunteer with them some day. They have also been living in Bali for five and three years respectively, so I asked them about the tensions with Australia and the security advisories. They dismissed the security warnings saying the only real targets were the embassies in Jakarta, so as long as you weren’t there, there wasn’t anything to worry about. John said that when the terrorists/freedom fighters bombed other targets they killed more Indonesians than foreigners and therefore didn’t get too much support or sympathy for their causes. It was a relief to hear this since I have been reading about bombings in Sulawesi, travel advisories and tensions with the Australians. I had been getting carried away in all the media hype and to hear someone who had been living here for five years say that it wasn’t a big deal really took a load off my mind. I still won’t be hanging out at the embassies in Jakarta though, so don’t worry.

This weekend I finally got off my butt and did something. I was starting to get into the rut of sleeping and watching TV all weekend and not taking advantage of this incredible opportunity. So I went for a day trip to a nearby national park for a day hike. The whole thing reminded me that I am traveling and am here to enjoy myself as well as work for LATIN. I spent the whole morning on a cramped bus to get to Cibodas, where there is a mountain that has a popular hike. I didn’t make it to the peak, but I did get to these beautiful waterfalls. I may try to go another time and stay overnight so I can hike the peak and visit the hot springs. Even the wilderness in Indonesia is crowded. The whole day I was passing Indonesians on the trail that had come up from Jakarta for the weekend. As soon as I sat down anywhere I was asked to be in a picture with a bunch of Indonesians. They didn’t even ask my name they just wanted the picture.

There were some other foreigners along the trail and I felt like an Indonesian when I saw them because I was so excited and nervous to see them. An older couple had their daughter with them and she caused quite a stir after she went swimming in the pool under the falls. Although she wore a t-shirt and shorts to swim in, she took off her shirt after to reveal a rather skimpy bikini top. Not a big deal in the western world, but here she had all the Indonesian boys excited, even the ones from Jakarta where they are supposed to be more modern and cosmopolitan about these things.

I didn’t spend a lot of time at the falls since I had to get back to Bogor that night. Getting around on my own for a change was really good for me and reminded me that I was traveling again. Everywhere else I’ve gone I’ve been accompanied by someone from LATIN and I’ve just had to follow them around like a puppy. Not very conducive to learning about a new language and culture when you are constantly protected from stuff you may not understand. This short day trip reminded me why I love to travel. Just simple stuff like trying to find the right bus can be an adventure. I plan on going to either Jakarta or a beach to the south this coming weekend.

Week 4 -- Part 1 -- Still Alive, In Case You Were Wondering

2005-05-30T10:26:00.000+07:00

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I am fine. Some of you have contacted me asking if I have been affected by the recent bombings in Tentena, so I figured that I should let you all know I am allright.

I didn't even hear about the bombings until this morning actually. I had seen some news coverage of it, but it was in Indonesain so I wasn't sure whether they were talking about bomb threats or actual bombings. Last week the US and Australian embassies shut down and increased security so this hasn't been a complete surprise. Nobody here in Bogor has been alarmed by the recent threats. Bogor isn't a huge draw for foreign tourists and businesses and the recent bombings were on a different island and didn't seem to have anything to do with foreigners as they were not targeted.

There are regional elections going on in some parts of the country and these have been known to spark violence in the past. Indonesians seem to be sore losers when it comes to politics. But I can't say for sure that that was the cause of the bombings.

In case things get really scary I've registered with the Canadian embassy and given them all my contact information for home and work. I assume if things get too dangerous they will contact me and help get me out of the country. Although I doubt this will happen. The best thing I can do right now is stay out of Jakarta and other popular places like Bali. I've been keeping a low profile as it is, mostly I just go to work and home with the occasional trip to downtown Bogor for shopping.

Keep in mind that Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands, many with their own unique customs and political situations that may have little to do with the rest of the country. I feel safe where I am right now.

Week 3 -- Part 1

2005-05-27T17:27:00.000+07:00

I’ve been away from the office for the last two days with a little sniffle and a sore throat. Nothing to get worried about and I think the folks at the office were more concerned with me being contagious than being too sick to work. Combined with the Buddhist Day of Enlightenment on Tuesday, it has been a slow week. The Buddhist Day of Enlightenment is a national holiday, so even though there are no Buddhists in the office, to the best of my knowledge, we all took the day off. I explained to them that just like on St. Patrick’s Day in North America when we are all Irish, on Tuesday we were all Buddhist. I went to the new Star Wars movie with Pagitta, the secretary at LATIN, and let my geekdom shine through the veneer of cool for one day.

Even though it’s been a slow work week I’ve been thinking a lot about work lately. I really want to get things going here but it just hasn’t been working. I’ve been able to do work on my own such as pitching stories about LATIN to various publications, but I realize it will take time to see results from that stuff. But other stuff, like editing the translated copy for the website and leaflet is work I could be doing now and using in my PR work. Unfortunately I’m waiting on someone else to do the initial translation which leaves me with little to do after sending out e-mail queries all morning. I’m trying not to get frustrated, but it’s hard when my time here is limited. It’s already been three weeks and I feel as though I’ve accomplished very little. So far all I have to show for my time here is an agreement to write two stories, one for the oMega and one for the Kamloops Daily News.

I had a meeting today with Arif, my supervisor, and Nana, the GIS guy here. We were making a plan for the re-working of the website. I’ve made a few design suggestions that we’ve decided to go ahead with. Nana designed the original website using Photoshop then translating the Photoshop file into HTML and somehow getting it published from that. I have no idea exactly what he did, so I suggested getting Dreamweaver for this new work I’ll be doing. They will try to get Dreamweaver on my computer and then I will essentially re-create the whole website using Dreamweaver. To get Dreamweaver they have to unplug my computer from where it is and take the hard drive downstairs to somewhere we can plug in to the Internet, so we can download Dreamweaver from the Net. I hope it all works out. Nana will provide me with as many of the original files as he can so I don’t have to start from scratch. Since I always thought this website was going to be my main project I am excited to be starting it. The design won’t be anything amazing since someone will have to take over the maintenance when I leave.

I don’t feel downtrodden though; there is still a lot of time to get stuff done. And when I think of all the publications out there to approach I know that I’ll get some interest. I’ve started at the top with publications like National Geographic, the Globe & Mail and the New York Times and will slowly work my way down the ladder. I think that LATIN and the issues they work on are very interesting and worthy of a story or two. Natural resource management is becoming an international issue because the environment doesn’t separate itself along national borders. First World nations that have the privilege to be able to care about conservation of the environment need to help developing nations ensure that they plan for a sustainable future as they race to catch up with us. Too often consideration for the environment and infrastructure, such as clean drinking water, is ignored in the interests of profit and investment. LATIN is definitely on the right track when they talk about starting partnerships with international organizations to share knowledge and experience so that we can all work more effectively in our own countries and areas of interest.

On a personal note I am learning exactly how big a role religion plays in the lives of Indonesians. It seems that people are praying all around me, all the time. My Muslim friends and co-workers are stopping to pray at the appropriate times and one day the girl that works at the computer next to me just started praying away right next to me while I continued to work. Even my Catholic home stay family is very devout. At first I thought they would be a little more laid back, but I was wrong. I went to a birthday party for one of their relatives the other night and they stated the whole thing by praying for a bit before breaking into a round of “Happy Birthday.” I was so glad when they started singing something that I could join in on without feeling as though I was disrespecting their religion. And Uti has essentially demanded that I go to church with her on Saturday night. Despite my lame excuses about not having been to church since I was very young and the fact that I’m not even Catholic, she still wants me to go. I’m still trying to think of a way out of it, but I may have to resign myself to sitting through a sermon in a language I don’t understand. I can only hope that the pews are cushioned.

I’ve also been having some interesting discussions with Mickey, Uti’s youngest son. He is in his mid-thirties and works as a freelance translator. We’ve talked a lot about books and culture in general. He was an activist when he was a student and even spent a few days in jail after being arrested for protesting against former president Suharto. It was inevitable that we started discussing politics and religion. The most interesting thing I’ve found out so far is that when the Catholic community grows and wants to build a new church they get denied by the Muslim majority. Even though Catholicism is one of the approved religions in Indonesia, they don’t have the freedom to build a new church when they want, they must ask for approval from the local government, which is dominated by Muslims. On a side note, the Catholics also share their church with the local Protestants. So Saturday night is Catholic mass and Monday morning is for the Protestant sermon.

We also talked about how it is illegal to marry outside your religion. Mickey didn’t go so far as to say that he thought it was wrong, but he did acknowledge that when he was younger he had fallen for Muslim girls, but the relationship never went anywhere because of their different religious beliefs.

I’m starting to think that Uti may be trying to set me up. We talked last night about what kind of women I am attracted to; I told her tall with pretty eyes. She told me that Indonesians consider lighter skin to be more attractive, so light skinned Indonesians and foreigners are considered to be more attractive. I assumed that the language barrier was keeping us from communicating too effectively and I chose to ignore the racist implications of what she was saying.

I’m starting to think that even in three months I’ll never be able to figure out all the subtleties of Indonesian culture. All I can do is keep smiling when they smile and laughing when they laugh.

2nd Weekend -- New Digs with Charlie, Zoey and Uncle Henry

2005-05-23T10:30:00.000+07:00

This post could also have been titled "The Honeymoon is Over." I think I've hit the point where the initial excitement and energy of being in a new place has passed and I am now dealng with the reality of having to live and work here for three months. For the last two weeks I've been content to spend whole days just staring out the windows and sitting on benches watching the Indonesian world flow past, but that is not so exciting anymore and I'm ready to start expanding the boundaries of my comfort zone. My comfort zone being the route from work to home and back.

I'm getting comfortable with using angkuts (mini-buses) and ojeks (motorcycle taxis), although I still have no idea how the fare system works and nobody has been able to explain it to me. It's based on the distance you travel and everybody seems to know how much a trip costs, but when I ask them to explain how many rupiahs correspond to a set distance they can't give me an answer. I've resigned myself to overpaying for now, until I can communicate well enough with the drivers to work out the correct price.

I moved into my new place on Friday after work. It is a room in the house of one of my co-workers grandmother, who is now my grandmother. I call her Uti which is the Indonesian word for grandmother. Her youngest son, Mickey and his wife Tree, also live in the house. We are one big happy family. The house is in a quiet neighbourhood near the Air Force base and I've taken to going for short jogs in the mornings before it gets too hot. Although on Saturday when I went for my first run I was more concerned about keeping a slow pace so as not to overexert myself that I didn't pay close attention to where I was going. Pretty soon I was too tired to keep running, had no money, no idea of what my new address was and no way of asking someone how to get home. I was a little worried, but I just turned around and backtracked my way home. For today's run I chose a shorter distance and essentially did a circle so that I would end up in the same place as where I started. I always hear the locals talking as I run by and although I can't be sure I would bet that they are saying "What is that crazy foreigner running for?" Indonesians don't see the point in walking or running anywhere because there are so many angkuts around and ojeks on every corner that you don't really need to walk anywhere. My co-workers are surprised that I don't mind walking the last stretch to the office, which is really about the same as walking from one of the outer parking lots at TRU to Old Main.

My room has a private bathroom, or water closet as they are refered to here. It comes complete with traditional Indonesian squat toilet and bak mandi, which is a water resevoir used to scoop out water for a bath. What I've always called a good old bucket shower. The WC also has three resident geckos that sun themselves in the window all day. The first I noticed was quite small and I called him Charlie, then later I noticed two other larger geckos who I have named Zoey and Uncle Henry. Charlie never leaves the WC, but Zoey and Uncle Henry can be seen commuting back and forth to the kitchen throughout the day. After my first shower I saw the biggest bug I've seen in Indionesia so far scurry out of the WC into my room and under my cupboards. I couldn't be sure if it was a cockroach since it wasn't hissing, I'm certainly not in Madagascar and Joe Rogan wasn't there to try and get me to eat it. I found out later from Mickey that it was a cockroach and I have been on the hunt for it ever since. But they are crafty little buggers, crafty I tell you.

Speaking of reality TV, they have Indonesian versions of Idol and Fear Factor here as well. The Fear Factor show is called Radical and the Idol show is pretty much the same as the American and Canadian versions. I watched Indonesian Idol with Uti last night and she was quite touched when the contestant started crying after being eliminated. I did my best not to laugh out loud.

I've also got a kick-ass mosquito net over my bed that gives me the feeling of sleeping in a tent. The whole household gathered to watch me put it up and were quite amazed. Last night I had the best sleep yet since I had confidence in my mosquito net to protect me from the malaria-carrying pests. And as a side effect of my malaria pills (Malarone for all you chemists) I've been having especially vivid dreams. Last night I dreamt I was staying in a haunted condo with a bunch of people before catching a flight the next day. I had watched a show on MTV earlier in the day that dealt with a similar story except it was travel show about models going to India and visiting a haunted temple or castle or something. There were also endless commercials for that movie, House of Wax,
on TV throughout the day and I guess they all contributed to the content of my dreams. The vividness of my dreams has been neat, but I wasn't so happy when I dreamt that my girlfriend cheated on me. I was in a bad mood for a while over that one.

Tomorrow is the Buddhist Day of Enlightenment and a national holiday. I may come into the office anyways to do personal stuff on the computer. I think everyone is getting warmed up for the holiday today, since hardly anyone is in the office. I'm surprised since I didn't know that anyone in the office was Buddhist, in fact I know that most of them are Muslim.

Later today I am going to the bank to get rent for Uti before she starts to think I am a freeloader and I may buy a cellphone too. I've been told it's cheap and everyone has one. Even people in villages with no cellular service have cellphones just so they can complete the look. I also think it's time to spread my wings, as they say, and head to Jakarta next weekend. I want to see the new Star Wars movie and I'm sure there will be lots of other stuff to do as well. I just need to make it through another week in the office first.

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

2005-05-19T17:22:00.000+07:00

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

2005-05-16T16:33:00.000+07:00

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.

Week 1 -- Part 3

2005-05-13T13:21:00.000+07:00

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

2005-05-11T15:35:00.000+07:00

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

2005-05-10T09:09:00.000+07:00

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

2005-05-09T15:28:00.000+07:00

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.