Shifting Views of Jakarta

My impressions of Jakarta have completely changed from what they were a year ago. Less romantic now than before. Originally I thought it would be a small(ish) city, maybe twice the size of New Orleans with the same rundown historical charm or twice the size of Las Vegas without the glam. Now, my opinion is that it is much more similar to Las Vegas (although size wise Jakarta is massive: between 8 and 10 million people!) if you just replace the casinos for malls with “many and close between” areas that are overflowing with the poor, jobless, malnourished, and disabled. When I first arrived in Jakarta, my first week in Indonesia, the taxi driver drove through some sketchy areas on rivers that were next to the highway. I could see the occasional squatter (those poor people who have set up small makeshift homes in illegal areas) like under bridges, near rivers, next to highways, etc. My first week with Mercy Corps I visited flood-prone areas in West Jakarta (see earlier blog) and even though that perspective contrasted with where I was staying in a guest house in the wealthy, suburban, western-friendly haven, South Jakarta, I thought most of Jakarta was like the former: rundown, poor, disaster-prone, troublesome sanitation systems galore, etc. But this week I have been able to see central Jakarta quite a lot and my perception of the city has completely changed. The central areas is near the national monument called MONAS that stands for Monumen Nasional. It’s a tall statue similar to our monument only it has a bronze flame at the top that is covered in 35kg of gold leaf. The tower itself is made of Egyptian marble supposedly. Surrounding that area is a large park, many buildings for the banks, government buildings, cafes. Then all around the main monument and spreading out in a large radius are tons and tons of shopping malls. And in between the current shopping malls there are many new ones being constructed. Throughout all of this there are many streets, all completely swarming with taxis, buses, ojeks, motorcycles, bendi (horse drawn carriages), bajaj (tri-wheeled motorcycles with carts on the back for passengers), and beggars in the street weaving in and out of traffic trying to get money from the cars, on the sidewalks, in the park, outside the cafes. You get the point. The biggest surprise though and what has made me completely disappointed in the lack of charm, is that everything looks new and modern. Not much has retained its historical style or cultural architecture. It’s a city trying to catch up to other modern cities and quickly losing its history, in my opinion. True, much of my opinion of Jakarta, is from the Mel Gibson and Linda Hunt movie, The Year of Living Dangerously. But I was kind of looking forward to that, (without the rampant crime, government corruption, and no freedom of press thing of course). Honestly, I wanted to see areas that have been plagued by riots and civil unrest for decades, seeing the old dutch style from the founding of Jakarta, seeing Indonesian style government buildings or hotels, still seeing areas in Central Jakarta with cobblestone or smaller, non-modern roads.

But you will see none of that downtown. This must be the reason behind its dwindling tourism numbers and frequent conversation piece that other than food, shopping, and nightlife, Jakarta doesn’t have much to offer. I refused to believe this though. The last week and especially this holiday weekend (today is Indonesia’s 64th anniversary of independence) I set out to prove these widespread expatriate opinions false. Originally I wanted to go to central java and see the 17th century temples, see Mount Merapi, and see what outside Jakarta looks like. Reality soon set in though and being that it’s a holiday weekend and all planes, trains, and automobiles are booked solid and I didn’t think it was a good idea to rent a car/driver for the weekend alone when its takes at least 10 hours each way to get there, and that I AM a graduate student that needs to seriously budget this coming school year, I decided to stay in Jakarta and explore its culture and especially history and save money. Soo much easier said than done. I emailed and called numerous tourism places to see what bus tours there were around the city (since a few websites mentioned there were some). No one answered the phone and no one emailed back. None of the websites mentioned where the tours start so I couldn’t even just show up and hope to get a ticket. When I asked coworkers no one even knew Jakarta had day tours for sightseeing. I spent hours on the internet looking at blogs, travel websites, discussion boards, expatriate sites, to find event calendars, museum schedules, postings of anykind. Still no luck. On Saturday desperate for some kind of cultural experience other than going out to a bar and partying with skeevy western businessmen (which is what I did on Friday night), I went and looked at TimeOut Jakarta. Still nothing for this weekend and only very general listings for movies and cultural activities.

It was official. It was going to just be me and my lonely planet guide. But that’s OK. I did that for part of my Australia trip and things worked out fine. Fortunately on Sunday I was able to not be completely alone as Cynara and her boyfriend from Germany were here and looking for things to do too. So we went to the Wayang Museum, Shadow Puppet Museum, and watched a really cool Javanese puppet performance (couldn’t understand most of it though as it wasn’t in Indonesian, but only Javanese, the local language of the island of Java). This area is the only area I found in Jakarta that has preserved some of its dutch heritage. It’s called Old Batavia, and there is still a cobblestone center which is now surrounded by museums, and a fence made out of cannons. We took photos in the center of the square and then walked to an outdoor Indonesian restaurant for lunch. Lots of nasi goreng which I am officially sick of (friend rice with egg). We did pass some areas that are definitely abandoned buildings that have probably been standing for at least 200 years, so that was kind of cool to see a glimpse of the rundown, historical Jakarta I was expecting. We then walked to Glodok, thanks to our LonelyPlanet Guide, on the way visited a church that was from 1695. Here’s what our friend told us:

“Near the Kota train station, this church dates from 1695 and is the oldest remaining church in Jakarta. Also known as Gereja Portugis (Portuguese Church), it was built just outside the old city walls for the so-called “black Portuguese” – the Eurasians and natives captured from Portuguese trading ports in Indian and Malaya and brought to Batavia as slaves. The exterior of the church is very plain, but inside there are copper chandeliers, a baroque pulpit and the original organ. Although more than 2000 people were buried in the graveyard during 1790 alone, very few tombs remain”

Here’s the description for Glodok too. This is what I expected to find:

“ The neighbourhood of Glodok, the traditional enclave of the Chinese, is a bustline rundown part of town with fading markets and decadent nightlife (it’s wise to be careful here after dark). It was also the sight of the terrible riots of May and November 1998, which reduced huge swathes of the area to ash and rubble. Much of the legislation that had discriminated against the Chinese and their language for decades was lifted in 2000, but it will be years before the scars are fully erased and the last of the burnt buildings rebuilt.”

As we walked through Glodok it didn’t seem much different than other residential areas, except there were a few burnt buildings (the exteriors), hard to tell if they were from the riots are not though. We definitely saw one that was from that time though because they weren’t renovated and had many plants growing wildly from the inside to the outside. Definitely would take years to get that way. We passed one of the Chinese temples, but not sure of the name as there was no sign (not good for tourism, come on Jakarta!)

Today we did one more of the Lonely Planet Guide suggestions and something I wanted to visit since I read the travel writings of Adam Karlin (click here for his story about this place, he definitely writes better than me and has a much more interesting story to tell: http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/a_writers_port_of_call_20080422/ ). Sunda Kelapa, the old port of Jakarta. We went there at sunset (almost missed it though because of lazy taksi drivers and the Independence Day festivities today). Lining the first dock of the Marina are many Makasar schooners (pinisi). Most of the marina though is really rundown with tons of men just hanging about (some bathing as we walked by, oops. But not the first time here I have startled a bathing sailor in Indonesia oddly). We walked to the end of the first port (the left side was the cool schooners and the right side was large cargo ships) and there were two small ships blocking our view of Jakarta Bay. Bryan and Cynara were going to just pier through the space between the boats and head back but I wanted to see the bay, to prove that Jakarta is coastal since you can’t really tell when just staying there. So we asked the sailors if we could go on their ship to see the view from the other side. They obliged with a puzzled look on their faces but continued on working on the side of the boat. We took tons of photos (of course a titanic one for the couple) and then headed back out. It was a very rundown ship with very little room to move. Not the safest I would guess and would never want to work on it out on the sea because of all the lines, metal chains, sharp metal edges, and large equipment thrown all around the deck.

After the old port we went to a mall for dinner and shopping to end the night. I have been in about 10 malls in three days. I will never make jokes about the shopping culture of South Florida again! Ok, I totally will, but not about the abundant malls. Jakarta is a bit ridiculous with them and it seems they are totally moving away from the charming street markets that make Indonesia so much fun to travel in. I hope they realize what they are doing. I had a quesadilla (just black beans and cheese, no onions, no peppers, no guacamole, no salsa….it had the nerve to say “authentic Mexican”). Something very clever about malls here though. You can’t easily take an elevator to the floor you want, or just one or two escalators. They are each about six floors and you have to take an escalator to the next floor, walk around the loop passed all the stores, to the next escalator, and do that all the way up. It guarantees you must shop and see everything and not just go in and go out with what you want. A nightmare for people like me who feel claustrophobic in the two-story Roosevelt Field Mall, let alone these overpopulated six-story malls that make it difficult to get out!

My overall verdict of Jakarta is that more needs to be done to restore the cultural, but moreover, the historical significance of Jakarta. I understand the desire to match other cities for nightlife and shopping especially as the world’s 10th largest city, but they shouldn’t also sacrifice the treasure of their past. The Dutch occupation is honestly really cool since it dates back centuries ago, and the Indonesia’s independence also offers a really neat story that should be told. The puppet museum did have a puppet scene behind glass of the Indonesian independence, but not much else can be seen in Jakarta unless you REALLY go out and look for it with a lonely planet guide. Granted I did not have time or desire to fight the holiday weekend crowds and visit the national museum so I could be wrong. But many cities have their history not just locked up in a building with an admission fee and often hokey gift shops, but in their architecture, walking tours, street signs, and the streets themselves. While exiting the Shadow Puppet museum I was stopped by the manager. He asked where I was from. When I told him America is was ecstatic and thanked me so much for coming to visit the museum. Apparently two days before my arrival the US Ambassador and the Embassy staff held an event at the museum where they donated $46,000 USD to the museum. This is a huge grant in American standards, so just imagine what that means for Indonesians. They showed me a letter signed by the Ambassador that says they donated the money to “support the preservation of Indonesia’s Wayang [shadow puppet] culture…The grant was made under part of the U.S. Department of States Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation program, which provides support to cultural heritage preservation projects in select countries.” (NOTE: Odd that there wasn’t a bahasa Indonesia letter). Go Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama! This is seriously needed. Even if you don’t think the Shadow Puppet culture should be preserved, although you should see a performance then, because they are so creative, the actual building of the museum in Old Batavia should be preserved. The building dates back to 1912, BUT in the downstairs courtyard there are memorials to Dutch governors generals who were once buried here, including Jan Pieterszoon Coen, founder of Batavia, who died of cholera in 1692 during the siege of Mataram! This is by far the oldest gravestone I have ever seen (if you don’t count Pompeii in Italy as one giant gravestone).

OK, but back to how awesome our Secretary of State and President are. Yesterday I was also able to visit the childhood home and school of Barack Obama. Amazing! First of all, it was very difficult to find a reputable source online for the address so I just used what I found on flickr.com and took a taxi there. Once we got to the tiny RW (subvillage) we stopped people on the street and asked where his house was. 3 different people told us the same thing so I am pretty confident that was it. Also, considering broken glass has been added to the surrounding wall, which I would think signals newfound interest in the house. There are no signs to tell you its his home or tour guides or anything like that. Its simply a person’s house now (who wouldn’t open the gate. I think they were sleeping and didn’t want to be bothered). It’s a one story house, very small and rundown compared to the others on the block. The street itself is lined mostly with homes but also very small “stalls” for small businesses like a tailor and a small store for snacks. Afterwards, we drove about thirty minutes to where the international elementary school is where he attended. That has a sign out front reading: “Barack Hussein Obama II, the 44th President of the United States of America attended this school from 1969-1971. Plaque donated by Friends of Barack Obama.” But being that it was a Sunday the school was “tutup” (closed). Still amazing though.

well off to bed for me. I have to do a presentation tomorrow at MercyCorps about the private sector survey I organized and the big boss, Sean (country director) comes back from vacation. Then in the afternoon I am meeting with other Climate Project presenters since Al Gore's The Climate Project just opened a 50-volunteer chapter. Yay! Note: I meet the other climate project presenter guy over some food with the Program Director. It was Javanese food. The conversation was great, but I learned Padang food is definitely "lebih baik" (better). Ok, I am really going now. Selamat Malam!

En Route To Jakarta

Hello All!

Just a quick update until a more awesome one about the best night dive EVER with my boss from Jakarta and two draft editorials, one on West Sumatran weddings and the other on driving in Indonesia (suspense?).

Yesterday was my last day in the Mercy Corps office. It was so sad. I am really going to miss all of the P3DM team (Popo, David, Yudi, Jupe, Tasrif, Indra, and of course Bu Endang). We took banyak final photos (banyak=many)after a day full of running errands at the Trade and Industry Department for West Sumatra Province and doing a final results presentation on the Private Sector Survey Project to the staff. Malka, the Program Manager, also conducted trainings for the staff on Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Logistical Framework Analysis.

My flight out of Padang was supposed to be at 6:55PM today but was delayed until 11:00PM tonight. Of course a swell came in today but I was so busy packing and hanging out with the family for the last day that I was only able to go watch surfers for five minutes. Why me?? It looked perfect!

I am bringing my surfboard back and I hope its worth the expense. I was only able to surf five times while here but the board is really perfect for me and I think it's the ultimate souvenir. I hope I made the right decision.

Anyway please wish me luck for my flight (Selamat Jalan-Jalan is the appropriate phrase to use when sending me good thoughts). I will arrive in Jakarta pretty late and probably get to the non-international hotel around 2AM. Grrrr.

I will write soon from comfy accommodations of the Grand Flora Hotel in South Jakarta with an actual shower and air conditioning, yay!

Cheers, A very sad and also excited Kasey (less than two weeks and I will be home!)

Exploration of the Underwater Realm of West Sumatra

I finally made it to the happiest place on Earth. Absolutely not Disney Land, although living in West Sumatra sometimes can feel like you are in Disney because everywhere you can see t-shirts, underwear, sneakers, posters, and even buses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I mean the place where you can test your limits, see amazing creatures, take artistic photographs of breathtaking sights, and witness the realities of the globe all at once! Under the Sea .

On Saturday I did two dives with the ONLY dive center in Padang. There was a lot of management screw ups but I guess I can't be too picky here and at the end of the day I still was able to dive. There's an island off of Padang (about a 30 minute boat drive) called Gosong Pieh. Supposedly there are many hammerhead sharks here but I didn't see any. The second dive though I did see a black tip reef shark for the first time. I have to remember to tell dive guides NOT to get my hopes up about what we'll see. This is always happens to me. They say, "i always see hammerheads when I go there. You'll love it!" and then, "nada". That did happen again unfortunately.

Here are the dive details and more importantly please look at my beautiful photos. I think I will try to enter the triggerfish one into a photo competition (I need a good name for it though). "Trigger Happy" has probably been used before I'd imagine.

First Dive: 35 meters, 5 minute rest/safety stop, bottom time was 36 minutes. This was a reef wall with a strong current at the top. I suckd a lot of air trying to get to the wall. My dive buddy (the assistant instructor for the shop) had a sinus infection and couldn't make it below 10 meters. I went on my own to the bottom of the wall while he watched me from the top of the reef. Saw a stingray, TONS of triggerfish, trevalle, clownfish, clown triggerfish (my favorite kind of trigger), and a green eel.

Second Dive: 20 meters, 3 minute safety stop, bottom time was 54 minutes. This reef is on the other side of Pulau Pieh (Pieh Island) and the dive instructor personally calls it the Great Wall. I took amazing shots here because the contrasting colors were perfect. Had some fun with another stingray, saw lots of lionfish (yes the poisonous kind), big eye, sweet lips, no nudibranchs (even though they were predicted), and a really cool crown of thorns seastar. Again lots of triggerfish (in March when I dove the Caribbean there was an insane amount of parrotfish and here in Indo there are tons of triggerfish).

My friend Ole accompanied me on the boat even though she can't swim or dive. It was her first time ever on a boat! It never ceases to amaze me how the citizens of West Sumatra, who are mostly fishing families, cannot swim, do not go out on boats, and have no real desire to see the amazing coral reef around their home.

For lunch we ate on the boat, next to the island watching the waves (kind of in a bowl shape). Very relaxing. But, First time ever that I went diving, took pretty photos of the fish, and then IMMEDIATELY came up and ate a reef fish. I'm going to vegetarian hell!

Usually diving for me is like an escape from all my problems and a way to just simply be. This time, though, an unfortunate realiy intruded on my serenity (but good for research I guess). A HUGE section of the Great Wall was blown up from previous dynamite fishing. That's an illegal form of fishing where they use dynamite to blow up the reef and then basically just collect the dead fish as they float to the top and dive down to collect pretty coral to sell as souveniers. In areas like the Mentawai they also use the coral for building roads. I was told diving off of Padang is better than the Mentawai (which was relieving since I really want to dive there too but no time to go there) although 70% of the reefs of West Sumatra are damaged as a whole. I also included the photos of the dead reef here too. Sorry to depress you but it is the world we live in.

On the boat ride back I asked the dive instructor if we could stop by a fishing boat(see photo). They are really cool because they pilot out in the afternoon, find a spot, stay there and wait until night fall. Then they put the nets out on one side of the boat on the wings and put the lights on only on that side of the boat. Then they wait for the fish to come. Once the net is full they just pull it up using a few men and haul the nets on the boat. I would like to spend a day with the fishermen but I have a feeling spending the night with a western woman isn't something their culture allows. As we pulled up to the boat I immediately took pictures which wasn't very nice of me since one of the men was naked and I accidentally took his photo. They started whistling because I took photos first and waved second. Oops. I heard yesterday there's a program to help the kids of these kind of fishermen study since they work all night and arrive back to their houses to sleep and go back out again. Could be kind of cool to be an english teacher for those kids if anyone is interested in helping out the poor fishermen children.

Have to get back to work. Last week here. Maybe I will go diving again on Friday if I can fly to Jakarta on Saturday instead.

Kasey, West Sumatran Celebrity turns West Sumatran Star Athlete!

As if things couldn't get more strange here for Kasey Jacobs in West Sumatra, Indonesia, a whole new celebrity status was applied to me yesterday.

My day started at 5:30AM where I washed with my bak mandi and bak air (water tank and water scoop), ate nasi goreng (fried rice) freshly made by Bu Elly since she was already up after morning prayer, and waited for my ride. Mercy Corps was holding a School Socialization Workshop for Disaster Risk Reduction in Painan, probably my favorite coastal town here. It's a two hour drive and the workshop was starting at 9:00AM. 6:00-8:00AM slept uncomfortably in the car because of the windy roads, odd driving style of Indonesians, and at times unpaved areas where cows, small children, motorcycles, trucks, cats, monkeys, etc play in the street. Arrived at the school and learned about school DRR from my colleagues and our partner organization, Kogami (komunitas siaga tsunami-tsunami prepared communities). I went to the workshop to take notes and photos for documentation and to learn more about the way a socialization workshop operates but of course my foreigner status prompted the Head of the Education Department to insist I sit on stage with him, Bu Endang, and Tommy from Kogami, even though I played no role in organizing this workshop and could not offer any information about DRR in schools. He kept thanking me for coming. I felt really akward. It should have been Jupe or Yudi (Mercy Corps staff and school awareness officers) that sat up on stage.

After the workshop the plan for weeks was I was going to swim in a fun race that kicks off the Langkisau Festival, an annual festival in Painan. Pak Iqbal, head of local police and someone becoming a close ally here (he's the one that helped me set up the interview for the Bupati and Water Power Source Department in Pesisir Selatan) is an organizer for the event and when he told me about this weeks ago I immediately asked if westerners could participate. How much fun would it be to swim in the Painan Harbor surrounded by awesome fishing boats and finally get a workout?!

So I arrived at the Festival grounds with the Mercy Corps driver, Roni (who can't speak English and we were alone so communicating was difficult) and was immediately asked to change parking spots because the Governor (my friend Bapak Fauzi) was on the way. The race is going to begin in about fifteen minutes. After reparking we found our way to the docks and I asked to change my clothes. All these people are looking at me and a few are actually following me. I changed in the most disgusting bathroom (Jones Beach on the Fourth of July is marvelous compared to this)into my SCUBA skins. Its very important to be culturally sensitive here. I must always where at least 3/4 length sleeves and at least capris or long skirts when in public. I thought that meant swimming in a festival race with a western bathing suit would be inappropriate so I opted to wear my long sleeve, long pant thin SCUBA skin instead. Right after I change I pass my stuff off to Roni to put in the car and find Iqbal. He hadn't really registered me so I wasn't given a swim cap with a number. I didn't mind, because for a fun race, I didn't care if I was really registered or not. I just wanted to swim. The race organizer asked me which event I wanted to participate in, the 1km or the 2km. This means nothing to me as I am terrible at doing math in my head quickly so as a true swimmer/lifeguard who would not do the lesser race I said, "2km please". As we are walking to the starting line, Governor Fauzi and his wife, followed by an insane amount of cameras and reporters greets me. We shake hands, he tells the reporters who I am, his wife asks me questions, I talk a bit about Mercy Corps, and then he walks away after asking if I was swimming. WHen I said yes, he said "you must be the champion". I laughed and said, "oh please no pressure Governor". As he walked away, the race started without me! I couldn't believe it. I quickly handed my shoes to Iqbal, threw on my goggles last minute and dove into the water from the docks. I was a good 25 or 30 meters behind everyone else.

I swam pretty fast on the start and caught up to the pack. After about ten minutes though the pack seemed to disappear and the only way I could keep on pace was by occasionally looking up to see a few green caps. Then I would put my head down and keep swimming. About half way through I finally did the math and realized I am an idiot for agreeing to 2km when I haven't trained or even swam in a pool since March or April! 2 km is 2000 meters (my long distance event in high school was 500 yards), this is roughly 1.2 miles. In the photo above you will see the city of Painan and the blue water body is what I swam completely across.

Another 15 minutes later I realized it was just me and this one guy left in my direct vicinity. I was starting to worry since there were no buoys around. Were we way off mark? Can I trust the guy next to me to know where we are going? A few minutes later my question was answered. We were right on mark but soo many of the swimmers gave up and were on the rescue boats being brought to the finish line. After what felt like an eternity we came up to a really cool catamaran fishing boat (very old, kind of look liked Kevin Costner's in WaterWorld) and then I swam under an anchor line for a smaller boat. That's when I could finally see the finish line. I picked up speed at this point as best I could but the SCUBA suit was starting to really fill with water and was giving me a lot of drag. Oh I should have mentioned earlier, that all the women in the race were wearing modern swimming suits, just with tight shorts so they didn't show too much leg. If I would have gotten to the line earlier I would have ditched the huge drag suit. Silly me and being culturally sensitive.

I finally make it to the docks and I see Roni, my driver, running to the end. There's a very excited Indonesian woman with a clipboard yelling at me to run becuase I came in 8th place. I looked around me and there was no one to fight to for the finish line so I walked akwardly while everyone stared at the weird westerner in a SCUBA skin. As soon as I was handed the 8th place tag and signed my name cameras were in my face. Pak Iqbal came up and translated for me. They immediately wanted to know what handicaps I had, I am guessing they all saw my late start. I took photos with the 1st and 2nd place women (I feel bad for 3rd through 7th place who were shafted because of the westerner). About twenty minutes later there was a ceremony where we all took photos and stood by a podium and the big surprise was I was given 500,000 Rupiah ($50 USD) for winning 8th place. The first place woman got 4 million rupiah ($400 USD). If I knew this was NOT just a fun race but for that amount of cash I would have made sure to not talk to the governor, to wear my modern racing suit, and to haul ass and win. I know I could have beaten the others. So bummed! My time was 43 minutes which is like a nice and easy swim. Haha, I'm totally kidding in my disappointment. I was the first foreigner to ever compete in the Langkisau Swimming Competition and so I think I will donate the money to the Padang Swim Club since there are far too many people here who don't know how to swim. What happens when a tsunami comes? This weekend I will stop by the local pool and give them my winnings. Kind of funny though how out of all the American swim competitions I ahve been in for school and for lifeguarding and never was money offered as a prize, but in Indonesia, developing country, I make $50 for a leisurely swim and 8th place!

As I walked around the festival with Mercy Corps and Pak Iqbal tons of people wanted to take photos with the "foreign swimmer" (since I was forced to keep my skin suit on while waiting for Roni). Such a nutty feeling. I really felt like Dara Torres or Michael Phelps and realized I am soo glad I am not them. I am not someone meant for the spotlight. So uncomfortable and difficult to smile so long while people are taking 3,4, or 5 photos of you each.

We went up to see the paragliding event (and I think because Pak Iqbal so how uncomfortable I was and wanted to get me out of the main area). I meet my first other American up there. His name was Ray, originally from Jacksonville, Fl and living in Bali now. He spoke fluent Indonesian and had competed earlier in two paragliding events. He was also getting a lot of attention. Nice to see it inflicted on someone else actually, haha.

The day ended with a Dorian party at Iqbal's house with Mercy Corps (and black rice and coconut to complement the fruit, a divine dessert)and playing with his kids. Then headed back to Padang where we all passed out in the car, the windy roads, cows, children, and dogs on unpaved roads not bothering us at all. Arrived at the house, attempted to watch an old 80's movie on the couch with Poppy, and fell asleep soon after. Pak Iqbal is going to check the newspapers for me for photos or at least ask the Tourism Dinas for some photos since I left my camera in my other swim suit.

Mercy Corps Internship and Research Update

Hello everyone,

I apologize for the delay. I have been soo busy with my internship and with my research. Today I will update on both. Actually wait, I should mention I am fine and was not involved in the bombings at all. I am on a completely different island and other than being traumatized by the grotesque images allowed to be shown on Indonesian news channels I am perfectly OK. I might delay my return to Jakarta but that's the only impact this bombing has on me. Please keep the victims and their families in your thoughts and prayers. Really terrible what happened.

My Mercy Corps work has really started getting interesting. Before I was attending most of the community meetings, trainings and workshops, documenting them all, and compiling for a case study report for the international community and potential funders. I am still doing this for two MercyCorps Indonesia projects: Public-Private Partnership for Disaster Management in West Sumatra (P3DM) and the Jakarta Flood Risk Reduction (FRR) Program that is now completed. Additionally, I am supposed to help the office bring in at least one more business to the P3DM program (the private sector part of the partnership). Those are my deliverables in my contract for before I leave Indonesia.

Last week the Country Director, Sean, came for three days and did field visits with us. Weeks ago I had recommended a private sector survey be complete but it seemed we were understaffed and it wouldn't be possible. One night I was helping Cynara, my Indonesian sister, edit her CV, and I learned about a program at Andalas University for Governance Research that worked with GTZ and Munich Re in 2007 doing risk assessments through household surveys and in-depth interviews. Discussing this program more with Cynara I learned that they have students trained for doing surveys and each student loves to help becuase they get a certificate and can put it on their CV's. This got me thinking about how we can do the survey quickly and cheaply without utilizing Mercy Corps resources. I brought this idea up to Sean while in the car to Pesisir Selatan and he loved it. We all brainstormed (Bu Endang, POPO, and Sean) about the project and after getting back to the office late that night I was so excited that I created the survey and a brochure to be handed to each business.

Yesterday we finalized all the planning and on Tuesday (Monday is an Indonesian holiday) we will begin. The Andalas University Governance Research Program has recruited 9 students. Each student will be required to complete 10 surveys per day in each nagari (village). We will canvass for three days in four villages for a total of 360 surveys (360 times the amount agreed to in my contract, haha!). Each business will also be left with a brochure about the program that includes how they can get in contact with Mercy Corps, and 10 things they can do to be a disaster prepared business. I am so excited about this project because it will help jumpstart the private sector engagement here in the villages, will create a communication network for disaster risk reduction work, will increase awareness of the private sector, and at the end of the month I hope to create a Private Sector Engagement in DRR Tool Box for Mercy Corps. Additionally, I am going to meet with the Trade and Industry Department of the Provincial Government here to get their data on small, medium, and large businesses to improve our data collection. All of this will not only result in the tool box but also a private sector matrix to keep information about all the businesses in our field sites. When we do trainings or need support for a disaster risk reduciton or mitigation infrastrucutre project there will be a user-friendly database ready for the West Sumatran Office's use. Wish me luck. Lots to do before Tuesday to make sure this runs smoothly. How funny is it that I leave CCE and leave the country and still I find myself running a canvass. Once a canvasser, always a canvasser. Never leaves the blood I guess, haha!

Research Update: I have completed 20 in-depth interviews about climate change adaptation for the coasts with heads of departments at the Provincial Government such as Fisheries Dinas (Department), Social Dinas, Health Dinas, Environment Dinas, Public Works Dinas, and Forestry Dinas. On Friday at 2:00PM I have a meeting scheduled with Governor Fauzi to interview him as well. That will complete my provincial level interviews. While the canvassers are doing the private sector surveys next week, my translator, Redian, and I will be conducting interviews at the district-level and village-level. Hopefully I will complete enough of these next week and be done with interviews in West Sumatra so I can finish up my Mercy Corps projects and go SCUBA diving and surf every evening (but I highly doubt that. I can dream though, lol).

The part of my fieldwork that I know I am terrible at is keeping organized and up-to-date field notes. A good researcher makes sure to spend about four hours every night writing up what they did for the day and trying to make sense of the data so they can tweak things as they go. Living with a host family makes this just about impossible unless I want to start doing that at 11:00PM. I am telling you this because I figure that if I mention to everyone the flaw in my research then maybe I will be motivated to correct it as best I can.

Climate Project Update: Somehow I also managed to get myself invited to give presentations on climate change and so on Wednesday I spoke to an international high school, about 70 students, to motivate them about education and future careers, and also on climate change. The speech was about one hour with lots of questions. A reporter was present and so I was in the newspaper on Thursday (Singgalang is the name of the paper) - an article and a photo! The next day I gave a presentation (through a translator, my first presentation with one) to the local disaster NGO, KOGAMI (Komunitas Siaga Tsunamis). There were about 20-25 facilitators present and it was on Environmental Management and Climate Change in Disaster Risk Reduction. This went about 2 hours and 20 minutes. They said they will incorporate what they learned into their action plan. Sweet! I have noticed here a big misunderstanding between global warming, change in the weather, and the ozone layer. So hopefully I cleared that up with the students and with the KOGAMI facilitators and they will spread the word.

Tomorrow and Monday I will be in Bukattinggi, THE tourism attraction in West Sumatra up in the highlands near a volcano. This is where I will buy everyone's postcards and souveniers most likely. I have seriously tried five places now for postcards and still no luck (2 places I tried this afternoon after buying supplies for the survey next week like clipboards, pens, ID holders, etc). Please be patient and know that a postcard with your name on it is on the way!

Love you all and miss you lots. Please comment. Keeps me sane.

Ps. The top photo is of Sean, our country, director, Bu Endang, my boss, POPO, our engineer (with the map), and the others are Kogami facilitators. the second photo is at the Uni and Uda Pageant (basically a competition to be Tourism Ambassador). The former winners are wearing the traditional minang clothes. The third picture is in a traditional fishing boat at Pantai Air Manis after a surf session.

Indonesia's Presidential Election and Shopping with the Girls

Yesterday was the Presidential election for Indonesia. A National Holiday so no work, yay! Kind of exciting the last few weeks to watch the debates and campaign commercials, which by the way are much more fun than our campaign commercials) and then watch as Bu Elly is voting for SBY, while her husband, Poppy, is voting for JK. Political tension in the household, love it!

To celebrate the day off, I had a girls day out with Bu Elly, Cynara, and Livia. We went to vote where I took photos of them in the voting booths (afterwards they have to get ink on their finger so they can't vote twice) and then we went to the traditional market for shopping. I am going to buy a custom-tailored Kebaya (will only cost me between $25 and 40 USD) so we went to about four or five stores looking at fabric. A kebaya is Indonesian traditional dress that has a sarond (although I am going to have a dress made becuase it's hard to move in a sarong) and then a unique ornately designed jacket to go over a tank top. I looked at numerous designs and now know what I want so on Friday or Saturday we are going to go buy the fabric and show the design to the tailor. So excited!!

Livia got her hair cut (for $1 USD) and Cynara was on a hunt for a really nice all- black outfit to wear for professional photos she is going to use to submit to the Miss Putrih Indonesia competition. Black outfits are very hard to find here. I jokingly asked her if they have any gothic stores like Hot Topic. Once I told her what gothic was she laughed. Nowhere in Indonesia has that! Cynara sadly left empty handed as here you negotiate all prices and after trying a strategy of telling them no and then leaving with the intention of going back later and getting the price you want, the garment was sold. I bought a really nice green and black dress (to be worn over jeans of course). Bu Elly negotiated for my and brought the price from $16.50 down to $12.00. I am wearing it right now as I type at work. My first outfit bought in Indonesia. Can't wait to do more shopping. I also bought a really cheap phone card in the traditional market so Mom, expect a phone call soon!

After shopping we went to eat fish (ikan) at the beach. I had squid on a stick that tasted amazing with the spicy sauce, seaweed vegetable dish, and huge prawn that were perfectly cooked. Everytime I eat seafood with the family or coworkers they want me to eat fish head or the kind of fish that is cooked whole. I tried the body of a whole fish once and there were so many freaking bones that I refuse to eat it anymore. Indonesians are really skilled at eating it quickly and spitting out the bones, but I can't do it so I am being cautious and will no longer eat that. Plus, eating the body of something while its face is looking at you with wide eyes is not my idea of yummy food. I'll take my fish impaled on a stick instead, thank you!

After the fish Bu Elly bought 2kg of either a barracuda or a Wahu that we watched the fishermen chop with a huge butchering knife. Kind of cool to pick out the fish though while the small boats (perahu) are behind the fishermen being unloaded and still have today's nets on them. Very fresh.

We then went home where soon after I realized somehow I seriously hurt my back and was doubled over like a 90 year old all evening. This morning it is still hurt. I have NO IDEA what I did. I wish I could say I hurt it while surfing or something exciting, but my board is in the shop and all I did was walk around all day. It's a mystery. Just FYI, "sakit" is the word to use for pain and being sick here. So if you are sick with influenza you say "Saya sakit" (for "I am sick") and if you are in pain you say "Saya Sakit" or my back is "sakit". I find it kind of confusing. Requires too much explanation to actually tell someone what's wrong with you.

well back to work. The Country Director, Sean, is coming today from Jakarta so I should be prepared to show him my progress.

Ola/Ole and Putu

This is a picture of two of my friends and a fun Indonesian food called Putu. At night you hear carts with horns, whistles, or music to signal the Putu Man is on your street. It's just like our ice cream men, only sometimes they also bring dinner foods like sate. Putu is more a dessert and made from coconut.

Ola and Ole are staying with me while my host family is in Bali. Today we went to the beach to go surfing with their friend, Yudi, who is a Padang surfer. Then we all (there were about 10 of us) went to a river to swim and eat dinner (and thankfully there was a family on the river with a small shop and outdoor seating and they had cappaccino - I was in heaven!).

Will write more soon.