Info workshop to village women’s group

Yesterday I joined my coworker Didi and one of the PKBI nurses on a little outing to a women’s group meeting for our Global Comprehensive Abortion Care Program.  After all the women’s meetings I have been involved in, and since this one was held at a district office near my house, I wasn’t surprised to see more than a handful of familiar faces and even more warm welcomes as the buleh girl was more presented, rather than introduced to the group.  At events like this that reach into the community it is really interesting for me to see how grassroots education is carried out.  Whether it is our staff that holds seminars in community offices or our cadre of female community leaders that we educate on sexual and reproductive health issues and they then disperse this knowledge to village women, both are aimed to improve health at the local level through awareness and prevention.   

This day our info workshop included two presentations, one focusing on pap smears and the other on unwanted pregnancy.  It seemed like the women are genuinely interested in learning but I wonder how greatly the information affects their behavior.  I say that because the woman who was sitting to me (also my neighbor and Sumi’s sister in-law) is 34 with children and she told me she has never gotten a pap smear because she is afraid!  She accepts the fact that it is important for her health, she can afford it, and her close family member works at a clinic were they are offered so it seems obvious... but then again, Sumi has not yet had one either because she is not married.  My change-seeking self is anxious about this and I believe we may need a more vigorous approach since our clinic only gave 120 pap smears this past year from women coming in on their own.

The coldest Christmas I could wish for!

I returned yesterday from spending another long holiday weekend seeing a different part of Sumatra.  This weekend I joined a small team from my office to go give building construction aid in Kerinci, the mountainous western part of Jambi province that was most affected by last fall’s earthquake.  The 12-hour drive there covered roads that would in other countries be considered impassable but we did our best to sleep through the bumps.  After a few hours we got into the mountains and as my coworkers started bundling up exclaiming, “Dingin! Dingin!” I felt energized by the cool, fresh mountain air that never makes its way down to Jambi.

Upon arrival to the area’s main town Sungaipenuh (Full river), we went to survey the town we knew had suffered the most damage during the earthquake, Desa Lolo Kecil (Little Lolo Village).  I don’t know if I was surprised that houses still had not been repaired since the Sept 30^th earthquake, or that I had never seen earthquake damage in an already poor area, but it was a sad sight.  In between the visibly nicer houses that didn’t display any cracks, were the many brick houses of the village’s poor that had crumbled into bare house frames and corrugated iron roofs, the crumbled bricks still littering around and inside the house.  And what I at first thought were just work sheds turned out to be the “temporary” houses of these people.  Constructed from plywood, sheets of bamboo and about the size of one normal room, numerous families had set up a new life immediately next to the crumbled leftovers, some still housing the families cooking area and laundry lines hung under the roof; at least the leftovers served as shelter from the rain if it couldn’t be lived in.

The purpose of our trip was to find a worthy cause and recipients for a small chunk of money we had been given from donors in America to help survivors of the earthquake.  While several local NGOs had already given attention to the village of Lolo Kecil, which suffered the worst in Kerinci with 130 houses at least partly damaged, international NGOs do not seem to have expanded their aid work from Padang to Kerinci, and plenty of victims are still homeless.  After surveying the area on our own, our little team met with the village secretary (since the village head was out we would meet with him the next day but Indonesia has no end to levels of even local community bureaucracy so there were even positions lower we could have seen).  He happily encouraged our plan to help locals purchase building supplies and soon another NGO worker in the area came to join us and discuss the current situation.  We eventually decided the most effective way we could distribute our limited resources would be to focus it on the five most needy families.  So the next day after meeting with the village head, and in a room full of village men and kretek smoke, the details were hammered out and he expressed his sincere appreciation.  With representatives from each of the families (there was much debate about the time for the meeting because the men headed out to the fields early so it turned out to be mostly women there), a small ceremony transferred the money over to the village leadership who will facilitate the families’ purchase of materials and support the building process.

Despite much mention of Christmas this weekend our trip felt very much in the Christmas theme and it was eye-opening to see how these people have handled their suffering as a community.  Of course there was still a fun element to the trip:

Touring the region’s rolling hills of tea plantations with Mt. Kerinci (highest peak in Sumatra) in the background

Critical group discussion and consensus building over selection of the best durian

Enjoying a jalan santai (relaxed walk) through the village with a group of curious children following the strange buleh

Small steps

Now back from Jakarta, I have enjoyed reconnecting with my coworkers this week and even though it is a short one with Christmas coming up, it has been happily eventful.  The work theme for Monday leaned more towards play than work in the office since SIKOK recently acquired a complete band set.  The idea for this being that youths in the community can come play with the instruments as an alternative to trouble making and unhealthy activities.  Still, the intended purpose did not keep this silly group of coworkers from getting out the guitars themselves and creating a make believe band that we could all participate in with our previous musical skills, i.e. SIKOK director on vocals, flamboyantly gay coworker #1 on the piano, flamboyantly gay coworker #2 on the drums, and me on the viola.  Of course, we still had to prepare for Tuesday’s big HIV/AIDS event when the fun was over.

Tuesday came and the event was a creative mix of activities to (try to) keep the attending civil servants awake and increase public attention to the issues of HIV/AIDS, drug use, and the lives of waria (transgendered) in Jambi.  The program included several documentaries (one directed by aforementioned flamboyantly gay coworker #1), a skit by local high school students, and a discussion with a panelist of experts from CSOs, the Jambi Health Department, Jambi University, and the National AIDS Commission.

After lunch we came back to the office and I joined the director Helfi during a GCAC (Global Comprehensive Abortion Coverage) meeting.  One key element of this program is a group of women cadre who PKBI instructs on reproductive issues and facilitates their distribution of birth control and information about family planning to local women.  Well, the day before I had been chatting with Helfi about reproductive health challenges and needs here in Jambi and it came up that housewives are often too busy to remember to take the pill regularly, resulting in unwanted pregnancies that create larger families and burden their already challenging lives.  Hearing that, I realized I could pass on a tip from my college friends (and probably most American women) that it helps to set a daily alarm on your cell phone for when you want to take the pill so it is easy to remember.  It seems like no one at PKBI had ever thought of this and I knew it would be easy to implement with the excessive cell phone usage here (people often have up to three cell phones and are constantly connected to all of them).  So that afternoon at the GCAC meeting Helfi brought up this idea to the cadre and as the women smiled, nodded and noted the idea down I was extremely pleased to see its reception as a new idea to help family planning efforts.

The Big City

Since my favorite immigration officials have had their zealous way with my passport for the past five months, I had to spend last Thursday morning at the U.S. Embassy getting extra pages added to it.  While I used to get the common traveler thrill from watching the stamps accumulate in my passport, documenting my explorations, I now look at this little blue book as a remembrance of government bureaucracy and unnecessary stress.  Only one more trip to the Jambi immigration office and then it will be off to Kuala Lumpur to really extend the visa!

Regardless, after that I used the rest of the day to explore Jakarta a bit.  A visit to the National Monument became necessary once I heard that the museum at its base was completely government slanted. 

And it was true.  The timeline of Indonesia’s history that was provided breezed over the tumultuous events of 1965, stated that because Indonesia “faced enemies from outside, it was very difficult to accomplish elections” (this during decades of authoritarian rule), and contradictorily claimed Indonesia “liberated” Papua “by force” after "efforts to claim Papua back through negotiations or the UN were not successful."  The entire timeline ended with a confusing avowal to the “role of the Catholic Church in Indonesia’s independence movement,” (remember this country is almost 90% Muslim). 

After this entertaining experience I walked to the National Museum that actually had a fairly interesting ethnography section on the different island people and cultures that make up Indonesia.  Later I found that Jakarta actually has an aesthetically pleasing neighborhood, maybe because it is reminiscent of European architecture, but the old Dutch quarters of Jakarta had a pleasant public square (with museums I plan to see on my next visit) and a moat lined with old buildings.  The loads of trash in the river, however, quickly dispelled any true hopes for the area.  It is still Indonesia.

The highlight of my time in Jakarta began with an exciting taxi ride (splurge!) through the bright lights, sky risers and fancy shopping centers of downtown Jakarta.  After my months in little old Jambi, this overload to my senses and idea of reality in Indonesia left me in a happy sense of shock as the taxi dropped me off in front of one of the fancy sky risers.  A former coworker at the State Department had put me in touch with a friend at the US Embassy in Jakarta and this very friendly woman had offered me a place to stay.  I have only been out of the US for 7 months now but I think the state of dizzy giddiness I experienced upon entering her apartment, which was nice even for American standards, was due to the complete immersion I have undergone in Jambi.  We chatted over wine and cheese before getting dinner and I took a shower in the fancy marble bathroom about as big as the room I was sharing with four women at the conference.  Oh the little things seem so big sometimes!  The next morning I still had this luxurious American life feeling when I saw a Starbucks at the airport and treated myself to one of the holiday lattes.

Well it is back to reality now in Jambi I am back at work and getting serious about grant writing before my next vacation starts in a couple weeks!

What's wrong with this photo?

It is pretty clear this is a women-only event when jilbab'ed women
have taken over the men's bathroom.

Papua comes alive on Day 5

I joined the last half-day of the conference not because I expected to hear anymore interesting subjects debated, but did not want to miss my last chance to talk with the women delegates.  I am glad I came because I had the most interesting- and intense because it was all in Bahasa- discussion with the two delegates from Papua.  Once I learned they were from Timika, the site of controversial copper and gold mining company Freeport, I struggled to pace the deluge of questions that aroused in me.  Listening to this aged woman opine about the current state of native Papuans, I learned about the positives and negatives of Freeport’s presence in Papua (significant assistance to public health and education vs. vast destruction of forests and pollution), the widespread discrimination against native Papuans by police and Indonesians who have moved to Papua, the lack of jobs for natives because of this influx, the pervading poverty in those communities, and the incredibly high rate of HIV/AIDS that she emphasized with a story about a three-year-old girl she knows with the virus.  When I told her that I worked for a family planning NGO in Sumatra I was abashed at her immediate refusal, declaring that ‘Papua doesn’t need family planning, give it to Java and Sumatra, but our population is almost gone.’  This angry plea was enough to make clear the situation faced by Papuans; it’s desperate.

Despite the tone of the conversation, it also turned out that our presence sitting next to each other happened to be a gold mine for the photo-zealous delegates, and they did not hesitate to repeatedly weasel in around use and force smiles (or if you notice from the photo below, only I bowed to those requests).  Our presence in Jakarta was equally foreign.  I think it is the only posed photo I got on my camera during the whole conference, I wanted to remember her after that conversation.  There is another branch of the Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association on Papua and I never know when I may have the opportunity to travel there.

Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia Congress Day 3

After my third non-stop day with this massive conglomeration of women I decided to take advantage of the free (and spacious) room and board of Rumah VIA, VIA's office in Jakarta.  It turned out to just take a quick ojek and train ride to get in to the city, during which I was surprised to see how good it felt to be back on a motorbike after three days without, usually such a central part of my daily life!  After a snack and a mandi at Rumah VIA, Sugi, VIA Indonesia's Country Representative, and I went out for coffee and the kind of conversation that is always relaxing: conducted in English.

The next morning I left Rumah VIA planning to return for the start of the Congress' morning activities.  However, due to the fact I didn't really know my way back or the name of my destination train it took more than the 45 min it had the day before.  After a three trains (one of which I didn't pay for), a successful disagreement in Indonesian with a train conductor who tried to grossly overcharge me, and a couople sly sneaks past ticket checkers, I finally found my way back to the lovely Graha Instan Cita conference complex.

I arrived to find the extremely vocal and passionate delegates still stuck in a rowdy debate over the organizational issues from yesterday.  With every delegation voicing their opinions on the Congresses' report it lasted longer than scheduled, but it was encouraging to see how actively involved everyone was and their commitment to democratic procedures.  After lunch I joined the breakout session on Political Recommendations and listened to the women discuss what policy changes they wanted to see in the fields of education, sexual and reproductive health, human trafficking, women and climate change, and womens' political participation and empowerment to leadership positions.

The delegates voting on additions to the conference report.  The consensus building really pushed this process into overtime.

The Indonesian league of women

When my boss first invited me to the Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia (Indonesian Women’s Coalition) Congress to be held in Jakarta, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to attend and witness this culminating moment in Indonesia’s women empowerment movement.  However, ss I have come to expect from most Indonesian “outings,” the process leading up to our arrival unfolded with many twist and turns, the question over the capacity of my attendance, the last minute travel information and preparations, and the crack of dawn flight that brought me and the other 35 participants from Jambi to the conference.  While I should not have been too surprised, when our bus turned off the main Jakarta freeway and started heading away from the city I became a bit suspicious that things were not going to turn out how I had imagined them.  

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at the conference site was that we were not actually in Jakarta, but in the neighboring city Depok (thus challenging my plans to use this trip for sightseeing).  The second thing I realized was that even though we had arrived at 11am I would not get the rest of the day to explore since our rooms were not yet ready and we ended up using the next five hours to relax inside the complex’s mosque.  No one seemed to mind the wait and I conceded to using the time for nap on the mosque’s carpeted floor.  The third reality check I had was when we did finally get our rooms and I realized that I would literally be bunking with four middle-aged Indonesian women in a room half the size of my bedroom in Jambi.  Even though a mattress and our luggage took up almost all of the floor space, the room still had to have a clean space to serve as their musholla (prayer room).  The real impact of being the minority hit me the first morning when these women all woke up at 4:30am to pray, and then continued to gossip until 6:30am when my alarm went off (not that it was necessary by that point) and it was actually time to get ready.  These close quarters have however revealed more that just these women’s zealous appreciation for morning hours, now I have also seen them all without their jilbabs.  It is difficult to describe the impact of this change when seeing someone you work with everyday suddenly reveal that they have hair!  It is as if they were previously just a mysterious mix of floating faces and colorful cloth and then they transformed into real women that I could imagine at home leading normal lives.

A photo of my close coworkers/friends in their matching purple jilbabs, from the left: Sri, Sumi, Leli, Mirna, and Ade

 

Room photo taken from my top bunk vantage point, note two roomies on the mattress on the floor and one using the left over space to pray.

After the roller coaster of getting here and settled I am truly enjoying the insight I am gaining from this experience.  To my delight, the first main subject on the conference agenda was women’s political participation, a subject I have become more passionate about as I see how disenfranchised women are from leadership positions and in decision-making processes here.  A panel of prominent female politicians and activists spoke on the statistics of women holding congressional seats at the national and provincial level and the small but significant increase in these numbers between the 2004 and 2009 elections.  They also discussed the importance of increased representation and what needs to be done to enable more women to become involved in politics and leadership positions to give a stronger female voice.  The break out session I attended afterwards elaborated on the strategies and goals for women to take a stronger position in policy-making.  It was really inspiring to see so many women coming together to work passionately towards elevating the position of women in society.

It is now the second day of the conference and this morning the discussion is focused on more organizational issues.  My own celebrity should also be mentioned.  Among the 250 representatives from the many islands of Indonesia, I am one of only two foreigners in attendance.  Combine that with Indonesian’s love for photographing themselves, I have starred in probably close to 100 photos already, and it is exhausting.  And relating to exhaustion, there is no coffee for breakfast here!  Only two times a day do they serve excessively sweetened and weak coffee.  It is a rough life when added to my early mornings but the rest of the Jambi group is proud to “have” the buleh in their delegation and I am enjoying this extra bonding time with my coworkers.

Getting to know my local immigration officials

With December 9^th being Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Day, marked by protests around the country against recent corruption cases, it seemed like a prime time to illustrate my ongoing struggle with corrupt and bureaucratic immigration officials in Jambi.  As I am stilling waiting for my work visa to come through, I have been surviving month to month on a renewable “Sosial Budaya” visa.  This, however, requires a monthly trip to the immigration office where the front desk officials have come to know me well.  They clearly like to make my life, or at least that of my work supervisor who has to accompany me, as hard as possible, with each renewal requiring different forms to fill out, more to photo copy and longer waits.  Each time we going there thinking we are fully prepared from the requests from the last visit (two passport photos, the specific pages of my passport photocopied, my passport, and the letter of support from my organization), they still give us more tasks to complete!  It is evident by their behavior, and comments from others in the waiting room, that just a little bit of money would move the process along much quicker.

After the hassle of this last time I was eventually notified that my passport was ready to pick up so I headed there on my own since my coworkers were busy.  The regular desk officials (who I have come up with some descriptive nicknames) were visibly disappointed that I had not brought my “friend” (I suspect they wanted to hassle as many people as possible) but he handed me the passport with its beautiful brand new stamp nonetheless.  Still smiling, the man shattered my joy and relief by announcing that I needed to photo copy this new stamp for them immediately!  Oh the annoyance I felt but also the sense of freedom that I could just take the passport with its stamp and peace out.  Hoping to discourage this request I began to pretend that I did not know where a photocopy shop was or that I had means to get there.  But this did not persuade him and I think he saw the possibility of me just walking out the door with my passport so he then came out from behind the counter and said he would take me himself. 

Now you may ask, doesn’t the immigration office have its own photocopy machine it could use?  Wouldn’t it then be a waste of both our time to go get a photocopy that was never needed previously?  But no, that sort of practical thinking does not often seem to run through the brains of bureaucrats in Indonesia.  So I jumped on the back of the official’s motor bike (while the parking attendants laughed in amusement, possibly since they had seen me arrive on my own motorbike), and we drove the 50 meters to the photocopy shop that I have visited many times on these monthly trips.

The ironic thing is that I thought I was kind of getting back at the immigration officials by making them take me to complete the last task, them having to exert effort on my behalf finally.  In reality though, I learned that this man was happy enough to spend time with a buleh girl and did not even think twice about wasting his time.  Now I have one more renewal on this epic of a visa experience and next month will have to do a visa run to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur and start the whole process over again.  Oh the corruption, bureaucracy, and inefficiencies here!  And they tell me it is difficult to get a visa to go to the US!

Reality of Indonesia's Democracy

This article follows a lot of what I noticed in the difference between studying Indonesian politics from the US and seeing what the reality is on the ground and how people really feel about their "democracy."  These are the issues that impassion my personal research.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/07/the_curious_case_of_indonesias_democracy

Me+blank=laughing Indonesians

I think I could start a series of posts, each elaborating on a different blank that makes my Indonesian neighbors, coworkers, and general observers laugh at me.  This first one at least will cover my experience bicycling.

Those who know me well are familiar with my love for road biking, for being outside it ranks up there with soccer and hiking.  Well, when I first arrived in Indonesia and saw the crumbling roads, the life threatening traffic, and the thick heat, I quickly said goodbye to the possibility of biking for either commuting or exploring.  This changed recently when I discovered an old bicycle in our backyard shed.  I asked the family about it and it turned out to be bapak’s bike that he bought even before Sumi was born (over 33 years ago) and still uses!  I decided to give the antique a try and even though the back tire clanks when I peddle and it is a little too high, I decided I couldn’t not bicycle if I had the option. 

So after choosing 5:30pm as the prime time for biking because the roads are mostly empty with people going home for the evening Muslim prayers, I headed out on my first ride.  Now I thought I was already getting ample attention whenever I ventured around the neighborhood, but I quickly realized that seeing a buleh girl on an old bapak’s bicycle is really out of this world hilarious for my Indonesian neighbors.  Everyone starred, smiled and laughed at me unrelentingly and I got countless thumbs-up from old men walking to the mosque in their sarongs and peci (Muslim cap). 

By the time I got home (to the cheers of “Jeeenny! Jeeeenny!” from the girls across the street) I was in good spirits and ready for my evening mandi.  But before I made it inside, a woman chatting outside with my neighbor announced that she wanted a ride home.  I thought my Indonesian was failing me but sure enough she allowed herself to not exactly hop, as she was on the heavy side, but rather climbed on to theback of my bicycle (the part that is usually used for attaching parcels).  So I swerved and wobbled to her house down the street, working up even more of a sweat, and then was invited inside for a drink and short chat about her kids before I finally headed back home for my refreshing mandi and dinner.

Selling aphrodisiac tea at a store near you...

While looking through photos of my time in Indonesia so far (actually just entertaining a 6 year old girl that hangs out at our office and finds my Bahasa hilarious), I came across one of my documentations of hilarious English usage.  This little phrase was found on top of a stool at a chain coffee shop in Yogyakarta and was accompanied by several other stools with similarly descriptive drink advertisements.  Doesn't it just make you want one?

Indonesian Birthday

As tradition goes in Indonesia, if it is your birthday you are expected to throw your own party for all of your friends or in the grown up world, take all of your coworkers out for lunch.   My 23^rd birthday happened to fall on a Saturday eliminating the option to celebrate at work and I was happy enough to have quiet day with a few friends (while I stressed about how time was passing and there are so many other adventures I want to have!).  We ended up having a really nice time, Carolyn and Sumi’s best friend Yani came over to our house and a woman from the neighborhood came to give us all full body massages.  This turned out to be quite an experience and not at all reminiscent of Thai massages I enjoyed so much a few months ago.  Well, this rather large woman seemed to use the weight of her body to knead my body into mush as she belched a cacophony of burps and other throaty grunts. Indonesians tend to be quite generous publicly with their burping but this woman was over the top to the point they practically echoed.  That may have hindered my relaxation a bit but afterwards we indulged in ice cream we bought from a nearby home industry run by a Chinese family.  Jackfruit is definitely my new favorite ice cream flavor with durian a close second.  Afterwards Carolyn and I took the motorbike to our favorite coffee shop (out of the two that exist in Jambi) for some good pizza and later to a shack on the river’s edge for a few celebratory beers.

Candlelit Stories

Power outages are almost a daily occurrence in Jambi and their regularity has instilled a pattern in life.  If the power goes out around noon I know it will be out for about three hours, leaving me without a fan for the hottest part of the day.  It also regularly goes out at 6pm and then I know it will last for one or maybe two hours.  My family here takes this inconvenience in stride by lighting a few candles and I like to think that I am helping when I loan Sumi my headlamp while we cook dinner in the dark.  Last night with the electricity out, everyone gathered to eat together on the floor in the living room and chat.  Now sometimes I let my mind wander when there are full blown Indonesian conversations going on around me but I guess I am getting a little better at the language and could not help but pick up that Bapak (Sumi’s father) and Sumi’s niece were talking about the Japanese.  This man is 72 years old (and looks even older) so I was extremely interested to hear what he might be saying about back in the day of colonialism.  Quick history: the Dutch maintained colonial rule over Indonesia until 1942 when the Japanese arrived and “liberated” Indonesia, occupying it until their surrender in 1945 (during which time 4 million Indonesians died from famine and forced labor) and Sukarno’s subsequent declaration of Indonesian independence. 

Well tonight Bapak was telling us about life under the Japanese; he was just 7 years old living on Java at the time, but remembers his family reduced to eatting banana skins, grass, and whole cassava plants because they were always hungry under Japan’s harsh rule.  Forced slave labor was rampant then and according to Bapak’s story, his father ran away from the Japanese three times before they finally captured him and put him to work building roads and bridges.  However, even while working for the Japanese there was not any more food.  Then Sumi’s niece Ocha asked if life was harder under the Dutch or the Japanese and he replied that the Dutch were still worse. 

The conversation kind of died there but I was deeply intrigued by this narrative and insight into a history I studied at college.  It is amazing to be living with someone who has lived through colonialism, a courageous and successful independence movement, decades of authoritarian rule, and now democracy.  I would love to learn more from him but will save it for the next “lampu mati” night.

Native Americans to gain in U.S. health overhaul

I was just really happy to read this article and had to share it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/health/02indian.html?_r=1&hp.  In a way it is related to my NGO's work to bring health care to marginalized populations.

On seeing beautiful Sumatra

While millions of Americans celebrated Thanksgiving last Thursday and enjoyed their four day weekend, here in Indonesia people celebrated Friday’s Idul Adha by killing lots of cows and goats during their slightly shorter three day holiday.  On a last minute spur, Carolyn and I decided to use those days to get out of Jambi for a change.  Judging that a night bus would give us the most waking hours to enjoy our “liburan,” we jumped on a night bus to Bukittinggi in West Sumatra.  Unfortunately that bus was booked full so we resorted to taking a bus headed for Padang and then suffered the 3am rough wake up shake by our bus driver telling us to get out and join the other bus that was also pulled over on the side of the road, that one going to Bukittingi.  We complied and tried to catch a few more hours of sleep in this thankfully less air-conditioned bus.  After the 5am stop to let our fellow travelers pray at a roadside mosque I managed to get an hour’s sleep before we arrived in the hill town of Bukittingi.

Our plan to tour around the quaint city led us to an old hilltop fort used by the former Dutch colonial rulers and then to the saddest zoo I have ever seen on the adjacent hill.  The animals were kept in such poor environments that I don’t wish to describe them, but it still didn’t seem to put off the many families there enjoying their day off.  In the evening we found a café with a nice view of the town, had some good Western fare, and realized we were finally in a town that had more than the four foreigners of Jambi; we saw seven buleh and were so shocked by the sight we just had to stare at them like the Indonesians do to us.

One of the animals kept at the zoo: a seagull

The next morning Carolyn and I caught a bus to Danau Maninjau, a small sleepy town on the edge of lake surrounded on all sides by steep hills.  The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and as our cramped bus descended the 44 switchback turns to the bottom, I realized that this was what I would spend the rest of my year in Indonesia seeking: beautiful, peaceful and remote landscapes.

Our bus headed north along the lake and eventually stopped at a small road sign indicating that we had reached “Arlen’s Beach Paradise.”  The short trek through rice paddies soon opened up to our little piece of lakefront paradise. 

Even though all the cabins were occupied by a noisy group of foreigners on vacation from Pekanbaru, we managed to have a relaxing stay full of swimming, napping in the warm sun on the grassy lawn, eating good food while the rain pattered on the tin roof above us, and laughing at the three local boys swimming that demanded our attention.  To top it all off there was privacy- something almost unheard of for foreigners here and I enjoyed it immensely by reading an entire book.

Well it was a short trip and we headed back to Bukittingi the next day for our return bus that ended up leaving two hours after the time we were told.  This bus ride turned out to be even more miserable as I had an extra friendly male passenger sitting a little too close to me that kept me from sleeping most of the night.  But oh well, you have to be tough here and I am back in Jambi now holding back a desire to swear off night buses and am just looking forward to my next escape to a remote piece of nature.