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.