The Photo Edition of Bali and Lombok

 

A street in Ubud, father and son dressed in traditional wear

A Hindu ceremony that paraded down the street in Ubud while I was exploring

Rice paddy terraces in Bali

View of Gunung Batur on Bali

Preethi, Katie and our Balinese "guides" on a local beach near Sanur

Cliff view from Uluwatu temple in Bali

Preethi, Katie, Me and the locals Bili and Candra 

  

Preethi testing out the water, warm as a bathtub

Paradise on Gili Air

 

View of Mt. Rinjani from the crater rim

  

Preethi and I at the top

  

 Mt. Agung on Bali and the Gili Islands from the slopes of Mt. Rinjan

 

 Kuta, Lombok landscape from a hilltop cafe

Catch up to the beach round two

After our diving trip to the Gili Islands, Preethi and I caught a morning ferry back to Lombok Island and headed straight to the mountainside town of Senaru, with the plan of climbing Gunung Rinjani.  We started the night climb around midnight and trekked through the wee hours of the morning on the steady 9km trail and its 2000m of elevation gain.  Just after sunrise we arrived at the crater rim for possibly one of the most beautiful mountain views I have ever seen.  Unlike Mt. Merapi near Yogyakarta that was just a conical wasteland of lava rocks, the crater on Mt. Rinjani held a giant lake of emerald-colored water with a smaller volcano growing out of it spewing smoke.  The domineering Mt. Rinjani rising another 800m in the background made our solitude on the rim even more impressive.  Our descent was challenged by the tree roots riddling the path but it was also much more beautiful in the daylight and the monkeys kept us company as our exhausted bodies trudged their way down.  My nerdy gardener side got excited by the different varieties of ferns that I had never seen.  Upon arrival we were quickly swept up and driven to city of Sengigi.  It was a pleasant place to spend a night and rest our bodies; we got well-deserved foot massages and this awesome Indonesian hair wash thing called a ‘cream bathe.’

The next morning we caught a bus to the south of Lombok and the surf town of Kuta.  This Kuta turned out to be exceedingly better than the infamous one in Bali, only a few tourist accommodations and a line of locals’ shacks separated us from the pristine beaches and cristal clear water.  Our first full day there we rented a motorbike and headed to a beach locals proclaimed as “paradise,” and it truly was.  A cozy cove of intensely blue water and surrounded by stunning rock formations that we were the only ones to visit that morning. After lolling around on the beach we headed back to town and visited some equally beautiful beaches and countryside along the coast and then ended it all with some cold Bintang.

The next day Preethi and I kept our motorbike rental and headed out for long road trip to Lombok’s southwestern peninsula.  Our bike lacked a little umpf and we just barely made it over the series of hills on the four-hour drive to the little villages along the peninsula’s coast.  The scenery reminded me of the islands in Japan’s inland sea and after a quick rest and some iced ginger tea we turned around and continued the loop back to Kuta.  We luckily had a better idea of the roads on the way back so it only took three hours; once again I was the only one who could drive a motorbike so I had the honor of chauffeuring Preethi the entire day.

Our last day there turned out to be rainy but luckily we found a nice cafe up on a bluff with great views and just read the afternoon away and watched the storm come in off the ocean.  Then it was back to Kuta, Bali and time to say goodbye after two weeks of good traveling.

A different kind of culture shock

I apologize for my long disappearance that started when I flew off to Ubud, Bali last week to attend the mid-year conference with the program I came to Indonesia with, Volunteers in Asia. We spent this week of conference discussing VIA as a program, the different posts we have at local Indonesian schools and NGOs, as well as the goals and objectives of our activities in Indonesia. For one thing it was a free ticket to Bali and a two-week vacation from work giving me a prime opportunity to explore another part of Indonesia. On the other hand it was a borderline shocking introduction into the touristy side of Indonesia. My friends and I who had spend the last five months in obscure towns around the archipelago were abruptly sucked into this international destination. From the point of view of the common middle aged Westerners and Australian beach seekers, Bali is a beautiful and easily affordable place. For my friends and I it was the first time we had eaten sandwiches and hamburgers in five months and we took half an hour to make these decisions as we drooled over the elaborate Western menus. Getting to see a glimpse of Balinese culture was an interesting contrast to Sumatra’s starker Muslim culture with traditional dances, Hindu ceremonies, temples set in luscious foliage, and backdrops of flawlessly stepped rice paddy fields.

At the conference’s conclusion Preethi flew in from Australia and we spent two days touring around with a couple of Balinese friends. I found this the most insightful introduction into the real Bali as they took us to local beaches, squeezed through the narrow alleyways of Javanese migrant slums, drank the local rice wine arak, and discussed Bali’s history, Hindu culture, and contemporary social issues. Everything was going wonderfully until we made the mistake of going to Kuta for a night; a tourist destination that has been devastated by its popularity and is now so trashy there is no hint of culture. Preethi and I immediately high-tailed it out of there and got on a boat headed for Lombok Island and then on to the tiny island Gili Air.

Only a few hours from Bali this island is its only little paradise with turquoise waters, a circumference that takes one and a half hours to traverse by foot and the peace and quiet that can’t be found in Jambi or Bali. After spending the fist day swimming, reading and relaxing, we started scuba diving today and got to see turtles, blue-spotted stingrays, an octopus, and many others just on the first dive. I think we are just going to pause and listen to the waves for a while.

Photos will be coming soon...

Word of the Day

I was confronted with this word early in the morning yesterday when a text from my friend said he wanted to “mandi in the water flood.”  The odd meaning of this translation perplexed me but I put it out of my mind and wished him a good time.  Later in the day, however, I was confronted with the true meaning of “banjir” in Jambi; when it floods people take out their canoes. 

After attending a two-year-olds birthday, in which I was the star attraction until they lit the candles on the cake, Sumi and I went driving around the Jambi countryside, i.e. rice paddies.  This is when I started noticing the changes in landscape. 

The rice paddies with their little huts were now completely submerged in water
and had transformed into fishing ponds with sun-roughened men handling identical but oddly shaped net contraptions to lift the little fish out of the new rice paddy pond.  I was informed that this happens every year during the rainy season but depending on the flood’s timing can destroy the season’s rice crop if it comes before the harvesting is over.  This way, however, there are now two crops that can come from the same rice paddies, rice and fish!

As we drove around more I saw that numerous houses built up on stilts in anticipation of flooding were now completely cut off with the path leading to their house fully submerged.  I quickly realized that the rainy season is just that time of year when wetland Indonesians take out their other form of transportation besides the motorbike: the family canoe!  Ah, rainy season in Sumatra, at least there aren't any banjir threatening my house.

Circle of corruption and ineptness

My perception and understanding of civil servants in Indonesia’s decentralized and thus heavily bureaucratic government has wavered with my time and experiences here (see previous encounters with health and immigration officials).  From what I had heard before coming and though my introductory experiences in government offices here, I came to the conclusion that civil servants are generally inept, some go ahead and do their work without complaint, but most men (because there are few women employed in this capacity) sit around chain smoking kretek and sipping overly sweetened coffee behind closed doors and unorganized stacks of files and ledgers.  It is even to the point that I know the provincial immigration office staff will not check my visa application thoroughly but I need to make sure I bring everything for the city immigration office.

A while back when I accompanied a few of my coworkers on their attempt to pass the civil service entrance exam they presented this hurdle as actually quite challenging and only the most intelligent passed.  With that information I decided to give the immigration officials a second chance and a little more respect.   

This morning though, I overheard that it is not passing the entrance exam that is important, but the amount of money you pay the entrance committee in becoming a civil servant.  The majority of my coworkers take the test every year in an almost vain effort to enter through the “traditional” way.  The going price I heard from Helfi is $10,000 to enter the provincial civil service and $7,000 to enter the city government.  But that is just to receive a monthly wage of $150, the same I am receiving for my living stipend!

Guest teaching

Yesterday a “friend” of Helfi came to the PKBI office to chat with Helfi, Sumi, and I.  She introduced herself as an English teacher and Batanghari University in Jambi.  A little later she proposed the idea of me coming in to her class and talk to her students.  A little while after that she asked what I suspect was her secret purpose all along, would I come to her class tomorrow and talk to her students about youth development in America?  Her face displayed expectation of a positive response so I acceded, the opportunity sounding interesting on its own.  The next day however when my commitment wavered due to errands I had to run for my next visa renewal, she pleaded that she had told 150 English students I would be there to speak to them, she had not told me that!  Upon reaching the school I received many curious stares as usual, the only thing stranger than a foreigner here is a foreigner driving a motorbike.  The stares and giggles (you would be surprised at the level of maturity of university students here) continued to the classroom that so packed there were rows of students sitting on the floor and standing against the wall.

After the teacher directed the students through the group presentations on their research about youth in Indonesia, I introduced myself and we began the well-anticipated Q&A period about youth in America, led by a real American!  After I went briefed over the different stages of youth development in the US, with the various age hurdles like getting ones driver’s license and reaching the legal age to drink, the students set in with the theme they really wanted to discuss: sex and dating in America.  After working at a family planning organization I am no longer shy about discussing sex-related topics and I also wanted to dispel myths about all the immoral “free sex” Americans are having.  Like most Indonesians the students were also extremely interested in the fact that most youths in America move out of their parents house at the age of 18 because that is unheard of here unless absolutely necessary to attend university far from home.  The strong familial ties here dictate that youths live with their parents until they get married and start their own families, but even when visiting a friend last night I saw that her and her husband still lived her parents house for financial reasons.  It was entertaining to explain the desire of independence in the US since it is also uncommon for young Indonesians to have part-time jobs unless of course necessary to support the family.

The discussion could have lasted the rest of the afternoon with the students' overflowing curiosity, but when the hour was up it was time for me to head to the immigration office.  I think the teacher had become a little uncomfortable with the audacity of the student’s questions and my candid- but also more positive and realistic- explanation of American dating that attempted to dispel the myths created by scandalous popular culture images.

Facing Reality (or getting smacked in the face by it)

I found this Paul Farmer quote a while ago but only recently has its truth really impacted the way I see my position in Jambi.

On the limits of NGOs: If you're interested in rights -- things like the right to health care, to clean water, to education, or even a job -- which institutions confer those rights, especially rights to poor people? It's the government. So while celebrating the NGO movement is a really important thing to do, we really need to find ways to strengthen public-sector capacity.    -Paul Farmer

The other day I attended a meeting on HIV/AIDS at the provincial health department that was held between the National AIDS Commission and a number of local NGOs that are active in HIV/AIDS advocacy and prevention efforts.  I was struck by the seeming ineptness displayed by the government in its lack of preparedness and managerial capability. 

This sense of government ineptness soared through the roof when afterwards I used the opportunity to ask the relative health office for their statistical data on maternal mortality during the past year.  After an hour of searching- most records here are not computerized and those that are, are not well organized- the health official wrote down the statistics for me so I could take them home; it listed a total of three maternal deaths and 11 neonatal deaths.  In reality the number is closer to 300 maternal deaths!  How could the government’s health department not have data on such an important health topic, or at least admit to me that it was incomplete?  Because the woman of course confidently reassured me when I asked if her numbers were for all of Jambi, unfortunately similar to the way students give their loudest affirmative response when you ask them “do you understand?”  They do not. 

This experience only underscored the importance of the subject of the day’s meeting: coordination between the provincial government and NGOs to collect accurate and comprehensive data on the number of HIV/AIDS cases and the profile of those people so as to better understand the situation in Jambi.  Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, this seems to have not yet been done and the current statistics I am told change with each source.  Nevertheless, it is absolutely necessary before the planned HIV/AIDS program is begun for the entire province in 2011.  The Global Fund previously provided a massive grant to Indonesia to carry out comprehensive HIV/AIDS programs in each province, the current Round 8 of the program is being implemented in the top 12 worst effected provinces in Indonesia.  Jambi ranks number 15 out of 33 provinces for the percent of its population infected and thus falls into the next round. 

I remember when I was in Thailand before coming to Indonesia and while searching for information to learn about the health situation in Jambi, I found a news article from 2009 that said HIV/AIDS cases had grown by 200% in one year!  My immediate feeling was shock about the AIDS epidemic it implied, but in reality data collection for this has only just very recently begun and is thus skyrocketing as they realize how many cases there are.

This lack of accurate data poses challenges most importantly to the government that cannot effectively implement programs that will target those social issues which are most pressing.  For my own work here it challenges my ability to do such things as just apply for program funding when I can not illustrate the seriousness of the problems we wish to address through statistics.  What an impossible situation! 

I don’t wish to be a pessimist about NGO efforts, but their frequently touted metaphor of teaching a man to fish so that he can eat for his life rather than just giving him a fish to eat that day, can be extrapolated to an even wider scale.  Why not teach the man’s village leaders how to effectively provide fishing materials and instructions so that this knowledge is institutionalized and can be provided to the village for generations?  Government capacity building is where efforts should focused for maximal results.  NGOs like PKBI should not have to be providing basic health care and information, they should be there to fill in the cracks, conduct public advocacy, and press the government where it falls short.

Selamat Tahun Baru!

I thought the germis (drizzle, one of my favorite Indonesian words) last night would put a damper on the new year celebrations but the roads were still packed all evening with an unreasonable number of honking motorbikes in our small city.  According to friends it is popular to just drive around on New Years Eve, not actually go anywhere, just jalan jalan.  I also learned that since young women do not usually go out at night usually- something I have been suspicious of and not quite following myself- new years is one special night when they can, making it “a night for lovers” where “all the hotels are booked.”  Ahem.   

So in the evening a friend picked me up and we went to another friend’s house to partake in the tradition of grilling corn and fish over a makeshift aluminum contraption that used burning coconut shells as fuel.  I was surprised to see how in Indonesia, like in America, work does not stay at the office and with a collection of staff form different HIV/AIDS organizations I got to listen in on the gossip about current programs, challenges and staff.  Well, it turned out to be quite a feast with plenty of fried tempeh, pempek, martabak, and people coming and stopping by all night.  
  
Soon midnight was close approaching and the rain was not showing any signs of stopping, so my friend and I braved it and joined the crowds of young Indonesians driving to the Governor’s office, one of the two sights for launching fireworks.  By the time we got there the fireworks had started and people were cheering, honking, and blowing the 40 cent horns that had been sold on the side of the road during the week leading up.  In order to make my early curfew (yes I had a curfew), we made just quick stop by Carolyn’s office where their own private party consisted of soda pop, PG 13 American movies and dance lessons.  Soaked and cold from the long drive home through wind and rain left me for the first time feeling that my mandi (bath by ladling water over oneself) was warmer than me!