Monday, December 29, 2008
26 December
The 26th was the fourth anniversary of the tsunami here. There were a lot of prayer services at the mosques in the morning. In the afternoon we took the family to the mass grave site a bit out of town. They had hosted a large event there in the morning and that was just being packed up when we came. We just sat for a while and all remembered in our way what the tsunami meant. Rachel was the only one in the group who’d been there when the mass grave was open but Abeng and family (who were in Jakarta when the tsunami happened) have their sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews and parents buried there. There were people praying there. Abeng and Rachel remembered somethings about those who lay there and Abeng told us how every day he prays for his lost family there. It is a heavy thing to remember for sure, hopefully we’ll not see the likes of it again.
Fierry Christmas
Christmas in Banda Aceh is a low key affair. While the 25th is a national holiday no-one really observes Christmas in any way. Rachel and I decided we weren’t going to do any travel because she has just returned from the USA. Better to just relax in Banda Aceh.
So Christmas morning we went into my office and chatted with the McWhirter/Buchan/Johnston crew who were enjoying a great time in Christchurch. It was my first Christmas away from home and while I was sad to miss out on being there it was nice to be able to see everyone and chat a little.
In the evening we had a firey time, literally. To fit with the hot theme, it all began when our neighbor Ferra (7) got really badly burnt by hot coconut oil when she ran into someone who was carrying a pot. She has very bad burns and my cousin Rebecca let us know that she should be drinking a lot of water and trying to keep the wounds clean. Rachel and I decided that it was a good idea to give them our water dispenser so they would always have drinking water available and wouldn’t have to boil water every time they wanted it. We were happy to give the dispenser t them as we had our eyes on a replacement anyway. When we got the replacement one we plugged it in and settled down to read in the other room.
After a while we smelt smoke, saw fire and heard cracking too! We quickly evacuated the house. I told them to cut the electricity and the neighbor went to our “fuse” and turned it off. Inspection showed that the cord running to the four plug multibox we were using had overheated and had started to burn some wood and had melted into the carpet. Lovely! Clearly one of the things we are going to spend any housing allowance on is the electricity in this house. There is never any earth here, the power quality is crap and it seems to me that the “fuse” isn’t very worthwhile. I will also be careful to only buy hefty looking cables in the future.
Job Update - Good News
I have been volunteering at CARE for nearly two months now. The work has been quite enjoyable. I’ve got to help them organizing some engineering projects they have been doing and also helping them to manage their local engineering staff well. The projects are based in rural villages and are typically things like small diameter pipe systems to bring water to houses and/or toilets be they communal or for individual houses. I’ve really enjoyed working with the people who are there. The local staff are very nice, there are some great skilled people from other parts of Indonesia and a very interesting group of expatriots.
The expatriot people include two men from Bangladesh, two men from Nepal, an English lady, a French man, a Georgian man and a man from Palestine. A very interesting crowd indeed. Many of them have been working for CARE for many years in different parts of the world. We have interesting talks at lunch-time about the different parts of the world that people come from.
I have been doing another little thing on the side as well. I was approached through an old contact at MWH by some people who are trying to start up a business based on reverse osmosis treatment of sea water for making drinking water. They are entrepreneurs who think that they have found a man who has patents for a new revolutionary way of using RO membranes which will make the whole process much cheaper and simpler. They are looking for technical expertise to help them to understand the technology the man has while they go through the process of buying them out. My review has shown that they don’t have a great deal of evidence but there may be some possibility that they have something worth a lot. It has been interesting to review things for this complex technology at the same time as helping with the simple toilets with CARE.
Finally, the reason I’ve just been volunteering with CARE despite the fact they have offered me a three month contract was that I have been holding out to see whether I was selected by the American Red Cross for one of the two positions that they were advertising. The Red Cross were hoping to hire at the start of December but things slipped past. During the month there were a variety of plans that were considered and then abandoned. However leading into Christmas I had two interview in a row with them and I have been offered a position as project manager for their water and sanitation projects around the city of Banda Aceh. The project is worth several millions of dollars and I am very pleased with the position. I start on January the 5th and am excited to get into it. I am also excited to see what the contract with them will include, typically there is a housing allowance which we hope to use to improve conditions in and around our little house.
Probably after I start with the Red Cross there will not be much time left for playing around with the RO stuff.
The expatriot people include two men from Bangladesh, two men from Nepal, an English lady, a French man, a Georgian man and a man from Palestine. A very interesting crowd indeed. Many of them have been working for CARE for many years in different parts of the world. We have interesting talks at lunch-time about the different parts of the world that people come from.
I have been doing another little thing on the side as well. I was approached through an old contact at MWH by some people who are trying to start up a business based on reverse osmosis treatment of sea water for making drinking water. They are entrepreneurs who think that they have found a man who has patents for a new revolutionary way of using RO membranes which will make the whole process much cheaper and simpler. They are looking for technical expertise to help them to understand the technology the man has while they go through the process of buying them out. My review has shown that they don’t have a great deal of evidence but there may be some possibility that they have something worth a lot. It has been interesting to review things for this complex technology at the same time as helping with the simple toilets with CARE.
Finally, the reason I’ve just been volunteering with CARE despite the fact they have offered me a three month contract was that I have been holding out to see whether I was selected by the American Red Cross for one of the two positions that they were advertising. The Red Cross were hoping to hire at the start of December but things slipped past. During the month there were a variety of plans that were considered and then abandoned. However leading into Christmas I had two interview in a row with them and I have been offered a position as project manager for their water and sanitation projects around the city of Banda Aceh. The project is worth several millions of dollars and I am very pleased with the position. I start on January the 5th and am excited to get into it. I am also excited to see what the contract with them will include, typically there is a housing allowance which we hope to use to improve conditions in and around our little house.
Probably after I start with the Red Cross there will not be much time left for playing around with the RO stuff.
Debt Collecting
The other weekend I had a day being a debt collector! My friend Maison said he had to go somewhere three hours from Banda Aceh to talk to someone. After a few questions he said that the person was the friend of his cousin. After a few more questions I determined that in fact it wasn’t a friend but someone who had borrowed money, hadn’t paid it back and wasn’t answering their phone! The guy had borrowed the money as capital for a road project. Maison’s task was to drive the family car there, get the guy and put him on the phone with the cousin who was in Jakarta.
So Maison told me that he was going to pick me up in the morning for the three hour drive. In Indonesian the morning ends at 10am and then mid-day starts. I’ve learnt about Maison’s punctuality in the morning so when he called me at 11am and said “Good Morning” we both laughed. We headed off up the road.
The ipod gets a good workout on these trips. Maison had brought a friend called Yohan as well and we chatted away. It turned into a 5 hour drive to get there. This was the originally promised three hours, one hour of stops and one hour of extra driving. Finally we ended up in a town called Tangse which is up in the hills south of Sigli.
We stopped and had a cup of coffee while looking out across the beautiful view that sweeps down over the valley. We asked about the company that was building the road and were directed to their office. We went up there and chatted with some folks, they said that their boss was actually in Banda Aceh but without telling what we were after we managed to get his phone number and also they gave us a part off one of the machines that they needed us to take to him in the city. Success, we had the guy now, no escape. With that under our belts we cruised back to town. The high point of the return trip was buying some corn on the cob that had been baked over hot coals. Delicious.
Maison dropped me off and went and spoke to the guy that evening. Apparently it is all sorted out. The guy apologized profusely and promised money by the second week in January. I’ll be sure to ask what happens.
I enjoyed seeing a new part of Aceh and want to go back and explore the mountains and rivers there a little in the future.
So Maison told me that he was going to pick me up in the morning for the three hour drive. In Indonesian the morning ends at 10am and then mid-day starts. I’ve learnt about Maison’s punctuality in the morning so when he called me at 11am and said “Good Morning” we both laughed. We headed off up the road.
The ipod gets a good workout on these trips. Maison had brought a friend called Yohan as well and we chatted away. It turned into a 5 hour drive to get there. This was the originally promised three hours, one hour of stops and one hour of extra driving. Finally we ended up in a town called Tangse which is up in the hills south of Sigli.
We stopped and had a cup of coffee while looking out across the beautiful view that sweeps down over the valley. We asked about the company that was building the road and were directed to their office. We went up there and chatted with some folks, they said that their boss was actually in Banda Aceh but without telling what we were after we managed to get his phone number and also they gave us a part off one of the machines that they needed us to take to him in the city. Success, we had the guy now, no escape. With that under our belts we cruised back to town. The high point of the return trip was buying some corn on the cob that had been baked over hot coals. Delicious.
Maison dropped me off and went and spoke to the guy that evening. Apparently it is all sorted out. The guy apologized profusely and promised money by the second week in January. I’ll be sure to ask what happens.
I enjoyed seeing a new part of Aceh and want to go back and explore the mountains and rivers there a little in the future.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Asahan Weekend
The weekend been was a very enjoyable one for me. On Friday morning I had another surf out at the beach and picked up my kayak. Then on Friday afternoon I rushed out of a meeting and picked up my friend Maison who was even more rushed than me. So rushed in fact that he didn’t have his bag or clothes with him. He headed off to the airport with me accompanied only by two USB drives and his identity card from work. Lots of laughter all around.
We flew the 45min to Medan and then met up with a driver and car which I had hired. We headed off into the countryside through the big stinking city. Medan has 3 or 4 million people and is Indonesia’s third biggest.
That night we drove 6 hours in the wilderness towards the Asahan River. Unfortunately after an enjoyable evening with the ipod playing music we got a flat tire in a very remote place. We then spent 1 hour trying to get the bolts off the wheel. In Indonesia they feel that the best thing to do is tighten them as much as possible. We bent two tools trying to get them undone. It was 2am and quite funny, over the hour we had some people stop to help in the end there were 3 cars and three large trucks on a tight bend in a very remote place on the hills. Check out the photos and videos on my picasa site!
We arrived at 0330am at the house of a German guy Halim who has been married and lived here for 20 years. He has a holiday house beside the river. Maison, the driver Dani and I crashed out and slept till about 7am.
We had a breakfast in the morning. Halim introduced another wandering kayaker called Thomas who also happened to be German. Then we wandered down to look at the river. The Asahan is reknowned for very very fast flow with no real let up. Also the aluminium company that controls the flow in the river has been raising the lake level in Danau Toba for a few years now and have recently decided to lower it. Consequently the river instead of a usual 90m3/s was around 250m3/s…raging! There was actually an Indonesian national rafting competition planned and people were there for it but they were too scared to put on the river!
Halim said he thought the one section was grade 4 the whole way so I scouted it from the bank and then Thomas and I agreed to give it a go. Halim elected to stay on the bank. So with the rafters all looking on we pulled out in the furious flow and descended the river. It was grade 4 and consequently was well within my abilities. Extremely fast though and it reminded me on the Tewksbery section of the Jacque Cartier earlier in the year when we ran that at the extremely high level. I enjoyed the run which took about 15min for 3km so returned and had another go! That one only took 10min.
There are other sections on the river. A grade 4/4+ section upstream and a grade 4/5 section downstream. There is also a very nice grade 2 section with stunning scenery. No-one else wanted to do any more so we elected to chat and I am sure I will go back when the water level is lower sometime.
It was interesting talking to Halim. He has spent 20 years here and has seen it all before. We talked a lot about how people don’t do a lot to help themselves here. For example Halim spent time and effort trying to help them create tourism based on the river which they have. He gave up though as he found local policemen asking for bribes, people generally looking only for a quick buck etc. It is a pity as they have a real treasure there and could be much better off if they tried to welcome tourists instead of scaring them off!
We decided to head to Danau Toba for Saturday night and Sunday. Maison’s wife was there consoling her mother who had recently lost her husband. Maison’s 1 year old son was there too. That was the reason for brining Maison. He hadn’t seen them for quite a while.
On the way out I got a good look at the valley we had cruised through at speed in the night. It is unbelievably spectacular, make sure you check out the photos and videos on Picasa. There is a 330MW power station that usual has the flow of the Asahan underground. However it was releasing due to their design to drop the lake level. Consequently I got to see the raging torrent with 250m3/s in about a 4m wide gorge that drops about 100m and then flies off a 250m waterfall! Unbelievable. Absolutely incredible. We spent an hour or so looking at that and then headed to Parapat to take the ferry to Danau Toba.
On the way to Parapat I spoke more with Halim about what he knows about the area. He has some rivers that an intrepid group of creekboaters could definitely enjoy. More in the grade 4 range as he isn’t really looking for the super steep stuff.
I slept in the car on the way to the ferry and then spent the evening with Maison at his in-laws house. It was very nice to meet them. His mother in law sat with me and chatted for a while. Maison was happy to see his son. It was interesting to see he and his wife. They have an arranged marriage which is only about a year old so they are still getting used to living together. It was definitely a bit awkward for them.
In the morning we looked around the little village a bit including nice view. I then went with them to the church which was very nice. It was very lively and the singing was fantastic. Again check out the video’s on Picasa.
Finally onto the ferry and the 4 hour drive back to Medan. On the way Maison, Dani and I talked about things like the culture of arranged marriage and our western way of doing things. It is super rewarding to have the language skills to be able to have conversations like that and really appreciate the differences. We also talked more on the theme that Halim and I had discussed. Maison has similar experiences, when he goes to see family in the countryside they always ask him for money. His technique is to buy them things instead as he doesn’t want everyone coming to him for money. Similar thing though, a culture of trying to get a little bit. He said his family that live on a mountain in harsher conditions don’t ask, interesting!
Finally Maison and I enjoyed a beer in the airport at Medan and then flew back to Aceh. I was pretty tired by the time the taxi dropped me off at home around 10pm. Another successful kayaking trip and definitely will be going back to the Asahan!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Idul Adha Korban
So today was Idul Adha Korban, an important day in the Muslim calendar. Excuse my limited knowledge of Islam but the upshot of today was that today is the day that animals are sacrificed and the meat carried to the Mosque to share out with the poor so that everyone is able to eat well for the day. I believe it also marks the end of the Haj period.
It is also a very nice family time. My friend Ramadan kindly came to visit Abeng, the family and I this afternoon and he explained that this is the time of year when one should visit all ones family to see whether they are ok. Also one should seek forgiveness for past errors. Like many good holidays food features! Abeng made Lonton (or rice cake, see the photo in Picasa for how it was cooked) and there is always cake/biscuits like those in the photo above. For those who like to eat meat there is meat too!
Leading up to today there were noticably more goats and cows walking the streets. Now there are noticeably fewer! Abeng tells me that all the village gathered to see the sacrifices. I didn't go and actually I didn't see too much blood at all this weekend which was a little of a relief.
It was very nice that Ramadan came over as he was able to explain the many beautiful things about the day and about the Haj as well. He was lucky enough to be able to go to Saudi Arabia last year for the Haj and said it was an amazing experience that really leaves an impression on people and helps them to focus on doing good work in the world.
Surfs Up
On Sunday morning after talking to Rachel on Skype, I went by myself down to the beach. It was raining and I chatted with a local fisherman to ask him where he saw surfers. He was quite interested and I had a good time chatting with him. I got the kayak out and showed him and when I headed off to the point that he indicated he stayed and watched until I came back in. People are super nice here. The surf was ok but not great.
I went back into town and then did a bit of shopping for things for my bike. Particularly a front light as the car lease ran out on Sunday night and I didn't want to lease a car for another month as I hope to buy one this month. I then went to the house of another NZer who is here and is heading home soon. He was having a social gathering and I met another kiwi, Aaron, there who comes on Aceh for holidays inbetween off-shore contracts with oil companies. He comes here to surf. We fell to chatting so a plan was hatched whereby he took my kayak that night at at 6am I was to meet him at the beach to go to the good spot! Monday was a public holiday for Lebaran here (see next blog).
So at 5am when I woke up it was EXTREMELY wet. Not to be perturbed I put on my drytop and started biking. Because of the early hour, the rain and the public holiday there was no one on the roads. It was a fun ride through torrential rain in the dark along the smooth asphalt road with no traffic.
The surf spot was really awesome. The swell was not huge but there is a "peak" where it gets up nice and solid. The waves hold up and were cleaner than any other sea wave I've every surfed. They were getting pretty big too, say 5 to 6ft at the face! An off-shore wind meant that the waves were holding up nicely. I had a great time out there surfing for a few hours :-) I did have a spray-skirt implosion on one big wave so I need to get a beach-ball or something to put on my lap to prevent that. Will also be getting some airbags brought back over soon.
The surf at that spot is good enough that there has been a surfing tourism for 30 years. It is not one of the absolutely best places in the world but it is never crowded so some people prefer it to going to Bali with the hoards.
After surfing for 2.5 hours I biked home again and was very tired. I even took a nap after talking to Rachel briefly.
Saturday adventure
You'll notice I managed to get a photo on here. Watch out! More photos stil on Picasa.
On Saturday I got up and went into work to have a quick talk with my parents. Having done this I got my gear together and Maison and I went for a bike-ride/river scouting expedition. It was really good mountainbiking as we followed a river up to its source. The river looked pretty promising although it was very low volume and steep. It would require some serious checking before having a run down it. I will probably go in there and hike it during the dry season. Maison and I dropped down the very steep banks at several places to get a feel for it. The photo above is one of those places. It was very nice down there, cool, peaceful! However I think after rain it would be rather crazy.
Maison and I checked out another car, a Suzuki Vitara which I thought might be nicer as it is 4WD but not as big as the Taft that we are looking at. I thought the smaller size might make it nicer for Rachel to drive. Unfortunately the Vitara was probably a tsunami car and was very rusty underneath!
I found at home that all the energy had been devoted to cooking for Lebaran on Monday so there was no food. Too tired to go anywhere I cooked up some spagetti and sauce quickly. It is very nice to have a simple kitchen at times like that!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Quick update for the week
This week was a work week from Tuesday to Friday to me. I am getting quite stuck into things at CARE. I feel I am being productive there but in a way wish I could stay longer to see things through to the end. At the moment I see much work to be done and all I can try to do is chart a course and hope it will still happen after I leave. Still I am learning a lot and making good friends too.
In the evenings Rachel and I have been enjoying time at the house with the family and cruising around town to do a little shopping.
Rachel actually left to go home to America last night. I was sad to see her go :-( I spent the evening talking with my friend Maison whose wife is also not here. Unfortunately his wife is not here because his father in law died the other day. His wife went back to her family's village near Danau Toba. It was a 20+ hour bus ride to get back there! Maison actually went with them and then got on a bus a day later to come back. I guess it is nice for Maison and I that we are in the same boat. We have lots of adventures planned for the weekend too!
In the evenings Rachel and I have been enjoying time at the house with the family and cruising around town to do a little shopping.
Rachel actually left to go home to America last night. I was sad to see her go :-( I spent the evening talking with my friend Maison whose wife is also not here. Unfortunately his wife is not here because his father in law died the other day. His wife went back to her family's village near Danau Toba. It was a 20+ hour bus ride to get back there! Maison actually went with them and then got on a bus a day later to come back. I guess it is nice for Maison and I that we are in the same boat. We have lots of adventures planned for the weekend too!
Seeing Simon for the Weekend
We had a very enjoyable time in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore last weekend. We were only in Kuala Lumpur for one night and stayed at a bed and breakfast close to the low cost carrier terminal because we had a plane in the morning to Singapore.
The reason for going to Singapore was that my brother Simon had been working in Vietnam and was passing Singapore on the way home to England. We all arranged our flights so that we could hang out on Sunday together. Before Simon arrived Rachel and I cruised around a little bit and Rachel did some serious suit shopping. She is looking to be the advisor to senior politicians here so needs to look the part. She finds that it is hard to get light-weight suits at home in the US espeically now because it is winter there. In Singapore she learnt about what fabric is good and got a suit made.
Simon arrived at around 10pm. I went to meet him at the airport. Unfortunately my driver dropped me at the wrong terminal, and what is more he accidentally drove into the carpark instead of going past the drop-off point. Pretty funny! I met Simon and we went back into town where we drank a beer or two and watched the All Blacks. Simon told me about the trials and tribulations of his job in Vietnam. Sounds like he had done very good work and got his company out of a hole!
Sunday was a very nice relaxing day. We had breakfast and chatted, walked around and chatted, had lunch at our favourite Indian place and chatted, sat in the spa and...chatted. The plan was to go to the Night Safari at night but we were diverted by extraordinarily good Mexican food and Rachel's love for Margaritas. That is the second time that Rachel and I have planned to go to the Night Safari and not made it! It was really wonderful to see Simon. We hope that Simon and Erin might be able to visit us in January in Banda Aceh. Actually we hope anyone can visit us. We think we could show you a wonderful time here.
Monday was an early fligth to Medan. Rachel and I got a hotel room for the day at a cheapish place. They had a very nice pool area. I spent the day cruising around town looking at second-hand cars. It is normally quite fun to do things like that. I ended up making friends with someone who drove me around town on his motor-cycle to show me the places there are cars. I saw several for around $5,000 that would fit our bill of 4WD, A/C and at least four seats. They are around 1992/1993 vintage but that isn't so much of a problem because Abeng is a mechanic and can fix things for us!
We flew back to Banda Aceh in the evening. The flight wasn't great, stifling hot for a long time before the AC started and then a bumpy ride. We met a foreign man who had worked for the cement company in Aceh for 12 years before the tsunami. He was coming back to see what the place looked like now.
At the airport we were met by a Abeng and the family in the car. It was raining and had been raining there all weekend! Very wet in Aceh now.
The reason for going to Singapore was that my brother Simon had been working in Vietnam and was passing Singapore on the way home to England. We all arranged our flights so that we could hang out on Sunday together. Before Simon arrived Rachel and I cruised around a little bit and Rachel did some serious suit shopping. She is looking to be the advisor to senior politicians here so needs to look the part. She finds that it is hard to get light-weight suits at home in the US espeically now because it is winter there. In Singapore she learnt about what fabric is good and got a suit made.
Simon arrived at around 10pm. I went to meet him at the airport. Unfortunately my driver dropped me at the wrong terminal, and what is more he accidentally drove into the carpark instead of going past the drop-off point. Pretty funny! I met Simon and we went back into town where we drank a beer or two and watched the All Blacks. Simon told me about the trials and tribulations of his job in Vietnam. Sounds like he had done very good work and got his company out of a hole!
Sunday was a very nice relaxing day. We had breakfast and chatted, walked around and chatted, had lunch at our favourite Indian place and chatted, sat in the spa and...chatted. The plan was to go to the Night Safari at night but we were diverted by extraordinarily good Mexican food and Rachel's love for Margaritas. That is the second time that Rachel and I have planned to go to the Night Safari and not made it! It was really wonderful to see Simon. We hope that Simon and Erin might be able to visit us in January in Banda Aceh. Actually we hope anyone can visit us. We think we could show you a wonderful time here.
Monday was an early fligth to Medan. Rachel and I got a hotel room for the day at a cheapish place. They had a very nice pool area. I spent the day cruising around town looking at second-hand cars. It is normally quite fun to do things like that. I ended up making friends with someone who drove me around town on his motor-cycle to show me the places there are cars. I saw several for around $5,000 that would fit our bill of 4WD, A/C and at least four seats. They are around 1992/1993 vintage but that isn't so much of a problem because Abeng is a mechanic and can fix things for us!
We flew back to Banda Aceh in the evening. The flight wasn't great, stifling hot for a long time before the AC started and then a bumpy ride. We met a foreign man who had worked for the cement company in Aceh for 12 years before the tsunami. He was coming back to see what the place looked like now.
At the airport we were met by a Abeng and the family in the car. It was raining and had been raining there all weekend! Very wet in Aceh now.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Rainy Week
The rain has come! I had thought that it was much drier than when we were here in the wet season last but that is no longer the case. Basically since Saturday it has rained for the whole week. Sometimes there are very big rain showers and at one stage I drove through the city and there was at least a foot of water over the entire road around the market. At our house we've had puddles developing too. One morning there was very heavy rain and out the front of our house between the house and the toilet there was just one big puddle! The puddle even extended into the toilet room although the squatter is raised up about a foot so no problem once I got to it!
There are a lot of frogs when it rains. One likes to sleep in my shoes at the door so one morning he inadvertantly ended up in the car with me! I also saw a very large spider at one stage in the toilet hiding from the rain. A good amount of spraying is now happening in the toilet to keep mosquitos and spiders at bay.
With heavy rain some/most of the schools close so the kids have been at home a few days during the week. Also Abeng was selected by his village for some sort of leadership training on the other side of town. We let him take the car so he would drop off the kids, then me in the morning and then head off to his training. He wasn't coming home to late and Rachel's UNDP drivers flat out deserted her a couple of times so we've been late at work sometimes and had to be creative about how to get home.
One night this week I had dinner with my good friend Maison and talked for a few hours. I really like to hang out with him and it is good for my language to spend time with him. He has been away a bit, for work and also, sadly because his wife's father had a heart attack and died. Maison and his wife and their one year old travelled by bus (probably 16 hours in the bus plus time for a connection in Medan) to go to the family house! I like Maison because he is always 100% lively and smiles and laughs all the time. He is a great friend to have and loves to go on adventures or sit and talk.
After having tried driving into the hills with a 2 wheel drive car I decided I want to get a 4X4. We think buying a second hand car for $5000 is better than hiring a car for $450 a month so we are looking around. We looked at one that wasn't good enough ($1600) and then we saw one Thursday night which was pretty good and $4800 but it turned out it wasn't a 4X4 so we decided not to get it.
A quick update on the job front. Both Rachel and I are manouvering for a longterm contract. There are promising signs for both of us but nothing is signed yet. I am trying wth the American Red Cross. Rachel is trying to get funding from USAID/IRD to work as the senior advisor to the Aceh governments peace reintegration agency. She has recieved personal recommendations from the director of that agency so things should work out...but there is always a lot of beaurocracy and politics.... I think we will be both even more happy when longterm contracts are signed.
THis weekend we had to leave Indonesia to update our 30day visas. This is another problem that will be solved when we have longterm contracts and year long visas. The great thing is that it presents us with an opportunity to meet my brother in Singapore. Simon is working in Vietnam at a refinery and this weekend is travelling back to England via Singapore. Great timing! RAchel and I are currently at the KL airport ready to fly out to see him.
There are a lot of frogs when it rains. One likes to sleep in my shoes at the door so one morning he inadvertantly ended up in the car with me! I also saw a very large spider at one stage in the toilet hiding from the rain. A good amount of spraying is now happening in the toilet to keep mosquitos and spiders at bay.
With heavy rain some/most of the schools close so the kids have been at home a few days during the week. Also Abeng was selected by his village for some sort of leadership training on the other side of town. We let him take the car so he would drop off the kids, then me in the morning and then head off to his training. He wasn't coming home to late and Rachel's UNDP drivers flat out deserted her a couple of times so we've been late at work sometimes and had to be creative about how to get home.
One night this week I had dinner with my good friend Maison and talked for a few hours. I really like to hang out with him and it is good for my language to spend time with him. He has been away a bit, for work and also, sadly because his wife's father had a heart attack and died. Maison and his wife and their one year old travelled by bus (probably 16 hours in the bus plus time for a connection in Medan) to go to the family house! I like Maison because he is always 100% lively and smiles and laughs all the time. He is a great friend to have and loves to go on adventures or sit and talk.
After having tried driving into the hills with a 2 wheel drive car I decided I want to get a 4X4. We think buying a second hand car for $5000 is better than hiring a car for $450 a month so we are looking around. We looked at one that wasn't good enough ($1600) and then we saw one Thursday night which was pretty good and $4800 but it turned out it wasn't a 4X4 so we decided not to get it.
A quick update on the job front. Both Rachel and I are manouvering for a longterm contract. There are promising signs for both of us but nothing is signed yet. I am trying wth the American Red Cross. Rachel is trying to get funding from USAID/IRD to work as the senior advisor to the Aceh governments peace reintegration agency. She has recieved personal recommendations from the director of that agency so things should work out...but there is always a lot of beaurocracy and politics.... I think we will be both even more happy when longterm contracts are signed.
THis weekend we had to leave Indonesia to update our 30day visas. This is another problem that will be solved when we have longterm contracts and year long visas. The great thing is that it presents us with an opportunity to meet my brother in Singapore. Simon is working in Vietnam at a refinery and this weekend is travelling back to England via Singapore. Great timing! RAchel and I are currently at the KL airport ready to fly out to see him.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Active Weekend
The weekend was very enjoyable and busy. On Friday night we went to the weekly meal prepared by a 5 staf chef who is here because his wife is working for one of the aid organizations. To keep himself busy he prepares friday dinner every week. It was very high quality food and delightful. I acquired a bottle of plonk by going to the chinese man who has it secreted away in his house! At the meal we sat with people from Rachel's work and also from my work. Rachel's work friend is also called Rachel and is also from America. My work friends are Ramadan from Palestine and Sally from the UK. I also sat beside a man who has been working with the fishermen in Aceh trying to help them create a sustainable fishery - something I thought Jon and Talia in MA would be interested in. We really loved the meal and the company.
Saturday morning I was up early and down to meet a crew of people who go bike riding every saturday here. There were about 8 people on the ride. We initially wound our way through the back roads to a town called Indrapuri about 25km from Banda Aceh. It was a very nice ride through the rice fields. We sat down and had some sweet bread in Indrapuri and then headed back along the irrigation ditches that irrigate the land around Banda Aceh. There were puddles, cows and buffalo along the way and it was great mountainbiking along the single track that farmers use their motorbikes on. Very enjoyable. I met some new people who are interested in the outdoors and keen for adventure.
In the afternoon the heavens opened and the rain came down. It was very very wet and actuall all of last week has been pretty much like that. I had been thinking of going back to look at the river I found the weekend before but I didn't need to see it in flood again. Instead I tried to find another one closer to town. Rachel and I cruised around about 20km from Banda Aceh in the van trying to find a way up to the river. We found a promising looking dirt road that headed up into the hills and decided to return on Sunday for a bit of a hike.
Saturday night there hadn't been any cooking at teh house so Rachel and I made seaseme tofu with watercress, which we substituted for the spinach we normally use. Watercress is a very popular vegetable here.
We watched the movie, The Visitor, which is about an illegal immigrant being deported from the USA. It was a good movie.
Sunday morning, after a sleep-in and some breakfast we went back to the road, drove along it as far as the 2WD van would go and then started hiking. We walked for about 2 hours and crested a ridge to look down into the valley over. It was a wonderful hike and we were very happy to be in the hills in Aceh. Making the most of peace here!
Rachel went home to rest and then out for a birthday party for a 2 year old cousin of the kids at the house. I biked 10km out to the place where I play rugby on Sunday nights. It was fun to run around and then to have a nice pizza at a restaurant by the sea. With all the foreigners who have been here over the past 4 years one can lead a very western life here if one wants. Me I think I reached saturation with foreigners in Aceh for the weekend and I am thinking of trying to avoid western things during the week a little to keep contact with the Acehenese. Actually two westerners were telling me on Sunday night that even though they've been here several years and are outgoing they don't really feel that they've made any contacts with the local people. Interesting.
Saturday morning I was up early and down to meet a crew of people who go bike riding every saturday here. There were about 8 people on the ride. We initially wound our way through the back roads to a town called Indrapuri about 25km from Banda Aceh. It was a very nice ride through the rice fields. We sat down and had some sweet bread in Indrapuri and then headed back along the irrigation ditches that irrigate the land around Banda Aceh. There were puddles, cows and buffalo along the way and it was great mountainbiking along the single track that farmers use their motorbikes on. Very enjoyable. I met some new people who are interested in the outdoors and keen for adventure.
In the afternoon the heavens opened and the rain came down. It was very very wet and actuall all of last week has been pretty much like that. I had been thinking of going back to look at the river I found the weekend before but I didn't need to see it in flood again. Instead I tried to find another one closer to town. Rachel and I cruised around about 20km from Banda Aceh in the van trying to find a way up to the river. We found a promising looking dirt road that headed up into the hills and decided to return on Sunday for a bit of a hike.
Saturday night there hadn't been any cooking at teh house so Rachel and I made seaseme tofu with watercress, which we substituted for the spinach we normally use. Watercress is a very popular vegetable here.
We watched the movie, The Visitor, which is about an illegal immigrant being deported from the USA. It was a good movie.
Sunday morning, after a sleep-in and some breakfast we went back to the road, drove along it as far as the 2WD van would go and then started hiking. We walked for about 2 hours and crested a ridge to look down into the valley over. It was a wonderful hike and we were very happy to be in the hills in Aceh. Making the most of peace here!
Rachel went home to rest and then out for a birthday party for a 2 year old cousin of the kids at the house. I biked 10km out to the place where I play rugby on Sunday nights. It was fun to run around and then to have a nice pizza at a restaurant by the sea. With all the foreigners who have been here over the past 4 years one can lead a very western life here if one wants. Me I think I reached saturation with foreigners in Aceh for the weekend and I am thinking of trying to avoid western things during the week a little to keep contact with the Acehenese. Actually two westerners were telling me on Sunday night that even though they've been here several years and are outgoing they don't really feel that they've made any contacts with the local people. Interesting.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
My Work Contract Situation
I have been working for CARE for three weeks now as a volunteer. They indicated that they had a possibility of work coming up so I positioned myself by offering to volunteer with them. They gave me a package of work and I have been getting stuck into it. The work has been interesting and it has been very interesting seeing the situation in the office here too. I think I've been able to provide some ideas for improvement of quality. The engineers they have a very clever but they are overwhelmed with tasks here a little. They haven't had a foreign engineer to help them with ideas for a while.
It took CARE a while to sign a contract with me due to visa issues and actually today I was going to sign a paid contract and fly 30min to Malaysia to process a
visa. However the process taken long enough time that the American Red Cross are now about to hire people. They were hiring for one person closing on Nov 17. However I saw it advertised again for Nov 30th closing. So I thought it was a possibility but that it would be a while into the future. Also there was a chance that the American Red Cross job would be based full time 7 hours from Banda Aceh which would
not work for Rachel and I. I am prepared to travel but don't want "home" to be somewhere else. I had told CARE all of this and we had agreed to go ahead with a CARE contract for three months but with the understanding that things might change if the RedCross offered me a longterm position. Then last night CARE called me to say that they, understandably, wanted me to sign for three months and to committ for that time.
So today I went to the American Red Cross to just see what was happening with them. When I went there I felt like I would probably stick with CARE because there were too many risks with the American Red Cross and I thought I was talking about a 6 month contract. However, they told me that infact now they have two engineering positions, both in Banda Aceh!!! The first position came up because one person's contract was not renewed. The second person was dismissed last week for misconduct! Also the second person was a candidate to be promoted to replace the first person. Also the contract is for a year which is perfect for me. Probably there will be
work until 2010 if I want to stay there. Perfect!
So I had to go back to CARE and say that I was not prepared to sign with them for a definite contract. I will continue as a volunteer for a few weeks. I will be trying to close out things I have started. If things don't work with American Red Cross then there may still be a chance here. So basically I just lose out on a week or two pay at the moment with the chance of getting longterm work. Good deal for me. I think I have been open enough that there are no hard feelings here too.
Fingers cross for the Red Cross! And time to work hard to ensure success with what I have started at CARE.
It took CARE a while to sign a contract with me due to visa issues and actually today I was going to sign a paid contract and fly 30min to Malaysia to process a
visa. However the process taken long enough time that the American Red Cross are now about to hire people. They were hiring for one person closing on Nov 17. However I saw it advertised again for Nov 30th closing. So I thought it was a possibility but that it would be a while into the future. Also there was a chance that the American Red Cross job would be based full time 7 hours from Banda Aceh which would
not work for Rachel and I. I am prepared to travel but don't want "home" to be somewhere else. I had told CARE all of this and we had agreed to go ahead with a CARE contract for three months but with the understanding that things might change if the RedCross offered me a longterm position. Then last night CARE called me to say that they, understandably, wanted me to sign for three months and to committ for that time.
So today I went to the American Red Cross to just see what was happening with them. When I went there I felt like I would probably stick with CARE because there were too many risks with the American Red Cross and I thought I was talking about a 6 month contract. However, they told me that infact now they have two engineering positions, both in Banda Aceh!!! The first position came up because one person's contract was not renewed. The second person was dismissed last week for misconduct! Also the second person was a candidate to be promoted to replace the first person. Also the contract is for a year which is perfect for me. Probably there will be
work until 2010 if I want to stay there. Perfect!
So I had to go back to CARE and say that I was not prepared to sign with them for a definite contract. I will continue as a volunteer for a few weeks. I will be trying to close out things I have started. If things don't work with American Red Cross then there may still be a chance here. So basically I just lose out on a week or two pay at the moment with the chance of getting longterm work. Good deal for me. I think I have been open enough that there are no hard feelings here too.
Fingers cross for the Red Cross! And time to work hard to ensure success with what I have started at CARE.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A River Found, A Kitchen Created
The weekend was a good time. On Saturday Rachel and I got up and went for a nice run before the sun came up. Then I got ready to head out for an adventure and Rachel put in some time at work.
My adventure was to go with my friend Maison to a place where he thought there might be good whitewater. It was at the intake for a water treatment plant he had worked at before. We met up with the director of the water utility in that area and he went up there with us. He was a very nice person and I had worked with him very briefly in 2005. He is also very clever, his water utility is well run and delivers reliable service to its customers. At the water treatment plant he showed us a 10kW hydropower generator he had built. He said he had worked out the details by trial and error. Very clever.
The river itself was really great too. When I saw it I was reminded of the steep creeks of New England that had been home for a while. The water level was low and Maison and I headed upstream for about an hour. There were lots of good looking drops but the water level was low. It rained a little on us, maybe 20min of moderate rain. We decided to head back down and saw the water level had risen a little. We climbed up out of the river and when we looked back down we saw that the water level had risen very rapidly! There must have been a lot of heavy rain in the catchment. The level was rising at about a foot a minute! Soon it was a real torrent and the whitewater looked excellent. Although you'd have to start on it after it had peaked and was dropping! We went downstream to where the gradient had dropped a little and found more and more good rapids. Great stuff! There are many more rivers like this here. All I need is to get a creekboat and a team of people.
I got home a little late, around 6pm. We had a look at a second hand car that was for sale for about $1,500 but everyone felt it was likely to breakdown pretty quickly. We think maybe the best plan will be to buy one in Jakarta and pay someone to drive it up here. The price is much lower in Jakarta and we feel we may be able to get something good for $5,000. It shouldn't lose value over a year or so and we should be able to reclaim the money when we leave.
Sunday, we had a family trip out to the composting location that I had seen. Everyone really like seeing the lovely environment. We think it inspired people a little bit because Abeng started talking about keeping the house tidy and cleaning things up.
We had lunch at a "Padang" place which is like a buffet that they set out on the table in front of you. We had to ask them to remove the birds from infront of us that still had their feet and beaks!
I was starting to feel a little off colour so I didn't play touch in the evening or go for a surf in the afternoon. Instead we went shopping and got some more things for the house like a fridge, some benches to make a kitchen, things for a stove and some shelves for holding spices. We are going to have a kitchen! We got some plates, knives, spoons etc so we can have breakfast or a dinner if we want in our own place. It is very nice to finally have some things set up.
I got sick at night. Just had the runs. It wasn't too bad just meant a lot of trips to the bathroom. By monday morning I was ok. We still feel that the sanitation at the house is not good enough, particularly the septic tank, but there is a lot happening there and we think it will be better. Soon we will have trucked water supply and an enclosed chicken proof washing area. Then we will move onto the septic tank.
My adventure was to go with my friend Maison to a place where he thought there might be good whitewater. It was at the intake for a water treatment plant he had worked at before. We met up with the director of the water utility in that area and he went up there with us. He was a very nice person and I had worked with him very briefly in 2005. He is also very clever, his water utility is well run and delivers reliable service to its customers. At the water treatment plant he showed us a 10kW hydropower generator he had built. He said he had worked out the details by trial and error. Very clever.
The river itself was really great too. When I saw it I was reminded of the steep creeks of New England that had been home for a while. The water level was low and Maison and I headed upstream for about an hour. There were lots of good looking drops but the water level was low. It rained a little on us, maybe 20min of moderate rain. We decided to head back down and saw the water level had risen a little. We climbed up out of the river and when we looked back down we saw that the water level had risen very rapidly! There must have been a lot of heavy rain in the catchment. The level was rising at about a foot a minute! Soon it was a real torrent and the whitewater looked excellent. Although you'd have to start on it after it had peaked and was dropping! We went downstream to where the gradient had dropped a little and found more and more good rapids. Great stuff! There are many more rivers like this here. All I need is to get a creekboat and a team of people.
I got home a little late, around 6pm. We had a look at a second hand car that was for sale for about $1,500 but everyone felt it was likely to breakdown pretty quickly. We think maybe the best plan will be to buy one in Jakarta and pay someone to drive it up here. The price is much lower in Jakarta and we feel we may be able to get something good for $5,000. It shouldn't lose value over a year or so and we should be able to reclaim the money when we leave.
Sunday, we had a family trip out to the composting location that I had seen. Everyone really like seeing the lovely environment. We think it inspired people a little bit because Abeng started talking about keeping the house tidy and cleaning things up.
We had lunch at a "Padang" place which is like a buffet that they set out on the table in front of you. We had to ask them to remove the birds from infront of us that still had their feet and beaks!
I was starting to feel a little off colour so I didn't play touch in the evening or go for a surf in the afternoon. Instead we went shopping and got some more things for the house like a fridge, some benches to make a kitchen, things for a stove and some shelves for holding spices. We are going to have a kitchen! We got some plates, knives, spoons etc so we can have breakfast or a dinner if we want in our own place. It is very nice to finally have some things set up.
I got sick at night. Just had the runs. It wasn't too bad just meant a lot of trips to the bathroom. By monday morning I was ok. We still feel that the sanitation at the house is not good enough, particularly the septic tank, but there is a lot happening there and we think it will be better. Soon we will have trucked water supply and an enclosed chicken proof washing area. Then we will move onto the septic tank.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Weekend run down
We had a good weekend here in Banda Aceh. We hired a car on Friday night. It is a Suzuki APV van, still with the van! We are hiring it for $450 a month, if we hire for 3 months it drops to $410 a month. We found some for $300 but they were of lower quality, older and didn't have insurance. Our insurance is such that if we crash the car we still pay our rent until the end of the month and don't get a car. Also we pay $150 for someone to take it to Medan where it will be fixed. In the ideal world we'd get $6,000 together and buy a car ourselves, that way we wouldn't loose that much. Watch this space.
Anyway having a car is great, it allows us to do a lot. On Saturday we spent some time at my office talking on Skype to family. It is so great to be able to see people and talk to them.
After lunch we got something we need at the store, a dish rack for in our room, some soap etc.
We then went to the equivalent of the town square where a lot of organizations had organized a day of games and education about sanitation issues like washing hands. There were a lot of people there with lots of interesting stalls where the kids got stickers, shirts, posters, pens etc. There was someone dressed up as Minnie mouse which scared Azrah, the youngest kid at hte house, a lot! In the evening they had a movie they played on a big screen also about sanitation. We didn't go but I heard it was pretty lively. I can get a copy of the video for the kids from work.
I quickly shot down to the beach (20min drive) and surfed for a while. The surf was again pretty good. Not as rough as in Dunedin. No epic rides but I was starting to get some blunts (to those into kayaking), spins and kartwheels.
Back home quickly in order to get home before Magreb (evening prayers as the sun goes down).
In the evening we watched a movie. It is called "Cars" I think. It is a Disney/Pixar animated film and was really good. All the characters were cars that can talk. The main character is a red race car that gets lost on Route 66 in a town that has long since been bypassed by an interstate. Worth a watch. Muktadi the boy here liked it but the girls were a little bored I think.
Sunday, we took the kids to the office so introduce them to our families via Skype. Great stuff. Azrah was even said "nenek" and then "grandma" when we were talking with Florence. Pretty cool. I think that Maxine and Florence were extremely happy to see the kids.
In the afternoon we visited Rachel's friend Linda and Abeng's brother Ade at the village of Panchu, 20min around the coast. They have a very nice house with lots of trees, animals and views of the sea and mountains.
I came back into town and started to teach my friend Maison to roll the kayak. We were at the local swimming spot which is at a natural spring. There were A LOT of people watching him learn. I think he will be rolling next time we go. They were saying about an hour away in Jantho there is a river that sounds promising for whitewater.
In the evening I played touch rugby. Maison came along and played a bit too. Finally home to eat some lovely dahl that Rachel made. All in all a busy and enjoyable weekend.
Monday morning we got up and started running. I also put the trash from our house out on the road where I think it will be collected. I'll check later and see if that is true. I also picked up 15 or so plastic bottles, cleaned them and put them in the recycling bin we have.
Anyway having a car is great, it allows us to do a lot. On Saturday we spent some time at my office talking on Skype to family. It is so great to be able to see people and talk to them.
After lunch we got something we need at the store, a dish rack for in our room, some soap etc.
We then went to the equivalent of the town square where a lot of organizations had organized a day of games and education about sanitation issues like washing hands. There were a lot of people there with lots of interesting stalls where the kids got stickers, shirts, posters, pens etc. There was someone dressed up as Minnie mouse which scared Azrah, the youngest kid at hte house, a lot! In the evening they had a movie they played on a big screen also about sanitation. We didn't go but I heard it was pretty lively. I can get a copy of the video for the kids from work.
I quickly shot down to the beach (20min drive) and surfed for a while. The surf was again pretty good. Not as rough as in Dunedin. No epic rides but I was starting to get some blunts (to those into kayaking), spins and kartwheels.
Back home quickly in order to get home before Magreb (evening prayers as the sun goes down).
In the evening we watched a movie. It is called "Cars" I think. It is a Disney/Pixar animated film and was really good. All the characters were cars that can talk. The main character is a red race car that gets lost on Route 66 in a town that has long since been bypassed by an interstate. Worth a watch. Muktadi the boy here liked it but the girls were a little bored I think.
Sunday, we took the kids to the office so introduce them to our families via Skype. Great stuff. Azrah was even said "nenek" and then "grandma" when we were talking with Florence. Pretty cool. I think that Maxine and Florence were extremely happy to see the kids.
In the afternoon we visited Rachel's friend Linda and Abeng's brother Ade at the village of Panchu, 20min around the coast. They have a very nice house with lots of trees, animals and views of the sea and mountains.
I came back into town and started to teach my friend Maison to roll the kayak. We were at the local swimming spot which is at a natural spring. There were A LOT of people watching him learn. I think he will be rolling next time we go. They were saying about an hour away in Jantho there is a river that sounds promising for whitewater.
In the evening I played touch rugby. Maison came along and played a bit too. Finally home to eat some lovely dahl that Rachel made. All in all a busy and enjoyable weekend.
Monday morning we got up and started running. I also put the trash from our house out on the road where I think it will be collected. I'll check later and see if that is true. I also picked up 15 or so plastic bottles, cleaned them and put them in the recycling bin we have.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Work for me and update on home developments
I have been at work at the CARE office in Banda Aceh all week. Officially I am a volunteer at the moment but the idea is that they will provide me with a visa that will allow me to work here for a longer time and at that point they will be able to start paying me. There has been some talk of backpay or taking into account the time I have been working as a volunteer. There is still a chance I will be able to work with the American Red Cross as well which would be great too.
It has been interesting getting to know their work procedures and finding out about their programs. I am also, of course, getting to know the people in the organization, both local and international. It is a workplace where one has to interact with a great deal of other people as well. There are a team of four engineers who I will be working with. There is a health and hygiene team who go into villages to provide education. There is also a housing team although I’ve not had a lot to do with them so far. In addition there are all the administration, HR, finance, asset management, IT, security people, procurement and drivers. All in all it is a lot of new people. I think the office is about 120 people at the moment. I’ve heard stories that they had 500 staff here a few years ago but they are really cutting back now. Some of this week I’ve been going around introducing myself, working out what people do here and working out what different style I need to use to work with different people.
The work is quite interesting. I’ve been asked to help with some small programs (about $10,000 each) where they want to introduce new technologies to some villages. Initially they just build a representative number of the technology in a village. It looks like they would like to provide some trash cans and rubbish carts in one village (you’ll see my NZ/US split in the language there), some clothes washing facilities with soak pits in another village we may also have money for some handpumps and perhaps some sort of incineration facilities.
Actually the last one worries me a bit. There is a big problem with trash, inside the city there is (supposed to be) a trash collection system but out in the villages it just gets thrown in heaps and no-one comes to get it. Even if we burn it well (which may not be a good idea due to the plastic etc) there is still the ash. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some composting and recycling involved and maybe a small landfill type thing for the ash. That one is going to be hard I think.
The technologies are quite simple, ones they’ve already completed include, composting, household sand water filters, rope pumps and rainwater tanks. These have had varied success, which is to be expected here. I’ve written some descriptions below and there are some pictures on my picasa site www.picasaweb.google.com/mjmcwhirter .
The rope pumps have been a good success. They are a simple pump which works by having a rope pull small plastic discs up a pipe which dips down into the hand-dug well. The plastic pumps lift water with them as they rise which spill out at the top. It is a really easy way to haul water out of a hand-dug well. I saw three houses where these had been installed. They were still being used, 8 months after installation, in two of the households. Even though the rope had broken a few times people had taken the time and energy to repair the rope themselves. This shows that it is a) easy to fix and b) of value to the people. Quite cool.
I saw a solar panel which was setup to pump water for a communal water collection point in a village. The solar panels, and pumps, had been well constructed and have worked for two years so far. The solar panel has a 20 year manufacturer’s warranty with service people in Jakarta (quite a long way away). The only downside to that project was that the solar panels are installed in an area where there is electricity so the panels are a very expensive way of providing electricity. Still the project was intended as a demonstration/pilot and it has proved successful. Also the people in the village get free water which is important because the water supply hasn’t been extended back into the houses and people have to buy water otherwise. They pay about $0.15 for 20 liters of water in a jerry can. I guess a family here uses 100 litres a day so it starts to add up for people who earn $100 a month.
I saw some great mistakes too! They’ve had a lot of trouble here as non-professionals designed/built houses here without professional design and with the crappy quality of construction. They (not CARE I think) are now worried the houses might fall down. Some people are retrofitting what there is now. One of these retrofits was some steel cross-bracing across a house. The steel cross bracing now prevents people from opening their windows in the house which is a big downer with the heat here!
The best disaster story I’ve seen so far was a pump installation. They were specialized hydraulic pumps which don’t require electricity. They are installed with about 2m of water head above the pump and then pump a fraction of the inlet flow to high pressure while the majority of the inlet flow is discharged. I saw some video of them working which looked quite impressive. The only problem was that they (again not CARE) installed the pumps in the flood area of the river (actually right in the river bed in my opinion). In the rainy season a big flood came and now the pumps are buried under gravel! Pretty sad site.
One good thing about work is a good web connection which allows me to use Skype video to talk to people.
So onto other things. I must say that Rachel’s work is going really well. She is making some good impressions on people and doing exactly what she wants to be doing training people how to build peace. Some of her students at the moment include some pretty high-up people, for example a former governor of Aceh. She has her eyes on a position that might be advertised soon which would allow her to continue the work she has been doing.
In terms of our personal arrangements, with me working now we are paying Dian at the house $100 a month to do the chores. We asked her about how to find someone in the village and she suggested herself. We didn’t want to ask her, thinking she might already be too busy and not wanting to impose. Probably it takes 2 or 3 hours a day and while is seems strange to us in the west the pay of about $1.0 to $1.5 a day is pretty lucrative here. Rachel and I are also contributing $300 a month for rent of the house and food for evening meals. So in total $400 and the house and our clothes are cleaner than ever and Dian is a great cook! Elsewhere we could probably get the cost down by $100 to $200 but it isn’t a lot to us and it makes a HUGE difference for our friends. Also they do a lot of extra little things to help us such as loaning us the scooter if we need to quickly get something or Abeng fixing lights and making the shower for us. We talk with them about the fact that us being there is an opportunity for them to save and prepare for future trials or to start a venture. I think they are taking it to heart but time with tell! I think it is a pleasing arrangement for all.
Speaking of transportation, we are hell bent on hiring a car. We are sick of not being able to go places together easily and a car is the solution. We’ve been shopping around and hope to get an older car with AC for around $300 a month. We might pay $450 to get a better one with better insurance as well. Last night was pretty lively at the house with two cars being brought around for us to see and plenty of family activity as well. I think the family activity was related to the family (there are 5 brothers) selling some land on Aceh Island (Pulau Aceh) and it was being divided.
To finish off this long one, some news about old friends. Today was Friday which involves a mosque trip for all muslims here. This means there is a two hour break at lunch. My best friend here, Maison, is Christian and our old friend Vek is also Christian and happened to be in the city from his project in a city 7 hours away. I had lunch with Vek and Maison and it was great to hang out with old friends.
Lunch with Vek and Maison
It has been interesting getting to know their work procedures and finding out about their programs. I am also, of course, getting to know the people in the organization, both local and international. It is a workplace where one has to interact with a great deal of other people as well. There are a team of four engineers who I will be working with. There is a health and hygiene team who go into villages to provide education. There is also a housing team although I’ve not had a lot to do with them so far. In addition there are all the administration, HR, finance, asset management, IT, security people, procurement and drivers. All in all it is a lot of new people. I think the office is about 120 people at the moment. I’ve heard stories that they had 500 staff here a few years ago but they are really cutting back now. Some of this week I’ve been going around introducing myself, working out what people do here and working out what different style I need to use to work with different people.
The work is quite interesting. I’ve been asked to help with some small programs (about $10,000 each) where they want to introduce new technologies to some villages. Initially they just build a representative number of the technology in a village. It looks like they would like to provide some trash cans and rubbish carts in one village (you’ll see my NZ/US split in the language there), some clothes washing facilities with soak pits in another village we may also have money for some handpumps and perhaps some sort of incineration facilities.
Actually the last one worries me a bit. There is a big problem with trash, inside the city there is (supposed to be) a trash collection system but out in the villages it just gets thrown in heaps and no-one comes to get it. Even if we burn it well (which may not be a good idea due to the plastic etc) there is still the ash. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some composting and recycling involved and maybe a small landfill type thing for the ash. That one is going to be hard I think.
The technologies are quite simple, ones they’ve already completed include, composting, household sand water filters, rope pumps and rainwater tanks. These have had varied success, which is to be expected here. I’ve written some descriptions below and there are some pictures on my picasa site www.picasaweb.google.com/mjmcwhirter .
The rope pumps have been a good success. They are a simple pump which works by having a rope pull small plastic discs up a pipe which dips down into the hand-dug well. The plastic pumps lift water with them as they rise which spill out at the top. It is a really easy way to haul water out of a hand-dug well. I saw three houses where these had been installed. They were still being used, 8 months after installation, in two of the households. Even though the rope had broken a few times people had taken the time and energy to repair the rope themselves. This shows that it is a) easy to fix and b) of value to the people. Quite cool.
I saw a solar panel which was setup to pump water for a communal water collection point in a village. The solar panels, and pumps, had been well constructed and have worked for two years so far. The solar panel has a 20 year manufacturer’s warranty with service people in Jakarta (quite a long way away). The only downside to that project was that the solar panels are installed in an area where there is electricity so the panels are a very expensive way of providing electricity. Still the project was intended as a demonstration/pilot and it has proved successful. Also the people in the village get free water which is important because the water supply hasn’t been extended back into the houses and people have to buy water otherwise. They pay about $0.15 for 20 liters of water in a jerry can. I guess a family here uses 100 litres a day so it starts to add up for people who earn $100 a month.
I saw some great mistakes too! They’ve had a lot of trouble here as non-professionals designed/built houses here without professional design and with the crappy quality of construction. They (not CARE I think) are now worried the houses might fall down. Some people are retrofitting what there is now. One of these retrofits was some steel cross-bracing across a house. The steel cross bracing now prevents people from opening their windows in the house which is a big downer with the heat here!
The best disaster story I’ve seen so far was a pump installation. They were specialized hydraulic pumps which don’t require electricity. They are installed with about 2m of water head above the pump and then pump a fraction of the inlet flow to high pressure while the majority of the inlet flow is discharged. I saw some video of them working which looked quite impressive. The only problem was that they (again not CARE) installed the pumps in the flood area of the river (actually right in the river bed in my opinion). In the rainy season a big flood came and now the pumps are buried under gravel! Pretty sad site.
One good thing about work is a good web connection which allows me to use Skype video to talk to people.
So onto other things. I must say that Rachel’s work is going really well. She is making some good impressions on people and doing exactly what she wants to be doing training people how to build peace. Some of her students at the moment include some pretty high-up people, for example a former governor of Aceh. She has her eyes on a position that might be advertised soon which would allow her to continue the work she has been doing.
In terms of our personal arrangements, with me working now we are paying Dian at the house $100 a month to do the chores. We asked her about how to find someone in the village and she suggested herself. We didn’t want to ask her, thinking she might already be too busy and not wanting to impose. Probably it takes 2 or 3 hours a day and while is seems strange to us in the west the pay of about $1.0 to $1.5 a day is pretty lucrative here. Rachel and I are also contributing $300 a month for rent of the house and food for evening meals. So in total $400 and the house and our clothes are cleaner than ever and Dian is a great cook! Elsewhere we could probably get the cost down by $100 to $200 but it isn’t a lot to us and it makes a HUGE difference for our friends. Also they do a lot of extra little things to help us such as loaning us the scooter if we need to quickly get something or Abeng fixing lights and making the shower for us. We talk with them about the fact that us being there is an opportunity for them to save and prepare for future trials or to start a venture. I think they are taking it to heart but time with tell! I think it is a pleasing arrangement for all.
Speaking of transportation, we are hell bent on hiring a car. We are sick of not being able to go places together easily and a car is the solution. We’ve been shopping around and hope to get an older car with AC for around $300 a month. We might pay $450 to get a better one with better insurance as well. Last night was pretty lively at the house with two cars being brought around for us to see and plenty of family activity as well. I think the family activity was related to the family (there are 5 brothers) selling some land on Aceh Island (Pulau Aceh) and it was being divided.
To finish off this long one, some news about old friends. Today was Friday which involves a mosque trip for all muslims here. This means there is a two hour break at lunch. My best friend here, Maison, is Christian and our old friend Vek is also Christian and happened to be in the city from his project in a city 7 hours away. I had lunch with Vek and Maison and it was great to hang out with old friends.
Lunch with Vek and Maison
Sunday, November 2, 2008
More KL and Medan
My trip to see the man about the kayak was very interesting. The man is the agent for Perception, a big kayak brand. He brings boats, paddles and associated gear in from New Zealand, England and America. He was very nice and picked me up from the hotel and took me to his warehouse. He said he sells most of his kayaks to the Malay government for education, defence (training I guess) and tourism purposes. Whitewater kayaks are not super-popular with most people liking sit-on-tops or touring kayaks but he had some.
I bought a NZ made paddle to replace the one I broke last weekend. He was very nice, he told me it would be RM300 (about $US90) but then when I paid him he said he thought RM250 was fairer and gave me some money back! Very nice.
Something that got me excited too, he had a creekboat (Perception Phat) there that he has had for 3 or 4 years and he is just trying to get rid of it as no Malay wants it. He said he would be able to sell it to me for about $400 which would be a good price anywhere, let alone Asia. I am very excited, all I need to do now is a) confirm there is whitewater that requires a creekboat and b) workout how to get it across the ocean. I think my best bet is a boat from Penang to Medan as there is a daily ferry. Watch this space for more kayak transporting adventures.
I caught the end of the rubgy at an Irish pub in downtown KL after the kayak man dropped me off. Happy to see NZ win. I ordered a beer and it cost me $US10!!!!!! That was a shock. I'll know to ask how much before hand next time.
In the evening Rachel and I finished our good gastronomical form with a nice pizza and green salad at a fancy restaurant near the Petronas towers. We also walked around the towers a bit. Amazing buildings to look at. I got some photos which look good on the camera.
We then headed back to the hotel for sleeping.
This morning we had another delicious 5star hotel breakfast and then used the taxi/bus combo to get back to the airport. We had a 4 hour stop-off in Medan on the way home so we went back to a yoga studio cum restaurant where there is nice food and a good internet connection. I had a chat with my grandparents in Balclutha.
I bought a NZ made paddle to replace the one I broke last weekend. He was very nice, he told me it would be RM300 (about $US90) but then when I paid him he said he thought RM250 was fairer and gave me some money back! Very nice.
Something that got me excited too, he had a creekboat (Perception Phat) there that he has had for 3 or 4 years and he is just trying to get rid of it as no Malay wants it. He said he would be able to sell it to me for about $400 which would be a good price anywhere, let alone Asia. I am very excited, all I need to do now is a) confirm there is whitewater that requires a creekboat and b) workout how to get it across the ocean. I think my best bet is a boat from Penang to Medan as there is a daily ferry. Watch this space for more kayak transporting adventures.
I caught the end of the rubgy at an Irish pub in downtown KL after the kayak man dropped me off. Happy to see NZ win. I ordered a beer and it cost me $US10!!!!!! That was a shock. I'll know to ask how much before hand next time.
In the evening Rachel and I finished our good gastronomical form with a nice pizza and green salad at a fancy restaurant near the Petronas towers. We also walked around the towers a bit. Amazing buildings to look at. I got some photos which look good on the camera.
We then headed back to the hotel for sleeping.
This morning we had another delicious 5star hotel breakfast and then used the taxi/bus combo to get back to the airport. We had a 4 hour stop-off in Medan on the way home so we went back to a yoga studio cum restaurant where there is nice food and a good internet connection. I had a chat with my grandparents in Balclutha.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Kuala Lumpur
On Friday morning we took a taxi to the airport in Medan and got on the plane to Kuala Lumpur. The flight is only 45min!
When we arrived we found that we had been deposited at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal which is apparently a long way from the fancy KL International Aiport. It was a nice enough airport but instead of a high speed train into town we had a 15min wait for a bus then a 60min bus ride in to the central station. We then grabbed a taxi and got to our room at the Park Royal hotel where we are staying.
Right outside our hotel is actually a monorail which goes from the central station right into the middle of town. We just didn't manage to find it at the other end but have used it quite a bit now and really like it. As you cruise through the highrise buildings, temples and mosques you can see down on them all and right into people's apartments too.
The city is very vibrant and cosmopolitan. It reminds me of Singapore a lot and we both like it. KL has a stronger middle-eastern flavour which is really nice. We had very nice turkish/arab food for dinner on Friday night.
We have enjoyed using the highspeed internet in the lobby and have talked to my parents, Rachel's grandma Florence and uncle David.
We had a really nice shopping experience today. We took the monorail to central station again and around there we found the Indian quarter. It was really cool with lots of flowers and hindu statues around the place. Music was blasting and it had the smells of India too. We had a delightful lunch for $1.50 each at a vegetarian restaurant. Under flickering lights and the stares of beautiful paintings on the wall (photos will be posted soon on picasaweb.google.com/mjmcwhirter) we ate absolutely delicious vegetarian thalis. It is a bit like Indian tapas food in that you get a big platter with between 5 and 15 different dishes in small amounts. It was very satisfying and interesting to eat them all and try to work out what they were.
I am off to watch the rugby game (NZ vs Australia being played in Hong Kong) and also make contact with a man who sells whitewater kayaks in Malaysia. What fun!
When we arrived we found that we had been deposited at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal which is apparently a long way from the fancy KL International Aiport. It was a nice enough airport but instead of a high speed train into town we had a 15min wait for a bus then a 60min bus ride in to the central station. We then grabbed a taxi and got to our room at the Park Royal hotel where we are staying.
Right outside our hotel is actually a monorail which goes from the central station right into the middle of town. We just didn't manage to find it at the other end but have used it quite a bit now and really like it. As you cruise through the highrise buildings, temples and mosques you can see down on them all and right into people's apartments too.
The city is very vibrant and cosmopolitan. It reminds me of Singapore a lot and we both like it. KL has a stronger middle-eastern flavour which is really nice. We had very nice turkish/arab food for dinner on Friday night.
We have enjoyed using the highspeed internet in the lobby and have talked to my parents, Rachel's grandma Florence and uncle David.
We had a really nice shopping experience today. We took the monorail to central station again and around there we found the Indian quarter. It was really cool with lots of flowers and hindu statues around the place. Music was blasting and it had the smells of India too. We had a delightful lunch for $1.50 each at a vegetarian restaurant. Under flickering lights and the stares of beautiful paintings on the wall (photos will be posted soon on picasaweb.google.com/mjmcwhirter) we ate absolutely delicious vegetarian thalis. It is a bit like Indian tapas food in that you get a big platter with between 5 and 15 different dishes in small amounts. It was very satisfying and interesting to eat them all and try to work out what they were.
I am off to watch the rugby game (NZ vs Australia being played in Hong Kong) and also make contact with a man who sells whitewater kayaks in Malaysia. What fun!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Medan
Rachel had a couple of days meeting in Medan so we are there at the moment. Medan is a big city 45min flight from Banda Aceh. It is a bit crazy that they spent money to fly 45 people from Banda Aceh to Medan for a training but that is what they did. Rachel feels that it is a good example of how aid money is being spent in a way that actually angers people in the countryside rather than making them happy.
It was interesting to be in Medan. It is still an asian city but is much nicer in terms of level of wealth than Banda Aceh. The percentage of motorbikes is lower here and air quality is in my opinion better. It is sort of a halfway house between Banda Aceh and Singapore in more ways than just physical locality.
We are staying in a western hotel. Around $50 gets you the equivalent of a US hotel for the night. The first night was paid for by Rachel's work.
I have spent my time cruising around the town, mainly on foot. The pedestrian access is similar to Banda Aceh, not great but you can get around. I also take becaks from time to time as well.
We found a nice Indian restaurant in the Indian quarter of town and enjoyed a meal there last night. It is obvious that the place is much more diverse than the staunchly Muslim province of Aceh. As an example, I was a bit surprised to see woman police officers here at first.
They have big fancy buildings in Medan including a very fancy mall which is like a fancy mall anywhere in the world. Starbucks and clothes everywhere. I bought some local music. One thing that interested me was that there are still cheap knockoffs of software available in the mall.
Tomorrow we head to Kuala Lumpa to renew visas.
It was interesting to be in Medan. It is still an asian city but is much nicer in terms of level of wealth than Banda Aceh. The percentage of motorbikes is lower here and air quality is in my opinion better. It is sort of a halfway house between Banda Aceh and Singapore in more ways than just physical locality.
We are staying in a western hotel. Around $50 gets you the equivalent of a US hotel for the night. The first night was paid for by Rachel's work.
I have spent my time cruising around the town, mainly on foot. The pedestrian access is similar to Banda Aceh, not great but you can get around. I also take becaks from time to time as well.
We found a nice Indian restaurant in the Indian quarter of town and enjoyed a meal there last night. It is obvious that the place is much more diverse than the staunchly Muslim province of Aceh. As an example, I was a bit surprised to see woman police officers here at first.
They have big fancy buildings in Medan including a very fancy mall which is like a fancy mall anywhere in the world. Starbucks and clothes everywhere. I bought some local music. One thing that interested me was that there are still cheap knockoffs of software available in the mall.
Tomorrow we head to Kuala Lumpa to renew visas.
Monday, October 27, 2008
A Weekend at the Beach
We had a nice weekend. On Friday afternoon I got on my bike and biked out 10 to 20km to see what the beach was like. Again I saw signs of things being built back very nicely which was pleasing. I saw some spots with reasonable surf for the kayak, not fantastic but definitely a bit of fun. It was nice to be out cruising on the bike too.
On Saturday Rachel and I spoke with her parents and Grandma Florence on Skype and then we quickly went out to the beach for an hour or too for me to surf a little in the kayak and for Rachel to relax on the beach. It was very nice to have a little bit of time to ourselves. We were still using a car from the UNDP office which is less than ideal as the drivers seem to have their own agenda sometimes and coordinating with them can be difficult.
In the afternoon I was meant to go for a ride on my mountainbike with someone I met at one of the NGOs but he didn't turn up! Stink. So we just played around at home.
We decided to hire our own car for Sunday so on Saturday night a Toyota Kijuang was delivered to our house for us to use. It cost $25 to rent it for the day. It was probably 5 years old and did the job.
It was very nice to have some more independence on Sunday. In the morning we took the kids and Dian and Abeng out to the beach. Dila swam a little and the others sat on the beach in a little hut. I headed off to the other beach and surfed a bit. Unfortunately my paddled snapped so I was reduced to only having half a paddle which made it much for difficult. The paddle was a cheap one I took because it could be broken down to 4 pieces for ease of carrying on the plane. I am now exploring options for getting a wooden paddle here or having one sent from overseas. All the same I was please to spend some time the water.
In the afternoon Rachel and I did a little more shopping for things we need like hangers for the closet. Then Rachel rested at home while I went back to near the beach to meet up with other westerners to play touch rugby. It was great to play again after 3 years of living in the rugby wilderness of the USA! The game was fun and afterwards I chatted with some of the people over dinner. One guy said they eat dahl and do yoga at his house on Tuesday nights which sounds very appealing to Rachel and I!
On Saturday Rachel and I spoke with her parents and Grandma Florence on Skype and then we quickly went out to the beach for an hour or too for me to surf a little in the kayak and for Rachel to relax on the beach. It was very nice to have a little bit of time to ourselves. We were still using a car from the UNDP office which is less than ideal as the drivers seem to have their own agenda sometimes and coordinating with them can be difficult.
In the afternoon I was meant to go for a ride on my mountainbike with someone I met at one of the NGOs but he didn't turn up! Stink. So we just played around at home.
We decided to hire our own car for Sunday so on Saturday night a Toyota Kijuang was delivered to our house for us to use. It cost $25 to rent it for the day. It was probably 5 years old and did the job.
It was very nice to have some more independence on Sunday. In the morning we took the kids and Dian and Abeng out to the beach. Dila swam a little and the others sat on the beach in a little hut. I headed off to the other beach and surfed a bit. Unfortunately my paddled snapped so I was reduced to only having half a paddle which made it much for difficult. The paddle was a cheap one I took because it could be broken down to 4 pieces for ease of carrying on the plane. I am now exploring options for getting a wooden paddle here or having one sent from overseas. All the same I was please to spend some time the water.
In the afternoon Rachel and I did a little more shopping for things we need like hangers for the closet. Then Rachel rested at home while I went back to near the beach to meet up with other westerners to play touch rugby. It was great to play again after 3 years of living in the rugby wilderness of the USA! The game was fun and afterwards I chatted with some of the people over dinner. One guy said they eat dahl and do yoga at his house on Tuesday nights which sounds very appealing to Rachel and I!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Tsunami Recovery
Generally when I ask around people give the tsunami recovery effort about 5,6 or 7 out of ten. A pass lets say. A great deal of money has been spent here and now the tsunami area has houses, small ones typically, good roads, free electricity and in most areas a non-potable water supply. Some of the houses were no good and had to be reconstructed. Also generally there are a lot of empty houses because people had two or three built for them or for relatives who were actually dead. I don't feel I can blame them for this but it would have been better to build one good house rather than two bad small ones! Some people have built onto the small houses that they were given to expand them.
Some people did very well out of the tsunami. Typically wealthy people in the areas of Banda Aceh not affected directly did well. They rented out their huge houses to the NGOs at exorbitant prices. The NGOs paid because they were competing with one another. To give an example, probably a really big house (say 8 rooms) here would have rented for around $500 to a year before the tsunami. At the height of it some large NGOs were paying as much as $30,000 a year! People who had cars they could lease to the NGOs did very well too. So basically if you had money before the tsunami you were in a good position to make money afterwards. Definitely some people in the affected areas resent this, and understandably.
Another thing I think happened was that NGOs, again understandably, went for lump sum contracts. They paid the NGO price for that. But then the Contractor hired staff at Indonesian prices. The difference stayed with the Contractor of course!
Another phenomenon that happened was that a great deal of outside labour came in. People from other parts of the country seemed prepared to work for a few dollars a day less than the locals. Whether this should be seen as them being lazy or not is hard to say. The locals say that the cost of living is hirer in Banda Aceh because a lot of things need to be imported.
I guess the summary of it is that rebuilding after a disaster like that was complex and hard to do perfectly.
Some people did very well out of the tsunami. Typically wealthy people in the areas of Banda Aceh not affected directly did well. They rented out their huge houses to the NGOs at exorbitant prices. The NGOs paid because they were competing with one another. To give an example, probably a really big house (say 8 rooms) here would have rented for around $500 to a year before the tsunami. At the height of it some large NGOs were paying as much as $30,000 a year! People who had cars they could lease to the NGOs did very well too. So basically if you had money before the tsunami you were in a good position to make money afterwards. Definitely some people in the affected areas resent this, and understandably.
Another thing I think happened was that NGOs, again understandably, went for lump sum contracts. They paid the NGO price for that. But then the Contractor hired staff at Indonesian prices. The difference stayed with the Contractor of course!
Another phenomenon that happened was that a great deal of outside labour came in. People from other parts of the country seemed prepared to work for a few dollars a day less than the locals. Whether this should be seen as them being lazy or not is hard to say. The locals say that the cost of living is hirer in Banda Aceh because a lot of things need to be imported.
I guess the summary of it is that rebuilding after a disaster like that was complex and hard to do perfectly.
Local Politics
A quick update. There are elections in April or May here. They are for the national government and local government too. Although not for the governor of Aceh.
In terms of the national government the best thing for Aceh would be for the incumbant, commonly called SBY, to win. He has played a big part in getting peace in Aceh and it is more likely to remain if he is around.
In Aceh itself there are about 40 or 50 parties as this is the first time they've been allowed to have local parties. Before the MoU that ended the latest conflict all parties had to run throughout Indonesia if they wanted to be in the general election. This was done by the government of Indonesia to try to stop areas breaking off. Now in Aceh they are allowed local parties so lots of people have put one together. The strongest one is called Party Aceh and is the main part of the former Free Aceh Movement (GAM). However there have been many splits inside GAM and there are now many parties that represent its remnants.
In terms of peace here. Things are going ok. In the lowlands people are fairly happy as they recieved a lot of assistance from the tsunami money. However all the money was specifically donated for tsunami relief and therefore the highlands have recieved little. The Indonesian government has contributed to this imbalance, perhaps intentionally, by making people only work in tsunami areas. The imbalance and the fact that many excombatants are out of work has lead to some stirring of trouble in the hills. Some political party's headquarters have been burnt down. The worst one was an ex-GAM party office which was burnt down, I think with fatalities. It was probably done by pro-government militia.
Another recent trouble was that a foreigner working for the World Bank was momentarily kidnapped. His car was stolen and he was released unharmed. Locals have told me that one supposed reason for this was he had been going for a couple of years to the highlands and promising things but not delivering anything.
In terms of the national government the best thing for Aceh would be for the incumbant, commonly called SBY, to win. He has played a big part in getting peace in Aceh and it is more likely to remain if he is around.
In Aceh itself there are about 40 or 50 parties as this is the first time they've been allowed to have local parties. Before the MoU that ended the latest conflict all parties had to run throughout Indonesia if they wanted to be in the general election. This was done by the government of Indonesia to try to stop areas breaking off. Now in Aceh they are allowed local parties so lots of people have put one together. The strongest one is called Party Aceh and is the main part of the former Free Aceh Movement (GAM). However there have been many splits inside GAM and there are now many parties that represent its remnants.
In terms of peace here. Things are going ok. In the lowlands people are fairly happy as they recieved a lot of assistance from the tsunami money. However all the money was specifically donated for tsunami relief and therefore the highlands have recieved little. The Indonesian government has contributed to this imbalance, perhaps intentionally, by making people only work in tsunami areas. The imbalance and the fact that many excombatants are out of work has lead to some stirring of trouble in the hills. Some political party's headquarters have been burnt down. The worst one was an ex-GAM party office which was burnt down, I think with fatalities. It was probably done by pro-government militia.
Another recent trouble was that a foreigner working for the World Bank was momentarily kidnapped. His car was stolen and he was released unharmed. Locals have told me that one supposed reason for this was he had been going for a couple of years to the highlands and promising things but not delivering anything.
Clothing
I thought I might quickly put down a note about clothing. Basically Aceh is a conservative place for clothing when out in the street, although definitely not extreme. Woman are supposed to wear longsleeves and probably half the woman here cover their heads. Typically very few cover their face unless they are trying to escape the pollution on the roads! Men can wear short sleeved tops but long trousers are required. This means I have to bike around in the heat wearing trousers! I like to try to wear a collar too to keep the sun off my neck.
Around the house I wear shorts. Our house and the neibhbour's have a courtyard that others can't see into and in that area we are happy to walk to and from the toilet or into our little shower just with a towel wrapped around us.
Around the house I wear shorts. Our house and the neibhbour's have a courtyard that others can't see into and in that area we are happy to walk to and from the toilet or into our little shower just with a towel wrapped around us.
Cinema Chez Nous
We had a fun time last night. The first thing was we now have a cupboard and a bookshelf so we don't have all of our stuff on the floor. It was very nice to clear the floor!
The fun thing was that after dinner we cooked some popcorn and about 10 people from around the neighbourhood came and watched a movie at our house. Rachel had a projector from the training that she had run and we played the film through my computer. I had bought a copy of Narnia for a dollar at the market the other day. The only thing we didn't have was a set of speakers. We might look into getting a cheap pair for the next time.
The kids enjoyed the movie even though the young ones can't read the subtitles and the audio is in English. Rachel and I explained some important things to them as we went.
The fun thing was that after dinner we cooked some popcorn and about 10 people from around the neighbourhood came and watched a movie at our house. Rachel had a projector from the training that she had run and we played the film through my computer. I had bought a copy of Narnia for a dollar at the market the other day. The only thing we didn't have was a set of speakers. We might look into getting a cheap pair for the next time.
The kids enjoyed the movie even though the young ones can't read the subtitles and the audio is in English. Rachel and I explained some important things to them as we went.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Biking Banda Aceh
I got sick of having no transport and spent $200 on a mountainbike. It has a front disc break which is pleasing given the amount of rain and the chaotic traffic. It is really pleasant to cruise on the back streets in the villages. In the main streets of the city there is awful pollution and crazy drivers so I wont go there too much.
It is nice to have the freedom of movement now. Today I biked 5min to the local townsquare where there is public internet. I am sitting on a tile floor using it. In the morning it is fast and I can use things like google chat or look at the news. In the afternoon there are lots of teenagers here and the connection is slow.
It is nice to have the freedom of movement now. Today I biked 5min to the local townsquare where there is public internet. I am sitting on a tile floor using it. In the morning it is fast and I can use things like google chat or look at the news. In the afternoon there are lots of teenagers here and the connection is slow.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Becak !?
Rachel and I had a few problems with having a driver. Her driver is sometimes a little late, sometimes gets lost and basically always doesn’t communicate before he has to do something like pickup someone else or fill the car with petrol. On Saturday he was sick too so we had to organize another car. He of course didn’t call in the morning to say he was sick but rather blurted it out when we started to make plans with him for the day!
It turned into a little bit of a disaster as Rachel had to work late to finish her preparations for a training she is running. So it was pitchblack 730pm on a Saturday night and we needed to go home. Fortunately there isn’t much that a few dollars can’t solve here. We walked out to the busy road out the front of the office and looked for transport. We initially tried one of the bus type things that cruise by from time to time on fixed routes but they weren’t going where we wanted. Hundreds of cars and motorbikes were cruising by, a lot yelling out the ubiquitous “hello mister” or something like that. Then after about 5min in the dark we saw a becak (pronounced baychak) coming by.
Becaks exist everywhere in Asia is seems and just have different names, they are basically motorbikes with sidecars which at a squeeze can fit two people. They have a roof that can fold forward from the back to cover the passengers at the top and back.
The guy stopped and we asked how much it would be to go home. When we ask this they typically ask how much we usually pay. We explain that our friends we are staying with say they pay about $2 and suggest we could pay $3. Typically that is agreed to. Then we cruise along. It is actually relatively private in the becak and we don’t get people looking at us as much as when we ride on the back of a motorbike or walk. We chat a little with the driver as he cruises between 5 and 40 km/hour through the busy streets sometimes slowly nudging his way down the side of a one-way road going the wrong way to duck into a neighbourhood he knows. Often by the time we get home to the house we like the guy enough that we pay them $5 instead of the agreed $3. Actually in this instance he did even better than that as we asked him to stop on the way home so we could pickup some food for the people at home (I’d kept them busy buying the washing machine during the day so no cooking happened). We bought the driver a package of take-away too so and when Rachel gave it to him he was pretty stoked!
In terms of local economics. I figure a typical driver would get around $100 a month. Some of them have to hire their vehicle off the becak union, I don’t know how much they pay a day for that. Some of the NGOs/UN agencies gave people becaks to start a small business after the tsunami.
We had a couple of nice becak experiences last night too. It was raining so we grabbed becaks to move around town. They put a tarpaulin over everything so you can’t see where you are going but are dry. The tarp typically goes over the driver too and he has a hole that his head sticks out. We were very happy because the driver offered us $1 for the first ride which is the local rate. (We paid him $2). Then we grabbed a guy for a complex route that involved probably 40min of driving, going to Rachel’s office to pick something up and then returning home via a photocopy place where Rachel had to pick something up. The guy only asked $3 which we think is probably the local rate. We were pretty happy people were asking us just the normal amount! The sad part of that story is that when Rachel was inside and I chatted with the guy he told me he lost his whole family in the tsunami, wife, kids, parents. He has remarried and has one baby girl now J His becak had been given to him by UNDP and he happened to live pretty close to us so it was easy for him to get us home without us giving directions, which was lucky given that the rain was teeming, the tarp was down and we couldn’t see a thing!
It turned into a little bit of a disaster as Rachel had to work late to finish her preparations for a training she is running. So it was pitchblack 730pm on a Saturday night and we needed to go home. Fortunately there isn’t much that a few dollars can’t solve here. We walked out to the busy road out the front of the office and looked for transport. We initially tried one of the bus type things that cruise by from time to time on fixed routes but they weren’t going where we wanted. Hundreds of cars and motorbikes were cruising by, a lot yelling out the ubiquitous “hello mister” or something like that. Then after about 5min in the dark we saw a becak (pronounced baychak) coming by.
Becaks exist everywhere in Asia is seems and just have different names, they are basically motorbikes with sidecars which at a squeeze can fit two people. They have a roof that can fold forward from the back to cover the passengers at the top and back.
The guy stopped and we asked how much it would be to go home. When we ask this they typically ask how much we usually pay. We explain that our friends we are staying with say they pay about $2 and suggest we could pay $3. Typically that is agreed to. Then we cruise along. It is actually relatively private in the becak and we don’t get people looking at us as much as when we ride on the back of a motorbike or walk. We chat a little with the driver as he cruises between 5 and 40 km/hour through the busy streets sometimes slowly nudging his way down the side of a one-way road going the wrong way to duck into a neighbourhood he knows. Often by the time we get home to the house we like the guy enough that we pay them $5 instead of the agreed $3. Actually in this instance he did even better than that as we asked him to stop on the way home so we could pickup some food for the people at home (I’d kept them busy buying the washing machine during the day so no cooking happened). We bought the driver a package of take-away too so and when Rachel gave it to him he was pretty stoked!
In terms of local economics. I figure a typical driver would get around $100 a month. Some of them have to hire their vehicle off the becak union, I don’t know how much they pay a day for that. Some of the NGOs/UN agencies gave people becaks to start a small business after the tsunami.
We had a couple of nice becak experiences last night too. It was raining so we grabbed becaks to move around town. They put a tarpaulin over everything so you can’t see where you are going but are dry. The tarp typically goes over the driver too and he has a hole that his head sticks out. We were very happy because the driver offered us $1 for the first ride which is the local rate. (We paid him $2). Then we grabbed a guy for a complex route that involved probably 40min of driving, going to Rachel’s office to pick something up and then returning home via a photocopy place where Rachel had to pick something up. The guy only asked $3 which we think is probably the local rate. We were pretty happy people were asking us just the normal amount! The sad part of that story is that when Rachel was inside and I chatted with the guy he told me he lost his whole family in the tsunami, wife, kids, parents. He has remarried and has one baby girl now J His becak had been given to him by UNDP and he happened to live pretty close to us so it was easy for him to get us home without us giving directions, which was lucky given that the rain was teeming, the tarp was down and we couldn’t see a thing!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
A Wedding
Today at lunchtime we all got our glad-rags on and heading to a wedding. I went to one or two when I was here last time. Rachel I assume as been to many!
The groom used to work at an NGO where Dian worked and which was based around people of Lamjabat. Linda and Adi (who'se house we visited a while ago) actually run that NGO. Rachel had met the guy a few times and it sounds like he is Abeng's cousin.
The wedding is held at a big house, typically out in a nearby village. The hosts put on a great deal of food and drink buffet style. People turn up for about an hour or maybe two hours. They greet the hosts and then eat. After eating one goes into the house and the bride (or the bride and groom) are all dressed up in very fancy clothes. The room is all done up too with ceiling to floor colorful curtains on all walls. Pictures with the bride/groom are common especially if there is a westerner there with a camera. Our friend Adi estimated that about 500 people would have come to the wedding today and this is about usual for a poorer family.
I took some photos and should load them onto the picasa site soon.
The groom used to work at an NGO where Dian worked and which was based around people of Lamjabat. Linda and Adi (who'se house we visited a while ago) actually run that NGO. Rachel had met the guy a few times and it sounds like he is Abeng's cousin.
The wedding is held at a big house, typically out in a nearby village. The hosts put on a great deal of food and drink buffet style. People turn up for about an hour or maybe two hours. They greet the hosts and then eat. After eating one goes into the house and the bride (or the bride and groom) are all dressed up in very fancy clothes. The room is all done up too with ceiling to floor colorful curtains on all walls. Pictures with the bride/groom are common especially if there is a westerner there with a camera. Our friend Adi estimated that about 500 people would have come to the wedding today and this is about usual for a poorer family.
I took some photos and should load them onto the picasa site soon.
Shopping and Salaries
So we were scraping around for money for a while there while we waited for pay from some previous work. Thanks goes out to Florence for depositing some money in our account to tide us over. We had $50 in our account we can access for a while which meant we could buy lots of food (remember it costs about 70c a meal here) but not anything we needed for the house.
Anyway all of that is behind us. We got a check deposited and I went more or less straight to the market. I went with Dian and the kids while Rachel was busy working to prepare for the workshop she is running on Monday and Tuesday.
Dian and I checked around a bit and ended up buying a 7kg LG washing machine as our first purchase. It cost about $US210. I think Dian wanted the larger 9kg one but Rachel and I figured she could just run it twice if she had a lot she needed to wash. The larger one was another $100. It has a one year guarantee on it and they will come to her house to fix it if she calls. That sounds promising. We think it will save Dian a lot of time as well as ensuring we don't need to wash clothes by hands ourselves. YAY! Until now we've been using the neighbours machine but it is much better to have your own.
The other purchase I made was a water dispenser. With that we can have 20litres of potable water in the house all the time and best of all it will be chilled! I wanted to get one with a warranty for that too but the best people could offer was a warranty that required me to send the broken equipment to Medan, which is 12 hours by road from here. It could take up to a month to return. That wasn't good enough so I bought a cheap one which was half the price and probably we can find someone to service it locally.
We have to install the washing machine at home probably tonight or tomorrow morning. We will have to run an extension cord to it. It will be installed in the bathing room so it is out of the heat and near a drain. I want to get an RCD device or some sort of appropriate isolation for it given the room will be wet but probably that won't happen. The neighbour doesn't have hers hard-piped she puts a hose into it to fill it up. I think that Abeng will probably hardpipe the new one at home.
The act of shopping was pretty hilarious. The street is the typical asian mix of cars and motorbikes rushing down the road. The three kids were running around so one had to spend half one's time making sure that Azrah (2) didn't wander out onto the road or that Muktadi (5) didn't play with rubbish on the street.
We gave Dian $100 for food and board for another week. They haven't asked for any money but we figure if we routinely give them a bit of cash then things will be well. To be honest if we pay them $100 a week then they will be very well off here. People don't earn so much. As an example, I was chatting with a driver that we had today. He earns the princely sum of $85 a month. What is worse, he is a contract driver who works for a man in Medan who is leasing the car to UNDP, if he was working for UNDP directly he says (no verification) he would earn $400 a month. $400 a month is a lot of money here! My university educated friend, Maison, who is pretty effective and is now helping manage a fairly big contract only earns $500 a month and he is pretty well off.
Anyway all of that is behind us. We got a check deposited and I went more or less straight to the market. I went with Dian and the kids while Rachel was busy working to prepare for the workshop she is running on Monday and Tuesday.
Dian and I checked around a bit and ended up buying a 7kg LG washing machine as our first purchase. It cost about $US210. I think Dian wanted the larger 9kg one but Rachel and I figured she could just run it twice if she had a lot she needed to wash. The larger one was another $100. It has a one year guarantee on it and they will come to her house to fix it if she calls. That sounds promising. We think it will save Dian a lot of time as well as ensuring we don't need to wash clothes by hands ourselves. YAY! Until now we've been using the neighbours machine but it is much better to have your own.
The other purchase I made was a water dispenser. With that we can have 20litres of potable water in the house all the time and best of all it will be chilled! I wanted to get one with a warranty for that too but the best people could offer was a warranty that required me to send the broken equipment to Medan, which is 12 hours by road from here. It could take up to a month to return. That wasn't good enough so I bought a cheap one which was half the price and probably we can find someone to service it locally.
We have to install the washing machine at home probably tonight or tomorrow morning. We will have to run an extension cord to it. It will be installed in the bathing room so it is out of the heat and near a drain. I want to get an RCD device or some sort of appropriate isolation for it given the room will be wet but probably that won't happen. The neighbour doesn't have hers hard-piped she puts a hose into it to fill it up. I think that Abeng will probably hardpipe the new one at home.
The act of shopping was pretty hilarious. The street is the typical asian mix of cars and motorbikes rushing down the road. The three kids were running around so one had to spend half one's time making sure that Azrah (2) didn't wander out onto the road or that Muktadi (5) didn't play with rubbish on the street.
We gave Dian $100 for food and board for another week. They haven't asked for any money but we figure if we routinely give them a bit of cash then things will be well. To be honest if we pay them $100 a week then they will be very well off here. People don't earn so much. As an example, I was chatting with a driver that we had today. He earns the princely sum of $85 a month. What is worse, he is a contract driver who works for a man in Medan who is leasing the car to UNDP, if he was working for UNDP directly he says (no verification) he would earn $400 a month. $400 a month is a lot of money here! My university educated friend, Maison, who is pretty effective and is now helping manage a fairly big contract only earns $500 a month and he is pretty well off.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Dian's Cooking
I felt I should quickly write that Dian's cooking is absolutely fabulous.
To look more generally at food, I've reached the point where I've had enough 70cent meals on the side of the road. They always consist of rice, watery vegetables and deep friend tempeh or tofu. Or maybe friend noodles which I actually quite like but have the health benefits of McDs
So I now have porridge which will do for breakfast. Later when we have money we will get a small fridge and will be able to have sandwich stuff like tomatos, cucumber, advocado and possibly some edible bread. This should do lunch.
And that leaves dinner. But actually I have no worries about dinner. At evening time here, about 630pm, the wailing from the mosque starts and signals Magreb or evening prayers. Men will either go to the mosque or will pray in the house. Kids, wives and foreigners just close the doors and avoid screaming/yelling playing. It is actually very pleasant and the wailing from the mosque with the clouds and sunset are very beautiful.
Getting back to meals. After Magreb we all sit down on the floor in the wooden house. Actually we have a rug. Then we put the food in the middle and we eat. We in this case is Abeng, Dian, Dila (7), Muktadi (5) and Azrah (2) with their two foreign friends Rachel and Michael. It is a very pleasant time. Lots of chatting, the kids are typically pretty funny. The cat will poke it's nose in the door and Azrah will see it, get a bit scared and make some little noises.
So during the afternoon Dian cooks. She is very talented. Tonight for example we had the white rice (from a rice cooker) and two dishes. One was a coconut milk based soup withe vegetables in it. Some vegetables are well known like carrots and green beans, others I've never seen before! The other meal was tempeh and eggplant in a spicy sauce, delicious. She has made these evening meals every night and they are always delicious. Things are not over fried if they are fried, the vegetables are always fresh and go together well. I think I now have a policy that I am not going to eat from the side of the road except at one good lunch spot Rachel has identified. They cook similar things to Dian but she cooks it so much better!
A side note on the cat. It isn't really a pet but it is allowed to pick over the bones of any fish or chicken that is eaten.
To look more generally at food, I've reached the point where I've had enough 70cent meals on the side of the road. They always consist of rice, watery vegetables and deep friend tempeh or tofu. Or maybe friend noodles which I actually quite like but have the health benefits of McDs
So I now have porridge which will do for breakfast. Later when we have money we will get a small fridge and will be able to have sandwich stuff like tomatos, cucumber, advocado and possibly some edible bread. This should do lunch.
And that leaves dinner. But actually I have no worries about dinner. At evening time here, about 630pm, the wailing from the mosque starts and signals Magreb or evening prayers. Men will either go to the mosque or will pray in the house. Kids, wives and foreigners just close the doors and avoid screaming/yelling playing. It is actually very pleasant and the wailing from the mosque with the clouds and sunset are very beautiful.
Getting back to meals. After Magreb we all sit down on the floor in the wooden house. Actually we have a rug. Then we put the food in the middle and we eat. We in this case is Abeng, Dian, Dila (7), Muktadi (5) and Azrah (2) with their two foreign friends Rachel and Michael. It is a very pleasant time. Lots of chatting, the kids are typically pretty funny. The cat will poke it's nose in the door and Azrah will see it, get a bit scared and make some little noises.
So during the afternoon Dian cooks. She is very talented. Tonight for example we had the white rice (from a rice cooker) and two dishes. One was a coconut milk based soup withe vegetables in it. Some vegetables are well known like carrots and green beans, others I've never seen before! The other meal was tempeh and eggplant in a spicy sauce, delicious. She has made these evening meals every night and they are always delicious. Things are not over fried if they are fried, the vegetables are always fresh and go together well. I think I now have a policy that I am not going to eat from the side of the road except at one good lunch spot Rachel has identified. They cook similar things to Dian but she cooks it so much better!
A side note on the cat. It isn't really a pet but it is allowed to pick over the bones of any fish or chicken that is eaten.
Hygiene and Rain
So it is late at night here and Rachel has been worknig all day. I came into the office to say hello to her. She has had to deal withsome workplace politics today. There are some shitty people here whohave big egos and can't really work with others. Makes her job hard.She is very good at what she does so she'll be fine but it does make one feel unpleasant when something happens. It is hard to keep things in perspective.
I have spent the day learning indonesian, playing with the kids and finally getting some porridge so I can eat something that isn't rice! I read an english story book to the kids and translated it for them as we went. Good for them and also good for me. I'll try to get some more books to translate for them.
I've seen a few more things about the house that aren't great. This kids have all been sick this week. I'd say due to poor hygiene around the place. One possible problem is that the dishes are washed then rinsed with potentially crap water and then sit around without being properly dried. When I do them I try to get them dry before bringing them back in. I might get a tea towel which is somehting they don't use at the moment. Another problem for the kids is that they roll around on the floor and the youngest puts things in its mouth. Of course the mosquitos are a worry. Finally I'd say nutrition isn't great. We are trying to buy some things with vitamins in them like fruit and fortified milk drinks.
The worst I saw today was there wasa dead chicken by the coop. Abeng picked it up, I thought he wouldtake it to where the rubbish is burnt in the back yard. Instead he threw it in the pond behind the house that is used for fish, shrimp,crabs. Hardly the best plan I think!
I believe the idea is that a lizard will eat it and indeed Rachel and I saw a very big one this morning, it was probably 1m (3ft) long! Rachel and I were out for a run. We went out about 630am and it was nice a cool actually, the sun hadn't heated up yet and it was actually hidden behind clouds. We ran for 20min which is a good start to getting a healthy lifestyle going.
Those clouds produced a terrific amount of rain today. There were some splatterings around noon and then around 2pm the sky opened and probably 6inches of rain fell. One of the kids from next door, Ferra, (7 or so) was in playing with my digital camera and she was excited about the idea that the kayak might be able to go out in some of the puddles. Good attitude! I actually went out there and washed the dishes in the rain wearing my waterproof jacket and sitting under a bit of tin roof.
I have spent the day learning indonesian, playing with the kids and finally getting some porridge so I can eat something that isn't rice! I read an english story book to the kids and translated it for them as we went. Good for them and also good for me. I'll try to get some more books to translate for them.
I've seen a few more things about the house that aren't great. This kids have all been sick this week. I'd say due to poor hygiene around the place. One possible problem is that the dishes are washed then rinsed with potentially crap water and then sit around without being properly dried. When I do them I try to get them dry before bringing them back in. I might get a tea towel which is somehting they don't use at the moment. Another problem for the kids is that they roll around on the floor and the youngest puts things in its mouth. Of course the mosquitos are a worry. Finally I'd say nutrition isn't great. We are trying to buy some things with vitamins in them like fruit and fortified milk drinks.
The worst I saw today was there wasa dead chicken by the coop. Abeng picked it up, I thought he wouldtake it to where the rubbish is burnt in the back yard. Instead he threw it in the pond behind the house that is used for fish, shrimp,crabs. Hardly the best plan I think!
I believe the idea is that a lizard will eat it and indeed Rachel and I saw a very big one this morning, it was probably 1m (3ft) long! Rachel and I were out for a run. We went out about 630am and it was nice a cool actually, the sun hadn't heated up yet and it was actually hidden behind clouds. We ran for 20min which is a good start to getting a healthy lifestyle going.
Those clouds produced a terrific amount of rain today. There were some splatterings around noon and then around 2pm the sky opened and probably 6inches of rain fell. One of the kids from next door, Ferra, (7 or so) was in playing with my digital camera and she was excited about the idea that the kayak might be able to go out in some of the puddles. Good attitude! I actually went out there and washed the dishes in the rain wearing my waterproof jacket and sitting under a bit of tin roof.
First week in Indonesia
So we've spent the week trying to get set up here. Not having the credit card meant we spent most of our cash so we need to wait untilRachel gets paid for a last bit of work to really get set-up by buyingsome furniture for the house.
It is very nice staying with Abeng and his family, Dian (wife), Dila(7), Muktadi (M, 5) and Azrah (F, 2). They have a traditional stylewood house that they live in, it is up on some stilts about a metreand a half high. That keeps it nice and cool inside. It is also prettycool because the walls allow the passage of quite a lot of air. Theyalso have a brick and plaster house with a white tile floor which isnot completely finished. They want to build a kitchen for it and don'tyet have the money to do that. We are staying in the brick in plasterhouse but we eat together in the evening in the traditional house.
Bathing and toilet facilities are outside, the shower area where we can throw water over ourselves drains to the storm drain for thestreet and the toilet drains to a septic tank. They aren't connectedto the water supply because it hasn't been extended back into thetsunami area yet. For cooking they have to carry water from down theroad in a 20litre container on the motorbike. For washing there is awell which is a little salty but is otherwise clean. The electricity seems to be quite reliable and no-one has started billing in the tsunami area yet either so it is free!
The only trouble with the house is mosquitos. The traditional house is really bad for them so we have to have the fan on when we eat to keepthem away, even then they are still around. We have got our littlehouse cleared out and have an electric device that slowly releasesspray into the air to get rid of them. There are only a few flyingaround in the morning which isn't a problem because we sleep under amosquito net. When we get money I suspect we will install airconditioning and keep the house closed up which will get rid ofthem completely.
Rachel is straight into work with a busy schedule. She is negotiatingthe politics of all the different organizations here and is giving atraining in a week or so time. She is pretty busy. She has a driver who picks her up in the nice air-conditioned car in the morning andtakes her around town. Her office appears to be full of nice peoplewhich is pleasant.
I spent the first couple of days getting things we needed for thehouse. The last few days I have been knocking on doors looking forwork. There appear to be a few opportunities and I think within a weekor two I should have a job. Perhaps the most promising is the AmericanRed Cross. I was introduce to the project manager there by Tyrone and his friends who work for Mott McDonald. They have a position opening up and I have now had a good meeting with the project manager sopossibly have enough of a relationship to get the position. A few other outfits have also expressed interest. I go in to try to see them and meet their local manager so I can give them my CV and put a face to a name.
To get around I use a variety of methods. Sometimes I get a ride with Rachel or her driver drops me around. Other times I ride on the backof Abeng's motorcycle and if none of these options are available I canflag down a man who has a motorcycle with a side car and get a ridefor a few dollars.
Generally Banda Aceh looks very good now compared to when we are here. It is back to being a dirty asian city rather than being a bombsite. Ithink that even areas where the tsunami didn't affect it are nicer nowthan before. The roads in the tsunami affected zone are newlycompleted and very good. Drainage around the city is ok but not great.
Quick news about the weekend. On Saturday we went to the center of town where there was a huge (probably 100,000 people) gathering forthe return after 40 odd years in exile of the head of the Free AcehMovement (GAM), Hassan di Terro (or some variation of that spelling).It was all peaceful and people were happy to see the old guy backhere. It was a little bit like seeing history in action. Generally ithas been peaceful for the past 3 years here but the future looks alittle shaky. If the incumbent doesn't win the national elections thisweek that could be a problem and there is some unrest in the ruralareas because most of the previous combatants don't have a job and sohave too much spare time on their hands.
Sunday we did our chores and then in the afternoon headed out about 15minutes out of town to where Rachel's friend Linda from England liveswith her Acehese husband Ade. They have a local NGO that they've been running since the tsunami. They have built themselves a nice housesurrounded by trees with lots of wildlife and birds around. We talked with her a bit and she talked about the politics in her neighbourhood.Basically there is a guy who is the number two in the local government(like the regional council but with more power) who is very corruptand manipulates things in various ways to make money for himself. He is their neighbour and has been buying up land around the area anddoing things they don't agree with. Her stories are a small example ofthe corruption that exists at just about every level in Indonesia. People get power and use it to make money and don't care who they stepon or steal from on the way! We spent a lot of the day wondering about how a country moves beyond the generally corrupt situation like this.
In the evening we spent time with my friend, Maison, who I worked with closely when I was here before. I like spending time with him. We wentto a stadium and Maison and I played soccer with some people whileRachel went for a walk. That was fun. Then we talked about his marriage. He is about 35 and his parents told him he had to getmarried. He said he had alreday bought home 4 different woman that hisparents had said they didn't like. So he asked them who they thoughtwas a good person. They gave him a list of names and he basically went and saw the parents of one of the girls and it was arranged that theywould marry. They only met one another twice during the week when thatdecision was made and when they were married. Crazy stuff. They have ababy now and are slowly working at becoming friends and falling inlove. The major problem is that they still live in Maison's parent's house which I gather is stifling for the new wife. Maison is afraid tomove out because his mother doesn't want it. It is very strange theway in these cultures the parents have and exert so much power overthe children.
A funny thing was that because we don't have any cash at the momentuntil Rachel gets paid we don't really have any easy transport. Sowhen we needed to go somewhere over the weekend we rode a motorbikewith a friend. So there were three of us on the motorbikes. The funny bit was that yesterday we had two of those motor bikes get flat backtires. Everyone says that riding three people on a bike is usual herebut there seems to be some evidence to the contrary. The first onehappened when we were at Linda's house. Some dogs had eaten my jandal and we wondered whether they had bitten the tire as well. But the second just happened when we were driving along the flat road.
The lady, Dian, who we are staying with has a sore ankle. It is swollen and blue. She says she bent down and got the pain. She said she didn't roll it to the side, more to the front. At the moment we can only give her some ibprofen we have but when we get paid, thisweek. We might take her to the doctor to get it looked at. Life is tough here!
It is very nice staying with Abeng and his family, Dian (wife), Dila(7), Muktadi (M, 5) and Azrah (F, 2). They have a traditional stylewood house that they live in, it is up on some stilts about a metreand a half high. That keeps it nice and cool inside. It is also prettycool because the walls allow the passage of quite a lot of air. Theyalso have a brick and plaster house with a white tile floor which isnot completely finished. They want to build a kitchen for it and don'tyet have the money to do that. We are staying in the brick in plasterhouse but we eat together in the evening in the traditional house.
Bathing and toilet facilities are outside, the shower area where we can throw water over ourselves drains to the storm drain for thestreet and the toilet drains to a septic tank. They aren't connectedto the water supply because it hasn't been extended back into thetsunami area yet. For cooking they have to carry water from down theroad in a 20litre container on the motorbike. For washing there is awell which is a little salty but is otherwise clean. The electricity seems to be quite reliable and no-one has started billing in the tsunami area yet either so it is free!
The only trouble with the house is mosquitos. The traditional house is really bad for them so we have to have the fan on when we eat to keepthem away, even then they are still around. We have got our littlehouse cleared out and have an electric device that slowly releasesspray into the air to get rid of them. There are only a few flyingaround in the morning which isn't a problem because we sleep under amosquito net. When we get money I suspect we will install airconditioning and keep the house closed up which will get rid ofthem completely.
Rachel is straight into work with a busy schedule. She is negotiatingthe politics of all the different organizations here and is giving atraining in a week or so time. She is pretty busy. She has a driver who picks her up in the nice air-conditioned car in the morning andtakes her around town. Her office appears to be full of nice peoplewhich is pleasant.
I spent the first couple of days getting things we needed for thehouse. The last few days I have been knocking on doors looking forwork. There appear to be a few opportunities and I think within a weekor two I should have a job. Perhaps the most promising is the AmericanRed Cross. I was introduce to the project manager there by Tyrone and his friends who work for Mott McDonald. They have a position opening up and I have now had a good meeting with the project manager sopossibly have enough of a relationship to get the position. A few other outfits have also expressed interest. I go in to try to see them and meet their local manager so I can give them my CV and put a face to a name.
To get around I use a variety of methods. Sometimes I get a ride with Rachel or her driver drops me around. Other times I ride on the backof Abeng's motorcycle and if none of these options are available I canflag down a man who has a motorcycle with a side car and get a ridefor a few dollars.
Generally Banda Aceh looks very good now compared to when we are here. It is back to being a dirty asian city rather than being a bombsite. Ithink that even areas where the tsunami didn't affect it are nicer nowthan before. The roads in the tsunami affected zone are newlycompleted and very good. Drainage around the city is ok but not great.
Quick news about the weekend. On Saturday we went to the center of town where there was a huge (probably 100,000 people) gathering forthe return after 40 odd years in exile of the head of the Free AcehMovement (GAM), Hassan di Terro (or some variation of that spelling).It was all peaceful and people were happy to see the old guy backhere. It was a little bit like seeing history in action. Generally ithas been peaceful for the past 3 years here but the future looks alittle shaky. If the incumbent doesn't win the national elections thisweek that could be a problem and there is some unrest in the ruralareas because most of the previous combatants don't have a job and sohave too much spare time on their hands.
Sunday we did our chores and then in the afternoon headed out about 15minutes out of town to where Rachel's friend Linda from England liveswith her Acehese husband Ade. They have a local NGO that they've been running since the tsunami. They have built themselves a nice housesurrounded by trees with lots of wildlife and birds around. We talked with her a bit and she talked about the politics in her neighbourhood.Basically there is a guy who is the number two in the local government(like the regional council but with more power) who is very corruptand manipulates things in various ways to make money for himself. He is their neighbour and has been buying up land around the area anddoing things they don't agree with. Her stories are a small example ofthe corruption that exists at just about every level in Indonesia. People get power and use it to make money and don't care who they stepon or steal from on the way! We spent a lot of the day wondering about how a country moves beyond the generally corrupt situation like this.
In the evening we spent time with my friend, Maison, who I worked with closely when I was here before. I like spending time with him. We wentto a stadium and Maison and I played soccer with some people whileRachel went for a walk. That was fun. Then we talked about his marriage. He is about 35 and his parents told him he had to getmarried. He said he had alreday bought home 4 different woman that hisparents had said they didn't like. So he asked them who they thoughtwas a good person. They gave him a list of names and he basically went and saw the parents of one of the girls and it was arranged that theywould marry. They only met one another twice during the week when thatdecision was made and when they were married. Crazy stuff. They have ababy now and are slowly working at becoming friends and falling inlove. The major problem is that they still live in Maison's parent's house which I gather is stifling for the new wife. Maison is afraid tomove out because his mother doesn't want it. It is very strange theway in these cultures the parents have and exert so much power overthe children.
A funny thing was that because we don't have any cash at the momentuntil Rachel gets paid we don't really have any easy transport. Sowhen we needed to go somewhere over the weekend we rode a motorbikewith a friend. So there were three of us on the motorbikes. The funny bit was that yesterday we had two of those motor bikes get flat backtires. Everyone says that riding three people on a bike is usual herebut there seems to be some evidence to the contrary. The first onehappened when we were at Linda's house. Some dogs had eaten my jandal and we wondered whether they had bitten the tire as well. But the second just happened when we were driving along the flat road.
The lady, Dian, who we are staying with has a sore ankle. It is swollen and blue. She says she bent down and got the pain. She said she didn't roll it to the side, more to the front. At the moment we can only give her some ibprofen we have but when we get paid, thisweek. We might take her to the doctor to get it looked at. Life is tough here!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Travelling to Indonesia
Hi all, welcome to the blog. To be honest I am just cutting and pasting emails at the moment so some of it you may have read already. I played with putting photos on this blog but I think you are best to just go to my picasa site www.picasaweb.google.com/MJMcWhirter and have a look at them.
Very quickly, as way of background, before we left Detroit I got a call from Chase who cancelled our credit cards. This sucked as it left us without money in Banda Aceh until a payment came through for Rachel, see later.
We were sad to leave family in Detroit. We had a flight to Chicago, then to Hong Kong and then for the final bit of that trip to Singapore. We had been going to fly through Washington DC and then Tokyo but the plane from Detroit to DC was small and it was deemed better for us to go through Chicago given the fact we had a very large box with my kayak in it!
The flight is pretty long. 15 hours from Chicago to Hong Kong can't really be recommended on any grounds. In Hong Kong we managed to drag ourselves into a restaurant to get some noodle soup before getting on the plane for the final push to Singapore.
We arrived in Singapore late at night and were, as usual for me, very impressed with how well organized and friendly Singapore is. We left the kayak and a suitcase full of books at the left luggage spot and then headed into our hotel.
Very quickly, as way of background, before we left Detroit I got a call from Chase who cancelled our credit cards. This sucked as it left us without money in Banda Aceh until a payment came through for Rachel, see later.
We were sad to leave family in Detroit. We had a flight to Chicago, then to Hong Kong and then for the final bit of that trip to Singapore. We had been going to fly through Washington DC and then Tokyo but the plane from Detroit to DC was small and it was deemed better for us to go through Chicago given the fact we had a very large box with my kayak in it!
The flight is pretty long. 15 hours from Chicago to Hong Kong can't really be recommended on any grounds. In Hong Kong we managed to drag ourselves into a restaurant to get some noodle soup before getting on the plane for the final push to Singapore.
We arrived in Singapore late at night and were, as usual for me, very impressed with how well organized and friendly Singapore is. We left the kayak and a suitcase full of books at the left luggage spot and then headed into our hotel.
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