Back to the Asahan

Last weekend I flew out of Banda Aceh at 720am to head to Medan for a kayaking trip. Actually I arrived at the airport at 615am and then waited in a line of about 15 people for the next hour and a half. The check in process was extremely slow and I was still at the check in line when the plane was supposed to take off. Not unheard of at Banda Aceh airport so all was well.

In Medan I was met by my friend Halim who is a german man who married an Indonesian and has lived in Medan for much of the last 20 years. He is muslim and as such was on his last day of fasting for Ramadan. We drove out of Medan through heavy rain and busy traffic and headed for the Asahan river which is about 6 hours away from Medan.

The Asahan River drains lake Toba –which is an enourmous crater lake formed when Toba one of the worlds super volcano’s erupted. To give you an idea of scale, if I am not wrong the lake is at least 60km in diameter! The power of the water draining out has been harnessed by a very large hydroelectric power station which provides most of the power for the 4million people who live in Medan. There are a series of 200m+ waterfalls which are bypassed by the power station, although last time I was here I got to see them in action.

Because the river was formed recently by geological time scales it hasn’t yet finished carving out its valley and therefore it is extremely fast moving. Probably the fastest non-flooded river I’ve ever paddled and probably on par with most flooded rivers too.

Firstly we had a nice cultural moment. Halim has had a house in the village of Pahitean for 15 odd years and knows people in the community there very well. One family in particular is headed by Simatupang who Halim calls Papa and his wife who Halim calls Mama. They are also muslim so the first morning which was the biggest day of the muslim calendar was started with a lovely shared meal with the family where everyone went through the tradition of sitting in front of others grasping hands and in a very touching way asking forgiveness for anything they’ve done wrong or have failed to do during the previous year. It was obvious that the family was very close and it was very nice to be invited in for this.

The kayaking was excellent. Here comes the boring bit for non-boaters… The last time I had been to the Asahan there was twice the normal amount of water so it was raging fast. This time it was just fast! I did perhaps 4 runs down a 10min section right by Halim’s house that is a very fast grade 3/3+ run. It is extremely continuous. After several hours spent scouting I ran the next section up called Never Ever Ends. This is because it is a 3km section of river which is basically one rapid that Never Ever Ends! This is more grade 4/4+ and has a stout grade 5 rapid at the top which I didn’t really think about running this time. Maybe another time when there are a team of paddlers there as well. To give you the idea of the speed, it is 3km (2miles) long and I did it in 17min including walking around the big rapid through the jungle!

There are a couple of sections on the river I’ve yet to run. The first is called Honeymoon Canyon and looks very very beautiful. I’ve heard the rapids in there are pretty grade 2/3 but there is one hard rapid called Honeymoon Sorrow. Halim has never been down there at normal flow and doesn’t have a lot of information about the hard rapid. There was team of professionals who ran that section recently so I will check with them at some stage and again if a team of people come we can run it. The other section is called the middle section and contains one mandatory portage called Nightmare and several other very hard rapids. Again perhaps with a strong team.

Halim and I did go down and run the lower canyon which is in a deep-cut gorge with beautiful rainforest spilling over the edges of the rocks. It is a remarkably beautiful piece of river. There are a couple of grade 3 rapids at the top and then just a beautiful hour floating down the amazing canyon. The takeout was a regular holiday spot for the locals so on the biggest holiday of the year it was absolutely full of people who were splashing around in the water if young and sitting around smoking if older! It was quite a contrast to the canyon above.

We hired a passing small truck to take us back to the village of Pahitean and had an eventful ride up there as the truck broke down and our driver had to go into the closest village to find a mechanic. It is great how handy people are here though, you can break down in the middle of nowhere and there will be someone to come and fix your car for you.

After an early morning blast down the 10min run at Halim’s house and we were off to Medan again. We were worried about whether holiday traffic would be a problem but generally we were going against it as most Indonesians took the rest of the week after Idul Fitri off and were heading out of the city. There was a several mile long backup of traffic going the other way near the town of Parapat which is the tourist gateway to the beautiful Lake Toba. This included people who were standing up in the back of big 6wheel trucks. Very heavy rain storms came through from time to time so I can’t imagine that was that enjoyable!

Idul Fitri approaching

So the brave and reverant souls of Aceh have a couple of days left with their fasting. I came to the realization since I last posted that the toughest bit of the fast isn't the absence of food, but the absence of liquid, including water during the day. I actually considered fasting for a day for solidarity with people here but the lack of drink idea put me off. I think for many here the prohibition of smoking during the daylight hours is probably the toughest thing - that has more benefits than the spiritual ones for sure.

We are coming to the end of the fasting month and the biggest celebration of the year here - Idul Fitri. All Indonesian people have today (Friday) off and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are also holidays next week. The most important day is Sunday now I believe after the exact timing was finalized by checking the moons cycle. We visited our friends from the other house last night and preparations were well under way. Everyone makes a lot of home backing which is then offered to guests who cruise around on the big holidays. The plan for most people on the big days is a lot of time in the mosque, and a lot of time eating cakes/biscuits at home for the rest of the day.

Rachel and I have been keeping ourselves entertained settling into the new house and also getting our application for residency in NZ for Rachel together. This includes such enjoyable things as doing detailed medicals for Rachel and getting police records from places we've lived for more than a year. The FBI was pretty easy actually and that is on the way, unsurprisingly the Indonesian process is long, stupid, beurocratic and generally annoying. We had to get various pieces of paper together (CV, letter from employer blah blah blah and then we had to start going around the various police departments to get letters recommending we be given a letter saying we had behaved in Indo while here. First the local police in the town area wanted a letter from the head of the village which was easy. The local police were very nice too. Then the regional police needed to see all the other paper work. They were a little annoying and my application also got mixed up with the Red Cross' beaurocracy which wasn't helpful. Now we are in the process of waiting for the regional police to give us a letter recommending that the national police write a letter to us saying we have behaved... if you didn't get bored reading that try waiting in an official's office or driving across down to get every little document mentioned.... so definitely nothing will happen for a couple of weeks now as we wait for Idul Fitri and its fall out to finish.

For a bit more positive news I can report that I am heading away tomorrow for a kayaking trip on the Asahan river again and also it seems that Rachel has got a month long contract working with UNDP to evaluate a large program they have had here.

Rachel Back and a New House

Again I have to apologize that there are no photos. My camera has officially died. It was getting water in it on the Ottawa and now it just doesn’t work. Time for a new one!

Rachel has made it back to Aceh, she had a really bad trip to get here. Boston, LA, Tokyo, Singapore (6 hour stop over), Kuala Lumpur (5 hour stop over) and finally Banda Aceh. That sucks!

I went down to the town of Calang where we have a big part of the program I look after and was there for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

When both Rachel and I were back on Friday night we moved into our new house. It is a really lovely house. It has 3 bedrooms of which one is nice and big and two are a bit small and pokey. It has a lot of common space, a nice front lawn and best of all at the back is an enclosed courtyard with shade, trees, a barbeque and an industrial fan to keep the temperature down. There are two inside bathrooms (including an ensuite) and the water is cleaner than most places here and runs freely all day! Internal plumbing is something I for one had really missed. The location for the house is really nice too, it is close to the edge of town near the mountains so we can bike or run out our door straight to some off road tracks.

We have been settling into the new house over the weekend and last night we went to an opening of a vegetarian café that is opening close to my office. Things are definitely looking up.

Finally on the good news front, Rachel has received some offers of work for several months doing program evaluations for the UN. There are also positive signs from her program she has been trying to set up through the local government and the World Bank.

Ramadan in Aceh

Hi all
Sorry no pics again, pretty boring I know.

I also wanted to write a post about how much fun we had hanging out at Jon and Talia's wedding and then with friends in Boston. I might suffice to say that we really loved seeing our friends and everyone was so nice to us, loaning cars, places to stay, providing meals and generally letting us share a bit of their lives with them again. Like most things on that trip we appreciated that even more than usual. Thanks all.

Now, I got back to Aceh about 5 days into the Ramadan period here. Now Aceh takes its religion pretty seriously so I can report somethings you might find quite interesting.

All restaraunts in town are now shut during the day. People actually get fined for opening restaurants by the Shariah police. This is a bit of a blow to me as it means that my lunch is usually a chunk of bread from a litte show with an orange or something like that. Not a brilliant balanced diet that is for sure.

So people here in Aceh tend to get up at about 3am or 4am to eat before the fast starts. There is actually an alarm that goes off at about 5am here which signifies the start of the fast. I think it might be the tsunami warning alarm! I can also report that there is praying going on in the mosques over the loud speakers at just about every hour of the night. Unfortuately jetlag and the mosque itself has allowed me to know all about that with some close to sleepless nights.

The streets are noticeable quieter on the way to work. Also at lunch time there aren't very many people at all moving around. So getting around is easier than before. Also it is a little cooler at the moment which is pleasing.

Working days are very much reduced in terms of activity for a lot of people here. Our organization, The American Red Cross, actually changed the working hours so people can go home at 3:30pm or so, officially people aren't supposed to be taking a lunch break but there aren't that many around it seems to me.

In the evening the fast is broken around 7pm again the siren lets you know when. People have nice little social gatherings to open the fast and there is a good amount of praying happening although I am not sure of the details on that one.

September the 18th to the 23rd is the biggest holiday of the year hear for Idul Fitri when the fasting period ends. It is a really big deal for families getting together too like Christmas time is for us in New Zealand and Thanksgiving is in the US.