Salamat natal

Christmas in Rureng is (obviously) a lil different to Christmas in the UK, and in many ways for the better. Preparations didn’t really start until about a week ago & despite the odd decoration it is far less obvious & much less commercialised. I can't help thinking that maybe it would be nice if England took a leaf out of this book, even if for just one year… Although it would be nice to be back with my family & friends at this time of year I don’t miss all the hype, over-expectations & materialism of Christmas at home.

However Zoe & I did try to recreate a little English Christmas spirit by getting rather drunk & having a party on Christmas Eve. Our guests were a mop & a broom and we (sexily) danced away with them all night! Today we are having a relaxed day, we have rented half a dozen DVDs, bought some rather expensive Cadburys chocolate and plan to make pizza for our Christmas lunch. Then this evening, we may just meet up again with our good friends, the mop & the broom.

Me, Zoe, the mop & the broom
...getting a lil giggly
Zoe & the broom

me & the mop

Cake or death?

I’m not sure if it was some profound philosopher or just Eddie Izzard who first posed the question ‘cake or death?’ but this type of comparative question between two seemingly irrelevant items is one I’ve been pondering quite a lot lately. Living without things that you take for granted it becomes kind of a fun game to choose which you miss most…

• TV or duvet? (duvet)
• Electricity or water? (water)
• Heels or hair straighteners? (tricky one, hair straighteners I think)
• Cheese or yogurt? (cheese)
• Internet or…

Well that is where the problem is (or was if you are reading this before November 2007). Following the low point of the only internet café for 50 miles being struck by lightening came a high of finding out I could get internet at home. But then this week I got cut off for not paying the bill! Now in the UK this would be a relatively simple problem to solve – call the telephone company, give them your address & set up a direct debit – but in Flores it couldn’t possible be that straight forward. For a start I don’t have an address (the one I gave you the other week is my work address). There is no house number or road name, just a district then a series of descriptors: opposite the catholic radio station; where the nuns used to live. And obviously direct debit is never gonna happen – I can’t even withdraw money here on my visa card. So someone from work is gonna sort it out, I don’t know how, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the bureaucratic side of Indonesian.

It’s amazing how quickly the internet has come to dominate western life and how much we have come to rely on it. Like most things, you don’t really realize how important it is to you until you don’t have it. For me here it is a lifeline to the modern world. So if it’s a choice between TV, duvet, electricity, water, heels, hair straighteners, cheese, yogurt or internet the answer for me is simple: internet. (Oh, & I would choose cake over death – but that’s obvious!)

Machetes and saucepans

Today I held the first meeting of my research team. As the fieldwork is now complete we met to conduct the preliminary analysis ready for a steering group meeting in January. The research is part of an international network research programme on mobility & health and is run by a British NGO called the International Forum for Rural Transport Development (IFRTD) and we are focusing on answering two main research questions:

• What are the key barriers to poor people’s use of existing transport facilities to access health services?
• How might female access to health services, and that of disadvantaged groups, be improved with mobility interventions?

Although disappointed not to be more involved in the research design & fieldwork, this is certainly an interesting point at which to join the project. We are disaggregating the data into four main themes: gender, transport, education, and poverty. I think gender will arise as an overarching theme as in Flores women are not empowered in anyway (tellingly the term ‘gender’ was not known by many of the interviewees). Although women do the majority of the work (15 hours per day as opposed to the 9 hour day men work) they are not entitled to make any decisions, even about their own health.

There is a phrase here ‘men in the front, women in the back’ which can be applied across all areas of life and has been apparent to me even in the short time I have been here. For example, as a white women I am granted the ‘privilege’ of sitting with the men at lunch (in the front of the house) whilst the other women eat in the kitchen (at the back of the house). This gender disparity can perhaps be best illustrated by the familiar terms for husband (machete) and wife (saucepan). One of the questions I am frequently asked here is about my status (i.e. am I married yet) and when I reply ‘belum’ (not yet) people get quite excited about the idea of my marrying a local man – I haven’t told them, but I’m telling you – there is no way I am going to be any man’s saucepan!

I have my own machete thanks!

...and I'm not sharing my saucepan!

Two way conversation

Now I'm kinda settled in Ruteng it would be cool to make this a bit more of a two way conversation! My contact details are:

Karen Whitby
Ayo Indonesia
Jl. Ahmad Yani
No. 16
Keluruhan Tenda
Ruteng
Manggarai
Flores
NTT
Indonesia

Home phone: 62 (0)3852 2398
Mob phone: 62 (0)81 336 531 390

If you are calling from the UK you can use this number to get calls to the landline at 1p/min or 6p/min to the mobile: 0844 861 2121 Wait for response, then dial adding two more zeros, e.g. 0062 3852 2398

And to make this post a little more interesting I've added some pictures of Ruteng!

getting off the plane at Ruteng airport


Zoe with Cathedral & mountains in the background

Rice paddy's on the hillside

The traditional 'spiderweb' layout of the paddy's as seen from the air

Water, water everywhere…

The rains have started in Flores. December is quite late for this – everyone blames it on global warming. Here in Ruteng late rains don’t make a lot of difference as the cool mountain climate means that the region is constantly green. In more arid areas though (where there is a ‘hungry’ season and a ‘rainy’ season) I imagine the late rains made life hard. So far, the ‘rains’ haven’t been too bad… it’s bright and sunny in the morning & then at around lunch time it clouds over & rains quite heavily for a few hours. My complaint though (sorry this is turning out to be such a moany blog!) is that despite this abundance of water, I still do not have running water at home!

Everyone gives a different explanation for this: the government ration the water; there’s a leaky pipe etc. And to confound my problems the mandi (my main vessel for storing water) leaks. It wasn’t too bad when I was on my own – I’d almost got into a routine of bucket filling – but now Zoe is here too, and to be honest it is a struggle to make the water go round. You don't really realise how much water you need, or the varitey of tasks you use it for, until you don't have it 'on tap'!

I’m sure we’ll fix the situation soon – or at least work out a routine to better conserve the water we do have – it’s just a bit frustrating so live in an area with monsoon style rain but to have to conserve water as though we were living in a desert!


the empty mandi

rainy afternoon at home

Patience, perseverance, and humility

As a leaving present a good friend gave me a copy of ‘The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places’, a collection of first-hand accounts by the great explorers of the 20th century. I’ve been dipping into it a little over the past few weeks and came across this quote by John Dundas Cochrane (1793-1825), a naval officer who attempted to make the first solo journey round the world on foot:

"Go and wander with the illiterate and almost brutal savage! – go and contemplate the human being in every element and climate, whether civilized or savage – of whatever tribe, nation, or religion. Make due allowance for the rusticity of their manner; nor be tempted to cope with them in those taunts, insults, and rudeness, to which the nature of thy enterprise will subject thee. Contemn those incidental circumstances which but too often surprise mankind from their good intentions, and deprive the world of much useful and interesting information. Avoid all political and military topics, and remember, that, ‘the proper study of mankind is man’… It is only by patience, perseverance, and humility, by reducing thyself to the lowest level of mankind, that thou canst expect to pass through the ordeal with either safety or satisfaction".

Although perhaps not politically correct for the 21st century, I did draw some strength from Cochrane’s lesson. This week I have been visiting rural villages in the Maggarai region. The people I met can neither be described as ‘brutal’ or ‘savage’, but their life is very different from mine and I did have to exert a great deal of patience, perseverance and humility.

The meetings took all day and involved a lot of traditional greetings, protocol and drinking sweet coffee (eugh). The villagers were lovely and so welcoming. They gave me the best of everything, which was itself a lesson in humility. In one village I joined a cooking class for pregnant mothers and was then made to consume much of the food myself – and I can promise you I am not a pregnant mother!

And in case you were wondering, Cochrane’s attempt to circumnavigate the world by foot ended in the Pacific where he "fell for, and married, a doe-eye Kamchatkan teenager"!


Zoe & I in traditional ikat skirts


The villagers


The mothers

Double standards

One of the funny/annoying/frustrating things about Flores is the double standards. On my first day at work in Flores I walked home with a colleague, it was hot & dusty so I took out my bottle of water to have a drink as we were walking along. My colleague was horrified! She asked me to put the bottle away & when I asked why she eventually told me that people would think I was a whore if I ate or drank whilst walking down the street.

Yet last week another colleague asked me to arrange for VSO to provide some condoms to give away at a concert to promote HIV/Aids awareness. I was happy to help with this & whilst in Bali this week arranged a large supply – I texted my colleague back in Flores the good news. She replied [sic]:

Hi Karen. Thx for the good news…can u give us another help by buying some synthetic penis for the condoms?

I guess every culture has this type of double standard that are confusing to outsiders… you just aren’t aware of them if you have always lived that way.

Answers

Well I’ve away a month – the longest time I’ve ever spent out of the UK – so I figure it’s time to reflect on the question I posed before I left… was I ready?

Physically & materially yes, the things I miss (my friends, my duvet, my high heels, dairy products) I could never have bought with me. Mentally & emotionally though, no I wasn’t ready. I guess I never could have been, and maybe this mental & emotional challenge is one of the things I was seeking when I decided to work abroad, but still I didn’t think it would be so big, so shocking or so draining.

I don’t know if it’s homesickness, but I crave normality… familiarity. Perhaps this would be true in any new job/house/town but add a new language/culture/morays and some days it is all too much. I hope that in time Flores will become normal, many things are already familiar but in a weird kinda way. But I’ve only got a year (actually only 11 months now). I don’t think I’m gonna quit, but I hope I settle enough soon to really make the most of this experience.

How to say 'no' (part 2)

Well your advice (and my Bahasa) was too slow. I’ve done it. I’ve eaten dog!

I guess the voyeuristic among you might want to know what it tasted like… I understand that most random meat (frogs, snakes, snails’ etc) taste like chicken, but this was dark meat – more like beef. I guess the closest thing I’ve tasted is goat. It was kinda gristly, but that’s how they seem to like their meat here (nothing wasted etc). It was beautifully seasoned, so on the whole quite pleasant.

And morally (or whatever), how did I feel? Fine. I disengage myself from the animal I was eating (I mean do you really think about the cow, sheep or pig when you are eating?) I feel mildly guilty now, but to be honest after a week of eating strange bony fish it kinda made a pleasant change! People here don’t keep dogs as pets (since a bad outbreak of rabies a few years ago), so really it is just like eating any other animal… unless I am gonna become veggie I don’t think I can criticise.

(Sorry Zoe!)

A new home

This week I moved into my new home. Friends back home had joked that I would be living in a mud hut, but they couldn’t be more wrong. My new home is the biggest house I’ve ever lived in! It has four bedrooms: one for me, one for my fellow volunteer Zoe, one for an office, and one for guests. There is a kitchen (but read this in the loosest possible way), a room for washing clothes and a mandi (I’ll come back to that one). There is also a huge garden with mature fruit trees including mango, avocado, coffee & others that I don’t know the names of yet but are very tasty! The house is set in the foothills of the mountains that surround Ruteng, so the views are also spectacular.

The mandi is the wash facility. It’s kinda like a tall square bath, but you don’t get in it. Instead you keep a supply of cold (it may not be a mud hut but there are still some hardships) water in it. This you scoop into a bucket & mix with boiled water and then throw over yourself – pretty refreshing really!

So that’s my house, the guestroom is ready & waiting, so come & see for yourself!

Hello mister

I get stared at a lot in Ruteng. Although it is the main town (or perhaps city… it has two cathedrals) of the Maggarai province it is well off the tourist track, so the staring is just curiosity although it can make one feel a tad paranoid!

People will often practise a little English on me, if I’m lucky I get ‘hello miss’, more commonly it is ‘hello mister’ and occasionally (and most disconcertingly) it is ‘hello beautiful’! If I am feeling confident – usually in the morning – I reply with a Bahasa greeting, but as the day wears on I become increasing overwhelmed by my new surroundings and keep my head down (quite a sensible move as the pavement is often uneven if not full of deep holes)!

I have started work now. The research project I am ‘leading’ was already well underway before my arrival (in fact the fieldwork is almost completed) so I am in the delicate position of taking over the lead from a well co-ordinated and experienced group of researchers. For the time being, I am adopting an approach similar to the ‘hello misters’: just keeping my head down!

First impressions of Flores

After a slightly ill advised all-nighter in Kuta on Friday I boarded a small plane to Labuanbajo (tourist resort in the west of Flores and ‘gateway’ to Komodo Island). The plane only had about two dozen passengers and only stopped at Labuanbajo to let me off!

Me & other VSO vols on Friday night...

by early Saturday morning it was only Zoe & I still going strong!

In Labuanbajo I chatted to some locals (more or less in Bahasa!) and had a great dinner at the hotel – fresh snapper (definitely Michelin quality DT). As opposed to Bali (or maybe because of events in Bali) the tourism industry here is growing and I saw more Western tourists than I had in my whole two weeks in Bali.

Dinner in Labuanbajo

Travelling in developing countries I’ve always found that the material that local houses are made of are a great identifier of local resources and culture. My room in Labuanbajo was made of wicker – literally like a wicker chair stretched into a box shape and a bed inserted inside. On the bus to Ruteng the following day I saw some amazing ‘wicker’ architecture, unfortunately though, in most cases the traditional thatch roof has been replaced by corrugated metal roofs (easier to maintain I guess).

my hotel 'room' in Labuanbajo

My first impression of Flores is that it is very beautiful. It has an amazingly rugged landscape of mountains & hills that remind me of a child’s drawing. As Rutang is a mountain town it is much cooler (still shorts & t-shirt weather, although unfortunately shorts are not really acceptable) I am looking forward to exploring the beautiful countryside on foot over the coming weeks/months/year!

How to say 'no'

It's tricky saying 'no' in Bahasa Indonesian. Technically 'tidak' means 'no'. It is also used to put words in the negative: saya tidak mau (I don't want to). But culturally, Indonesians don't like negative responses, so when someone asks if you are married (as they frequently do) the polite answer is not 'tidak', but 'belum' (not yet).

I've been told that eating dog is a delicacy in Flores... How do I say no to that?!?

What's in a blog?

I've been receiving comments, both on the blog & off about the content & style of my writing (and it's frequency). I'm trying to achieve a delicate balance between reporting the personal - e.g. what I have for breakfast or how many times I go to the loo - and the profound - e.g. the different cultural mores of south eastern Asia. Obviously these are exaggerated extremes, but some people are requesting more personal stuff, others more profound... As this is my penultimate night in Bali I'm afraid those of you looking for the profound should probably skip this post.

As I say, I depart for Flores on Saturday. Over the past couple of weeks I've been talking to lots of people about what to expect, but everyone has a different view. On the plus side, most seem to agree that the climate of Reutang is very favorable (although they can't agree on how often it rains) and the people very friendly. On the negative (and I'm afraid this list is a little longer, perhaps giving some insight into my current frame of mind) hardly anyone speaks English, the people can be quite aggressive, there is no transport infastructre (i.e. no taxi from the airport to the hotel), but there are giant rats, and lizards with giant suckers that fall on you and can't be removed!

Guess I'm back to the question of am I ready? Physically yes - I've had the last of my jabs and my bags are packed. On most other levels, no - my bahasa Indonesian is poor and Bali has not really prepared me for living in a developing country. Guess I just need to get on with it and see... It's driving me crazy trying to guess what it'll be like!

In the meantime I have one last night in Bali. It is Zoe's (fellow volunteer going to Reutang) 30th so we are off clubbing in Kuta and with or without police raids I am determined to have a good time!

Everyone here's talking about...

Everyone here is talking about President Bush’s planned visit to Indonesia on Monday. He’s only coming for a couple of hours, but it still fills the newspapers. The Jakarta Post reports that in other parts of the country there have been large protests, but here in Bali there is a slightly more relaxed attitude. Protesters in Denpassar marched with a banner that read ‘Welcome to Indonesia, Mr Bush. You may come, just don’t dictate (to us)’… a sentiment I agree with. Also in Bali a ‘man claming magic powers drank freshly slaughtered animal & snake blood as part of a ritual he said would jinx the upcoming visit… “I don’t hate Americans but I don’t like bush” said Pamungkas… he believed the ritual would cause Secret Service agents guarding Bush to fall into a trance and believe the US leader was under attack causing chaos’.

Bush is here to talk to the Indonesian president and one of the topics of discussion may well include terrorism and the continuing tsunami relief effort. Both terrorism and the tsunami have had a profound affect on Bali, the bombings in 2002 and the tsunami in 2004 all but destroyed tourism on the island. For the peaceful Hindu community of Bali the bombs were shocking but instead of reprisals against Muslim & Javanese immigrants working in Bali leaders of various faiths prayed side-by-side during purification ceremonies. The police were also swift in identifying the perpetrators and brought in a number of security measures across the island.

Tsunami 'information' sign on Sanur beach

These security measures are still evident. Many western organisations have strict security; cars and bags are searched before entering places like the language schools, nightclubs and McDonalds. I went out in Kuta (the main tourist resort where the bombing occurred) on Saturday night and saw all this first hand. I also witnessed the force of the police when the club I was in was raided for drugs. The music went off, the lights came on & everyone in the place was (thoroughly) searched. Everyone co-operated ­– no illegal substances were found and no arrests were made – and everyone cheered when the police announced this.

I don’t think Bali is really like the rest of Indonesia – the benign approach to Bush’s visit, the ‘cleansing’ after the bombing – I look forward to seeing another side of the country when I leave for Flores next week.

I’m just here to do a job (aren’t I?)

This week my training began in earnest. In the mornings (8-12) I have language school. For me this is hard going. I am not a linguist by any stretch of the imagination (although developing language skills is one of my motivations for working abroad)… with a bit of effort I can remember individual words, but I struggle to string them together into coherent sentences. I am in class (at a primary school!) with two other volunteers & already I am the bottom of the class. Luckily I get a week more than they do & I’m working hard in the evenings so hopefully I’ll have mastered the basics before I leave for Flores. My favourite words so far are:

Teman (friend);
Keren (cool); and
Maaf, saya tidak tahu (sorry, I don’t know).

Me, Pak Gunewan, Mavis & Christine in class

In the afternoons (1-6) I receive various briefings on the work of VSO in Indonesia. Yesterday we covered monitoring and evaluation. I went into the session feeling a little cocky, after all it’s what I do for a living (kinda). But I was asked to think about what impact I will see during my placement on individuals, on the organisation I am working for & on the wider community. My answer was that I am there to do a specific job, I will see little direct impact at a local level, that I am conducting research & will report the findings to the project sponsor. Apparently this was not satisfactory.

Impact is a discussion that was frequently had at NFER and I know that some of my colleagues there felt very strongly about their work having a direct impact on children’s education. However I often struggled to feel that direct connection, now here I am 1000s of miles away struggling with that same dilemma – am I just here to do a job, or am I working for some kind of greater good? Obviously I want to do ‘good’ (I would never feel happy working for some big capitalist corporation), but maybe I’m just a little cynical about the measurable impact of that ‘good’ and my input into it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

It’s not paradise but it smell’s nice

Bali has a bit of a reputation, in my mind at least, of being a tropical paradise. Having thought on this over the past couple of days I’ve concluded that my idea of paradise would have better transport (I’ll cover bemaks & bemos in a later post), less people, and definitely less people trying to sell you stuff. Over the weekend I visited a number of temples (Bali is predominantly Hindu) and even in these beautiful & sacred sites there are hawkers – people wanting to guide you; sell you postcards, drinks or sarongs; or most depressingly children of 3 or 4 years old trying to sell you frangipani flowers (which I have to fish out of the pool at the hotel on a daily basis in order to swim a length unobstructed!).

The temple at Besakih

However my paradise may smell like Bali. The streets are pungent with the smell of incense which is left as offerings to the Gods all along the pavement. This mixes pleasantly with the smell of food cooking over hot coals and the aforementioned frangipani. So yes, Bali may not be my paradise in many ways, but it sure does smell like it!

An offering to the Gods on the pavement outside my hotel

BTW I now have an Indonesian mobile sorted, email me at my normal work address & I’ll send you the number

1st post from Indonesia

Well I'm here! It was a long journey starting at about 7am Wednesday (UK time) and ending 4pm Thursday (Indo time). I got through Heathrow's rigorous security measures with only one small incident - the snazzy pens NFER produced to celebrate its 60th anniversary create xray blackspots, so I had to have my whole bag investigated! The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful, I had a bit of a crap seat on the flight to Bangkok (right next to the kitchen, but there was the advantage of getting served first!), but the highlight of the journey was being presented with an orchid for flying with Thai Air :-)



At Denpasar Airport I met the other two volunteers that I'll be training with and we traveled to the hotel together. It's all a bit nice here (swimming pool, air-conditioned rooms, hot showers) think I should take advantage while it lasts! Training starts 8:30 tomorrow...

Ready, steady, GO!

I leave tomorrow. I have had the leaving party & the leaving presents... all that is left to do now is leave.


(Ekua, me & Sulochini at my leaving party)

The fear/excitement/panic I woke up with on Sunday morning and has sat in the pit of my stomach ever since.

I think I am ready - I've got my bags packed, I've had my jabs, I've done the PIP course - but does any of this mean I'm ready? Will I every be ready? Probably not - the changes I am making are not really the type you can prepare for, the best you can do is the practical stuff & I think I'm there with that, so I guess this is as good as it's gonna get.

My next post will be from Bali, where I have two weeks training before departing for Flores. Hopefully by then I will know how ready I am, at least for the start of my adventure!

Final count down

This time next week I'll have completed the first leg of my journey to a new (if temporary) life. True panic has yet to kick in, I'm still focused on getting everything ready - both mentally & physically.

But each day I achieve a little task that takes me one step closer to Indonesia - today it was starting my antimalarial tablets. Choosing an antimalarial is a case of choosing the lesser evil... malarone the most effective drug with the least side affects is not licensed for longer than a month so is immediately ruled out. Malaria in many countries is resistant to paludrine & chloroquine, so that's another definite 'no'. So that leaves a choice of two: lariam, where you risk nightmares, hallucinations & general madness or doxycycline where you risk sensitivity to strong sunlight and an increased risk of thrush. I went for the sunburn & thrush option, ho hum!

Toodle pip

This weekend I attended the VSO's Pre-Departure Information & Preparation (PIP) course. An amazing amount of information was provided in a fun & participatory way, but the highlight really was the other people on the course. It was great to spend the weekend with other people preparing to do similar work in similar places & many of them had a wealth of experience living and working abroad to share as well.

The course also raised many interesting issues about working in the development sector and in developing countries: are development workers the new missionaries? Certainly we are going to help and in some cases educate people in developing countries, but we will endeavors to do this in a participatory & capacity building way. However 'participatory' and 'capacity building' are to some extent just NGO buzz words - we tried to unpick them a little on the course & in the short term I am placated to the idea that I will be making a positive difference and not just sermonising. But I think I will have to try to keep an awareness of the risk of exacerbating a problem that in the bigger picture caused developing countries to be in this spiral of poverty in the first place.

Questions

I was in a taxi once & the driver had a laminated card saying

• 'yes I am having a good night'
• 'yes it has been busy'
• 'no, I don't like to chat'

It's lovely that everyone is so interested in my trip, but I'm considering getting a laminated card myself:

• 'yes, it is exciting'
• 'yes, it is a great opportunity'
• 'no, I'm not ready'
• 'I'm going to be researching infant and maternal mortality on an Island called Flores in the East of Indonesia'

And perhaps a few other responses for some of the stranger questions I've received:

• 'yes, they do have wardrobes in Indonesia'

But I'm not complaining really - it's great that everyone is being so supportive... Perhaps I should just give them the address for this blog instead though!

Dead arm

One of the minor downsides of traveling to far flung places is the plethora of vaccinations you have to have. My list isn't too long, but certainly none of them are pleasant... today I started a course of Jap B & Rabies injections - the injections themselves weren't too painful (unlike the Hep B) but I'm anticipating a dead arm by this evening :-(

This weekend I saw my parents for the last time before my departure - they live in a sleepy little seaside village in North Norfolk (Mundesley) but we met at my brothers place in Docklands and went out for lunch at a local Tapas restaraunt. I gave them their Christmas cards & they gave me a Christmas present to take out to Indonesia with me "yes Mr Customs Official, I did pack all my bags myself...!"



The whole family



me & my Mum

1st post : 1st blog

Well this is my first ever post on my first ever blog...

I've decided to write this as I'm off to Indonesia in 19 days to go and work as a researcher on the Island of Flores.

Some credit has to be paid in all this (both the blog & the Indonesian adventure in general) to my friend and former NFER colleague Kathryn Tomlinson. Kathryn also left the NFER (although she never planned to come back again) to go and work in Indonesia. I think our reasoning in taking on such a challenge may have a little in common although I'm sure our experiences will be very different, but anyway to learn more about Kathryn's time in Indonesia checkout her blog, Flying Fish. Meanwhile I hope you come back regularly and read about my new life too.