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!