Becak Race from Hell (or, why [some] expats suck)

So today is the first day to sleep in and alas I awake early with a headache from the innumerable beers that kept being poured into my glass last night.
Ahh, an evening with the expats.


So Friday night found me in a local karaoke bar.  After fending off and yelling at my group of young boys outside the corner store (I see them every night, and tonight they surrounded me and touched my butt and my boob, so I flipped on them), I desperately craved a cold beer.  Makassarese like their beers warm apparently.  So I wandered for a while and couldn't find a store that either a) sold beer b) if said store did, it was warm.  Then I stumbled into the Win-Win bar, got me a cold Anker beer, which I quite prefer to Bintang, and chatted with the waitress.  Before I knew it, I had a bunch of friends, more beer, and I sang two songs on the karaoke.  Bad mood assuaged.  And I kept asking myself, why would I want to hang out with expats? These people are great, I get to practice Bahasa, and I think they enjoy meeting foreigners.  Enter Saturday.


Saturday we had a day-long meeting with one of Oxfam's local partners, Enlightening Indonesia, a local climate-change adaptation organisation.  I will talk more about that later.  In any case, the meeting went until 430pm, so I missed the chance to partake in my first Hash Harriers run.  The HH are a local running/bushwalking/bush whacking/ drinking group and I had been looking forward to this all week, as they take you to some cool local places and you get to meet people, etc.  But I decided to try and find them on Saturday night.  At about 8pm, not a (western) soul in sight at the waterfront, so I was walking home when I passed an older British man on the side street, we chatted, and he offered to buy me a beer, so back to Kafe Kareba.


Before you knew it, the place was packed and there must have been at least 15 bule (whiteys) there.  Now I have only seen about 2 westerners since I've been here and it was kind of shocking, being able to easily communicate with people.  Some of these guys live here and have wives, others are engineers here short-term, I met my only fellow NGOer, a French guy working for the Red Cross, a crazy German tourist guy, plenty of Dutch, etc.  One douchebag German, Olaf or something, in a pink collared shirt, shall be the object of my ire.


So three of these guys (2 Dutchmen and said Olaf) begin called out "Becak race! Let's do it!"  Intrigued, I followed with my camera.  I don't know if this is a common thing or not.  I take a becak pretty much every night and have had some of the same guys repeatedly, who know my address, etc.  Now this city teems with becak drivers.  As I said in another post, they are rickshaws powered by a bicycle.  These guys make about $.50-$1.50 per ride, and they probably only get a few a day.  I also bargain hard for a lower price then I give them extra at the end.  They all have kids and families to support, you know?  So these three guys proceed to get 3 becaks from their drivers, mount them, stop the traffic, and race off down the street.

It begins . . .

And they're off!

Instantly, Mr. Olaf destroys the back bike wheel.  A crowd gathers, and the owner demands money, of course.  But Olaf proceeds to scream at the guy and give him about $1.  I didn't realise the seriousness of the situation, as at first everyone was laughing and looking at the wheel.  Olaf was saying the wheel was already messed up and it was bound to happen, etc.  Meanwhile, the other two guys arrive back at Kareba, having made a loop around the block.  And both of their becaks are messed up; one has a flat tire, and the other lost a peddle and rear-view mirror.  Again, these bules act a bit hostile and only give the guys a $1, which probably would cover the repair costs, but these guys also lost some potentials fares tonight.  In any case, I was very disturbed by their attitudes toward the local men.  One guy only wanted to give about $.20, and the driver refused to take it and looked quite upset.  Then Mr. Pink shirt shows up, screaming some more, and shoving his finger into the guy's bony chest, yelling in English "You will die" or something like that.  I mean, these guys work for transnational companies and make big bucks.  Then they tried to say that the becak drivers wanted to trip them off, etc, and they wouldn't take it.  These bicycles are these guys' lives, their livelihoods, they only way they can make money to feed themselves and their kids, and the expats don't even care.  It's all fun and games.  Now, I did talk to the two Dutch guys and they were quite nice, so I don't want to paint them in a horrible light, but their demeanor was definitely lacking. . .

Here you can see the money he's trying to give them less than $1

The confrontation

Becak bling

Here's the second casuality - a flat tire

I was quite disturbed, and I went back into the kafe and told my new British friend about it.  He has lived all over the world as en engineer, in West Africa, Chile, Lybia, UAE, etc, and he just shook his head and says it's always the same, no matter where you are.  He said the Australians in Papua New Guinea are the worst he's seen.  Big white guys, acting childish and messing up things, then screaming their way out of it and refusing to take responsibility.  So later on, about 1am when I was getting my ride home with the same young guy as a few nights before, I kept trying to say in drunken Bahasa that I was sorry for these guys actions and we're all not like that.  "Do you understand what I want to say?" "Ya."  It started to rain and I let him wear my Penn Yan lacrosse raincoat.  I think he got my point.

Then these guys wanted me to take their photo.

Here's the expat club!

Indonesian Sarah Palin and John (she is not his wife)

How the evening went . . .

Dutchman with his beautiful Indonesian wife

German tour guide, been here for 15 years

What is Oxfam?

Oxfam GB's work in Indonesia

Well, many of you may be unfamiliar with Oxfam, unless you're British or Australian, where they have a constant presence.  Oxfam is one of the older international development agencies in the world, and one of the most esteemed.  They are a fundamental resource for research and data monitoring various transnational policies, they provide humanitarian aid in times of disaster, health and education, and they also campaign for an assortment of causes.  Oxfam started as a famine relief charity in the UK during World War II.  Since then it has grown and today there are now 15 different Oxfams: Oxfam Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand, Québec, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, India, Mexico and Great Britain, etc.  (I love how there is an Oxfam Canada and Oxfam Québec, bien sûr!) Oxfam International is attempting to bring all these agencies under one umbrella to reduce effort duplication.  I am working for Oxfam GB, funded by British taxpayers, a plethora of grants, and also in part by AusAID.

Oxfam has moved away from the model of sending Westerners into areas they are unfamiliar with to serve as 'experts' in places that they don't speak the language or understand the culture, to employing locals on the ground who then partner with other small local NGOs (non-governmental organisation) to implement projects.  Thus you will be hard pressed to find a bule (whitey) working for Oxfam in a foreign country, unless they are the Country Director.

Last year in Perth I did a bunch of different events with Oxfam: The Walk Against Walk, running fair trade stalls at concerts, staffing an information booth at my university, soliciting signatures to increase national contribution to foreign aid, and also attended their quiz nights, various presentations, and some training.  We also discussed Oxfam in my politics and development classes.  So I was pretty excited that I was assigned to work with them.

Of course many people are skeptical of NGOs and of giving funds to them.  Oxfam uses about 15% of donations for its own administrative purposes, as well as campaigning for more funds.  So that leaves 85% to go towards actual project implementation.  Oxfam is very committed to working on issues such as women's rights, climate change, land rights, and fair trade.  In the developed world, Oxfam sells second-hand clothing and fair trade products to increase their funds.  They also encourage things such as flash mobs, parades, walks, and other attention grabbers to highlight certain issues.  Here in Indonesia, both Oxfam GB and Oxfam Australia are working on climate change, women's rights, and labour rights.
My American friends may be familiar with Christopher McCandless, aka Alex Supertramp, who gave his 25,000$ to Oxfam and then set off to the Alaskan wilderness, related in 'Into the Wild.'  Oxfam constantly reevaluates its campaigns, management, staffing, ethics, and its overall approach to development.
Yes we do sit in an office that pumps out AC all day, Oxfam employees fly all over for conferences and projects, and it is easy to criticise their actions as hypocritical and whatnot.  Others may accuse them of perpetuating poverty, creating dependency, wasting money, and being self-serving.  The whole purpose of development NGOs is to work themselves out of a job, to be no longer needed.  Unfortunately that day still seems a long way off.  In the meantime, people need food and water during floods, tsunamis, landslides; women do need a push to get them to demand a voice in rural village politics where they have been marginalised for centuries, politicians do need a wake-up call to act on climate change, so Oxfam is still here.

Sekarang say tinggal di Makassar (Now I live in Makassar)

Selamat malam dan selamat datang di blog saya. Kemarin saya pergi ke Makassar naik pesawat dan saya tiba di kos jam lima pagi! Saya punya sopir taksi baik! Look how much Indonesian you can learn in two weeks!

Here is the location of Makassar, formerly known as Ujung-Pandang, on the map.  Just a two hour flight from Jakarta and a world away.  And oh so close to Darwin!

Escape from the big city! Jakarta is huuuuuge, especially when you see it from above at night. It just goes on and on and on. Makassar, located in South Sulawesi, is a city of 1.5 million and is described by Lonely Planet as huge. However, arriving in the wee hours of the morning, it seemed tiny. There are no skyscrapers, not many traffic jams, and the city definitely has a beach feel. Younger guys here sport board shorts, today the sun was shining, and the beach front park was jam packed. There are some decent sidewalks here as well. And not many foreigners.

 Losari Beach front, where the locals flock to for the sunset everynight.  Here's the Sunday arvo crowds.

I had a light breakfast at this ritzy hotel joint the morning I arrived, which consisted of tea, toast, pineapple, and juice.  Can't really see the view but the water is right there.

Sunday evening finds the beachside filled with sunset viewers.  Tonight I stopped at a bar mentioned in my guidebook, and it was Happy Hour! So a big Bintang is like 20,000 rupiah (like $2) (I paid more than double that for a small beer in Jakarta on Saturday!)  Alas, as I unfortunately have an aversion to most seafood, I cannot partake in the many delicacies that pop up nightly here.  I will do my best, but I just can't hack it.

The Oxfam office is about a 4 minute walk from my kos on small quiet streets, which every day involves greeting and smiling at every single person on the street. 'Selamat pagi' on the way there and 'Selamat malam' on the way home.  'How are you?' 'Where are you going?'  'Hello mister!'  When I feel like it I give brief English lessons to children: "Mister=laki-laki, Miss=perempuan.  Ok?"  to squeals of delight.

It's so different from Jakarta here; there are crosswalks on the streets (!) and people on bicycles and not much traffic!  Very relaxed.  I am, of course, the only foreigner in the office.  There are security guards, a driver, and a houseboy that cleans and brings us tea and coffee.  Quite the luxury, though the office is not at all like the swanky Jakarta-fancy-furniture-with-swimming-pool office.  My first day in the office I met with Pak Aloysius, the intimidatingly smart and motivated director, and spoke for about an hour.  He did a post-grad degree in Singapore in Public Policy, and has been working with Oxfam for seven years.  We talked about many things but mostly about climate change and how Oxfam hopes to influence policy makers through various campaigns.  For the rest of the day I began drafting a ToR (Terms of Reference), which are usually used seeking a consultant to perform various tasks related to data collection, except this ToR is for me.  So I will be travelling to Kupang next Tuesday with the head man here and also Richard, the British country director, all on Oxfam's budget.  There I will meet with a local partner NGO and travel to 2 villages to assess the level of change in the position of women's role in local government after the implementation of a recent Oxfam project.  So I get to go to the field!  Good thing, cause three days at the computer is already getting to me.  So I have to develop a serious of questions to pose to four different focus groups.  I will have an interpreter and a tape recorder and will have to code the data and finalise it all in a case study at the end.  All good stuff, and I actually feel quasi-prepared for this sort of work.  More about the work later.

View from the becak and the busiest road near my kos.

So in the evenings I get home after six and then take a becak (a bicycle-powered rickshaw) down to the beachfront and eat some dinner.  I have actually not felt that lonely though I do not know anyone here.  Last night I met a French guy (a 'political refugee' who described himself as 'left of far left,' my kind of person) and we spoke in French, English, and a little Indonesian.  Then his co-worker, an Indonesian named Marcel strangely enough (1/2 French?) showed up and they proceeded to pay for my beer and snack while I was in the bathroom.  Nice.  Then and they took me to a local warung (food stall) for some beef soup and rice.  Marcel ate what is the local speciality here coto Makassar - soup with cow innards (intestines, heart, and lungs).  I stuck with straight-up beef.  They gave me a ride back to my kos where my security guard buddy who had checked me in at 5am on Sunday was impressed that I showed up in such a nice vehicle with two strangers.  The first foreigner I had spoken to since I've been here.

On Saturday we are having a 9am meeting with a local partner NGO to discuss a new climate change project that Pak Aloy is drafting.  I am supposed to draft the Concept Note, and I am having some difficulties due to lack of information, but alas Pak Aloy went home sick, so I just have time to review qualitative data collecting methods as well as how to run a focus-group interview.  I am pretty nervous about this whole thing, mostly due to the language barrier and the fact that I have never done this before.  I will however be with someone from the partner NGO who probably knows the ropes.  Intimidating but  pretty excited.  

Kupang is located in Nusa Tenggara Timur- West Timor, and is one of the poorest provinces in the country.  Over 80% of its people are below the poverty line, and many are without electricity and potable water.  The climate there is also extremely dry - 8 months of dry season. The island used to actually be a part of Australia and thus is not volcanic and jungly like the rest of Indonesia.  One of the villages I will be visiting has no cars, stores, or pretty much anything, and people live in grass huts. Africa flashbacks I imagine.  More on NTT once I get there next week.

Also, this Saturday I hope to partake in the local Hash Harriers club.  It's not what it sounds, it's a running club that meets every week, runs through the jungle for about 6 miles, and then drinks massive amounts of beer, apparently.  A good way to meet people, so we'll see how it goes.  Though I am not the best distance runner, I saw some photos from the group and I think I can keep up with some of the older, beer-bellied guys.

Tata!

This Week in Jakarta . . .

So I already wrote about Monday and our visit with Kevin Rudd.  We also have had numerous other adventures and lectures in the past two weeks.  Here goes.

So every day we would have a 4 hour language class which culminated in a much-anticipated but insanely easy test on Friday morning. For us beginners this involved a simple double sided page in which we had to write basic stuff like, my name is, i was born, i'm not married (yet!), etc. So classes finished yesterday and it is now up to me to get my in Bahasa, especially going to Makassar and perhaps Kupang where English is not widely spoken.  But I am up for the challenge!

Last week we had lectures from various experts on religion, the economy, politics, and also inequity and poverty.  We went to the Australian embassy and were briefed on security as well as AusAID's (Australia's international development agency) role here in Indonesia.  All good stuff.  The on Tuesday we had our first field trip.  We were informed we would be visiting a garbage dump but instead we went to a riverside 'slum' where the kids sang us a song and we were welcomed into the inhabitants' one-room dwellings.

Now last year I did a huge, mind-engulfing project on slums, and read a ton of information from UN-HABITAT and other sources, so I knew some basic statistics such as, there are over one billion people living in slums, etc.  However I had never really stepped foot in one.  And you know, it's really not that bad.  Granted, there are 6-8 people sharing a single room, but everyone was happy and smiling and the kids were running around the narrow, bamboo-floored alleys seeming to have a great time.  Most of the rooms had tvs and all had electricity.  Pictures of the kids graduating from kindergarden were hung on the walls.  It didn't even smell, though there was a ton of rubbish everywhere.  And the rooms can get flooded easily.  They are literally built over a river with whatever scraps, metal, and wood that can be found.

Here are some pictures, thanks to Pip Smith, as I didn't have my camera that day.

Always smiling, always surrounded by friends, these kids go to a local school for free, but only until about 12pm.

Just in view of the urban elite!

We took these bajaj into the neighbourhood.  They are noisy, dirty, cheap, and pretty fun! How else can four people snake through traffic?

Here is the view from the tour at the maritime museum, build by the Dutch the in 18th century.

Into the neighbourhood, kampung, on the river which feeds directly into the harbour.

The owners of these boats tried to get us in.  The colours are quite a contrast to the nasty water below.

300 families live in this tiny block, most have 2 or more families per room.  They have to pay about 30-40$ a month rent and many people are unemployed.  The children don't seem to find, though one did say, 'Where is the money mister?'

This is their world, their street.

In this one room 6 people live, eat, and sleep.  All are unemployed.

We were quite the attraction and the kids sang us a song, and loved getting their photo taken.

All in all a good experience, though brief, and it really makes you question your own views of poverty.  Many people lacked employment, but no one goes hungry.  I think the biggest issue facing these people is sanitation, as I assume if they do have any toilet facilities, it just drops down into the river, and there is no access to water within the small neighbourhood.  I also witnessed an old woman taking out the trash, which involved chucking her bag into the river.  The area is also very prone to floods, and then the families go and sleep in the nearby fish market.


Aside from this, we also visited a local NGO called stigma which works with drug users, educating them about the risk and HIV.  We thought we were going to an actual AIDS clinic and after a near 2 hour bus ride arrived at a small, unassuming house and were given a brief presentation about the group's work, which is mostly in education and a needle exchange.  Kind of disappointing as we were only there for like 30 minutes.
Wednesday night about half of our group met up for dinner for a small farewell party for myself and the three others who will be leaving Jakarta this weekend. We drank many pitchers of Bintang and I tried to give a short speech.  Good fun, and I ate chicken alfredo for dinner, satisfying my craving for western food.
On Thursday myself and the two other Oxfam interns went to their Jakarta office, which was quite swank and had a swimming pool!  We were informed on the other two interns' work, which for Jack involves proposal writing, monitoring and visiting current project sites, as well as impact evaluation.  Pip will be working on food justice and security.  There was only one foreigner in the office, the British country director.  He just looked at me as said, 'Well, I don't know what you'll be doing.'  As I fly to Makassar tonight, I still don't have a clue.

Friday, test, a farewell lunch, and then a bus to Bogor, a city about an hour south of Jakarta.  Here is the international headquarters for CIFOR, the Centre for International Forestry Research.  Fittingly situated in the middle of a dense, jungle forest, CIFOR is one of the leading organisations dedicated to research and implementing policy changes, especially surrounded reforestation and prevention of clear cutting.  The compound was huge and had swimming pools, tennis courts, fitness centre, and guest houses, as well as some trails into the jungle.  We were given an amazing presentation on their work, which is embracing the internet and social media in an effort to get there message out.  As forests are linked to climate change, poverty, gender inequity, and a whole range of issues, it was quite an amazing place, full of researchers from around the world that work in the Indonesia/Malaysia region, the Congo basic, and the Amazon.

Here is the video we watched, which was quite informational.

This woman is the Director General for CIFOR addressing members of the UN's FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) conference, explaining their new approach to communication, which is key for any real changes to policy to take place.

As you may or may not now, logging is a serious issue here in Indonesia, especially as rainforests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. CIFOR is striving to prevent this and has actually been quite successful in reaching policy makers, especially those at the UN. A former ACICIS intern now is employed there full time, and one of us will be working there for the next month as well.

So all in all, it has been 2 weeks of a ton of information jammed into our heads. Now it is time to put all this newfound knowledge to use. Some of us ACICIS people are working at AUSAid, the UN, the ILO (International Labour Org), The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, some smaller human rights orgs, and the journalists working at various newspapers, magazines, and media outlets. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but tonight at 12:45am I catch a flight to Makassar in South Sulawesi to see what lies for me there. Stay tuned!

An Amazing Weekend!

 So -
I have only one full weekend in Jakarta before I ship off to Sulawesi and beyond.  The big question, what to do?  Go to some islands north of the city? Or head south into the cooler highlands, ringed by volcanoes and studded with rice paddies?  Fresh air, here we come.
After some planning, on the part of a fellow ACICIS member, we booked ourselves in the Cianjur Adventure homestay accommodation and tour.  Cianjur is a smaller city about 120 km from Jakarta but takes about four hours to reach due to traffic and crazy winding roads.  Twelve of us decided to head there for the weekend. We all brought our stuff to uni on Friday and were picked up by two guys in vans.  Two groups of six in the vans and we were off.  The ride brought us down the toll road, past the city of Bogor, with views of green mountains and fields to greet our city-weary eyes.  The ride was pretty uneventful except for a brief detour through some crazy steep roads and a few rest stops.  We arrived around nine, exhausted, and were fed some nasi goreng (fried rice).  We decided on an action plan for the following day, half of the group headed off to the bamboo hut while the rest of us crashed in the rooms provided.  I shared a bed with Sarah, a fellow Murdoch student, and we chatted for a while before falling asleep.  BAM the mosque woke us all up, and all I felt was, you gotta be kidding me.  The speaker was literally across the street.  But it was brief, and we slept not so fitfully, and were up at seven. 

So the twelve of us piled into an angkot, a local van transport, and headed out of town into the hills. We stopped and began to stroll down into beautiful, terraced rice paddies. We all pulled in deep breaths of mountain fresh air and took insane amounts of photos. We walked up and down rocky paths for an hour or so, visiting a small rice mill, finally arriving at our lunch destination, a few houses where some local women were busy cooking up a feast for us. Here there is no electricity or running water, and everyone grows most of their own food. In the other house a woman was boiling sugar cane sap into brown sugar, which we tasted hot off the fire.

Rice likes rain.

Here is the man working in the local rice mill, powered by a generator.  The mill is cooperatively owned and funded by the government.

Here is our host, a smiling and charming woman who has lived in these hills her whole life.  Jakarta would be quite a shock for her I imagine!

And lunch, fresh local, healthy vegetarian food, served with white rice, of course.

Here's the girls trying the freshly produced brown sugar.  It looked like fudge and then hardened before our eyes.  Yum!

After lunch it began to rain so we waited in the house for it to stop.  Then we walked about another half hour back to the main road.  Here a random ute (pickup) picked all of us and our two guides up, and we started rallying up the steep roads towards the tea plantation.  It rained again and we sought refuge in a small roadside shelter, entertaining ourselves with charades, everyone smiling and in high spirits.

Jumping into the back of the truck with 12 wet foreigners and our guides.

Here's David, one of our guides, enjoying himself in the mist from the waterfall.



Eventually we arrived in the tea plantation, and took a quick walk down to the waterfall in the drizzle.  Photo ops ensured.  Back into the ute and an hour ride back into Cianjur.  I stood up in the front the whole time, getting quite wet.

Back at the house, we all took hot showers and rested, and were soon picked up by a local restaurant owner who took us to his place and gave us the royal treatment.  All I wanted was a cold beer but alas, this town is quite Muslim, and no alcohol was served.  So on the way to our bamboo hut we stopped at a small convenience store and bought all of their 'cold' canned beer.

After an evening of warm canned beer and conversation, we awoke in our bamboo hut in front of a rice field with people working away.  Ring ring goes a random phone from inside the hut.  We are invited to a wedding!  Right now! In our dirty clothes! Would we like to go? But of course! And we're off. . .






Here's the bride who greeted us like family and had us take numerous pictures with her bridal party. W e were quite the celebrities and everyone wanted a picture with us, especially the women with the Aussie men.

                                                      

All in all a great time!  Back to Jakarta in the insane traffic which ensues each Sunday, exhausted, but happy.