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.
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.
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.
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!
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