1. My placement : last Saturday (5th June) was my last day working at RSUD dr. TC HILLERS, Maumere.As one reader pointed out to me in an email last week, I haven't said much about the work part of my placement on here. That's true, for a number of reasons : firstly, I'm not sure how much of it would be of any interest to anyone; secondly, much of the time there wasn't a lot to write about and thirdly, you never know who's reading these things ! However, the wrap up process got under way a couple of weeks ago with a formal meeting between VSO, the hospital and me so there were few formalities left to complete, just the usual rush of completing half done tasks, copying things on to a CD (no fancy shared drives here) and leaving a list of things that needed to be followed up.
2. My camera : my little camera, which has given sterling service while I've been here decided to stop recognising the memory card as a group of us posed for the very last photo before I left the house for the airport on Tuessday. Timing, eh ? The problem is that the same memory card still contains lots of photos which I haven't yet copied to my laptop so I'm hoping that it can be salvaged. So this post will be photoless I'm afraid.
3. My run of good health : my leg injury (remember my leg ?) suddenly flared up again last Sunday and it transpired that, despite looking good on the surface, an infection had been lurking beneath. This has necessitated daily hospital visits this week, with the insertion of a drain for a few days and now (in Bali) daily dressing changes). Fortunately the surgeon I have been seeing in Bali is happy for me to fly which is a relief but I may need some further treatment on arrival in London tomorrow (Saturday). At least the pain I experienced last Sunday has subsided and I can walk now...
4. My time in Maumere : I can honestly say that I never thought it would be so hard to leave and say goodbye and it's not until the last couple of days that you realise the attachments that you have developed to the people, the place and the way of life. I'm sure that it's going to be equally hard to settle back in at home.
Anyway, that's enough misery - I'm now in Bali on a sunny Friday afternoon,. having completed my exit interview with VSO, sorted out my finances with the finance manager, (almost) finished packing, and am almost ready to head to the hospital in an hour or so. From there it's straight to the airport for a departure at 10.30 pm or thereabouts.
I’ve been away from Maumere for over a week so here’s a bit of a catch up...
Every year VSO Indonesia holds an Annual Volunteer Conference (AVC), a gathering of all the volunteers in Indonesia. The objectives are to get together, have some fun, share some skills and catch up with friends that we may not have seen for twelve months. By definition, one of the strange things about volunteering is the rather transient nature of these contacts – you are thrown together with fellow volunteers from all over the place but most of us go home after two years so, apart from the initial seven weeks orientation course, our face to face contact is pretty limited. This year’s event was held in Bali, an added attraction and was my first time off Flores since last September. This year’s AVC also gave us a chance to meet the recently arrived new volunteers, the first arrivals since my own group just over a year ago (normally there would be three groups per year but the visa problems of last year meant no further arrivals until recently).
As part of the three day event, the custom is to include a “community day” which is pretty self descriptive. Last year in Kupang, we helped 5 local villages to plant a small vegetable garden beside their local health centre and gave some training to young mothers on nutrition and food groups. This year, we teamed up with a local community group to do two activities – a cleanup of their area followed by coral planting in the afternoon. As I have blogged before, there is no shortage of litter in Indonesia, partly due to lack of infrastructure such as bins, garbage collection facilities, etc. so this is a bout seemingly impossible task. However, the greater value probably lies not in what we managed to pick up but the small example that was set to the local community by a group of about 25 foreigners descending on their sleepy community armed with rubbish bags and picking up their rubbish !
In the afternoon, we helped the local group with one of their principal activities – coral planting. The objective is to provide additional habitats for fish, thereby increasing the capacity of local fishermen to feed their families and earn an income. I won’t give you the full blow by blow account but a brief summary is as follows: The coral is first harvested from an existing “coral garden” and taken (in a hurry) to a nearby beach. (This stage is usually carried out on the boat but some of our volunteers were looking a bit green !) Then the harvested branches are carefully cut into smaller sprigs, each of which is then cemented into a small holder. These holders are then placed into holes in a concrete frame (ours had been made in the letters VSO) which has previously been placed on the sea bed. This all sounds nice and easy - the problem was that the concrete frame was under about 3 metres of rather murky water and there was a big swell as it was a very windy day ! Anyway, we eventually succeeded in planting all the stems (125 of them) and they are now happily growing at the bottom of the sea at Pulau Serangan in Bali.
After the three days of our AVC, we were joined by employers from all over Indonesia for the Annual Sector Workshops. This is an opportunity for volunteers and employers to review VSO’s programmes, discuss future plans, meet with programme office staff (and also have a bit of fun of course). The last night of this workshop was a cultural night where volunteers and employers all provided some entertainment from their own country or region (with volunteers also joining in their employers’ display). Now there are a few more Indonesians who know a little more details about Molly Malone’s (alleged) sideline....
After the sector workshops, most people headed home last Thursday and Friday. However, Idecided to treat myself and had booked myself into a nice hotel in Sanur (south east coast of Bali) for three nights. This was a great break – a nice hotel, western food, two swimming pools, on the beach.... My stay cost about €230 - however, it was difficult not to feel more than a little guilty. This is about three months’ pay for a qualified blood transfusion technician in the hospital (and the return flight to Bali would cost another two months’ pay).
So, on Sunday I made my way back to Maumere and home. Strangely, i was looking forward to a meal in a local warung that night and spent just a fraction of what my meals during the previous days had cost. I have about ten or eleven weeks to go here but time seems to be speeding up a lot now and I have Rosemary & Helmut’s visit to look forward to in four weeks’ time so that will be another week off work as we travel from Labuanbajo (at the western end of Flores) to Maumere.
This is Philip, who is going to be our guide and driver :
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone, hope you all had a good one !
As you will have seen from my last post (pay attention at the back) Flores is a predominately Roman Catholic island and one of the principal exports (apart from bananas) is priests - there are lots of seminaries here.
Last week, I had a visit from Father Hubert. Father Hubert is (rather unusually I guess) our passport agent in Maumere and assists VSO volunteers with the tedious bureaucratic process of getting visas, fingerprints, etc. He usually just does this for the religious community but also helps us out too. As well as managing this busy office, he's on the teaching staff at Ledalero, a large seminary of the Divine Word Society just outside Maumere and is responsible for the English language course for newly ordained priests who are about to depart for foreign parts. He came to ask for some help - before the current course ends, he wanted to give his students some exposure to native speakers and so he asked the three English speaking volunteers living in Maumere if we would be willing to help out. And so it was that an Irish Prod ended up facilitating a discussion group for 14 newly ordained priests on Tuesday and Wednesday evening this week.
This was yet another new experience in my book (and a new way to spend St. Patrick's Day) and, although I went with some trepidation, it was a really enjoyable time. As with everyone in Flores, the welcome I received here was second to none, and the enthusiasm and dedication of these young men was extremely impressive. They are all about to head off to far flung places such as Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, other parts of Indonesia and (surprisingly for me (California).
One of the subjects that Father Hubert asked me to talk to them about was culture shock and my experience of moving to a new country with different language, culture, religious practices, etc. I was quick to explain to them that when I arrived in Indonesia I had the comfort of knowing that, no matter how awful it turned out to be, I would be going back home in a year and a half. These guys, however, are going forever, and as one of them remarked "Forever is a long time!".
I'm writing this in Bali on Thursday afternoon, where I arrived this morning. The next few days sees VSO's Annual Volunteer Conference, when all volunteers and staff of VSO in Indonesia will get together for a few days of skill sharing, training and updates. Our conference always includes a "community day" which this year is helping a local group with a coral planting project. At the moment, I have no idea how you go about planting coral but I hope to be able to tell you more next week !
Apologies for the lack of input this week, it seems as if not a lot happens on a day to day basis but when I think back, it wasn't all bad... I had a favourable response this week from one of the hotels I've been chasing in Bali who have very generously offered to let us have a few hundred bed sheets and blankets that they no longer require - all I have to do now is somehow arrange to get them collected and delivered to Flores ! (another challenge...)
I started work this week on a project connected with the HR aspects of the hospital. Initially, this will involve job descriptions and will move on to include some HR policies, a simple performance management system and hopefully eventually some agreement on competencies. (To any HR pros reading this, I know that this seems like the wrong way around but, believe me, anything will be an improvement and we need to start with some very small steps...)
My radio career continues unabated, it's now Saturday morning and I'm on the air again at 12 noon for another hour of waffle in English.
This week sadly we said goodbye to another volunteer from Maumere. Jess has unfortunately had to return home to the US early for personal reasons. When I arrived in Maumere, there were seven VSO volunteers here - now there are three. Two left when their placements ended in the normal course of events, one has had to return home temporarily due to the continuing visa problems, and this week saw Jess's departure. Of the group of ten of us who arrived in Denpasar on 9th February (six months ago exactly), there are now two left in Indonesia. (Two are temporarily at home due to family illnesses but are expected to return.) The visa situation has still not been resolved and this week VSO informed us that they have reluctantly had to cancel the (already delayed) group of new volunteers due to arrive in September. This means that the next intake will be in January, almost a year after my arrival. Normally, there are three intakes a year so you can imagine what effect this ongoing disruption is having on VSO's volunteer numbers and work here.
Tomorrow (Sunday) promises to be an interesting one : I have been invited to a party which is part of the pre-wedding formalities for a friend who works in the hospital. There is a strong tradition of belis (brideprice or dowry) here and (as far as I can understand) tomorrow's event is the formal exchange between the families of the belis. More to follow...
Another month begins and what I have got to report ?
Well, last Tuesday I took an English class for a friend who was away for a few days. The class consists of a group of ten year olds who are the children of, or related to, a local hotel owner. I was surprised to find that their vocabulary was better than expected – however, they had lots of problems with word order and sentence construction. From my own bitter experience, the temptation when learning a new language is to try and translate directly from your native language - this is almost always a recipe for mangling ! One example where this is particularly obvious in Indonesian is when speaking to someone older or of higher status (e.g. to a teacher, doctor or parent). In Indonesian, it would be perfectly normal (and very respectful) to address the person to whom you are speaking in the third person and refer to them as Ibu (for a lady) or Bapak (for a man). So, it is quite in order to say "has Bapak eaten yet ?" rather than the less respectful "have you eaten yet ?". However, many Indonesians when speaking English then translate this literally into English and also translate the work bapak into the literal translation "father". This resulted in an interesting conversation recently with a group of students at a local seminary who were keen to find out what I thought of Indonesia but kept asking me questions like "what does father think of the food in Maumere?". I eventually managed to explain to them that I was not a father of any sort !
On Saturday, Peter and I left home bright and early to head to the airport for our visa trip. This was a rather protracted business which involved spending four nights away from Maumere, one of which was in the bright lights of Singapore and three in Sanur (a suburb of Denpasar on Bali) on the way there and back. The time spent in Singapore was short (less than twenty four hours) but long enough to meet the passport agent twice, have a few big meals and a couple of glasses of red wine. Yesterday evening (Wednesday) we arrived back home in Maumere (writing that felt a bit weird !) and met the local passport agent who today starts the process of applying for my KITAS (temporary residence permit. This simple matter looks like it will take about a week to achieve as one of the documents needed has to be signed by the hospital director who is at a conference in Bali until the weekend. The pile of paperwork needed to support the application is very impressive and includes my CV from home (in English) and no less than fourteen photographs in three different sizes ! I can report that bureaucracy is alive and well in Indonesia....
On the work front, the last thing I did before leaving for Bali was to hit "send" on an email enclosing a completed application to an Australian foundation for a small grant to fund a project to promote Health Worker Safety. I received a quick acknowledgement saying that they've received the application and that it appears to fit their criteria so all I can do now is wait until the committee reviews applications. In the meantime, the work of gathering information on how to set up an Infection Control Committee in a "resource constrained environment" continues and I must thank all my friends, former colleagues and especially customers who have provided me with tons of useful information. One of the main priorities of the Infection Control Committee will be to establish policies and guidelines about hygiene (especially handwashing). However, one of the biggest challenges is lack of money (and therefore, equipment) so anything that requires spending money just ain't going to happen !
For instance, something as simple as a proper mop is an alien concept here – floors are mopped with water (no detergents) and a torn up bedsheet pushed around with a bamboo pole. Forget about the questionable hygiene aspects of this operation, the efficiency isn't great either as the area of the end of the bamboo pole must be only about 3 or 4cm square !
Firstly, apologies for the long gap between posts, it’s been a busy week !
Last Thursday and Friday, we all had the pleasure of meeting representatives of our future employers for the first time at a workshop run by VSO in Denpasar. The two day workshop included sessions on cultural differences, practical subjects such as finance and accommodation and also an introduction to VSO’s “cross-cutting” theme of disability. Each volunteer, regardless of the specific programme area in which we are working, is expected to come up with some initiatives to raise the awareness of disability in their placement. For some, this is easier and more obviously achievable than others but for others it may be something as simple as a short session to highlight the difficulties that a wheelchair user may have in gaining access to a building (assuming of course that they have managed to negotiate the treacherous or non-existent footpaths to get to the building in the first place !). The workshop was a great success and the opportunity it provided to meet our future employers for the first time in a “neutral” venue was an excellent investment by VSO. There were also plenty of opportunities for socialising, including a bowling night which is best glossed over.
On Saturday, we (Peter and I) flew from Denpasar to Maumere on Flores (via Sumba) and checked in to our (pretty basic but clean) hotel in the centre of Maumere for our one week orientation visit to Maumere. On Sunday, our two hosts from the hospital, Marlina and Yani, took us on a motorbike tour of the town and surrounds and showed us the house which has been allocated to us. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get inside the house as the doctor living there was out and his pembantu (housemaid) quite understandably wasn’t willing to let us look around in his absence. However, the house seems fine from the outside – it is about 5km from the hospital on a quietish street very near the town centre. We hope to get inside the house to take a look before we leave to go back to Maumere so we can decide what we may need to buy in Bali that is not available here.
I've already posted about the daily offerings that Balinese families leave at the temples in their homes, outside their gate, and even in the middle of busy road junctions. These are just one of many examples of how inextricably Bali's religion (Hinduism) and daily life are linked together, and visible to everyone.
This week, as Ireland celebrates St. Patrick's Day, the island is grinding to a halt as the Balinese start a series of religious celebrations that will last for more than a week. This Wednesday is Galungan which is probably best described as a thanksgiving celebration. Every temple has been decked out in new finery (yellow cloths etc.) and the streets are lined with penjors (tall decorated bamboo poles) at the entrance to every house or family compound (Balinese families never seem to move very far away from each other !) . The womenfolk have been busy cooking all sorts of delicacies for the feasting ahead while the men traditionally spent yesterday slaughtering for the feast. Pak Agung told me that the tradition was to catch and kill a turtle but due to western "influence", an unfortunate pig is now the usual victim. Last weekend I saw a small truck with about ten large trussed and kicking pigs on their final journey and yesterday as I cycled back from school,I saw a slaughtering taking place at a banjar (local village meeting place) near where I am staying. Next week sees Nyepi (the Balinese New Year). Bali has its own calendar which has six months, each containing 35 days (i.e. 210 days in a year). The festival of Nyepi is quite extraordinary - it starts the previous day with all sorts of celebrations and riotous partying culminating in a symbolic driving of the evil spirits into the sea. From 6 am onwards for twenty four hours , the island (yes, all of it !) remains completely silent so that the spirits will think that the island is deserted and will go elsewhere. Every school and business remains closed and everyone stays at home (I mean this quite literally - nobody will even consider leave their home for the whole day for any reason whatsoever other than imminent death or childbirth) and the streets will be completely deserted except for the traditional security police who will be patrolling to ensure that Nyepi is being observed properly. Every home will be quiet, with no fires, no visible lights, no TV or radio, and plenty of time for quiet personal reflection. Even the airport will be closed and the beaches will be deserted for the day - the only exception seems to be emergency hospital services. Unfortunately, this coincides with my week long field visit to Flores so I won't experience it for myself (Nyepi is a Balinese festival and is not observed in other parts of Indonesia, or indeed, in other Hindu countries).
It’s now Tuesday at about 1800hrs and I’ve just passed a pleasant hour and a half in the company of Pak Agung, who was busy digging in his garden (from a rather relaxed seated position) when I arrived home on my sepeda (bicycle) but stopped immediately to sit down and drink tea and have a chat when I arrived while Ibu Agung was helping some of the local children with their homework. One of the most noticeable differences between Asia and the western world is the different pace of life in general and time is always taken to stop and chat, even during a busy working day.
Yesterday evening, I returned from Kupang to my homestay and, as expected, had a debrief on arrival after presenting Pak and Ibu Agung with some oleh-oleh (small souvenirs – very much expected of anyone arriving back from a trip away). I brought them some small packs of peanut and tamarind snacks which are apparently specific to West Timor.
The trip to Kupang was really interesting for many reasons – for a start, it was my first experience of Indonesia outside the relatively civilised atmosphere of Denpasar. Indonesia is divided into provinces (I’m not sure how many yet !) and the one in which many VSO volunteers are placed is called Nusa Tenggara Timur (known by everyone as NTT). The town of Kupang on the island of West Timor is the provincial capital of NTT and it is here that VSO Indonesia held their Annual Sector Workshops with partnering employers from all over Indonesia, followed by the Annual Volunteer Conference last week. I believe that the town has a population of about 150,000 and, although most of the time we were based in a hotel for the conference sessions, we did have an opportunity to see some of the town. I am told that the town is similar to Maumere in terms of facilities (but about twice the size) so it was very interesting to see somewhere with less tourism than Bali.
One of the first impressions one gets after arriving is of the bemos (small minibuses, privately owned and operated, but providing a regular public transport service, usually on set routes). In Denpasar, these are rather tatty little minibuses which trundle around picking up passengers and dropping them off as required. In Kupang, the service is at a completely different level – there seem to be hundreds and hundreds of bemos all competing for business. Business is not the only thing they compete for -they also try to outdo each other in their garishness, accessories and loudness – stickers everywhere, blaring klaxons, very long antennae and thumping sound systems that any disco or nightclub would be proud of. They also all carry a conductor hanging out of the side door whose responsibility it is to tout for business from pedestrians as they drive along and also to collect the cash – the standard fare in the townis about Rp2,000 (about €0.13). The drivers seem to have an average age of about 15 and most of them drive like 12 year olds on ecstasy.
The conference (organised largely by volunteers themselves) provided us newbies with a great opportunity to meet the more seasoned volunteers from all over Indonesia and to participate in a variety of sessions. I won’t give a complete rundown of the conference agenda but some of the highlights were sessions on globalisation and an afternoon of skills sharing workshops given by volunteers with particular expertise in various areas to their fellow colleagues. Topics covered included such diverse subjects as presentation skills, movie making, and gardening in Indonesia among others. The two which I attended were an introduction to sign language (given in complete silence by Nick, a deaf English VSO volunteer who is based in Yogyakarta on Java) and cookery for volunteers (given by two experienced volunteers who were able to offer all sorts of useful advice on how to adapt our imported tastes and customs to what is available locally).
On Sunday (the final day of the conference) we participated in a Community Day in a local village. It is VSO’spolicy to contribute something to the local community at each Annual Conference and this year’s project focused on starting five small kebun gizis (gardens with a strong emphasis on nutrition) in a nearby village. So, on Sunday morning we were divided up into five groups and headed off in a fleet of the afore-mentioned bemos for a life threatening trip to the village in question. On arrival, in true Indonesian style, we were greeted with a welcoming dance and an elaborate ceremony of speeches and symbolic presentations by the community leaders and VSO’s country director (and of course, a meal), before heading off to our various garden locations. There, we were greeted by yet more food before one of the volunteers gave a simple illustrated presentation on the importance of nutrition and a balanced diet to the mothers of the area. After that, it was off to the garden where we showed some of the community how to prepare the ground for planting, how to use compost and how to prepare seed beds before planting seedlings out into the prepared ground. After all five groups returned to where we had started from, there was yet another meal (our fifth that day and this was only 3pm) and more ceremonial speech-making and presentations, followed by a dance session for all present. After a long handshaking session (it takes a long time for 60 VSO people to shake the hands of every one of 50 community representatives) we climbed back into our garish bemos for the terrifying trip home.
That night (Sunday) a real treat was in store for a few of us : one of the newly arrived volunteers had, through a friend, received an invitation for five of us to visit the home of an Indonesian concert pianist who lives in Kupang and listen to him rehearse his programme for a solo concert he is giving in Jakarta next week. So it was that five of us lucky volunteers were collected from our hotel by Teguh Sukaryo in person and taken to his home for a virtuoso performance which included Brahms’ 25 Handel Variations & Fugue and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Not content with entertaining us in such spectacular style on the only grand piano in the province of NTT, Teguh then took us for a Kupang feast of jagung roti (roast corn on the cob) at a streetside stall before bringing us back to our hotel at midnight. After his concert in Jakarta next Sunday, Teguh is staying on Java for another two weeks to record a CD so watch out for it online in the next month or two !
This morning, it was back to school again. We have all successfully “graduated” from module no. 1 and are now moving to far more complicated stuff, such as transitive and intransitive verbs. More later this week, I’m off to do my homework now.....
PS. Your language lesson for today has already been included in this post !
When I received my passport and visa for Indonesia back from London (just in time too, they were delayed by the more or less complete shutdown of London in the snow on Monday & Tuesday), I was pleasantly surprised to see that my baggage allowance for the sectors from London to Denpasar was a generous 35kgs. Apparently I’m travelling on a missionary ticket - the airlines only issue these to registered charities and they have a more generous baggage allowance than regular economy tickets and less stringent cancellation and amendment policies. However, this surprise was dampened a little when I saw that my allowance for the Dublin – London sector of my journey was a miserly 20kgs ! However, after a couple of calls to BMI’s call centre on Friday afternoon, they kindly agreed to amend the allowance on my ticket to the higher limit for the first flight also. So, I’ve left my car behind, checked in, disposed of two large bags which I hope to see again in Bali tomorrow and am now looking out of the window in the departures area at a completely white apron and runway as a light dusting of snow falls. This is of some concern to me as Dublin Airport does not seem to have a great history of dealing well with the white stuff and, in fact, the airport was closed by snow for some hours last Thursday afternoon, resulting in over 170 flights being either diverted or cancelled. As I have just 90 minutes between flights in Heathrow and have to get from T1 to T3 in that time, I can’t afford any delays on this leg ! The airport is very busy (but rather subdued) with lots of despondent French rugby supporters who are still reeling from the shock of yesterday’s defeat in Croke Park. What a great start to the season - even Hooky seemed to enjoy it despite himself !
I’m going to post this shortly so (assuming that the snow doesn’t interfere) this will be my last post from recession struck Europe for quite a while. The next update should come from nice warm Denpasar sometime later this week. However, just as I was about to click “POST” there was an announcement about a cancelled flight due to “adverse weather”. Fingers crossed..
In the meantime, while I’m gone please all do your bit for the country, stop saving and get out there and start spending – there are plenty of empty seats in restaurants (at least the ones that are still open although I noted that Café Bar Deli in Bray closed its doors for the last time yesterday) and there are some good deals to be had ! It’s a great time to buy a second hand car too.Hopefully by the time I get back¸ between you, you’ll have sorted it all out and the place will be flying again......
