Full to bursting...

Well, another Monday rolls around and another week in the busy life of the hospital in Maumere gets going. At the moment the hospital is full to bursting - BOR (Bed Occupancy Rate) is 98% and there are about 15 patients lying on trolleys in the A&E department because there are no beds in the wards to admit them to - sound familiar ? However, the reason for this overcrowding is a little different to what we are used to at home - in this case, most of the patients are children rather than elderly patients with 'flu. This is apparently an annnual phenomenon which happens when the mango season starts and the hopsital is inundated with children with severe diarrhoea, partly from eating too many mangoes but mainly from poor hygiene practices.

Office hours here are "officially" 7 am to 2 pm Monday to Thursday, 7 am to 11 am on Friday (to allow Muslim employees time for prayer) and 7 am to 12.30 pm on Saturday. However, the first event of the day every day except Friday is Pagi Apel, best compared to a school assembly. This takes place at 7.30 am (or is supposed to, it usually gets going at about 7.40) and so guess what - the number of employees who turn up at 7am, start work and then present for Apel at 7.30 is approximately nil. For me, this means getting up at about 6.45ish, having a wash, breakfast and 100mg of doxycyline (my daily antimalarial), leaving the house at 7.29 and arriving at work at 7.30. Living on the hospital campus has its advantages, it's easy to go home for a coffee break mid-morning too !

The week just past was not patricularly eventful - we had a visitor staying in our house for a couple of nights as a volunteer friend from Ende (about 150 kms west of Maumere) was passing through on his way to and from Singapore for visa renewal. One of the unexpected benefits of becoming a volunteer, apart of course from the opportunity to experience living in a very different culture, has been the chance to meet fellow volunteers from many different cultures and backgrounds and this is one of the memories I will treasure when I return home.

As well as Stephen's visit this week, the other notable event last week was the town's Pameran (exhibition). This is part of the Independence Day celebrations and comprised a collection of trade stands - mostly from government departments, of which there seem to be hundreds - and a nightly display of cultural exhibits such as local traditional dances. I visited twice during the week and was very impressed by the display put on - the local dances are quite spectacular and the costumes very impressive. Sorry, I have no photos to share as I'd lent my camera to a friend that day (very boring I know).

More later this week.... 

Tree on Orange

Just for a change, this has nothing at all to do with Indonesia but I thought that this was a beautiful photograph from my good friend Ray McDermott and I'm sure (I hope !) that he won't mind me posting it here. If you want to see more of Ray's excellent camerawork, take a look at his Flickr page HERE : http://www.flickr.com/photos/galwayray/




Tree on Orange
Originally uploaded by galwayray

KARNAVAL !

As part of the continuing Independence Day celebrations, yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon was the annual karnaval - this was a parade lasting more than an hour and a half through the streets of Maumere of all the schools in the town. Almost every child participated and they were dressed in all sorts of costumes - there were doctors, policemen, soldiers, nurses as well as many Indonesian regional traditional costumes. My facebook page (just click on the link) has more photos but here are a few :

Dirgahayu Republik Indonesia !

The weekend just past was a long one for me – I decided on Thursday afternoon to take Friday and Saturday off work and go back to visit the three coloured lakes at Kelimutu again. This time I went in the company of a friend from Maumere for what turned out to be his first holiday ever. On Friday we left Maumere and took our time getting to Moni, the village closest to Kelimutu, about 95kms from here and about 1600m higher (and therefore pleasantly cooler). The place we stayed was inundated with mosquitoes and didn't provide nets so fingers crossed...... On Saturday morning we joined the tourist trail (the lakes at Kelimutu are one of the "must see" sights for any visitors to Flores) on the climb to the lakes about 15kms above Moni.

We were lucky to have about two hours of great visibility there before the clouds started to roll in.

After our brief holiday we returned to Maumere on Sunday afternoon, just in time for a day off on Monday to celebrate Indonesia's 64^th birthday.

The day started with Apel (formal parade) at 7 am in the main public field in the town, with the Chief Inspector being the Bupati (regent). The Bupati is elected every five years at district level so the one in Maumere is responsible for the Sikka District, population about 300,000, of which Maumere is the principal town. This morning's 7am Apel finally got under way at 7.55 (not unusual) and consisted of a few formalities and most surprisingly, no speeches ! The main event was the reading of the declaration of independence and the raising of the flag.

The long delay and the relentless sun (even at that hour) took their toll on many of the schoolchildren on parade and I counted more than twenty fainting just in the section in front of me. As well as most of the schools in Maumere, all government departments, army and police were represented, together with the drum majorettes.

I have just tried to upload a video clip for the first time but the connection won't stay up for long enough to complete the upload - sorry !

Shipping news

This rather fine looking vessel has been anchored outside the harbour on and off for the last few days. I haven't been able to find out anything about her but I suspect that she is home to a large contingent of very conspicuous bule (white) tourists seen roaming the streets the other day.

[Don't forget, if you want to enlarge a photo, just click on it]

The usual harbour activity is more commercial, with daily arrivals and departures of larger ships and much loading (usually of bananas) and unloading (of everything else).

The harbour also serves as a departure point for many small ferries to neighbouring islands – here is one of them being loaded at the jetty, note the goat tethered at the bow ! The cargo includes motorbikes, steel reinforcing rods, drinking water and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Day one, month seven !

Today is the first day of the second half of my first year in Indonesia (got that ?). As mentioned in my last post, I celebrated the end of the first six months by being invited to a party which I knew was something to do with the tradition of belis (dowry/brideprice). As happens so often in a completely strange culture, what I thought I was being invited to and what I was actually invited to turned out to be two different things. What I THOUGHT I was going to was the formal exchange of belis beween the groom's and the bride's families. However, what happened yesterday only involved the groom's family (about 200 of them !) and really highlighted for me how much of a burden this tradition places on the extended family. This was a gathering of the family from about 10 a.m. at the family home at Wolowiro about an hour and a half from Maumere. The sole purpose of the gathering was to pass around a tray (think of it as a large collection plate as in a church) to collect contributions from all present to put towards the belis that has to be paid to the bride’s family before the wedding. The family provided lunch (a Sunday lunch for 200 guests just seems to happen without any fuss here), cigarettes and moke (local hooch) for the guests, plus some music. We just sat on the ground, snacked, ate, chatted and contributed. This is one of the many differences here - people are quite happy to sit around for extended periods without anyone feeling that they have to provide entertainment.

A while after the plate was passed around, the total was announced by the MC and to my surprise came to just under Rr12 million (described by one friend as "lumayan", not bad). To put this in context, I believe that a nurse earns about Rp600,000 a month and an elementary school teacher about half that. I don't yet know how much the total belis will cost but I presume that this will be sizeable chunk of it.

The wedding takes place next month and promises to be a big party...

This week sees the final preparations for next Monday's holiday - Independence Day. Indonesia will be 64 years old on 17th August 2009 and, if the preparations are anything to go by, it will be a big day with an awful lot of marching. For the last few weeks, the streets have been filled with groups of government workers and school children practising marching to the sound of kiri, kiri, kiri, kanan, kiri (left, left, left, right, left..) and punctuated by whistle blasts. Every single class seems to have to participate so it is not unusual to see four or five separate groups practising on one short stretch of road. These photos were all taken in one five minute period :

The anniversary is also a good excuse to give the whole place a bit of a once-over so there are plenty of flags and banners, etc. Much painting has been done, but the paint is watered down so much that it will all wash off in the rainy season and need to be done again next year.

Six months already !

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...