Signing off....

As promised a while ago, it's now time for this series of disconnected ramblings to finally fizzle out, at least for the time being. 

I left Indonesia on Friday 11th June (after five days in a row of hospital visits) and flew to London where I was met at the airport on Saturday afternoon by my good friends Michael, Jane and Sarah who took me directly to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead for yet another session of doctoring. This was (by a long way) the longest wait and the least impressive encounter of the three doctors I had been under the care of that week. I decided then and there to cut short my stay in London and get home to Ireland on the Monday for some expert care. Saturday night was an opportunity to meet some more London based friends over a very un-Indonesian meal HERE and Sunday was spent relaxing, drinking wine and catching up...

On Monday, I took the boat and train from London to Dublin where I was reunited with my car and my nephews (but not in that order) and on Tuesday I visited one of my former customers, Dr. Mary Paula Colgan, in St. James's Hospital, Dublin for some expert attention. Now, two weeks and a number of dressing changes later, I am delighted that the "hole" in my leg has finally almost healed and that the lab results and X-ray results showed that there is no infection and no foreign body in the wound. 

While being rather preoccupied with all that, I have also had great fun catching up with friends and family and getting back into sailing in my club. VSO have maintained their excellent support by sending a "welcome home" pack with lots of useful information about settling back in, including information about registering with the Department of Social Welfare, joining Comhlámh, dealing with Reverse Culture Shock (some good information HERE if you want to read more) as well as some VSO paperwork.

 On that subject, it is certainly more than a little strange being back. In some ways, it's like coming back after a holiday in that many things are more or less the same. However, I keep seeing things that have changed while I've been away - the motorway network in Ireland is one of them ! One thing that I have really enjoyed since I arrivd home has been the weather : it has been warm (well, warm for Ireland anyway) and sunny continuously since I got back, a pleasant change from the relentless heat of Maumere ! I've also had lots of contact with friends from Maumere via SMS (I've discovered that you can now send free international texts using Vodafone's webtext service), email and Facebook, plus a couple of phone calls (thanks to Skype). These continuing contacts have really brought home to me just how many friends I made while I was away and, even in a relatively short time, how close some of these friendships are. (They have also made me realise that my Bahasa Indonesia is going to disappear very quickly if I don't keep using it !)

Looking back on the time I spent away I can say that, while I didn't necessarily enjoy every minute of it, it was an experience that I will value for the rest of my life. The contributions that I made while I was in Flores may have been small and insignificant when viewed in the context of a Western organisation but I am confident that some of them will have a lasting effect. On the personal front, rising to the challenge of living in a completely different culture and learning a completely new language at my advanced age were achievements that I am proud of, and I am certainly looking forward to going back to Indonesia at some point in the future.

The sales pitch : to anyone who ends up in a situation where you have to ask yourself "what am I going to do now ?", I would seriously encourage you to consider volunteering. In the past, most of us have probably thought that this was for doctors, nurses and teachers but a quick look at VSO's website will show you that there are almost endless opportunities for the right person. What is most important is probably not your formal qualifications but your experience, your attitude and your flexibility ! 

Finally, I'd like to thank the loyal band of readers who have had their inboxes invaded by my ramblings over the last year and a half. This blog has had about 15,000 hits from far more countries than I would ever have imagined and the comments and feedback has been most encouraging - thanks to everyone who chipped in ! 

So, that's it - thanks for reading ! Terima kasih banyak !!

 

All good things come to an end...

And that was certainly true this week.....

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'll be in touch !       

     

I'm not quite sure what happened there..........

Apologies to regular subscribers or users of Google Reader if you received a whole lot of unreadable garbage as a notification of the last post, I have no idea what was going on. I think it was somehow connected to the fact that I typed a lot of the text in MS Word last night and then pasted it in this morning.Anyway, I think it's fixed now so sorry about that !

Back on two feet... (with apologies in advance for the photos)

Having got back from my holiday trip across Flores, I can now report that I’ve had a few visits to the outpatients’ clinic in the hospital to have a rather nasty leg wound dressed. This was as a result of a (previously unreported !) fall during our holiday while staying in the traditional village of Watu. While sitting in our host’s home, I asked where the toilet was. I was told it was “di belakang” (behind) but unfortunately they omitted to tell me that it was also “di bawah” (below) by about 4 metres. As a result, I walked around the back of the house in the pitch dark and promptly descended the 4 metres rather more rapidly than is to be recommended. The next day I had two sprained ankles and more cuts and grazes than I could count (toes, feet, both legs, both hands, one shoulder, head and nose), all of which rather restricted my mobility for the rest of the trip, to put it mildly.

However, all started healing well with the exception of one large but shallow leg wound which started to show signs of infection just after I arrived back in Maumere. 

 I resorted to the traditional Indonesian remedy of a heavy dose of antibiotics (one of the advantages of working in a hospital) and it started to show signs of improvement but then deteriorated again so I went along to the outpatients’ clinic to be seen by one of the hospital surgeons. Another five day course of antibiotics was prescribed (along with two other unidentified medicines) and a rather cursory wound cleaning was followed by the application of a lump of gauze. 

 My former colleagues in Smith & Nephew would be horrified by this (as I was) and I spent the next three days dreading the removal of this dressing (along with the accompanying skin, scab etc.) as the wound was still quite wet. After a repeat of this, I managed to get hold of two film dressings and decided to self medicate at home and I’m pleased to report that all is well now and healing is well underway.

Anyway, during this treatment, one of the milestones in every volunteer’s placement took place. This was my “final placement visit”, arranged by our programme manager at VSO and attended by her, a number of members of the hospital staff and me. During a VSO placement, each volunteer is required to submit a quarterly report outlining progress towards the agreed objectives and reporting on obstacles, successes and challenges. The final placement visit is an opportunity to review what has been achieved and discuss what could have gone better (and why). I found it a very useful and interesting exercise and it was encouraging to hear some of the comments from hospital staff about achievements and changes that they can see that I had either not noticed at all or had not considered worth mentioning !

Having a “final” placement visit really brings it home that my time here is almost at an end, and this was reinforced by the subsequent arrival in my inbox of plane tickets and a list of instructions from VSO about leaving my placement, arranging an exit permit etc. (you can’t just turn up at the airport and get on to a plane, you know!). So, it’s all fixed, I leave Maumere on Tuesday 8^th June and spend three nights in Bali, with a formal exit interview on Thursday. I’ll also be helping out with some briefings for a group of new volunteers who are due to arrive that week. I leave Bali on Friday 11^th, arrive in London on Saturday 12^th, and plan to be back in Ireland on or about Tuesday 15^th June.

  

Tour de Flores

Last Friday week, I headed off on the two day bus trip to Labuanbajo at the western end of Flores to meet my sister and brother-in-law (my first visitors since I've been here). They arrived in Bali on Saturday and then took the short flight from there to Flores on Monday morning. After a day's relaxing and catching up we then headed off on a road trip through Flores on Tuesday morning, arriving in Maumere on Sunday.

It's hard to do justice to the beauty of Flores in mere words and I don't think that my little camera is really up to the task either - the scenery is nothing short of spectacular with plunging valleys, soaring mountains (up to about 2200m), green rice fields, coffee plantations, banana trees, white beaches, volcanic lakes, and smiling children everywhere.

I've alteady posted some photos on Facebook (just click HERE if you want to see) but here are just a few of the highlights of the week :

In Ruteng, we were invited by Anouk (a Dutch volunteer) to visit Sekolah Luar Biasa, where she works. This is a residential school for almost 200 children with various disabilities (many are blind and others are deaf) but one these kids can do is perform ! As with most Indonesians, it seems that holding a microphone gives a confidence boost that is hard to believe. We saw and heard, dancing, singing, poetry and had to take hundreds of photos.

     

After leaving Ruteng, we visited Liang Bua, the cave where the bones of the "Flores Hobbit" were found. The cave is still the subject of ongoing investigation but it was easy to imagine how people could have lived there as it is very deep and high. We were even introduced to a local man who we were assured was a direct descendant of the "hobbit" !

From Ruteng, we travelled on to Bajawa, from where we did a one day trek cross country to the traditional village of Watu. This village has only recently had a water supply, made possible by the installation of a solar powered pump which gets the water up to the village. This project will feature in a movie (not yet released), being made by Malcolm Wyer, an American film maker.

sp

 

After Watu, we descended to the south coast near Aimere and then made our way northwards to Riung via the hot springs at Soa (no photos but very relaxing !). Riung was the location for a day's boat trip to the islands (where I was at Easter), and then from there to Moni and the three coloured lakes at Kelimutu. From there it was down to Maumere, arriving at lunchtime on Sunday.

Monday morning offered an opportunity for Rosemary and Helmut to visit the hospital. As they had been responsible for organsing the fund raising event in Ireland which raised over 37 million Rupiah, dr. Asep, the hospital director, was very keen to meet them and give a tour of the hospital and express his thanks for the funds.

   

The visit closed with a formal presentation of two pieces of locally hand-woven "ikat" and a thank you from the hospital management team.

The final episode in the visit was the drama of getting out of Flores. The flights that I had booked were cancelled as the airplane was "rusak" (broken) so we rebooked using another airline - the flight eventually took off four hours late and with minutes to spare before darkness fell (Maumere airport is not lit so there are no flights at night). 

All in all, a great week's holiday- Flores is one of the most beautiful places you could imagine and is still very unspoilt and untouristy. Well worth a visit - but be prepared, there are no 5 star hotels and travel arrangements are "difficult" !

6 weeks

Another long gap between posts, no excuses except that there hasn't really been anything of note to write about and, as my father always advised "if you don't have anything to say, then say nothing" (and, of course, I always take his advice).

I'm really in the home straight now, it looks as if Saturday 5th June will be my last day at work and I'll probably leave Maumere on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. I will have my exit interview with VSO in Denpasar on Thursday and leave Indonesia on Friday night, arriving in London at about lunchtime on Saturday 12th June. Lots of things to finish off at work before then...

But before that.... my first visitors ! My sister and brother-in-law arrive in Denpasar next Saturday (some very nervous moments last week as we watched the news about flight chaos due to the ash cloud) and will then fly from Denpasar to Labuanbajo (western end of Flores) on Monday morning. I'll leave Maumere on Friday for the two day bus journey to Labuanbajo and we will then spend about a week on the trip back via all the tourist destinations in Flores. I'll write more about this later but we'll go via Ruteng (visiting two Dutch volunteers), Bajawa (lots of interesting village culture), maybe Riung (boat trip to the 17 islands), Moni & Kelimutu (coloured lakes), and finish up with a couple of days in Maumere before they fly back to Denpasar and then onwards to home.

It's hard to believe that in seven weeks' time, I won't be here anymore - it's been an extraordinary year and a half and I'll write more later after the dust has settled about the whole experience. At the moment, I'm recovering from an Indonesian special, the worst case of "having to stay close to the toilet" that I've had in a long time,all part of the experience I guess !

The good news for all you readers out here (yes, both of you) is that these ramblings will cease after I get home and post a final wrapup. I promise not to bore you anymore after I get home !         

Easter at the islands

Happy Easter everyone ! Easter is a very big deal here as Flores is a predominantly Roman Catholic island and Larantuka, at the eastern end of the island, is especially famous for its Holy Week and Easter weekend celebrations. This year is the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrivals here and so was a specially significant celebration and many people from Maumere and all over Flores made their way there for the weekend.

I, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction. West of Maumere along the north coast of Flores are the towns of Mbay and Riung. Mbay is home to two volunteers - Mikal from Ohio and Brenda from the Philipines. They were interested in travelling to Riung (a little further west than Mbay) and visiting the 17 Islands National Park so I decided to join them.

The trip from Maumere to Mbay is an eight to hour nine hour bus journey along the most appalling road imaginable. As with most Asian countries, public transport here is pretty basic and buses are usually massively overloaded.

 

As you can see, my bus was approved to carry 23 passengers, which  seems sensible as there were 23 seats. However, when the bus arrived at the pickup point all the seats were already full. However, that's never an obstacle so we all just piled in and set off with two or three to a seat, a few hanging out of the doors and about eight on the roof. Fifty four people in all, one goat, a number of chickens and too many sacks of rice to count...

After eight hours of this plunging up and down hills on mostly unsurfaced roads (with just one 30 minute stop) I made it to Mbay and met with Brenda and Mikal. The next day we travelled on to Riung on a motorbike (borrowed from the brother-in-law of a Maumere friend I met on the bus !) and found a small rather rundown hotel with a very friendly owner called Simeon.

Simeon arranged a boat for us for the following day and came us with on our trip to the islands. We left the harbour at about 8am and returned at about 4pm.We visited a few islands, one of which is home to the most enormous bat population I have ever seen.

   

 

Later we visited our own private desert island for a delicious lunch cooked on the beach by Simeon and stopped at about four separate locations for some great snorkelling.

 

Leo, our captain, cleaning the fish for lunch

Mikal & Brenda on our desert island

A house near the harbour at Riung

On Sunday we were invited to have lunch at the home of a friend (the guy who lent me his brother-in-law's motorbike) near Mbay. A very relaxing afternoon spent sitting under a mango tree chatting and being watched by lots of big eyes...

Then, on Monday morning it was back to the bus terminal for a 7am departure for Maumere, arriving home exactly nine hours later. Worth every minute of it.... 
 

     

     

Equal Opportunities ?

Many countries have some form of anti-discrimination legislation, especially governing employment. In Ireland, for example, there are nine grounds on which it is illegal to discriminate within employment. They are :

• Gender
• Marital status
• Family status
• Age
• Race
• Religion
• Disability
• Sexual orientation
• Membership of the Traveller community

So, where is this all leading? Well, I buy the local newspaper here most days as it’s a good way to practice my reading. The other day, I spotted this job advert :

For those of you whose Bahasa Indonesia is a little rusty, a loose translation is as follows :

Bank Muamlat, Kupang Branch, needs an employee with the following criteria :

1. Male, bachelor’s degree in law

2. Age max 27 years

3. Possesses a good Islam backround

Completed letters of application with a colour passport photograph should be sent to.....

I wonder how much the fine for that list would be at home?

I’ve also seen adverts in shop windows in Bali looking for employees – criteria : female, maximum 25 years old and don’t wear glasses !

Bali and back....

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, I decided 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 :

Another week, another experience

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 !