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.

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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 !       

   

Shhhhhh.......

As I've written before, Indonesia is anything but a homogenous country - one of the ways in which this is very evident is religion. Although Indonesia boasts the world's largest Muslim population, there are relatively few Muslims on Flores, where the population is predominately Roman Catholic.The figures from the 2000 census show the following breakdown :  86% Muslim, 6% Protestant, 3% Roman Catholic, 2% Hindu, 3% Buddhist and other. The geographical distribution of these different religious groups is quite marked,as this map from Wikipedia shows :

As you can see, Flores (the pink island towards the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago), and Bali (the red one a few islands further west) are almost the only centres of their respective religions.

  

This week (tomorrow, in fact) is a national holiday as the Hindu population marks Nyepi, which they usually translate as the Day of Silence. In Flores, we just get a day off work but in Bali, the whole island will be completely silent - with the force of law behind it to make sure. From 6 am on Tuesday until 6 am on Wednesday, the streets, beaches, restaurants, shops and bars will be deserted. Even the normally bustling international airport at Denpasar closes for the day. Everyone will stay at home with minimal use of fires, lighting and entertainment. There's an article describing the whole day on Wikipedia, to read more click HERE.

The Bali Times also has an editorial extolling the virtues of a day or reflection forall, regardless of religious beliefs.  

Terima kasih banyak !

THANK YOU !!

This post is just to say a big THANKS to all those who supported the fund raising event in Bray Sailing Club just over a week ago ! I received a SMS on the night (well, the morning after for me) reporting that the target of €2,000 had been exceeded and since then, the figure has continued to rise with many very generous donations. As I write, the figure is close to €3,000 which is a staggering result.

I have passed on the good news to dr. Asep, the hospital director, who is absolutely delighted and has asked me to thank everyone involved for their exceptional generosity. As you know, the money will be used to clean, decorate and renovate the rather gloomy surroundings of the children's ward in the hospital but the work will have to wait a while longer as the ward is still full to overflowing.

So, thanks are due to :

Rosemary & Helmut who arranged the whole event (but especially Helmut who did the lion's share)

Sing Chooi who provided free labour and an excellent meal at cost price to the club so you could pay over the odds for it !

All who came to the meal, provided raffle prizes, bought raffle tickets

All who sent donations - some very generous ones indeed were received.

Terima kasih banyak !

 

Food, ikat etc...

Ok, to make amends for the recent dearth of posts, here's a random collection of bits and pieces prompted by having to delete some photos from my camera as the memory card was getting full...

One of the delights of a living in a tropical country is the variety of fruit available. As well as having eaten more bananas in the last year than in the previous 48 combined, I've also had lots of mango, papaya and nangka (jackfruit). Another fruit available here (as in many other tropical countries) is durian. If you've never come across this one before, this is one hell of a weird fruit. It comes in various sizes, usually about football sized, it is rock hard and covered with extremely sharp spikes. When you open it, it breaks into large segments, in between which can be found large stones. What you eat is only the fleshy pulpy covering of these large stones, so maybe 85% of the fruit is inedible. The durian's main feature is, however, its overpowering smell which I've seen described variously as fragrant (eh, no), pungent (that's a bit more like it) and offensive (now we're getting there). I remember seeing signs in Singapore prohibiting the carrying of durian on public transport due to its "fragrance". Despite its lack of edible parts, the difficulty in getting at them, and the horrendous smell, this fruit is seen as a real delicacy and is much prized.

   

 

 

Ok, moving on....one of the most well known souvenirs from Indonesia in general, and especially this part is ikat or traditional woven fabrics. The normal traditional dress here is a sarong, made from a piece of fabric about 2 metres long and 1 metre wide stitched into a tube or cylinder. Women wear this over one shoulder, while men usually wear it around the waist. Most traditional villages have many women who weave and the patterns vary from one region to another. I've just become the proud owner of my first piece of ikat, given to me as a present in return for helping out a friend who was in hospital recently. This is one long piece at the moment and hasn't been made into a sarong so I might keep it as it is or it could be made into a shirt, a throw or pretty much anything you like. This pattern (mostly black and white) is typical of parts of Sikka District (where I live).

 

And so, back to food. Last week I was in the hospital kitchen and took a few photographs. I can tell you, this is not like a hospital kitchen I have seen at home. Remember that this kitchen is currently producing about 210 meals three times a day. Fried chicken was on the menu when I visited, being cooked on one of the three paraffin stoves.  

 As well as the paraffin stoves, they also use gas for the larger pots (imagine the amount of rice that's required !).  This is pretty grubby to put it mildly...

 

          

Then there's a production line assembling the individual portions for delivery to the wards.

 

 I wonder what the HSE would say..

And finally, still on food : last Tuesday, I came home from work at 2pm to find that some friends had taken it on themselves to provide some fish and corn, had lit a fire beside my house and were just ready to serve lunch as I arrived. Ikan bakar (grilled fish) and jagung bakar (grilled corn) - delicious !

My contribution was a bottle of moke (local arak)....an essential accompaniment to ikan bakar !

 

Selamat makan !

Life in Maumere has been very quiet recently. The hospital is still full to overflowing (211 patients this morning filling 196 beds !) which has meant that the whole system is creaking at the seams and things such as what I do here have been sidelined to a certain extent as everyone tries to cope from day to day.

We haven't had too much rain here either recently which means that it's been getting HOTTER again too....

Tonight (Saturday) sees the fund raising dinner in Bray Sailing Club for the redecoration of Ruang Melati (the children's ward in the hospital). I believe that there's pretty much a full house booked in and that many generous donations have already been received so I'd like to thank everyone involved in advance and wish all you diners "selamat makan !". Remember, if you'd like to help out but can't make it to the dinner, please contact my sister Rosemary at or text her on 087 686 4322.

I hope you have a great dinner- selamat makan everyone !

Thanks again !

Back in action !

Back in action again, thanks to Bambang at Comtel in Maumere. I am now the proud possessor of a brand new multi adaptor laptop charger for the exorbitant cost or RP200.000 (about €15). Phew !

Thanks to all of you who sent good wishes to my laptop !

Hors de combat

My little laptop has suffered a charger failure (again) so I'm kind of incommunicado at the moment until I can get it fixed.... more anon....

and worse....

Today's Bed Occupancy Rate (BOR) is up again to 115% (225 patients in 196 beds). Of this number, 105 are children, 65 of whom have dengue. The children's ward has 37 beds so you can imagine the problems this is causing...

The provincial Department of Health have just declared the situation in Sikka Regency to be a KLB (Kejadian Luar Biasa) - literally an "extraordinary situation", and the Department of Health in Maumere are starting a widespread "fogging" programme to reduce msoquito numbers.

It just gets worse...

Today's BOR (Bed Occupancy Rate) in the hospital is 112% (220 patients for 196 beds). There are now 89 children in the hospital (the children's ward has 37 beds), 53 of whom are suffering from dengue fever. Yesterday morning (Sunday) I was awakened by the sound of wailing and crying which means that a patient has just died - I found out later that it was a four year old child who had died (dengue again).

Still on the subject of sick children, I am delighted to hear that my friends in Bray Sailing Club have offered to support my presence here by having a fund raising dinner to pay for the redecoration of Ruang Melati (the children's ward) in the hospital. Although far from being the worst part of the hospital, it's a pretty grim environment for the children and this money will go a long way towards brightening it up. The event takes place on Saturday 27th February and you are guaranteed to have an excellent meal and lots of fun, all for €30. Bookings to my sister Rosemary or call or SMS her on 087-6864322. Thanks to everyone in advance for your support !

Naturally, donations will be gratefully accepted if you would like to help but can't attend the dinner. Rosemary will accept these also !  

What's for dinner ?

As the rainy season continues (although last week we had hardly any rain at all here), the number of children in the hospital continues to cause great concern. As of this morning, 72 out of a total of 170 patients were children, more than half of them suffering from Dengue fever (see previous posts). The children's ward has 37 beds so you can imagine the difficulties that this is causing. Unfortunately, almost every day also brings more news of childhood deaths in the hospital, and last week two of these also suffered from "gizi buruk" or malnutrition.

Unfortunately, it looks like things are going to get worse instead of better. Recent reports in the Pos Kupang (newspaper for this region) have highlighted price increases in the last few weeks for basic foodstuffs such as corn (increased from RP5.000 for 7 ears to RP5.000 for 5 ears), sugar (increased from RP10.000/kg to RP12.000/kg) and rice and there have been warnings from the Vice-President that the some parts of the country are likely to face food shortages in the coming months. It almost goes without saying that the province in which I live (NTT) will be one of the worst affected. Rice is the staple food for about 230 million people here, many of whom live in an almost cashless environment so increases such as those that have been seen recently cause major difficulties in poor areas. For this reason, the government intervenes in pricing and supply arrangements to make sure that supplies are available at affordable prices to the poorest sections of the community. One of these programmes is called Beras Miskin (given the Indonesian penchant for contractions, more commonly know as RASKIN). However, the programme has lots of problems, as can be seen in this interesting 2005 paper from the World Bank, ranging from poor administration to corruption, which means that much of the help does not reach those in greatest need. The latest available WHO data reports that 20% of under 5s in Indonesia are underweight for their age.

So, the next time you are dithering about what to have for dinner and thinking "Oh, I had that last night", spare a thought for those who struggle on a daily basis to buy just rice for their family and who are worried that they may not even be able to afford that soon.....

   

Lost in translation ?

One of my friends in Maumere has left his guitar in my house for the last couple of weeks. Last night I noticed that there was a sticker on the inside visible through the soundhole so I picked it up, thinking I could practice my Indonesian reading.

This is what I read (and I quote exactly) :

"Since 1887 yahamas has making musicrhonical if its teache quality beauty yahamas guitars is a proted of thorogui musical kontage. Alla goodme empty salectif endoge under roundist untermental countri. Them this fones materials are supally crafted to become a yahamas guitar."

It's hard to disagree, really.

Where have all the eggs gone ?

Shopping in a town like Maumere is qute easy.

There are two traditional markets for fruit, vegetables, fish and meat  - for meat, read chicken, although there is occasionally daging babi (pig meat) available if you go very early in the morning. (By the way, if you want a chicken you usually choose it on the hoof as it were. Most people then tie their purchase to their motorbike upside down by the feet and despatch it to the next world when they get home. However, the chicken seller will also do this messy business for you at the market if you want, thank goodness.)

And then there are the kios. As in most Asian countries, these are literally everywhere and are usually small bamboo structures in front of people's homes selling such staples as pulsa (phone credit), cigarettes, paraffin (for cooking stoves), washing powder, hair oil, sweets, superglue, motorbike cleaning products, instant noodles, sugar and of course, eggs. Every shop sells eggs, you see stacks of egg trays everywhere (your purchases are put into a plastic bag for you to carry home and one egg costs RP1.000). My egg consumption has soared while I've been here, they come with rice dishes, noodle dishes (i.e. almost everything), and are usually either fried or hardboiled.

Until this week, that is. On Saturday I went to the small kios near my house to buy some eggs for Sunday breakfast. No eggs.... oh well, I thought, that's strange. The next day I tried two other kios- no eggs. Very odd... On Monday, no eggs anywhere... Yesterday I went to the market where there are (usually) dozens of places to buy eggs. Guess what ? (Well, there were quails' eggs but they're not the same.) Eventually I asked why there were suddenly no eggs anywhere - the answer was the title of my last post - musim hujan, rainy season. Apparently all the eggs sold on Flores are imported (another surprise) and the egg boat hasn't been able to come because of the stormy weather....

Every day you learn something new I guess.