Time for Plan "C"

How bad does your career karma have to be to get laid off from a volunteer position? I’m guessing pretty bad. Re. last post: “will I persist for another year?”. Turns out, that’s not up to me. Not only is CUSO terminating its partnership with VSO Indonesia at the end of March 2014, VSO is closing its operations entirely in Indonesia. Hmmm. When they said we would need to be flexible..... So that’s it. Five more months, at the most, and I’m finished here. 

There were rumours floating around about cutbacks and changes at CUSO, obvious signals from the Conservative government, particularly when CIDA was dissolved as an independent agency and sandwiched into Foreign Affairs. I haven’t read anything about other changes - I’m assuming there are other reductions in support for international development as has been consistent throughout the Conservative’s time in power. And, in fact, I’m in favour of this reallocation of resources. Although my stomach dropped when I got the news a week ago, Indonesia doesn’t need foreign aid anymore. Their economy has been growing at a faster rate than Canada’s for several years, and the country has many trained professionals who could fill any of the positions the remaining Canadian volunteers are currently holding. Government departments at all levels seem to be well-staffed. If their funding isn’t spent appropriately on programs, and rather is disappearing into a well of official visits and new vehicles, then that’s an upper management problem that won’t be solved by an international volunteer working at the village level. We have no ability or authority to affect those issues.

While CUSO is terminating programs in Indonesia, Tajikistan and Cameroon, new programs have started in South Sudan, Myanmar and the Congo. It’s all decided on the basis of country GDP, estimated rates of poverty and national government support of development programs, among other indicators. 

Also, Indonesia is awash in NGOs with many different objectives: saving the coral reefs, saving the turtles, saving the rainforest, saving homeless cats and dogs.......it goes on. There are so many NGOs operating that fundraising competition is fierce, resulting in less donor dollars (or rupiah) for each individual organization. This is a classic tug-of-war - do you want your development organizations to be centralized, with many areas of expertise, and a larger administrative requirement? This may result in more effective fundraising efforts and bulk economies for training, provision of resources. Or is the better option to have many small organizations each with narrower focus - lower administrative costs but also a shorter reach for fundraising, expertise and impact.

Another entry into the development market is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. Essentially, businesses start their own local improvement projects in areas where they are operating, sometimes to mitigate negative environmental impacts that can result as side effects of their operations. This form of development has great possibilities, primarily because it is less dependent on outside fundraising. Money may be solicited from employees, or budgeted from the company’s own resources (and used as a tax deduction), and people to do the work may also be community-minded employees volunteering in their free time. As with many new initiatives, a burgeoning market in contracting experts to recommend meaningful CSR projects has sprung up in many countries. The emphasis on local issues is particularly helpful. Typically, projects with a broad sweep (like saving coral reefs) can become overwhelming and suck down resources at a mad rate due to the geographical span alone.

Things weren’t going swimmingly here. But I have accomplished a few things, and there was the strong possibility that, given another year, I could have made more progress. In fact I feel like I’ve only just settled in, created some good working relationships, and begun to understand how to achieve results, so having only 5 months left rather than a full year, is very discouraging. Not to mention having to start the soul-destroying routine of searching job boards and writing cover letters.

Might be harder on Alex, ‘though - he’ll need every day of those 5 months to clean up the house & put it back the way I left it. Better get started, hon.

My Annual Check-up

Well, I’ve been a bit lazy & haven’t written anything for a couple of months, & then thought I’d wait until the one-year anniversary of my landing in Indonesia (October 8) - maybe pull out some profound ponderings on how the year has been for me. I find myself bereft of clever & profound right now, ‘though. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been someone who paid a lot of attention to the past - always trying to see what’s coming next & hoping it’s different. But I’ll try. Here are a few observations.

Lost about 20 pounds (yippee) - mostly due to drastic reduction in alcohol intake - which makes the heat more bearable - fewer fat folds in which the sweat can accumulate.

Learned to love riding a motor scooter, even in wicked traffic. Still swear at other drivers but that’s not going to piss anyone off because (a) it’s in English & most of them wouldn’t catch the meaning, & (b) it’s mostly just resounding inside my helmet.

I don’t get to go swimming hardly ever! Imagine living in the middle of a bloody island archipelago & I can’t manage to get down to a beach even once a month. Conclusion: I need another vacation, soon.

I can plan the hell out of the organization I’m working for & none of it will survive 5 minutes after I land back in Canada. After a year, I’m still trying to figure out how to convert anything I do to have even a minimal lasting impact.

Finished an online social psychology course which reinforced & complemented a lot of impressions I have about society in general & helped me understand some things about Indonesian society that are a mystery to me. The most interesting thing I took away was the affirmation that attitudes & behaviour are often completely disconnected, so if you want to change something people do (like littering) you’re probably wasting your time (& money) trying to change attitudes (for example, through a public information campaign). The effort may be better spent on simply working to change the behaviour. So I yelled at one of the university students on campus yesterday for throwing a used water bottle on the ground (well, OK, I didn’t actually yell - but I did tell her she shouldn’t be littering). 

It’s great having 2 homes here - one up in the cool hills among trees & one down in the city. I don’t think I’d be happy living full time in either one & it’s like a mini-vacation / change whenever I go back & forth.

Makassar is the fourth largest city in Indonesia & I’m surprised to find that I kind of like it. It’s dirty, noisy, confusing, hellish traffic (as I may have mentioned 6 or 7 times by now) - but it feels alive & vibrant. And the Starbucks has the most reliable wifi connection I’ve found yet. I still have 90% of the city to explore - have generally been staying on the streets I know & I still get lost with remarkable regularity - but there’s tons more of it with interesting little shops & restaurants.

Social connections are the central fact of Indonesian life. People thrive through their relationships with others - that’s how the majority of time is spent by an average Indonesian - simply maintaining existing relationships & creating new ones. Anything that has to get done is accomplished by making those connections with others. This is probably the most foreign concept to me & the most important thing I’ve learned here. I don’t know if I can acquire any kind of skill in social networking (& not the computer kind) but it’s revelatory to me to have the examples in front of me all day, every day & I think I’m improving.

So - am I going to persist for another year? I don’t know - don’t know if I’d even place good odds on it. I miss my fam - but Kir & Alex are getting along fine without me - & I think I even have fewer gray hairs since I’m not looking over their shoulders worrying about them all the time. Well, OK, technically (in the technological sense) I’m still looking over their shoulders, but they find it a lot easier to ignore me for some reason.

To sum up - this experience has been & continues to be frustrating, infuriating, confusing, discouraging, even depressing, but always & still interesting. I’ll probably be here next month, so sampai jumpa.