The Package Tour Experience

The parents, having fun &
 making sure I'm still alive.

Last week, my mom & stepdad visited. Well, they stopped in Bali for 3 days as the beginning to a 3-week Southeast Asia cruise, but it was really just for my mom to check up on me. So I took a few vacation days & met them at their resort in Nusa Dua, on the southeastern coast at the southern end of the island. While I could have sat on the lovely clean beach for the whole three days, my mom has different ideas & signed us up for a bus tour for the whole of Wednesday, and a late afternoon tour on Thursday. I did get to beach-sit on Thursday morning. The experience violently reminded me of why I avoid the package vacation (well that, & I can't afford them). The typical Balinese tour is particularly reminiscent of being squeezed through a sausage factory: many buses lined up at one stop, buffet meals at barn-size restaurants & about 5 hours on a bus per hour of sightseeing. We attended two kecak dances, both venues packed to overcapacity such that the dancers had to move members of the audience in between acts to allow them room to exit & enter the floor. One volcano, invisible due to clouds & rain (well, it is the off-season, since it is the rainy season), two temples - at one of these locations we were given half an hour to race down 315 steps & then race back up to the bus. And remember, the average age on these tours is probably between 70 & 75 - hale & hearty North Americans & Europeans, but still I had an urge to pack a portable defibrillator. (Honesty time: I skipped the steps & bargained for sarongs with some of the stall owners on the roadside instead). 

Kecak dancer at Uluwattu.

Excited tourists at Uluwattu. The sarongs must be
worn on temple grounds, and are lent out at the entrance.

All in all, the tours were unpleasant reminders of the rapid & unchecked expansion of the tourist industry in Bali. From my parent’s hotel you can see two other huge hotels under construction in addition to the newly opened 1000-room resort in the other direction. The beach is not privately owned by the resorts, but public access is discouraged - roads down to the beach are obscure & unsigned. The surfers know where to go. Throughout the Balinese southern peninsula and up the western coast of Kuta and Selinyak hotels are springing up like mushrooms in a damp lawn. I cringed when I accessed my mom’s resort on the internet describing the beach located “on a reclaimed mangrove forest”. No, guys, if it was reclaimed there would be mangroves there. (There aren’t.)

Another hotel under construction & a cleared section of cliff for the next one.

I certainly don’t begrudge Indonesians chances at better jobs & higher pay, which these resorts and tourist attractions bring. However, the island infrastructure is obviously not able to keep pace with private development. Concerns have been expressed by politicians about the strain placed on roads and water supply, but the government would have to move very quickly or place a moratorium on further construction immediately to attempt to deal with the issues, and there is little sign that this will happen in the near future. The Denpasar airport is currently being upgraded & enlarged primarily to accommodate more tourism, and a four-lane bypass from the airport directly to Nusa Dua is being built in the bay. And we can’t blame foreigners for all this - the unique Hindu character of Bali attracts millions of Indonesian tourists every year as well.

Luckily, Indonesia is a country of 17,000 islands, of which Bali is only one. There are far more beautiful beaches, mountains & forests on other islands (but I’m not telling where, just in case an hotelier is reading this). So hopefully, concerned Indonesians, of which there are many, will be able to preserve the natural beauty of miles & miles of coastline & acres of native forest before they're “discovered”, and site reasonably sized, eco-hotels away from the more fragile areas. And offer walking or small boat tours of mangrove forests. The temples & other historical sites - well, they’re a write-off for contemplative, quiet consideration. Worth seeing, yes, but sharpen your elbows & resign yourself to standing in long lines to see the architecture.  

After seeing the parents off to the rest of their vacation, I headed back “home” where today my friend Rita took me to 2 beaches outside of town on jalan-jalan*. We ran into 2 other people & listened to the waves.

*jalan-jalan = a trip, usually just for fun, to kill time

Selamat Tahun Baru! (Happy New Year)

Some random notes:

The rainy season has started in earnest; at times torrential for the last 3 days. My work partner tells me we can expect almost daily rain in January tapering off through February & March. Therefore, it’s rice planting season, & I’ve seen a lot of that activity. Mostly manual labour, the fields are first tilled with a kind of large rototiller pushed either manually or with a small engine attached, and the rest is all man- or woman- or kid-powered - hand planting rice plant seedlings. There are several different words for rice in bahasa Indonesia, depending on whether it's growing in the field, uncooked or cooked, or depending on the variety or colour. I have yet to learn them all - but rice growing in fields is "padi" - so calling a field a rice padi is like saying rice rice - don't do that.

Indonesia has 5 official religions, and while for example, the island of Flores is mostly Catholic, and Bali has a mostly Hindu population, Muslims are predominant throughout the country. “My” island, Sulawesi, is largely Muslim. In Jeneponto women choose to wear a jilbab (head covering, called a hijab in Arab countries) or not, but I have yet to see any woman in full burka. Apparently Aceh in the far west is host to a more fundamental kind of Islam. However, uniforms are very common; all government workers wear them; and women do consistently wear jilbabs as part of their uniform. School girls also wear them as part of their school uniforms, but the age at which they start to wear them can vary; 6 or 7 year olds are not always required to cover their heads (this may depend on the school they attend). The local Scout troop uniform includes jilbabs for the female Scouts. About three-quarters of women not in uniform will include a jilbab as part of their dress in this area. Younger women tend not to wear them unless they’re attending a special occasion, and in the larger cities you will see fewer women in jilbabs. 

One week in mid-December had several activities dedicated to “Darma Wanita” loosely translated as “Working Women”.  All the female government employees took part in a march to the main square, and for the special occasion, they all wore new uniforms that looked more like exercise outfits (stretchy & quite close-fitting). Each government department had its own colour & design of uniform (the forestry office ladies wore olive green) & there were many different departments. There must have been at least 400 women participating.

Darma Wanita marchers
(above & right)

The most obvious indication that I’m living in a Muslim town is the many mosques, scattered as thickly as churches in Fredericton. And every small village has at least one or two. Call to prayer can be heard from loudspeakers 5 times a day; at about 3:30 am, 6:30 am, noon, 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm. Don’t set your watch by them, the times can vary by several minutes. If the country’s TV network ever sponsors an “Indonesia’s Next Top Imam” or “So you think you can call to prayer” competition I’m entering my guy’s name. He has a mellow voice, with subtle variations and best of all, I can sleep through the earliest call. Staying overnight in Makassar (the provincial capital & largest city on Sulawesi) was a whole different experience - the closest mosque was very nearby, the imam went on for ages and sounded like he was yelling out his  grocery list. Tough to get back to sleep after that.

RIght now, the music in the air is mating frog calls, which started last night as a result of the fresh rain.

Geographic contrast & an interesting tree

Last week all the volunteers were in Bali for the annual conference. Two others & I took advantage of being on the island & went up to Ubud for the weekend before returning to South Sulawesi. This is a tourist destination about an hour's drive north of Denpasar - apparently some of the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" was filmed here.

















Then, on Tuesday I had to take the 2.5 hour flight to Singapore & back on the same day to renew my temporary work visa - Indonesia requires those on short-term visas to leave the country every 60 days to renew, & VSO hasn't been able to get our year-long visas approved yet. So, Cordelia and I wandered around downtown Singapore for the day.









The white lotus-like building on the left is the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.
















Wednesday it was a flight back to Makassar and a minibus to Jeneponto. Those 3 days certainly emphasized the glaring contrasts in lifestyle all within a relatively small geographic area.













And now, for all the tree people - this (below) is a cannonball tree in a park in Singapore. The flower-bearing branches grow out on the lower trunk. All stages of flower & fruit occur at the same time, year round.
Latin name: Couroupita guianensis
Family: Lecythidaceae

 

Flowers are fragrant, used by adherents to Hinduism for worship. The fruit grows to about 20 cm in diameter, but is not edible. The hard shell is used to make containers & utensils.

Not busy, then really busy

The perils of a blog - there’s either nothing going on, so no reason to write a new post, or too much going on, so no time to write up a coherent account. Since my last post, after I had just started work in Jeneponto, I’ve felt considerable frustration involved with not understanding either the language or work culture - this is a wholly typical experience for new volunteers - I think the VSO staff would be surprised if it didn’t happen at some point. Mine may have just occurred earlier, since it’s unclear that they actually need my expertise at the forestry office. A meeting was necessary with VSO, me and my work partner to set up some guidelines which may help to establish some concrete work goals, but it’s a wait & see situation which may very well change where or with whom I am working in the next 6 months. 

An additional frustration was not having a refrigerator, which meant I couldn’t keep food in my house without armies of ants invading, and I still hadn’t gotten my motorbike. Those problems are now solved, although the bike must go in for maintenance before I can start riding & gaining some level of comfort with the roads & traffic.

November 15 was Muslim New Year, and kicked off a four-day weekend, so Rita, one of my co-workers, invited me to go to Selayar Island for a visit - no problem with accommodation - her brother lives there. After a long bus ride, and an equally long ferry ride, we arrived after dark. On Friday & Saturday we attended a couple of “Save the Turtles” events which her brother’s diving club was sponsoring, went snorkeling, took a boat to see some mangroves & swim at a couple of deserted beaches. We got back around 3 pm on Sunday, giving me time to wash my clothes and pack for Bali - Monday I flew into Denpasar for the week-long work partners’ meetings & annual volunteer’s conference. Now, as of the 24th November, I’ve spent fewer nights sleeping in my house, than in other locations in Sulawesi & now Bali, since I first arrived at my work placement. That will change over the next two months. 

The volunteer’s conference has been absolutely invaluable - there are a total of 14 international volunteers in Indonesia right now, 6 from Kenya, 7 Canadian, & 1 American. I was in a batch of 4 new arrivals, so have now benefited from the shared experiences of the other 10, who have been here from 7 months to 3 years. Four of them are leaving for home in the next 2 months, but we were able to chat, find out from them what worked, what failed miserably, why some were leaving early & why two had decided to extend their periods of service. We also met 4 Indonesian volunteers who had completed contracts in Tadjikistan, Burma, Bangladesh & Guyana. And of course, some beer was consumed, some dancing occurred & a couple of competitive games of pool took place. Mike, the VSO Country Director, & I won one of these by a slim one-ball margin.

So, conference over, Noelle, Margaret & I left for a mini-vacation weekend to Ubud, a lovely touristy town about an hour’s drive north of Denpasar. Temples, rice paddies, lots of beautiful shops & a traditional market, so this might be the place to pick up some colourful sarongs or silver jewelry. After the weekend, a bit more travel is scheduled - a day trip to Singapore to renew my visa that allows me to work in Indonesia. Home to Jeneponto next Wednesday (sigh, back to the grind).

A day in pictures

The government forestry office (Dinas) in Jeneponto.

Today my work partner Pak Mahmud and I attended a meeting of a foresters group about a half hour's drive from Jeneponto. Our first stop was at an open air market for supplies, and to get quotes on a refrigerator and fan for me.

Shoe sellers at the open air market

The appliance store with good prices on fridges.

Huge volcanic boulders, incredibly rocky ground, and of course, lots of trees.

The local foresters group. The meeting was either about the Social Forestry Network, an organization to which all ASEAN countries belong, or the current market value of mahogany, or both. I'm catching about one word in 5 or 6, and trying hard.

The meeting was followed by lunch at Pak Mahmud's inlaws' house.

And finally, these ladies are regular visitors to my house in the afternoon. They are both artists (I have a stack of drawings to stick to the wall when I get some scotch tape) and fashion critics (apparently my hiking boots are "boy's shoes" - fair enough).

First day in Jeneponto

Yesterday, I flew from Denpasar to Makassar with Iryanti (from the Jeneponto forestry office) and Indah (from an NGO that partners with VSO), who shepherded me like I was a toddler. Once in Makassar, we met up with Noelle (another VSO volunteer), 2 staff members from FIC (the NGO Linda & Noelle work for) & Pak Mahmud, my workplace partner. The flight left late, & we arrived close to two o’clock. Went to a restaurant downtown for fish, rice & soup, and then was informed that Mahmud’s vehicle needed to be taken in for servicing (or to have something fixed - don’t really know which). So Linda & Noelle hosted me for the afternoon. Noelle showed me her house, which is spacious, with a front courtyard, tucked into a street of similar houses. Tons of kids - several of whom came to ask Noelle when their next English lesson would be.  

Noelle & I walked to the FIC office to meet up with Indah and Didin, another staff member. After a tour of the office & some chat, we went to Didin’s house to wait for Mahmud - the car servicing was going to take 3 hours or longer. I met Didin’s parents, and we were given mixed veg for dinner. 

At about 7:30 pm, Mahmud, Iryanti & driver finally appeared & we were on the road to Jeneponto - can’t describe the trip - it was dark. Narrow roads, mostly paved, some roadwork, trucks, motos, etc. We arrived around 9:30 & I was shown my house - spacious, well furnished & very clean - but no fridge or stove, so that needs sorting out.  Having said all that, I’m probably going to need another place to live anyways - this one is within spitting distance of Pak Mahmud’s house and the office, & free wifi or not, it’s a bit too close for comfort. Also, Iryanti, his female office worker is my immediate neighbour - anxious to be very close friends, she wanted to hang around & chat last night to cement our new relationship. I’ll definitely need more personal space.

Good sleep, as I was provided with a fan.

I’ve decided that misunderstanding the language doesn’t have to be all bad. Got up early today, but ignored the first person arriving at my door, then washed, and relaxed a bit. Pak Mahmud then invited me down to his house for breakfast (yellow rice, cucumbers & tofu in sauce - pretty good) & then we went to the office. Met the head of the office, but forgot to call him Keureng (title of respect for a man of his “class”) & can’t remember his name either. But I don’t think I’ll have a close working relationship with him; as a forester, not to mention a foreigner, I’m a lower level employee. Also met the man responsible for some agricultural crops (coffee, coconut, etc) - I think he guides plantation establishment? Be interesting in a few months to find out if my preliminary guesses are right. No one speaks English here, barring a very few, and usually inappropriately-used words (much like my bahasa Indonesia).

Then, we were off to the police station to register my residency in Jeneponto, although I think we may have to go back because the head guy there was out of the office. We did speak to another man, so I’ll just wait & see if I end up there again. 

After that, we drove out of town on winding roads towards the hills in the distance, gaining some altitude. Houses line the roads shoulder-to-shoulder most of the way, so it’s difficult to say if we actually ended up in a different village. Farm fields stretch out behind the houses, a few trees (kapok, coconut & different fruit), tiered rice paddies on hillsides, and dirt-dry fields with sparse hay or grass. Goats, horses, water buffalos & a few cows graze. We stopped at the house of the head of the local agricultural group for a meeting which Pak Mahmud conducted, giving out information on an improved corn variety, “Pioneer”. I saw several large boxes with pictures of corn & Pioneer on them, so I assume that he had distributed the seed previously to the head. This morning they all met to learn why this variety might be better (improved yield, faster growth, resistant to diseases). Pak Mahmud seems to be a good speaker, they were listening with interest & agreeing with him, and I’m pretty sure he threw in a few jokes at my expense. Twelve men attended - P. Mahmud tells me that women don’t come to the meetings - he’s well aware they’re not treated equally & knows VSO promotes gender inclusion. But during the meeting, five women were sitting close by, listening and responding to P. Mahmud’s presentation. They know exactly what’s going on &, I think, are probably ‘more equal’ partners in the family farms than appearances suggest. 

On the way back, we stopped at a roadside warung for chicken soup & sticky rice. I find the portions here large, particularly since the heat kills appetite, but I ate an acceptable amount & explained “Saya makan sedikit, biasannya.” (I eat little, usually.)

After that, still only about noon, we stopped at an empty house to see if it might be suitable for my accommodations. Four bedroom house with 2 sitting rooms, kitchen & small bathroom - significantly more space than I need. Also, a large courtyard, half paved, half weeds (I immediately start imagining beautiful garden possibilities), area to park my motorcycle - it had everything! The asking price - almost twice as much as VSO allows for. So I tried to get the point across - no, I don’t need such a big house, and don’t want such an expensive one (“saya mau lebih kecil, lebih murah”), & apparently the owners dropped the price to 7 million rupiah a year (right on budget). Hmmm. Luckily, Noelle, Indah & Margaret (the other volunteer in the area) are coming up on Sunday to check on me, so I can get some translation for this house deal - I want to be sure that I'm not signing a lease I don't want.

Now, I’m relaxing at my temporary home while Friday prayers are going on. Don’t know if they expect me to do any more “work” today, I’m sure someone will knock on the door if they want me. Lying on the couch reading, several kids were peeking through the windows looking at the stranger. I was thinking about jumping out & yelling “booo”, or “aaarrgghh”, but thought better of it. Probably not the way to build bridges.

Stay tuned, pictures to follow in next blog.

Will that be nasi or mie?

I cannot be described as adventurous when it comes to food, so I’ve been carefully sampling what’s on offer in Bali & quite happy to occasionally revert to fish & chips or a hamburger at the restaurants in Sanur, one of the beach areas outside Denpasar that caters to tourists. Most days, ‘though, we order food for lunch to eat at the VSO office, from the previously mentioned warung, Warung Qumpul. So the choices are nasi (rice), mie (noodles) or soup with chicken, seafood, tofu or vegetables or any combination of these. Eggs are popular, either fried or boiled in sauce that makes them greenish-brown in colour. Each meal comes with spicy sauce on the side, to add as much or as little as you like. Why do people in tropical countries gravitate toward spicy food? Do we all need to sweat more here? Anyways, carbs are in good supply, despite the general lack of bread in local restaurants. Fresh bread and pastries are available at bakeries, but caution is advised, since many of these are sweetened beyond typical North American taste. Rice crackers and roasted peanuts are great snacks, and of course there is fruit in abundance - mangos, papayas, pineapples, bananas, oranges, as well as snakeskin fruit, mangosteen, star fruit, etc, etc. Apples - not as tasty here - I think they’re imported from New Zealand, and maybe they don’t hold up as well in the climate.

One of my fellow volunteers, Leslie, is far more fearless and willing to try anything. I had to take a picture of his Sunday breakfast purchased at a stall by the beach. Ordering fish soup in bahasa Indonesia, I think he said, “Yes, please, extra teeth!” Reportedly very good, but I think I’ll pass.

Left: Leslie having breakfast

                                                                Right: Leslie's breakfast

                           

As coffee is grown here, you could expect it to be very good and it is, except - it generally comes not coarsely ground, but ground to a fine powder. So you can get coffee hot, fresh & strong, but it’s not advisable to drain your cup completely - it’s a bit sludgy at the bottom. Also, when ordering coffee or tea, iced or hot, you have to specify without sugar, or it’ll come very sweet.

A handy alternative to going out to eat - takeout from one of the travelling food carts (on street at left). The vendors advertise by the simple expedient of banging either a wooden or metal stick, indicating both their current location & their menu - tok, tok means nasi coming your way; clang, clang - step outside and buy mie. Or, you can pick up corn on the cob roasted over coals, watermelon slices or sate (spicy grilled meat on skewers) from sedentary chefs on many sidestreets and in the nearby park.

This week, we were asked to put together recipes from Canada, to be prepared and shared at the office lunch on Wednesday. Hmmm - Canadian food, eh? The first thought - grilled salmon - well, that was done by the last batch of Canuck volunteers (thanks, guys), so our choice is shepherd’s pie (thanks, Britain &/or France) and pancakes with - yeah, you guessed it - maple syrup brought from Canada by Cordelia, another new volunteer. I would have felt guilty inflicting poutine on the local staff and we don’t have the facilities to prepare a full turkey dinner.