Layin' low...

Being sick SUX!

Especially when you don't know what the hell is wrong with you.

Well, the good thing is, after 2 blood tests, I know what's not wrong with me: I don't have malaria, so it seems that i just have some weird viral infection. Still doesn't make me feel any better.

There are no clinics on Simeulue, so I stayed in Banda Aceh after my weekend here (which mainly involved not sleeping, lying on the couch and slamming down drugs to try and make me feel better ... so much for a break from Simeulue) so that I could access the UN clinic. Interestingly, there was no doctor there, so they referred me to the hospital up the road to get the blood test. And they took my blood in the waiting room, with no gloves and no alcohol on the swab! boo!!! Dodgy... hence the decision to get a second opinion and go to another lab for a second test.

There's only so much tv i can watch!!! I can't concentrate very well, and get tired easily... so I can only read or work a little. So motivation is low, and boredom high. Anyone feeling like calling up is more than welcome! :)

The practicalities of Simeulue

Ok, so people have been asking me about every day things. So here's the go for food:

• Nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), in fact everything goreng... I'm gonna be rolling out of this place! (how can Indonesians be so healthy when everything they eat is fried?)
• LOTS of chili....
• LOTS of rice ... it, or noodles, are served with everything...
• Lots of fish... lobster and shrimp easily available. It's an island after all...
• Eating out is pretty cheap, you can get a good meal of rice, fried eggplant, tofu, tempei, shrimps, chili, cassava leaf, fish, sometimes chicken or beef rendang, for a few bucks. "Bungkus" (takeaway) comes wrapped in a banana leaf and brown paper secured by a rubber band :)
• You can get most veg easily - pumpkin, eggplant, cucumber, carrots, tomatoes, avocadoes, bok choy (but no capsicum, boo!). Although it's all imported from 'the mainland'.
• I love the buah (fruit) here too: pineapples, mangoes, rambutans, mangosteens, mandarins, bananas... apples are expensive and come from Thailand. I don't eat them; there are lots of other, better choices!
• Bread is McDonald's-sugar-loaded-style. Sweet, fluffy, white high-GI stuff.
• Western food - anything like pasta, pesto, olives, cheese, yoghurt, olive oil, meat, proper sliced white bread, in fact all the yummy stuff, we need to get from Banda Aceh.

For the all-important alcohol, our main man on Simeulue is Ranu, who sells it under the counter here at his little Bule (foreigners) shop - he can get tiger beer, Johnny Walker (Red or Black, there's even a choice!) and gin... but it'll cost ya, and you're not allowed to drink it publicly. The other option is to go to the Chinese shop for a more limited spirit selection! I miss a good Australian red.

Other drinks - fruit juice easy to get, and the best of all: avocado and chocolate juice. Like a thickshake - delicious! (sugar hit)

They have a packet drink called 3-in-1; it's a coffee-sugar-powdered milk concoction that has you bouncing off the walls for hours....gross.

Hmm... that's all.

Eight people die by wild animal attack .. ?!

hmmm.... another interesting one!

Harian Aceh, Banda Aceh.

Andi Basrun, Head of BKSDA, a government conservation agency, said that from January to August 2007, 8 people died by wild animal attack.

"It is recorded that eight people died because of elephants, tigers, or crocodile. Several people also suffer injuries," he said on Wednesday (22/8).

Relevant extracts from the Qanuns on Sharia Law

this is a worry...

ARTICLE
Perda 5/2000 on The Implementation of Islamic Shari’a requires everyone to respect the implementation of Sharia Law in Aceh.

Qanun 14/2003 on [The prohibition of] Khalwat (usually defined as close proximity between a male and female who have no marriage or kin relationship, in a place or situation where intimate contact is possible) prohibits everyone from committing Khalwat.

PUNISHMENT
To commit Khalwat: Caning between 3-9 lashes, and/or a fine of 2.5 to 10 million rupiah.

ARTICLE 22(1)
Prohibits everyone, community group, government apparatus and business/enterprise from provide facilities to people committing Khalwat or protecting people committing Khalwat.

ARTICLE 6
To provide facilities or to protect people committing Khalwat.

PUNISHMENT
Imprisonment between 2-6 months and/or a fine of 5 to 15 million rupiah.

Community Khalwat Raids:

Community raids on Khalwaters are frequent across Aceh... These are rarely initiated by WH but public spirited 'neighbours' who often beat and humiliate alleged offenders before handing them over to WH. Think it won't happen to you? Think again:

1. In the last 7 day period 2 BRR (govt construction authority) partner organisations have reported incidents of raids by communities on suspected 'khalwaters' in our community. Neither of these incidents made the press - many others have done in the past 6 or so incidents of 'khalwat' motivated raids by communities on the staff of BRR partner organisations have been logged over the last 2 years - doubtless there are many more which aren't reported by staff members. Each incident has the potential to become violent and may lead to legal proceedings against muslim staff. At the very least 'raided' staff members will be traumatised and your community acceptance strategy in tatters (not to mention that any incident wil have a global effect on province wide acceptance).

The recent incidents were:
a. A national male staff member was suspected of co-habiting with a female national and was beaten by the community.
b. 3 international male staff members and a national female were hauled out of their house and subjected to an unpleasant ordeal by over a hundred aggrieved neighbours. The 4 had overnighted once in a communal guesthouse in an entirely innocent (to them) fashion. In this incident the female national staff member was a Christian and therefore, technically, not subject to Sharia law. But note that once a community's interest in your living arrangements has been aroused it is too late to point this out as they will fall back on the fact that the law enjoins all to 'respect and honour' the implementation of Sharia law - as they did on this occasion.

Musings

What I find amazing is all the money being spent here unnecessarily - there are plenty of other places that need it a lot more (take Liberia for example). Everyone has a tv, electricity, motorbikes - I even saw a guy cutting his lawn with a whipper snipper this morning. This is not poverty. It was a natural disaster, but here casualties were minimal and the people weren't starving before it happened.

The money pouring in has provided plenty of additional wealth which will continue into the future as what was donated to this cause MUST be spent here. Still, the money is not being spent all that efficiently. For example, in some places the local (and very corrupt) govt construction agency, BRR, is building houses for people, and then Red Cross societies have also promised houses, so there is double-up. I don't even have a house - let alone two (ok, so its all relative but you get the idea)!

Plus it has created a false economy: people are leaving their traditional subsistence farming activities to take up brick manufacture or construction work, which will cease as soon as the NGOs move out – when this business dries up they will have to go back to what they did before, and will have twice as much work to do to re-clear and re-cultivate their land, which will have laid dormant for all this time… sometimes I wonder if we are doing more harm than good.

It's Tuesday morning and I'm not motivated.

Things have been good here on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. Last week we had the new program manager, Virginia, come for a few days to check out some of the programs. It was good having another female in the house, and one who likes good food! (and she brought real bread and pesto with her, rare treats on this island!).

As I never got to BA last week due to the UN plane having engine troubles, I went with her and one of the Livelihoods field officers for a drive around the island to have a look at some of the projects they are doing. There are some small-scale microfinance projects going on, such as vegetable plots and fish farms. The fish inside were amazing - blue and red spotted coral fish, colourful lobsters and sea cucumbers. They catch them as fingerlings and then grow them in standing net cages just offshore. You take a canoe out to them.

It was great to drive to a different part of the island - although it was slow going with all the potholes in the road. We skirted around a big bay, through some beautiful scenery; the rainforest is gorgeous. I let out a gasp though when we came over a hill to a view of total destruction: a government-owned, 10 hectare palm plantation. They had clearfelled 10 ha of beautiful forest, as far as the eye could see, to plant palm trees for the palm oil industry. I was extremely saddened to see it. There is all sorts of raping and pillaging of natural resources here. Whole mountain faces destroyed for the rock and gravel to build roads and make cement. We even mine sand and coral from the beach to build our latrines and soakaway pits. The coral is dead mind you, but its still not sustainable. The cost of sourcing materials from elsewhere is very prohibitive, so it's a tough one to get around.

This week our head of office, Paul, came back from R&R and so i'm no longer acting in his position (and having to sign a million forms more than usual)! We also have Marty visiting from BA to do some monitoring and evaluation work. He's from Radelaide as well, and I did my Red Cross training with him in 05. Things are so exciting here that we polished off half a bottle of johnny walker red last night and then watched the Simpsons movie (third time! it still cracks me up). Not a bad effort for a school night.

I'm going to BA tomorrow afternoon and staying over the weekend, so that's something to look forward to. Apparently they are having a party at one of the Red Cross residences (and hopefully it's where I'm staying!). They play touch footy on wednesday nights at the stadium, so it will be good to get out and do some exercise with a new group of people. :) Then the week after I plan to head out to Salang, so it will be good to get out of the office.

The weekend of 13-14 October is Idul Fitri, the celebration at the end of Ramadan, and a looong weekend (Fri - Tues holiday). So I've booked a flight to Medan, planning to go to either Lake Toba, a big crater lake on Sumatra, or to Sabang to the north, for some snorkelling/diving. Should be nice whatever I do. Some of the staff are going to Toba, so I might join them. It's a mass exodus during Ramadan - most of my staff are taking leave during this time because its the quiet period while the locals fast over Ramadan, and then celebrate during Idul Fitri - and as most of them are not from Simeulue, they want to either go home to visit family and friends or go on a short break away from here. I can see why - I may have some mental health issues when I come home :). It's such a small quiet place. You get a bit bored after a while. The expat community is shrinking, and soon I will be one of the few left. I would liken Banda Aceh more to Monrovia than Simeulue, in terms of a big expat community with lots of activity going on and money pouring in.

Still, life could be worse - on the weekend a small group of us spent a night at Alus Alus, at the beach house. More reading, sleeping, eating, relaxing and swimming in the washing machine of a beach. Ahhh... being stuck on a tropical island has its perks :)