Ahh yes, one of the reasons I love this country: lots of public
holidays. The Eid ul-Adha holiday started on the 20th December, and went
right through til the 26th – so with a couple of leave days thrown in,
you can get a good week or two's holiday! (which is what I’ve done – in
fact I’ve taken the 31st as well as the 2-4th Jan off, so almost 3 weeks
in total. Yah!)
Anyhoo, so given that the plan was to
spend Xmas Day in Medan with my boss Paul, his wife Popi and a few work
crew, it was a good opportunity to get over to Lake Toba with the four
day break.
So after a few too many drinks at the
Aryadutha Hotel with Popi & Paul, Steph and Jon, Natasha,
Kiki, (all Simeulue staff) Chris and some of the other Susi Pilots on
the 20th, the next day Natasha and I boarded a bus headed for Prapat.
Ahh yes, 4+ hours sweating our arses off, crammed into three seats when
we really needed four. Not to mention the old man smoking right next to
us and dropping ash on Natasha! Boo!
Still, once we
got going it wasn’t so bad, and the scenery was interesting, especially
as we got closer to the lake and the elevation increased (and the
temperature dropped!). It’s a beautiful view of the Lake when you first
come over the mountain and see the water – and it’s a surprising
environment that you encounter. It’s cool (first time I’ve felt cold in
Indo), there are many pine forests on the mountain slopes, and the town
of Prapat looks almost European. In fact the whole region reminded me a
lot of Europe, particularly with the churches dotted around the place.
Amongst rice padis mind you, but still…
So once we hit
Prapat, it was on to the ferry to get across to Samosir Island, in the
middle of the Lake. Technically it’s not an island – it has a narrow
peninsula that joins the mainland – but it seems like one! We got
targeted straight up by a couple of local touts looking for business for
their hotel. We had a couple of places in mind, but given that it was
the end of the day and dark by the time we landed, we agreed to stay at
Lekjon hostel for the night. In the end we stayed there the whole time;
it was cheap, located in a beautiful spot by the lake and we ended up
spending a lot of time hanging out with our new buddies Romano and Juan.
They were great fun, and ran a nice hostel with a restaurant, pool
table, good tunes and a nightclub nearby – what more could you want?
They
also convinced us to cruise around the island on the first day on their
motorbikes. It was cool fun, a good way to learn about the Batak
culture of the island, get to know the guys, see all the touristy stuff
and check out the scenery without having to watch where you’re going!
The island is a beautiful place, churches dotted amongst rice padis
surrounded by pine-forested mountains cloaked in cloud, all surrounding a
huge blue lake; reminded me a little of Lake Geneva. It was strange to
think this existed in Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world.
The next few days were spent riding bicycles,
eating and drinking, relaxing by the lake, playing pool, and hitting the
nightclub down the road. We met some cool people from Korea and Finland
(a hot firey, hello!), as well as some of the other locals who hung out
at the hostel. All up it was a really fun, relaxing time, a perfect
lead up to Christmas. I didn’t want to leave!
And while
Paul and Popi’s first baby was due New Year’s Eve, he came early – 23rd
December. So I was very excited when I went to the hospital on Xmas Day
and met little Adrian for the first time. Such a gorgeous little tacker
(so small!) and such proud parents. After spending the morning in the
hospital, Paul and I went out for lunch and gorged ourselves on the
things we can’t get here: a decent steak and bottles of red! We thought
we would be joined by a few work crew for lunch, but this didn’t
materialise, so we got pissed together and then cruised down to Sun
Plaza, a huge shopping mall, to check it out, eat ice cream and drink
more beer in the food court. Mmmm…. ice cream…
That
night we went out for more drinks with the work crew and some of the
Susi Pilots, went to the local pool hall and nightclub. In the end it
dragged on, and I didn’t really enjoy it all that much, especially
because the Susi boys were all chasing Indonesian skirt (I really don't
like the whole white man - young Asian girl scene ... it's a bit
disgusting!) and I was pretty tired from a day of drinking with the
boss!
Off to Singapore for Boxing Day, yah!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
hooray for holidays
I like the fact that the Christmas break starts here on the 20th December.
Here's the plan:
21st: fly to Medan, hang out in a big city and do some shopping! (most important: Shop for baby presents for Paul (my boss) and his wife Poppy; get a new weights machine cable - I broke the other one; and get my tennis racquet restrung)
22nd: Bus to Lake Toba, biggest crater lake in SE Asia, with Natasha, our logistics delegate.
24th: Back to Medan
25th: Christmas, yah! Gorge on wicked food and wine with Paul, Poppy, Yankie and Chris (my colleagues from Simeulue)
26th: Fly to Singapore to hang out with my cousins and spend New Years Eve
27th/28th: I'm not working, yah!
2nd Jan: Bus to Malaysia to check out the beautiful old colonial city of Malaka
5th Jan: Back to Singapore, to spend my last day of holidays with the Simeulue expat crew, who will all be there, yah!
6th/7th Jan: back to Medan.
Talk about a wickedly long holiday.
Then I get my RandR at the end of Jan.
Fun times!
Here's the plan:
21st: fly to Medan, hang out in a big city and do some shopping! (most important: Shop for baby presents for Paul (my boss) and his wife Poppy; get a new weights machine cable - I broke the other one; and get my tennis racquet restrung)
22nd: Bus to Lake Toba, biggest crater lake in SE Asia, with Natasha, our logistics delegate.
24th: Back to Medan
25th: Christmas, yah! Gorge on wicked food and wine with Paul, Poppy, Yankie and Chris (my colleagues from Simeulue)
26th: Fly to Singapore to hang out with my cousins and spend New Years Eve
27th/28th: I'm not working, yah!
2nd Jan: Bus to Malaysia to check out the beautiful old colonial city of Malaka
5th Jan: Back to Singapore, to spend my last day of holidays with the Simeulue expat crew, who will all be there, yah!
6th/7th Jan: back to Medan.
Talk about a wickedly long holiday.
Then I get my RandR at the end of Jan.
Fun times!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Jacqui in absentia
I seem to have gone MIA from this blog of mine. Probably been too
lazy. So now that I'm having an unproductive day at work, it's a good
opportunity to add some more bits and pieces.
I'm knackered today - I have spent the last 7 days in Salang, and it's tiring! Not just the work but the travelling conditions as well. It's about 3 hours driving each way on horrible pot-holed roads, and you arrive at your destination feeling pretty shabby.
Last weekend, the manager of tsunami operations for Australian Red Cross paid Simeulue a visit and wanted to see all the projects in Salang over the weekend. So, somewhat reluctantly, we played tour guide for him; I wasn't all that keen on spending my weekend 'at work', and two of my staff - who had already spent the entire week there - were required to attend. Not surprisingly on Monday they were pretty tired, and then had to go to Salang again this week (as did I). Lucky it's Christmas soon - they'll get a break!
Anyway, the weekend turned out to be quite fun, explaining all of our projects and cruising around Salang. I learned a lot about the other programs. We spoke to community members who had been recipients of first aid, hygiene and agriculture training; toured agricultural plots; traipsed around rice padis; as well as visiting households where the WatSan team has built dunnies and wells.
On Monday our Monitoring delegate (and fellow Adelaidean) Marty arrived. We headed off to Salang to undertake a week of activities to evaluate our Indonesian Red Cross volunteers, discuss the program with them, and interview community members about the training program we run with them as part of the WatSan activities.
Staying in Salang for a week can be very trying, particularly as the base camp is usually stuffed to the rafters with ARC Staff and Indo Red Cross volunteers; it reminds me a lot of school camp in Port Vincent (year 8 for the record!). Dormitory accommodation; two mandi (bathrooms) to be shared between around 20 people (I can't believe how long Indonesians spend in there - considering all you're doing is pouring water over yourself with a ladle!! Let's just say that you're waiting a long time to get your morning wash!); the call to prayer by the mosque across the road at 5am; a noisy fan in the room; phones going off at random times of the early morning; and having to sleep with the light on: one of my staff is scared of the dark. NOT good for a decent bout of shut-eye! I'm always really tired after a week in Salang due to lack of sleep.
Then there's the food issue. The staff here are REALLY stingy when it comes to spending their valued per diem allowances. They get around 80,000 Rp a day ($10) on top of their salaries, but only spend around 35,000 (about $4) a week on food in order to save truckloads of money.
This is the typical contents of my stomach during a week in Salang:
- rice (and shitloads of it)
- fish (often salted to the hilt, and fried)
- fried eggs (or omelete)
- chili
- tomatoes
- cassava leaf (often the only other vegetables you get)
- (sometimes) cabbage, carrots and/or beans
This week we actually got chicken, but as it's 'expensive' for staff we usually don't have it. Let's just say the meal consisted of a scungy chicken in an oily coconut curry-like sauce, with rice. No vegetables, unless you include chili! Metamucil would probably do a roaring trade in this place, were it available... hehe!!!
Whatever other ingredients you provide are at your own cost and end up being shared, much to the delight of the staff. Marty is a legend in this regard, because he always brings delicious goodies over from Banda Aceh: cheese bread, bacon, cheese, capsicum, pasta - things you can't get here on Simeulue. He even brought ham this time! Both of his recent visits have involved one night of pure joy food-wise, as well as a carton of beer. Normally I don't take beer because I don't have anyone to drink with. The staff love it too - they get the left overs! While the Muslim staff can't drink alcohol or eat our pasta creations due to the inclusion of piggy products, the Christian crew think all their Christmases have come at once.
A lighter moment was provided by our attempt to consume ham sandwiches for lunch on Thursday; considering we were in a mosque with almost all Muslim colleagues, we had to be content with eating outside, but still in the mosque compound (which isn't really kosher) because it was raining. It was all very secretive.
The other bad thing about all of this is that unless you go for a run, swim or regular walk each day, there is no exercise to be had. So you're sitting around all week, eating lots of rice and oil, and getting a beer gut. Our main form of exercise so far seems to be playing frisbee with the local kids. We are in the process of building a badminton court on the compound, but so far we only have the court itself - no net or poles yet. Hopefully soon.
Work-wise this week, we sat through a whole bunch of very similar and often monotonous hygiene sessions, which while not really 'action packed', were quite taxing. By Thursday afternoon we'd had enough and decided to go back at the end of the day; Marty also had to get a flight back to Banda Aceh this morning (Friday) and considering potential delays in travel time due to the roads, it was a good idea - just how good we were yet to find out...
All was going well; we'd begun our bumpy trek back to Sinabang and then we arrived in the village of Kampung Aie which is notorious for its bridge being dodgy. They have been building a new bridge there since August, but it's not even half finished. So the old rickety bridge has to suffice. No problems if you're on a motorbike, like 75% of the population; but try driving a truck full of sand or a landcruiser full of people over it, and you're likely to run into trouble.
So when we got to the bridge it was already 5pm, and as was expected, a truck was stuck on the far end of the bridge, it's back tyres firmly wedged between two planks of wood, where a rotten plank had given way. It wasn't going anywhere fast, attested by the fact that there were about ten trucks, pickups and NGO vehicles piled up behind it waiting to pass, and they'd emptied all the sand out of it. Given the time, and that we are not supposed to drive in the dark due to security reasons, we decided to go around the obstacle. This involved driving back into town and down to the beach, where, according to the driver, the Landcruiser would be able to go around the river and then back onto the road.
It was smooth sailing - literally: the beach was the smoothest section of road in all of Salang! - and we had a great time dodging the waves. Then we took a tiny little bush track through palm trees to cut back to the road. Half way through we reached a swamp, which at first glance looked a bit dodgy - but after ditching his jeans and shoes and traipsing through the water and mud to check it out, our driver Sarwin declared it safe to pass, given it was rocky on the bottom and not too deep. But it was his approach to the mudhole that got us into trouble.
He roared the Lancruiser right into the hole, way too fast, which meant the car fully nose-dived straight into the water, and after smashing up and down a few times and water washing over the bonnet, we got properly stuck! The exhaust was fully submerged and bubbling away under the water, and we weren't going ANYWHERE.
So after a bunch of wheel spinning, trying to chock up the wheels with rocks, coconut branches and anything else half solid we could find, I decided I should walk back to the bridge to try and get help. Somehow the snap cord, shovel and any other items that should have been in the car for situations like this had mysteriously disappeared, likely sold by the driver for a bit of cash on the side ...
Our friends from the NGO CordAid had been waiting at the bridge when we first arrived there, so I figured we could get them to help. But when I arrived I couldn't find anyone I knew, let alone was I very able to communicate my problem! But eventually I tracked down the CordAid driver and his assistant, and between us we had enough Bahasa Indonesian/English to work out what to do, and they had a winch on their car.
In the end, after about 6 of 7 tries, we eventually pulled the Landcruiser out ... a tough gig considering it was much bigger than the CordAid Ranger, and most attempts resulted in a lot of wheel spinning and the Ranger being dragged toward the mudhole! I was waiting for the winch cord to snap!
So it was around 7pm by the time all this happened and we got ourselves out. Let's just say we owe a great debt to CordAid, we need to restock all our vehicles with emergency equipment, and we were totally knackered when we got back!
Ahh adventures in the mud, reminds me of Liberia. Makes life interesting though.
So in our wisdom, after dropping in on the boss to pick up my house keys, we decided to have a few beers. Paul, the head of office, goes a bit balmy during the week as he is the only English-speaking staff member when I'm in Salang, so come Friday he is gagging for an Aussie to speak to! We finished off Paul's 6 beers and some scotch before cruising to my house to drink the beers we had left over from Salang and to watch the Simpsons movie. For the record, it's the 6 time I've seen it! A 1:30am bed time was the result, not the best idea considering how tired we were, but a good wind down after a long week. Today has been a bit tougher due to it, but hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time...!
Bring on the weekend!!!!
Knowing my luck it will be raining the whole time...
I'm knackered today - I have spent the last 7 days in Salang, and it's tiring! Not just the work but the travelling conditions as well. It's about 3 hours driving each way on horrible pot-holed roads, and you arrive at your destination feeling pretty shabby.
Last weekend, the manager of tsunami operations for Australian Red Cross paid Simeulue a visit and wanted to see all the projects in Salang over the weekend. So, somewhat reluctantly, we played tour guide for him; I wasn't all that keen on spending my weekend 'at work', and two of my staff - who had already spent the entire week there - were required to attend. Not surprisingly on Monday they were pretty tired, and then had to go to Salang again this week (as did I). Lucky it's Christmas soon - they'll get a break!
Anyway, the weekend turned out to be quite fun, explaining all of our projects and cruising around Salang. I learned a lot about the other programs. We spoke to community members who had been recipients of first aid, hygiene and agriculture training; toured agricultural plots; traipsed around rice padis; as well as visiting households where the WatSan team has built dunnies and wells.
On Monday our Monitoring delegate (and fellow Adelaidean) Marty arrived. We headed off to Salang to undertake a week of activities to evaluate our Indonesian Red Cross volunteers, discuss the program with them, and interview community members about the training program we run with them as part of the WatSan activities.
Staying in Salang for a week can be very trying, particularly as the base camp is usually stuffed to the rafters with ARC Staff and Indo Red Cross volunteers; it reminds me a lot of school camp in Port Vincent (year 8 for the record!). Dormitory accommodation; two mandi (bathrooms) to be shared between around 20 people (I can't believe how long Indonesians spend in there - considering all you're doing is pouring water over yourself with a ladle!! Let's just say that you're waiting a long time to get your morning wash!); the call to prayer by the mosque across the road at 5am; a noisy fan in the room; phones going off at random times of the early morning; and having to sleep with the light on: one of my staff is scared of the dark. NOT good for a decent bout of shut-eye! I'm always really tired after a week in Salang due to lack of sleep.
Then there's the food issue. The staff here are REALLY stingy when it comes to spending their valued per diem allowances. They get around 80,000 Rp a day ($10) on top of their salaries, but only spend around 35,000 (about $4) a week on food in order to save truckloads of money.
This is the typical contents of my stomach during a week in Salang:
- rice (and shitloads of it)
- fish (often salted to the hilt, and fried)
- fried eggs (or omelete)
- chili
- tomatoes
- cassava leaf (often the only other vegetables you get)
- (sometimes) cabbage, carrots and/or beans
This week we actually got chicken, but as it's 'expensive' for staff we usually don't have it. Let's just say the meal consisted of a scungy chicken in an oily coconut curry-like sauce, with rice. No vegetables, unless you include chili! Metamucil would probably do a roaring trade in this place, were it available... hehe!!!
Whatever other ingredients you provide are at your own cost and end up being shared, much to the delight of the staff. Marty is a legend in this regard, because he always brings delicious goodies over from Banda Aceh: cheese bread, bacon, cheese, capsicum, pasta - things you can't get here on Simeulue. He even brought ham this time! Both of his recent visits have involved one night of pure joy food-wise, as well as a carton of beer. Normally I don't take beer because I don't have anyone to drink with. The staff love it too - they get the left overs! While the Muslim staff can't drink alcohol or eat our pasta creations due to the inclusion of piggy products, the Christian crew think all their Christmases have come at once.
A lighter moment was provided by our attempt to consume ham sandwiches for lunch on Thursday; considering we were in a mosque with almost all Muslim colleagues, we had to be content with eating outside, but still in the mosque compound (which isn't really kosher) because it was raining. It was all very secretive.
The other bad thing about all of this is that unless you go for a run, swim or regular walk each day, there is no exercise to be had. So you're sitting around all week, eating lots of rice and oil, and getting a beer gut. Our main form of exercise so far seems to be playing frisbee with the local kids. We are in the process of building a badminton court on the compound, but so far we only have the court itself - no net or poles yet. Hopefully soon.
Work-wise this week, we sat through a whole bunch of very similar and often monotonous hygiene sessions, which while not really 'action packed', were quite taxing. By Thursday afternoon we'd had enough and decided to go back at the end of the day; Marty also had to get a flight back to Banda Aceh this morning (Friday) and considering potential delays in travel time due to the roads, it was a good idea - just how good we were yet to find out...
All was going well; we'd begun our bumpy trek back to Sinabang and then we arrived in the village of Kampung Aie which is notorious for its bridge being dodgy. They have been building a new bridge there since August, but it's not even half finished. So the old rickety bridge has to suffice. No problems if you're on a motorbike, like 75% of the population; but try driving a truck full of sand or a landcruiser full of people over it, and you're likely to run into trouble.
So when we got to the bridge it was already 5pm, and as was expected, a truck was stuck on the far end of the bridge, it's back tyres firmly wedged between two planks of wood, where a rotten plank had given way. It wasn't going anywhere fast, attested by the fact that there were about ten trucks, pickups and NGO vehicles piled up behind it waiting to pass, and they'd emptied all the sand out of it. Given the time, and that we are not supposed to drive in the dark due to security reasons, we decided to go around the obstacle. This involved driving back into town and down to the beach, where, according to the driver, the Landcruiser would be able to go around the river and then back onto the road.
It was smooth sailing - literally: the beach was the smoothest section of road in all of Salang! - and we had a great time dodging the waves. Then we took a tiny little bush track through palm trees to cut back to the road. Half way through we reached a swamp, which at first glance looked a bit dodgy - but after ditching his jeans and shoes and traipsing through the water and mud to check it out, our driver Sarwin declared it safe to pass, given it was rocky on the bottom and not too deep. But it was his approach to the mudhole that got us into trouble.
He roared the Lancruiser right into the hole, way too fast, which meant the car fully nose-dived straight into the water, and after smashing up and down a few times and water washing over the bonnet, we got properly stuck! The exhaust was fully submerged and bubbling away under the water, and we weren't going ANYWHERE.
So after a bunch of wheel spinning, trying to chock up the wheels with rocks, coconut branches and anything else half solid we could find, I decided I should walk back to the bridge to try and get help. Somehow the snap cord, shovel and any other items that should have been in the car for situations like this had mysteriously disappeared, likely sold by the driver for a bit of cash on the side ...
Our friends from the NGO CordAid had been waiting at the bridge when we first arrived there, so I figured we could get them to help. But when I arrived I couldn't find anyone I knew, let alone was I very able to communicate my problem! But eventually I tracked down the CordAid driver and his assistant, and between us we had enough Bahasa Indonesian/English to work out what to do, and they had a winch on their car.
In the end, after about 6 of 7 tries, we eventually pulled the Landcruiser out ... a tough gig considering it was much bigger than the CordAid Ranger, and most attempts resulted in a lot of wheel spinning and the Ranger being dragged toward the mudhole! I was waiting for the winch cord to snap!
So it was around 7pm by the time all this happened and we got ourselves out. Let's just say we owe a great debt to CordAid, we need to restock all our vehicles with emergency equipment, and we were totally knackered when we got back!
Ahh adventures in the mud, reminds me of Liberia. Makes life interesting though.
So in our wisdom, after dropping in on the boss to pick up my house keys, we decided to have a few beers. Paul, the head of office, goes a bit balmy during the week as he is the only English-speaking staff member when I'm in Salang, so come Friday he is gagging for an Aussie to speak to! We finished off Paul's 6 beers and some scotch before cruising to my house to drink the beers we had left over from Salang and to watch the Simpsons movie. For the record, it's the 6 time I've seen it! A 1:30am bed time was the result, not the best idea considering how tired we were, but a good wind down after a long week. Today has been a bit tougher due to it, but hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time...!
Bring on the weekend!!!!
Knowing my luck it will be raining the whole time...
Thursday, December 6, 2007
an article on the current situation in Aceh
Far Eastern Economic Review
November 2007
The Rebirth Of Aceh
by Oakley Brooks
Just three years after the tsunami turned much of downtown Banda Aceh, Indonesia into a wasteland, the city has swung to the other extreme. Today it has the feeling of a boom town, thanks to$8 billion in aid from the Indonesian government and foreign donors. The question remains, however, whether this money can jumpstart the province's return to its historical role as one of the key entrepots of the region. After the construction dust settles, Aceh should emerge with the best trading infrastructure in Indonesia. Across the province, foreign-funded work crews are busy upgrading ports, airports and roads. A four-lane, United States-funded highway will run down the devastated west coast. Spread across Aceh's four million inhabitants, the aid is three times larger in per capita, inflation-adjusted terms than that spent in post-World War II France, the largest beneficiary of the American Marshall Plan.
None of this would be possible, of course, without the 2005peace agreement between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement. As well as bringing stability, the deal will provide the province with upwards of $3 billion a year in special disbursements from oil and gas fields now controlled by the central government. Also on the plus side of the ledger is Aceh's rich volcanic soil, which should give it an advantage in agricultural exports. And it sits in a strategic trading location at the tip of Sumatra, a maritime crossroads between India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The obstacles to development are considerable, however. The 169,000 lives lost to the tsunami may have captured the international community's attention, and loosened its purse strings, but the 30-year separatist conflict left deeper scars by preventing investment in both infrastructure and human capital. Remedying these long-term deficits will take sustained effort.
Healing the Wounds
Aid money can build infrastructure, but it also creates its ownheadaches. The huge influx of donor cash has led to localizedinflation and a culture of handouts. Educated, English-speaking Acehnese are in high demand at NGOs, and so enjoy generous salaries. Less-skilled workers can also take lucrative posts driving sport-utility vehicles for the NGOs. But these jobs will not last forever. Investors will be watching to see whether the animal spirits of the local economy begin to stir.
The conflict, as it's called in Aceh, killed an estimated 15,000 people, and systematic terror by government and rebel troops after 1999 left large swathes of the province traumatized. The situation sent business people scurrying for Jakarta and Malaysia; in rural areas, workers and small tenant holders fled their land. Some of the best Arabica coffee country in the world, in Aceh's central highlands, went to seed, along with oil palm, rubber and cocoa plantations throughout the province. Oil and natural gas installations serving fields in the eastern part of the province were often under siege. People who stayed tended a subsistence economy; any substantial business moved 500 kilometers east, to the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan.
One indicator of problems is that Acehnese are not taking up construction jobs, forcing firms to hire migrants from North Sumatra and Java. The unemployment rate in the province has helds teady at 12% during the boom as the workforce expanded by 5%. Analysts worry about long-term worker participation, especially among ex-combatants. In a World Bank survey among veterans of the Free Aceh Movement, most said they preferred "trader" over roles like "laborer."
Others have visions as grand as Aceh's economic planners. "We're waiting for an industrial company to invest here," says Hasan, a former rebel. He and some friends occasionally sell crushed gravel to construction sites in Banda Aceh to make ends meet. But they also spend a lot of time sitting in the local coffee shop.
The 5,000 or so former rebels, along with much of Aceh's youth, remain poorly educated. The former group was living in the jungle, sometimes burning schools to retaliate against the Indonesian government. And as the economy worsened in thep rovince, fewer people could manage fees for schools that were left.
"The priority is definitely how to improve the quality of our human resources," says Rahman Lubis, head of the planning arm of the Aceh government, who ticks off projects to map skills deficits and send students abroad for university. Close to one-third of Aceh's bulging budget is to be dedicated to education.
Whatever their shortcomings of talent and education, Acehnese have a unique pride and resilience, grounded in a strong Islamic faith that came to the fore during a harrowing last few years. There's an ongoing debate in the province and throughout Indonesia about whether conservative Islamic social norms in Aceh (adultery, for instance, is sometimes punished by public lashing) will hurt the business climate. It's impossible to answer definitively, short of some multinational admitting it skipped the province for its Shariah laws.
But so far the Acehnese brand of faith seems to have helped the province more than hurt it. "These are copers," says Sasha Muench, an economic development specialist who spent two and a half years working in Aceh. Today, with the Indonesian army and rebels behaving themselves(under the scrutiny of the aid community) fear has subsided.
But economic dysfunction remains and it presents in myriad ways. A post-tsunami packaging and branding program aimed at rebuilding local products specified that packaging had to come from Medan, the only place a quality wrapper can be sourced.
"There's still so much trouble involved in doing business here,"says Tarmiyus, the principal in Pt. Pontia Agro Pratam, a construction supply firm which he has been operating from Medan since the tsunami.
"The biggest problem is the lack of capital," he continues. "The banks are so tight." Banks in Indonesia have been notoriously stingy since the Asian financial crisis, and in historically volatile Aceh they are even more conservative. The loan-to-deposit ratio, expressed as a percentage, is hovering around 25% in the province (up some since the tsunami), compared to 65% at the national level last year.
In the plantation agriculture sector, which many development and government officials are pegging to lead Aceh back into the export market, growers are at a stand-still because of the credit situation. They suffered wide-scale defaults as workers left plantations in fear. "We're all basically blacklisted by the banks right now," says Sabri Basyah, a palm-oil plantation owner who is the secretary of the estate growers association in Aceh. Other residual realities from the conflict era include extortion by ex-Free Aceh Movement members and armed highway robberies. The local paper, Serambi, tends to amplify their chilling effectby splashing cartoon re-enactments across the front page. Meanwhile, proceeds from Aceh's oil and gas fields - shared by the province and Jakarta - continue to dip as the reserves there are exhausted.
Optimism Returns
Nevertheless, the development community has seeded a broad return of basic family businesses - roadside convenience shops, cafes, farming operations - and helped spawn new service companies, such as automobile rental companies and Internet providers. And in the traditional Islamic spirit, the money has spread through family and friends throughout the city.
Now, herds of brand new buzzing motorbikes clog the streets, where bulldozers once ploughed the piles of post-tsunami debris like huge drifts of snow. The new look and feel of Aceh has some well-placed leaders dreaming of a bright, cosmopolitan future - a 21st century economy to complement Singapore and Malaysia, just across the Straights of Malacca.
"The origins of Aceh are as a trading hub; Acehnese pepper went to Boston," says Said Faisal, the economic chief of the Indonesian government's reconstruction agency in Aceh. An Acehnese by birth and trained in the insurance industry in America, Mr. Faisal recalls the Acehnese glory days before Dutch colonial meddling, when the sultanate was a key locus of IndianOcean trade, and European emissaries curried favor in Banda Aceh. "The roots are there. And I don't see any obstacles to bringing it back. In five years, the Acehnese will build back the ability to make relationships with the international community."
Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf, who's had a dizzying two years of his own, rising from imprisoned Free Aceh Movement leader to democratically elected executive, is juggling a bevy of economic initiatives, from stamping out corruption to halting illegal logging to courting international investors. Meetings with him are punctuated by aides seeking his signature on letters ofapproval for myriad causes and ventures.
Talented Acehnese who fled the province are also returning to win reconstruction contracts and provide consulting work. Achmad Fadhiel worked as a consultant with the International Finance Corporation after the tsunami. He's stayed on to be the CFO of government-owned fertilizer firm Iskander Muda.
"I had mixed feelings," says 42-year-old Mr. Fadhiel, who worked as a corporate banker in Jakarta for 18 years. "It was the same airport terminal building in Banda Aceh as when I left [in 1973,at the age of eight]. But it's about social responsibility. After many years in the banking industry I can give people some advice about financing. I'm having a lot of informal chats."
Everybody seems to be watching the movements of the talented and wealthy among the Acehnese diaspora-pegged at around one million people spread from Malaysia and greater Indonesia all the way to an enclave in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The re-entry of expatriates will send a strong signal to international investors about the health of Aceh. And, equally important, it will spur local businesspeople to take the leap into industries like agricultural and seafood processing and packing, a logical first step in adding value to the Aceh economy. "The question is will the spirit of entrepreneurship come back?" says Paul McMahon, a consultant with the Indonesian reconstruction agency who is organizing an Aceh venture fund for small and medium businesses.
The closest thing to a 21st century reality in Aceh is the port of Sabang on the island of Weh, which thrusts out of the ocean15 kilometers northwest of Banda Aceh. It's the best situated harbor in the province, deep, sheltered and facing the open ocean at the mouth of the Malaccas. Established as a free tradeport by the Dutch at the turn of the last century, today a steady stream of container ships cruise to and from Singapore, Malaysia and China, tantalizingly close but still out of reach.
Sabang promoters are looking to change that. Last October, Irish outfit Dublin Ports agreed to spearhead a major upgrade of the port to accommodate container ships. With modern docks, Sabang could theoretically grab a piece of the trans-shipment trade in Asia from the backed-up gateways in Singapore and Penang, Malaysia and Shanghai. Sabang officials, including new Mayor Munawar Lisa, a former Free Aceh Movement official educated in the U.S., would also like to restore the island's free-trade zone status (which led to steady car imports as recently as 2003).
And island leaders want to redevelop Sabang's whitewashed, Dutch-era stucco shops into a brand-name shopping mecca, centered around a new high-rise hotel. That would complement the island's international backpacker tourism at beach bungalows tucked away in some of Weh's sleepier coves. Already, downtown Sabang has a whiff of international flair, the colonial architectural lines melting into a gold-accented mosqueon the hill above town. There's wireless Internet in the central business district. Divers first discovered the island's reefs in the 1980s and with only light damage from the tsunami, Weh has hosted NGO workers and adventure travelers since early 2005.
Aceh's international connections got a further boost this fall with a new direct flight to Kuala Lumpur. But more than a year after the Irish announced they would build the port, they've still not been able to hash out an agreement with local authorities that will allow Dublin Ports to begin work on the international docks.
It's an indicator of the pace of business in Aceh, as the democratically elected government put in place early this year finds its legs. Still, a Dublin Ports official maintains the limbo period is comparable to other international deals he's worked on, and the company is committed to investing in Aceh. "We're prepared to wait," he says. Asking that his name not be used, he says he hopes docks to serve local Acehnese trade will open at the end of 2008.
So far the only notable trade item of late in Sabang has been a late-model, red Ferrari, which mysteriously showed up in August and led to some wild speculation among locals about the owner. Right now, the port still isn't duty free and with the taxes not paid on the car, it sits in hock with customs officials.
It, even more than the hustle of downtown Aceh, is an apt marker of the hopes of a place emerging from a dark period, and the realities it is slowly overcoming.
Mr. Brooks is a free-lance journalist based in Aceh.
November 2007
The Rebirth Of Aceh
by Oakley Brooks
Just three years after the tsunami turned much of downtown Banda Aceh, Indonesia into a wasteland, the city has swung to the other extreme. Today it has the feeling of a boom town, thanks to$8 billion in aid from the Indonesian government and foreign donors. The question remains, however, whether this money can jumpstart the province's return to its historical role as one of the key entrepots of the region. After the construction dust settles, Aceh should emerge with the best trading infrastructure in Indonesia. Across the province, foreign-funded work crews are busy upgrading ports, airports and roads. A four-lane, United States-funded highway will run down the devastated west coast. Spread across Aceh's four million inhabitants, the aid is three times larger in per capita, inflation-adjusted terms than that spent in post-World War II France, the largest beneficiary of the American Marshall Plan.
None of this would be possible, of course, without the 2005peace agreement between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement. As well as bringing stability, the deal will provide the province with upwards of $3 billion a year in special disbursements from oil and gas fields now controlled by the central government. Also on the plus side of the ledger is Aceh's rich volcanic soil, which should give it an advantage in agricultural exports. And it sits in a strategic trading location at the tip of Sumatra, a maritime crossroads between India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The obstacles to development are considerable, however. The 169,000 lives lost to the tsunami may have captured the international community's attention, and loosened its purse strings, but the 30-year separatist conflict left deeper scars by preventing investment in both infrastructure and human capital. Remedying these long-term deficits will take sustained effort.
Healing the Wounds
Aid money can build infrastructure, but it also creates its ownheadaches. The huge influx of donor cash has led to localizedinflation and a culture of handouts. Educated, English-speaking Acehnese are in high demand at NGOs, and so enjoy generous salaries. Less-skilled workers can also take lucrative posts driving sport-utility vehicles for the NGOs. But these jobs will not last forever. Investors will be watching to see whether the animal spirits of the local economy begin to stir.
The conflict, as it's called in Aceh, killed an estimated 15,000 people, and systematic terror by government and rebel troops after 1999 left large swathes of the province traumatized. The situation sent business people scurrying for Jakarta and Malaysia; in rural areas, workers and small tenant holders fled their land. Some of the best Arabica coffee country in the world, in Aceh's central highlands, went to seed, along with oil palm, rubber and cocoa plantations throughout the province. Oil and natural gas installations serving fields in the eastern part of the province were often under siege. People who stayed tended a subsistence economy; any substantial business moved 500 kilometers east, to the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan.
One indicator of problems is that Acehnese are not taking up construction jobs, forcing firms to hire migrants from North Sumatra and Java. The unemployment rate in the province has helds teady at 12% during the boom as the workforce expanded by 5%. Analysts worry about long-term worker participation, especially among ex-combatants. In a World Bank survey among veterans of the Free Aceh Movement, most said they preferred "trader" over roles like "laborer."
Others have visions as grand as Aceh's economic planners. "We're waiting for an industrial company to invest here," says Hasan, a former rebel. He and some friends occasionally sell crushed gravel to construction sites in Banda Aceh to make ends meet. But they also spend a lot of time sitting in the local coffee shop.
The 5,000 or so former rebels, along with much of Aceh's youth, remain poorly educated. The former group was living in the jungle, sometimes burning schools to retaliate against the Indonesian government. And as the economy worsened in thep rovince, fewer people could manage fees for schools that were left.
"The priority is definitely how to improve the quality of our human resources," says Rahman Lubis, head of the planning arm of the Aceh government, who ticks off projects to map skills deficits and send students abroad for university. Close to one-third of Aceh's bulging budget is to be dedicated to education.
Whatever their shortcomings of talent and education, Acehnese have a unique pride and resilience, grounded in a strong Islamic faith that came to the fore during a harrowing last few years. There's an ongoing debate in the province and throughout Indonesia about whether conservative Islamic social norms in Aceh (adultery, for instance, is sometimes punished by public lashing) will hurt the business climate. It's impossible to answer definitively, short of some multinational admitting it skipped the province for its Shariah laws.
But so far the Acehnese brand of faith seems to have helped the province more than hurt it. "These are copers," says Sasha Muench, an economic development specialist who spent two and a half years working in Aceh. Today, with the Indonesian army and rebels behaving themselves(under the scrutiny of the aid community) fear has subsided.
But economic dysfunction remains and it presents in myriad ways. A post-tsunami packaging and branding program aimed at rebuilding local products specified that packaging had to come from Medan, the only place a quality wrapper can be sourced.
"There's still so much trouble involved in doing business here,"says Tarmiyus, the principal in Pt. Pontia Agro Pratam, a construction supply firm which he has been operating from Medan since the tsunami.
"The biggest problem is the lack of capital," he continues. "The banks are so tight." Banks in Indonesia have been notoriously stingy since the Asian financial crisis, and in historically volatile Aceh they are even more conservative. The loan-to-deposit ratio, expressed as a percentage, is hovering around 25% in the province (up some since the tsunami), compared to 65% at the national level last year.
In the plantation agriculture sector, which many development and government officials are pegging to lead Aceh back into the export market, growers are at a stand-still because of the credit situation. They suffered wide-scale defaults as workers left plantations in fear. "We're all basically blacklisted by the banks right now," says Sabri Basyah, a palm-oil plantation owner who is the secretary of the estate growers association in Aceh. Other residual realities from the conflict era include extortion by ex-Free Aceh Movement members and armed highway robberies. The local paper, Serambi, tends to amplify their chilling effectby splashing cartoon re-enactments across the front page. Meanwhile, proceeds from Aceh's oil and gas fields - shared by the province and Jakarta - continue to dip as the reserves there are exhausted.
Optimism Returns
Nevertheless, the development community has seeded a broad return of basic family businesses - roadside convenience shops, cafes, farming operations - and helped spawn new service companies, such as automobile rental companies and Internet providers. And in the traditional Islamic spirit, the money has spread through family and friends throughout the city.
Now, herds of brand new buzzing motorbikes clog the streets, where bulldozers once ploughed the piles of post-tsunami debris like huge drifts of snow. The new look and feel of Aceh has some well-placed leaders dreaming of a bright, cosmopolitan future - a 21st century economy to complement Singapore and Malaysia, just across the Straights of Malacca.
"The origins of Aceh are as a trading hub; Acehnese pepper went to Boston," says Said Faisal, the economic chief of the Indonesian government's reconstruction agency in Aceh. An Acehnese by birth and trained in the insurance industry in America, Mr. Faisal recalls the Acehnese glory days before Dutch colonial meddling, when the sultanate was a key locus of IndianOcean trade, and European emissaries curried favor in Banda Aceh. "The roots are there. And I don't see any obstacles to bringing it back. In five years, the Acehnese will build back the ability to make relationships with the international community."
Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf, who's had a dizzying two years of his own, rising from imprisoned Free Aceh Movement leader to democratically elected executive, is juggling a bevy of economic initiatives, from stamping out corruption to halting illegal logging to courting international investors. Meetings with him are punctuated by aides seeking his signature on letters ofapproval for myriad causes and ventures.
Talented Acehnese who fled the province are also returning to win reconstruction contracts and provide consulting work. Achmad Fadhiel worked as a consultant with the International Finance Corporation after the tsunami. He's stayed on to be the CFO of government-owned fertilizer firm Iskander Muda.
"I had mixed feelings," says 42-year-old Mr. Fadhiel, who worked as a corporate banker in Jakarta for 18 years. "It was the same airport terminal building in Banda Aceh as when I left [in 1973,at the age of eight]. But it's about social responsibility. After many years in the banking industry I can give people some advice about financing. I'm having a lot of informal chats."
Everybody seems to be watching the movements of the talented and wealthy among the Acehnese diaspora-pegged at around one million people spread from Malaysia and greater Indonesia all the way to an enclave in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The re-entry of expatriates will send a strong signal to international investors about the health of Aceh. And, equally important, it will spur local businesspeople to take the leap into industries like agricultural and seafood processing and packing, a logical first step in adding value to the Aceh economy. "The question is will the spirit of entrepreneurship come back?" says Paul McMahon, a consultant with the Indonesian reconstruction agency who is organizing an Aceh venture fund for small and medium businesses.
The closest thing to a 21st century reality in Aceh is the port of Sabang on the island of Weh, which thrusts out of the ocean15 kilometers northwest of Banda Aceh. It's the best situated harbor in the province, deep, sheltered and facing the open ocean at the mouth of the Malaccas. Established as a free tradeport by the Dutch at the turn of the last century, today a steady stream of container ships cruise to and from Singapore, Malaysia and China, tantalizingly close but still out of reach.
Sabang promoters are looking to change that. Last October, Irish outfit Dublin Ports agreed to spearhead a major upgrade of the port to accommodate container ships. With modern docks, Sabang could theoretically grab a piece of the trans-shipment trade in Asia from the backed-up gateways in Singapore and Penang, Malaysia and Shanghai. Sabang officials, including new Mayor Munawar Lisa, a former Free Aceh Movement official educated in the U.S., would also like to restore the island's free-trade zone status (which led to steady car imports as recently as 2003).
And island leaders want to redevelop Sabang's whitewashed, Dutch-era stucco shops into a brand-name shopping mecca, centered around a new high-rise hotel. That would complement the island's international backpacker tourism at beach bungalows tucked away in some of Weh's sleepier coves. Already, downtown Sabang has a whiff of international flair, the colonial architectural lines melting into a gold-accented mosqueon the hill above town. There's wireless Internet in the central business district. Divers first discovered the island's reefs in the 1980s and with only light damage from the tsunami, Weh has hosted NGO workers and adventure travelers since early 2005.
Aceh's international connections got a further boost this fall with a new direct flight to Kuala Lumpur. But more than a year after the Irish announced they would build the port, they've still not been able to hash out an agreement with local authorities that will allow Dublin Ports to begin work on the international docks.
It's an indicator of the pace of business in Aceh, as the democratically elected government put in place early this year finds its legs. Still, a Dublin Ports official maintains the limbo period is comparable to other international deals he's worked on, and the company is committed to investing in Aceh. "We're prepared to wait," he says. Asking that his name not be used, he says he hopes docks to serve local Acehnese trade will open at the end of 2008.
So far the only notable trade item of late in Sabang has been a late-model, red Ferrari, which mysteriously showed up in August and led to some wild speculation among locals about the owner. Right now, the port still isn't duty free and with the taxes not paid on the car, it sits in hock with customs officials.
It, even more than the hustle of downtown Aceh, is an apt marker of the hopes of a place emerging from a dark period, and the realities it is slowly overcoming.
Mr. Brooks is a free-lance journalist based in Aceh.
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