Ok, so after quite a late finish at Traders for an old geyser like
me, who had been on the road for the last three days, we began the next
day with a nice early start ... The plan was for the Simeulue crew
(Steph, Jon, Nam and myself) to drive to Bukit Lawang and do a bit of
jungle trekking, hoping to catch a glimpse of the orangutans of Gunung
Leuser National Park. I must have been totally shagged as I slept
through my alarm, so we didn’t leave til around 7… anyway we jumped in
our little hire van and cruised along the bumpy, potholed road for a
couple of hours. Nam’s suggestion of hair of the dog wasn’t really to
our taste, but he’d brought his own supplies and it worked for him! I
attempted to sleep to no avail :(
We met up with Anna,
the fifth Simeuluenian on the tour, at the EcoLodge in Bukit Lawang, and
then proceeded to our all-day trek. I don’t know if it was the best
idea considering how knackered I was and how little sleep I’d had! But
it was certainly a good way to get the blood flowing and I soon found
myself feeling wide awake and enjoying the trek through the humid but
cool forest.
Gunung Leuser NP is beautiful, and it
wasn’t long before we had left behind all traces of human impact on the
forest. We were tailed by quite a lot of inquisitive brown monkeys
throughout the journey. Our guides knew how to call to the orangutans,
and after a couple of hours of walking we came across a large one that
was obsessed with throwing a plank of wood around the place. A bit later
we found a small group of them, including a couple of young ones and a
baby, and later on another group. In all I think we saw about ten for
the day. All the adults were female, and were semi-wild; they were all
once inhabitants of the Bohorok Rehabilitation Centre, which is now
closed. Although it was initially set up with good intentions, over time
it began to practice unsustainable methods of reintroducing orangutans
into the wild, preferring to continue feeding them enough to keep them
around, thus bringing in the tourist dollar. Very sad, and thank
goodness it is no longer practiced. However, there is still a feeding
platform at the site of the old centre, which is open to view feeding
twice a day, and continues to bring in the orangutans (who could resist
handfuls of pineapples and bananas?) – not to mention the tourists. In
addition, whenever the orangutans approached, our guides had plenty of
fruit to give them as a reward; plus tourists were encouraged to
interact with them. This doesn’t really encourage them to assimilate
back into the forest! As we were walking towards our little destination
where we would take lunch, they were following us with the intention of
scoring more food… so we had to get outta there in order to eat in
peace!
Orangutans are amazing creatures; extremely
strong but agile in the trees. As you’d expect! What surprised me most
was that they had incredibly long arms, but quite short legs. I know
they need long arms for swinging through the trees but I expected their
legs to be longer. Their feet, which look more like hands, are also very
adept at grasping trees and vines. They are fantastic to watch as they
cruise around the forest. I also didn’t know that they are territorial,
with a large range that they move within, and that they make ‘nests’.
These are simple platforms in the trees, lined with leaves, which they
use to sleep in each night. The nests are only used for a single night
at a time, and then they move on to a different part of the forest.
Later
on in the trek we came across my namesake: an orangutan called Jacqui.
Hehe…! Gold! This orangutan was obsessed with following trekkers and
hugging everyone (like me when I’m drunk), so we had to be on our toes!
And then we met my favourite little critters: Thomas’ Leaf Monkeys.
These guys are the rock stars of the monkey world, with awesome black
and white striped mohawks, long tails, and beautiful long fingers and
toes to curl around branches. They are very inquisitive and always
leaping around the place.
In fact all the monkeys were
quite amusing when they launched themselves off trees, because they
always landed with a huge crash, and it can sometimes scare the hell out
of you, especially if you happen to be standing under the tree at the
time… :)
Once we’d finished off our trek and had
returned to the Eco Lodge, almost immediately the heavens let loose and
it began to absolutely piss down. In some ways I was glad that we
weren’t doing an overnight trek, and had elected to start out early! We
had met a few other trekkers along the way who were doing just that…
they would have got drenched.
We moved camp the next
day because there were no rooms left at the EcoLodge, and found what I
thought was much nicer accommodation further up the river, and further
away from all the touristy crap. We had monkeys on our roof in the
morning (beats an alarm clock any day – although it sounded like someone
throwing large rocks on the roof!) The rest of the time spent at Bukit
Lawang was just cruising around the river, relaxing, reading books and
enjoying a few beers with fellow travellers. Not to mention the best
fruit salad I have ever seen in my life. It looked like something that
should adorn someone’s head at the Carnivale in Rio. :)
So
back to Medan, enjoying a small dose of reality, stocking up on
essential foods and DVDs, and back to Simeulue. Blah. I do love this
place, but already I want another holiday!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Everything is good for you, if it doesn’t kill you…
So I begin my ramblings about yet another fun adventure in Indo.
Easter 2008: certainly an Easter to remember, for a mixture of good and
bad reasons!
Ok, so let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start! I’d granted my team two days of TOIL because they worked on a public holiday and Saturday; plus they have also been working pretty hard over the past few months and have been getting very frustrated with all the s#!t that’s been going on with the WatSan program (read previous blog!). So together we planned to take what was affectionately known as The WatSan Holiday. All members of the team (me, 2 engineers, 1 PHAST staff, 5 construction supervisors and 2 truck drivers) were keen, bar one of the PHAST team, who was joining the ‘other group’ of local staff in Bali.
[I really hate the divisiveness and power-mongering of the personalities in this office. There’s two rival factions operating here and it’s crap. I wish people would just get along!]
Anyway, back to the story. So the plan was to head to Lake Toba together, spend a couple of days there, and then cruise back to Medan. All good! The normal route to Toba is to fly to Medan with Susi Air (1 hour) and then drive the 5 hour journey to Parapat. However, at 1 million Rp, the return flight is out of the budget of many of our staff, so they elected to take the overnight ferry from Sinabang to the port of Labuhan haji on the southern coast of Sumatera, and then drive from there up to Lake Toba.
Considering it’s not actually that far, it surprised me how long it takes. Halfway through Monday, we find out that the ferry didn’t actually arrive on Sunday as scheduled due to bad weather (we’ve had lots of storms lately). So we didn’t leave til Tuesday evening; all good, nothing we could do about it, so on we get Tuesday night, all rearing to go.
The ferry was actually a lot more comfy than I expected: I was expecting a vast, open, smoke-filled area with bench seats or chairs arranged for people to sit on. But it actually had comfy, permanent reclining seats and a TV (should have guessed that last part). Thank God there was a non-smoking section! The smokers (a majority of the passengers) were content to sleep in a smoky second section. All the cars, buses and trucks were loaded in the hold, and passengers up top.
Not that that meant we actually slept much, if any. Started off the night imparting my extensive knowledge of card games (Black Bitch – yeah!) before a bit of telly and attempting to sleep in ‘reclining position’. It got quite rocky at various points of the journey … let’s just say the delightful sounds of retching weren’t conducive to sleep, nor was the loud music from various people’s mobiles! Indonesians have a real penchance for loud music at both late and early hours…I think the most amusing part was the rooster crowing at 5:17am. First I thought it was someone’s mobile phone alarm, until I noticed one of the passengers sleeping on the floor had a box with holes punched in it! J GOLD for Australia!
Anyway, so come 7am we arrived bleary-eyed in Labuhan haji. A Lontong breakfast preceded us all piling into a rusty, clapped-out bemo (fitting 11 people into this thing was a feat of its own) and after about an hours delay due to a totally disorganised driver, heading off towards Toba.
For the entire day. And what a long day it was. At least when we stopped at the mid-way point, we had beer. Guinness, even! :)
Finally we reached the town of Sidikalang, where we were to change buses. It was also the home town of my engineer Aduma, so I met her parents (lovely folks!), got serenaded with some local Batak songs and drank Tuak (palm wine) with the locals.
We got the last bus – a big, rusty, smoke-belching green monster with air brakes that squealed every time the driver put his foot down – and headed off to Pangururan in the rain. It was pretty damn crowded when we boarded, and sitting on a school bench perched in the aisle wasn’t the nicest way to treat my ass. But it wasn’t too bad – that is, until an oncoming motorbike attempted to overtake the car it was tailing, saw us coming, and in attempting to pull back in, lost control and skidded right in front of the bus. The bus driver accordingly swerved to miss it, and put us right into the ditch.
Luckily everyone came out unscathed, if not a little rattled. Which you think would have been a good reason to drive carefully for the remainder of the journey. But oh no, not this guy. It seemed to make him more determined to drive faster, perhaps wanting to get to Pangururan on time. Given that the road was only wide enough for our bus (let alone oncoming traffic, the majority of which were trucks), it was raining steadily, the road snaked along the edge of a steep cliff, and there were major roadworks the entire way, it was a very foolish way to drive and we spent much time almost in ditches or right at the edge to allow trucks to pass. But we made it by about 9pm, and set about heading to the losmen 3-by-3 in becaks.
Pangururan is actually on Samosir Island, in the middle of Lake Toba, just on the other side of the small peninsula that joins the island to the mainland… hence Samosir isn’t technically an island. Anyway. The losmen was pretty crap, but it’s redeeming feature was the hot springs in the mountain behind, the water from which had been transported long distances via a criss-cross of pipes to hot baths (men and women separate of course, not to mention bule’s (foreigners) and locals having their own separate areas too…). Talk about a great way to relax after 12 hours sitting cramped in Indonesian transport!
The next morning we set off on foot from the losmen back to the centre of town, took a million photos by the lake (Indonesians are such posers – but they never smile! Such serious expressions!) and jumped into another bemo to cruise around Samosir island. Samosir is such a beautiful place, bright green rice paddies set against the volcanic mountains dotted with pine trees; you can almost imagine an overnight snowfall and Julie Andrews singing from the hilltops! The Batak people bury their dead in above-ground family tombs that resemble small palaces, and together with the churches dotted around the landscape (Bataks are Christian), not to mention the enormous blue lake that engulfs Samosir, it makes for an intriguingly beautiful landscape.
We arrived in the town of Tomok and proceeded to hit the shops – and there are many full of the usual touristy crap. Spent quite a bit of time perusing said crap, especially as the construction supervisors and drivers were keen to buy souvenirs and presents for their families, given they’d never been to Toba before. After lunch we jumped on the ferry and headed to Prapat, the main town in the area and transit point for coming and going to Medan. So off in another bus we went, this time one in much better condition (as was the road!) and a lot less crowded. Phew!
So about 5 hours later we were back in Medan. And while totally exhausted, all I wanted was some meat and a glass of red! So off to Traders Bar & Restaurant with the Simeulue crew for a big fat steak, followed by a few games of 9-ball and some margaritas. Life is good.
But this is only half of the adventure. Read next blog for instalment 2. Mainly because I can’t be bothered typing it right now… but there’s orangutans in it, so you’ll want to read it. Hehe!
Ok, so let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start! I’d granted my team two days of TOIL because they worked on a public holiday and Saturday; plus they have also been working pretty hard over the past few months and have been getting very frustrated with all the s#!t that’s been going on with the WatSan program (read previous blog!). So together we planned to take what was affectionately known as The WatSan Holiday. All members of the team (me, 2 engineers, 1 PHAST staff, 5 construction supervisors and 2 truck drivers) were keen, bar one of the PHAST team, who was joining the ‘other group’ of local staff in Bali.
[I really hate the divisiveness and power-mongering of the personalities in this office. There’s two rival factions operating here and it’s crap. I wish people would just get along!]
Anyway, back to the story. So the plan was to head to Lake Toba together, spend a couple of days there, and then cruise back to Medan. All good! The normal route to Toba is to fly to Medan with Susi Air (1 hour) and then drive the 5 hour journey to Parapat. However, at 1 million Rp, the return flight is out of the budget of many of our staff, so they elected to take the overnight ferry from Sinabang to the port of Labuhan haji on the southern coast of Sumatera, and then drive from there up to Lake Toba.
Considering it’s not actually that far, it surprised me how long it takes. Halfway through Monday, we find out that the ferry didn’t actually arrive on Sunday as scheduled due to bad weather (we’ve had lots of storms lately). So we didn’t leave til Tuesday evening; all good, nothing we could do about it, so on we get Tuesday night, all rearing to go.
The ferry was actually a lot more comfy than I expected: I was expecting a vast, open, smoke-filled area with bench seats or chairs arranged for people to sit on. But it actually had comfy, permanent reclining seats and a TV (should have guessed that last part). Thank God there was a non-smoking section! The smokers (a majority of the passengers) were content to sleep in a smoky second section. All the cars, buses and trucks were loaded in the hold, and passengers up top.
Not that that meant we actually slept much, if any. Started off the night imparting my extensive knowledge of card games (Black Bitch – yeah!) before a bit of telly and attempting to sleep in ‘reclining position’. It got quite rocky at various points of the journey … let’s just say the delightful sounds of retching weren’t conducive to sleep, nor was the loud music from various people’s mobiles! Indonesians have a real penchance for loud music at both late and early hours…I think the most amusing part was the rooster crowing at 5:17am. First I thought it was someone’s mobile phone alarm, until I noticed one of the passengers sleeping on the floor had a box with holes punched in it! J GOLD for Australia!
Anyway, so come 7am we arrived bleary-eyed in Labuhan haji. A Lontong breakfast preceded us all piling into a rusty, clapped-out bemo (fitting 11 people into this thing was a feat of its own) and after about an hours delay due to a totally disorganised driver, heading off towards Toba.
For the entire day. And what a long day it was. At least when we stopped at the mid-way point, we had beer. Guinness, even! :)
Finally we reached the town of Sidikalang, where we were to change buses. It was also the home town of my engineer Aduma, so I met her parents (lovely folks!), got serenaded with some local Batak songs and drank Tuak (palm wine) with the locals.
We got the last bus – a big, rusty, smoke-belching green monster with air brakes that squealed every time the driver put his foot down – and headed off to Pangururan in the rain. It was pretty damn crowded when we boarded, and sitting on a school bench perched in the aisle wasn’t the nicest way to treat my ass. But it wasn’t too bad – that is, until an oncoming motorbike attempted to overtake the car it was tailing, saw us coming, and in attempting to pull back in, lost control and skidded right in front of the bus. The bus driver accordingly swerved to miss it, and put us right into the ditch.
Luckily everyone came out unscathed, if not a little rattled. Which you think would have been a good reason to drive carefully for the remainder of the journey. But oh no, not this guy. It seemed to make him more determined to drive faster, perhaps wanting to get to Pangururan on time. Given that the road was only wide enough for our bus (let alone oncoming traffic, the majority of which were trucks), it was raining steadily, the road snaked along the edge of a steep cliff, and there were major roadworks the entire way, it was a very foolish way to drive and we spent much time almost in ditches or right at the edge to allow trucks to pass. But we made it by about 9pm, and set about heading to the losmen 3-by-3 in becaks.
Pangururan is actually on Samosir Island, in the middle of Lake Toba, just on the other side of the small peninsula that joins the island to the mainland… hence Samosir isn’t technically an island. Anyway. The losmen was pretty crap, but it’s redeeming feature was the hot springs in the mountain behind, the water from which had been transported long distances via a criss-cross of pipes to hot baths (men and women separate of course, not to mention bule’s (foreigners) and locals having their own separate areas too…). Talk about a great way to relax after 12 hours sitting cramped in Indonesian transport!
The next morning we set off on foot from the losmen back to the centre of town, took a million photos by the lake (Indonesians are such posers – but they never smile! Such serious expressions!) and jumped into another bemo to cruise around Samosir island. Samosir is such a beautiful place, bright green rice paddies set against the volcanic mountains dotted with pine trees; you can almost imagine an overnight snowfall and Julie Andrews singing from the hilltops! The Batak people bury their dead in above-ground family tombs that resemble small palaces, and together with the churches dotted around the landscape (Bataks are Christian), not to mention the enormous blue lake that engulfs Samosir, it makes for an intriguingly beautiful landscape.
We arrived in the town of Tomok and proceeded to hit the shops – and there are many full of the usual touristy crap. Spent quite a bit of time perusing said crap, especially as the construction supervisors and drivers were keen to buy souvenirs and presents for their families, given they’d never been to Toba before. After lunch we jumped on the ferry and headed to Prapat, the main town in the area and transit point for coming and going to Medan. So off in another bus we went, this time one in much better condition (as was the road!) and a lot less crowded. Phew!
So about 5 hours later we were back in Medan. And while totally exhausted, all I wanted was some meat and a glass of red! So off to Traders Bar & Restaurant with the Simeulue crew for a big fat steak, followed by a few games of 9-ball and some margaritas. Life is good.
But this is only half of the adventure. Read next blog for instalment 2. Mainly because I can’t be bothered typing it right now… but there’s orangutans in it, so you’ll want to read it. Hehe!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Work-schmirk-stress-mess!!!
I am so stressed at the moment. There are so many issues going on
with the program. Things aren't happening and it's driving me insane. I
have an end of 2008 timeline hanging over my head and we're already 3
months behind schedule.
My WatSan program is at a standstill with an overpricing investigation, and until its all sorted, the country manager won't sign any purchase orders. So, no materials are coming in and we can't build any more toilets and wells, or install any more septic tanks. We built a new warehouse at the beginning of January in Along village for all the new materials we were supposed to get ages ago... so it's been sitting there since, waiting to be filled! Our logistics and finance people have left, leaving a massive gap. Our 'run-around guy' has taken over Logistics since the senior logistician quit and her sidekick resigned (he was the subject of the overpricing investigation), but he is totally unqualified and, while doing his best, is not doing a good job. So my two engineers now refuse to work with him out of frustration. I don't blame them - I'm as frustrated as they are - but I think they're being a bit harsh on him.
The last week has been bloody stressful too: we recently recruited ten new Indonesian Red Cross volunteers, and have put them through 3 days of PHAST (hygiene) training and 3 days of Community Development Training. Our construction supervisors attended the CDT as well. I have been running around playing driver to ferry people to training, because logistics and/or my staff hadn't organised the cars properly. Today is the final day, a full-day induction to Indonesian Red Cross (booooriiiing!). They will all be knackered by the end! I have been trying - quite unsuccesfully might I add - to understand the training content, which is tiring enough in itself!
My two hygiene promotion staff don't get along well and have been decidedly unfriendly and unco-operative towards each other all week. Thank god there are other people around for them to hang out with.
And then, to top it all off, I hit someone with the car yesterday. We were coming back from a great stress-free afternoon at the beach with all the volunteers and staff, I was driving at night and an oncoming car blinded me at exactly the same point where an old man was walking on the road. He wasn't wearing visible clothing, plus there are no lights or road markings. Luckily I only clipped his elbow, and there was no serious injury. Our staff went back a couple of hours later to check if he was ok or if he needed any further medical care than the traditional massage we organised for him. He was ok, thank god. Turns out he was the father of one of our drivers, which in some ways was good but in others made things more difficult.
I was in shock for the next 2 hours, and turning over and over in my head what could have happened. Thank god nothing worse happened. I've come down sick becaues of all the stress of the last week or so, and all I want to do is sleep.
But it's off to the field tomorrow. We have an ARC Board member, Tsunami Operations Manager and his assistant, plus Communications manager coming to visit. We'll have to drive to Salang and give them a tour of all our projects. In some ways it will be good fun, but in others I just wish that it wasn't all happening at the same time!
Can't wait til Thursday when all our visitors leave and I can rest. Let's just say Easter can't come fast enough. Because the training included working on a public holiday and a Saturday, we can take a couple of extra days off over Easter, so I am taking my team to Lake Toba for a bit of rest and relaxation, which should be fun :)
A week away from work will be a real refresher. Game on!
My WatSan program is at a standstill with an overpricing investigation, and until its all sorted, the country manager won't sign any purchase orders. So, no materials are coming in and we can't build any more toilets and wells, or install any more septic tanks. We built a new warehouse at the beginning of January in Along village for all the new materials we were supposed to get ages ago... so it's been sitting there since, waiting to be filled! Our logistics and finance people have left, leaving a massive gap. Our 'run-around guy' has taken over Logistics since the senior logistician quit and her sidekick resigned (he was the subject of the overpricing investigation), but he is totally unqualified and, while doing his best, is not doing a good job. So my two engineers now refuse to work with him out of frustration. I don't blame them - I'm as frustrated as they are - but I think they're being a bit harsh on him.
The last week has been bloody stressful too: we recently recruited ten new Indonesian Red Cross volunteers, and have put them through 3 days of PHAST (hygiene) training and 3 days of Community Development Training. Our construction supervisors attended the CDT as well. I have been running around playing driver to ferry people to training, because logistics and/or my staff hadn't organised the cars properly. Today is the final day, a full-day induction to Indonesian Red Cross (booooriiiing!). They will all be knackered by the end! I have been trying - quite unsuccesfully might I add - to understand the training content, which is tiring enough in itself!
My two hygiene promotion staff don't get along well and have been decidedly unfriendly and unco-operative towards each other all week. Thank god there are other people around for them to hang out with.
And then, to top it all off, I hit someone with the car yesterday. We were coming back from a great stress-free afternoon at the beach with all the volunteers and staff, I was driving at night and an oncoming car blinded me at exactly the same point where an old man was walking on the road. He wasn't wearing visible clothing, plus there are no lights or road markings. Luckily I only clipped his elbow, and there was no serious injury. Our staff went back a couple of hours later to check if he was ok or if he needed any further medical care than the traditional massage we organised for him. He was ok, thank god. Turns out he was the father of one of our drivers, which in some ways was good but in others made things more difficult.
I was in shock for the next 2 hours, and turning over and over in my head what could have happened. Thank god nothing worse happened. I've come down sick becaues of all the stress of the last week or so, and all I want to do is sleep.
But it's off to the field tomorrow. We have an ARC Board member, Tsunami Operations Manager and his assistant, plus Communications manager coming to visit. We'll have to drive to Salang and give them a tour of all our projects. In some ways it will be good fun, but in others I just wish that it wasn't all happening at the same time!
Can't wait til Thursday when all our visitors leave and I can rest. Let's just say Easter can't come fast enough. Because the training included working on a public holiday and a Saturday, we can take a couple of extra days off over Easter, so I am taking my team to Lake Toba for a bit of rest and relaxation, which should be fun :)
A week away from work will be a real refresher. Game on!
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