Musings after being back for 3 days

Gawd, that holiday was much needed.. I didn't realise how stressed out and tired I was. This place had become a nightmare, and still is to a certain extent. I put my foot in it the other day by leaking a personal opinion to one of my now-resigned staff about another previous staff. So she went straight to this person with the text, and she then confronted me about it by sms, directly asking if I had sms that information... I didn't respond so she wrote an email to the country manager and tsunami operations manager. Serves me right for trusting one of my staff. Only myself to blame. I would love to slap some people around here. Anyway.

My Indonesian is coming along pretty well now after hte language course, which is cool - i could actually understand half of what my field staff were saying yesterday! It's made a big difference, I dont' know why they don't make it mandatory for staff to spend at least 2 weeks learning the language of the country they're posted to - I think a month's intensive language course would be perfect.

If I go back to my question about 'what next', well it's hard to say. If you compare working with ICRC vs a National Red Cross Society, based on this experience I'd say ICRC for sure. ARC's operation here is a bit of a balls-up. Probably something to do with the fact that they have no experience in running a big project like this tsunami business, and have gone in like a bull-at-a-gate and fucked a whole bunch of things up. I've got a lot of criticisms of the organisation, and I've even said in the past that I wouldn't work for them again.

That said, I think it has a lot to do with the location, the nature of the national staff in this office, and the people involved in management here - I put it down to judgement on a case-by-case basis. I would think that working in a different place would have a totally different set of people and circumstances, which would change my views of working for ARC.

I guess while ICRC has its negatives (ie its a big bureaucratic organisation with the usual frustrating red tape!), I would say overall that they are the best in terms of the RC movement. At least their policies are well established and you know exactly what you can/can't do - unlike ARC whose policies are all over the shop and not even developed properly. Plus they are good at what they do, and a lot more professional.

Bilateral (ie 2 Red Cross societies working together) projects are always a bit tricky, because you get so frustrated working with the national society of the country you're in due to their lack of capacity. Still, you just keep doing your work and hope that when you leave they'll actually do what they entrusted to - although I won't hold my breath in this case! (same for Liberian NRCS!)

So, I'm still trying to decide on whether to stay here in Simeulue and finish the project (ie extend my contract). At the moment this place sux, but with new staff and once the project gets rolling again I'm hoping things will be a lot better. And I do like the idea of seeing the project out to the end... but who knows how long that will drag on for. But, things are starting to happen. We should have two new engineers in a couple of weeks, and we are finally getting somewhere with pesky material ordering and delivery. Our manufacturer of septics arrived in Salang this week to set up for on-site production, which will be a lot faster and much cheaper.

Still, ARC would have to offer me something pretty good to stay – for example, and most importantly, a more decent salary!! They would also have to agree to my taking a month’s holiday to go travelling with my sis and two mates from Australia in August. I wouldn’t mind my allowed 2nd week of the language course either.

But I do want to go home, espcially after speaking to my nanna this morning - mum & dad have just put her into an old folks' home and she's been seriously ill recently. I don't know how much longer she'll be around for - and I want to spend as much time as I can with her before the inevitable... gawd I haven't cried for a while, I think that coupled with the all stress of dealing with self-involved, backstabbing, corrupt staff here it's all become a bit much.

Anyway. There are still some good people here in the office, plus a few remaining expats who make life loads of fun, plus with a couple of relatively newly-arrived Germans that like to get out and do things (including having just bought a boat, so we can cruise around to nearby islands), this place will be fine to stay longer. If I do stay, I don't know if I would extend past Xmas... but I would prob have to extend for 6 months which would make it til end Jan. Maybe home for my birthday?

My mind changes by the day. At the moment, I'm fucking outta here on the 7th August.

Adventures in Pulau Weh

Ahhh... I don't think I want to go back to Simeulue!! I finally made it to Pulau Weh, the beautiful little island directly off Banda Aceh - and the most northerly part of Indonesia. You can even visit the "Nol Kilometre" landmark, which marks the very start of Indonesia. I wonder if they have a "2432973 (or whatever) Kilometre" landmark at the other end of the archipelago? :)

I liked the fact that it was through work that I got to pay my first visit to this little paradise. The Banda Aceh office had organised a two day team building workshop there, and having planned to come directly to BA from my R&R for staff interviews, I decided I could join the team building. And I'm glad I did! Not only was it fun, involving a whole bunch of team challenges and fun activities, and I got to know more of the BA staff better, it was held at Freddy's resort, or Sumur Tiga, about 15 mins out of the main town of Sabang. Freddy's is on a beautiful little unspoiled beach, to which it's guests have almost exclusive access. You can go snorkelling directly offshore as well. So in between our teambuilding activities, we spent our time face down in the water looking at pretty coral and fishies :)

Then I managed to convince the boss that Elni (Simeulue Office Manager) and I should spend Friday in Sabang as well, and use the blissful isolation to shortlist candidates for our WatSan Engineer positions, for which we want to interview on Monday. Not only did we want to stay in this lovely place, but very conveniently there was a big party planned for Saturday night on Rubiah Island, just adjacent to Iboih Beach, another beautiful spot on the island. Hehe!

So that we did. It didn't actually take long, and we headed to Iboih on Friday afternoon. Considering we had shortlisted already, I went out on a boat with a few crew that had arrived early for the party, and did some snorkelling. Again, really beautiful, more so than at Freddy's, because it was further out to sea. We saw some beautiful blue-spotted stingrays. Our boat "Big Fish Too" capitano Eddie gave us a tour of his property and the hot water springs there, which were bubbling out of the mud. Great to sit and warm your feet with or have a 'hot shower' in! Unfortunately we spent a bit too much time enjoying ourselves onshore, and the tide went out, leaving our boat somewhat stranded amongst the coral! About half an hour and a lot of legwork later, we managed to get ourselves unstuck and headed back to Iboih.

Saturday was spent sleeping in (after a few drinks the night before) and again heading out in the water for some snorkelling. Just offshore there was some ok snorkelling, and we saw a sea snake too, which I'd never seen before. But it was in the afternoon that the snorkelling highlight arrived - again Eddie was prepared to take his boat out, and we went to the Marine Garden behind Rubiah Island, where the snorkelling was really beautiful. We saw some amazing coral, a huge array of fish, tonnes of starfish, but the highlight for me was a gigantic moray eel. After cruising back home again, we fired ourselves up for the party on Rubiah Island.

Our resident walking ideas-man-party-guru Michael had rustled up a whole bunch of fruit, alcohol and a blender and was concocting yummy cocktails to start off the night (and they were bloody strong!). After a couple of those I was a bit worse for wear, because I was dehydrated from the day's activities, and I'd come down with a stomach bug so I was feeling shite. I spent half the night traipsing back and forth from the toilet... boo! I was pretty disappointed because I had been looking forward to this party for a long time. But I still wanted to at least make it over to Rubiah Island to get a bit of the action, so I took a boat over with some of the crew, and hit the dance floor for a while. It was a pretty good party, but the usual people I hang out with were being unusually clicky and unsociable, so I just chatted to random people the whole night and hung out with Yudi. Water was my drink of choice... but it was still fun, and I met a whole bunch of interesting people and danced like an idiot like usual. Michael, said party-guru, had also brought along fireworks and fire twirlers, which provided a couple of cool highlights. Someone had also brought a neon frisbee that glowed in the dark, which was pretty rad. I managed to last it out til about 12:30 before putting myself on the boat back home. Had to get up early this morning for the 8:30 ferry, and I was suffering most of the way home...

A good remedy for that was a day out and about in Banda Aceh, c/- my mate Yudi, who works for ARC in our construction team. We hung out at his place in Lhoknga for a bit before cruising to a nearby cave with a beatiful blue river/lake, which unfortunately had been made that much less natural by building a big fuck-off dam near the cave entrance. Still, it was a nice place to relax, and watch the local kids' antics and guitar expertise. Then we just cruised around to some of the local beaches, where Yudi surfs, and finished the afternoon with a swim at Lampu Beach and a barbeque fish dinner watching the sun set. Beautiful. It was a great way to spend a Sunday, particularly as I was feeling so crap at the start of the day. But getting out and about and a couple of panadols was as good a way as any to shake that.

So, my run of fun adventures is over for now.... let the games begin on Simeulue when I get back on Wednesday....