Little Things

There are all kinds of quirky little things that I have noticed about Indonesia; each doesn’t necessarily deserve its own blog entry, but they are interesting enough (to me anyway) that I thought I would put a few of them together…

Street Vendors – in Toronto there is a huge debate raging about what kind of food can be sold by street vendors, in the name of public health, I assume, or maybe it’s just the powerful Hot Dog Lobby that is keeping competition off the street. Well in Indonesia, they put our hot dog (or ‘street meat’ as we affectionately call it) vendors to shame. There is at least 1 street vendor for every 2 people in Indonesia, and they don’t just set up and wait for business. No they get out there and get it. Despite the blistering heat, people push carts of food around, announcing what they have either through their voice or through recorded music, or through a unique drum or through banging a wooden stick. They have everything, fried chicken, bakso (meatballs), vegetables, fried tofu & tempe, fried rice, little deep-fried units not unlike spring rolls, boiled eggs, soup… the list goes on, and so far the only thing I haven’t seen is Hot Dogs! These people are tireless, pushing their carts around the streets, loudly and conspicuously announcing their wares day and night. I swear I heard one outside last night in the middle of the night – hey you never know when people might be hungry…

Tailless cats – these were much more common in Bali, but for some reason, all the cats here have little ‘nubs’ where their tails should be. Other than that they look like completely normal cats. For some reason I am creeped out by these cats; I can’t quite put my finger on it. They are everywhere, and because of the tropical climate here, people rarely close their doors, so they have free reign to travel wherever they may. I have given up on trying to keep the many feral cats out of our office at InterAksi; they just come and go as they please. At least now I am starting to recognize a few of them.

Frogs – my good friend Nicki would not be happy here, as she has a strange but powerful phobia of these little amphibians. There are frogs everywhere, some are tiny little things that could fit on the tip of your finger, and others are more of the bullfrog variety. They are frequently just hanging out outside my door at night, or along the side of the road. They are just kind of everywhere. You only see them at night. Perhaps they are technically toads, I have no idea.

Sitting – easily the favourite pastime of Indonesians. People have literally built little shelters (almost gazebo-like) along roads and in seemingly random locations so people can just … sit. I have seen people, for no apparent reason, pull their motorcycles over, park (on the side of a very busy street) and just … sit. On the main street nearest to me (as usual I have no idea what it’s called) there are several locations where people have set up chairs, along the side of the road, where they can just … sit. Now I get the concept of sitting, don’t get me wrong – to quote Montgomery Burns, “who among us doesn’t like a good ‘sit?’” But usually in a logical location, like a park, or with a nice view, or beside a river, or my favourite, in front of the TV, but on a chair beside a major street, just for the heck of it? For the record, I don’t think these people are ‘waiting’ for something; I think their purpose is literally to … sit.

“Hand Phones” – aka ‘HP’ (pronounced ‘hah pay’) this is what Indonesians call cellphones. Many people have 3 or even 4 of them. And they trade numbers like crazy. I have been asked for my HP number on countless occasions – from strangers. And I made the mistake, on one occasion, of giving it. I was caught off guard, and because my brain wasn’t working properly, I had forgotten my usual excuses. This was to a young man of about 21 or so named Hakim who wants to practice his English (innocent enough). I have now seen at least 15 missed calls from Hakim and received upwards of 20 text messages in the 3 days since giving him my number. I have explained to Hakim on several occasions that I am trying to preserve my ‘pulsa’ (like prepaid points you use to make calls and send sms messages) as it’s very expensive to sms Canada. He understands completely, he writes, and then asks, for the 17th time, “how long you be in Solo?”

Candy – it’s everywhere. They have as many aisles in the grocery stores dedicated to candy as we would to, well, groceries. Yet Indonesians are all thin, and they all seem to have flawless skin. And man, do they like their sugar! “Tea” here is basically hot sugar water, and iced tea is even sweeter, containing, on average, 1 billion teaspoons of sugar per millilitre of water, absolutely wretched stuff. To make things worse for me, one of my staples, Diet Coke, is barely available. I have only seen it in one place, an expat bar, and he has the nerve to charge Rp9,000 for a can, which is highway robbery. Indonesians don’t understand why anyone would want a sugar-free product so there is simply no market for it here.

There are so many more of these little quirks, but I try to keep my entries to a reasonable length, so I will save them for another time. I find all of these things very interesting, and culturally very strange. Each of them makes me long for home a little bit more each day – well except for the frogs; who, besides Nicki, doesn’t love frogs?

PS I would kill for street meat right now.

Working Life

I am a fish out of water.

At Randstad (or any other company) I would have a pretty good idea of what to do or at least how to get started, even if it is as mundane as reading an operations manual. Here, it seems, everything I know about work is not necessarily wrong, but certainly different. It’s very difficult to get started here, not only because of the language barrier, but the huge cultural barriers that exist as well. There are two giant chasms that have to be bridged in order to help Interaksi build its Formal Employment Program.

One is fairly obvious – Western Culture compared to Indonesian Culture. Things are slower here, and that’s not necessarily wrong, but I do need to learn to adapt, and ironically, I need to learn to adapt quickly! There is much more formality with respect to how business is conducted, with a healthy amount of respect for hierarchy and rank. Meetings are drawn out, formal affairs with openings and closings, usually some kind of ‘official’ making a speech, and a lot of pomp & ceremony. Unfortunately so far I have seen very little accomplished in these meetings. And let’s face it; it’s not Indonesian culture that will have to change, but mine, in order to make things work.

The second giant challenge is ‘Business Culture’ compared to ‘NGO culture.’ Someone summed it up for me last week very nicely: A month in business is 28 days of working and 2 days of meetings; a month in an NGO is 2 days of working and 28 days of meetings. It’s all talk here. People have great ideas and the best of intentions, to be sure; unfortunately they either take so long to implement they no longer make sense, or they don’t get implemented at all.

When I was in Canada thinking about this placement I made all kinds of assumptions about what I would be facing and came up with a few preliminary ideas. For example, I assumed that a good place to start to find employment for people with disabilities (or PWD’s, which is a commonly used acronym here, though for some reason it would make me uncomfortable at home) would be in western-based companies with vibrant Corporate Social Responsibility policies, and major hotels that cater to western clients who are accustomed to seeing PWD’s at work. When I arrived in Indonesia, they were way ahead of me. We have an agreement with a major Solo hotel to bring in 6 PWD’s on 6-month rotating paid internships. There are 5 PWD’s working at Solo’s largest furniture manufacturer and 3 at another, both western-owned. There is huge potential to employ PWD’s in Java’s robust and interesting handicrafts industry, along with textiles and the batik industry, which is centred here.

No it seems that we do not have a demand problem as there are plenty of employers willing to hire PWD’s (at least plenty of western-owned or run companies) but rather a supply problem as there are too few PWD’s who are ready and able to work. This is the opposite of what I had assumed and expected.

Many PWD’s in Indonesia have no education as they have never attended school. Their parents are often over-protective, or worse, ashamed, so they hide their children away to keep their shame hidden. Many believe that their children’s disability is some kind of punishment for past sins of sins of their ancestors. One individual, who was lucky enough to be university-educated, knows that he contracted polio, which is a virus (indiscriminate as to who it will infect) and this resulted in his loss of full function in his legs. However, his mother is convinced that her son’s disability is a direct result of the fact that she killed a cat when she was pregnant with him. This highly-educated individual knows his disability is a result of the polio virus, but he says, with perfect seriousness, that his mother makes a good point and her sin could also be the cause.

Often when disabled people do decide they want to work, the parents convince them otherwise and will remove them from programs designed to assist them. PWD’s are told their entire lives that they are not good enough, that they need to be cared for, that they are incapable. Indonesian culture dictates that you must respect your elders, parents are the ultimate authority, and questioning them is forbidden. So the parents’ influence is total and if they say no, it takes a very strong individual to defy them, even if this individual is an adult. The ones that do defy their parents, or better yet, have supportive parents, are often unskilled, uneducated, or ill-prepared for the world of work.

To make matters worse, there are criminal elements, not unlike mafia, that prey on disabled people. They provide them with food and shelter, but then require them to beg on street corners and major intersections for money. All of the money (not a percentage, all of it) is turned over in exchange for the lodging and for the privilege of begging. Once someone is trapped in this system it is nearly impossible for them to escape as the criminals would not only take away their homes and only means of support, but also threaten their families.

These are the challenges faced by Interaksi in assisting PWD’s to gain meaningful, equal employment. Everything I assumed before I came here is wrong, and the challenges are daunting. Luckily, like I said, they are way ahead of where I expected them to be. PWD’s are indeed working and we have some amazing success stories, like the 14 people already out working, one of whom was recently married and is expecting his first child. He was one of the people that had been hidden away, and now he credits his job alone for his new-found self-esteem, his new wife, and growing family.

At InterAksi, we are pushing ahead, and working on strengthening the organization’s ability to facilitate formal employment for PWD’s. We are developing a database of candidates and of potential employers. We are working on a soft-skill training workshop to assist PWD’s in the initial job-seeking period (for things like CV-writing, interview techniques, and ‘selling yourself’). We are also planning a peer-to-peer workshop to demonstrate success stories to both PWD’s and to their parents. Hopefully, with learning, with time, with hard work, and yes, with a little luck, these success stories will become more common.

Democracy, Indonesian Style

Something tells me I need to be very careful in writing this entry. Solo was the centre of deadly political rioting during the ’98 Asian financial crisis. Anything ‘western’ was destroyed including hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, and homes. Many people died, and the city burned. Things were different then as Indonesia had for years been under the rule of a brutal dictator, Suharto, who was infinitely corrupt. The current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), has the nickname “Mr. Clean” as he is a corruption-fighter with a good reputation. The economy is stronger, there is more wealth in the hands of more people, and things are just generally better today in Indonesia than they were 11 years ago. I have also found out that Suharto’s wife was from Solo and many of the rioters were actually ‘shipped’ to Solo to cause trouble for Suharto in his own backyard in an attempt to get him to relinquish power. None of these factors exist today.

Having said that, there are two phases of national elections coming up in Indonesia, local elections on April 9, and presidential elections on June 19. People have warned me to be ‘hati-hati’ (careful) during the upcoming local election as the economy is deteriorating and anti-western sentiment tends to flare up when things take a turn for the worse.

As usual, I am not 100% sure how it works, but I think it is something like this: Indonesia’s political system works in a strange way; it is neither a republic nor a parliamentary democracy. Whoever wins the presidential election in June must create a coalition with the parties who win the local elections in order to govern.

The country is absolutely blanketed with political signs and pictures of candidates. There is no regulation like in Canada of how the signs are supposed to look or where they can be posted so they are literally everywhere, and they are huge! I don’t know if this speaks about the literacy of the population or just the number of candidates, but the election signs all have numbers, as in “vote for number 3!” in addition to a name. It seems the places on the ballot have already been chosen and perhaps it’s just easier this way. Javanese names are complicated, and many people only have one, like “Sujirman.”

Yesterday seemed to be a day for political rallies in Solo and there were hundreds – strike that – thousands of people on motorbikes with flags, t-shirts, and banners, driving through the city as slowly and as loudly as they could. They use the engines of their motorbikes like the beat of a drum to gain attention – “vroomVROOM, vr, vr, vr, vroomVROOM, vr, vr, vr” in a rhythmic fashion. Most annoying, and the lead bikes in these cavalcades all had some kind of enhancements to make their engines rev all the louder. It was impossible to speak or to think when these groups of motorbikes came near, and you heard them a full 5 minutes before you could see them.

The party that seemed to be the most active yesterday was one that you could say is Indonesia’s “party for the people.” All of the campaign posters have the candidates with their clenched fists raised in the air in defiance. The logo for the party is a picture of a black bull face with intimidating horns – the expression on its face is clearly one of anger, with the eyes deep and red and mad and the mouth clenched and tense, all of this on a deep red background. For the first few weeks I had no idea this bull represented a political party; I had actually assumed it was for a brand of tobacco (which also are everywhere).

I have been told that these parades of motorcycles are not necessarily supporters of this party but were simply groups of teenagers paid 20,000 rupiah each to loudly ride around the city carrying these flags and wearing these t-shirts. I have no idea what the political views of this party are, or the opinions of its candidates. How can people make an informed decision based on this type of campaigning?

We are all products of our own cultures and environments and I think I could spend years trying to understand politics in Indonesia only to come up with conclusions that are completely false, as I would always be looking at the system through my own cultural lens. I think rather than try to understand, I will merely observe. I will keep a very low profile and watch the country choose its government from the comfort and safety of my home. Yes I am likely being paranoid, but as they so often say in Indonesia, “hati-hati.”

The Long Arm of the Law

I was starting to feel pretty confident here in Indonesia. For example, I only get lost once per day now instead of two or three. Things were looking up. Things were looking way up actually, until I found myself faced with… THE LAW.

Yes, despite everyone’s dire warnings to the contrary, I broke an Indonesian law. Well, OK, I actually broke two. Go big or stay home my dad used to day.

The two VERY serious laws that I broke were as follows: I was driving a motorcycle with an expired STNK (registration) which I knew, as I had just picked it up from an outgoing volunteer the day before, and I was going to renew it, I swear. I also did not have my driver’s license on me, which, really, is just stupid.

The police conduct random ‘paperwork’ checks all the time here and they choose on any given day whether they are targeting motorcycles or cars. It was my lucky day. Every single motorcycle is directed off the side of the road, in “RIDE program” fashion, and is asked to produce an STNK and license. Then they are happily on their way. That is, unless they have perpetrated one or both of the above infractions, in which case they are directed to a long, dreary table set up nearby (which is manned by no fewer than 24 police officers, some sitting, some standing, all looking very official and intimidating) to receive their punishment.

Now given the horror stories I had heard – Indonesia is a country that ranks very high on the global corruption list, and it isn’t high on the list because it’s squeaky clean if you catch my drift – I expected a) to be thrown immediately in jail or b) because I’m a foreigner, to be the victim of extortion in the form of ‘just pay us 500,000 rupiah and this will all go away.’

Unfortunately, in the same daily struggle I always find myself, none of the policemen spoke English and ironically enough, I didn’t learn “weasel your way out of a ticket” vocabulary in language training. Luckily my colleague Ismail was with me to help with translation. Things were going along fine; they asked me my name, and to spell it. There didn’t seem to be any corruption happening as I saw an actual ticket being written (in duplicate no less) and they were checking off the appropriate boxes for ‘no license’ and ‘expired STNK’ and that was when it all hit the wall.

The next question for me was simply, “Address?” And here’s the thing about that – I have NO IDEA what my address is! I know where I live and how to get there, but I don’t know what the street is called or the number, or anything for that matter! The police were disbelieving, even downright skeptical (unusual for an Indonesian), and I feared things were about to take a turn for the worse, but luckily Ismail stepped in and just gave them the address for my work, which seemed satisfactory.

It turns out this was a blessing as the police now felt sorry for the poor foreigner who needs a deaf person to translate for him. I began to feel like Kramer on that episode of Seinfeld when he sings with Mel Tormé. They asked me where I’m from and were excited to hear, “Canada” (their impressed but glazed over looks told me they were calculating in their heads, as all Indonesians do: Canada – that’s in Europe right? And yet somehow Barack Obama is their president right? Strange little country, Canada – a mystery to all of us). Then, believe it or not, they began apologizing profusely for giving me a ticket. Several of them put their hands over their hearts and said “maaf” or “sorry” with the same level of sincerity that I would use to say “I love pizza” which, for anyone who doesn’t know me, is possibly the highest level of sincerity I can muster.

I was instructed to go to the police station immediately to pay my fine, but, emboldened by their sympathy, I told them, and I quote, “I can’t right now as I’m on the way to the train station, and making a detour will delay me to the point where I will miss the train, which is obviously unacceptable.” Now it was their turn to smile and nod, having no idea what I was talking about! HA – the tables had turned. Ismail, alarmed that I would blow the whole thing, just took the ticket, urged me away, and told me not to worry, that he would take care of it.

All 24 police officers, in unison, waved me off happily, “bye-bye Mister! Sorry, Maaf! Bye-Bye!” Off I went to the train station, wondering how this was all going to play out.

Turns out it’s a new record for VSO Indonesia – being stopped by the police and breaking not one but two laws, on the first day with a new motorbike. Everyone was amused, to say the least. News spread like wildfire; I started receiving random text messages, “been busted lately?” and so forth.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the next day, I did go and perform my civic duty. I went to the police station and, with my head held high, paid the price for my brush with the law. The fine was 40,000 rupiah, about 4 bucks Canadian. Ouch. I now keep my license with me at all times.