The Lucretius Plan

Rumble in the jungle

Unlike the disaster in Yogyakarta, most earthquakes in Indonesia are less dramatic and go unreported, but this does not make them any less scary.  On Saturday night we were sleeping in a bamboo hut on the beach in Ankermi (our retreat 28km east of Maumere), when we were awoken by a fairly strong tremor.  It shook the hut, and this was accentuated by the fact that we sleep on a raised platform in the roof of the hut.  After conferring with our friends we all went back to sleep again, only to be woken 20 minutes later by another tremor.  By this time one of the local villagers was on the beach for ‘tsunami watch’, and we all speculated what signs we would need to look out for (in the dark) that would presage an incoming deluge.

Fortunately, there was no further seismic activity that evening, and we have subsequently learned that the tremors were caused by Mount Egon, our friendly local volcano which has been quiescent since about November 2004 when an alleged human sacrifice placated its spirit guardian (see a previous post on this blog).   Apparently it is hungry once more, and may be gearing up for a fresh eruption.

One should be more blasé about such things now, but to be honest we still find earthquakes a little scary. When it starts you don’t know how long it will last, and how often it will be repeated, and it undermines your faith in terra firma.  Even the locals, who should be used to it by now, all packed their bags and ran for the hills on Saturday night, so maybe an certain amount of fear is a rational response.  This really is one of the craziest places in the world to live…

Trimming the hedge fund

A couple of weeks ago our chum Nick took a detour from his peripatetic meandering through the labyrinth of international finance, to spend a couple of nights with us here in Maumere.  He certainly caused our local friends to revise their opinion of bules (white folk), as until now they have tended to meet either backpackers or aid workers, all  of whom tend to be shabbily dressed in high-performance modern textiles.  When Nick stepped from the 'plane resplendent in Armani and Kenzo, with Prada loafers, the locals were very impressed.  The last time someone this well-dressed arrived in Maumere was when Pope John Paul II came here in the 1980s.

It was a whirlwind trip, but we managed to pack in a fair bit, taking him to a wedding, some of our friends' houses and also to meet the traditional tenun ikat weaving group, who sang and danced for him.  He also broke the speed record for returning to the UK, leaving us at 16:00 on Sunday, he was back in London at 07:00 Monday morning, which he regarded as a good commute.  I am still not quite sure how he did it.

He did manage (quite inadvertently) to do something which reminded us of home.  One night he turned the water pump on in the kitchen to fetch a little water in order to brush his teeth (our water is drawn from a well using a small electric pump, which needs to be turned on whenever you need water).  Unfortunately he forgot to turn the pump off again, so it ran continuously until 06:00 the next morning when Beth woke up and switched it off.  Fortunately we had left the tap open in our bak mandi (the cistern we use for washing, flushing the WC etc.), or else the pump would have seized.  However, this meant that overnight hundreds of gallons of water were pumped out of the well and into our overflowing cistern, eventually flowing out into the drain and down to the sea.  This somewhat offset our careful management of water over the rainy season, where we have been setting an example to all our neighbours by collecting rain water and using it for washing clothes. 

We were all duly (and quite rightly) chastised by Pak Minggus the next day, as the whole neighbourhood draws water from the same aquifer, which is now somewhat depleted!  As it will not rain again until December, this has not made us popular, but to be honest this last rainy season has been so wet that I doubt there will be a problem.  However, I understand that a casual attitude to water conservation is all the rage in Britain, where the water companies cheerfully allow millions of gallons of water to leak from the mains system in spite of apparent shortages.  Perhaps we should send Pak Minggus over to sort them out.

Anyway, no blame should fall on Nick, who could not be expected to understand the intricacies of life in the tropics in so short a visit.  In any case, he brought wine, champagne and a copy of the Guardian, so all is forgiven.

Chow down, sucker

The answer to childhood malnutrition arrived in Maumere a couple of days ago. 

American Army high calorie field rations; Beef Teriyaki, Apple sauce, Refried beans  What more could a child need to get him through the long daily march toting an M-16 through the badlands of Flores?

The delivery also included:

- Microwaveable macaroni cheese
- Dented tins of sweetcorn
- Packets of Bran Flakes breakfast cereal
- Cheese flavoured crisps

These items were packed in boxes by well-meaning volunteers in the USA, I know this as there was a sticker on the box stating that fact.   The food is free, although the cost to ship the two containers from Surabaya in Java to Maumere is 30 Million Rupiah (USD 3,000), so I would argue that it isn’t really free at all.  Furthermore, it usually costs only 1.5m Rupiah (USD 150) to ship a container to Surabaya, so someone is making a tidy mark-up.

Without wishing to demean the hard work of volunteers (well, that would be a tad hypocritical), a brief critique of these foodstuffs is in order.  Firstly, microwaveable products are not really appropriate when the only microwaves on this island are emitted by the mobile phone masts, and in any case instant macaroni cheese does not seem very nutritious.  The tins of sweetcorn will be received with incredulity by families who have spent the past few months growing corn in their back yard, and the idea of putting food in a tin is an alien concept here, and deemed to be rather revolting (I have recently read a report from Aceh where tsunami victims have pleaded with NGOs to give them fishing rods rather than tinned tuna, which the women say ‘no one in the family wants to eat because fish should come from the sea, not from a tin’).  There is no concept of breakfast cereal, and milk (which is all imported) is beyond the budget of most people.  As for cheese-flavoured crisps, well at least they don’t need to be zapped in a microwave, but are they really what a malnourished child needs?

The military rations mentioned above are described on the pack as ‘good performance meals’, and no doubt they are better than the other items.  The instructions on the pack, destined to be perused by every hungry jarhead, read: ‘You are more active during field training, deployment and combat than in garrison…one Ready-to-Eat (MRE) contains 1200 to 1300 calories. Average daily calorie requirements in the field are 2800 to 3600 calories…’  How can a high energy meal designed for a strapping 90 kg marine be appropriate for a 9 kg malnourished three-year-old child?

There is a real fear from the Nutrition Department of the local Health Department that this food, if eaten, will cause severe diarrhoea, as not only is the nutritional value questionable, but also children are not accustomed to this type of rich western-style food.

Why couldn’t we have the 30 million Rupiah as cash to spend on locally grown fruit and vegetables? Local intervention would not only have provided appropriate and nutritious food, but also help stimulate the local rural economy.  Instead completely unsuitable food, low in nutritional value, will create unusual eating habits and fail to tackle any of the root causes of malnutrition. 

It is disheartening to see the hard (yet possibly misguided) work of volunteers in the USA, who presumably believe they are helping malnourished kids, end up as an development intervention that manages to be both expensive and useless.  We have seen plenty of misbegotten schemes in our time out here, but this one really takes the trans-fat laden biscuit.

What's the bleeding time?

When I first started attending meetings in Indonesia and found myself standing at the front with a microphone introducing myself, I thought the obsession with ‘status’ was an Indonesian wide phenomenon.  By ‘status’ I mean, Single or Married?, Children?,  How many?, No!, Why not?, Are you trying?.  But yesterday I discovered that this may simply be a local,  NTT point of interest.

There was a meeting yesterday about nutrition with representatives from NGOs and various government departments when a new cohort of doctors arrived and took their places in the front row.  Give them a few months and they will be in the back row sending text messages with the rest of the rabble, but for now they are following orders.  They were notable for their youth, I am always astounded at how young newly qualified doctors look these days - probably due my own increasing age more than anything else - and their slightly frightened demeanour.  They will be posted at various health centres throughout Sikka for around 6-12 months and this was their initial orientation period.  The entire group of 7 hailed from Java and seemed to all have been born in Jakarta or Medan.  This was their first time so far east in Indonesia and they were pretty shocked with the new change in their living standards. In fact I got the impression they were shocked to find that this backwater was still in Indonesia.    They were keen to hear whether I had contracted malaria and shrunk lower in their seats when I pointed out triumphantly that not only had I survived Malaria but also Dengue fever.   They seemed to take little comfort from my reassurances that it hadn’t done me any harm.  On hearing that I had been in Maumere for nearly two years, one doctor exclaimed, ‘but how come your skin isn’t completely black?’  The fear of these paler-skinned, Javanese doctors was palpable. Skin colour is a big issue in Indonesia with natural skin tone getting darker the further east you travel. People with lighter skin take great pride in that fact alone and whitening creams are very commonly advertised, lighter is better.   

I am sure that some of them will settle in and hopefully more than a few will grow to love the place and people as we do.  My hope is that either way they learn a little about the disparity of wealth and opportunity that exists in their vast country.  They, by virtue of luck, were born into relatively wealthy Javanese families who paid for them to get the schooling required to attend medical school and qualify as a doctor. I am sure they worked hard and their families’ sacrificed to pay the fees, but there is still an element of luck to have had the opportunity in the first place.  In Flores, on the other hand, the quality of schooling is incredibly poor and it is extremely hard for a bright child to be identified, tutored and encouraged in further learning.  Most families struggle to pay the basic school fees causing a  lot of children to not finish the most basic level of  school, let alone daring to dream of higher education.

The government does have a scheme that financially aids a small number of students from NTT to attend medical school,  but by the nature of medical school training this process will take a long time to have any sort of significant impact on the doctor numbers throughout the region.  So we are left with the current system of newly qualified doctors being posted to regions they don’t know and in some cases really do not wish to be in.  Because of this and the short-term nature of the placements, it can make it very hard to involve the doctor in creating positive health changes for the local community.  There is a tendency for the unhappy ones to count off the days, escape to Bali as often as possible, consequently leaving little time to invest their talent in a sustainable way.  This can leave the local community feeling abandoned and let down by their local health centre as the doctor is rarely there.

I am certainly not saying that this applies to all doctors working here. There is a core group of committed doctors working in the community and the local hospital who are from all over Indonesia.  But it is a small group and they lack the sufficient support and funds with which to tackle the diseases and the root causes of disease that are endemic here. 

Getting back to the meeting.   They were all asked to introduce themselves to the audience and one by one they took the microphone and each neglected to inform us of their status. After much heckling they caught on to what the crowd wanted and informed us of husbands, wives, children and how many.  As the female doctors revealed they were single,  the head of the health department called to the guys in the audience to make a note of their name, pointing out with a chuckle that this girl may be potential girlfriend material.  As I was one of the hecklers, it occurred to me that perhaps I have been here too long. Political correctness seems a distant memory, but I guess new doctors do not tend to get introduced to their colleagues in this raucous manner back in the UK?

Fundraising Update

I am sure many of you will be interested to hear about the progress of the fundraising campaign that we started a couple of months ago.  The response to the e-mail, and the letters posted by our energetic UK campaign manager (aka Dom’s Mother), have yielded very pleasing results, and the total raised (through this site, payal, cheques etc.) is now in the region of fifteen thousand dollars (US).  This is a very substantial sum of money in any currency, but looks particularly impressive in Rupiah (140,000,000)!

Donors should have receive an e-mail giving them an update on what we have done with the cash, but as some may have slipped through the net, I thought it best to publish it here on the blog as well. Incidentally, if you have not yet had a chance to donate, please do not assume that we no longer need contributions.  All sums are gratefully received and put to good use.

We now have a small office in a great position opposite Maumere cathedral, and a steady stream of visitors, most of whom are curious about this new organisation, and many of whom are looking for a job.  We have, thanks to your donations, purchased a computer and a water dispenser, and paid a local carpenter to build some basic wooden furniture (we prefer to support local craftsmen rather than import poor quality plywood furniture from Java).  We have a number of cheap plastic chairs that we are planning to replace with some wooden ones, when we can find a carpenter who can fulfill the order.  The office does not have enough electricity to run a computer (we are limited to 300w), so we have run a cable from the larger premises next door.  This is fairly common practice here, as it will take months before the local electricity company turns up to upgrade our meter.  We do not yet have a telephone line (again, this will take many months to install, if at all) so we just use our cell phones.    We have running water for about 30 minutes per day, and some curious goats that loiter in the yard.  All the staff are very happy in their new environment.

So, what is JPA-flores actually going to do, I here you ask. Our objective is to improve the economy of Flores by releasing the inherent potential and ingenuity of the people.  We will be doing this in three ways:

1. Strengthening community groups and co-operatives
2. Empowering individuals and potential entrepreneurs
3. Stimulating new enterprises

Detailed information about the various projects we are starting can be found on the JPA website, but here is a very brief summary of our 'clients':

1. Kelompok STILL - a group of traditional 'Ikat' weavers who need help with marketing, quality control and management
2. Kelompok Maju Bersama - a group of coconut farmers that want to improve their income by setting up a small-scale industry making virgin coconut oil
3. Persatuan Sopir - a number of freelance drivers (that do not own cars) want to set up a kind of taxi service in Maumere, and help to improve the service delivery to tourists and other visitors, while also making their own livelihood more secure
4. Fairtrade Rice Scheme - we are researching the possibility of setting up a fairtrade rice marketing scheme for local consumption.  This may be the start of a 'buy Flores' campaign to stimulate demand for local produce in preference to imported goods.
5. Kringga Farmer's co-operative - this village is situated in a remote area in the hills, where they grow cashew nut, cocoa and vanilla. the co-operative is trying to organise the farmers to market their product more successfully, but they need help understanding how the market beyond their village actually works.

Thanks to your contribution, and the support of Oxfam New Zealand, we have been able to get off to a much quicker start than we thought was possible.  It also enables us to take a long term view of the problems here and formulate a response that is hopefully more sustainable than the various other interventions that have taken place in Indonesia.

Your donation will directly help people gain command over their own livelihoods. This will build self-respect, reduce vulnerability to natural disasters and improve the health and education status of the people of Flores. 

Many thanks from all of us at JPA,

Bapak Dominic, Bapak Sirilus, Ibu Epik, Ibu Conita, Nona Ani, Mas Abdullah, Bapak Gero, Bapak Densi, Pater Simeon, Ibu Hilda

The sticking place

The VSO Indonesia Annual Volunteer Conference in April ended with a ‘cultural evening’.  Each country group was invited to perform something that reflects their home culture, which always puts the British group at a disadvantage.  The Dutch performed a raucous melody of crooning songs, and the Filipinos performed the famous bamboo dance (where the dancers have to skip between clashing bamboo poles, all in time to the music and avoid having their ankles crushed).  The Balinese contingent nominated one of their number to perform a traditional Balinese dance (which was cheating as she has been a professional temple dancer since the age of three).  Meanwhile, the Kenyans delighted us all with a medley of Kenyan tunes accompanied by dancing of the fluid hip rotating variety, which they have now given up trying to teach us. 

This left the British to wow the crowd with something special.  Last year we did Morris dancing, and at a recent workshop we sang Jerusalem, very loudly, which alarmed the very polite Javanese contingent who like their songs to be somewhat more subdued.  This time we decided to celebrate the RSC’s plan to perform all of Shakespeare’s plays this year.  As time was short we could not do a full-length play, so instead we put on a 4 minute version of Macbeth. 

Compressing the Scottish play into four minutes meant that much of the dialogue had to be ditched, which was just as well because no one could learn their lines in the 24 hours we had between having the idea and executing it.  As a result, the resulting performance was somewhat manic, and casting constraints meant that some liberties had to be taken with the script.  Banquo was re-cast as a very lithe (and female) dance therapist from Yogyakarta, while Beth ‘led on’ as MacDuff.  The only realistic aspect was the witches, and as the photo shows they also had our only prop: an enormous cauldron. 

The play was also notable for the fact that almost all the cast were wearing traditional Indonesian dress.  As you may see from the picture, I am attired in a traditional Sikkanese outfit, with sarong, slendang and topi.  Oddly enough, having the cast dashing about in sarongs gave the play an authentic feel that it probably did not warrant.  In fact, I think the RSC should do a version of Macbeth set in Flores, with everyone wearing ‘pakaian adat’ (traditional dress).  The bit about the forest being cut down is particularly topical at the moment…

rule of 72

A rare treat to be found at Singapore airport (apart from the bright lights and beguiling shops) is the availability of some UK newspapers.  I was thus able to enjoy The Observer, while Beth tucked into The Sunday Times.  After two years away from the old country, it is slightly alarming to get a glimpse of what awaits us when we return in August.  A random reading of the lifestyle sections of these Sunday newspapers seems to portray a country in which the ‘average’ person owns at least three homes (including a flat in London and a substantial holiday home in Cornwall); is worried about their state pension and the cost of petrol; and has recently set up a business that is now turning over 40 million pounds. 

As someone earning 100 pounds a month, with no career prospects as such and no holiday homes to speak of, this is liable to induce status anxiety.  Also, I cannot quite understand how someone with a second home would be seriously worried about the state pension.  As for the price of petrol, it still seems very good value compared to olive oil, milk and mineral water, none of which will propel your vehicle very far.  In fact, in spite of all the moaning in the newspaper, it seems that the good people of Britain are having a fairly comfortable existence. 

Apropos of nothing in particular, I refer you to an article in the ‘Your Money’ section of the ST, which pondered the state of house prices (what an innovative idea!  I expect the editor was very impressed with that suggestion.  ‘A think-piece on house prices, in the Sunday paper, what an original idea!’ she must have exclaimed). Anyway, the article quotes one ‘expert’ who is bearish about prices, thinking they will increase by about 4.5% per annum over the next couple of decades.  The journalist then presents the counter argument from a bullish ‘expert’ who makes the panglossian prediction that ‘over the next 10 to 15 years prices will increase 100%!’ 

As I have not much else to do in Maumere on a Tuesday afternoon, I read this article again, and recalled something I learned many years ago called ‘the rule of 72’.  This dictates that any rate of interest divided into the number 72 will return the total number of years it will take for a value to double (assuming compound rates apply).  So, if we take the more ambitious of the analysts predictions (prices double in 10 years), then this gives us a rate of 7.2% per annum, which is a long way from the ‘double-digit growth’ that the journalist said the bullish pundits were predicting.  However, if we take the outer marker of the expert’s prediction, that is 15 years, then the annual rate of return is just 4.8%.  So, in one sense the difference between the bearish and bullish pundits is just 0.3% per annum, which I guess is not such an exciting headline for the article. 

Come to think of it, it doesn’t make for a very exciting blog entry either.  Normal service will be resumed tomorrow…

7 minutes in the abyss

While in Singapore (it seems like weeks ago) I read an article in the Straits Times about the city’s famous metro system (MRT).  It was accusing the MRT company (Singapore’s equivalent of London Underground) of complacency because off-peak waiting times for a train can now reach a barely tolerable seven minutes.  The article grudgingly admitted that the peak service is acceptable (a train will arrive at least every two minutes), but pointed out that today’s busy lifestyles mean many people also want the train at off-peak times (say, 3pm on a Sunday) and they cannot be expected to suffer the indignity and ennui of a full seven minute wait on the platform.

Singapore is often described as boring, yet any city that seems so keen to ensure that its citizens have no time to ponder their boredom is probably getting the balance about right. ‘Platform time’ is usually a good opportunity to bemoan the collapse of civilization, and contemplate the litter, graffiti and muggers in that context.  As Singapore does not appear to have any of these attributes, it is hard to work out what to do in those tortuous seven minutes.  Perhaps Singaporeans think about who to vote for in this month’s election?  This is also an unfruitful line of thought as in most constituencies the all-powerful PAP party is standing unopposed.  Everyone is too polite here to drop litter or spit, and voting against the ruling party just seems ungrateful somehow.

I can quite understand how those seven minutes must open up an existential abyss for the poor off-peak travellers.

The lion, the ipod and the wardrobe

You may recall from your childhood reading of the Narnia books (or indeed any books that involved people moving from the real world to an alternative existence) that time stayed still in the 'real' world whilst the gang could spend many years in Narnia.  Eventually, one assumes they (Peter, Susan and the gang) would consider Narnia to be the real world, and the dusty old wardrobe to be a pale alternative.

It was thus with some trepidation that after two years Beth and I left the alternative universe of Indonesia  and emerged the other side of the wardrobe in Singapore for a short weekend break.  We were concerned that we may no longer be able to function under the glare of high wattage Asian materialism, and that this would not bode well for when we eventually hoped to re-integrate with British society. 

The first thing we noticed is how glum everyone seemed to be.  Compared to Maumere, where everyone is unremittingly cheerful in spite of all their problems, Singaporeans seemed rather disappointed by the extraordinary panapoly of comforts that is spread before them.  Everyone is rushing around, talking on mobile phones, looking serious and shopping.  Of course we do have shops in Maumere as well, but they do not stock the latest consumer accessories, so shopping tends to be more of a necessity there, rather than the leisure activity it has become in Singapore.  I did wonder what on earth all these healthy, comfortable people had to be glum about.  Perhaps sanitation, advanced health care and fantastic prosperity are not all they are cracked up to be.  This said, I did suspect that my mood may have been caused by my holding back from admitting that I quite liked all this excess. 

However, after a couple of days shopping my mood lifted and I started to feel less guilty about being here and enjoying some comfort while all my friends back in Maumere continue to live lives characterised by risk, poverty and disease.  I found that buying an item called an iPod 'Nano' helped put things in perspective.  Just how evil can capitalism be if such things abide in it? 

Tomorrow we fly back to Indonesia and thence to Maumere. In some respects it will  be comforting to push one's way past the mothballed coats to the back of the wardrobe and return to our alternative universe. But it will also be laced with anxiety, as this trip has in a way raised an issue that we have done our best to ignore: however integrated we may have become in Flores, is it really where we would like to spend the rest of our lives? If not, then what does that say about us?  Are we just running away from the mess and frustrations of poverty because we do not belong there, or for some other reason?

Perhaps there really is no paradox in enjoying the world as it could be (let's face it, Sinagapore is exceptional) and wishing that degree of comfort for everyone in Flores.  We have always tried not to be the kind of development workers that wish to preserve poor communities in an aspic of 'cultural authenticty', which frankly makes us more effective than Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund, who did everything possible to prevent Narnia from acheiving its full economic potential.  They did not exactly promote democracy either, though I suppose deposing the white witch was a first step in empowering civil society. 

We can now spend the last three months of our placement pondering which side of the wardrobe is reality, and trying to work out how we can be less alarmed by progress and less depressed about the plight of the huge number of people in the world for whom this brave new world of steel, glass and iPods is as unbelievable as a world where animals talk and lions have messianic pretensions.

Is this news?

Last week I had a brush with fame when an Indonesian Television station was in town to highlight the current crisis of malnourished children in Flores.  They were here to film a couple of mother and baby clinics to show what the government was doing to try and combat the issue and then visit a few families with severely malnourished children to attempt to illustrate the scale of the problem.

After they had finished filming at one clinic, I found myself chatting with the crew about what my activities were and some of my frustrations regarding the somewhat reactive approach of the government.

For example, we currently supply the families of severely malnourished (gizi buruk) children with a supplementary food parcel meant to last one month and those children who are merely undernourished (gizi kurang), one for 15 days.  The food parcel contains eggs, rice, vegetables, sugar, milk, fish, cooking oil and salt,  all weighed to a precise amount deemed optimal for these children.  This approach can and does sometimes achieve the desired effect, namely some severely malnourished children's weight increasing so that they become merely undernourished and some undernourished children moving to  a 'normal' weight.  But what normally happens when the 30 or 15 days comes to an end is that the child slips back into a dangerous weight decline.  We are only ever treating the problem once we have an almost emergency situation, rather than having a more proactive approach to combating the occurrence in the first place that runs parallel so that over time, less and less parcels are needed and that as an intervention they are seen as an exception rather than the norm.

The issue of nutrition certainly isn't one of just health and therefore to overcome the problem of malnutrition requires a multidimensional solution including improved  education,  involvement of the farming, agricultural lobby amongst other departments, availability of nutritious food so people have choice and also  a change in attitude and behaviour of the community about the importance of giving children a healthy diet.

At the end of our chat, the interviewer then asked whether he could interview me about the things I had just mentioned,  but this time on camera!  It was a great opportunity to say my piece and hopefully highlight the need for a more integrated approach to tackling malnutrition, that is of course if anyone could understand my Indonesian.

None of this is easy, nor do I profess to have all the answers to what is a very complicated solution, I am just doing what I can from my position in the health department.  Has there been a positive benefit from my work here? I believe there has been.  Will there be another malnutrition crisis this year in Sikka? Unfortunately,  I don't doubt it for a moment.