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BOGS, WOGS and other silly stuff

Almost at the end now of my tour now. My wife has still to see the coloured lakes just an hour from here but as they are in the cloud layer it has been difficult to see them as the weather is anything but settled. Komodo dragons are also on her list but that we can do on the way back to Bali for our UK return flight.

 

At the first volunteer conference back in 2007 ‘P’ and I joined forces to take part in a quiz event. Needing a name we decided the ‘Old Gits’ would be an appropriate name for our team. If you are British the word git has its own meaning and this blog helps to perpetuate it and bring it some sort of respectability (long since abandoned). Thus, we formed an adhoc group of 2 and refer to each other in less than endearing terms when sms’ing or emailing each other as OG1 or OG2.

 

Yesterday I received an email from another volunteer entreating me to send him information I do not and have no intention of giving him due to pressure of work. One of the phrases he used was ‘utterly bone idle ones who can't be bothered’. Now I of course took great offence at this and fired of a snotty email to him (are you reading this ‘G’?). His reply amused me so much that after consulting with ‘P’ we decided to offer ‘G’ the exalted status of OG3. Now, to be an OG certain conditions have to be met and not all people are able to meet those very stringent requirements.

 

1 – you have to be miserable most of the time

2 – you need to be unsociable

3 - you need to moan a lot

4 – a sense of humour is not appreciated

Plus other senseless stuff.

 

An unwritten rule is that beer is always your first priority (s**t, to late I’ve written it down.

 

To cut a boring story short ‘G’ ungracefully accepted and we are now a group of 3. We are now urgently reviewing entry requirements as the drink bill is mounting. However, all applications are immediately rejected as they obviously transgress rule 2. But following a meeting of the BOG (Board of Old Gits) it has been determined that as we are very open to bribery any offer of large amounts of free beer may well lead to honorary membership. The WOG amongst us (Wife of Old Git) promised to be as difficult as possible about cooking and was immediately offered a quiet night in away from friends.

 

Naturally, anyone under the age of 45 is likely to be too young as they will not have gained sufficient experience in the hardships of life and will be still hoping for better things(what fools).

 

Applications accompanied by offers of free beer for life to the writer are invited (do not tell OG2 or OG3 as they will get jealous). No guarantees of acceptance as I am still learning how to drink out of wet glasses so need a lot of practice before deciding the free beer is OK.

Four days in reality

The wedding of the year took place on Solor on the 11^th July 2008, also our 44^th anniversary, and P M invited us to witness the event. His sister was getting married and this is my account of the whole adventure.

We set off on our journey on Tuesday morning by bus. Yes I know some of you know how I feel about buses, but hey we all have to do it at least once so bus it was. We were meant to leave at 7 a.m. and we are outside Puskopditben’s gate waiting for it to arrive. It came on time but went sailing past! Ombie and Yohanes our local helpers went charging off down the hill to call it back. Much amusement by all concerned, including the bus driver, who reversed back up the hill to collect us. Off we go, stopping at various places on the way to collect other passengers. We reach the terminal outside Ende and stop. No idea why as no one else boarded but at 8 we finally(?) set off to Maumere. But wait, 20 minutes up the road the driver gets a call on his mobile and back we go to the terminal to collect a straggler, a young girl of around 18 or 19. At 8:30 we start our journey, one and half hour late.

An hour out of Maumere we stop at some road works to allow a truck coming from the opposite direction to pass. He can’t as our side is blocked by a giant tarmac machine and a pile of boulders on his side prevents him from moving out onto the edge of the road. Much discussion later the road workers decide the only option is to move the tarmac machine. But wait, the starter battery is being used by the air compressor. Someone goes off to find a spanner to remove the battery cables. He returns and does the business but now the battery won’t come out the hole in the compressor. It went in so it must come out. After struggling for some minutes he removes the battery and carts it off to the tarmac layer. But then someone remembers the cables have to be moved as well so more shuffling about as they are removed and reconnected. The moment of truth. The driver attempts to fire up his engine but not a peep from the starter motor. More head shaking and probably sucking of the teeth as they discuss how to solve this one. Heads peer into the battery compartment, arms wave about and eventually there is a giant puff of dirty black smoke and yippee, we have lift off. The machine, tortoise like, moves a massive 5 feet, the truck eases by and we are off at last.

We arrive in Larantuka at 18:30 hours or 6:30 p.m. for the uninitiated. The driver, Alfred, who speaks rather more English than I speak Bahasa Indonesian delivers us to Hotel Tresna where he finds us a room. We establish where to eat and go to Nirwana (the only place in town apart from warungs which I refuse to use - I do have some standards). The roads and paths are somewhat better and cleaner than in Ende and bliss, no blaring Bemos. On the pitch black way back to the Tresna I am careful that Christine doesn’t fall down a hole so take the inside whilst she braves the traffic. We are talking and suddenly my world disappears and I find myself speaking to her navel. I have fallen (stepped into?) a hole, a meter square and just as deep. I am now standing in something wet and slippery and I remember the open sewers I was familiar with in Saudi Arabia. I think ‘ Oh s**t’ (or words to that effect), as I haul myself out of the hole. 5 days later I am still hobbling about with a swollen big toe to the amusement of everyone I recount my story to. AND YOU CAN STOP LAUGHING AS WELL, IT’S NOT FUNNY.

Morning arrives and we are met by P M who escorts us to the ferry. He refuses to allow me to carry any bags so I trail along, being brave about my swollen toe, trying to look as if I am not part of his party. We board the ferry. But wait, we are hemmed in by another ferry at the sharp end and by a ramp at the blunt end. The Captain, and I use that term somewhat loosely, now engages some of the passengers down in the steerage cabin hold to give the boat a shove off the jetty. A few arms are broken, heads crushed between the ferry hull and the concrete jetty and eventually, after numerous oohs and ahhs by the more fortunate of us to be witness to the circus, we sail out into the wide blue sea. At this point I think, do I really want to be here? I look for the life jackets of which there are none, heave an old lady from her place by an open port hole so that in the event of the inevitable disaster I can escape (sod the woman and children first) and settle down to die, either by drowning or by gangrene of the big toe.

An hour later we arrive at Solor jetty. Everyone piles off, occasionally being stopped as a goat (later to be part of our wedding feast) is cajoled off and the crew wrestle a motorbike onto the landing. We are instantly surrounded by ‘you want ojek mister?’ entreaties but we wave them aside and stand on a concrete platform waiting for our next move. A few minutes pass and a beaten up village truck rumbles and clatters into sight and jolts to halt. Turning to C I joke, ‘our transport has arrived’. She looks at me as if I have finally lost my senses, not that I had many to start with. But lo and behold  P M ushers us over and says ‘my brother has come to pick us up’. Another ambition is about to be achieved. We are offered the posh seats, next to the driver, everyone else clambers in the back, including the old lady I shoved aside on the ferry, a few sacks of rice are loaded, some goats, including the unfortunate soon to be makan creature and other miscellaneous odds and end and we move noisily off. The road is crushed stone, of which the entire Island is comprised and we arrive at the village some 10 bone crushing minutes later. My toe has resigned itself to everlasting agony but I cannot decide whether that hurts more than my rear end which has been under constant attack by the steel seat chassis which years ago ceased pretending to be a seat and metamorphosed into a  cruel and vindictive instrument of torture. Plus, I am now deaf from the unsilenced engine that is no longer an engine, rather a bag of bits roughly resembling one.

We disembark from our limousine and P M escorts us to our accommodation for the next few days. It is constructed of bamboo and timber and the first house he built. His brother now lives in it along with various other souls that might be visiting. We share it with at least six others but never really sure how many as people arrive, sleep and depart at odd times in the day. In preparation of our visit and out of sympathy with our western sensibilities he has installed 2 western toilets and fixed a mossie net over our bed. However, C attracts mossies wherever we go and her arms are soon covered in bites. They avoid me either because they don’t like my smell or the fear of instant death is greater than their love for blood.

We take a walk around the village which stands next to the beach. Within minutes we are accompanied by many children so I oblige and take the expected photos.

Now Ende is not exactly Singapore but until we arrived in Solor we considered Ende a place of poverty. But on Solor poverty takes on a different meaning entirely. Given the difficult terrain, its dryness, the rock strewn landscape, the trees and shrubs struggling to survive in this hostile environment why, one asks, do people choose to live here. Water is a constant problem and the ground is more rock than soil. P M explains as he points to a place barely discernable across the bay that as a young child he and his father would walk four hours to go there every morning simply to scratch for food and tend whatever few crops would grow there. At 2 they had to leave to get back before dark otherwise they would have to camp out for the night. He also recounted the 3 year famine his family survived when no rain fell at all and they survived by chewing tree bark and literally scratching in the ground for anything vaguely edible. On one occasion he remembers being beaten for taking some food meant for his sister but said he was so hungry it didn’t seem fair to him at the time for being beaten when he was so hungry. This from a man so generous that it is truly humbling to know him. Today, the Islanders still live essentially from hand to mouth and somehow retain both their dignity and their friendliness’ to relatively rich, white Europeans.  The answer to ‘why live here?’ is very simple, to those that are born here it is home.

The following morning, Thursday, we are up at 5 to the sound of music announcing the wedding day has begun. Someone has also located a tannoy system and is acting as master of ceremonies. At 6 we breakfast and at 8 we walk to the community  hall for the wedding Mass. The happy couple walk from P M’s new house (2 years in the building with 3 to go) accompanied by local musicians, dancers, singers and villagers leading them on there way.

The Mass and wedding service is some two and a half hours long followed by a vote of thanks by P M for all the help by the villagers in the wedding preparations. But P M is P M and I know what is coming next. He launches into a marketing speech about the importance of Ko-operasi Kredit and how learning to save can and does lead to a better economic society. Given he started a Ko-op group on Solor some seven years ago which has grown to a membership of 200 with other villages clamouring to join his group I think he is entitled to his speech. We depart at eleven for another breakfast, the now wedded couple accompanied back to the house by the same group that lead them to the community hall. There I meet his father and we have a very interesting conversation about what I’m not sure as I speak three words of Bahasa Indonesian and his English extends to ‘where you from’. A case of equal linguistic abilities so we get on like a house on fire. (my Bahasa Indonesian is ‘where’s the beer?’ (Ok four words for the pedantic)

At five we now move down to the meeting hall which all the villagers, some 600, have dressed and decorated and the reception begins. This will go on till 5.00am the next morning. We leave at around 11:00pm with P M as the festivities start to begin in earnest. He has no wish to jig around anymore than we do (remember the toe) so we say our goodbyes and return to our room. We are tired so thankfully flop into bed. But, others are now leaving, some of whom are staying where we are and when they come in they start a small private party of their own. The walls are paper thin and lined with pages from the Pos Kupang so every word and comment is very clear. Not the Pos Kupang dumbo, the party goers. We abandon sleep and resign ourselves to a disturbed night. At 2 a.m. the limousine (AKA Mitsubishi COLT diesel farm truck) parked outside our wall starts up and takes others back, I assume, to their homes – we are laughing now albeit somewhat hysterically.

At 5.00am  the survivors, musicians, dancers and any hardy souls with life remaining accompany the married couple back to P M’s house where the formality of him handing over his sister to her new husband is made; they are led to the marriage chamber (decorated throughout in white satin and flowers) and the day has ended.

At 6.00am we are up and breakfasting. Our ferry back to the mainland is at 7:30 and the limo returns from wherever to take us to the port or should I say collection of ramshackle buildings. Wedding guests are also with us but where is the goat? Of course, in my stomach, or some of it anyway.

At Larantuka we are met by our mobile driver, Frans. The plan is to make it to Maumere, stay overnight , stop at Kelimutu in the morning and reach Ende by Saturday afternoon. But, we are both dog tired, my gangrenous toe will not suffer a walk up a b mountain to see a patch of funny coloured water so we catch a quick lunch with Peter, Geoff and JPA staff in Maumere (many thanks for their hospitality) and move straight on to Ende. Ha, that’s the plan anyway. As with all things Indonesian planning is at the bottom of the heap and out of sight. We reach Moni on schedule and expect to reach Ende in just over an hour. The rain starts as night falls. Drizzle at first then rain. The road from Moni to Ende is under constant construction, four bridges have collapsed since I arrived almost two years ago and the road is slippy but we have a careful driver.

Then the fog, as thick as I have seen smog in the UK, but not since the sixties when smoke control was introduced, comes down and replaces the rain. Things are now serious. There are quite big drops on one side of the road or other and there are no road markings. Not that you could see them even if there were any. We slow to half a klik an hour. The driver tails another car, we sigh with relief. If his lights suddenly disappear we will know he has gone over the cliff and we can stop in time (remember the old lady, I’m the original coward). The fog dissipates and we proceed apace. Not before C and I clap and cheer Frans for a job well done through the fog.  He acknowledges our applause with a grateful sigh.  At Ende money changes hands and we are home at last.

I am on the last few months of my time here, I had no plans to visit Larantuka, travel by bus or by village truck, visit Solor  and being an ex-marine engineer who once worked on North Sea oil rig boats ferries are the least of my must dos. In four days we did all that and this missive has been a thank you to P M for his kindness, consideration and being given the privilege of being able to visit his home, meet his family and being welcomed into his life. Thank you P M, we would not have missed it for all the tea in China.

Trip out?

Almost since the day I arrived the guy I work with here has said I must visit his home Island. A place called Solor to the East of Flores. However, communications are difficult and everything is expensive. He is building a house there for his family and some of the materials he transports there from Ende, not the cheapest place but cheaper than Solor. This includes carrying doors made by the famous carpenter to the rear of my original room. Some of you may remember the noise I commented on early in this blog. The doors are carried on a public bus along with various livestock and other odds and ends. To get to Solor from here means a bus to Larantuka, then a ferry(?), then more public transport.

 

This week he announced he had made arrangements for us to visit his home there. No problem as you learn to roll with it. However, we were in some confusion as to when. Was it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday? We received various  answers so were no nearer understanding when. This morning, at breakfast, he turns up clutching a bus ticket and a note, barely readable with  the name of a hotel(?) written on it. We leave Tuesday morning at 6’ish and arrive Larantuka around the evening time, time indeterminate as the bus will stop for passengers to throw up as they are not good travellers, diversions to pickup or deliver livestock, building materials, foodstuffs, the odd stop for people to do a bit of shopping in any of the roadside markets we pass on the way and anything else that either the driver or a passenger wants to do. We are looking forward to the whole event as an adventure, probably never to be repeated. The ? hotel may be a bivouac or actually contain what looks like a bed and perhaps water. We shall see. More next week after our return.

 

In the meantime word is out that I am leaving Paradise (as our new Gyny volunteer fondly refers to Ende) and SMS’s are arriving from all over Indonesia asking for I.T. advice before I depart these shores. This includes Indonesia people I have never met as well as other volunteers. A colleague in Sumatra is working on her employer to employ me and suddenly I am receiving invitations to visit places I have to look up on the map. However, in October I leave for pastures anew. Where, remains to be seen. Some dirty, stinking rat hole no one has heard of I have no doubt but as a way of spending early retirement it can not be beaten. The one advantage of being vaguely knowledgeable about I.T. is that electricity is, almost guaranteed, so a mud hut in the middle of desert, forest, or some other wonderful location is essentially ruled out. Six or so months back in the UK catching up with the latest developments, boring friends (they won’t be afterwards) and relatives (they have to be polite) with all the horror stories I can manufacture, showing endless photos only really interesting to me and mine, getting as much free beer as I can persuade others to buy me and I will want to return to reality.  Reality is where you find it and where you hang your hat at night. Yeh, I know, only baldy bonces need hats. Or so I’m told.

Short intermission

Small advert.

I interrupt this service for a short announcement. I will be leaving in October for pastures new (he said, hopefully) and VSO is looking to replace me (some chance of that, I am irreplaceable) but nevertheless...

If you are interested in taking over from me, but have a mix of finance, banking, customer service, plus a strong interest in I.T. and are daft enough to want to see for yourself what all this rubbish is really about go to http://www.vso.org.uk/volunteering/ and apply. Only the best get through so if are rubbish (be honest now, the truth will out) stop reading now. Good luck.

Normal service, if you can call it that will now be resumed.

Use of mobiles

We were expecting a visitor from Maumere. At worst around 4 hours. This time over 8. Why? They had planned to camp overnight near the Kelimentu site (3 coloured lakes about an hour from here) but as they approached someone discovered they couldn’t find their wallet. Turn round and go back to Maumere. Find wallet on the table and set off again for the 3 lakes. Start to pitch camp and 2 uniformed rangers turn up and inform them camping is no longer allowed on the site. By now it is dark so they decide to continue on to see us. Beer flows and a decision is made to continue the journey to Bajawa and stop on the way and camp. The roads at night here are dark and with landslides and potholes the size of small bomb craters plus vertical drops either to the left or the right I suggest that they might manage to pitch one side of the tent but there might be a 200 foot drop when the attempt to pitch the other side. Like all brave(!) adventurers they decide to proceed regardless.

I have not heard from them since so if anyone out there discovers 4 intrepid travellers at the bottom of a steep valley give them my regards.

My time here is fast approaching its end. We had planned to visit friends and relatives before returning to the UK, however, the rising cost of oil has increased the fares by over 50% so sorry folks, another time perhaps when the guy in Indonesia publishes his invention of using water instead of petrol (do not hold your breath on that one).

 

With 4 months to go the organisation I work for is desperately scheduling as much training as they can before I leave. Ok with me as I prefer being busy than bored. I often say I can be bored in comfort at home but 12 hour training days does take its toll and a day off, yippee, tomorrow, will be very welcome.

 

As last year the weather here is unsettled. Last year the rainy season was dry, this year the dry season is wet. Draw your own conclusions.

Today our broadband supplier submitted his invoice. What service, we have been unable to connect for two months now so he was sent away with a flea in his ear, no service no pay. At home such an event would not have happened and any possibility of no payment would not arise. Here, one of two things will happen.  Either the service will be restored sometime this century or, more likely, nothing will be done by the service provider and we shall continue to use dial up and the broadband gear will slowly moulder away unused and unloved by anyone.

 

Service resumed! Turns out the ISP changed the DNS addresses and with the best of customer service in mind, failed to tell anyone.

 

A high powered(?) meeting was held this week to discuss finance and other relatively unimportant stuff. Some 25 senior personages were in attendance along with 3 from Jakarta. Not in my line of work at all so I can observe with a reasonable degree of disinterest and hereby report the non-collated results of my extremely scientific study.

 

3 leave the meeting minutes after it starts for a fag outside. 2 answer their mobile phone as the chairman gets into his stride. 1 decides now is the time to SMS a colleague across the room (probably to say shall we have a fag with the others) and they both get up and leave the room together. Now there are 5 outside. 2 open their mobile and seem to be playing games. 3 more start their laptops up and we are serenaded with the Windows start up jingle. 1 opens the Jakarta Post and studies the sports page (we are in the middle of the Euro Cup remember) whilst another, not to be left out, goes for an ancient Flores Post he must have spotted at the entrance. The chairman ends his intro speech and the meeting, now depleted by those obviously tending to more important business (see earlier sentences) begins. By now those not occupied elsewhere are falling asleep if the snore like noises are anything to judge by and one has almost fallen off his chair trying to balance his feet on the table. Then, the killer move by the leader, he calls for a blackout as a “death by PowerPoint” is about to start. By now I can barely contain my laughter and decide I have a very urgent computer problem to fix. I depart.

I am pleased to report that the meeting was judged a huge success by all not present.

 

17 or perhaps 21 Islands

No broadband for two months now – and everyone using the limited number of  dial up connections makes the web very slow. The operator first told us it was a router problem, then a server problem, neither of which I believe. I reckon the I.T. man is hoping an answer will fall from the sky.

Another epic about the latest adventures.

A trip to Riung with two Dutch volunteers of our age.  Riung is a small fishing village on the north coast  about 90 miles from Ende and takes around 4 hours to get there along what feels like a track at times.  There are about 22 small islands (17 according to the Government who thought it more appropriate as it fits in with Independence day August 17) with white sandy beaches dotted around and with good snorkel and swimming .  The landscape changes after getting through the mountains and it's similar to Scotland or the Yorkshire Dales.  The people also get poorer and poorer.  We passed a young boy balancing a dead goat on his bike (the bike had old fashioned round handlebars and probably  dated from the 1940s or 50s) and a farm truck crammed full of live chickens all squashed in together. Probably going to the market where they are killed as the customers buy them.

Our driver deposited us at a hotel run by missionaries which he said was expensive but the best place.  Expensive is 8 pounds a night for two with breakfast in clean rooms with a shower (albeit cold water) and a flushing toilet, a real luxury.  There is no electricity in Riung but we were connected to a generator that supplied power for a limited time in the evening.  We arranged a guide (Chris), a fishing boat and "captain" and lunch for the huge sum of 25 pounds for the four of us and were picked up at seven the next day.

A community of Muslim water gypsies live at subsistence level by fishing down by the harbour.  The houses are on stilts near the mangrove swamps and when the tide comes in they are surrounded.  Why the children don't drown is a mystery, especially the tiny ones and it is probably rife with disease as there are mosquitoes everywhere.  In July and August tourists arrive and boosts their income. However, last year, because of the IATA ban on the local airlines there were none and it hit the area badly.

All the islands are now a nature reserve and uninhabited. The first island visited was where giant fruit bats live.  They hang in the trees during the day sounding and looking a bit like birds and at night fly over to Riung to eat papaya and anything else in season if they are not shooed off by the villagers.  Average bat span around half a metre.

We chugged round several smaller islands, stopped and bought  squid from a fisherman and then landed on the island where we spent  the day.  The sea is warm bath temperature and very clear.  The coral, blue, and brightly coloured fish along with a huge number of star fish which are everywhere right up to the shore.

While swimming the guide and fisherman cooked lunch on an open fire and the guide had brought rice, noodles, and vegetables cooked ready to go with the fish. 

Then, a real bit of luck. Chris asked us if we would like him to cook us a meal at his house the following evening.  Thinking we were being altruistic we said yes and gave him the money for the food (4 pounds each) thinking it would be an experience if nothing else. More of this later.

The following day we were in the market when we met him buying the food for the meal and we asked him to tell us where we could walk.  He left the fish at the hotel and came with us saying there were no other tourists and he'd got nothing else to do that morning - and wouldn't take any money.  He took us along a country road to Riung village and saw women weaving and an old woman of 70 making clay pots.