Days 54-61 (Back to bali)

Sorry for leaving it another week for a post, i know you all can't survive without my regular mumblings!

Well last weekend we went to a very nice house warming party at the house of one of the office staff who had a swimming pool, it's a tough life. After sam and i went to a bar to watch rovers vs chelsea, my first match in two months, i walked in just in time to see chelsea score a very lucky goal, so annoying.

ANyway, anedotes as my last few posts have been a little dull.

I went to get my tourist license on tuesday, i need this becuase i didn't bring my international license and in oreder to be able to ride a bike out here i need to do the internal training which i can only do in bali, so need tourist license to do this.

Anyway got picked up form the office and went to the police station arriving at about 1. When we got there they bloke looked at my passport etc and talked for several minutes before revealing that i would have to come back the following day as they only issues licenses in the morning. He sat there, smoking heavily (this appears to be a key element to being an indonesian policeman) and told us it was impossible to get the license. HE had everything he need except the inclination to be helpful. We have been warned of this, it's a very bureaucratic country and so we went away empty handed.

We returned the following morning (i left language school early much to my teacher and classmates delight) and went up in time. When we got there we had to see a different policeman again with my details and fill in many forms which all appeared to be very similar. The man regarded me with some disgust (he too was smoking) until he saw my shoes (a birthday present from my parents, nothing spectactular, not like 8 inch platforms or anything) which he refused to believe were not bought in indonesia, at one point i was worried he wanted them as some sort of bribe leaving me to return home shoeless however he did not.

He instead handed me my theory test, this was a bit of a shock but was fairly straight forward and in english and i even refrained from correcting the grammer as i was worried that these 18 stone, chain smoking, revolver toting (one kept on putting his hand on his gun when he scowled at me) policemen may be sensitive and burst out crying if i did.

Having givcen my test a cursory glance and lighting another ciggarette they told me i would now have to do my practical test. This too was more than a little surprise. The guy who was sorting it out said the rules are at the whim of the director so change frtequently.

When we got to the test area my intermediatory (for want of a better word, the bloke who the office had got to sort it out) asked if i was okay and i didn't really have an option. He explained the bike won't have a clutch but will have gears as they are semi automatic. i had never heard of such a thing (hey i know nothing about bikes) so when we got there he went and talked to the bloke in charge who was sat in a booth (smoking).

The bike was there and it was a small thing barely bigger than a scooter and there was an obsticle course. My intermediatory came back very pleased as he had specially got them to let me use a bike with a clutch as thats what i was used to.

Then out of nowhere another large (and again, smoking) policeman appeared on this huge bike. It looked like somehting out of mad max and was probably like a million cc engine size (i told you, i don't know anything about bikes). In all honesty, it was big, behemoth big with a siren sticking up, a suge pannelas ( spelling) radio etc etc, basically a full police riot van on two wheels. He got off and gestured to me to use it. Now i wouldn't mind riding such a big bike given two things:

1) have more than 3 seconds to get used to it before being tested on it (it's like turning up to your driving test and being given an HGV to drive)

2) the course was designed for the ant sized bike now completely covered by the shadow of this monster. it was barely possible to visualise this monster fitting between the cones.

SO i reluctantly gave it a whirl being watch by another policeman with a clipboard who wasn't smoking when i started but was by the end, those two minutes must have been agony for him. Alas i didn't cover myself in glory but made it round without too many mistakes.

As we were walking away with my pass certifcate in hand, i told the intermeditary i thought i'd messed it up. NOw there only a few reasons i can think why i didn't fail:

1) the observing policeman had blinded himself with cigarette smoke

2) i was secretly, without even me knowing an amazing motorcyclist

3) the test has a very low standard to pass

4) because i am a westerner

5) because of the natural charm of my intermediatory and something he said..

Now obviously i couldn't say if i knew any of those to be true, they are all just speculation of course. Anyway, i have my tourist license and my international driving license should be here soon, if i had brought it with me i would never have to have seen the police or done any test (just some internal training you can't fail) so it's all academic really, a mere formality.

I've now finished language school which i actually finished with a B which is pretty respectable. Got my second day of motorbike training tomorrow (internal, unfailable) and then on sunday we fly to kupang before going to Rote on tuesday morning.

I won't have especially regular internet access but will still try to bring you all at least one anecdote a week.

Days 45-53 (visiting Roti for the first time and then back to bali)

Sorry for the delay in general, I’ve been back in bali for almost a week now and so I’ll try to tie up the rest of the trip to rote and about my time back in bali.

The rest of the time in rote was spend doing fairly menial administrative tasks and hanging around the hospital. It was a little tricky really, Suzanne has a direct counterpart and who speaks decent English so they started looking at things they wanted to do and doing ward rounds and alike. I on the other hand appear to be a link between an administrative office and senior management so will have to take the few months that VSO recommends to settle in and survey the landscape. This was a little tricky as I think the management saw what Suzanne was doing and sort of wondered why I wasn’t launching myself in.

There is also a possibility that Suzanne will move in with some of the doctors leaving me the little two bedroom house to myself which will be very nice. It’s all a little complex and probably a little dull so I won’t say any more.

Anyway, I’lll skip to the last twenty four hours or so in Rote. On the last evening I ended up on the beach playing football with a group of teenagers which was pretty cool and trying to explain to them who Blackburn rovers are, why we are better than man united, that I think christiano ronaldo is very good but I don’t like him and that it’s pronounced Rovers not Woahvers which they didn’t grasp.

It is a little weird there as you will have an audience if you stop moving for more than a couple of minutes. We were waiting to be picked up one day and heard two people discussing us, they knew where we were from and what we were doing there without us ever having met them!

Anyway, on the last day we went to settle the bill of the hotel that VSO had put us in. It was at this moment we realised that we didn’t have enough money. We had not been spending wildly, in fact virtually nothing as the doctors had paid for most of our meals, it was just VSO had wildly underestimated how much money we needed. Thankfully we had just enough other cash to settle the bill and buy the ferry tickets and spent the next 48 hours scrounging our money from our VSO manager who we were travelling back with. There is only one cash point on the whole island and that’s normally out of order, we were seriously facing the prospect of being stranded.

Our situation wasn’t quite as bad as Sams whose hotel bill was 1.6miilion rupiah, VSO had given us about 1.7 million and there were many other unavoidable expenses such as eating (about 20,000 per meal) and aiport tax (30,000 each way), so that amount of money would never be enough. Well liveand learn I guess!

On Saturday night we went out for a meal with Dinnia our managers friends, its sort of a restaurant group although in reality I think it’s just a bunch of English speakers and those who want to learn English who hang out. They were all pretty down on Kupang and I had to keep reminding them, this will be the big weekend treat for us to visit!

The very good news if that if I pay for my own in country motorbike training, then dinnia has managed to sort it out for me to be able to ride motorbikes out here. This is really good news especially as the hospital has a bike I can use, it just gives me freedom and independence. I have to squeeze in a day and half worth of training in the next week or so. There is a theory briefing which as far as I can tell from what I have observed thus far is there are no rules on the road, just make sure you’re alert at all times.

BY this point I had a pretty grim cold, this would be the problem with having your office located near a load of ill people! By the Sunday it was pretty bad. POstive was that in the airport the plane was delayed which allowed me to watch highlights of that weekends premiership matches in the waiting room. It was the first football of any sort I have seen in almost 2 months.

After the flight I was rendered completely deaf and felt like my head would explode. I don’t know the exact medical reasons but I think it’s to do with phlegm and ears (sorry to much detail I know). Now speaking and understanding a foreign language is tough, doing it whilst temporarily deaf is far harder, there are some deaf volunteers and kudos to them, it must be really tough.

As a result I actually had to skip language school on the Monday, I went in and explained to our new teacher. I felt guilty really, we have switched teachers for the last two weeks of training and dorothia is only here for a year so has started work, sam had to stay in kupang an extra day so Suzanne and a full day of language school by herself and the poor teacher developed a complex on her first day that we were all boycotting.

Since then things have just trundled along this week. Things are really sweaty of late here with the rainy reason sort of starting so it will be nice to leave for Rote. Just in preparation mode really now. Going to a VSO housewarming on Sunday then going to watch Rovers vs Chelsea, the first live match I’ll have seen in two months and the last one I’ll see for period unknown.

SO I guess in summary, it wasn’t an island prison or a island paradise, it was too beautiful for the former and too flawed for the latter.

I promise better annicdotes for the next post, I’m wary I’ve had a few too many serious posts. The internet access is limited over there so will probably post when I visit kupang.

Talked to my parents on skpye so it does work if anyone wants to ring me and remember to get that snail mail sent, I’d really appreciate it............

Days 43-45 (visiting Roti for the first time)

Well today I got to see my office, it didn’t have a desk but did have a bed and quite a few of what I can only assume were dead insects or rat droppings on the floor, I didn’t look to closely. We also met the bupati who is the local official, sort of like an MP but is very significant. The hospital were keen for us to be introduced and I managed to chat to him in fairly broken Indonesian. My office will apprarently be cleaned up by the time I get here properly and have a desk, no bed, curtains (I’m right next to a waiting room) and a lock on the door.

Suzanne and I were also shown the house on site, it’s a two bedroom little house with two sort of living areas, a small kitchen and even smaller bathroom. It’s onsite which has it’s pros and cons, the hospital is up on a hill so if you live here and have no mode of transport (still waiting to find out on that) then getting down to the market could be a little tough.

On the plus side, it definitely has a TV which possibly may have satellite. Now I know you all think it is sad to be in an exciting country and care about such things but I’ve not watched any football since I got here, that’s like six and a half weeks, I even had the DTs at times. Given the time difference, on a sleepy island like this, it’s not as if there are any late opening bars to try and catch a match in. So hey, I know it’s sad but I don’t care!

So the plan is that Suzanne and I will both live there together until we find a second house which should only take a couple of weeks. The issue with the hill also means that should you live in the town (and I use that word in its loosest sense) then you then face a battle to get to work each day. Suzanne and I both agreed that it would be much better if we didn’t live together, the houses aren’t massive and it’s just an issue of personal space. Also it means one of us can visit the other and get out of the house to somewhere else every so often. We’ll see, we’re going to ‘discuss’ who lives where when we find a second place but it shouldn’t be too bad for the first few weeks.

We also registered with the local police, well I say police I’m not entirely sure! Two blokes in normal clothes who if I’m honest, would look more suited to loitering on street corners with mopeds, came up to the hospital and we had to provide them with copies of our passports. One is a friend of my boss and she assures me he is a police man otherwise I would have thought that we had just registered with the Rote Mafia!

The rest of the day was just spent sort of chilling out really, I wandered along to the pier to watch teh sunset. This is a pretty remote island and on the whole most white folks just get off the ferry into a taxi and down to Nembrela for the surfing so in Ba’a I sort of stick out a bit. Thus far I haven’t minded it too much but I could see it getting really annoying at times. You really are a novelty and if you stand in one place for a while you can hear yourself being discussed in what I can pick up from my language skills.

The language has been much better since the employers conference, nine tenths of it is about confidence and my tail is up a bit more these days so I am much better. I’m still not great and I suspect my grammar leaves a lot to be desired but I can normally get my message across.

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Another slow day really, Suzanne is able to get on with some work sitting with the head of nursing (who speaks good English really) and talk through ideas and possible changes. My job is a little more tricky, I’m going to have to be here for a while improving my language skills before I can get really stuck into making any sort of assessment of the medical records.

My boss has ideas but they are sort of far more vague so I need to make a proper assessment. Judging from the bundles stacked in the office somewhat haphazardly (I saw a dirty food plate on top of one stack) and the lack of any sort of lock on the door, it could be a challenge.

We went and opened our Indonesian bank accounts which appeared to mean signed countless forms which I didn’t full understand, most likely I now have a bank account but there is a small chance I may have bought a small property somewhere with a 200% morgage or bought into some pyramid scheme, I just signed anything in front of me, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

In the afternoon, we went with some of the doctors and drove down to Nembrala which is the area which is famous amongst surfers for its waves and beautiful beachs. I have to say, the beach really didn’t disappoint although it was a little surreal in places. That side of the island appears to have a great love of pigs, you see them everywhere wandering around on the roads and generally getting in the way. But they also wander on to the beach and seem to dig with their snouts into the ground as if hunting for truffles.

The beach is gorgeous, like something out of an advert. We walked up the beach and went and had a nosey at how the other half lives at a very expensive hotel. The hotel is apparently the most expensive on the island and rooms cost about two to four million rupiah a night which is about £125-£250 a night.

It was gorgeous and just as we were sort of loitering in the grounds then some bloke wandered up to us dripping wet with a surf board in hand. He was American and introduced himself as Greg, the manager and instead of telling us to clear off he invited us to hang out and use the facilities. He explained it was coming to the end of the season so they had no guests so we were more than welcome to use the pool etc. He was really cool and we discussed why we were here and he told us about the development work the hotel helps with in the area. So we swam and hung out and waited for the gorgeous sunset as it sunk into the sea.

Things here will be pretty tough work wise and overall I know it won’t always be a barrel of laughs here but as the sunset I just felt immensely lucky. I have been given an opportunity that a lot of the people never have, I’m just some bloke from Lancashire of no particular note and i was sat there on a gorgeous beach watching a spectacular sunset. Like I say, I’m under no illusions about how tough this will be and it won’t all be using the facilities of expensive hotels for free, hanging out on beaches and watching amazing sunsets, but I still know how lucky I am.

After that we drove back to Ba’a and went and ate in a fish restaurant. It was my first experience since I got here of being expected to eat rice and fish with my hands, it’s a tricky one I can tell you! When we got back to our hotel it was about nine and I nipped out to try to find some bottled water and see if the rather enticing looking bakery was still open. I may as well have been trying to shop at three in the morning, the place was dead. It’s not exactly an island of late night ravers. SO it looks like it’ll be two years o early nights for me, unless I can watch the football........

Days 41-42 (visiting Roti for the first time)

I got home from the beach games relieved that it hadn’t rained, it had been muggy all day and felt like rain and my washing was out. I only brought with me about a weeks worth of clothes and having been at the employers conference and then going to kupang I had to do all my washing. This was great until I fell asleep only to wake up four hours later to find that it had then rained and all my clothes were wet and dirty. It meant I had a mad two AM rush to do all my washing and get it dry for the flight the next day.

Our flight from Denpasar was uneventful and then the rest of the evening was fairly laid back. We flew separately from Sam who would be based in Kupang as our employers wanted an extra days shoppiong. It turned out, he was staying in the hotel and rang us to ask if we wanted a beer. He came to our room and said he’d had an interesting experience the day before. He insisted we went out and got a beer before he told us.

When we were settled in a bar he told us when he had arrived at the hotel, he had gone out for a bit leaving his laptop in his room ( he thinks, although it may have been the lobby, but he swears it was his room) and when he returned he couldn’t find it. After mad ringing of the taxi firm, the hotel had a phone call demanding 500,000 rupiah for the safe return of his laptop, which in English money, is only about £25-30. He got someone from the hotel (who were very reluctant to call the police) to go make the pick up. It turned out that it only ended up costing him 200,000 rupiah but he was very relieved to get his laptop back.

Of course, the significant part of this story is that he hadn’t considered that making us go out for a beer to tell us the story, WE HAD LEFT ALL OUR VALUABLES IN OUR ROOMS!!!! So we quickly finished up and went back only to find our possessions enacted. I think he probably left it in the hotel lobby knowing Sam.

We were picked up the following morning at seven and went to the ferry port. The ferry was a very pleasant 90 minute journey and then we arrived in Rote for the first time. We were picked up and drove to a restaurant having dropped our stuff at our quite basic hotel. We sat there and dined with a beautiful view of the beach and tried to understand a joke our driver was trying to tell us which involved Clinton, Gorbachov, Habibi (former Indonesian president), a vicar, a priest and a Muslim cleric. It possibly lost something in my haphazard translation.

After that we came to the hospital for the first time and suddenly a lot of things made sense. VSO briefs a lot on being realistic and I see why now. The truth is, no matter how hard I work in this hospital and how successful I am, it will still be a drop in the ocean for the issues of this hospital. For a start, they have a operating theatre but no surgeon after he was recalled because of the recent decentralisation moves so they no longer had a MOU with other organisations in Indonesia. The hosipital is dilapidated in so many places and horribly understaffed. The staff seem really keen, friendly and committed to their jobs and helping people.

We went out with the doctors in the afternoon who all seem quite young and all speak some English. They showed us another restaurant (cheaper than the one we’d eaten at which apparently is the most expensive round here!) and we walked along a nearby beach. In the evening Suzanne and I just went out to eat and then played cards, not that exciting really.

I really can’t communicate how beautiful some of this island is and the stark contrast that has to some of the poverty I’ve already seen here.

Days 38-40 (approximately 0 weeks until go to Roti for the first time)

Well this has been a pretty busy time. We got picked up to go to our hotel for the employers conference. Just as we got there I discovered that there was a swimming pool and I’d left my swimming shorts back at my homestay.

This wasn’t too bad as our facilitator Tjeert offered to give me a lift on the back of his motorbike to my homestay as he had to go that way anyway. You sort of feel it’s setting the tone for a fairly laid back few days when you need to fetch your swimming shorts. He typically dutch but alrightl, over the next few days he gave me a more of a first hand view of volunteer life with all it’s ups and downs. Interestingly he was actually a professional footballer up to 17 and then got realeased and realised he didn’t like being part of the football world (footballers are stupid he said) as well as admitting that he just wasn’t good enough either. He actually used to play in the same team as Jan Klaas Huntalaar for any football fans. We returned alive (barely) after I’d stuffed my oversized head into sams normal sized helmet I’d borrowed, with my shorts.

The conference was very enjoyable, I spent much time swimming and the hotel was quite posh. During the day we went through a load of VSO stuff so that both our and employers and us had heard it. My employer, Dr Rina, is really nice and speaks a little English. We got to find out some more solid details about living quarters etc. There is one, two bedroomed house available on the site and both Suzanne agreed we didn’t want to live together long term (in a realistic not nasty way) so we will both stay there until we find another place. This may end up being a little contraversal in the end, we will have to see what the search turns up in terms of other accommodation.

There are a few pros and cons each way, it’s on site which can be a blessing and a curse but there are two big issues:

1) It has two bedrooms which probably any other accommodation we find won’t and (more importantly

2) It has a TV with a satellite dish which means English football (Sepak bolah Inggris off the top of my head, apologies for spelling) will be available on.

So we’re going to have to fight that out, obviously Suzanne has no interest in the football whereas as obviously I am! I also talked to Dinnia our programme manager who is going to find out more about if I can ride the motorbike which the hospital actually has available for us to use.

The evenings were spent hanging out (jalaan jalaan) with the other volunteers, Tjeed and Steve (who was observing so he could facilitate the next one) sat out discussing everything from conspiracy theories and global warming to the rules for cricket. I actually had a couple (when I say that I do literally mean only 2!) bottles of the local Indonesian beer, bintang (which means star). It’s not exactly top class but I’ve actually not touched a drop since I arrived (about 5 weeks) so it was nice.

The whole conference was really nice although it did make all of us a little suspicious, three days in a lovely hotel with great food and a swimming pool and at the end of it they ask you to sign the three way agreement (employer, vso and volunteer) which is basically like a contract. All this before you’ve visited your placement! It does just make you a little paranoid about what lies in wait.

My mail arrived as well from the office, I unexpectedly had two peices of mail. One was from my parents and contained my new barlcay card and the other bit was a genuine surprise. It was from the Student loan company telling me apparently I hadn’t sent a letter showing I worked for VSO with a form I had to fill in so they sent me the form back. This is annoying as I asked left it to be sent along with the form (mentioning no names, mother) but what is more annoying is that they will deduct from my bank another a payment in line with my previous NHS earnings, some £250. The really annoying thing is the complete lack of common sense, they had my e-mail address on the form but instead sent a letter to the opposite side of the world which takes about 6 weeks to arrive, they will feel my wrath, I feel a strongly worded letter coming on.

I actually came away from the conference with a real confidence boost which actually helps with language as nine tenths of it is having the conviction to have a go and risk getting it wrong. When I got back to my homestay, I sat outside drinking coffee and chatting to the father of my homestay father (motorbike guy from previous posts). It was really nice and I find I can sort of get my very basic contributions across.

On the Saturday afternoon we went to the first VSO office family beach games (the asian beach games were going on Bali). We got a Bemo there which is a sort of a cross between a small bus and a taxi. The drivers showed an ineptitude I have yet not seen and we had to end up directing them to the district and then they tried to rip us off! It was really nice all the staff brought their families and we had a great time, I even got to give a yellow card for dissent to the country director (big boss!) in a game I refereed. It really was a great time and much fun.

Wanted to watch rovers but unfortunately it was a 5:30 kick off (thanks setanta, again!) rather than a 12:30 which I had thought. I couldn’t stay late as I still had to pack for my first trip to Rote and my flight was at about 11 the next morning and staying up till three felt a little risky for a morning flight.

Sorry this update is a little dull really, especially for all you sadists who wanted to hear me suffer again, but ahead lay my first visit to Kupang and then Rote, it was pretty daunting and I had no idea what it would be like, beautiful island paradise or prison island, who knows......