Well firstly I must apologise for the slightly rushed nature of that last post, I tried to write some before I left for kupang but then didn’t get as long online as I had wanted when I was in Kupang.
Hopefully this should be successfully uploaded by proxy in that Suzanne (thanks Suzanne!) is in Kupang this weekend doing a big shopping trip and I’ve asked her to upload it.
Life here pretty much plods along really. It was really good to be in Kupang last weekend and just see some other bulay (derogatory term for white people) and hang out for a while. Rest assured thats not me being racist, it’s just nice to be able to talk to more than one person (Suzanne) who has the same cultural background as you every so often and make contact with the outside world, although a little less partying and a little more sleep could have been advisable, I came back feeling more worn out than when I left!
In fact Suzanne is getting a nice full weekend in Kupang which it appears is going to be a rarity for us. I was there for three days (Friday to Monday) which was due to me working extra hours last week and then it being Ede (or is is Id, I don’t know) so having Monday off. The issue is we work 8-11 on Fridays and 8-12 on Saturdays. The ferry leaves Rote at about 11 (Indonesian time, could be anytime in the day) and leaves Kupang at 8 in the morning so full weekends are something that will be tricky and without some flexibility, weekends away at all without taking annual leave would be impossible.
On Saturday night, a group of us went out to play pool and I got to experience my first ever Indonesian drugs raid! Drugs here carry the threat of the death penalty so you can imagine a raid is fairly draconian. The police just turned up to the pool hall, with no reasonable suspicion or search warrant or other such trivialities. They simply walked in out of uniform assured us they were police and claimed they could just do a raid.
It was interesting that they actually made a beeline for our table and the other table with a white person on it, thinking about it, I guess it’s the first time I’ve ever been racially discriminated against by the police, it doesn’t happen often in England as a white middle class male! We were frisked and made to empty our pockets and have the contents of our wallets emptied. Thankfully we were saved the indignity of a body cavity search however there is a fine line between frisking and fondling and that policeman came a little too close to that line for my liking.
However this was less awkward for the guys in the group who were just forced to empty the contents of our wallets which were more disorganised being a mess of old tickets and receipts than embarrassing. I got a little bit of hassle as my temporary driving license expired in a week, although even if it had expired, there is no law against having an expired licesnse so long as you aren’t driving. Having said that, police don’t need excuses like laws to hassle you here. It was slightly different for the women though.
They were forced to go into a separate room by female officers and empty their handbags, i learned a long time ago I just don’t want to what’s in womens handbags and this was a real invasion of privacy. Further to this they were forced to lift up their tops so their underwear could be checked to see if drugs had been stashed there. All in all, I htink it was a bit of a grim experience.
This Saturday is a public holiday here because it is the Bupati election, hence why Suzanne is able to leave Friday come back Sunday. I’m not exactly sure how the word Bupati translates other than big boss of the island. This is the office who decide most public affairs for the island including who the new director of our hospital will be, budgets strategy etc for all hospital life and public life in general. There is a real hope for change here I think, we will have to see. When we first arrived there was a big rally for the opposition. SO the election is on Saturday, I don’t think it’ll quite have John Snow (or whoever it is) and his swingometer but it should be pretty interesting and judging from the rally the other day, noisy. Then again, everything in Indonesia is noisy even on a sleepy island like Rote.
Being the rather sad politics graduate I’m actually looking forward to seeing all of this and in fact, I’ll even have someone to observe it with. Rich, my university friend who currently is living in South Korea is the first person to come visit doubling the current population of white males in Rote at the moment (even the hotel owners in the south have left as it’s currently rainy season), certainly in Ba’a. He’ll be staying for about a week and a half then he’s heading off to Bali for Christmas. Living in the urban sprawl that is Seoul, I he says he’s glad to just have a week doing nothing here the slower pace of life, which is good as there isn’t much else to do here!
Suzanne and I have decided to spend Christmas here, it will be a quiet but it should be a nice change. The truth is, Christmas will be so unbelievably different from anything we’ve experienced before, I guess we don’t really have anything to miss because it just won’t be like Christmas anyway.
Friday 12 December 2008
Sunday 7 December 2008
Days 61-84
Well apologies that it has been so long since my last update, it is one of the problems of living on an island with no internet access! Suzanne went to the only local internet cafe type place the other week. Apparently its status as an internet cafe is somewhat misleading: they didn’t have any food or drinks and their one connection (Yes one! they don’t have any computers, you have to take your own laptop) wasn’t working so I can’t help but feel it is false advertising to call itself and internet cafe.
We’ve been on Rote for almost 3 weeks now so we are beginning to settle in a bit. When we arrived there has been a complication with our accommodation, the house Suzanne was due to live in with some doctors was no longer really available so we had to live in the small two bedroomed house for a week or so. After much discussion as to who would move out (not in a bad way, we just didn’t want to live together) we agreed I should move into the other accommodation on offer which is a room in a boarding house type place just opposite the hospital.
One of the real plus points thus far has been the fact I appear to have acquired a motorbike. I borrowed it from the hospital and when I tried to take it back they told me to keep it for the moment and they have not, as of yet, asked for it back. To be honest it is more bike than motor. It is 100cc of pure unadulterated power and I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t be road worthy in the UK.
For starters its horn doesn’t work and in Indonesia a horn is about as important as wheels on a bike however that isn’t the main problem. If you hold down the clutch for more than about two seconds then the engine cuts out which as you can guess if you are waiting to make a turn is a bit of a pain leaving you stranded in the middle of the road and with no electric starter you are forced to kick start it each time after you have found the ever elusive neutral. Add into this the fact I keep forgetting to turn on the fuel valve thing which has lead to many occasions of getting about 100 yards before it cuts out.
So all in all, not an ideal bike however I am really grateful for it as it gives me so much more freedom on the island. A after a week I ventured out around the island for a bit on the bike, you have to be careful as there appear to be no road signs and no maps available so you have to memorise where you have gone or face being stranded forever in the wilderness.
The bike also has no fuel gauge so I am always keen to keep it fairly full so I went and bought some petrol. Now petrol stations here are not as they are in England, when I say petrol station I mean a bloke in a hut with glass bottles of fuel outside which he will then empty into you petrol tank, rather worryingly, normally whilst smoking. Having filled up I remounted my bike, checked I had opened the fuel valve, checked my side stand was up (a volunteer left it down a few weeks ago and was badly injured when it caught on the floor as she went round a corner, so it’s my new paranoia), eventually after much trying found neutral and prepared to set off. Now all of that takes a few minutes with the man in the hut watching. So when I tried to kick start it, it would start, I tried a few times but nothing. I started to get that pressured feeling of people watching, had I put the wrong fuel in? Is there a wrong fuel here? By this point the man in the hut had been joined by his friend who were watching with some mirth so I was really starting to feel the pressure of embaressment and avoided looking at the two men. Several minutes passed with no success, I was starting to wonder if I’d have to push the bike back to the hospital in defeat. Then a voice came from the hut saying “hey mister” as I looked up I saw the man making a turning motion with his hand which at first confused me until I realised I had been sat for five to ten minutes trying to start the bike without putting the keys in the ignation as they were in my pocket. I rode off with my tail between (if that is physically possible)
of course many other things have happened but haven't had enough time to write them! will try to update again soon
We’ve been on Rote for almost 3 weeks now so we are beginning to settle in a bit. When we arrived there has been a complication with our accommodation, the house Suzanne was due to live in with some doctors was no longer really available so we had to live in the small two bedroomed house for a week or so. After much discussion as to who would move out (not in a bad way, we just didn’t want to live together) we agreed I should move into the other accommodation on offer which is a room in a boarding house type place just opposite the hospital.
One of the real plus points thus far has been the fact I appear to have acquired a motorbike. I borrowed it from the hospital and when I tried to take it back they told me to keep it for the moment and they have not, as of yet, asked for it back. To be honest it is more bike than motor. It is 100cc of pure unadulterated power and I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t be road worthy in the UK.
For starters its horn doesn’t work and in Indonesia a horn is about as important as wheels on a bike however that isn’t the main problem. If you hold down the clutch for more than about two seconds then the engine cuts out which as you can guess if you are waiting to make a turn is a bit of a pain leaving you stranded in the middle of the road and with no electric starter you are forced to kick start it each time after you have found the ever elusive neutral. Add into this the fact I keep forgetting to turn on the fuel valve thing which has lead to many occasions of getting about 100 yards before it cuts out.
So all in all, not an ideal bike however I am really grateful for it as it gives me so much more freedom on the island. A after a week I ventured out around the island for a bit on the bike, you have to be careful as there appear to be no road signs and no maps available so you have to memorise where you have gone or face being stranded forever in the wilderness.
The bike also has no fuel gauge so I am always keen to keep it fairly full so I went and bought some petrol. Now petrol stations here are not as they are in England, when I say petrol station I mean a bloke in a hut with glass bottles of fuel outside which he will then empty into you petrol tank, rather worryingly, normally whilst smoking. Having filled up I remounted my bike, checked I had opened the fuel valve, checked my side stand was up (a volunteer left it down a few weeks ago and was badly injured when it caught on the floor as she went round a corner, so it’s my new paranoia), eventually after much trying found neutral and prepared to set off. Now all of that takes a few minutes with the man in the hut watching. So when I tried to kick start it, it would start, I tried a few times but nothing. I started to get that pressured feeling of people watching, had I put the wrong fuel in? Is there a wrong fuel here? By this point the man in the hut had been joined by his friend who were watching with some mirth so I was really starting to feel the pressure of embaressment and avoided looking at the two men. Several minutes passed with no success, I was starting to wonder if I’d have to push the bike back to the hospital in defeat. Then a voice came from the hut saying “hey mister” as I looked up I saw the man making a turning motion with his hand which at first confused me until I realised I had been sat for five to ten minutes trying to start the bike without putting the keys in the ignation as they were in my pocket. I rode off with my tail between (if that is physically possible)
of course many other things have happened but haven't had enough time to write them! will try to update again soon
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