faraway

I like the picture below a lot. Maybe because both Bapak and Zach were in the natural expression and seemed that they did not know that Jerome took their moment. Both have a very nice smile. We also can see how different their skin, totally different like sky and earth (kayak langit dan bumi). This picture always make me feel missing my Bapak a lot.

Model : Bapak and Zach
T-shirt : Personal Collection
Location : Jl. Panglima Polim, South Jakarta
Photographer : Jerome Cheung
Taken on June 18, 2005
Camera : Kyocera Finecam SL400R

Galuh
In the office, just after finished writting my project final evaluation

Our New Car

So we finally bought a car in early July, a Nissan X-Trail. On the practical side, our X-trail can deal with the neighbourhood potholes and the annual Jakarta flooding. On the style side, it's black and very cool. It's the largest purchase either of us have ever made together. So it took a lot of debate and research and counter-debate before we could decide on the model.

Jerome love driving it

Zach in his portable car seat with his favourite teddy bear

Zach loves "his new car" and now Galuh doesn't have to walk home from work (six-months pregnant) or take a noisy, smelly Bajaj. Daily, Galuh drive it to the office or other places. I just love driving it. Every weekend I drive it. I am surprised that I know how to drive in Jakarta. I must have picked up the basics in all those years riding with those veteran Silverbird taxi drivers.

Mom and Dad pitched in for this car so thanks are due. Thanks.

Jerome

Once upon a time, in a city called Jakarta, a little girl named Shannon invited all her friends to her birthday party held at the prestigious Mandarin Hotel. Shannon's school friend, Zachary arrived at the Hotel's main lobby and rode two sets of escalators up to the party reception table. Here he was greeted by two women hosts wearing enormous orange tophats. They ushered him through a portal decorated by Winnie the Pooh. Inside was an enormous room. Shannon greeted him, dressed like a princess in frilly pink. All the kids got a Winnie the Pooh clock as a present and a cup cake from Shannon. At the end of the room was a huge stage also decorated with the characters from Winnie the Pooh. A bulbous Winnie the Pooh and Piglet emerged from a side door and posed for pictures with Zachary, Shannon and the other children. Soon a strange man wearing funky glasses and spikey hair began to sing and arrange party games for the several score of children who had arrived at Shannon's party. After the starnge man, a couple of Indonesia television performers, Rio and Liddia Lau, sangs songs for the children. One of the songs was in Mandarin. The ponderous Pooh and Piglet cavorted with the dancing children. Unfortunately all of this seemed too much for three-year old Shannon, who cried and did not want to dance. The singing and dancing was followed by a massive banquet for the hundreds of guests. Just before the magic show, Zachary slipped out of the party eager to eat his cup cake.

Jerome

Last week I visited Makassar City in South Sulawesi to meet some Non-government Organizations for our new Budget Monitoring Project. I went with Eni Widyastuti and Ihsan Haerudin from my office.

It has been nearly seven years since I last visited. Back then I was working for USC Canada and came to monitor several projects we were funding through our Jakarta-based partner, YAPPIKA. I was happy to meet some old NGO aquaintences and meet new people doing interesting things there.

Makassar, being a sea port, is famed for fresh seafood.

The high point of our trip was an amazing seafood meal at an unasuming restaurant called, Lae-Lae not far from our hotel. It has no decor nor scenic view yet it seems to be always full of appreciative diners. We ordered a huge meal of grilled fish, boiled mussels and grilled prawn. Unfortunately, I could not order the crab (my favorite) because my wife is pregnant. Believe me I really wanted to. This crab-fast is due to a Javanese belief that when a husband breaks the shell of the crab, it hurts the unborn baby. (I invite Javanese blogger to please explain the rationale behind that). Sadly for me, my wife strictly enforces this prohibition. I took a picture of our meal to prove my faithful compliance to Javanese wisdom.

Jerome, at home
A National Holiday for Indonesia Independence Day

In June, I spent a week in Manado to observe the North Sulawesi local elections (on 21 June). We organized a Quick Count with our local partners, PuBliKa Manado. It was very successful and thanks to a cooperation with Manado TV, NDI and PuBliKa had our 15 minutes of fame in North Sulawesi. (You can read about the Quick Count at www.jurdil.org) After an evening interactive interview on Manado TV, PuBliKa director Ismail Dahab and I went for seafood at a well known seaside area. A table of diners next to our table recognized us from the interview and congratulated us.

Manado is also a seaport and is well known for its fresh seafood. We ordered a fanatistic seafood meal but as usual I was bound by the Javanese prohibition on eating crab. There is a Javanese belief that if a prospective father breaks the shell of crab, it will harm the unborn child carried by the mother. The crab in Manado is huge (!) and would have been awesome. In addition, I don't get to Manado often. So I trust my wife, appreciates the sacrifice this entailed.

Jerome, at home

Aceh community wants a peace and a normal life. Because of that, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had decided to not continue the rebellion with GoI in fighting a freedom for Aceh. (Zaini Abdullah. Prominent Figure of GAM)

Aceh Kids in Cot Jeumpa

Yesterday, 15 August 2005, The Indonesian Government (GoI) and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a peace accord after six months of negotiations, paving the way for an end to three decades of bloodshed that has claimed about 15.000 lives.

There are many debates amongs the politicians about this accord. Many people are happy with it but others are pessimistic with the implementation of this accord and the role of foreigners in monitoring the implementations of the deal. Because of the items that appear on the peace accord have more benefits for GAM than GoI, many people also said that this peace accord was the way how GAM will get their freedom in future.

Personally, I do not know about politic and I do not care about the reactions of Indonesia politicians. I just thought that this is a good step for building a peace in Aceh. I was touched by Aceh community’s reactions when the agreement was signed. They looked very happy, they had been waiting this peace agreement for 30 years. They want to live in a peace, they want to have a normal life. My friend, Bang Afrizal, said “Galuh, we are very happy and after this we will go to the Baiturrahman Mosque for sujud syukur (Thank God)”. From the bottom of my heart, I really hope that this deal will truly bring a peace in Aceh.

Hopefully both GAM and GoI will keep their promise in implementing the items of the deal. And hopefully in near future, we will not see children who lose their fathers, we will not see women who raped by military or GAM, we will not see children who become soldier, we will not see women who cry because she has lost her children or husband, and we will not see any other violences-rebellions-conflicts-disasters in Aceh.

Galuh, 16 August 2005
1 (one) day after Aceh Peace Pact was signed

On Monday we went to see our doctor, dr. Amru, to do general check up for the baby. Everything is fine. The baby’s weight was 862 gram and the heart beat was 152. The doctor found a penis as part of the baby body for second time. He called it “Monas” (National Monument in Jakarta).

My weight has gained for 8 kg. This month I just gained for 2 kg. The doctor said that was good. He said the weight should only gain maximum 2 kg. Last month, my weight gained for 4 kg. The doctor reminded me to not gain too much. I think he is right. At my previous pregnancy, my weight gained for 25 kg. And the impacts were I had a lot of strechmark and I could not come back to my normal weight.

Now, my belly is growing bigger and my old strechmark become appear again.

The pictures above were taken when my pregnancy was 24th weeks.

Galuh, 10 August 2005

Our weekend this week was fulled with socialization with friends.

Firstly, I would like to mention here that at the beginning of July we finally bought a car, Nissan X-Trail. We call it “our first big investment”. After we saved money for 4 years, finally we could afford it. Jerome is very happy with that car and me too since I also contributed my saving too. And as you can guess, this car has been the focus of our private lives for the past four weeks. Of course, this car has kind of changed our lives. Getting around is easier and we are much more easier to go out of town. Well, Jerome promised that he will post a story about our car include the pictures someday.

As I mentioned before, this weekend we were very busy. In Friday night, we attended a 14th anniversary of YAPPIKA at Hotel Cemara. The party was very entertaining, the presented their documentations about their journey in past 14 years and during the dinner they entertained us with music. We met our old friends. We also met Eep Syaifullah and his wife, Sandrina Malakiano. Zach was very enjoy the party and wanted to shake all people that he met. He said “Hi, I am Zachary.” He was really cute. He tried to imitate us.

On Saturday, we went up to Bogor. Jerome’s boss, Paul and Stephanie, invited us to come to their rented-villa in Desa Cilember. Nice villa, the building seems like dutch-style building with old-antique furnitures. It had three big beautiful bedrooms with big bathrooms. There was outdoor-swimming pool with beautiful views (rice-paddy fields, villager houses, and river). Of course with fresh air, no pollution. Hm … unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera, we can not show you how beautiful that place.

Except us, Tom and his dog (Hurley) also came and they stayed overnight. Then, we spent our time chatting, lunch outside, swimming, playing with kids and hurley, and playing billiard. Zach and Lawrence (Paul and Stephanie’s son) was very good when they played together. They shared the toys. Zach was really like the pool (read : billiard), he tried to play it but the stick was very big for him so he just played with the balls.

In the late of afternoon we decided to go back to Jakarta. During our way back to Jakarta, Courtney called us. He just got back from Canada and Yogyakarta and wanted to get together on Sunday but fortunately we got an information from him that Maggie was going back to Toronto on Sunday morning. So we decided to have dinner with them, at least for saying good-bye to Maggie. We picked them up and then we went to Plaza Indonesia. We decided to eat sushi at Sushi Tei Restaurant. We instantly finished all the foods, maybe because we all were hungry. At 9.30 pm, we decided to go home and of course we wish Maggie with good luck for her future in Canada. Seemed that she was little bit nervous for going back to Canada. Anyway, good luck Maggie for your new lives in Canada and hopefully can see you in January next year when we visit our family in Toronto.

On Sunday, we woke up very late, at 9 am!. Then we had our breakfast and afterward just hanging around in the house. I read my book (Petir by Dee), Jerome played his new game in his new work laptop, and Zach played with his dinosaur toys. At 2 pm, Courtney came and then they (Courtney, Jerome and Zach) went swimming at downstair. I just read a TEMPO magazine when they were swimming. Then we had a chat while Zach was still swimming by his self. We stayed at the pool for 2.5 hours.

And then, Jerome and Courtney went to the Darmawangsa Squire to buy our weekly necessities and get our dinner. Meanwhile, Zach had his early dinner before he went sleep. After his dinner, Zach immediately fell asleep. He slept through the night.

Jerome and Courtney bought special beers (I can not remember the brand). They drank it during the dinner. After dinner, we just had a chat about games, work, and our friends. Courtney left our house around 10 pm. After he left, I watched Oprah show. It was about Jon Steward, the host of Daily Show. He is very cuteeeeeee and funny.

That was a story about our weekend. Very tired but fun!

Galuh, 8 August 2005 at 5 pm

This is certainly very interesting question.

This morning, I got an email from my boss which tittled the question above. He mentioned that his email was a brainstorming and an invitation to have internal discussion about programming angles should the Helsinky-talks peace arrangement materialized in Aceh. Of course, those brainstormings and discussions should be related with our current and potential future programmes in Aceh.

One of the impacts if the Helsinky-talks provide an successfully agreement between GAM (Freedom Aceh Movement) and GoI (Government of Indonesia) with whatever requirements that agreed by both sides, then there is going to be a return or reintegration of GAM (Freedom Aceh Movement) members into their original communities. Personally, I thought that reintegrating ex-GAM in communities could have two possibilities, create a peace or create another forms of disputes in Aceh. Of course, we hope that it will create a peace in Aceh. But as my collegue said (and I agreed with him), there are certainly many cases (in other parts of the world) where fighters returning to their previous communities after the formal cessation of conflict had a hard time reintegrating into the community. There have been bad disputes over land and livelihoods, and conflicts related to desired for revenge and lack-of-education among the fighters, etc. For Aceh that still has to face the impacts of tsunami disaster on 26 December 2004, those matters could be even more difficult to address where land and livelihood issues are already problematic and the social fabric is already torn.

For all NGOs in Aceh, specifically us, should start to think how we will anticipate those situations from now, how is our position to respond or be prepared better. A lot of questions came up from my collegues and me : What will happen at the communities if the return and reintegration happens? How will that effect our programs? Our strategies/methodologies certainly has to be adapted so that we can be inclusive and can accommodate the participation of ex-GAM members in whatever ways we do? Do we have a realistic sense of how many GAM members are living outside their communities and may return? Mostly GAM members are young men, if it is correct, how much will this add to the gender imbalance created by the tsunami?What impact will any change in systems/processes of local governance have on our projects? And so on .. so on … still so many questions that I can not write it down in this blog.

We (my colleagues and I) do not know all the answers yet, but at least we are aware with all those questions and should keep this kind of dialogues continue. We need to respond and adapt.

And for all of you who read this posting, welcome if you have any inputs/comments/questions to respond the question as tittled of this posting. I am excitedly waiting for all your responds.

Food for thought …..

Galuh, 3 August 2005 at 12.00
During my lunch time