Wednesday 25 April 2012

Desa Oelomin - Oelomin Village

This week had me back in Oelomin for a day of visiting a couple of more people who have disability as indentified by the "Kapala Desa" or Village Head. He is the man with many responsibilities running and guiding the operations of a village of about 350 people. He provided a list of people with disabilitites to Berti when I was early on in my placement. On this day we saw him in his office to ask official permission to go ahead and start visiting people. When we sat down in the office Berti turned to me and told me to ask for the permission in Indonesian and caught me by surprise as so often happens here.
Mama trying on Berti's glasses for fun!
I stumbled my way through and we sent on our way with his thanks and blessing.

First we went to a family where the 4 year old girl was reported to have mobility problems but on arrival, saw her playing and walking with no problem. We politely visitied with her mother for a while, me trying to get the little girl to dance or play with me so that we could really look for  her mobility problem but her shyness kept her back although my dancing brought a smile to her face! We did decide the Kapala Desa did not quite have an up to date list! So from then on Berti asked other people who she has worked with in the village for updates to the list and we think we have much better detail now.

visiting in the family living room
We did visit a woman of 32 who has severe mobility challenges and following a fever and pain in 2004, was left in bed for quite a while and now has weakness in her legs and walks bent at the waist. We want to try to have her assessed as we aren't sure if this was polio or something else.
She cooks for the family, her mother and father, sister and her small child and her own daughter who is now 8 years old. she also works in the garden where they have produce for the family and for taking to market in Kupang, a 60 minute  ride away by the rickety crowded bemo bus. Her sister has that chore!




family home

The whole family lives in a one room bamboo hut and their living room is the front yeard where we visited. When they saw us coming someone ran into the house and brought out the usual plastic chairs and they served us sweet coffee. Her Elderly mother and father sat under the tree after bringing some produce we wanted to buy from their plots of veggies - fresh picked casava leaves and papaya flowers as well.
village traditional dance competition
Then as we walked back to Berti's motor bike we spotted some fruit for sale on the roadside and called to the house for someone to sell us some. Turned out to be guava and she sold it by a big bowl full. Quite small fruit but really high in vitamin C. Then we  squeezed it all into our day packs and hang the extra bag off the hook on the front of the bike and headed home!
The papaya flowers got soaked in salt to reduce theri bitter flavour and stir fried with the casava leaves, garlic, onion and of course hot chiles. Delicious! or Sedap! in Indonesian.

take care all - talk to you again soon.


elders enoying traditional dance competition

Monday 16 April 2012

Hidup dan Kematian - Life and Death

sprinkle donuts!
(Just spotted this! It looks like this one never got posted so although old from February, I will post it anyway!)
Where to start? When one is on the roller coaster, start and finish seem to blur, thus my question here! Life certainly feels like a roller coaster, with ups and downs coming at breakneck speed. It feels like I’ve had more downs than ups these last couple of weeks but one "feel good day" can outweigh a few of the others so far.
SO for a re-cap of one of those "up" days.
I went another village on the back of Berti’s bike - a ride of just over an hour through lovely lush green lined roads, and through a very crowded market lining the sides of the road - it might have been a village - hard to tell as things seem to blend together the first time I experience them. Big trucks laden with vegetables, bags of rice and fruit and trucks loaded with people in the back; others with their goods to sell at market such as wooden beds and other furniture of regular household variety. It is amazing how much can be stuffed onto the back of a truck! and these are ric
rice separator
kety rusted out vehicles usually. So, at times we crawled along behind, waiting for our opportunity to scoot past on our little Suzuki.
By the time we arrived at the village office my back and behind were feeling the strain of sitting on the back and the very rough road into the village. I was introduced to the village secretary and administrator, saw their data on the village population all charted hanging on the wall and another chart of very detailed information on pregnant women in the village, their location, date of expected term and any other information needed as part of ther “Alert Villages” programme to be ready to assist with blood bank - a call goes out for fresh blood at the moment it is needed and they know who to look for; transportation to hospital - who will be called as most do not have a vehicle; and how much money might be needed for any related costs like transportation and medication.  All neatly recorded on little yellow stickie notes but very official and impressive!
Then on to meet a woman who is the local facilitator for the Alert programme - she encourages women to go to hospital vs. staying at home and having a local midwife  - this has reduced maternal deaths to the point that there are no deaths from childbirth in this last year - quite an impressive statistic as this was not the case in the past, when local remedies and limited supports were available when complications arose.
rice transport

Her family were there to greet us - right down from grandmother to great granddaughter who was turning one the next day. We were invited to stay for lunch and also to see their garden of herbs and various fruit trees - they sent us home with fresh limes and bananas. They very much appreciated my interest in the garden and I’m sure they didn’t realize what a treat it was for me to walk around it and learn how they used some of their herbs for healing and cooking and the names of their trees. Felt like home.

Food is cooked in a separate small buiding at the back of their house. A lovely, warm welcoming family. Berti warned me not to eat too much as we would be fed at every stop and you never know how many stops there will be! Then on to the next woman who also is influential in the village. Her husband runs a rice cleaning business - removing the husks, separating rice from the shell - which has been a huge success in this area of rice growing. Local people come to him rather than treck their bags a greater distance and then the separated rice back! Some of it to sell, some to eat themselves. People bring huge bags of dried rice right out from the fields on the motor bike -- quite the sight.

Here we received fresh roasted peanuts, sweet rice goodies wrapped in banana leaf and if you can believe it - sprinkle topped donuts!!! Yes, Western food has reached Timor! How sad.
Berti learned most people were out in the fields this day as it was rice planting time and it’s all hands on deck for this manual work. Google and read up on it, it’s fascinating! I’m sure most of us could not put in this kind of day, morning to dark, and they have everyone able out there from the adult community right up to grandparents well into 70’s and 80’s.
tree pruning Timor style out my kitchen window

So we started to head out as we wanted to be home before dark but as we started a small group of people were coming toward us from the rice field and Berti learned they needed to head home early as their father had died at noon and they just received the word - SMS is great! So Berti felt she needed to pay her respects so around we turned and followed these people home, where they washed up to go to grandpa’s house where the wake would be held for 2-3 days. We were told he was prepared already, tarps had been erected in the outdoors of the home so there would be places under cover of rain and sun for visitors. Before going, we were served lovely warm watermelon. The usual sweet tea accompanies most food.

Then we all set off on foot up a long hill - it was hot! And went in to pay our respects and grandfather was laid out in his full traditional village garb of colorful sarong, head wrap and sandals and shirt. He looked very peaceful and not what I expected. I was quite prepared for I don’t know what, but was ready to be shocked. Not at all!
Sat and visited for the proper amount of time then off we headed home. By the time I arrived, my back was screaming - must work on those stomach muscles!! (that will be my next Blog story)
Well friends and family, it is February and I’m still standing - rode my motor bike to work 4 days in a row but not venturing too far from home yet. One step at a time - one day at a time!
Thanks for reading!!!

Hidup Baru - New Life!

It is almost three weeks since my last post and I thank all of you checking up on me during that time - including a reminder from Kelsey telling me my Blog is getting lonely!! So, here I am!
As you see on the title this time it's a new life and indeed it is. I have turned a corner, taken control, relied on local friendship and had the ability to take pleasure in some fun.
Under the full moon Sureya Island, Flores
On return from Bali, re-worked my working schedule and set some targets with colleagues. I immediately moved in with friends Angela and Morten who have taken me under their Irish/Welsh wings, fed me well and housed me in their lovely home.


Soon after, it was Easter which is celebrated and recognized more than I've seen anywhere else. Large crosses on street corners, many church services and for many of us 5 or 6 days of vacation. So I joined 5 other VSO volunteers on the island of Flores for fun in the sun in Labuon Bajo, a seaside town and dive centre. We shared two to a room in a budget hotel which was quite adequate, took a boat to another island with white sand beach, stayed there a night and celebrated the Easter time on the beach under the full moon - we shared our cultures of how Easter is in Uganda,
Beach in front of our cottage on Flores with Sarah
Philipines, Netherlands and Canada. We played music, swam and snorkelled then boated back to town for the remainder of the ddays off, eating our way through town, all the food stuff we can't find in our placements as this is a tourist place but still with its local feel. Such fun!! Cost you ask? Shared room about $8 Ca per person. Fresh fish dinner - saw them bring the fish in - about $6.


Yesli & Berti Practicing Assessment Interview skills
Home of first girl and her family
Girl in foreground, siblings & Mom & Berti
Back to Kupang where I gave a workshop for staff on Assessment Interviewing, getting us ready to start meeting people in the villages who have disability of some sort. The next day I was off with my colleague Berti to Oelomin Village and we met with a girl of 12 with her mother, and talked about education possibilites that the family want for her but not sure how to get her into school for special needs in Kupang. So, we will be following up on that. The other was a young man of 19 who probably had polio at age 13 and was paralyzed in his legs and has now regained some strength due to some rehab but still unable to walk any distance due to his weakness. He laid in his bed from age 13-17. His was tough to interview and most uncommunicative but with me feeding Berti some ideas that she ran with, she got him to open up that he has an interest in small electronic repair. This may also open some doors as we try to follow up some possibilities. This week we are back at it again and will review how to open interviews and assess, using a conversational method.

Then, this weekend it was off to a small island again by a little single stroke engine boat with some contract folks working here in Kupang we call the Friday night crowd as we gather many times on Friday night for social time and speaking English. One of the crowd is going back to Germany so food and beverages on board, off to Semao Island we went, swam from the boat ashore and hung out on the beach, hitting the water to cool off. Swam back to the boat at the end of the day and very proud of my swimming, which I've never really tested like that. A sunset to die for as we returned, although the wind had picked up and challenged us on the return voyage. We had waves pouring over us at times, but these people here are so used to the waters, we trusted our skipper with our lives!

Boat to  Sureya Island, Flores

cottages on Sureya, Flores
Big news is I have rented a house with another woman who is working with CARE. It has 3 bedrooms, loads of living space, huge balcony looking out to the sea, fully furnished and an area I think I can
our boat offshore on Kupang Island trip
make into a workable kitchen. It has a view of the sea that is unbelievable as we are on a hill and an area close to many of our Friday night gang, including Angela and Morten. We move in May 1st all going well with the lease signing. We have made a deposit so hopefully that a good sign. Yearly cost? $3500 Ca.





So, yes, New Life - Hidup Baru! I'm feeling happy and feeling useful. Wow, what more can a person ask for? And, I have room for visitors for anyone looking for a holiday in Indonesia.