Monthly Archives: August 2012

Serial: Kafka-like Days in Indonesian Bureaucracy

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Pretty soon we figured out that bureaucracy in Indonesia is not only a party of the everyday life, but the only way to do things, because without bureaucracy a huge punch of mess is created.

When building our environmental project, our first goal was to reduce bureaucracy to its minimum. Everything had to be as simple as possible. There were two leaders, a few advisors to guide us and the rest of the work was done in teams of different topics, where the team leader was the link between us and the team. So that if anyone had a question, he just needed to ask the team leader and if he didn’t know the answer, he would ask us.

We even thought it would be making a favour to Indonesians – the communication would be fast and direct, without any paperwork or twiddles, and the locals suffering in the bondage of bureaucracy could finally be set free. Of course, a naive Westerners view as always.

When we introduced our innovative plan to our volunteers, a loud confusion rose.

“But if we want to ask something, where shall we go then?”

“You will get the answers from the team leader who, in case doesn’t know the answer, asks us.”

“But usually (biasanya – and if something is biasanya it has to be like that forever) in these cases we would go to the headquarter to the secretary, who sends the question to the secretariat, then they will send it to the secretary-general, who in turn communicates with the director who is advised by the initiator of the project. Then the process of answering starts and depending on the severity of the question it will be sent either via letter or a meeting will be held.”

“You see, it’s pretty complicated, isn’t it? Now we do it the easy way. You have a question – call my number.”

A long silence followed my insane idea and a row of confused eyes investigated my each movement.

“We don’t understand this system. It would be easier if we did like usually.”

I felt like we had just done the world’s greatest outrage trying to favour easy collaboration instead of running between offices, like we had to do each month eight times between immigration bureaus. 

The Holy Trinity

We finally reached the stage where 30 crucial letters were to be sent out. So important they were that it took us a week to reach our goal. Because in Indonesia a procedure is like a ceremony – only when you have served the God well, he will treat you generously in return.

The more time and effort the procedure takes, the more authoritative it seems. Therefore each letter must be accompanied by a set of ritualistic decorations, the Holy Trinity: letterhead, stamp and permission (izin).

Somehow Indonesians think that the letterhead and stamp are the ultimate proof of reliability. Therefore the letterhead as well as the stamp are always owned by a small circle of bosses and even if the secretary has it, she will answer you,

“Sorry, I have no permission to use it”.

Instead, she proposed me to drive all the way to Merapi, where a conference was held, to meet the boss who could then add the stamp. Much easier would be to go around the corner and copy the stamp for some pennies, as the fakes are done by the same people as originals and no ethics is ever followed. Also to get the letterhead nothing more than some basic knowledge of Photoshop is needed.

So, to add some extra extra reliability to the letters, you will need to write at least two of them. One is the letter you want to send and the other one is to prove that you really have the right to send it. An izin from the almighty. To get this mystical izin, it could take you days, weeks, months, as nobody really knows who should give out this permission.

It also turned out to be important w h o sends out the letter. It cannot be done via e-mail as no one reads emails more often than twice a month and local post is pretty much a hazard. Therefore we needed at least two volunteers to go together to all 30 places because likewise with letters, one carries the message and the other one is like a proof that it is indeed an authorized deed. To make them reliable, each of them needed a neckline. The neckline, of course, had to be covered with the Holy Trinity. 

Once this was also done and the letters sent out, we received a response.

“We don’t have the izin to accept your letter, because the envelope you sent didn’t have the letterhead nor stamp.”

So the procedure started again.

Now you wonder what did these highly authorized letters consist of? It was just a letter to highschool teachers that they would tell their students about the possibility to take part in our debating competition. That’s what all the fuss was about. 

** Read how it really works: http://www.letsdoitworld.org and do not get discouraged by my subjective blog posts about leading the project. The stories are intended to be entertaining, therefore I will mostly describe the conflicts instead of successful moments, which there were plenty as well. How ever it all sounds to you, I still believe this one one truly amazing project and should be carried out in all parts of the world. Hopefully, with your help.

Serial: The Rotten Green

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While reading, check out Marie’s Indonesian pop song which talks about cleaning Jogja from trash.

It was the same week when our gathering took place in one courtyard as an initiative of a local guy. With the address tag in our hands, we found our way to Indonesia’s largest green organization Walhi.

As far as we knew our early arrival concerned checking over the place and talking about the night’s logistics. Instead, we landed in the middle of an internal meeting, 15 sceptical faces staring at us and waiting for a great performance.

Indonesian green force now demanded a presentation of something that we were still in the process of figuring out ourselves. Heart beating inside, we opened our computers and held a speech on our plans for the future, but especially for the forthcoming night. They observed, waggled their heads and finally asked the important questions.

So what could be these important questions. Like “what will you do with all the collected trash in the end?” or “what is your funding plan?”. No, this organization focused on something else.

“Very interesting project, but let us now talk about the important things – what will our position be in this project?” asked the boss with dollar signs blinking in his eyes.

“Well, we are opened for co-operation and hope to established a mutually accepted partnership. Especially as we have the same goals concerning the environment. We would need to discuss Walhi’s role, how would you like to contribute to the wellbeing of the city. But as we were invited here to plan tonight, maybe we could fix a separate meeting for this negotiation?”

“Sure-sure. But still, what will be Walhi’s position in your project? Who will be obeying who? Walhi cannot afford obeying to Let’s Do It, Jogja!” he said while drawing different niveaus in the sky, the one above referring to them and the one below to us.

“But we never asked you to obey us, it is supposed to be a co-operation to achieve same goals. It all depends what will be the most suitable area for us to work together.”

“If you wish, Walhi can take all responsibility for your project to work.”

“Please understand, the organization is a world-wide one and we are not here to look for someone to lead us.”

“Well you need a steering committee, Walhi can take this role.”

Somewhere at the resonant steering committee our negotiation stopped when the boss’s shirt turned wet of sweat and he opened the top bottom. And us being utterly confused because instead of borrowing their garden for the night as one of their members had offered us, we were now standing in a position to negotiate who will lead the project. Therefore we tried to lead the conversation back to the tracks.

“Maybe we should discuss about the essence of the project to see if our visions correspond to each other and how would you see it working?”

“Yes, sure. We were thinking that we should collect the trash and throw it in front of the government offices, they should be responsible!”

Really, a very brilliant solution.

Men’s shirts dripping of sweat, we stopped the conversation but continued having several of similar kinds. As we were not willing to leave the responsibility to Walhi who wanted to pick a fight with the government, they now started indoctrinating our volunteers. Each time they met someone they gave them pressure to make us reconsider our viewpoint until one day a representative from Walhi came to talk to us in our office.

“You know what, Walhi thinks this cooperation cannot last.”

This was such a good news of ending this oppressing relationship with the rotten green force that we spurted out (though in Indonesian polite-mannered way) all that we thought of this situation. After exchanging ideas for almost an hour and making clear of everything (again) the gentleman stood up,

“Alright. We will talk about it in Walhi to see if we want to continue the cooperation.”

This was the last drop into the cup of patience that was already splashing out frustration. We confirmed politely that we didn’t have time for these power games and left the weird situation for ever. Even though our hearts crippled for leaving the largest green NGO of Indonesia, we indeed received many more evidences that the organization didn’t really care about the environment after all.

** Read how it really works: http://www.letsdoitworld.org and do not get discouraged by my subjective blog posts about leading the project. The stories are intended to be entertaining, therefore I will mostly describe the conflicts instead of successful moments, which there were plenty as well. How ever it all sounds to you, I still believe this one one truly amazing project and should be carried out in all parts of the world. Hopefully, with your help.

Serial: Garbage rivers and trash hills

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Less than a week had passed since our lavish speech, when fifty volunteers gathered under one open roof, watched the introduction video and promised to take pictures of trash to map the problem point in town. We drew lines on the map and off they went, each of us with our mobile phones.

One has to mention that all sorts of people came to help us with the garbadge issue. The ones who threw their fag-ends between the trees and the ones who packed banana leaves into plastic bags instead of throwing them in bushes. And also those who returned with pictures of hay stating it to be litter.

I also went to take some pics. Crawled in the shadows of banana trees of river sides that formerly seemed so tropic but now blinded my exotic eye for ever. In stead of water there streamed plastic bags and worn-out clothes, bottles and cans, sickening remnants of irresponsible consumption. The banks of river now became archeological points of interest, as below a riverhouse and visible trace back to decades could be found.

Image

There, standing between those crying trees, nauseating, the shivers of fear struck me. Did I really decided to go through with this?

***

Well, while taking pics I fortunately also saw some weird and funny stuff like this:

Image(sorry for the poor quality of mobile pics)

** Read how it really works: http://www.letsdoitworld.org and do not get discouraged by my subjective blog posts about leading the project. The stories are intended to be entertaining, therefore I will mostly describe the conflicts instead of successful moments, which there were plenty as well. How ever it all sounds to you, I still believe this one one truly amazing project and should be carried out in all parts of the world. Hopefully, with your help.

Serial: Me, the future garbage collector

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I’ve never had such a long writing break as I had this year. But I had also never been involved in such a mad project as Let’s Do It! was.

Almost suffocating in the haze of workload I still ask myself from time to time, how on earth I got dragged down this whirlpool.

I, Berit Renser, former semiotician and a hobby anthropologist, a photographer and travel writer, suddenly lead a garbage collection movement in a country, where the neighbouring wealthy Singapore and Japan export their leftovers and where throwing a bottle out of the car window is so natural act that drawing an admonishing attention at it, the offender doesn’t even understand what the crime had been.

To clean Indonesia, you must be joking! was my first thought, when a friend of mine offered me that chance. But as if hypnotized, we started our engines, which from that moment on suffered from the agony of tiredness, to announce the citizens that we had an enormous project in progress.

The situation was pitiful, but our large mouths formed flying castles. Berit Renser and Marie Le Ferrand, garbage problem resolvers from Europe leading an international NGO’s local branch started their mission now in Jogja and strolled overbearingly through newspaper editorials, with the press release in hands and a glowing smiles on faces.

In private meeting rooms we gave airy answers to each question we hadn’t solved yet and to add credit to our project we blurted out the most authoritative: “In the headquarters in Europe…”. Then they placed us standing under the large newspaper logo, snapped a few photos and flew us to the local media.

Our unreasonable self-confidence worked and since the first email to our official mailbox we never again had a proper sleep. Only a week later since the first steps of pride we found ourselves at a birthday party of Indonesia’s largest environmental organization. Our new friend, an elderly active woman had taken us there and after the speech of a few professors, she pushed us to the microphone. Having the full attention, we held a sumptuous spiel on material we had mastered online and received a resonant applause. Someone even squeezed my hand and congratulated us.

Finally our new friend made a conclusion of our performance:

“But before we start teaching the citizens, we should reconsider our own habits. From now on, dear listeners, we shall all start throwing our trash in the bin, what do you say?”

People exulted. Seemed like we had just uncovered the world’s biggest secret. A crowd gathered around us and wished to become a volunteer in Let’s Do It. In the one, that we didn’t have yet.

We planned our first meeting for the next weekend where volunteers were planned to map the illegal waste all around the city. It was probably the last moment when we had the chance to escape this mad project.

Read how it really works: http://www.letsdoitworld.org and do not get discouraged by my future subjective blog posts about leading the project. The stories are intended to be entertaining, therefore I will mostly describe the conflicts instead of successful moments.

Saturday night – the night of the week we all get spoilt

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Malam minggu or Saturday night has a special meaning here in Indonesia. This is the night of party, or as one of my friends here said: “The only night of the week, when we all get spoilt – kita semua hancur!”

Meanwhile I had already moved to downtown, to be closer to the night hotspots of the city and see what’s happening in the nightly worlds of the waria. The main hang-out area Tembok Berlin is just around the corner.

The only issue seems to be the fact that this here is not the typical Indonesia, which could be described as rather safe, even when being a single foreign woman at night-time in party locations. Some young warias warned me about motorbike taxis, which are very common means of transport in Irian Jaya: “Don’t you ever use the motorbike taxi at night! They pick you up, take you somewhere where they have group of friends waiting. Then they rape you – all of them!” Supposedly this has happened around here already quite a few times.

One of the nights we were driving to the southern market area in Sorong where there was some open-air party a’la Papua. We stopped the car, took a brief look from the windows and my waria friends stated: “No, no, this is way too dangerous – we can’t go out, you will be beaten up and you’ll get a knife!”

I saw bunch dark shadows of the Papuans dancing drunk in the beats of dangdut music – the kind of party no-one could imagine happening in some dark downtown spooky market area. Papuan spirit. And a drunk Papuan unfortunately is a very common stereotype here, and for a reason – you could really see a lot of drunk Papuan people on the streets, lost in life, probably discriminated for some generations. But my friends just couldn’t let me out to check out this party and we drove off to safer grounds such as Tembok Berlin.

Starlight nightclub stands alone and proud and glorious in Kampung Baru, Sorong, Papua

As it was Saturday night, warias were all nicely dressed up and beautifully shining. One of the older warias was sitting on the wall and proudly poring out strong local liquor – one for the waria elder of Sorong, another one for me, then again to the elder. Until it was time to head on clubbing.

I remembered my friend who’s a local minibus driver here, whom I met one afternoon when he was visiting a hair salon held by a waria. In just some minutes he picked up all the warias and other chicks, so the whole minibus turned into a wild and wicked party-zone heading towards more party. We all seven warias, four women and the driver and his friend took off with a deep beat of dancehall sounds, and it all just reminded me too much of the infamous scene in Wariazone where me and Kiwa together with some nine warias were riding around Jakarta nightlife, singing Indonesian anthem. And of course, it was Saturday night! Wish I had a camera with me up there in Papua, but see the scene of Jakarta in Wariazone trailer:

In Papua, when talking about the waria, commonly people point out  that the parties where the waria are present last the longest and get most crazy. This seemed to be the case with our night in the biggest nightclub in Sorong – the Starlight, or SL as the waria call it. Interestingly, the security took a brief look at us and asked exactly the ticket money for seven people, as if the ‘real ladies’ get in for free, and the warias (as if they were considered ‘men’) should pay the whole price. I tried my best to negotiate, but they were stubborn, and it was really stinking of discrimination based on gender.

But as we entered, the party got wild. There was a band from Yogyakarta, followed by a hot dance party, where the sweat took hold and strip-dancers lifted our sexuality. Some of the waria tried to use me and Minna to get connection with men, and I, of course, was happily playing along. Minna seemed to have a crush on the hottest strip-dancer, who then poored some vodka in her mouth, dragged her on the stage and we were all shouting: “Hancur Minna, hancur Minna!”

This, by the way, is a popular dangdut song here in East-Indonesia, which translates as ‘spoilt Minna’ – a girl who went from village to the city, stayed there for too long and lost her morals.

The island of Doom

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“Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom….” the guys at the harbor were shouting. And it’s not that somebody is doomed or this is the doomsday or there’s some great doom rock gig around the corner (wishful thinking, eh), but indeed – there’s a small island just some 20-minutes boat ride from Sorong and it’s called DOOM.

So the guys shouting ”Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom….” are just trying to find people that would land in their boat and take a ride to this spooky doomed island.

Doom is the island with Dutch heritage. You can walk around the circular island within an hour – it’s just 4,5km long – and take a look at some dutch influence in architecture and in city planning. It used to be the center of their settlement in West Papua, at the top of the so-called Bird’s Head peninsula, in early 1900s and it played an important economic role for Chinese settlers. Although I remember hearing the stories from the locals that the island used to have a prison, after which it was called Doom, I  have also read that the island known as Dum means that the island is full of fruit in Malamooi tribes.

We also met an older brother of my friend in Sorong, who has lived in Doom his entire life of around 60 years. What intrigued me was the way he explained the island’s lost wonders: “The Indonesians! Since the Indonesians came everything has changed – here we used to have crystal clear water with bright white sand, but now it’s just an extension of Sorong here.” Well, after all, the island still seemed exotic for my eyes, but I could have only imagined the picture he was trying to paint for us from his childhood memories preceding the year of 1969 when Dutch New Guinea was annexed and it became known as West Irian, later Irian Jaya.

I went there to meet a Papuan waria whose family lives on the island. There, sadly, she could never dress up nor express her gender identity, but when she leaves the island for a weekend in Sorong, or travels to other cities such as Jayapura, she feels free to open herself up and enjoy the fruits of life as a waria.  But in front of her local community, she remains this androgynous weird boy, leading double lives and trying to cope with it.