A diary of life in Indonesia as a former Director of Studies with EF. Anonymous trolls, don't bother to stay
(These thoughts are my own and are intended to inform and entertain, never to hurt.)
Every year, by way of a treat from the franchise owner, Pak Agus, all of EF Swara's centres get to take an individual school outing. No, not an outing with the students, that would be logistically crazy especially when considering the diverse age range of our students. No, this is more of a bonding trip for all of the staff that work at the centre, Admin, teachers, support functions etc with the aim being to get to know new people and to hopefully ensure success through familiarity. It always involves games and activities that promote teamwork, it always involves communal dining and a barbecue and it is always a lot of fun.
"Oi mate, have you got wifi on here?"
2014 saw us board a bus for Anyer, a coastal resort to the west of Java island, but for October 2015 we chose to head for the hills to the south of Jakarta, to a place with the vaguely-humorous-to-westerners title of "Bukit Pinus".
As you'll know if you've read previous blog entries we usually wait until work has been concluded on the Saturday before boarding a coach and hitting the road. This year was different. This year coincided with....Halloween! It was because of this that it was decided, due to the need to organise events before people arrived at the venue, that I would drive the school car and along for the ride would be Nina the Centre Director, Katherine the Assistant CD, Lusi the marketing co-ordinator and Weina, one of the Gading Serpong teachers. Everyone else would be following onboard the coach.
We arrived relatively quickly considering the erratic nature of Jakarta traffic and I was immediately struck by the remarkable beauty. I was also struck by how remarkably easy-to-find the resort was as I'd had visions the night before the trip of us getting lost in the wilds of Sukabumi. These trips are great because even living in a relaxed place like Gading Serpong you can sometimes forget just how built-up the area is so it's always appreciated to get out into the fresh air.
anyone hungry?
After lunch, time was spent relaxing, if you were one of the four girls, or in my case it was spent preparing the games and activities that we'd be doing over the next 36 hours. At this point I should mention that in much the same way the weekend is about teamwork, it could never happen without teamwork too and Alex the assistant DoS is just excellent when it comes to helping to create activities and atmosphere alike.
So it was that when the coach arrived, having taken a bit longer than we did, everyone was ready to tuck into the meal that had been prepared and. once that was over, people were split into their teams for the weekend and given the first task. Find the pictures of horror movie characters that had been hidden around the resort and bring them back to Alex and I to redeem points.
As much about helping people to orientate themselves with the resort and its facilities, the people of EFGS are competitive to a fault and took swiftly to the task which, once completed, was quickly followed up with a team quiz with both Indonesian and English questions.
The evening is always about downtime and relaxing and that was the order of the day as a prelude to the evening barbecue. The resort has a swimming pool, pool table, strategically located gazebos and plenty of communal areas as well as extremely clean and comfortable rooms. Bukit Pinus also has the luxury of a fire pit around which everyone sat eating the barbecue until late into the evening. Even this had a competitive edge as points were available for which team could tell the creepiest fireside story. Well, it was Halloween!
Sunday morning arrived and with it was a solid breakfast to fortify everyone for the games ahead. These included the energetic "British Bulldog", the hillarious-to-watch "Snake" game in which blind-folded participants have to be led around a course collecting objects, team volleyball competiton and the concluding basketball shooting.
Lunch was served prior to our departure and for the first time in the weekend it rained. Not that this mattered as we were well undercover but then again it was the beginning of the rainy season and we were in the wettest area of Indonesia. To conclude the weekend, points were tallied, prizes were handed out, congratulations and commiserations were shared and multiple, multiple photos were taken. It was an exceptional weekend highlighting the camararderie that exists amongst such an assorted group of people. We're going to have to get thinking now to stand any chance of 2016 beating this.
Well 2015 was a mixed bag of a year, wasn't it? It actually started off alright with the discovery that we could make pretty good shortcrust pastry here in Indonesia but then it all seemed to go downhill from there. We started paying the mortgage on a new house that we wouldn't be moving into for over a year and that seemed to go ok, no huge changes to lifestyle just stopped thinking about holidays and knowing that it would be the last year paying rent.Then, in April, we lost my Dad which kind of put the kibosh on things for a while. This was followed a few months later by the passing of one of Dad's best friends and Dermot will be hugely missed by all of his family and friends.
But, as with all things in life, everything gradually returns to normal. Work continued in 2015 with new teachers coming and old ones going, things with the house progressed faster than expected meaning we were looking at being in by December. Mum came over for a holiday and got to see Singapore and Bali for the first time and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Christmas and New Year were upon us. Phew!
So as the New Year starts, with thoughts of resolutions and hope for what's to come, I thought I'd look forward to the year ahead....
House
Well we're still not in it. There's currently no electricity or running water hooked up and we've been told that the cable tv and internet service we currently use won't be available. On the up-side we're pretty close to finalising the fitted kitchen we want and think we can actually include a built-in hob and oven too. We've boxed up everything in our current house and have a man (actually 3 men) and a van organised for once we have the greenlight. We also have a contingency of paying an extra months rent on the current place if we need it. Hopefully one more month from now. fingers crossed.
Bike
I believe that I should get my repaired CBR 250 back this month (January 2016) which means that the Honda Beat will be available to rent out or sell. The CBR will certainly make driving the increased distance to work better than the scooter.
Gym
We've extended the membership at The Springs so this means that badminton practice can continue and allow me to stay fitter and healthier. Uchiel reckons that she'll be attending regularly too but I have my doubts....
Work
My contract finishes at the end of June with a new one due to start immediately. The big thing this year is to get something called a KITAP which will mean that I'm sponsored to stay here by my wife and not by my employer. I have been waiting for the paperwork to arrive but, as with all things, it's taking its time. Employment regualtions have changed again so we'll have to wait and see what recruitment of new native-speaking teachers is going to look like too.
Holidays
While the house continues to take up all available funds, we have some great stuff to look forward to. Mum is planning on returning for a few weeks in Spring and, just as my contract ends in June, we'll be heading to Bali for a weekend to celebrate Colm and Nova's wedding. Then in early July, Myles, Karan and Megan arrive for a couple of weeks and we've plans to visit Yogyakarta by train and then on to a beach holiday. That will probably be it for this year although it would be nice to think we might be able to do Korea for a few days skiing in December.
Movies
I've been enjoying writing #StokerScore (stokerscore.blogspot.co.id) as much as I've enjoyed the movies in 2015. There have been some surprises and some shockers too and from the look of the slate for 2016 it's going to be another cracker!!
So as ever a fun packed year ahead and I hope that yours is equally filled with awesomeness and that it produces many memorable moments. I plan to take 2016 by the scruff of the neck and wring out every last bit of enjoyment.
Love you and miss you very much, Dad, hope you're enjoying yourself.
I saw a farmer the other day who was carefully cleaning some tilling equipment and it made me stop and wonder for a moment. He was obviously cleaning the machinery so that it continued to operate to the best of its ability and I know I'm guessing here, but I think I'm on the money when I say that he initially chose this equipment for a number of reasons. Firstly, its ability to do the job he was going to use it for. Secondly, its cost when compared to alternative equipment on the market, and in line with his personal budget. Thirdly, its projected longevity, how long it could last if he treated it well.
Comparatively, I considered the way in which some companies use their workforce. Certainly they consider the ability of their personnel to do the job that they're going to be used for, but some companies are comfortable in using underqualified and inexperienced people to fill the roles. Usually in this case they offer comprehensive training to ensure that the employee has a thourough understanding of their responsibilities and then, through monitoring and ongoing training, they are able to build a successful worker. Other companies don't even do this, instead they employ people who are patently incapable of performing their duties, even with extensive training and hope against hope that they can do a facsimilie of the job.
So do companies consider the cost of their employees? Well they do in my experience where I was often told to make sure my wages were in line with budget as it was the biggest flexible cost to a business. Companies often have bandings to separate the salaries paid and these may be based on qualifications, suitability or skills etc. This ability to pull from a certain pool of resources can, with the addition of development strategies, lead to an enviable group of staff. But what happens when the intial salary is too low, or incremental increases are not in line with what the employee might expect? Well in the first case you're not going to have a lot of interest from the precise people you're hoping to attract. instead you'll have to interview large numbers of people who are exactly not what you're looking for. As for people feeling they are not able to see their salary increase in line with experience or qualifications, or even to keep up with the local inflation levels, they will just leave or they will stay and procrastinate over whether to leave or not.
And what of longevity? Do companies want to keep their employees? These people who have had time, effort and money ploughed into their development? Well many companies say that they do but their actions often contradict the words that they use. My experience has led me to believe that clear and uncontradictory communication of expectations, remuneration, and the person's part in the company's future are all significant factors in establishing loyalty.
The tilling machinery that the farmer was using is hardly sentient. It won't understand the principles of Carrot and Stick, or the taste of A Praise Sandwich, nor will it need to concern itself with the vagaries of Situational Leadership. But if you mistreat that equipment, if you fail to do what you need to do to keep it running at its optimum, then sure as eggs are eggs you're going to have a problem on your hands....
It's been a few weeks since we've visited and we're getting closer to the projected handover date so we thought we'd head over and have a look at the state of play with the new house.
We're not planning to move in until February 2016 so it'll give us time to get the decorations right, finish the kitchen fittings and make sure that when we do finally move in, everything's ready.
We've been giving some serious thought to the kitchen in particular and it's quite nice having a blank canvas to work with. It's also daunting in as much as we don't want to screw it up.
Currently we want something a bit like this......
As for the rest of the house, well doors are just about all on, walls are starting to be undercoated and generic floor tiles are being laid (we may yet change some of the floor tiles, still thinking)
Here are some pics to give you an idea...
The last of the bamboo scaffolding about to come down
currently this area is going to be for a bbq but in time it will potentially be a room for a live in maid which many Indonesians choose to have
We're planning a false bookcase to go in front of this door to the bbq area, a bit like this kind of thing .....
Have you ever fallen over? By accident I mean, not drunk? Depending on where and how, you know, raised paving stone, or misjudging distance for instance, it usually hurts like hell and bruises both body and, depending on whether you have an audience or not, ego equally.
Lets take it to the next level. Fallen off of something? Like a bicycle? Skateboard? Rollerskates? escalator? Grazed knees and hands are a minimum and I guess egos are again only bruised depending on the level of showoffiness.
Next step up, what about bumping into someone? Not in the metaphorical sense, I mean actually crashing body parts into body parts, and not in a bedroom sense either. It could be two people bending over to pick the same thing up and banging heads, or maybe concentrating too much on that Tinder profile while walking that you don't see the person coming in the other direction. Hurts.
At the centre of all of these events you will find physics and the numerous laws and principles that define the nature and properties of matter and energy such as Newton's First Law of Motion where A body continues in its state of constant velocity (which may be zero) unless it is acted upon by an external force.Thank you Big Bang Theory.
Now science was never my strong point so don't beat me up if, for instance, thermodynamics are also involved in any of those situations I described, it's just a device to bring me to the main part of this blog post. I was knocked off my motorbike on my way home from work two nights ago.
I've been carried from rugby fields, been struck by cricket balls and dislocated my shoulder trying to accomplish an eskimo roll in a kayak. I've crashed cars, fallen off bicycles, bruised my spine in a speedboat, been down to my last seconds of air while scuba diving and broke my big toe kicking a punching bag while learning Ju-Jitsu. But I've never been involved in a motorbike accident before.
I'm not sure that I overthink things but I definitely do think about things. When I decided to start riding a motorbike I was living in Chiang Mai in early 2009. It was a popular way to travel in a city with plenty of traffic, but organised road systems, and the decision to take the automatic moped rather than the Honda Phantom was decided as much by inexperience and price-per-day as it was by wanting to ride a mini Harley. I seriously wanted to ride the Phantom, I just didn't know how. Technically I didn't know how to ride the moped either but since it was fully automatic the worst thing I could do was over-rev the throttle.
which one would you choose?
A lot of my school mates (when I was a kid, not now I'm a teacher) rode 50cc motorbikes, I passed that by and went straight to driving cars. So with over 20 years of car driving experience, riding my first bike was fun but guided by common sense and an awareness that the protective cage around me had now disappeared. I also have a clear understanding of The Highway Code.
On arriving in Indonesia I was back on a bike inside a year but the conditions were remarkably different. I was still riding a fully automatic moped but the conditions of the roads; potholes, increased traffic, lack of signs, made riding a different challenge. South East Asia, with the possible exception of Korea (http://www.korea4expats.com/article-traffic-laws.html), also has a notable lack of Highway Codes. This means that rules of the road are more arbitrarily interpreted, by both drivers and authorities alike.
That video was of a toll road which doesn't allow the use of motorbikes, except in times of flooding... in some areas... maybe.
For a better idea of motorbikes, here's a video from Surabaya...
What was interesting in the second video is that most people are wearing helmets and not using mobile phones, this isn't necessarily the case in Tangerang and Jakarta.
These videos highlight that a person's understanding of road etiquette is only useful if the other users have the same respect. Where there is a lack of understanding, there is a driving test, where there is a flouting or disregard of the rules, there is the police and courts. So what happens if you find yourself in a country that has neither?
Of course I'm being argumentative. Indonesia does have a driving test but it is not essential to being able to drive. The driving licence may be purchased, illegally, and speaking to friends it would appear that a significant number of people go through this route. An equal proportion of people don't even bother to get an illegal driving licence, they just hope not to be stopped.
So what happens if you do get stopped by the police? Well in that case you just hand them the vehicle documentation and a folded up bank note and hope to talk your way out of anything. The highly unlikely worst case scenario is that if the policeman doesn't take the cash then it will mean a trip to the courthouse in the area in which you were stopped to pay an elevated fine.
Let me be clear, this is not some indignant tirade against the country in which I have lived for 6 years, rather it is an explanation of how things work. I now ride a Honda CBR 250cc motorbike, equipped with anti-lock brakes that I paid extra for and of all of the things that I have mentioned, the single biggest thing that I have taken into account before riding a bike and while riding a bike, is other drivers and what they might do. Indonesians are not bad people, they are a product of conditioning as we all are and where road use is concerned this area is not good.
Have you ever had that feeling, when sometimes you just know that something is going to hit you, or at the very least may hit you. Sometimes you just know you're going to be in trouble. That didn't happen to me. I approached a roundabout fully expecting that someone in the right hand lane may, instead of going all the way around to the last exit, may indeed head straight on, I was also aware that it was equally possible for a person in that right hand lane to pull off the stupidest of moves and turn left across the inside lane. I was in the inside lane, had slowed to take these things into account and then BANG! I'm lying on the road with a truck still seemingly trying to continue forward over my prone body, the only thing stopping this being the frame of my bike.
This truck had done just that, moved from the inside right to turn left at the roundabout. So even with all of my preparedness I still got hit. That I escaped with a swollen elbow and superficial cuts and bruises was down to the lack of speed on the part of myself and the truck.
Furthermore, the indicators on the truck weren't working, the truck driver had no STNK (vehicle documents) only a police slip proving the confiscation of those documents for the truck being pulled over earlier for another offense. In a slight case of irony, trucks are not even supposed to be on this particular road.
What would happen in the UK in this instance is that police would be called to the scene, drivers would exchange insurance documents, and injured parties would be taken, if necessary by ambulance, to a hospital.
What happened in my case was that I was assisted from my position by approximately 20 people, including local security guards, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. As I was able to stand and speak, and fortunately being only 2 minutes from home, I called Uchiel, my wife, to come and help out with language difficulties. The outcome was that the four guys in the cab admitted liability and agreed to attend a local garage to review the damage and agree on the amount to be paid. Insurance isn't mandatory in Indonesia, which means that most don't have it so "negotiations" are carried out privately. (http://www.expat.or.id/info/insurance.html)
The following day, the driver and his mate appeared at our house on return from the repairs garage and, having pleaded poverty, agreed to pay half of the total repair cost which they transferred electronically into our account there and then.
This post should serve as both information and a warning for what to expect in this situation. Had I not had the benefit of someone I knew at the scene, it would have been branded my fault just through me being a foreigner. Had I been more badly injured, who knows what would have happened. What I do know is that had the police been involved it would have cost us money too and we probably wouldn't have received any money toward the cost of the repair.
I choose to ride a bike. I enjoy it, it's easier to get from A-B in heavy traffic and I am aware of the pitfalls. Will I stop riding a bike? No. Will I be more careful? Well certainly at roundabouts, but I don't think that I'm a careless rider or I'd have had more problems in 6 years.
So in the words of the Hill Street Blues desk sergeant, "Let's be careful out there"
thanks to the original owners of the pictures and videos used here.
Back in 2014, the Indonesian police decided to give a name to their security procedures during and immediately after Ramadan and they called it Operation Ketupat.
Ketupat is a boiled rice cake that whilst eaten throughout the year, is synonymous with the Indonesian post-Ramadan holiday of Idul Fitri. It's therefore little surprise that the period of heightened security procedures to 'protect' the large numbers of people travelling back to their home villages for the holiday, known as mudik, was given this moniker.
The idea is that during this time everyone needs to be aware that places that are usually heavily populated may now be deserted, so residents need to be careful in how they lock up their homes and belongings and the police need to be extra mindful of criminal activity.
There is also the increased numbers of people travelling to take into consideration. It's a time when trains are packed to Indian-style capacity, aeroplanes have been booked up months in advance and roads that are already gridlocked can stay that way for an even longer period of time. It is because of this that understandably cynical Indonesians have given the name of Operasi Ketupat to the Indonesian police's unique form of either a) fining someone for breaking the law, b) tax collection, or c) mugging, depending on your point of view.
In a country that imposes its laws in what can best be described as a laissez-faire manner, and that where the size of the punishment seems to depend on your ability to pay, this period sees police roadblocks and gauntlets set up to take advantage of all the people who are not following the dubious details of a Highway Code that, if it exists at all, is known only to a select few.
I know it's idealistic, but to change this will require some very simple rules on the part of the governemnet and the police.
1. The people need to know, very clearly, what the rules of the road are and the punishment for breaking them.
2. Rule breaking needs to be dealt with consistently and fairly
3. There can be no money changing hands, instead payment should be made where there is an ability to track that payment, either at a courthouse or an office set up for the recording of these payments where transactions are electronic.
4. Genuine drivers licences and insurance certificates should be pre-requisites, along with vehicle maintenance certification.
