Prepping for Bali COP13

Starting next week, I will be in Bali for the UN COP13 climate change negotiations. I'm working with the Tropical Forest Group (TFG). Among other things, TFG will be sponsoring a large tree display outside the conference center and a dance show (traditional Balinese dance!) to visually illustrate the importance of forest conservation.

The group has also set up a blog that will give a running commentary of the conference.

Among other things delegates at COP13 will be negotiating post-2012 climate change strategies. One strategy set to receive tons of press in the upcoming conference is REDD (Reduced Emissions from avoided Deforestation in Developing countries). In the past, countries have not been able to trade carbon credits in this category. Currently, tropical deforestation causes about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. So REDD is a potentially important part of any future emissions reduction strategy!

Data Entry Time!

I’m back in Pontianak for a couple of weeks to finish up with data entry, pack up my room, and say goodbye to everyone before heading to Bali for the UN COP13 on climate change. Life is boringly happy here, with lots of time at the gym, and hanging out with my ex-pat and Indonesian friends. Email will be easier from now on, thank goodness. Terima Kasih (thanks) to everyone who sent happy birthday wishes!

Birthday in Kalimantan

Today was one of the most memorable birthdays of my life. I woke up at 5 am in Bayangan, to the sound of clumpiau monkeys singing. After eating kue (sweet cakes) and buying freshly killed deer from a villager for dinner that evening, my teammates and I packed up our bags and traveled to Mensubang, a nearby village on the Pawan river. We decided to stay the night in Mensubang and throw a little party to celebrate the end of fieldwork.

Dessy talked with the schoolmaster and arranged a evening big feast, and also extended invitations to all the important villagers – kepala desa, kepala dusun, Muslim leaders, village secretary, etc. I hung out in the village all morning, and in the afternoon walked to the mountains to check my email (my phone only receives a signal on the top of tall mountains…go figure). Of course all the villagers thought I was crazy to walk so far away alone (“weren’t you scared!?!), but it was quite nice to appreciate the rubber gardens, birds, and hills of Ketapang one more time before returning to more developed parts of the country/world. Unfortunately, the current frequent rains mean lots of mosquitoes, so my email checking was interrupted by frequent mosquito swatting.

After getting back to the village in late afternoon, I hung out with the village women and learned how to cook krupuk – dried tapioca deep fried in oil so that it puffs up. A uniquely Indonesian snack, krupuk comes in all shapes and sizes – we were cooking one with a flowery motif that came in a variety of colors. Unfortunately for me (but probably fortunately for health) I don’t enjoy krupuk, but it was fun to cook nevertheless.

The evening party started after the evening prayers, at about 7 pm. Everyone gathered in a large house. The men and women were dressed up – the men with traditional hats and sarongs instead of pants, the women with pretty shirts and makeup. The evening started with a speech from the schoolmaster (and then myself – amazing – speaking Indonesian in front of so many people!). After this, one of the older men in the village said an Islamic prayer for safe travels, wellbeing, and long life. Finally we got to the food, which was delicious: venison, chicken in coconut sauce, breadfruit, cassava leaves, roasted corn, chile, and of course rice.

After eating we just hung out, talked, and then (predictably) the photos started. I took a photo with most of the women and children in the house, before finally escaping around 9 pm to fall into bed exhausted but happy.

Bayangan – The Last One

Our last village was perhaps the most simple of all the places we’ve been to. Named Bayangan, it is in the mountains above the Pawan river. Only one road runs through the village, and it is perhaps the worst road that I’ve seen thus far in Kalimantan: slippery, narrow, steep, and rocky, sometimes all at the same time. Cars cannot navigate this road, so motorbikes or walking are the only ways to get to Bayangan. Thus the village is relatively isolated and very small, with only about 150 residents. Of course there is no power. The school does have an elementary school, but doesn’t have a health clinic – villagers must travel for a couple hours to reach a clinic or nurse.

We arrived in Bayangan at about 4 pm, and were warmly welcomed by the Kepala Dusun to stay in his house and survey the village. Amazingly, he was able to gather a group of villagers together to draw a village map the night we arrived, so we were able to begin field work the following day. Dessy and I chose to survey the cutway that the oil palm company created around the village, which marks the border between oil palm land and village land. Because the cutway was created about six months ago, and because this is the tropics where plants grow ridiculously fast, we had to do our own cutting to remove the new vegetation from the “path”. Our guide was the Kepala Dusun himself. The day, though long and hard, was one of the more fun field days I’ve had. We stopped at a hut and ate roasted corn, found wild tomato-like fruits, and picked peppers for dinner that evening. The final GPS point was located in the middle of a grassy swamp – we were all wet up to our armpits by the time we finished the day!

Happily, because of the small population size and small land use footprint in Bayangan, we finished mapping Bayangan within a single day. Which means….drum roll please…that the mapping component of the field work is finished!!! Woohoo!!! The best birthday present I could ask for. I’m exhausted, but happy and amazed that we’ve been able to collect so much data. Tomorrow we start the three day process of going home.

Pegawai Negeri (Civil Servant) Tests

In Indonesia, one of the most highly valued jobs is working for the government. Although the pay is not high, the security and benefits of being a government employee are great. People are guaranteed pensions, don’t have to work very hard, and know they’ll have a job for life. All of my coworkers would like to work for the government, and at the beginning of November they traveled home to Pontianak to take the required test which qualifies them for consideration as a civil servant. The test is like the SAT combined with current government affairs, with a bit about forestry thrown in. (All my coworkers hope to work for the forestry department). I think this is all a bit funny – all of the government offices that I’ve visited are filled with people who have too much time on their hands and not enough work. The result? Terrible inefficiency. In my opinion, the solution is not hiring more government workers, but that seems to be the way things are in this country…

Telok Bayur

After a three-day rest in Ketapang, Dessy, Pita, and myself traveled up the Pawan River (again) to a village named Telok Bayur. The other team members have returned to Pontianak to take a test to become an Indonesian Civil Servant. More on that later…

Bayur is our second-to-last study site (9/10), and possibly the most interesting study village I’ve yet encountered. Why? In Telok Bayur, an oil palm company has been operating for about 15 years. The village contains a factory, as well as barracks and houses to support the processing of fresh palm fruit into palm oil. Perhaps more impressively, the majority of the village area (more than 50%) is covered by oil palm plantation. Here, 20 meter oil palm plants create a dark, cool, and shady forest.

Instead of tramping around the forest every day, cutting our way through thorns and getting soaking wet in rivers, we drove around the plantation on motorbikes to complete the mapping exercise. Each morning from about 7am to 4pm I sat on the back of a motorbike with a village guide and drove around the plantation area, and asking endless questions about the villager perspectives on oil palm.

The most interesting thing I discovered is that villagers are so rich they are having rich peoples’ diseases! Instead of malnutrition and TB, present at most of our other study sites, this village suffers from health problems such as hypertension and diabetes. Villagers no longer have to do hard physical labor to earn a living, and they have more money to buy high-calorie, high-fat foods such as cakes, butter, chips, beef, and chicken. In this part of Indonesia, being fat is a symbol of being rich, and is a status symbol. Along with fat, people here (and in all of Indonesia) like to be white (a signal that they don’t have to work outside in the sun) and men often let one nail grow very long (a sign that they don’t do hard manual labor with their hands).

Ketapang Lagi

I am in Ketapang for about three days, to submit a grant application, catch up on sleep, and get away from the 24/7 attention that I get in the villages. Air conditioned hotel paradise with room service, woohoo!

Getting to the Point

Indonesia…makes me cry and makes me laugh, usually at the same time. Today was no different.

One aspect of our research is finding village border points. Today our objective was to find one point (Red Water River) which marks the border between Muara Kayong and a neighboring village named Sepahan. We started by taking motorbikes to the neighboring village, hoping to find a guide who could tell us how to get to Red Water River (Sungai Air Merah, in Indonesian). Upon arrival in the house of the head of the village, about 20 men stopped by to google at the buleh and offer their advice about how to get to the border point. After some discussion, we set out to find the point, which was apparently in the middle of an oil palm plantation. The group consisted of 6 motorbikes, four with men from Sepahan and two with guides from Muara Kayong. After driving around the oil palm plantation for about 2 hours, we finally found a small trickle of water that the men claimed was Red Water River. So we thanked our guides and returned home before lunch.

Unfortunately, the point was obviously incorrect when we visualized it on the computer. As we were discussing how to find the correct location, a local village man randomly stopped by the house to say hello to the head of village (this happens frequently in Indonesia). He claimed he knew the location of Red Water River. The way to get there? Travel by motorbike to Sepahan, get in a motorboat, drive the motorboat two hours into the forest on a small river, pass by two lakes on the way, take the right fork of the river, and finally arrive at the desired border point. After confirming that our informer was sure (absolutely sure!) about this location, we started on the journey. The trip was gorgeous – through peat swamp forest which had been logged but otherwise untouched. Along the way we saw monkeys, hornbills, snakes and crocodiles. Unfortunately, after all this effort was for naught – again the point was impossibly far away from the expected location.

As an American, this sort of experience is frustrating: why would someone send us on a wild goose chase, to an absolutely wrong place? I have yet to find the answer to this question. But I’ve gotten to the point where I can live with these mishaps with smiles and patience, because this is daily life in Indonesia.

Muara Kayong

Our eighth village is Muara Kayong. It is located on the Pawan river, which is chock-full of water right now due to nightly rains. I love living by large rivers because it means that bathing and using the WC are more pleasant experiences – instead of sharing a small river with many other users, each house has its own bathing spot, complete with a private toilet. As an added benefit, I can go swimming each evening when I bathe!

The most interesting aspect of Muara Kayong is it’s large, 10-year old oil palm plantation. My first day in the field we mapped the palm plantation, and for the first time (after over a year of studying oil palm) I saw mature oil palm and the fruit itself. Fresh fruit bunches are the raw product from oil palm trees. They are just that: bunches of palm fruits, growing where a coconut would on a coconut tree, between the leaves of the palm and the trunk. The fruits are quite pretty, red-orange-brown, the size of a plum, and very easy to harvest. The big drawback of oil palm fruit is the speed with which it must be processed – to make high quality palm oil, fruit must arrive at the factory within 24 hours of harvest. Unfortunately for Muara Kayong, the factory that supports their plantation doesn’t have a very large capacity, and much of the fruit goes to waste or is converted to low quality, low value oil.

Telok Parak

Back to the field. Our seventh village is named Telok Parak, and is one of my favorite places to work. The village is tiny – maybe 70 households total – and does not have electricity. I think there are more children here than in any of the villages I’ve lived in so far. Children have funny reactions to me; some are afraid and scream and cry when they see me, others are shy but curious, and others follow me around. In Telok Parak the kids are of the following type – within ½ hour of arrival I had three 10 year old boys trailing me upstairs, downstairs, around the village, and even to mandi (bathe) in the river with me!

We finished in Telok Parak in record time, only two days of field work and tomorrow we go to a new village, Muara Kayong. Right now it is rice growing season (the rains have started, and the planting is finished) so walking around rice fields is relatively easy compared to last month, when the fields were filled with logs and brush. The agricultural system here is to cut down forest, let the trees and brush dry, burn the cut wood, and then plant rice. Walking in fields of cut trees is not an easy job, but walking through fields of padi simply requires carefully stepping.

End of Idul Fitri and Back to the Field!

Hello readers, sorry for the lack of posting lately ... being in foreign language school really puts a damper on my ability to write in English. I returned to Pontianak from Yogya yesterday, and travelled straight to Ketapang, where I am staying the night before heading to our field site tomorrow.

So ... don't expect any blog entries for a while. I'll be back to a computer Nov 5-7, talk to you then!

Caving

My last Saturday in Yogya was spent hanging out with the Realia teachers and students. We started the day with a trip to a cave in Bantul. As usual in this country, our transportation was a flock of motorbikes. My first time traveling in Java on a motorbike, I was struck by the beauty of the place – the countryside is filled to the brim with green rice fields, cows, and a few scattered trees. The water management system here is amazing. Although there had been no rain in the area for over a month, the rice fields were still filled with water, and bright green. The only sign of drought was trees with yellow or sometimes absent leaves.

We drove almost to the top of a hill, parked the bikes, and after donning headlamps or flashlights entered the cave. True to other caves I’ve been in, there were stalagmites, stalactites, bats, and plenty of water. We were wet up to the knees within minutes of starting the trip. The footing was rough, so the walk was very slow. The cave was not particularly remarkable compared to the Lewis and Clark Caverns in Montana (my only other serious caving experience), but it was fun to splash around in the dark with my friends and teachers for a couple of hours.

After returning to the world of light, we were starving and headed to an AMAZING vegetarian restaurant. I didn’t realize such places existed in Indonesia. I was in heaven, eating beet salad, a mushroom crepe, and ginger drink. In Indonesia, salads are a rarity, probably because uncooked vegetables carry bacteria that can make you sick. I was in heaven =)

We wrapped up the evening by going to a movie box. Think movie theater, but private. Our group picked a movie (comedy), ordered food, and sat down in our own private room complete with couch, wall-sized screen, and surround sound. Do movie boxes exist in America? Such a good idea, they should…

Karaoke

Yesterday the Realia teachers, myself, and some fellow students had a karaoke night to celebrate a birthday. We rented a room and sung for two hours. Indonesians are amazing: they manage to have crazy, goofy parties, sans alcohol. This included our karaoke excursion – we were dancing and singing at the top of our lungs, without the aid of -OH. Previous to last night, I’d never been to a karaoke event without alcohol. Apparently drugs are not necessary to the karaoke spirit. Go Indonesia!

Hotel Mercure

Given the lack of internet, I decided to take a plunge and book myself a room in a ritzy hotel (which has in-room internet access, such a luxury!!) for a couple nights. I feel like I’m in air conditioned paradise. The hotel was built in 1918, and stepping into the front entrance is like traveling back in time into the colonial era when the Dutch still occupied Indonesia. One of the lovely things about coming to Indonesia from America is the fact that (almost – excluding electronics) everything is super-cheap. This five star hotel cost me about $50 per night, during the busiest holiday of the year.

For the first time while I’ve been in Yogya, I was able to seriously work on my computer – reading papers, taking notes, feeling like a grad student again instead of a traveler in Indonesia. Working is probably the biggest challenge I face as a grad student here – the environment in most places is simply not conducive to writing or computer work.

The hotel is conveniently located near the famous Malioboro street, which is filled with touristy batik stores, lots of street food, and a traditional market selling everything from live chickens to peppers to hand carved furniture. I took a walk Sunday afternoon and just looked. Everyone is on holiday, and the atmosphere was very relaxed, with few “hello misters” or stares. I ate Es Durian (yes, just like it sounds – ice plus durian plus coconut milk…mmmm) and sate (which is actually an Indonesian/Malay dish, although it is more often found in Thai restaurants). Then back to my computer to continue work…

Idul Fitri

I spent the holiday of Idul Fitri in Yogya. Idul Fitri is the celebration that follows the month of fasting (Ramadan). As far as I can tell, Idul Fitri is the equivalent of Christmas in America. Everyone goes home to their families, eats lots of food, shops are closed, kids get money and clothes as gifts, and travel can be hellacious.

The holiday begins when the new moon can be seen. This is a matter of some debate, and has a funny effect: some Muslims celebrate Hari Raya (King Day, the day after breaking fast) on Friday, and the others celebrate on Saturday. Why? There are two major Muslim organizations in Indonesia. One calculates the appearance of the new moon, while the other uses powerful telescopes to visualize the moon. This year, the calculations and the visualization conflicted, and Hari Raya was celebrated on two different days, depending on which Muslim organization people chose to follow. Thus some people were still fasting on Friday, while others were already stuffing themselves with food! Traditional food for Idul Fitri includes kecapan, rice wrapped in leaves and boiled, as well as a chicken coconut curry.

My host family here in Yogya is Muslim, and the whole family was in town to celebrate; my host mother has 5 children, who all have spouses, who all have kids, so the house was filled with people! After about an hour of being social, I tried to escape to an internet café to work, only to find that almost all businesses are closed during this holiday. This was unfortunate, given that I’m trying to finish a grant application and require online access.