Feels like Home

I woke up this morning sleeping on a futon on the floor in my sister's beautiful guestroom. The bed had a top sheet and a bottom sheet. A feather duvet kept me warm during the chilly night (anything under 85 feels cold now). As I lay in bed at 5:30am, amazed that the sun was up, that no one was honking or shouting, I realized it felt like home. I grew up sleeping on futons, in fact I didn't move to a bed with springs until... high school?

I realize that a futon on the floor isn't what typically feels like home to most Americans. Maybe home feels like a specific kind of blanket, or your dog whining to be taken out, or the bird singing outside your window. But a comfortable bed, a top sheet (no top sheets in Indonesia!), and a place where the sun rises and sets at different times depending on the time of year feels comfortable, even though I've never actually lived in this city, and this house is not technically my home.

While contemplating my comfy bed,and what I would do without my luggage, since it got lost in customs limbo, I got to thinking, that even though this is what I'm used to, that doesn't make it better than how anyone else sleeps. In Indonesia a lot of people simply unroll a straw mat, sometimes grab a pillow, and go to sleep, no blankets, no privacy. This has nothing to do with how much money the family has, they are just most comfortable sleeping on a straw mat, often with several other people.

Where am I going with this? It has occurred to me that through my presentations of culture, and the manifestations thereof, in the various places I visit, I may have done you and my friends in those places a bit of a disservice. I was hoping to present my experiences with reverence, to show the differences as well as the similarities, as well as to share my reflections on living and working somewhere so different than where I'm from. But instead, it has occurred to me that some of my posts could simply make someone say "phew! I'm glad I don't live there, those people really are uncivilized/undeveloped/in need of help." And while I could see why someone might feel that way, I think there is a different way to look and understand.

I have argued here and in other arenas against the concept of cultural relativism when those things that some claim are cultural infringe upon the human rights and dignity of people, most often women and children, but also other vulnerable groups. So while you may read my descriptions of whether to wear a jilbob (veil) or discussions with people that show me they have different understandings of the roles and rights of members of their society, it was not my intention to present all aspects of that cultural as inherently less valuable or less correct than those of the West.

I was talking with another Western researcher about how she felt in rural areas of Aceh, and her response was that she felt lucky. Lucky to have been raised by parents in a place where education and self determination were a given. We discussed who we might be if we had been raised in Aceh. I commented that I like to imagine I would be like myself, that I would have moved away to somewhere with more liberal laws, but who knows, maybe I would hold as tightly to Islam as I do to humanism. How do people living in Aceh, for instance, feel when they look at me though? It would be conceited and narrow sighted to imagine that everyone looks at me and thinks I am lucky and developed, something to strive to be like. We all cling to our own cultures and backgrounds, seeing everyone else as different, but often forget to imagine what we look like through their eyes.

I was taking a walk in rural Aceh with a researcher and several girls around 13 years old. They were giving us a tour of their town. They all wore veils and I would be genuinely surprised if any of them had left Aceh province. One girl, through the Bahasa Indonesia and English speaking researcher, told me that I should marry an Acehnese so I could move here. (I often get similar suggestions and marriage proposals, so I've got a bit of an arsenal of responses). I told her that that sounded like a good idea, but in return she would have to marry an American man. She looked at me with a mix of shock and disgust and shook her head. The researcher (who is Indonesian) apologized to me for the girl's response, explaining that it was not meant to be disrespectful of America, or some dislike of American men. But to this girl, who had worn a veil since a young age, rises at 5 am to pray, praying 4 more times throughout the day, was appalled by the notion of marrying someone who was so ignorant and uneducated that he was not Muslim. I just laughed, knowing that the vast majority of Americans would react the same way if I suggested they marry a traditional and strictly religious Muslim man in Indonesia.

And so, we must remember not only to observe the world around us, but also to look in the mirror on occasion, seeing ourselves as others see us. Perhaps you read my blogs and feel sorry for the women in Aceh, forced to wear veils and cover from ankles to wrists to neck, punished if caught engaging in premarital relations, prohibited from praying when menstruating, and who must have a male relative present to consent to their marriage. But look back, they may be looking at you and feeling pity too. Pity because you have not accepted Muhammad as the one true prophet, pity because you think that by showing skin and looking "sexy" you are showing your power, when in fact you are demonstrating your weakness rather than demanding respect from men, pity because your country has forgotten the meaning and value of family, pity because you worship money and power instead helping one another and working together.

And so, never forget that neither you nor I are objective observes of culture, nor can we be. And while you may read about the people in the places I go and feel sorry for them or thank your lucky stars for your freedom, the people I describe may be looking back and thinking exactly the same thing about you.

If I called you a misogynist, would you hold it against me?

Is it just me, or is it more socially acceptable to be a misogynist than a racist?

Most people seem to have heard that being racist, at least openly with people you don't know are also racist, is not socially acceptable. Judging people based on their race, hating them or assuming things about them, is relatively widely known to be unacceptable. But generally people at least look a bit sheepish after saying something racist, they realize they've said something that contradicts social norms, and sometimes even apologize.

Why isn't this also the case with misogyny? Somehow it hasn't gotten quite the same publicity. I've had several experiences over the past few weeks that have shown me that while women here may drive cars and go to university, feelings about their inequality with men not only exist, but are the standard. To start with a light example, I have been driving here, a stick shift on the left side of the road for that matter. But I had, up until this point, only driven myself and a friend, whenever the two men I work with were in the car they drove, in my mind because they know the area better and are used to the different traffic laws (and can read the street signs). But then I drove one morning, and both men sat in the back. One of the men continuously called me lady-driver, calling himself and the other man in the back ladyboys (or transgendered). So my driving feminizes you? It makes you more like a woman when a woman drives? It makes you less of a man? Hmm...

Then we were talking about corporal punishment of children. This is a contentious issue in many places, including in the United States, as parents maintain the right to hit their children to teach them discipline. A group of men voiced their disagreement with the promotion of Child Rights here, as it makes children object to being hit, and leaves parents without a means to teach them right from wrong. I commented that this might be true, but on the other hand, the same excuse has been used for hitting women. "I only hit my wife to teach her a lesson, and never with a closed fist." Ah how kind of you, good thing you know so much and can train your wife to act exactly as you want her to, in a situation where she is essentially powerless. As I said this I glanced into the back seat and saw one of the men I work with nod. Nod. As in a "yes yes, but it's only to teach her" nod.

Then today at dinner we were chatting, and another team member brought up a story of a girl who was raped in a rural area of the province. She expressed shock that a member of our team agreed that in this and other similar incidents of sexual assault, the girl always carried the blame. She should not have worn that, been there, enticed him so, smiled at him like that. Girls are sent away in some rural areas after being raped, partially because they have dishonored their families by having pre-marital sex, and partially as punishment for enticing a man to have pre-marital sex.

I know what I would do if either of these situations occurred when I was in the US. I would express my outrage verbally, focusing on the lack of blame placed on men in either of the last two scenarios, despite the fact that they are the violent aggressors. I would ask the men if it would be similarly acceptable to do such a thing to a man, to hit him to teach him a lesson or to rape him because he smiled and wore his shirt a bit tight. Oh no? Why not? He might hit you back? He is your equal? He doesn't need to be taught a lesson because he already knows the right way to act?

I know no one has ever changed such an ingrained opinion over the course of one conversation. No one will decide that women are victims and survivors of sexual violence, rather than its cause and consequence in a day. But I would also be unwilling to bite my tongue, because I would equate my silence with tacit acceptance.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

But what about when the people you're talking to are of a different culture? I don't believe that violence against and hatred of women can be justified via cultural relativism. Cultural norms are important and necessary, but are not worth preserving when they violate the basic human rights of others. But what about when they are people you work with and must continue working with? How do you balance you personal beliefs and morals while maintaining tranquility among colleagues, who will likely only dismiss what you have to say as Western anyhow, claiming you do not understand the Culture here? Can you keep quiet without feeling guilty?  I don't know.

But I do follow the cultural norms here. I don't shake your hand, we gently touch fingertips and touch our hearts. I am quiet when appropriate, as our local male researchers lead introductions and explanations. I express doubt at their overt and covert misogyny, enough to have expressed how I feel, but just little enough to avoid a debate that I know will go no where. Then I come here. And I tell all of you. And then I get in the driver's seat, and let them fight their own feelings of inadequacy, because those are not mine to fight.

Slap Jack

Have you ever played slapjack? It's a bit like the card game war, but with more hitting. You sit facing your opponent(s), cards in hand, as cards are laid down by players one at a time, you may slap the pile every time you see a jack. If you're the first person to slap the pile, you win the jack and all the cards beneath it. The game ends when one player has all the cards. A player who is "out" because he or she is out of cards can "slap back in" by winning a slap when a jack turns up. It can turn into a bit of a violent game (if you play it right).

Now imagine slapjack with food, and some manners. A lot of the food here is Padang food, it is both a style of serving food, as well as the cuisine that hails from Padang, Indonesia. Each person at the table starts with a heaping bowl of white rice. No, you can't have something else. No they don't have brown rice. Next is when the food is dealt, all hands off the table now, no cheating and jumping your turn. Everyone at the table watches as the waiter brings small bowl after small bowl of food. They are all placed on the table, then as more bowls come a second layer is carefully balanced on top of the first, making a small pyramid of bowls.

Everyone at the table watches as the food is delivered, secretly having their eye on one particular dish or another, as the food is different in each bowl. This dish has fried shrimp, that dish has beef with spicy red sauce, this dish has boiled greens, that dish has fried chicken, this dish has big pieces of fish in yellow sauce, that one has shrimp and potatoes in chili, this one omelette with onion, that one many tiny fish mixed in sauce, this one fried tempeh, that one something you can't quite identify. You only pay for the dishes you eat, each ranging from about 50 cents to 2 dollars USD.

Once all the food has been laid out, everyone dips their right hand into a small bowl of water sitting next to their bowl of rice, washing it by dipping it in and out of the water and rubbing the fingers against the palm. Then people start reaching for bowls. They're small bowls so there may only be enough in a particular bowl to serve one, maybe two people. You see someone lifting that bowl of curried oysters off the top layer, your heart skips a beat, but then they set it down, going for the shark beneath. You politely reach over, bringing the oysters to rest beside you, content that you've slapped your jack.

Then you either pour the contents of your bowl over your rice, or spoon it in, making sure to "wet your rice" with lots of delicious sauce that invariably contains lots of chili, and a little coconut milk too if you're lucky. You ask to a share the mixed veggies that someone else has only taken some of, you add a few shrimp to even out the meal. Then you dig in. Using your right hand (right hand only! I tend to keep my left hand in my lap to make sure I don't use it, just like you have to keep your left hand behind your back in slapjack), reach into your bowl. Mush your rice around a bit to make sure it's wet with sauce. Scoop up a shrimp, still in its shell, and some rice you've squished together, then use the four fingers of your left hand like a little shovel. Raise the shovel to your mouth and slide your lunch in. Crunchy (here shrimp shells are viewed as a good source of calcium), spicy!, chewy, delicious. Have another bite. Yikes a chili! Have a bit of cucumber, desperately sip your hot water (it's hot so you know they've just boiled it). No milk here. No bread here. Just you against the chili oil burning your lips.

But it's addictive. You want more. You keep spooning and mushing. When you finish you rinse your right hand in the bowl of water again. Luckily for you, you eat Padang food at least once every day or two, sometimes twice a day. Plus, if you ask nicely, they'll always bring your table a second dish of whichever is your favorite, but it's not nearly as much fun that way.

In a Barbie World

There are a few words I generally learn very quickly when I am traveling for work, one is the word for foreigner (bule - BOO-lay - in Indonesian) and others are the words for white and pretty (putih - POO-tee, and cantik - chan-TEEK).

So first they call me a foreigner. People everywhere call out to me, people I know, people I don't know. Not in a mean way, just as though to point out to me that I am different. But then I talk a bit more, often with pre-teen and teenage girls, in rural and urban areas in a variety of countries. They like to touch the skin on my arms, they point to it and say "white", followed closely by "pretty". They are simultaneously amazed and disgusted when I show them how you can see the veins in my hands and arms, and tell them that the lines they see are blood. But then they often point to their own skin, and call it black or dark. They motion rubbing it off, they stick their tongues out, they say it's ugly.

When I was young, my parents tried their best to keep me away from Barbies and the like, until at some point I imagine it was inevitable with birthday parties and being surrounded by other children and mass media. I remember asking my mum about why Barbies weren't a good idea, and her telling me about how they create ideas of what we're supposed to look like that aren't real. Everyone has heard that various parts of Barbie's body are disproportionate to her height. In fact, her proportions have been changed since I was a kid, although her feet still point downward at that frightening angle... but if Barbies were bad because they give unrealistic and unnecessary expectations and can put irrational demands themselves and peers about womanhood, then what about girls who don't look even a little like Barbie. What about the girls who call their skin dirty, using endless whitening products and carrying umbrellas and wearing long sleeves in the rice paddies to keep their skin from getting "uglier and darker"?

What is it about girls that leads them to focus so intently on their looks at such a young age? Where do they learn that what they and other women look like is the first thing to be noticed, commented upon, and changed about themselves?

What about the 15 year old girl I met who was 8 months pregnant. She marveled at my nose, touching it then touching her own. She told me that she hoped her baby would be born with my nose instead of her ugly nose. She was beautiful. But all she saw was that her nose was different from mine and she didn't look like any of presentations of beauty she saw all around her on billboards and tv, where models are thin and rich and happy, and look just a little bit Asian, but not too much, and whose skin is impossibly white.

What about the man who told me that all the women in his Latin American country are ugly because they are short and their skin is dark? What about the way he scoffed when I told him that Western constructions aren't the only measure of beauty? What about the girls who giggled when I asked them why they wanted to marry Westerners? Answering that in part, they wanted their babies to be half white, because that was better than being fully of any local ethnicity. What about the girls who grow up believing the skin and noses and lips and legs will never be good enough or pretty enough because they aren't Western or Caucasian or white enough? What about when those girls turn into mothers? Can it be any wonder what they will tell their daughters?

When will we start teaching girls that they are more than their appearance? And when we do discuss their appearance, when will we stop telling them to look like someone else, and start telling them to be who they already are; to pursue something deeper than a small nose, more profound than straight hair, more lasting than smooth white skin. Imagine all the time, energy, effort, and pain that goes into these things; imagine what the world would be like if that energy and passion were redirected.

Lisa Bloom hits the nail on the head in How to Talk to Little Girls, if we call them smart instead of pretty, tell them they look like astronauts, engineers, authors, and artists instead of ballerinas and models, it just might be a step in the right direction.


(I've been wanting to write about this for quite a while, but organizing my thoughts and finding a way to say all this has been a bit confusing, so you'll have to excuse me if this comes across a bit muddled, I did my best, and as always, look forward to hear what you all have to say about it.)

My first day in Muekek

Little did you know the title of this post actually rhymes. The name of the sub-district is pronounced like muh-keh or meh-kay, the k at the end is silent with a glottal stop before it, according to my learning indonesian podcast. Anyhow! I just got back from about 9 days in the field. Here's a little bit about my first day in a rural village where we stayed for 5 days. Less deep thought and more "what do you actually do?"

After about a 45 minute drive from Tapak Tuan, we arrived inMeuke, stopping at an intersection in the road to ask which way to go, to findthe house where we would stay. Although the town appeared small, the roads werepaved and there were power lines visible.

We entered a very large home of the friend of one of ourresearchers, who is also the elected government representative for thisdistrict. Despite the fact that he is in Medan for work currently, his wifereceived us warmly, offering coffee and a drink made from raspberry syrup.Trying the coffee, it was incredibly sweet, if it had been cold and had haddairy in it, it could have been coffee ice cream. The researchers explained tome that not only to Acenese prefer things to be very sweet, but also if ahostess serves a drink that is not very sweet people will think she is stingy,because offering very sweet drinks is equated with being generous and also withshowing that you have the money to give lots of sugar.

We then settled into our rooms, I am sharing a room and abed downstairs with the other female researcher.  Our room is windowless and contains a bed, a small vanityand a large armoire, full of clothes and other things. The lady of the housemoved a fan into our room to help cool us during the coming night (for the parts when the electricity was on).

We then decided to go for a walk around the community to tryto get to know people. As we walked around we were greeted by many people ofall ages, with a few children wandering along behind us. I saw coffee, nutmeg,and beetlenut laid out on cloths to dry in the sun. The other female researcherand I were soon invited into the home a woman we were chatting with. Sheinvited us into her formal living room where she served us something thattasted like Tang with extra sugar. We chatted and found out she was a teacheras well as a bit of a leader for the women in the community. She offered tohelp us organize a gathering of women so we could discuss some of our researchwith them and conduct a focus group.

Our new friend then walked us the Gacheik’s (village leader)house, where we greeted him and let him know about our plans for the 4 days wewill be here. He agreed to help us organize a gathering of men so we could alsoconduct a focus group with them, and ask for their help finding informants forinterviews.

The family we are staying with is providing us three meals aday, as is customary here, so we returned for lunch and were served two kindsof fish (as the village is close to the ocean), green beans, shrimp chips, andwhite rice. That afternoon I watched as the researchers conducted the focusgroup with women from the village, asking them to brainstorm ideas aboutchildren who do not live with their biological parents, but instead with someother family, often relatives. The group was made up of women of various ages,most of whom were eager to participate in the conversation and also seemed usedto participating in group activites.

Once we had finished the focus group I had plans to go for arun, but was happy to walk along with the other female researcher, and ourfriend who was a teacher to see a bit more of the community. We walked pastrice paddies that were in bloom, which left the scent of flowers along theroad. This village is very near large mountains, where coffee is grown, butwhere (I’ve been assured) there are no tigers. As we walked many people greetedus, curious about what we were doing and where we were going. Children shouted“Bule!” or foreigner as we passed. We reached the edge of the village, markedby a small bridge, and while my two companions turned around and started back,as it was 6:30 pm and the sun was setting, I picked up my pace to a jog. Icontinued on through the next village, greeting people and smiling or waving asthey tried to speak to be in Indonesian or Acehnese. I turned around and mademy way back, passing my former walking partners, and continuing on. At onepoint a man and woman on a motorcycle who spoke a bit of English drove alongbeside me asking where I was from, if I spoke Indonesian, where I was from, andwhere I was staying. I arrived back at the house where I was staying, andquickly bought two bottles of water from the small stand in front of the housenext door, as it was still at least in the 80s, despite it being dusk.

As I was stretching and the other female researcherreturned, the village leader arrived at the house, looking for either of themale/Acehnese researchers, who were currently out dropping our driver off athis house. We called them, and the village leader informed them that the policewould need copies of our identification and permission letter from theorganization and university sponsoring us, however, this was only necessarybecause I was with them. Later we all met up at the village leader’s house,where we made photocopies and met with a member of the police, who are obligedto report the arrival of a foreigner within 24 hours of his/her arrival.

As we went back to the house where we were staying, Icommented to the female researcher that I was glad I’d chosen to put on a scarfand wrapped it around myself like a shawl or pashmina before going, consideringthat both the police and the village leader were there. I also mentioned againthat if I was ever wearing something where she thought I should be coveredmore, she should tell me. “Well actually,” she said slowly “As you wererunning, someone told me to tell my friend to cover her head. I didn’t knowwhat to make of it, but the woman we were with said it was very rude to havesaid it.” I explained that I was happy to cover my head if it would be morepolite or respectful. Our walking companion had suggested we ask the wife ofthe house where we were staying. When we returned from the village chief’shouse, the wife and several women appeared to be balancing the finances forsomething, and we politely interrupted, to see what they thought about themcovering my head. The female researcher translated the response as “It’sbetter. If you want to.” But I realize that the mean of that sentence changes,depending on where the pause is placed: “It’s better if you want to.”Regardless, I decided that I should follow their suggestion.

At breakfast the next morning, the two male researchersapproved of my head covering, although it does not look Indonesian. They said Ilooked like I was from Turkey.

One then said “From now on I will introduce you as Turkish;this will get you more respect, I think.”

Thank You for Smoking

As I went to get dressed this morning I had a bit of a surprise, as I went to put on a shirt, I caught a whiff of something reminiscent of a night out in Atlanta during college, when it was still legal to smoke indoors; my shirt reeked of cigarette smoke. Not just a little, I could smell it when I was holding it. But I don't smoke, in fact women in Aceh aren't allowed to smoke. My clothes smell just from being around so many people here smoking all the time, inside, outside, while eating, while riding motorbikes, while loading and unloading trucks. All the time.

I don't think I have ever been to a place where so many people smoke. It's rare to meet a man here who doesn't smoke, and if he doesn't smoke currently it's likely he did but quit for a specific reason. You can smoke indoors almost anywhere, for instance in my hotel my hotel room smells like cigarette smoke (and mold and room freshener and mint strangely enough) because you can smoke in your own room and in all public spaces of the hotel, so the smell seeps in.

I have found that many men here are what I would consider polite about their smoking: if they are with people who do not smoke they may ask first or move to another table before smoking. On the other hand, it's pretty inescapable, should you want to escape. Also, people here smoke local cigarettes scented with nutmeg or other spices, in addition to your average Marlboros.

I have no grand conclusions about the smoking here, I imagine that launching an anti-smoking public health campaign would be equally as difficult as it was in the United States, given that tobacco is grown here, and I can only imagine that the owners of local cigarette companies have some political power, or at least some pull.

What interests me about smoking here, is that engaging in a hobby that causes chronic diseases, is a bit of a second phase health problem. Indonesia hasn't found its way entirely out of infectious disease outbreaks, but things like lung cancer and emphysema are a far cry from cholera outbreaks. This is an interesting step in development, where a lot of people now have the expendable income to buy cigarettes daily. In India and China the consumption of beef has increased markedly as income has increased. As people's income increases, they do not necessarily make healthy choices with that money.

No grand conclusions today, more of a response to all the people who ask me "what's it like where you are?" "what's different?" Well compared to the US, the only place I've been in Indonesia where I've been told explicitly that smoking wasn't allowed was on an airplane. That's a first step I suppose.

If you're interested in learning more about smoking in Indonesia and how culturally ingrained it is, look no further than the 2 year old boy with a cigarette addiction who made the news recently. A 2 year old can use a lighter?

Not all those who wander are lost

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. - J.R.R. Tolkein

What is it that draws us to new places and fresh experiences? What is it that makes the desire to experience the unknown stronger than the ease and comfort of remaining in the places and with the people we know? I'm honestly not sure. Maybe it's a natural curiosity or maybe we are seeking the little rush of adrenaline we get each time we are somewhere entirely new and must find our way through, adapting and learning through experiences. I also find that I'm always struck by how similar people are regardless of how they or the place they live or their expressions of culture may appear at first glance. I also love how every place always has the ability to surprise you, if you'll only look and listen, instead of imposing your expectations upon it.

I went to a gym with one of my research team members after work the other day to try to relieve our stiff muscles after a week of sitting and sitting and sitting. At first it was as I expected: the majority of the gym was free weights or weight machines, with men lifting weights wearing shorts and t-shirts and often without shoes on. There were six or seven treadmills with about four women and two men using them, about half the women wore headscarves while walking or running, while the others did not cover their hair but wore pants and t-shirts or long sleeve shirts. It was probably 85 degrees inside, with a few air conditioners on. The music blasting was the choruses from American hip hop or pop, intermixed with techno and Bahasa Indonesian singing. After an intense and hot workout, we went back to the women's locker room to collect our things.

My first thought when seeing that you had to cross through a room where classes took place to get to the women's locker room was that women attending the gym may have been an afterthought. The gym and men's locker room were built first, then women showed interest and a locker room was added on the back of the building. As we opened the door into the room for classes, a dark brown curtain, covering the view of the room from floor to ceiling met us. Thumping music and a wall of heat met us. As we crossed through the curtain we saw the room full of 30 or 40 women in an aerobics class. But at first glance these did not look like Acehnese women. None wore headscarves. Many wore shorts. Some wore shorts and sports bras only. All of them were dancing and sweating, two things I'm not sure I've ever seen an Acehnese woman do (not that they don't, I've just never seen it in public). In many places there are women's groups in the community that one must be initiated into and that are an integral part of participation in community life. What happens in these groups is not spoken about publicly and can range from spiritual to social to rites of initiation. And here I felt we had found something slightly similar, only in an urban setting. A place women come to where men are not invited and they are free to dress and act and speak as they choose. On the other hand, perhaps I was particularly struck by this contradiction to local culture, because it seems to move away from tradition and toward Western practice, rather than towards more traditional practices, which is a difference I might not notice. Thought provoking if nothing else.

I'm on the road again as of Monday. During my last project where I had the privilege of staying with a friend in her beautiful home and moving around to different parts of Jakarta for data collection. This time we've got a bigger data collection team so we'll be splitting into two smaller teams, each of which will depart for the far reaches of this district bright and early on Monday.  I'll be going to Aceh Selatan or South Aceh. The research I'm currently involved in is looking at traditional community child care practices, and given the ethnic and cultural diversity of this district, we're conducting 3/4 data collection periods in very rural areas where members of minority groups live. From what I've read and heard from researchers (all of whom are Indonesian,  and all but one are from Aceh and speak Acehnese as well as the national language of Bahasa Indonesia) is that the area is relatively rural, but also very beautiful as it is by the ocean. Also, it is an area of Aceh that was not hit by the tsunami because the island of Simeulu protected it. I'm excited to get to know another part of Aceh, because on my last work trip here I worked exclusively along the North Aceh coast, which was beautiful and enjoyable, but much of it has a similar culture.

Happy weekend to everyone and fingers crossed for great internet while I'm in the field!

Selamat Datang Kembali

My Bahasa Indonesian is improving slowly but surely, and each time I mention to someone that I would like to learn more the response is "Oh you should! It's so easy!" Oh really? You think it's easy to speak your language, interesting. In fact Bahasa is relatively easy, there are no verb tenses, there is no masculine-feminine for adjectives, and to make something plural you simply say it twice, for example child = anak, children = anak-anak. So on that note, the title of this post means welcome back.

I'm back in Indonesia after a short two week trip back home. The occurrence of two back-to-back projects in the same country is partly coincidence, partly to do with partnerships involving the group I work for. Regardless, I am now somewhere entirely different from Jakarta; imagine conducting research in New York City, then conducting research along the gulf coast. I'm in Banda Aceh, again. Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will remember that I was here in the fall of 2009 as well. Banda Aceh was the inhabited location closest to the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This time I'm here to do research rather than an evaluation and it has now been 6.5 years since the tsunami, so there are many less expatriates but many more trees.

If you were to google Banda Aceh you would probably come across articles about the tsunami first, but if you were to keep looking you would find information about the civil war that ended in 2005. You would read that Aceh is a semi-autonomous region, a concession of the national government in the peace treaty, and as part of that semi-autonomy Aceh is governed by Sharia law (Islamic religious law) rather than secular law used in the rest of Indonesia. We could talk for hours about whether the law in each region is really religious or secular, to whose benefit each type of law is, and who was really involved in the decision making to implement Sharia law here, but let's save that for another day. Right now let's talk about the practicalities of it.

Aceh recently made headlines for tightening the letter of the law and its enforcement relating to women's dress. Previously the law simply said that Muslim women had to be covered: ankles, wrists, head (hair, neck, ears, not face), and everything in between. However, some women, particularly younger women from my observation, were dressing in covering clothes, but they were very tight, imagine skinny jeans, a tight top and a headscarf tucked into your shirt so it isn't very noticeable. There are "Sharia police" who enforce religious elements of the law, ensuring that women's headscarves do not show any hair, making sure all Muslims are at the mosque on Fridays, and on and on. In response to women's reinterpretation of the dress code, the law was then changed to explicitly state that women must be covered and their clothes may not be tight or explicitly show the outline of her body. In addition, the enforcement of this and other religious laws was increased, with the punishment for the first one or two offenses being a warning, whereas the punishment for multiple offenses is public corporal punishment. You, a long stick, and a man in a hood in front of a crowd, and yes, women are included.

Last time I was here there were more expats. Last time I was here the law was less strict. Last time I was here it was my first time working in a predominantly Muslim place (I had visited the Middle East). And so this all begs the question: Should I wear a headscarf daily? Here are some things to consider: Sharia law technically does not apply to me because I am not Muslim. It is HIGHLY unlikely Sharia police would ever even speak to me about covering my head, otherwise I dress very conservatively. I have scarves with me that I have used in the past to cover head or shoulders when entering a mosque or a religious school. A researcher on our team who is Muslim and never covers her head in Jakarta, put on a headscarf before we got off the plane today. I have lots of complex and mixed feelings about forcing women to cover themselves. But my personal feelings aren't up for debate here. I'm on the job. So what should I do?

It's amazing how much time and thought I spend considering how I dress when I work. I walk into places expecting that people watch American movies and associate me with how women are portrayed in them. Usually people ask me questions that confirm this assumption to be true, so I'm already fighting back against people's assumptions in order to be taken seriously, and respected as a professional, despite the fact that I am female and young. And you thought you had trouble getting dressed for work in the morning.

Selamat Datang

But who decides what's best?

When considering the best options for children, we considerwhere they will be well cared for, where they will have somewhere safe andhealthy to live, where they will be able to go to school, and where they willbe surrounded by people who have their best interests at heart.

I imagine that if I were to ask ten people where, or withwhom, children should live, the overwhelming answer would be with theirparents. Studies suggest (citation to come later if I can find it) thatchildren suffer emotional trauma when separated from their parents, confirmingthe sentiment that children should stay with them. However, living with parentsis not always the best place for all children, sometimes parents are willing tocare for children, but unable due to limited resources or outside stressorssuch as war, natural disasters, or the death of one or both of the parents. Onthe other hand, sometimes parents are able to care for children, but unwilling;they may demonstrate their unwillingness by treating them poorly or harshly, orsimply neglecting them.

But, generally speaking, as long as parents do not fall intothe “unwilling” category, we imagine that children (here we mean anyone under18) fare better with their parents than when they live on their own, especiallyin an urban setting. But I was interested to hear differently from the researchteam during our end of project debriefing yesterday. We went through all thedifferent “sub-groups” of children we had identified, who were divided by thetype of job they did, the amount of time spent in Jakarta, age, gender, and bywhether they lived with their parents, among other things. Researchers reportedthat children in highly vulnerable sub-groups of children, such as those livingin temporary shelters, working on the street, and engaging in drug and alcoholuse, criminal activities, and transactional sex and sex work, did not appear tobe more or less likely to live with their parents than children whose lifestylepresents less vulnerability to harm. I can’t confirm this from our researchyet, as the data analysis hasn’t been completed, but the researchers had thestrong impression that many children moved to Jakarta with their parents, whothen pushed them to earn money, and weren’t particularly concerned about whereit came from. In some cases parents even pushed children into high-risk workbecause there is sometimes opportunity to earn more in such activities.

This might not seem so surprising to some people, there havealways been parents who valued the financial survival of the family as a wholeover the emotional, mental, and physical well being of one child. But thedominant paradigm of much of child protection often rests upon the fact thatfamily support helps children do well; and while this may be the case in mostcircumstances, it is essential for organizations (and governments) engaging inprogramming with this population to remember that keeping (or reuniting)children with their parents may not be in their best interest, and in fact,just because a child is doing something dangerous for money doesn’t necessarilymean the child lacks parental guidance, but that the parent’s interests are notwhat is best for the child.

*****

I'm home from Indonesia now, and will be here for about two weeks before I head back to Indonesia again, coincidentally, for my next project, so look for more posts soon! 

You're Uninvited

As the bajaj (tuk tuk or moto rickshaw in other places) dropped us off, we thought we knew where were. "We'll walk from here" we confidently asserted, wary of entering a closed community in such a loud and noticeable way. But then we weren't where we imagined, but in a busy community, tucked in between a cemetery and a highway. The four of us, myself and three Indonesians, were followed by two young girls as we walked down the street, obviously disturbing the usual equilibrium present. We asked for directions and were told we were very far, very very far, but after another ten minutes walking, I recognized a local store and we stopped. We had a quick chat and I suggested everyone approach anyone they saw who looked young and try to start a chat.

We were in an area that we had previously identified as the home of young children involved in sex work, or where the people who were commercially sexually exploiting them kept them. Finding where these children worked wasn't helping us because they were busy and under the careful watch of "guardians", we needed to find them where they lived to be able to approach them for interviews. So here we were, slowly strolling through, already given permission from a community leader to interview any children who consented. Then out of nowhere a door opened. Literally.

A girl walked out, about 16 or 17, and she started chatting with one of our researchers. Then she was leading him inside, and we waved the whole town along with us. The four of us went down a dark, damp hallway, leading up to a slanted ladder. The ladder was in utter darkness, we fumbled ahead of us hoping not to fall. The top of the ladder opened up into a room with cement walls and floor, with laundry hanging out to dry, but nothing hanging on the walls. We followed the young girl into a small room, where two more young people were sitting. One girl was much smaller, thin, pretty, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest; the boy next to her was also about 16, looking up at us quickly, then looking back at the floor.

We sat with them, introduced ourselves, explained the research. They were visibly nervous, talking quietly amongst themselves. We assured them we would keep their information confidential, showed them exactly what we would write down, told them we'd interviewed over 100 other children in the area. We explained that they could skip any questions they didn't want to answer or end the interview at any time. Glancing up and down at the door, one girl got up and dead-bolted it from the inside.  But they were still nervous, so with the consent of one girl, we started to conduct an interview with one girl, so the others could hear the questions. One question at a time the children relaxed, but then one of them got a text. The chatted quietly. The interview continued, although hesitantly. Another text. More whispering. The other researchers told me they were worried that their boss would know we were there and they would get in trouble. When they said trouble their faces didn't convey worry about getting yelled at, it was fear.

They asked us to sneak out one at a time. My heart beat faster. You can't sneak me out of anywhere on a good day, but tall white lady coming out into a small insular community that houses and exploits children? Not a chance in hell. But the children said we could come back the next day, when their boss was out. They wanted to help us, tell us about their journey from home to Jakarta. After exchanging mobile numbers we scooped up our belongings and quickly walked back out through the darkness and damp concrete. A man in a towel eyed us suspiciously as we walked through the common area, we kept our eyes down and walked past him without a word.
We walked outside, pausing to greet local community members, leaving the area in pairs rather than as a big group. The researchers handed over their research materials once we were out of sight, as I take them home daily to ensure confidentiality. We would come back, but I wasn't invited this time, the two girls and boy agreed that I would draw to much attention and might get them in trouble. But they were happy to invite the other three team members back again. Prioritizing their personal safety while making an effort to have their voices heard. I've never been so happy to be told I wasn't wanted.

Where do you work again?

If you've ever said to yourself... "How did she get her job?" or "I want her job" or "Her job sounds stupid, why would you want a job like that", here's a little number that a friend of mine wrote about the process of applying for jobs with humanitarian organizations and what some of the people who apply may be like. A bit of satire for you on this sunny Friday.

Dear Hiring Manager for [insert International Humanitarian Organization],

I would like to apply for the position of [insert vague sounding job title that has no meaning outside of the given organization]. I believe that my educational background and skills make me uniquely suited to this position. So far in life I have proven myself capable of taking on the challenges required for this position, which I understand pays under $20,000 a year for working in one of the most dangerous countries in the world and undertaking tasks that no one else wants to do.

As you can see from my tiny-font, two page resume, I attended a top level university where I excelled at taking on more than I could possibly handle while maintaining a high GPA, completing 12 internships, and finding opportunities to travel to Western Europe where I was enthralled by the ancient architecture and many art museums. My travels prompted me to do a semester abroad where I discovered a disdain for “tourists” who travel in packs taking pictures of 50 monuments in a single day instead of spending hours at cafes drinking wine and smoking like real Europeans. After my study abroad experience, I completed my senior honors thesis on the topic of [insert esoteric topic of no interest to the majority of the word]. Upon graduation with highest honors, I took a year to backpack around the world to extremely poor countries where I spent most of my time drinking local beers and posing for pictures with street children. This experience led me to want to help alleviate poverty. I therefore obtained a volunteer position in which I dedicated a couple years of my life to living in a mud hut. While I did not have cable television, I was able to use this time to learn curse words in five tribal languages, grow dreadlocks, and learn to drum. These skills will undoubtedly prove essential in my future career.

After this unique experience, I attended graduate school where I obtained a Masters degree in appearing humble while actually making other people feel inadequate and uninformed. From my peers I soon learned that there is a hierarchy to international work, and I became determined to not just help poor people, but to help the poorest and most desperate people, preferably those living in war torn countries under military dictatorships where the chance of being kidnapped, blown up, or summarily executed is very high. Only by working under the very worst of conditions can I prove to myself and my peers that I am in fact as ballsy as they are and just as willing to die for a project that is under-funded, poorly planned and probably has no chance of actually helping anyone. This experience will allow me to live on a permanent adrenaline rush, which will mean that I do not need to use drugs the way my over-privileged peers do. At the same time, it will allow me to become more arrogant and cynical and give me the credibility needed to scoff at anyone who questions the effectiveness of my chosen career. Following this, I intend to return to the States where I will land a cushy job at a university or think tank and get paid an exorbitant amount of money to create policy guidelines that are not possible to carry out in the real world.

As you can see I have spent the past seven years of my life working unpaid for the friends of my semi well-connected parents, and am enormously in debt as a result of my determination to live in the world’s most expensive city while attending the world’s most expensive graduate school. While my high school friends are married with kids, houses, and cars, I am still using my parent’s address and couch surfing in a city where a glass of wine costs $12. However, a position at your organization will enable me to add to the number of visas in my passport, give me stories to tell about being shot at by rebel armies, and imagine that I am helping people by living in poverty with them. Thank you for your consideration, I look forward to hearing from you.

P.S. do not ignore this letter because I have cc’d my professor who used to work for your organization as well as a family friend who is your boss.

The Boarding House

One of the things involved in this research is ethnographic mapping, for us it's essentially a long way of saying getting to know a neighborhood and identifying the children living there who fit within the parameters of our study. Once we have identified the children as a group, we work on sorting them into sub-groups, in this case by the type of job they do, where they live, time spent in Jakarta and so on. Once we know our sub-groups we identify where on our map we can find them, what time of day, what they're likely to be doing, so we can organize ourselves, meet them, and hopefully conduct an interview or two.

One of the sub-groups we identified in Jakarta was scavengers. We've all seen the pictures of children in Brazil or India or Mexico standing in a trash heap, a graveyard of tires and plastic bags and refrigerators, poking among the refuse with a stick, looking for things they can use or sell. Here children also go among trash outside of shops or homes looking for things like plastic or metal. Children who scavenge also go to food markets, sweeping rice that has fallen onto the ground during sales to take home with them and cook. 

Walking along the train tracks in East Jakarta, there were makeshift shelters on both sides of the tracks, unclaimed real estate because of the dust and the noise, it was the perfect place to build a home if you couldn't afford land or rent. These homes are made of iron sheeting, cardboard, discarded wooden planks, stolen pieces of fencing. When researchers first told me that many children were living in boarding houses, I pictured large buildings with mean caretakers, the boarding houses of movies and stories. But as we walked along the tracks they pointed out temporary shelters, calling them boarding houses. Ah yes, houses made of boards.

Two researchers entered one of the houses after being invited in, so as not to cause a stir with my foreign-ness I hid outside around the corner, sitting on a wall and watching the busy movement of the community. But then one of the men living in this boarding house saw me and brought me inside. A new cardboard box had been torn apart and laid on the dirt for the occasion of our arrival.  Two interviews were taking place, but the interviewers explained that I spoke no bahasa indonesia, and therefore could not eavesdrop on these private conversations. So I sat. There were large bags of organized plastic and metal and cardboard that would be taken for recycling, the scavengers paid by the kilo. There was no roof, just the shelter of a tree against which the makeshift building was leaning. Amazingly there was a dispenser for water (obviously stolen from a nearby educational institution), atop of which sat a giant bottle of water. Two boys were interviewed, two adults and their small daughter sat nearby, curious. The other five people who live in this shelter, which is 10 ft x 20 ft at the very most, were out working. I was concurrently sitting in their living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen and entryway. How kind of them to invite me in.

Dig a Little Deeper

In our daily lives we hear all sorts of rumor and innuendo, whether we choose to believe it, doubt it, or dismiss it is completely up to us. The basis for those choices may come from reason, faith, culture, upbringing, intuition, or our trust or distrust in the source of that information.

After hearing from various sources that many (or even most) of the girls in prostitution in Jakarta are from Indramayu, I was at first doubtful, because given the number of girls, it simply seemed improbable that so many of them would be from the same district. After hearing about these girls from a variety of sources including both international and local NGOs and from community members, my doubt dissipated and my interest was piqued. At one particular NGO I asked, through an interpreter, why it was that so many young prostituted girls came from the same region of Java. After several minutes of Bahasa, clarification, and more questions, none of which could I understand, the interpreter leaned over to me, obviously embarrassed. Then she said in a low voice "He says, it is their magic vaginas." Using all my willpower to hold in my reaction I asked, "Oh really? What makes them magic?" Because, you see, if you show your disbelief, those who do believe are hesitant to explore their reasons for their confidence. It was then explained that among other things, these girls were simply born to a breed of women with special sexual powers, further enhanced by prayers said over them by their parents. They asked God to bring their daughters wealth and prosperity, by way of their magic vaginas. My interpreter then leaned over, an incredulous look on her face, "I don't know if this is true, maybe they are not really magic?" I shrugged my shoulders, and said, "Maybe not..."

I told friends and co-workers the story, trying to explore this myth that had traveled from other parts of this island all the way to the capital, with otherwise grounded people unsure how else to explain the phenomenon. Then I hit the jackpot. I brought up the question again in an interview, and not just for my own curiosity mind you, but also because if the reason for so many girls from the same place being the subjects of commercial sexual exploitation could be identified, it would have significant implications for child protection programming.

Turns out that the person I was interviewing was writing his thesis about the girls from Indramayu, and there was much more to the story. It started when Indonesia was still under Dutch control, and the area was populated to expand agricultural use of the land, with all materials and produce entering and leaving the area by train. The train was also the main means of transportation at the time, and so the town grew up around the train tracks. With commerce and many travelers passing through, the sex trade sprang up. The region recognized and accepted this, so that even today when residents register their job in government records, they may elect to write sex worker. According to government data, in some sub-districts over 80% or women over 18 are sex workers,  with others as low as 15%.

So the girls who come to Jakarta from Indramayu may not have magic vaginas, but they do come from a place different from others in Indonesia, where sex work is not only normalized, but recognized by the government. Additionally, there exists a provision, stipulated by the community, that women must be married to engage in sex work, as that is what makes a female an adult. But girls also tend to marry young, could they be marrying just to get into "the family business"?  If girls, 14 - 18 for example, are viewed as adults by members of their community, but then move to a community that recognizes neither their adulthood nor their right to consent to sex, which set of values overrules the other? In what circumstances do we, as an international community or as outsiders, have the right to judge another cultures practices and beliefs? When do children become adults? When, if ever, do individuals have the right to bodily autonomy, including the right to sell access to that body?

More questions than answers as always. More to come as data collection started today!

All Aboard

Hello from Jakarta! Apparently my jetlag is still rearing its ugly head, I woke up at about 4am today! But rather than idle my hours away I thought I'd share a few tips about airplane flying. I know some of you are frequent travelers, but during my long flight to Taipei with very little entertainment I came up with a few tips that I wish I had known when I started.

1. You get to check bags for free! Don't bother hauling big bags on board unless you absolutely have to.

2. Airplanes are COLD, or can be. I usually bring a sweatshirt or fleece, even if I'm going to somewhere warm. Now I've even got an extra blanket in case the airline doesn't provide them.

3. Warm socks. You'll be taking your shoes off since your feet and legs will swell, don't let your toes get cold!

4. Dry Air. This can be killer, especially on long flights, I try to remember eye drops, chapstick, and lotion.

5. Hydrate! Since 3 or 4 little cups of water isn't enough over 12 or 15 hours, bring your own! Bring your empty water bottle from home and then fill it up once you've passed through security, rather than paying $4 for water in the airport.

6. Don't forget headphones in case they aren't provided

7. Snacks are a good idea, but don't forget you're essentially sitting still for more than half a day, so light snacks are best. Unless it's chocolate. Then it's always a good idea.

8. Sleep. I'm pretty bad at sleeping on airplanes, but a good eye mask, heavy duty earplugs, and a window seat so I can lean my head on the wall help make sure I get a little rest.

9. I take off my watch. Everyone may not like this, but it's no fun counting down the hours, I find it's better to just sit back and ignore the time. A watched pot and all that.

10. Mental conditioning. This may sound silly, but think about all those times you wished you had an hour just to listen to a new album or read a book or magazine. Just tell yourself you're enjoying sitting still, reading, listening to music and having someone bring you mini drinks and meals. After a while you just might believe it :)

There you have it! I'll have more interesting stories coming for you soon, but I've spent the weekend settling into Jakarta and having a lovely time seeing some sights with friends who live here. A beautiful city so far (with delicious food!).

Come pick me up... I've landed

Amazing that it's April and this is my first post of 2011, I'll have a lot of writing to do if I'm going to realize my goal of posting more than I did in 2010 (20 times).

I'm currently on trip number four since I got home from Thailand; I've been to Bend, OR, Portland, OR, New York, NY and am now in New Mexico. Nothing to complain about at all, and it's been amazing to see friends and family. If I can say one thing about traveling as much as I do, a little over 1/3 of the time last year, is that it means you've got to do lots of visiting in the time you're home. On the other hand, with all those visits I'm still just learning my way around San Francisco, but all the little cafes, beautiful buildings, green parks, and blooming flowers have won me over so far. I realize this blog claims to be about everywhere but home, but no harm in showing you a little picture of what it's not about.

But as always, on to the next adventure!  I'm off to Jakarta, Indonesia on Friday April 8th for about 5 weeks. I'll be doing very similar work to what we did on the Thai/Lao PDR border, except this time in a huge city, with a population of mostly internal migrants who speak Bahasa. I've only spent a few days in Jakarta in the past, so I'm looking forward to getting to know the city, and also have a few friends living there which will be a nice change of pace from my solitary ways.

So, to get back in the blogging spirit, today I thought I'd answer a question that I often get from people when they hear what I do: "Why aren't you in [insert country with disaster/war here]?"   There are a number of answers to this, for example, I didn't go to Haiti because a. I don't speak French well enough and b. there were so many people with experience working in Haiti, that my particular expertise wouldn't have been value added. On the other hand, why am I not in Japan? I actually recently got a solicitation for someone to help coordinate psychosocial support for families who have had to leave their homes due to the potential effects of radiation. Sounds like a great gig! But I've got a lot going on, and in fact am currently booked with jobs through the beginning of July. So as much as I'd like to sit around waiting for the next complex emergency to happen so I could be on the ground and part of the professional aid team working there, a girl's got to make a living, and evaluation and research are how I do that. But yes, in the future I hope to be on the emergency rosters of some INGOs who do emergency response (and also have an employer who lets me run off whenever disaster strikes).

But for now I'm dreaming of the delicious food waiting for me in Jakarta, and fingers crossed I learn to do more than order coffee without sugar and noodles with shrimp in Bahasa this time!

As always I appreciate everyone who reads my blog, please feel free to leave comments on the page, email me etc. Also, if you're on the email list and would like to be taken off of it because you have Google Reader now, you check the blog on your own, or secretly don't like me clogging up your inbox, just let me know. I promise I won't hold it against you.

Happy Spring to everyone!

Syariah Bank

I arrived in Jakarta yesterday, flight one of my four flights home. I'm spending the night here because there are no early morning flights out of Banda Aceh. My Canadian/Indonesian friend (mentioned in earlier posts) insisted on making me a reservation at the hotel that is part of the corporation that his brother used to work for. Quite a good example of a part of Indonesian culture, once you make friends, they always know someone who can get you or sell you what you need and are happy to help. So not only did he make me a reservation at this fancy hotel, and get me his rate so I'm paying about 1/4 of the price, he also had his brother pick me up from the airport. Given how far outside the city the airport is, and how much traffic there was, it was a big favor. In the car on the hour and a half drive to the hotel, I first made pleasant conversation. Asking about his family, how his retirement was going, if it's always rainy in Jakarta, basically New England-esque pleasantries.  But then my curious streak kicked in. He mentioned that he had never been to Aceh although he had lived in Indonesia all his life.  I asked what people in Jakarta thought of Syariah (Sharia) law.

Granted it was a bit of a non-sequitur. He said oh yes yes we have them here too. Confused I asked again, and soon realized he meant Syariah Bank, Islamic banking. This is actually a good example of how pervasive religion is in all sectors here. Similarly to the United States where you can invest in mutual funds that adhere to Christian values, Syariah Banks are described to be more community focused, allowing greater participation and with a greater focus on the common good.  When I explained I meant Syariah law, he said "Oh, we don't like that".

The explanations I've heard about the reasons for Syariah law in Aceh province are quite varied, depending on who you ask. Aceh gained a good deal of autonomy after the 2005 MOU between GAM (Free Aceh Movement) and the Government of Indonesia. Some people say that Syariah law is Aceh's attempt to distinguish itself from the national government. That the motivations are more political than religious. This comes from non-Acehnese and international people I've met.  On the other hand, I've met Acehnese who say that Syariah was forced on Aceh by Jakarta, something like a pacifier. Aceh asked the central government for support, and Jakarta sent along Syariah to quiet them down. Check out the link to a New York Times article to the right if you'd like to read an article from the first perspective.

Day to day, I'm not the person to speak on what Syariah means, especially to women. It only applies to Muslims, and after the influx of ex-pats after the tsunami people are generally very tolerant of westerners, although dressing conservatively and being aware of customs helps.  Generally speaking women cover their heads, but young women often wear tight trendy clothes, but always with legs and at least 1/2 of arms covered. There is a Syariah police, I never met them, but they can reprimand, fine and even imprison people for not following the religious laws. But given that outward expression of those laws can only be seen on women's bodies (there is no dress code for men), it stands to reason that they will be the ones punished, except for those eating or not attending mosque on Fridays.

Then comes the bigger question. The Syariah law here is expanding. Several people have told me that it will never be enforced. But having a law on the books that says a woman must be stoned to death if she is convicted of adultery doesn't bode well. The New York Times article describes members of parliament who disagreed with the law, but didn't vote against it for fear of being called infidels. Regardless of whether these laws are being implemented to force the population to follow the word of the Koran or to cement political power with the religious conservatives, some day a woman will be caught in a very public case of adultery, it's bound to happen. Given that no one spoke up when the law was passed, who will speak up as the preparations for a public stoning begin?

 "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing." - Edward Burke

And in case you were wondering, no, men don't get stoned for adultery.

Please sir... can I have some more?

What's an orphanage for?

It's not something to which  I, or most Americans I'd say, really give much thought.  I even took a look at the one orphanage I know by name, The Home for Little Wanderers. According to the interweb it's not actually an orphanage, but more like a group home.  This is the shift that has taken place in America. A place where children go without their parents is a group home. Most often they go there because the State has decided their parents are not fit to care for them, or on rare occasions they are in fact orphans, and have no extended family able or willing to care for them, so again, the State steps in.  However, if you decide you can't care for your children. What happens? What should happen?

Here in Aceh (I can't speak for all of Indonesia), orphanages are called Panti Asuans. They are often, though not always, associated with Dayahs, which are Islamic boarding schools. I've been to two orphanages so far, as well as have read many reports about an program that took place at and around them, which is part of the evaluation I'm doing. I was utterly surprised when I heard that approximately 80-90% of children in the Panti have at least one parent, many have two. These children are not orphans in the classic sense, only 10% or less are. On one hand surprising given the 30 year civil war plus the tsunami. So what are children with parents doing in an orphanage? Essentially sometimes parents of children from poor families feel that they can't care for their children, in particular they can't afford to send them to school. So they send them to the Panti, thinking that at least that way they will be able to graduate from primary school, many junior high school too. However, the conditions in the Pantis aren't always better than living at home in a poor family. The education is important, but as we've all read, orphanages and group homes are rife with opportunities for abuse and neglect. And with hundreds of children and few staff, and underfunding, it's next to impossible that children will get the attention and care they need.

So what do we take away from this? That in Indonesia parents send their children away in hopes of giving them a better life, whereas in America they are taken after the neglect has occurred? Or that in Indonesia some families have more children than they can care for and give them away to (often religious) institutions, whereas in America the foster system is flawed but functioning.

The goal of the program being evaluated is to discourage families from sending children to orphanages, giving livelihood support to parents to help prevent it and hopefully bring children already in the orphanage back home, as well as to facilitate visits and environmental and hygiene education in the panti. Whether the livelihood support essentially pays families for sending their children to an orphanage has been debated, and whether giving brooms to children so they can sweep up the institution gives a false sense of improvement. But changing the cultural norm of sending children to institutions, assuming they receive better care outside of the family, and discouraging the government from funding Pantis per child, thus encouraging increased enrollment, is all part of the puzzle.

Appropriate care of children is a sensitive issue everywhere, but more importantly, the care of children is a critical issue for parents and caregivers in Pantis alike, because if nothing else, everyone involved seems to truly believe they're doing what is in the best interest of the children.

Best Laugh in a While

Here's the joke of the day. Things to keep in mind when reading... Aceh province has Sharia law, head scarves are mandatory for women, they just passed a stoning law to punish female adulterers, I believe men get jail and a fine. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28stoning.html?_r=1) So R1 and R2 are about 40, married, kids, very smart, but not so up on current things. R3 is 25 and not married (relatively unusual), owns a couple stores and loves American pop music.

So...
R1 and R2 both dropped their cell phones today, breaking them a bit.

Me: I'm always on the lookout for an unbreakable phone, the one I have right now has a rubber case so it doesn't matter that I drop it all the time.
R3: (starts singing Unbreakable)
Me: You do love pop music don't you
R3: I think everyone wants an unbreakable relationship. Ha ha! To make your relationship unbreakable you also need rubbers, just like your phone!

R3 and I laugh, the other two are confused.
R3: (points to them and says) they don't know about any of that.

What's it to you?

I consider myself an american, with some canadian mixed in, but i've often wondered where, or if, american/north american culture really resides.  It's easy to look at what's around you and see a lack of culture, compared to what appears to be the very rich culture of other groups, like recent immigrants for example, who often make a great effort to preserve (or occasionally reject) their own culture. So here's a list of things that Aceh has made me realize are part of American culture, aside from the obvious ethic and religious differences. More exciting posts to come, but after a long day of car rides and still not speaking Bahasa a list is seeming like a best option.

1. Using a fork and knife to eat, occasionally a spoon. Here hand (only the right one) are choice #1, only a spoon is choice #2.
2. A firm grip with your handshake. Here you touch fingers as women, loose grip as or with men, then touch your heart. Quite a nice gesture when you think about it.
3. Shoes, in the US you take them off when asked. Here you take then off whenever you go inside essentially, including into a health clinic or a gym or school.
4. Passing in front of people. You might apologize in America. Here you crouch a bit and gesture down with your hand as you scurry by, it looks truly apologetic to be interrupting.
5. Toilets. Sitting down and toilet paper in the US. Here everything from a squatting situation to literally peeing on the floor (sorry to be graphic) then you wash it and yourself with a bucket of water from a standing reservoir, out a drain in the back if it was the floor. You roll your pants up to your knees before you do any of this. Flip flops are (sometimes) provided, sometimes not.
6. Paying. In the US it's a negotiation, either you split it or one person pays. Here it seems to be a hard and fast rule that one person pays. Who pays rotates. This made giving out per diem a bit difficult at first, but we figured it out.
7. Sitting. In the US it's generally chairs. Here it's chairs if you're in an office or school, but it's a mat (handwoven often) if you're in a village or mosque.
8. Driving. Other than being on the other side of the road, signals are used entirely differently. For instance going through an intersection on a red light seems okay if you have your hazards on, but I've heard this is just lack of enforcement.
9. Gender relations. Other than the headscarf, sharia law issues, which are currently "under investigation" by yours truly, the amount of personal space is different, although I suppose that's to be expected. Traditional men will not shake my hand, it took weeks to get anyone on my team to sit next to me at lunch, and only the young "rebellious" survey does it regularly. Same at meetings, seating arrangements are by gender to try as much as possible to avoid seating opposite genders together, although this is sometimes not done.
10. Visiting. In the US someone will often offer you a drink if you visit them at their home or office. Here drinks just appear, from mini-fridges and desks and under tables. First come what look like plastic cups of water with seals, which you poke through with a mini straw, then super sweet coffee or tea may come, or if you're in the whole country a whole coconut and a straw or even some cake if they knew you were coming.

That's all for now, I'm open to additions!  I head back to the states on Nov 20th, see everyone then!