This actually sounds something like the title of a Hollywood movie, or perhaps a novel. Actually, it was another sad day for us with a pet. May, our young guard dog, slipped out of the gate last night when my wife was off to take a friend home. A half-hour later some neighbors brought May home. She had been hit by one of the lunatics that life to drive at 80 kph through this small village filled with children, dogs, goats and chickens. May died about a half-hour after she was brought home.
While May was somewhat of a problem (she never really changed much from a semi-wild state) in that she killed 12 of our chickens and continually harrased and terrorized our geese, she was an excellent guard dog whose fierce demeanor and angry growl when a stranger approached the gate kept out unwanted visitors and probably scared away several potential burglars.
Dogs here in our area of Sumbawa generally run free just like in Bali. We make a point of keeping ours inside the walls that surround our house. May just happened to escape this time, and she unfortunately paid for it.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Another Trip - Visa Runs
A commonality among expats living in Southeast Asia is the dreaded (for most of us, most of the time) visa run. Check in on one of the numerous expat forums and it’s a certainty that you’ll find at least one thread about visa runs. For the expat who is living on a tourist visa this can mean going out of the country at least every one to three months. For expats with different types of visas, the time frame becomes considerably longer.
For those of us living on a limited budget, the visa run can be a financial hardship – one of those costs that we don’t always factor into our living expenses. Expats in Thailand can leave the country by land and therefore use a bus – generally the cheapest mode of transportation. For those of us in Indonesia, the visa run generally means leaving by plane; a relatively expensive experience even in these days of budget airlines.
Additional expenses are food, a hotel room if you need to be out of the country for at least a day, visa fees, and occasionally the gratuity (otherwise known as a bribe) for immigration officials.
Besides the financial burden, the visa run often is a physical/emotional trial. I’ve often had somewhat uncomfortable exchanges with immigration officials, and the memory of those times tends to stay with me so that I tense up anytime I have to come back into Indonesia.
I still vividly remember an encounter 8 years ago when immigration pulled my whole family into an office in the Ngurah Rai airport, told us that we were entering illegally (it was my first time in Indonesia without a KITAS and I wasn’t aware that I needed to have a return ticket out), and threatened to deport us immediately. I explained the situation as calmly as possible to the immigration official who was quite hostile while my wife and kids were in tears. After a bit of a discussion, I offered to immediately buy tickets out for the whole family, but at that point in the discussion, this was not acceptable to the immigration fellow. No, we were going to be sent out immediately. At this point, he stormed out of the room, and another official came in (the good cop, bad cop routine). He was friendly and sympathetic; he tried to calm down my wife and kids; he offered me a cigarette and some coffee. Once we were all relaxed somewhat, he told me that he’d love to help us since he was a family man himself, and if I could help him some, everything would be fine. When I inquired as to how much help he needed, he replied that the money in my wallet would be sufficient. We ended up settling on $250 (five of us at $50 each, much cheaper he assured me than buying some airline tickets and having to fly all the way back to Singapore. Well, I learned an expensive lesson about being prepared for immigration after that incident.
This trip everything was in order (as it always is now), and I breezed through immigration and customs.
In another few years when I am retired and no longer on a company’s employee list, I’ll have to go back to the dreaded visa runs on a regular basis. But there’s a new immigration law in Indonesia that may eventually benefit me so there’s always hope.
For those of us living on a limited budget, the visa run can be a financial hardship – one of those costs that we don’t always factor into our living expenses. Expats in Thailand can leave the country by land and therefore use a bus – generally the cheapest mode of transportation. For those of us in Indonesia, the visa run generally means leaving by plane; a relatively expensive experience even in these days of budget airlines.
Additional expenses are food, a hotel room if you need to be out of the country for at least a day, visa fees, and occasionally the gratuity (otherwise known as a bribe) for immigration officials.
Besides the financial burden, the visa run often is a physical/emotional trial. I’ve often had somewhat uncomfortable exchanges with immigration officials, and the memory of those times tends to stay with me so that I tense up anytime I have to come back into Indonesia.
I still vividly remember an encounter 8 years ago when immigration pulled my whole family into an office in the Ngurah Rai airport, told us that we were entering illegally (it was my first time in Indonesia without a KITAS and I wasn’t aware that I needed to have a return ticket out), and threatened to deport us immediately. I explained the situation as calmly as possible to the immigration official who was quite hostile while my wife and kids were in tears. After a bit of a discussion, I offered to immediately buy tickets out for the whole family, but at that point in the discussion, this was not acceptable to the immigration fellow. No, we were going to be sent out immediately. At this point, he stormed out of the room, and another official came in (the good cop, bad cop routine). He was friendly and sympathetic; he tried to calm down my wife and kids; he offered me a cigarette and some coffee. Once we were all relaxed somewhat, he told me that he’d love to help us since he was a family man himself, and if I could help him some, everything would be fine. When I inquired as to how much help he needed, he replied that the money in my wallet would be sufficient. We ended up settling on $250 (five of us at $50 each, much cheaper he assured me than buying some airline tickets and having to fly all the way back to Singapore. Well, I learned an expensive lesson about being prepared for immigration after that incident.
This trip everything was in order (as it always is now), and I breezed through immigration and customs.
In another few years when I am retired and no longer on a company’s employee list, I’ll have to go back to the dreaded visa runs on a regular basis. But there’s a new immigration law in Indonesia that may eventually benefit me so there’s always hope.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Rain
Finally, the rainy season appears to have come. We now have running water in the house. It's amazing how something that we take for granted in the States can be such an issue elsewhere in the world.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Traveling
My first trip overseas was 1987. My wife at the time was doing fieldwork in India, and I took my Christmas break to visit her. I purchased an inexpensive ticket from a travel agent on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. The result was one of the most intense travel experiences that I’ve had in 20 years of travel overseas. The flight left San Francisco and stopped first in Anchorage, Alaska. From there we went on to Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, and finally Bangkok where I spent two days waiting for a flight from Bangkok to Delhi.
Those were the good old days for smokers because you were still allowed to smoke freely in the back of the plane. That did a bit towards passing the time on the long-haul flights.
Two years after my first trip overseas, I moved to Indonesia and began a life that included international travel as one of the benefits/necessities. During my early years in Southeast Asia, I loved the traveling. Each trip was a chance to experience something new. Southeast Asia was experiencing tremendous growth then, and every trip to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore or Bangkok or Jakarta revealed new buildings, new restaurants, new bars – glimmering urban landscapes that always captivated me.
From 1989 to 1998, I was based in what was then called Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea. In my early days there, the only way to get to Bali during my vacations was to take the milk run. We went from Timika in Irian to the island of Biak just off the coast of New Guinea, then on to Ambon in the Malukus and then Ujung Pandang (now Makassar). Finally, after a 45 minute stopover, we would leave for Bali. Merpati used the old Folker F-28. These planes were cramped, smoked-filled, and hot. Finding a seat was often problematic as it was generally first-come, first-served. I left the seat-grabbing to my wife after we married (before that I just let myself get pushed to the back of the line and take whatever was available).
Getting to Bali was always an adventure. We would get up at 2:30 and wake the kids up. At 3:00 in the morning we would line up to take the non-staff bus down the mountain to the airport in Timika. The bus had stiff plastic bucket seats and most of the passengers were chain-smoking Indonesian workers. After a three-hour drive down the winding mountain road, we’d arrive at the terminal which consisted of an insufficient number of hard seats and benches set in a fenced-in open-air room. We’d sit there with our small children until 12:30 when the flight left for Biak.
Compared to the Timika airport, Biak was spacious and comfortable. It was decorated with appropriate statuary from the tribes of Irian and, on occasion, you could get a cold beer from one of their small fridges. After a 45 minute wait, we’d shuffle the kids back on board and do a 90 minute flight to Ambon. The waiting room there was barebones in the early days but was upgraded the last time I was there in 1998. We’d do another 45 minutes there which was enough for the kids to get a snack, use the bathroom and then get back on board for the 90 minute flight to Ujung Pandang.
Arriving in UP was almost like being in paradise. The terminal was large, the toilets fairly clean, there was a lot of space for the kids to wander, and you’d see an occasional foreigner there. In the last few years that we were there, they had a little bakery and pizza as well. I actually spent a fair amount of time in Ujung Pandang over the years due to flight cancellations. UP was interesting, and you could never tell when the university students were going to go on a rampage over something so there was always a chance that something interesting would happen. An example would be the time we went to eat at a rooftop restaurant which just happened to have a brothel on the floor below. That was fairly amusing.
After another 45 minutes we would make the hour flight to Bali and then the long 2 hour ride back north to Singaraja. Nothing like the old days of travel.
Those were the good old days for smokers because you were still allowed to smoke freely in the back of the plane. That did a bit towards passing the time on the long-haul flights.
Two years after my first trip overseas, I moved to Indonesia and began a life that included international travel as one of the benefits/necessities. During my early years in Southeast Asia, I loved the traveling. Each trip was a chance to experience something new. Southeast Asia was experiencing tremendous growth then, and every trip to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore or Bangkok or Jakarta revealed new buildings, new restaurants, new bars – glimmering urban landscapes that always captivated me.
From 1989 to 1998, I was based in what was then called Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea. In my early days there, the only way to get to Bali during my vacations was to take the milk run. We went from Timika in Irian to the island of Biak just off the coast of New Guinea, then on to Ambon in the Malukus and then Ujung Pandang (now Makassar). Finally, after a 45 minute stopover, we would leave for Bali. Merpati used the old Folker F-28. These planes were cramped, smoked-filled, and hot. Finding a seat was often problematic as it was generally first-come, first-served. I left the seat-grabbing to my wife after we married (before that I just let myself get pushed to the back of the line and take whatever was available).
Getting to Bali was always an adventure. We would get up at 2:30 and wake the kids up. At 3:00 in the morning we would line up to take the non-staff bus down the mountain to the airport in Timika. The bus had stiff plastic bucket seats and most of the passengers were chain-smoking Indonesian workers. After a three-hour drive down the winding mountain road, we’d arrive at the terminal which consisted of an insufficient number of hard seats and benches set in a fenced-in open-air room. We’d sit there with our small children until 12:30 when the flight left for Biak.
Compared to the Timika airport, Biak was spacious and comfortable. It was decorated with appropriate statuary from the tribes of Irian and, on occasion, you could get a cold beer from one of their small fridges. After a 45 minute wait, we’d shuffle the kids back on board and do a 90 minute flight to Ambon. The waiting room there was barebones in the early days but was upgraded the last time I was there in 1998. We’d do another 45 minutes there which was enough for the kids to get a snack, use the bathroom and then get back on board for the 90 minute flight to Ujung Pandang.
Arriving in UP was almost like being in paradise. The terminal was large, the toilets fairly clean, there was a lot of space for the kids to wander, and you’d see an occasional foreigner there. In the last few years that we were there, they had a little bakery and pizza as well. I actually spent a fair amount of time in Ujung Pandang over the years due to flight cancellations. UP was interesting, and you could never tell when the university students were going to go on a rampage over something so there was always a chance that something interesting would happen. An example would be the time we went to eat at a rooftop restaurant which just happened to have a brothel on the floor below. That was fairly amusing.
After another 45 minutes we would make the hour flight to Bali and then the long 2 hour ride back north to Singaraja. Nothing like the old days of travel.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Seminaring in Jakarta
It’s been ten years since my last trip to Jakarta. I can’t say that the last trip was filled with pleasant memories. The city seemed too large, unmanageable, dirty and one big traffic jam. I do remember the Borobudur Hotel and the Mandarin fondly, but that’s about all.
I’ve just returned from a short trip to Jakarta where I attended a technology seminar. The traffic seems to be as horrible as I remember it – 2 hours from the airport to my hotel with the taxi driver complaining the whole way. The city seems even larger than 10 years ago. The construction that has occurred is amazing. Jakarta seems much more like Bangkok now than it did before. Overall the trip was a very pleasant one.
The tech seminar was well worth the trip from Sumbawa. The speakers were generally quite good; the presentations were interesting; I met some friendly teachers from Bogor; and I got a look at what’s going on with technology and education in Indonesia.
It’s always good to talk to tech people from anywhere, but even better to talk to tech people from Indonesia. We generally have the same issues – money, connectivity, hardware and software problems – and one of the main benefits of seminars of this type is to see how other folks approach their problems.
As far as specifics go, I have another piece of hardware that I can lust after – Tablet PCs. They seem to have all the benefits of laptops with the cool added function of being able to write on the screen. What a great tool for students and teachers.
Microsoft Learning Gateway is another cool thing that I learned about. It seems to be an excellent platform for interactivity between teachers, students, and parents. Virtual Learning also appears to have these features. For large classes these platforms could make a huge difference. For a small school, the benefits might not be so great. Obviously the ability to work on assignments from school or home is one major benefit. Classroom collaboration would be another.
Blogs, wikis, websites, podcasts, IM are all tech tools that were mentioned, but I’ve already used all of them. I started playing with podcasts last spring and found them interesting, but they involve a lot of work without the cooperation of the classroom teacher. I also started working with blogs and they were very popular with students, but I didn’t have much of a plan on how to use them other than try to see how they would work. The interactivity is good, but there has to be more than that.
If we look at all of these platforms as being part of the constructivist approach, then it follow that they are relatively interchangeable with the exception that each platform and application has special features that make it more suitable for specific educational tasks than others.
During the early years of the educational use of the WWW, teachers were hungry for contact with other teachers who were using the Web. I’m at a loss right now to remember what the group was, but I believe that it still exists. I tried several joint projects and because of the connectivity problems during those early days of the Web the projects were never quite successful although we did end up collaborating with a zoo in St. Louis to make a video on the rainforest.
Now, despite the great advances in the infrastructure of the Internet as well as more advanced software, it seems that internet based projects are not quite the thing that they were years ago. But, maybe I’m just out of the loop on these sorts of projects.
I remain convinced that tech coordinators need to be relieved of most of their teaching duties so that they have time to work with teachers on setting up cooperative programs as well as working on professional development. They also need time to set up and maintain platforms like blogs, wikis, websites, and podcasts. Some schools have realized this, but, unfortunately, most have not yet.
I’ve just returned from a short trip to Jakarta where I attended a technology seminar. The traffic seems to be as horrible as I remember it – 2 hours from the airport to my hotel with the taxi driver complaining the whole way. The city seems even larger than 10 years ago. The construction that has occurred is amazing. Jakarta seems much more like Bangkok now than it did before. Overall the trip was a very pleasant one.
The tech seminar was well worth the trip from Sumbawa. The speakers were generally quite good; the presentations were interesting; I met some friendly teachers from Bogor; and I got a look at what’s going on with technology and education in Indonesia.
It’s always good to talk to tech people from anywhere, but even better to talk to tech people from Indonesia. We generally have the same issues – money, connectivity, hardware and software problems – and one of the main benefits of seminars of this type is to see how other folks approach their problems.
As far as specifics go, I have another piece of hardware that I can lust after – Tablet PCs. They seem to have all the benefits of laptops with the cool added function of being able to write on the screen. What a great tool for students and teachers.
Microsoft Learning Gateway is another cool thing that I learned about. It seems to be an excellent platform for interactivity between teachers, students, and parents. Virtual Learning also appears to have these features. For large classes these platforms could make a huge difference. For a small school, the benefits might not be so great. Obviously the ability to work on assignments from school or home is one major benefit. Classroom collaboration would be another.
Blogs, wikis, websites, podcasts, IM are all tech tools that were mentioned, but I’ve already used all of them. I started playing with podcasts last spring and found them interesting, but they involve a lot of work without the cooperation of the classroom teacher. I also started working with blogs and they were very popular with students, but I didn’t have much of a plan on how to use them other than try to see how they would work. The interactivity is good, but there has to be more than that.
If we look at all of these platforms as being part of the constructivist approach, then it follow that they are relatively interchangeable with the exception that each platform and application has special features that make it more suitable for specific educational tasks than others.
During the early years of the educational use of the WWW, teachers were hungry for contact with other teachers who were using the Web. I’m at a loss right now to remember what the group was, but I believe that it still exists. I tried several joint projects and because of the connectivity problems during those early days of the Web the projects were never quite successful although we did end up collaborating with a zoo in St. Louis to make a video on the rainforest.
Now, despite the great advances in the infrastructure of the Internet as well as more advanced software, it seems that internet based projects are not quite the thing that they were years ago. But, maybe I’m just out of the loop on these sorts of projects.
I remain convinced that tech coordinators need to be relieved of most of their teaching duties so that they have time to work with teachers on setting up cooperative programs as well as working on professional development. They also need time to set up and maintain platforms like blogs, wikis, websites, and podcasts. Some schools have realized this, but, unfortunately, most have not yet.
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