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Published: August 3rd 2009
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Twelve hours, 4 airports, and one hectic takeoff later, I arrived back in Jakarta after a week in the field in Ternate, North Maluku - and by far, this was the one week that gave all the work I’ve done over the summer some perspective.
After having my exposure to LEAD Project’s real work limited to highly administrative work, I had the chance to accompany some of the team to Ternate for a workshop on the project’s brand new Standard Operating Procedures. This new document, which has taken up a large part of my summer (and, I might add, is the first of its kind for the United Nations in Southeast Asia) took up four days of training all the North Malukan grant recipients - and provided me the chance to explore some of what LEAD’s impacts are at the grassroots level.
But first, a little history. North Maluku is part of what were once called the Maluccas, aka the Spice Islands (yes, THE Spice Islands - one of the first places Europeans thought “hmmm…. This might be a nice place to really control). The reason: nutmeg, and cloves. Up until the past couple hundred of years,
the islands in North Maluku were the only place on Earth you could find them. The Chinese, the Portugese, the Dutch, the English - all played off local Sultans and sought out monopolies on these precious commodities, which were used as both spices and traditional medicines the world over. The local Sultanates, in turn, grew incredibly rich - especially the Sultanates of Ternate and Tidore which exist to this day. As the story goes though, these two great island kingdoms unfortunately squandered most of their riches on fighting each other to the point that European colonization became far more facilitated by weakened communities and military strength. Eventually the Dutch won out, like the rest of Indonesia, until the Japanese and the US in turn used some of the North Malukan islands as South Pacific HQs during the Second World War.
Since independence, North Maluku has been a region ravaged by slow development progress, and unfortunate violence. In 2005 tensions flared between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority, as they did elsewhere in the North of Indonesia. The violence was fairly severe - with casualties and extensive property damage on both sides. It certainly didn’t help that a
crew of Javanese Muslim groups declared a holy war to protect their fellow Muslims in North Maluku, and set out in boats, adding to the tension in the region.
Though I noticed some charred buildings remain, it seems that modern North Maluku (unlike its southern neighbour, Maluku) is fairly stable, and actually growing. There is a new airport being built to handle the national flag carrier, Garuda (right now only small regional planes can get to the city… fun times); the city’s second indoor mall is on the way, and national chains are starting to see potential in the city. Tourism, unlike many other parts of Indonesia, is relatively non-existent. Over a week in the city, I saw 4 foreigners outside of the LEAD team. That being said, after spending all my time between Java and Bali, it was incredibly refreshing to get to a cultural setting where going after the tourist dollar was not priority number one. No aggressive sales, relatively lower levels of the familiar chorus of “hey mister!”, and absolutely ZERO little “Ternate” key chains or low quality tourist grabs helped me realize how beautiful it is to be free of some of the focus
of other cultures in this vast country. If the city continues to grow, I could see this changing… unfortunately. But in Indonesia, I get the sense that this might be the tradeoff for “development” and harvesting new sources of income. There is no doubt in my mind that Ternate proper could handle a bigger tourist industry - the place is filled with history (old colonial forts, a Sultan’s Palace, huge crocodile lakes, not to mention the island is an active volcano that continuously spews smoke into the air).
Being in such an idyll setting for the conference, it was hard to concentrate on the work at hand, but I think the LEAD crew and I did an admirable job. There are five grantees in North Maluku, whose foci are as diverse as addressing violence against women, to enforcing fisherfolk aquatic rights, to land claims and settlement policy. One of my days in North Maluku I was fortunate enough to accompany a visiting RTI Television (the country’s largest private broadcaster) crew who were doing a story on violence against women in the province. It was incredible to learn the perspectives on one of the experts they interviewed, as well
The Smoking Mount Gamalama
Basically, Ternate island IS this volcano. as a representative from the TP2TP2A initiative in the city, which is placed inside the provincial government planning board as a joint project between NGOs and the police to ensure that gender issues have a direct a meaningful link into government policy decisions and complaint handling. On top of that, I had the chance to accompany the team to the Daurmala women’s shelter, one of LEAD Project’s grant recipients. It was truly an amazing experience to be a part of, if only from the sidelines and hearing the accounts through rough translation.
That being said, I think the highlight of my trip actually occurred after work hours. On one of our nights there, I accompanied the LEAD team, some grantees, and the TV crew to the outdoor restaurant in Ternate’s only mall. While there, I saw a small boy sitting at the entrance to the mall, wrapped in a rice bag trying to stay warm against the wind of the island. He was looking around in empty water bottles, and I noticed him continuously struggling to stay awake as the night went on, falling asleep with the old “head bob” - causing him to hit his head against the basket of dried mangoes and peanuts he was selling. Before we all left, I ran into the mall, and bought a Soy-Mango bar, a water bottle, and some small toy gheckos figuring this would help solve the water and the drowsiness problems. When I got one of my friends from LEAD to come over to the boy and translate for me, he beamed. As I bought some of his peanuts for twice his rate ($1 instead of 50 cents), he told us how he was going into grade five, and that he had to come to the mall everyday straight from school to sell his wares. His mother, working in the sex trade, would only be able to come get him shortly after the mall closed at 10pm. Also, it turned out that he was living in temporary shelters built by the city after fires gutted through many of the housing units near the water front two weeks before our arrival (having seen the devastation for myself, it was a sad sight, but luckily there were no casualties). After sitting behind a desk for 2 months and helping to facilitate meetings in one of Ternate’s hotels, this was the closest I’ve truly felt to making a difference here - and will likely be the moment that sticks with me the most. I only wish I had my camera with me to capture the moment…
Now that I’m back in Jakarta for my last week, I’ll be looking to wrap up all my remaining projects, and am anxious to hear back from the UN Conference on ICAAP 9 which will be going on Bali starting on Tuesday. Two of the stories that I drafted for possible use at the conference were both accepted and will be discussed by a panel of experts on the plight of migrant workers. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Indonesians go to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other gulf states each year to work as domestic workers. Needless to say, they are nowhere near well taken care of in many circumstances. Rape, theft, withholding pay and passports are but some of the issues reported in large numbers every year. It is a huge public policy issue in the country, and causes heartaches and headaches for those who leave hoping to send remittances back to Indonesia to support their families. My two stories, based on real victim accounts, deal with many of these issues.
Cheers for now,
Marc
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