I’ve been in Indonesia for just over a week and am
slowing settling in. It’s different from
Kenya- I am definitely going to have to learn Bahasa Indonesia to get around
here. Thus far, I can basically say
hello, please, thank you, you’re welcome, and “not spicy hot” which is helpful
when ordering food.
I opted to stay in Bogor instead of Jakarta so I could
more easily get to our affiliate institution here (IPB), which is in Darmaga
near Bogor. Bogor is small enough I can
easily get around and figure things out without a great grasp on the language. Plus, I’m not a fan of big cities (in Kenya,
I preferred Karen to Nairobi, in Uganda Entebbe over Kampala), I’ve not even really
ventured back to Jakarta yet. Especially
since I moved out to Darmaga after the first few days, it’s a schlep.
The original plan was to just stay a couple days, meet
people at IPB (and get permit docs and help with sample transport, maybe give a
talk), then go to the field. Long story,
but I had to delay a week. Seems a theme
of my fieldwork (first trip to Kenya, And the sample transport help ended up
involving extraction of genetic samples.
Which conveniently, I can do…and so I spent my extra time here at IPB
doing fecal extractions (58 in 3 days, not bad!). At one point, as I’m sitting there literally
chipping away at dried macaque feces, I have this epiphany: I have a PhD and
this is what I’m doing…THIS is why we have tenure! I mean seriously, we spend all this time on
our education and our salaries are not awesome…and we literally deal with
shit! (Don’t get me wrong, I like lab
work, but still...). So, viola!, tenure
is the light at the end of our tunnels!
In the end, this was useful since I’m planning collecting
all kinds of samples, and our MOU allows us to export extractions, but not
samples. Thus, it is likely I will be
spending some time here at IPB doing extractions at some point in the
future. So, learning the system here is
a good thing. And it was good to get
more of a chance to meet with our collaborators here. I’ll be back on my way out to give a talk, which
should be fun.
And now I am off to Manado and my new field site early
tomorrow morning (so early, it is barely worth having a hotel tonight…I have to
be up in 4 hurs). Manado is about 2
hours from my field site, and I will pretty much be spending the day getting my
permit to stay in the park.
My random observations and some comparison to Kenya (my
last field work experience):
-
In Kenya, I am mzungu, here I am bule.
-
There are lots of cats, many with oddly short
tails. And I do strange bule things like
pet the stray cats. Hey, I’ve got my
rabies vaccination…
-
In Kenya, there are matatus, here there are
angkots- both are small minivans used as public transport with usual
routes. Here though, they don’t really have
stops, so my GPS on my new smart phone is handy. Lots more motor bikes here too, which I prefer
taking (much more comfortable and can get around traffic).
-
I like the food, so long as I can get it not
spicy hot…lots of rice and noodles, and I have been thrilled to discover that
mie goreng (fried noodles) is very similar to pad see ew, which is my favorite
Thai food. My first night here I did accidently
eat a hot pepper in my pickled veggies (thought it was a green bean). Yeah, that made me tear up, and one of my new
Indonesian friends said she wouldn’t even eat a whole one of those.
-
It’s about 12,000 Indonesian rupiah to the USD…very
hard to figure out how much I’m spending at times, and so I have a currency
converter app on my phone.
-
And, finally, I have joined the century and
bought my first smart phone, which has apps, GPS and city maps, and can turn
into a modem. And I love it, though I
suspect I will love it less at European/American prices (seriously, I am skyping-
with video!…and I have spent maybe $5).
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