An educational blog about all things related to the geography of Indonesia
Monday, July 2, 2012
The Journey South (Part 3)
Bupati's office in Kepahiang. Surprised at classical revival
This is the third installment in my narrative of my journey through
West Sumatra, South Sumatra, and Bengkulu
provinces. For the past few days I've
been dorking around between Curup, Arga Makmur, and the provincial capital of
Bengkulu, Bengkulu city. Since meeting
with district officials in Indonesia requires a letter of introduction from the
district Political and Cultural Affairs office (KESBANGPOLINMAS), and since
that normally takes a couple of days because the responsible officer normally
has other things to do than his or her job, I've been trying to get as much
work done in the interim, which often requires me to travel from town to town
at short notice to take advantage of an interview or observation
opportunity. So I haven't covered much
new ground, but I've seen some neat stuff.
Over the Mountains and Through the Trees...
After a night in Bengkulu I set off for Curup, which is the
capital of Rejang Lebong district, where there is a significant amount of
encroachment into the park. I had arranged
to interview the head of the whole southern region of the park there, but he
texted me that he suddenly got called away to the park headquarters in Sungai
Penuh (where I live). I'd wanted to
interview him for a long time because I'd talked with him in the past and he
knows his stuff, but the distance to his office in Curup prevented this. Now here I was heading to Curup and he had to
dash off suddenly to HQ. Oh the
irony. But that's how it goes. Fortunately one of his subordinates was
there, and so I set up an interview with him.
The ride from Bengkulu took me about 2.45 hours, but I passed through
two new districts along the way: Bengkulu Tengah and Kepahiang, where I would
learn forest encroachment is a huge challenge.
As it turns out, Curup is a pretty large town, and for Sumatra
is relatively nice. I did my interview,
compiled my notes, and went to eat dinner.
When I was getting ready for bed at about 10pm I got a text
from a forest policeman that I had contacted earlier through a mutual friend
for an interview. He asked me to come
over to his house to chat. When I asked
if we could do it in the morning he said he was going to be out in the field,
so it was now or never. A year ago I
would've told him that I was too tired, since I've interviewed a number of
forest policemen already, but since I've been doing my fieldwork I've developed
an ethic that compels me to take advantage of an opportunity to get some work
done, no matter whether it's 3 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning. Here you have to, because obstacles so
frequently emerge that frustrate the research process that if something comes
up you jump at it. So I got dressed and
went over to his house. The parking area
was dark when I pulled in, and as it turns out there was a 3-foot ditch six
inches to the left of where my put my bike, and so when I put my feet down to
lower the kick stand there was nothing there and I fell straight down into it,
my Honda landing on top of me.
"Hey are you alright?!?!?" asked my startled
friend.
Fortunately this was a mud and shit ditch rather than a
rocks and glass ditch, and so after I ran my severe injury detection protocol I
answered "yeah I'm alright but I'm less than comfortable down here..."
"You have to be careful....there's a 3 foot ditch
there" said my new friend.
"Yeah thanks for the advice. I guess you've got a story to tell now." This broke the tension and everyone started laughing.
A group of folks playing cards nearby came and pulled the
bike off me and helped me out of the ditch and we went inside and did the
interview, which turned out to be one of the best I've done. I had a good time with my new friend; he
turned out to be a detective who looks at forest crimes from a systemic
perspective, and so he was quite interesting.
So I came out of it with a few scratches and some great insight. My bike had a broken rearview mirror and turn
signal, which together cost me $5 to get fixed the following day.
Road Conditions
The route from Bengkulu to Curup takes between 2 and 3.5
hours depending on traffic, weather, and your driving capabilities. On the way to Curup it took about 2 hours and
45 minutes, but on the way back it was closer to 2 hours. The road for the most part is decent, but
there are some rough patches. The
elevation gain is about 800 meters, and once you get out of town you start to
climb up the Bukit Barisan mountains across countless switchbacks. The views are great and you're surrounded by
forest, and if you like mountain driving it's ideal. I had a good time on the winding road on my
bike because I could get around the climbing traffic pretty easily, but if you
are in a car it would take significantly longer. Once you get towards the top near the border
between Kepahiang and Bengkulu Tengah districts you can take a break at one of
the roadside stalls, have some coffee and enjoy the view of the coast and the
cool mountain breeze. It's a nice drive.
Back to Bengkulu
Note the amputated toes
The next day was Sunday and I didn't have anything to do in
Curup, and since I needed to be in Arga Makmur on Monday I decided to head back
to Bengkulu, which is closer. There were
a couple of people I could talk to there to justify the 2.5 hour drive. On the way my friend Yanti texted me and
asked if I wanted to tranquilize a tiger, to which I of course answered that I
did. When I rolled into town I went over
to the Natural Resources office and the team was getting the tiger ready to be
flown to Bogor
over on Java. I helped them get the
cages into condition and they were able to move the tiger from the holding cage
to the transport cage without having to use the tranquilizer, which is a shame
on the one hand because I was looking forward to darting the beast, but on the
other hand it's better for the tiger not to be tranquilized. But I wrote down the recipe for the
tranquilizer and am sharing it here in case you ever have to dart an 80-kilogram
Sumatran tiger. You'll be able to see a
video of the cage-transfer when I am able to access a high-speed connection to
upload it.
To wake the tiger give him/her .034 milliliters of
Atipamezole at concentration 5mg/ml.
Should the tiger go into convulsions, give it between .8 and 1.6
milliliters of diazapam (good stuff) at 5mg/ml concentration. If you find you need to stimulate the tiger's
breathing, give it 2.13-4.25 ml of Doxapram at 20mg/ml. For parasites give it 1.7ml of Ivermectin at
.02ml/kg and as an antibiotic use 21.25 ml of Dexamethasone at 4mg/ml.
After the transfer was complete I walked out of the compound
and noticed the confiscated sunbear they have there was going apeshit because
of the tiger's roaring. I told my friend
the vet that the BKSDA could probably make some pretty good money if they pitted
the two animals against one another in some sort of pay-per-view internet
event, but she didn't care too much for the idea.
I didn't have anything else planned for the day, so I went
over to the Bung Karno house I mentioned in the previous post. You can see Bung Karno's bicycle and book collection
there. Someone there said he was
conversant in five languages, but there isn't much in the way of interpretive
materials available. In addition to
being a hero of Indonesian independence, Bung Karno was also a hero of
polygamy. While in exile in Bengkulu he
married his second wife. I asked a bunch
of people at the site how many wives in total Bung Karno had, but no one
knew. I was surprised that not even the
ojek and taxi drivers knew, because normally they are experts at stuff like
that. Then I rode down to check out the
ocean and found myself upon a beautiful beach that rivals anything you'll find
in Hawai'i, Bali, Phuket, or any other international destination. Pantai Panjang ("Long Beach") has smooth, fine white sand
and the water is clean. I road my bike
out on to the sand and cruised for several kilometers in the direction of town,
riding in and out of the tide. It was
the most fun I've had in a long time.
Though you can't swim in the water you could surf, and although it was
windy on a calm day it would be really nice.
The Waiting Game
Bengkulu's Pantai Panjang beach
After this second night in Bengkulu I got on the road back
to Arga Makmur, an hour to an hour and a half away. Once I got to town I parked by backpack at
the park outpost, changed clothes, and headed to the KESBANGPOLINMAS where I
was expecting (but not really) to pick up a letter of permission to visit the
planning office and the district headman.
They hadn't written the letter yet, so they invited me to sit and wait
"for a little bit". Tunggu sebintar is my least favorite
expression in Indonesian because it refers to a space of time that varies
between 3 minutes and eternity. The guy
responsible for signing the letter wasn't in yet, so I sat in the lobby and
chatted with the young men of the office that don't have any actual work to do
(1). They asked me all sorts of
questions I've been asked millions of times.
"Can you eat rice?"
"How much money do you make?"
Eventually they subtly work the conversation around to subjects a
boudoir, since as young men growing up in an extremely sexually repressed
environment they are curious to know as much as they can know about America, which
they know to be the land of free sex, an endless orgy where you can have your
way with anyone at anytime. They like
the idea, but don't want to make it too obvious. At the same time I was experiencing a
familiar increasing annoyance at watching my day tick-tick-ticking away.
Only smiling on the outside...
After an hour and a half of this my letter was waiting, and
so I went over to the planning office, did an interview with one of the actual
professionals there, and picked up a copy of the regional spatial plan. Then I went over to the district headman's
office with my letter of introduction, but the staff told me he was "at a
party" and didn't know when he'd be back.
They asked me if I'd settle for the vice-headman, and I said "I
suppose", and so they directed me to his office. But he wasn't there either. His secretary called him and they told me to
go to his house at 2pm to interview him.
At 2pm I went there but surpise surprise he wasn't. The policemen charged with guarding the place
told me "tunggu sebintar", and so we set about the important business
of talking about chicks and soccer. At
3pm the vice-headman's entourage showed up, and his handler came over to ask my
business. I showed my letter and
explained my business, and so he went to consult with his boss. He came back to tell me that the vice headman
had to "go to a party" and that I should come to the office at 8am
the following day. That's pretty much
how it goes here when you are trying to get information from people. "But Keith, why didn't you arrange the meetings in advance?" you ask. "Wow that's a really good idea! I should've thought of that!" I respond sarcastically through the ether. But be warned, if you ask me that question to my face I will kick you in your private parts.
Anyway, the next leg of the trip will take me into Lebong
and Rejang Lebong districts, where I hope to visit a village and meet some more
officials. I'll write about it in the
next post.
Notes
(1) In most government offices in Indonesia a significant portion of
the office staff's primary responsibilities are to smoke cigarettes and watch
TV. Sometimes they take a nap.
No comments:
Post a Comment