October 27th - Back to work, again!

And yes, back to work… again! This week was short because the fasting month ended on the 23^rd of October, with Idul Fitri or Eid Al-Fitr (24^th and 25^th of October), informally referred to as Lebaran in Indonesia. So we had two days of national holiday and had to take an annual leave day on Monday. This left those of us who did not take the whole week off with a full two working days!!!

My fiancée – who, unfortunately, will be returning to the Netherlands coming Monday – and I spent the long weekend in Bukit Lawang, in North Sumatra. This is a three hour drive to the northwest of Medan and is located on the edge of the 9000 square kilometre Gunung Leuser National Park. We stayed at the Jungle Inn’s presidential suite, which came recommended by a number of colleagues. ‘Welcome to the jungle’ said our host, after we laughed about finding an orange-headed snake in our bed! The Inn is right opposite the Bohorok orang-utan viewing centre, which used to be a rehabilitation centre to help these primates reintegrate into the wild. Now, although they are still reintroducing a small number of orang-utans, it is less of a genuine rehabilitation centre and more of a place where they keep feeding these great apes for tourists. In any case, we had a great view from the Inn and regularly saw orang-utans making their way through the jungle and along the river. We also made an exciting two day trek through the jungle. We had a good workout, saw much wildlife and became more familiar with the sounds, smells and the damp feel of the jungle. We took the short way back: rafting in a bunch of lorry inner tubes tied together. It had rained the whole night so the river had swollen somewhat and made the ride all the more fun. It was a great experience!

Anyhow… this is beginning to sound more like a travel Blog than anything else! I really ought to be writing about work! But not this week, I am afraid!

These past two days have been eerily quiet at the office so I have taken this as an opportunity to round up a number of things and focus on what might lie ahead. I have finished updating the SPSS database and I worked on a document to provide feedback from analyses of the data collected so far to the teams. The latter, among other things, aims to make them appreciate the need for monitoring and evaluation and to stimulate them to analyse some of the information for themselves. Furthermore, I have worked on completing the instructions for the Spatial Information and Mapping Centre (SIM). And finally, I sat down with the CDR advisor to review my job description and the tasks that were ascribed to me at the beginning of my placement in mid-June. As will often be the case, what we agreed I would do and what I have ended up doing do not fully coincide. This is not a bad thing; however, some minor adjustments to bring everything back on track were warranted. We then worked out my schedule for November. Sadly, our CDR advisor will be leaving us to pursue her studies in Croatia. In fact, it will not be long before my six months in Aceh are over as well. Time really does fly!

This is likely my shortest log so far but then again, nothing much has happened this week! Next week I intend to write a short bit about the problems we have encountered with regards to corruption in our CDR communities and how these issues have been addressed and resolved. That should be interesting enough, right?

So I hope to see you all next week!

Take care,

Alex