Lake Toba: Samosir, world's largest island within an island

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Lake Toba: Samosir, world's largest island within an island

Andrew Greene, Contributor The Jakarta Post, Samosir, North Sumatra

Looking out over Lake Toba, it is evident that it is a basin of superlatives.

With a surface area of 1,130 square kilometers and possessing a maximum depth of 529 meters, it is the world's largest and deepest crater lake.Resting in the planet's largest caldera (collapsed volcano formation) on the world's fifth-largest island, the flat waters of Lake Toba belie the violence that gave it birth.

The Toba caldera is believed to have been created in stages by super eruptions taking place about 840,000, 700,000, and finally 74,000 years ago. The last, probably two weeks in length, is thought to be the world's largest in the last two million years.

The ash and gases it shot into the atmosphere triggered a six-year volcanic winter which, according to some geneticists, killed all but 10,000 humans worldwide.

The ash from the blast blanketed the entire Indian subcontinent with an approximately 15-centimeter-thick coating. The global climate did not to recover for a millennium. Fortunately for today's traveler much has changed in the last 74,000 years.

Now, embraced by a chain of mist-swaddled peaks, the lake is North Sumatra's leading tourist destination.

Stretching from northwest to southeast, its landscape sprinkled with Protestant Christian church steeples and ribbons of cascading waterfalls, Toba's setting is among the most spectacular in the archipelago.

Attached by an isthmus to the middle of the lake's west coast towers a testament to the lake's great size, Samosir Island. The peninsula-island's emerald walls climb a nearly vertical 700 meters straight out of the lake's surface, dominating the scene.

Nearly the size of Singapore, Samosir is the world's largest island within an island and serves as the area's main tourist hub.

Specifically, Tuk Tuk, a tiny circular peninsula hanging onto Samosir's east coast, is the foothold for most of Toba's visitors.

With restaurants pushing magic mushroom omelets, bookshops, bars, tourist shops and hotels strung along its circumference, Tuk Tuk is the ideal base for those wanting to explore Samosir or simply to relax.

The frequent ferries from Parapat on the lake's east coast stop at nearly all of Tuk Tuk's hotels. All a traveler needs to do is tell the ferry workers where one would like to stop and the ferry, colored like a Philippine truck, will pull up to that hotel's private dock.

Center of Batak culture

The rest of Samosir is well-worth investigating. The island is the heart of the Batak culture.

Originally Neolithic mountain peoples from northern Thailand and Burma, the Bataks were displaced by traveling Mongolian and Siamese populations.

Once they had found their way to Lake Toba the Batak lived, cocooned by the neighboring mountains, largely unaffected for centuries by the outside world.

Today, with a population of six million they are one of Indonesia's largest Christian communities. Lutheran German and Dutch Calvinists missionaries introduced the Batak to the faith in the 19th Century.

Though the majority of Bataks are practicing Christians, the area is replete with reminders of their animistic past. The ubiquitous traditional rough-hewn wooden-planked Batak houses, with their upswept roofs, have three levels.

Each represents a different plane of their world. The high roof corresponds to the home of the gods; the middle elevated level, where the family lives, represents the space that humans occupy; the final bottom space beneath the house is for the dogs, pigs and chickens and is the lair of a mythological dragon.

These houses are ornately decorated with large, carved animal heads at the ends of the side beams. These heads are protectors and, as is believed by some Bataks, are able to radiate positive energy, shielding the residents from disease and evil.

More common than the traditional houses are the family tombs. In fact, they are so widespread that it may be impossible to find a vista from which one cannot see at least one.

The tombs range from the simple to the elaborate. Some are whitewashed concrete boxes with the rounded tombstones that are ordinary in the west. Others are many meters in height, tiled and topped with large crosses and life-sized statues representing the departed.

These tombs are everywhere: in the rice fields, buffalo pastures, next to houses, beside the road. A day or longer could easily be spent just examining and photographing these extraordinary tombs in their picturesque surroundings.

There is no public transportation on the Tuk Tuk peninsula so to travel inland one needs to walk or rent a car, motorcycle or bicycle.

Traveling by foot is a pleasant way to experience the countryside and meet the outgoing people. Even with stopping to take photos and shake hands it should take no more than an hour from anywhere on Tuk Tuk to reach Samosir's main road.

This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post.

On Words: The Boy Poet Abdurahman Faiz

On Words

The Boy Poet Abdurahman Faiz

By ANDREW GREENE

Friday, 15 June, 2007, 12:52 PM Local Time

JAKARTA –Poet Abdurahman Faiz will be busy this summer. His sixth book, Nadya, Kisah Dari Negeri Yang Menggigil (Nadya, Stories from a Shivering Nation), comes out in July.

Once the book is released, he will travel about Jakarta the rest of the month, meeting his fans and signing their purchases. Faiz has got just a few weeks to promote this latest work, for in August he begins the sixth grade.

To read a Faiz collection is to walk Jakarta’s streets. It is to ponder headlines, to question, to belong. Family, beggars, God, war, faith, disaster, and hope are just a sampling of the topics living within his pages. His sixth book deals with Indonesian society and politics and is, according to the author, infused with optimism.

Faiz says he is drawn to poetry because poems are short, meaningful and can often be spontaneously finished at one go. Some he completes within minutes, while his more stubborn pieces can demand a month or two. His Javanese father, Tomi, explains in English, “He doesn’t have a finishing target, so he just writes when he has ideas.”

The poet says he does not worry about writer’s block. When the affliction hits him, Faiz simply goes and plays, confident that the ideas will return. They always do.

He says that he finds ideas everywhere, from all that he sees and all that he hears. He is primarily driven to the keyboard by social problems that he witnesses or reads or hears about. When an idea comes, he records it in his cell phone for later retrieval.

Faiz writes with a clear vision. He knows what needs to be said and will not be satisfied until his message is lucid and strong. He recalls that he has had to fight his editors in order to maintain the integrity and precision of his work. If even a single word is altered, he feels the work is no longer his and does not accept it. His Acehnese mother, Helvi, a university lecturer, says Faiz remembers every word he writes and is tenacious when it comes to protecting each and everyone of them.

On the surface, Faiz is a rather ordinary soon-to-be 12-year-old child. Though smiling and friendly, he is noticeably less-than-comfortable as we talk in his family’s modest living room. He frequently pauses and looks towards the ceiling in search of words. His fingers twist and knot together between his rocking knees. He explains, in Indonesian, that he writes better than he speaks.

When not writing, he is just a boy. He enjoys playing basketball, riding his bike around his Depok neighborhood, reading automobile magazines and books such as Harry Potter and playing computer games.

He spends a lot of time at the computer. Never having liked writing by hand, he took to the keyboard at the age of five. Now he writes poems and updates his blog just about daily. Tomi, a television-news producer, says in English that Faiz is a “completely modern boy.”

Readers of his work come from all walks of life, politicians, fellow-writers, academics and the public at large. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono considers Faiz’s work to be “very touching.” Political and religious leader Amien Rais calls Faiz “a deeply thoughtful writer,” while former president Megawati Soekarnoputri hopes his work will “inspire and give spirit to future generations.”

Poet Agus R Sarjono says that Faiz’s “worry about social situations is his fresh style.” Professor Riris T. Sarumpaet finds Faiz’s “concern to be pure, simple, transparent, and deeply sensitive.”

One of his poems so clearly demonstrates the need for governmental transparency that it is used by Masyarakat Transparasi Indonesia (the Society for Transparency of Indonesia), in its anti-corruption campaign.

Faiz’s first book, Untuk Bunda dan Dunia (For Mother and Earth), has been reprinted ten times since it came out in 2004. All of his books together have sold around 80,000 copies.

Later in the interview, Faiz relaxes and shows me around the family’s upstairs office. The wall next to the computer is nearly completely covered with writing and poetry awards the he has won and framed clippings from newspapers and magazines that have featured the boy poet.

Faiz says that he wishes there were more young authors in Indonesia. He suggests that children who would like to write keep diaries, play scrabble, read a lot, observe their surroundings and always ask questions. He believes it is vital that writers are sensitive to the surrounding world.

Faiz possesses that sensitivity. He suffers from it. Helvi says that her son is so painfully aware that he used to cry whenever he witnessed or learned of sorrow. Now, he crafts that raw openness into his art and uses it to affect change. He donates half of each royalty check to his two foster brothers in North Jakarta and Aceh’s tsunami victims.

As he shows me his blog, I think to myself that he is fortunate the room still has three bare walls. I get the feeling he is going to need them.

Abdurahman Faiz’s blog is at http://masfaiz.multiply.com.

(Sidebar, one of two)

Doaku Hari Ini

My Prayer for Today

My Lord

Give me your time

To grow in the road of love

A seedling

In all along the road of my parents

In all along the road of my Indonesia

In all along the road to you

Amen

July 2003

(translated by Rafi Hayati and Andrew Greene)

(Sidebar, two of two)

Pengungsi di Negeri Sendiri

Refugee in Their Own Country

No one dances any longer

Between the filthy tents

Over here

Only suffering

Caught in our eye

And our ear

Not even one song

We ever sing anymore

Only teardrops sing

Between hunger, thirst

Changing seasons

Have you noticed this, my brother?

October, 2003

(translated by Rafi Hayati and Andrew Greene)

The Recorder of Secret Worlds

The Recorder of Secret Worlds

By ANDREW GREENE

Saturday, December 16, 2006, 5:57 PM Local Time

JAKARTA –Don Hasman is an enthusiastic man. When he speaks, his entire body pops and bubbles with excitement.

The 66-year-old Jakarta native is a journalist, anthropology writer, explorer, mountain climber, bicycler, lecturer, and author. As he talks, his compact frame leans forward over his cup of hot chocolate, his widening eyes draw wrinkles across his forehead. His hands remain clasped under the table but his shoulders jump as if they, the hidden hands, want to fly free. He is bursting.

He says when he was a young man he studied law and decided to become a journalist for the chance to see the world. “A journalist doesn’t need to pay to travel,” he explains. “The company pays.” Following his interests, he has mainly written about exploration, the environment, and culture.

Being a journalist in Indonesia has not always been easy. Hasman was working for the daily newspaper Sinar Harapan in October 1986 when it was closed down by the Suharto, Indonesia's president from 1967 to 1998, regime. “The reporters waited a year before the company shifted us to the weekly tabloid Mutiara and the newspaper Suara Pembaruan,” he says. The three publications are owned by the same company.

“During the Suharto era, one had to be an acrobat to write,” the father of two teenaged girls remembers. “The army, the special forces, thought that no one else was clever, but we were clever too.”

Despite the freedom reporters currently enjoy in Indonesia, Hasman says, there are important topics that remain unexplored. “Things done by the former government are not being investigated. It’ll be like opening a Pandora’s Box.”

“The Marsinah case, where she was tortured and killed [in 1993 after trying to assist colleagues who had been arrested following a strike at the Catur Putra Surya watch factory in Sidoarjo where they worked] is one example,” he explains.

“The journalist in Yoga [Syafruddin, a correspondent for the Yogyakarta daily Bernas], who was killed [in 1996] by the Bantul Regency for writing a critical story is another. More recently, [civil rights campaigner] Munir was poisoned and killed on a flight.” Hasman says many know who killed these people, but the stories are not told.

“In Indonesia it is easy to hire a murderer for three million rupiah [$330 USD],” Hasman adds. “Before, maybe ten years ago, it was just one million. Many people are eager to do it.”

Hasman says technology has had a positive effect on Indonesian journalism. “It saves time and money and we can send reports from anywhere. But Indonesians use technology to show off too. We are still in an agricultural era but waste time and energy on things like airplanes as [Suharto’s crony and Indonesia’s third president] Habibie did in Bandung,” says Hasman referring to the government-sponsored, failed aircraft production company in West Java’s capital.

Low salaries are another problem many Indonesian journalists face according to Hasman. “The publishing business here is worse, more evil than in capitalistic countries,” he says. “The top get more money, they are sharks, while those who face the sticks and rocks, the reporters earn less and less. That is why reporters ask for money from sources although it is illegal to do so.”

“Except for those from Tempo Magazine and Kompas [daily newspaper], many journalists do this,” continues Hasman. “According to [the Indonesian Journalists Association] PWI regulations, they face two years in prison for this, though I do not think anyone has ever been charged. It is like the 1974 polygamy ban, never enforced.”

Hasman acknowledges there have been some positive players in Indonesian journalism over the decades. “Goenawan Mohamad, [founder and editor of Tempo Magazine] has had a great influence on Indonesia. During his most productive time when he was blooming the greatest, like a flower, a cherry tree, he also faced his worst threats from the government.”

“Without him and others, most of Indonesia would not have had good information. He is very honest, a good person, and generous. His art helped him from going mad during the Suharto period,” says Hasman about Mohamad’s interest in music, theater, and opera.

Hasman is pleased with the country’s present direction but says he is aware there remain many hurdles to overcome. “The more you know about Indonesia, the more you want to vomit. Corruption is mass here. It is as [Muslim activist] Amien Rais calls it, ‘corruption together.’”

“People start being corrupt at school,” says Hasman, “when they begin looking at their schoolmates’ tests. Parents and teachers do not teach them. This situation will not improve until the rule of law is implemented.”

According to Hasman, religion and the war on terror present his nation with some further difficulties. “Islam is a very sensitive part of life in Indonesia. The West, not the people but the governments, need an enemy now that communism is no longer. And Indonesia with the planet’s largest Muslim population has many fanatics and they are being used. Some Indonesians think that the West is in the background [to the bombings in Bali and Jakarta].”

“Ujung ujungnya duit, UUD. It all ends up with money,” he continues. “The fanatics are being used. Where is their money coming from? The Middle East? The West?”

Journalism has enabled Hasman to travel as he has wished. He has been part of expeditions to Irian Jaya, Kalimantan, Wakatobi, and Indonesia’s northernmost islands, Manore and Miangas. In 1964, he traced 19^th-century explorer Alfred Russel Wallace’s path through Indonesia.

The people of Papua are among Hasman’s favorite to visit. “They’re very fragile,” he says. “They change their minds quickly because they’re not yet stable. The jump from the stone age to the modern age is too high for them.”

One of his greatest adventures was in 1993 when he was part of a group of journalists who bicycled across Tibet. “There were riders from the U.S., Syria, Israel, China, Europe, and two Indonesians, about 200 of us in total. We rode 2,000 kilometers and at elevations of up to 5,000 meters.”

In addition to the bicycling and expeditions, Hasman says he has climbed peaks around the world including Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Blanc, Mount Etna, and 40 Indonesian volcanoes.

As an anthropology writer, he says he has studied the Badui, Kanekes and Kasepuhan of West Java, along with the Asmat, Dani, Yali of Irian Jaya, the Tengger people of the Mount Bromo region of Java, and the hunter-gatherers Kubu of Sumatra.

Much of his anthropological writing and work has been about the Badui. He says this is because of their proximity to Jakarta and his fondness for the people. He considers them to be reflections of past Indonesians and says that they are “straight, honest, and have their own identity.”

Hasman says that he has visited the Badui more than 500 times over the last 31 years. This makes him one of the world’s foremost experts on the tribe that has lived largely unchanged in the highlands of West Java since the time of Muhammad.

Budi Hartono, an Anthropology and Tourism lecturer from the University of Indonesia, says, “Hasman is a journalist whose work on the Badui brings out what’s good and interesting about the people.”

The Badui live in 40 villages, on 5,000 hectares in the hills around Kendeng Mountain, 120 kilometers from Jakarta. There are about 1,080 Inner Badui in three inner villages and 9,100 Outer Badui in 37 outer villages according to Hasman.

The Inner Badui are only permitted to wear home-spun and woven white cloth. They are forbidden from growing cash crops, eating four-legged animals, taking modern medicine, using electricity or any form of transportation. Due to their strict mores they are often called “The Amish of Java.”

The Outer Badui, says Hasman, follow the same traditions and norms as the inner but are less strict in their adherence.

Hasman says it is difficult to get information on the Badui and anthropologists have published papers containing numerous mistakes.

“The more you want to squeeze them, the more they try to mislead you. That’s the way their brains are,” Hasman says. “They [the observers] do not spend long enough, nor come often enough. Five to ten years is nothing. That is just enough to study the cover. You must get their confidence, but, even then, they’ll still try to hide things.”

Hasman has no plans of slowing down. He is half finished writing a book about the Badui for the Indonesian Heritage Society. Ro King, the heritage’s chairman, says, “Don has been a friend of the Indonesian Heritage Society for many years. He has given three Evening Lectures on the Badui people… Don is truly our link to these wonderful people [the Badui].”

Next year he is planning a journey to the world’s seven deadliest volcanoes. For this trip he will travel to two sites in Indonesia, plus one each in Japan, Iceland, Italy, Columbia, and Martinique in the Caribbean. He says in October he will walk the 800-kilometer Catholic pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He will write books about each adventure.

Powered by his enthusiasm, Hasman hopes to continue bringing the stories of hidden worlds to his readers for years to come.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post’s Weekender Magazine, March 2007.

Life at the Fire Post

Life at the Fire Post

By ANDREW GREENE

Friday, November 17, 2006, 12:45 PM Local Time

MAMPANG, JAKARTA – For the five members of Mampang Fire Post’s Team A, battling the residents whom they are trying to help is sometimes tougher than fighting the fires.

Ladio, Team A’s leader, remembers a fire in Manggarai, South Jakarta in 2002 in which, he says, one man’s house had already been destroyed by the time the fire truck arrived on the scene. “He was very angry and wanted everyone else’s house to burn too. He blocked our truck’s path.”

“After we were eventually able to connect our hose, he cut it. Fifteen to 20 houses ended up being destroyed and all the residents were enraged. By the time we returned to the fire post we had been attacked with fists, knives and sticks and all of truck’s windows had been smashed.”

Even when not facing the wrath of the people, fighting fires can be tough and dangerous work. Last year a Block M market burned for three days, killing South Jakarta’s Tebet Zone Sector Head, before being extinguished. All three of Mampang’s five-man teams joined that battle along with the teams from 31 other fire posts. Ladio considers it to be the most difficult fire he has ever faced.

The city’s lack of firefighting infrastructure also presents the team with a variety of challenges. Though some of Jakarta’s streets are protected by a fire hydrant every 200 meters, this is dependant upon population density and is not always the case.

When hydrants are not accessible, other sources of water must be found. Firefighter Ahmad Gozali says, “In many areas we’re forced to pump water from the canals or from anywhere we can find it. As a last resort, we carry foam that is normally used for fighting oil-based fires.”

Getting to the fires can be difficult too. The standard for all of Jakarta is for a firefighting team to be on the road within nine minutes of the first emergency call being received. There is no standard for how long a team has in which to navigate its way through the capital city’s congested and narrow streets.

Ladio says Team A averages less than 15 minutes arrival time adding, “I wish that other drivers would respect the siren more and make way for our truck.”

Ordinarily, Team A does not fight many fires. They have not been on a call since late October and average only one or two responses a month.

Calls do not often come in. “I would like people to know that they need to call us on 113 when there is a fire,” says Gozali, 22, a second-generation firefighter originally from the Thousand Islands. “Don’t hesitate to call. People think they must pay, but we are free 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Three teams, A, B, and C, work out of the Mampang Fire Post. Each team consists of a leader, a driver, and three fighters. The teams work 24-hour shifts starting at nine each morning before receiving 48 hours off.

Ladio, the only married member of his squad, has been a firefighter for nearly two decades and A’s leader for five years. Their driver is 23-year-old Denny Wahyudi, a Sukabumi native and a rookie with a year’s experience. The firefighters are Rahmat, 26, Ahmad Gozali, 22, and Rizal, 20, who have all been in the profession for less than three years.

Ladio explained that Jakarta is divvied up between five firefighting centers, North, West, East, Central and South. South Jakarta is divided into 11 sectors which are further split into 17 posts. Mampang Fire Post, part of the Lebak Bulus Sector, is one of these posts.

Unfortunately for the posts, only the firefighting centers and sector houses are equipped with traditional fireman poles.

When not out on calls, Team A keeps busy doing physical fitness, training, cleaning and performing maintenance on the fire post and their equipment, watching TV, and teaching the community about fire prevention.

“People need to use standard electrical cables and not to overload household sockets,” says the Yogyakarta-born, 42-year-old father of two, Ladio. “Also, many fires are caused by the careless use of cooking fires and kerosene lamps. We try to spread awareness about how dangerous these items are.”

The Jakarta Fire Agency was quoted by The Jakarta Post as having recorded nearly 500 fires last year, “mostly caused by electrical short circuits or stove explosions.”

About twice monthly, kindergarten and elementary school children visit the fire post. “The children love visiting,” says Ladio, his youthful face lighting up with the memory. “They love to climb aboard the truck and it is good for us and society for them to learn about fire safety and how to contact us.”

There are numerous obstacles to becoming a firefighter in Jakarta. IQ tests, physical challenges, psychological evaluations, and interviews await want-to-be firefighters. Three-quarters of the candidates do not get through this initial stage. This screening is so effective that virtually everyone who survives it passes the subsequent nine months of firefighting training.

The actual training begins with three-months of theoretical and practical firefighting education. “Learning to survive and work in a smoke-filled room is the most difficult,” says Gozali. “It’s dark, hot, and even with the breathing apparatus, very hard to breathe. Mentally, it’s very stressful.”

Following this training the candidates are assigned to a fire post where they are given half a year’s worth of on-the-job experience. Once this is finished, they officially become firefighters.

With the amount of time off that firefighters get, it is not uncommon for them to have second jobs. Rizal says that many firefighters, though reportedly no one from Team A, work as fire security personnel for hotels and other private companies.

Today, Mampang Fire Post waits for its call. The five-year-old Isuzu Ziegler fire truck, smaller than a London city bus, sits polished and ready for action. The team’s heavy black boots are lined up, toes to the wall, beneath the thick folds of hanging reflective jackets. Three team members joke with one another and watch soccer on the television. The other two personnel sleep in the post’s dormitory-style bedroom.

Ignoring the televised game, Ladio reflects for a moment, leans back, grins, and answers that he is satisfied with his career. “I joined because I wanted to help people. And, I know that we are doing just that.”

This article was first published in The Jakarta Post 20 November, 2006.

Busway Worker, piledriver Oct 2006

Oct 6, 2006--The Jakarta Post

This article was first published in The Jakarta Post on Oct 6, 2006

Placing His Trust in God

By ANDY GREENE

Friday, September 29, 2006, 7:33 PM Local Time

MAMPANG, JAKARTA – The pain awaits him each morning -- the result of the hours, months, and years spent working on the feet and hands of others.

Half an hour of kneading, probing, and massaging is required to free his hands from this pain. Every day Pardi is his own first patient.

Pardi is a reflexologist. Practitioners of this ancient craft believe in the principle that each foot contains over 7,000 nerve endings. Pardi uses a learned-technique that walks his thumbs and fingers over a person’s feet manipulating these endings. For some of the more difficult to reach nerves the skilled use of rounded and pointed wooden awls and lotion is required.

These nerve endings, it is believed, are connected to every part and every organ of the human body. When they are correctly triggered they send messages to the brain which in return releases endorphins. These endorphins regulate pain, modify appetite, and result in a sense of euphoria.

Through reflexology, the farmer’s son says, he has helped conquer more than 160 differing ailments. Some of the most common disorders he faces are prostate troubles, high cholesterol, headaches, digestive difficulties, and asthma.

The Yogyakarta native considers himself to be particularly skilled at treating the latter. “Asthma is traditionally thought to be a lifelong condition,” he said in Indonesian. “However, I have been fortunate enough to have successfully cured 100 percent of the more than 200 asthma sufferers who have come to me. I have even cured two medical doctors.”

Pardi never works alone. A practicing Catholic, he silently prays as he works bent over the suffering and gives credit to God for the health that they have together sown, “I am simply a tool. I leave it to God.”

Even with God’s helping hands, Pardi realizes everyone cannot be helped with reflexology. He always recommends to those with third-stage cancer or heart or kidney disease to immediately consult medical professionals.

The grandfather of two came to this healing work late in life after retiring at the age of 60 from Atmajaya Catholic University in Jakarta. Not wishing to stop working completely he enrolled in a 24-hour reflexology course offered through his church. He then started to see patients in a small room at the side of his South Jakarta house’s car port.

Word of this unassuming man’s work spread and he soon had 30 patients a day, seven days a week. At nearly 25 minutes per session his hands were at work close to thirteen hours a day. It was an unsustainable pace. “I had to cut back,” he said with his youthful face smiling at the memory. “Now I won’t schedule more than 12 patients a day. My hands cannot handle more than that.”

A meticulous professional, Pardi maintains color-coded records of the 2,915 patients he has treated since he started seven years ago.

The rainbow of the record cards is stored in tight rows behind the patient’s chair in the same room in which he first started his practice. At the foot of the chair is Pardi’s low leather stool and a worn wooden box containing six dark wooden awls of varying thicknesses along with a small jar of white lotion that he purchases at the local bookstore. To the right, as one enters the 8’ x 15’ room, sits a glass display case holding Indonesian, Chinese, and other Asian health supplements. A stand-up fan moves back and forth in a 120 degree arc uselessly stirring the room’s humid air.

Pardi believes that one of the keys to his success is within these records. “The diagnosis, though difficult, is very important to what I do,” he explained while leaning back on his stool, his back resting against the wall. “If a person complains of an upset stomach I must ascertain what the root cause is. Stress, diet, or more serious matters could all be behind it and they all must be treated differently.”

For 60 percent of his current clientele, his reflexology ability takes a back seat to his counseling and listening skills. “Many people these days are too tied up in minor worries,” he clarified. “It’s difficult to make a living and people often just need someone to talk to.”

Pardi enjoys helping others. He always has. Earlier in life he taught sociology at elementary, junior high, and high schools in Solo, central Java, and Malang, East Java.

He later began his work for Atmajaya University. There he trained Catholics from all over the nation on how to establish and operate social and economic projects that would help the local people. After a year of training the students returned to their home cities and villages and used this training to make differences at the local rice-root level.

Currently running two nonprofit nursing homes and one meditation center on Jakarta’s outskirts, Pardi has not stopped working to improve the lives of others. In fact, at the age of 67 he has no plans to slow down. Spreading his potent non-descriptive hands wide before him, Pardi promised, “As long as God gives me the power, my work will continue.”

A Betawi woman holding her grandchild in black and white.

Sept 17, 2006--All Quiet on the Waterfront.

All Quiet on the Waterfront.

By ANDY GREENE, KAPress Writer

Sunday, September 17, 2006, 9:10 PM Local Time

SUNDA KELAPA, JAKARTA – On a day in which churches were burnt, a nun was murdered, and protests erupted across the Muslim world, business continued as usual in Jakarta’s historic harbor, Sunda Kelapa. Of the ten dock workers and ship hands polled late Sunday afternoon, none were aware of the controversy caused by the remarks made last Tuesday by Pope Benedict XVI in Germany.

During a public discussion at the University of Regensburg about the relationship between Christianity and Islam, the pope quoted the 15^th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus by saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

These words, quoted at the university where the pope had once been a professor and vice rector, have enflamed many Muslims worldwide.

AP reported seven churches were firebombed this weekend in the Palestinian West Bank. Such attacks are particularly troubling since relations between Muslims and Christians in this region are generally considered to be peaceful.

In Somalia, there is concern that the murder Sunday of an elderly Italian nun is tied to furor over the pope’s comments. According to the AP, gunmen standing outside the hospital where the nun had worked since 2002 shot her four times in the back as she was going to lunch. The murder took place hours following a top Somali cleric’s public condemnation of the pope’s remarks.

All was not silent in Jakarta. Less than 30 miles from picturesque Sunda Kelapa, approximately 1,000 Indonesian demonstrators rallied to denounce the pope. “Only Muslims can understand what is jihad,” protest organizer, Heri Budianto was quoted by Reuters as having said. “It is impossible that jihad can be linked with violence, we Muslims have no violent character.”

Chief Indonesian Muslim Cleric Sheikh Marouf Amin was also, according to ANTARA news agency, disturbed by the pope’s quotation and said, “Such insulting and hurtful statements should not be made by a man of such high stature as the Pope.”

However, Catholic priest Benny Susetyo did not believe that those who were angry completely understood the pope’s message. He told The Jakarta Post on Saturday that the media was responsible for the uproar by failing to fully explain the context in which the pope had made the remarks. “It would be better for us to read the complete text first,” he said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged the 240 million citizens of his nation to remain clam. Quoted from Havana, Cuba by Asianews, he said, "Indonesian Muslims should have wisdom, patience, and self-restraint to address this sensitive issue. ... We need them so that harmony among people is not at stake."

At least on this Sunday afternoon, in Sunda Kelapa, the president’s wished-for harmony was thriving. With the salt air wet and heavy from the aroma of clove cigarettes and the rough banter of seafaring humor, the men of the harbor were only concerned about their unloading of the shipments of tropical iron wood that was piled high aboard the double and triple mast wooden clippers roped up to the quay. For these men, toiling beneath the tropical sun, the pope and the world’s problems remained a world away.

Sept 13, 2006--On the Street Poll

Bush isn’t Heard in Jakarta

By ANDREW GREENE, KAPress Writer

Wednesday, September 13, 2006, 4:39 PM Local Time

JAKARTA – A person-on-the-street poll conducted today at lunch time in Jakarta’s bustling business district failed to find a single person who agreed with American President George W. Bush’s recent claim that the United States is in a “struggle for civilization.”

Asked whether they agree with the president’s statement, 100 percent of the respondents answered negatively. According to some of the responses to this limited-in-scope poll the president is actually in a struggle for creditability.

“The truth is the opposite,” one young businessman said. “It should be that he’s in a battle to destroy civilization. He has made numerous problems throughout the world… I do not think he respects other cultures and civilizations.”

The Hezbollah/Israeli conflict was sited by one middle-aged lady in today’s noon-time poll as a reason to not support the president’s opinion. She said, “Civilization is alright. His words are just to get more support for what he did, like attacking Lebanon, and what he might do next. Who knows? He may, may, want to attack Indonesia to save our civilization. His words are only camouflage.”

“America isn’t in a struggle for civilization,” another respondent replied. “[Bush] is in a struggle for power, for his power and to spread America’s power over the world.”

A Japanese housewife who said she has lived in the tropical nation for nearly three years seemed shocked by the question answering, “America thinks that its democracy is the best way for all countries. But it’s not right. There are many different types of traditions and governments that work for different countries.”

In the address from the Oval Office, Bush made the comment towards the end of a demanding day in which he had honored the memory of the attacks by visiting New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania. Rocking the world, these attacks proved to be the genesis to the lengthy and controversial war against terror. “This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations,” the American leader said. “In truth, it is a struggle for civilization.”

The president’s address continued, “We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. And we're fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom and tolerance and personal dignity.”

In the congested streets of Jakarta, the president’s definition of the war on terror failed to resonate. None of those questioned said that they were even aware of his speech which had been carried live on cable and satellite international television channels in this capital city of twelve million.

The results show that there may have been a backslide to the recent climb in support for America in Indonesia. In a nationwide poll by Terror Free Tomorrow conducted throughout the world’s largest Muslim country at the end of January 2006 support for the United States had risen to 44 percent. This was the highest it had been since September 11, 2001. This increase had largely been accredited to American humanitarian aid to tsunami victims 12 months previously.

Today’s poll was carried out by KAPress with one Japanese and nine Indonesian adults being questioned on Jalan Sudirman Boulevard in Central Jakarta.