froginmythroat (FIMT)

Time for a serious post. The following report, whilst not claiming widespread disruption of aid delivery given the GAM-Government conflict, does highlight cases of exhortation and reallocation (theft) of resources by military actors in Aceh. Examples include the armed forces taking water and probably on-selling it, middleman maintaining monopolies under the protection of the military, and aid-workers being asked to do work for the paramilitary and if they don’t, being asked to leave. Read the rest of this entry »

I was in a little drink shop the other day and as my bowels haven’t yet adjusted to the new environment they find themselves in, I needed to leave my drink to make an urgent toilet stop. I asked the proprietor of the fine establishment where his even finer bathroom facilities might be. He pointed out back in a vague direction and said something in Indonesian which could have been ‘go through the shop, out the back door, around the building destroyed by the earthquake, through the wooden gate to the well, turn right and it’s the concrete trough angled into a small hole in the floor inside the wooden shack’, because that’s where it was, but not knowing Indonesian I had no idea what he said. Read the rest of this entry »

An important person to know in any town is the local dealer. I have been here a week now and I have already been in contact with a regular supplier five or six times. My colleague had established initial contact and took me to see him on one of the first days I was here. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a photo of my house in Banda Aceh: Read the rest of this entry »

The take-off and landing prayers to Allah must have worked because I have arrived safely in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) province. Read the rest of this entry »

Who am I?

• With 230 million people, I am the fourth most populous nation in the world after China, India and the US
• I am the largest state by population in South East Asia
• I am home to the Boogey Man – the name given to the Bugis people by Dutch colonizers and still used today to scare non-Bugis children into doing what they are told
• Last time I checked, I had the world’s largest Muslim population
• I can boast the world’s most pirate infected waters

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