froginmythroat (FIMT)

WARNING: The following post contains relatively unprocessed inner thoughts regarding the experience of leaving one country (Indonesia) after 6 months of living there. Parental guidance recommended. Read the rest of this entry »

The Lamno Road is the only road one needs to walk down before being called a man. That’s right, the answer to Bob Dylan’s question is “one”! Read the rest of this entry »

My new home is in Jantho, a small town 1.5 hours outside of Banda Aceh. Jantho seems like a place in the middle of nowhere, and my home is on the outskirts of this of nowhere. We aren’t the original inhabitants of this town, and our location on the town’s edge reminds us of that fact. Read the rest of this entry »

There are those with a vested interest who make claims that Aceh, wrapped in the blanket of sariah law, is a haven for peity and dignity. That Aceh’s upstanding citizenship are a breed who dare not stray far from the policed boundaries of “polite” Muslim behaviour. The rest of the Acehnese, who don’t make such claims but nevertheless follow the rules, either just get on with living because they don’t care in the first instance, or when they need to take their “un-polite” behaviour to “liberated” zones. Read the rest of this entry »

7:00am The cook arrives whilst I am still sleeping, lets herself in, prepares breakfast and sets the table.

9:00am Check email, and see the following message from Upik:

“Hellooo…
its now 9 am and its… new years eve…
if you have any interesting plan, lemme know… =)” Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Dec 26, the 1 year anniversary of the tsunami. Read the rest of this entry »

Sumbawa – an Indonesian island east of Lombok, which is east of Bali. The only reasons to go there are if you are

• a volcanist studying the eruption of Mt Tambora, the greatest volcanic eruption in recorded history, although you would be 200 years late as it occurred in 1815.
• a Newmont mining company executive involved in resource extraction or other forms of ‘maximising shareholder value’
• the 1 expat who lives on the island. His name is Scott.
• visiting a microfinance organisation to evaluate their information system

Read the rest of this entry »

On the official FrogInMyThroat IFFR (international-fast-food-restaurant) development scale, Banda Aceh can boast one KFC. Why is it that the Colonel always pops up before other fast food chains in remote places, like Te Puke in New Zealand? Read the rest of this entry »

Aceh kids playing with fire.

Click to see the video (1.5MB). You will need the DivX video codec to view it. Read the rest of this entry »

Once the rain had abated and the frogs had come out to sing, I left the office and caught a labi-labi (an incredibly regular and comprehensive form of public transport that puts Auckland’s system to shame) to the shopping district down the road. I needed to return a rented VCD to the local video store. The video store has middle to upper class customers and from my random population sampling I have concluded that the incidence of English speaking persons in the video store is higher than the general Acehenese population (std dev 2.4, r co-efficient > 1, sample size 2). It may be the place to meet the local movers, groovers, and schmoozers. Read the rest of this entry »

Suggested music to listen to whilst viewing these pictures – something slow and contemplative. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when sweets used to cost 1c? Back in those days, you knew everyone in your neighbourhood and would see them daily when you left your house to go to town or further afield. You used to have your food cooked for you and never had to worry about doing your own washing. The neighbourhood kids were your friends and you would play games with them after school. You had a credit account at the local store. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »