November: A Month Spent Mostly Commuting to Jakarta

If I had to sum up November in one word, it would probably be Jakarta.

The morning after Tobin flew back to Canada, I flew to Bogor (which is just south of Jakarta) for four days of meetings. They were actually really interesting (in a nerdy way), because Indonesia is actively developing its management plans for tuna fisheries. These meetings brought together top fisheries scientists, government officials, and representatives from across the country for the seventh time. Developing fisheries management is not a speedy process, especially when the country lacks adequate data to develop the plans. It was fascinating to learn about the process and watch the development of these plans unfold in real time.

… okay I’m guessing that that is probably the limit of what is remotely interesting enough to go on the blog.

Instant translation!

That week flew by, and helped distract me from the fact that Tobin was gone. Plus I got to spend some quality time with Momo, MDPI’s Program Director, and the only other “bule” on staff (a bule – pronounced “boo-lay” – is an Indonesian word used to describe a foreigner). Momo has been with MDPI since the very beginning, and she is a wealth of knowledge, but she’s leaving the organization in January so I’m trying to soak up every minute with her before she leaves.



Back in Bali, I had a mellow weekend of snorkelling, relaxing, and visiting a Turtle Conservation Centre (every bit as delightful and depressing as you might imagine). I won’t show photos of the poor turtles that ate plastic or lost fins to propellers.

Baby turtles! So cute (but also being held back from being released because they're sick)

Snorkelling at a coral plantation

Just over a week later, I was back in Jakarta for four more days. The first day was a meeting related to sustainable fisheries (and was therefore somewhat interesting), but the next three days were spent reviewing annual progress for one of our funders… aka not the most thrilling way to spend three days. Luckily I was able to spend every evening exploring Jakarta and having dinner with Richard and Tara – those were certainly the highlights of the week!

Visiting the national monument, a hubub of activity in the evenings.

Morning traffic

Local transportation

I love learning more about the nature of Indonesian people, and these meetings have provided some interesting insights. For example, one day in the late afternoon, the meeting room had been separated into two groups on either side of a room divider. When the other group (on the opposite side of the sliding wall) finished their meeting, they cheered. As soon as we finished, our group started to cheer too. The other group cheered back and there were even some thumps on the divider. So our group cheered back. And on it went until our group started to sing (at the top of their lungs) “Selamat sore Pak, selamat sore Bu” which basically means good evening sir, good evening ma’am - like the type of song you would have sung in elementary school. They had huge smiles on their faces and were singing unabashedly at the tops of their lungs. I cannot imagine something similar happening anywhere else! They’re also big fans of having “quizzes” after presentations, where the presenter gives out candy as prizes.

The next week, my weekly visit to Jakarta became even more ridiculous – I did it in a day. It started at 6am with a two hour flight in the morning and over an hour of fighting Jakarta traffic, followed by three different meetings, then more time in traffic and a two-hour flight back to Bali. A twenty-hour day in total. Phew. It was a bit nervewracking on the return flight - Mt Agung had released a plume of ash, but luckily it wasn't big enough to affect flights.

My next visit to Jakara (less than a week later) was under more interesting circumstances, so I’ll write about that in my next blog post!

Lunch buffets are a good part of the day!