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Kevin went to Papua for a six day visit.
He called into Jayapura to visit RRI Jayapura and to present a
Teacher Workshop
at SMK 1. He also had a very busy students meeting and visited
SMA 5 high atop the
hills above Jayapura. Kevin also flew to Sorong for a RRI visit and a hastily
organized Teacher Meeting.
While in Jayapura Kevin visited KPA Papua to talk about
their work with HIV AIDS and also to UNICEF in
Jayapura to chat about their work in cooperation with DINAS Kesehatan,
Jayapura.
KangGURU
Travel
to Papua written by Kevin
It was a very early morning departure to
Jayapura from Denpasar. I left my house at 12.00 midnight for a 2.30 am
departure from Ngurah Rai on Garuda. The flight was fine until we were
approaching Timika Airport in the early morning. The cloud cover was so low that
the clouds were virtually hanging on the top of the trees. As we were about to
land the pilot aborted the takeoff and we zoomed skyward again. Then we went
around for a second
approach at the landing strip. This time I was quite nervous as the trees shrouded
in clouds became finally visible. Once again just before touching the ground
(and I couldn’t see any runway) we heading up quite quickly and flew straight
to Biak. We waited there for a few hours before I was transferred onto another
Garuda flight direct to Jayapura. Considering Garuda ‘losing’ all of my
luggage for several hours and then miraculously finding it all again, and the
quite traumatic attempted landings, my day was bound to get better.
I flew into Jayapura quite behind
schedule and was met by Edwin Karundeng and Setiasih from SMK 1 and Rianto
Allolinggi (Staff of LTTC), all members of the Teacher Workshop Organizing
Committee. Special thanks to Rianto for waiting at the airport until my luggage
arrived on the next Garuda flight. Lunch was first on the agenda and we have a
local delicacy called ikan mujair. It was really good! Then onto RRI for
a meeting with the Head of the Station, Pak Alex.
| Sophe Fanumbi, the station’s English
language interactive presenter was there too and after the meeting we all
headed for the studio for a ‘live’ show. There were plenty of callers
and the ‘Odd One Out’ competitions attracted a lot of attention.
Winners were happy with their KGRE Gift Packs. Sophie’s program is
called ‘JEV (Jayapura English Voice) and is broadcast every Sunday night
at 6pm with the KGRE program for the first hour then two hours of
interactive radio after that. Sophe’s show has been ‘on air’ for
over two years and we are happy to invite her to join the KGRE's
Interactive Program Presenter's (English) Network. The phone number to
speak to Sophe ‘on air’ is Jayapura 536386. Rere is the technical
operator and looks after the technical parts of the program such as taking
the telephone calls from listeners. I was interviewed in Bahasa Indonesia
by RRI reporter Jack Welhilun – hi to Jack. The interview was fun. |
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Jayapura is a spectacular area to fly
into although the airport is 60 minutes from the main downtown area. It is
nestled in between the mountains and the coastline. The mountains and hills are
covered with huge trees and thick green vegetation and dotted with thousands of
homes. Close to the airport and on the way to Jayapura itself there is a huge
lake. It is a freshwater lake. It is really big and has hundreds of homes spread
around its shoreline. The next huge expanse of water that I saw was the ocean
and the western part of Jayapura called Abepura. It seems that Jayapura is sort
of divided into two main areas – Abepura and Jayapura city. About thirty
minutes further on from Abepura I went over the top of a hill and there before
me lay the main city of Jayapura. The bay is huge and busy with ships. I was
surprised at just how orderly and relaxed the traffic was and how friendly and
happy the people appeared. There were a lot of traffic police on duty which
meant traffic flowed smoothly. The town is a large centre for the army as well.
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The Jayapura Teachers Workshop was
held on Wednesday at SMK1.
The school is set high up above the road and the harbour – magnificent
scenery and quite a magnificent school too. It was one of the schools in
Papua which was part of the work of the Makassar Tourism and Training
Project (MTTP) based in Makassar. MTTP finished in early 2005 but the
effects of the project’s work are still treasured in Jayapura. The
Principal of SMK 1, Laura Holle, is very proud of her school’s
involvement with MTTP. |
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The facilities and equipment provided
through that AusAID project are still in use and in excellent condition
too. On the day I visited the students were undergoing Competency
Assessment with two competency assessors from local industry - Pak Budi
from the Yasmin Hotel in Jayapura and Haris Loji from the Ermashita Hotel.
These men are all involved in the tourist industry in Jayapura and they
are no doubt the best people to really assess whether students are
competent in hotel service . The students were nervous of course but very
happy too about their future careers. I was also happy to hear how fondly
the teachers at SMK 1 spoke of Francis DeSilva – a keen supporter of
KGRE and a hard working member of the MTTP team. |
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The Principal of SMK 1, Laura J.
Holle, studied in Australia in the early 90s under a scheme established by
the Indonesian Government and the Government of the Northern Territory.
Listen for Ibu Laura on KGRE later this year. The Vice Principal, Ibu
Elisabeth, also studied in Australia in the mid 90s under the same scheme
as Laura did the previous year. With these two wonderful ladies in charge
of SMK 1, I am sure the school will continue to provide excellent tourism
related training to students in Jayapura. The school’s mini hotel is
excellent and is always full of guests. It was full when I visited and
looked great. It is called the Yotefa
View Hotel and is right across, or opposite, from the school. Room
rates are great and the food is really good too – call them on (0967)
532099 for more information. |
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The Teacher Workshop was a big
success with 80 teachers participating. They were active and really keen
to learn and try new things in their classrooms. They ordered over 40 KGRE
Teacher Packages and there was great interest in the Reading Class Sets as
well. The organizing Committee under the guidance of Pak Edwin did a
fantastic job organizing in all aspects of the organizing – all went
well. Lunch was great and there were two snack breaks as well. Good cakes
in Jayapura. Students from the school assisted all day long. They welcomed
guests, served snacks and cleaned up the mess afterwards. Thanks guys! |
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Onto
SMA 5 next situated
high up the hills overlooking Jayapura. The school’s English Coordinator is
Pak Eduard Tampubolon and he is also Chief of the Organizing Committee for the
workshop. His school, sekolah
unggulan, is a relatively new school and quite a well known one in the
town. There were around 50 keen English language students there to meet with me.
They were a little reserved or shy in the beginning but once they got going they
were fine. They were certainly good listeners. I could tell that was true just
by the look on their faces. Since visiting the school it appears that those
students are very keen to start a language club and to establish a relationship
with KGRE through the Kang Guru Connection network of language clubs.
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On Thursday I returned to SMK 1 and to a
meeting of over 250 junior and senior high school students. They were
bright and eager to listen and chat. Questions were excellent and they
really are keen on English. Many thanks to their teachers for allowing
them to join the meeting. After the meeting I interviewed
two of the students – Maximillian and Surani. They will be on
KGRE later in 2005. Sophe, from RRI, was there and spoke briefly with the
students about her program on RRI. I think Maximillan is going to be a
regular guest presenter on her program soon – good luck!
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Then it was onto KPA Propinsi Papua to
meet with staff involved with the fight against HIV AIDS in Papua. I met
with Mozard Salakory, Yuliana Marsyom, Dewi Wulandari, Atik Rusmayanti and
Mumu Herdiamata. I recorded interviews with both Dewi and Mumu about the
work they are all involved in – you can hear about that in a few months
time and read about it in the KGRE December 2005 magazine. They certainly
have an interesting project working with Papua youth in particular. They
even had Iwan Fals helping them in August in Jayapura.
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| Next stop was the UNICEF office in nearby
Abepura – a 30 minute car ride towards the airport. UNICEF are located
on the 3rd floor of the enormous Kantor Dinas Otonom. I met
Hanna and we talked about KGRE a little bit. Then Ibu Esther and Ibu Lin
from the DINAS Kesehatan arrived for our meeting. Ibu Esther is Head of
DINAS Kesehatan and was very keen to tell me all about the work that they
are doing together with UNICEF in Jayapura. She spoke of the work being
done with the problems of garam
beryodium, immunization on infants and nutrition – very interesting
indeed. It was a very informal and lively meeting with pisang goreng
finishing off the meeting quite nicely. Esther and Lin were terrific and
are obviously passionate about their work. |
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| In the evening we had a wonderful dinner
at Bagus Pandang, a great restaurant with the most spectacular view of the
Jayapura Harbour. Next time I return to Jayapura I will definitely return
to Bagus Pandang but during the day time. All members of the Organizing
Committee were there including Pak Basuki Rahmat, an English teacher at
SMA N 2 Jayapura. Agus, the driver for my three days in Jayapura joined us
too for dinner. |
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Friday found me on a plane once again
and this time taking a one hour Merpati flight to Sorong. Scenery on the way was
spectacular with huge expanses of clear blue water dotted with hundreds of
islands. Many of these islands looked as though they could be resort islands.
The clear blue waters surrounded islands that had many beaches of golden sand
and gentle waves. The flight was very relaxed and I arrived safely at Sorong’s
Domine Edward Osok airport after just
under 2 hours in the air. I spent much of the day in the hotel preparing for the
December edition of the magazine although I did take a walk around the area
near the hotel. Weather was rainy although only light however the locals were
still out and about with those familiar Papua smiles everywhere. In the
afternoon I had a visit from Maela Sangadji to talk about plans for the next day
and then Jack Rahamitu and Andrias Naa from the local DINAS Kebudayaan dan
Pariwisata called by to make sure that everything was okay for the teachers
meeting the next day. Jack is a teacher at SMA 3 in Sorong and is very keen to
get a teacher association going once again in Sorong.
Sorong is the centre of Indonesia’s
latest natural gas fields in the nearby Bintuni Gulf. Colleagues in Sorong told
me that these natural gas fields are the second largest in the world. The city
of Sorong is growing rapidly due to the number of workers flowing into the city.
There are more flights into the airport than ever before and in fact the current
airport is brand new.
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RRI’s 60th Anniversary fell
on September 11th. The
day before that special day KGRE visited RRI Sorong. Station Manager, Pak
Saragih welcomed me to the station and we chatted for quite a while about
his career with RRI and his retirement which will happen in 2007.There
were high school students at the meeting as well as some college students
who had taken a break from their economic studies. Several teachers also
made up the 60 or so people in the studio for the KGRE Interactive
Program. The program began at 9.00am and ran straight through to
11.00am. |
During the two hours we received many, many questions from students in the
studio plus a few from telephone callers. RRI supplied snacks for the visitors
to the studio and they also made sure that the room was well set up for us. RRI
interviewer Menis Ambarwati interviewed me for a few minutes too for her regular
news program on RRI.
| Immediately after RRI I went with Jack
Rahamitu to SMEA YPK for an impromptu teacher’s meeting that he had
organized. Although he and his team only had a few days to organize the
meeting they had a spanduk all ready as well. Great job. About 45 teachers
arrived to hear about KGRE and to find out how KGRE could help them. I
told them as much as I could and gave them plenty of merchandise samples
to take away with them such as keyrings, flyers, notepads, stickers and
postcards. |
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The meeting lasted for over 90 minutes
and teachers were keen to order ‘KGRE
In The Classroom’ packages even though I was not really prepared for
that. Jack took orders however and 15 teachers ordered the package. |
| The rain poured down during the
afternoon. It was very heavy indeed. At 6pm Jack and Maela arrived to give
me the teacher’s orders for the Teacher Packs and to wind up discussions
on a possible return by KGRE
to Sorong next year. Sangadji also arrived with two of his students for a
last chat. Zanuar and Rukmina
chatted quite freely so that was good. In fact Zanuar wants to open a
small community type radio station in his town and asked me if KGRE could
help him at all. I advised him to send details of his station to KGRE and
we would see what we can do. Other small radio stations have also applied
to KGRE asking if they could broadcast the regular KGRE program. It is
something that I am currently discussing with. |
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The next day I left Sorong for Bali via Jayapura, Biak and Makassar - a long day
'in the air' but nice to be home again.
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