Kang GURU Travels to Aceh, Medan and Jakarta

Kevin went to Aceh in late January. While there he presented a two day Teacher Workshop for AusAID's ERA Project in Saree. Kevin also interviewed personnel from many of AusAID's terrific activities in Aceh including people from LOGICA, CEPA, ERA and Austcare amongst others. Kevin also met with many Aussie alumni, including alumni from the LAPIS - ANU Sandwich Progam and those interviews will be on KGRE radio soon.

I flew to Jakarta late afternoon on the 24th of January for an overnight stay at the airport hotel in Jakarta. It was necessary to stay there overnight as I left for Banda Aceh early on the 25th. The hotel was very nice but guess what? No ‘American Idol’ on television — what a pity. The hotel was quite good but one funny thing I noticed was that Indonesia's national dish — nasi goreng – was more expensive than the Western hotel classic dish – the club sandwich. I thought that was quite odd.

After a wonderful night of sleep in a lovely, big bed I had breakfast at the hotel then took a 10 minute trip back to the airport. The Garuda flight, numbered GA184, took off at 9.00am – dead on time! (Actually that is NOT a good idiom to use in this context) The flight was smooth and quiet and in just over two and a half hours I was landing in Banda Aceh in the far west part of Indonesia. I last went to Banda Aceh in 1992 and although my memories are fading, I certainly remember the huge mosque in the center of the city. That was also the mosque which featured heavily in those terrible news reports during the tusnami of December, 2004.

Pak Samsul Bahri, Office Manager for the ERA program in Aceh (Education Rehabilitation in Aceh) met me at the airport with driver, Pak Saiful. We had a quick look around Banda Aceh, including areas severely affected by the 2004 tsunami, before our first appointment. It was a visit to SD school MIN Merduati. The school has been rebuilt and is now re-located. The students were in class and they were working hard with their lessons. They were all friendly and of course a little cheeky BUT it was easy to see that they loved going to school and they loved their teachers. We met with School Principal, Ibu Murni, and she took me on a brief tour of the school. I had hoped to meet Karen Ingrams from AusAID Public Relations, Canberra at the school but by the time I got there she had gone. However I did meet her later in the day in the ERA office when she was paying a visit to Mary Fernely-Sander, Team Leader for ERA.   Pak Samsul took me to lunch at one of Banda Aceh's most famous restaurants — Mie Rajali. Now those noodles were spicy indeed AND delicious. After lunch we called by the ERA office to meet Mary Fernley-Sander, Team Leader of that AusAID funded education rehabilitation project in the province. Karen dropped in on her at to the airport so we actually had a quick chat. At 16.00 I set off for a place called Saree.

The Kang Guru Teacher Workshop was to be held there on the following two days. Saree is about 2 hours from Banda Aceh on the road to Lhoksemauwe and is actually in the hills. The drive was very pretty and the scenery was amazing. I never knew they had such high mountains in Aceh. In Saree there is a training center called WISMA BLPP. It was wet that day and there were electricity problems at the Wisma BLPP, BUT nevertheless the Opening Ceremony of the two-day KGRE Teacher Workshop went ahead that night. Pak Drs. Haji Mohammad Sukarni, Head of the SMP section at ‘DIKNAS Propinsi Aceh’ officiated at the ceremony in front of over 50 SMP teachers from the surrounding areas. When I say ‘surrounding’, I mean that many of the teachers had traveled many hours in terrible weather (many by motorbike) to get there. Thank you to all of them for being so enthusiastic.

The night in Saree was a long one. There was no electricity, the overnight weather was quite cool and traffic noise from the nearby main road was sort of loud. Nevertheless I did sleep okay but was wide awake by 5am. The sun rises a lot later in Saree than in Bali. It was still dark at 7am. After breakfast I walked across the grounds to the site of the workshop. It was all set up and ready to go. And there was a big surprise for me — the teachers did not do a ‘jam karet’. They were all there on time. Fantastic!

There were 56 teachers at the workshops. Some of them were from Banda Aceh and others were from places such as Aceh Besar, Aceh Barat, Aceh Jaya and Pidie. All of them are from SMP and MTs schools including some from ‘dayah’ schools (pondok pesantren) and are involved with ERA programs in their areas. They were active, keen and very eager to interact with each other and with me. The workshop ran until almost 4pm although there was a two and a half hour break for lunch and prayers.

Day One finished at 4pm but then around 40 SMP students from the local SMP school were waiting to meet with me.

These students were very, very shy for the first half an hour but then they began asking questions and in fact, we could not stop them. They were fantastic. I think it was the first time they had met a native speaker. They giggled and were even shy to look at me. Gradually they began interacting with me and with each other. Of course a few prizes helped them to be less shy. It was a fun afternoon and I am sure they will all remember KGRE. I just hope they write to us and ask for magazines.

In the late afternoon the ERA guys took me on a small tour of the area. It was very interesting to see elephants and buffalo in the paddocks beside the road. One of the ERA guys called Herman was a bit confused about which was which but we showed him very clearly which was the elephant and which animals were the buffalo. We then went into the town of Saree for a coffee at a popular warung. After 10 minutes or so at the warung, a car pulled up and out jumped Kate Shanahan. She works for AusAID and I was to have meeting with her back in Banda Aceh within a few days. I first met Kate last year when she was working for Australian Volunteers international in Jakarta. It was good to see her again over coffee.

In the evening the teachers all gathered together for a BBQ — ‘jagung bakar’. The men made the fire (that took along time) and then they cooked the ‘jagung’ for us. The ladies watched, waited and chatted a lot. So did the men. It was terrific because they everyone used English with each other. Fantastic! Every workshop participant introduced themselves in front of the group — some just a simple introduction while others even sang songs for us. It was fun and we all enjoyed it a lot. Before we realized, it was already 10 pm. Time for bed PLUS the teachers still had homework to do for me. And guess what? No rain and clear skies. That was very different to the night before. However the electricity did go off during the night.

Day Two — The teachers were all ready to continue with the workshop before the official starting time of 8am. That was great to see. The morning sessions were mainly centered on the SKA package from KGRE. Activities done in the workshop were about canteens in Australian schools, the Tasmanian Devil and David Beckham's Family Tree. Quite a mixture but all excellent activities. The participants really enjoyed them and there was lots of discussion and ideas that came from the three activities. Participants also came up with some great ways to get students moving and to motivate them in the classroom. Well done to all of them. We finished off the workshop with games and prizes. The final thanks to everyone concerned — a job well done. In the late afternoon I returned to Banda Aceh.

In the evening on Saturday I met with a young Aussie volunteer. Her name is Jo Hobbs and she is Project & Partner Development Officer for AUSTCARE in Aceh. Jo is a VIDA volunteer and has been in Banda Aceh for the past 9 months. Jo loves her job and she loves living and working in Aceh. Austcare strives to help create a better world for refugees. For example, 30 eager children were able to go back to school for the first time after a mini-bus was purchased for the Lam Bada village in Aceh. Of Lam Bada's 250 children, only 50 survived the tsunami. The bus also helps adults to access the market and medical services. The local community is developing a business plan to ensure the bus is a sustainable enterprise for the village.

Jo will be talking about her life and work in Aceh on KGRE radio soon but some of her favourite activities include sailing her little local boat to go fishing and snorkelling, visiting local places on her motorbike and hanging out with her Acehnese friends. At work, Jo and Austcare are working with local businesses helping them to grow and develop. Two examples of this work include working with local chilli farmers, and assisting local brick-making enterprises, to become profitable and effective. Austcare is also building a new SMP school in one of the tsunami ravaged areas of the city. Check out the March magazine for some more information about Jo and Austcare.

On Sunday morning I met with Kate Shanahan, Program Officer for AIPRD in Aceh. Kate has been in Indonesia for 4 years. In fact Kate visited Indonesia several times when she was a student in Australia. These student exchanges made Kate determined to one day, work here.

At midday I met with Pak Iqbal, Pak Safrul Muluk, Pak Taufan and Pak Muslim Amiren at the hotel. ERA's Pak Samsul brought these men to meet me as they are all Australian alumni. They each have their own story and KGRE will be featuring them during 2007 in KGRE magazines, on the radio and on the website's alumni page. They certainly had some very positive things to say about their times in Australia, about studying in Aussie universities and great stories about their lives and their work since returning to Banda Aceh from the Land DownUnder. Once the interviews were over we headed for the infamous Mie Razali warung for more mie — Banda Aceh style.

	In the later part of the afternoon I met with David W. Lawrence, Program Coordinator, for the IFC PEP — Private Enterprise Partnership For Aceh & Nias (PEPAN) program from the International Finance Corporation at the World Bank. David talked about his program's work with local small entrepreneur business planning including financial planning along with seaweed and shrimp farming in Nias and Banda Aceh respectively. Both have huge potential as income earners with shrimp having a proven record before the tsunami. Seaweed farming is new to Nias BUT shrimp farming in Aceh is nothing new. It was good before the tsunami but with improved methods of farming the mortality rates for shrimps in pond will decrease from 80% to just 30%. It is an exciting project in conjunction with ACIAR — the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research.

David also spoke proudly about a wonderful idea that his team has developed — an Aceh Hotel Booking service by internet which is already showing impressive results with over 100 bookings accepted in just the past few months. This is not just for big hotels but also for small hotels and accommodation places on the nearby islands close to Banda Aceh such as Pulau Weh — Sabang. The well-known ‘Lonely Planet Guide’ for Indonesia has already listed the website in their latest edition — that is fantastic! A similar internet service to help local hotels and homestays was set up in Cambodia recently and is already proving to be a great success for local hoteliers in that country. David is happy to put KGCCs on their projects mailing list and I am sure we will hear from David and his program a lot more in the near future.

On Monday morning I visited Pak Samsul's school, SMK 3. There were around 40 students at the meeting representing three schools in all. The girls were exceptionally quiet but the boys were eager to ask questions. The questions were great. Hopefully the Global English Club from SMK 3, and maybe a club or two from the other schools, will soon join the KGCC network.

I then met Pak Andri Setiawan, Communications Specialist, and Pak Kurniawan, a Field Officer, from AusAID's LOGICA project. LOGICA is the Local Governance and Infrastructure for Communities in Aceh and is one of AusAID's largest programs in Aceh. The program has three components all working making a significant contribution to community recovery and well-being in tsunami affected areas of Aceh. The components are the re-establishment of Land Ownership, the strengthening of sub-district government, and the re-establishment of village-level ommunities. They have 600 staff working in many villages in the Aceh devastated by the tsunami. Pak Kurniawan is one of those people working in the field for LOGICA.

In the afternoon it was time to go to the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development (AIPRD) office to meet with Pak Rizal from the CEPA program. For many years now, conflict has been almost a way of life in some areas of Aceh. Both teachers and students stayed away from their schools. School buildings fell into disrepair and school communities were divided. Rizal Usman from Aceh is Deputy Team Leader of AusAID's CEPA — Communities and Education Program in Aceh.

Rizal and his staff have been working hard in the conflict affected Biruen area of Aceh. They are implementing a pilot education program aimed at reducing tension within communities in that area. When the pilot stage is finished and evaluated, the program will move onto 4 - 5 other former conflict areas. The process is very democratic in nature with communities fully involved in all discussions and activities.

While there I bumped into Didi and Kate — old friends from AusAID. It was good to see them again and actually, I hadn't seen Didi for a very long time. Previously Kate worked for Australian International Volunteers (AVI) in Indonesia and has been a long time Indonesian visitor.

Back at the Swiss Bell Hotel I met with Pak Aslan Nur (left) and Pak Mohammad. They were both participants in the LAPIS — ANU Sandwich program. This program from AusAID's LAPIS program is run in conjunction with the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. It allows Indonesian teachers and professors to go to Australia to work on their Master's Degrees.   Kang Guru asked Aslan about studying in an Australian university where things are done a bit differently. Now that you’re back in Indonesia, do you find that you do things now at your university here that you learnt in Australia? Aslan's response? First I try to change the way of my interaction with my students, yes. Hrhm after I know that in Australia at the university, the students and the lecturers are very close so now when I interact with my students I try to help them more closely. ?

As soon as we finished those interviews, Pak Samsul from ERA arrived for a brief interview about his involvement with the alumni organization, IKAMA, and his study at Flinders University in 2004 as an ADS awardee. Many thanks to Pak Samsul from ERA for all of his help and support during the time I was in Aceh. KGRE hopes to return to Aceh later in 2007 and hopefully Samsul will be able to assist again.

I left Banda Aceh at 12.45pm, a delay of over 3 hours. Apparently my Garuda plane was under repairs in Medan so I had to catch the following flight. That flight arrived in Medan at 1.45pm so I just had time to go to the hotel, book in and straight off to Jl. Gajah Mada and the meeting with Medan English Club, KGCC #50.

Pak Wibowo, leader of this very active KGCC had organized a meeting with members of his club but he had also invited SMA students from a local school to join in as well. That was great and once again I am hopeful that those students will form a new KGCC in their school. During the meeting, the members demonstrated some terrific language games and activities. The way they handled the ‘Ska8ter Boy’ activity from KGRE gave me some new ideas for KGRE and their pronunciation/spelling activities were very interesting too. The students completed Sue's ‘Australia Day Quiz’ which is currently on the KGRE website (closes Jan 31 st though).

Medan is an interesting place with members of the club calling the city ‘the jungle’. It certainly is busy, noisy and fast. Taxis and motorbikes seem to just drive anywhere they like with no regard for anyone else. Pedestrians run out from all sorts of places and weave through the traffic too. To a casual observer like me, the place is much like chaos in action. The Novotel was an interesting hotel — totally Chinese in décor and food for example. It was a nice and friendly place to stay.

On Wednesday morning at 6.30am I went to Polonia Airport for the 8.00am Garuda flight to Jakarta. Luckily I was put on the 7am flight. Or so I thought. We sat on the plane for at least 40 minutes while ground staff appeared to be playing ‘swap the seats’ or something like that. The plane was full but ground staff kept moving people around the inside of the aircraft. We took off just before the 8am flight. Garuda apologized for the delay, as airlines always do, but sometimes I wonder whether they really care about delays and how they actually occur. From what I could see they really weren't bothering about the time they seemed to be wasting. We arrived in Jakarta and I took a taxi straight to the IALF building in Jl. Rasuna Said. I spent time with Geoff Crewes, CEO of IALF discussing matters re. KGRE in 2007 and beyond that. I booked into the Hotel Borobudur at 5pm and had a break — well, sort of.

Thursday, the 1st of February, was the official 25th Anniversary for the Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program. Celebrations started at breakfast in the hotel actually when I met up with the hungry members of the 2006/7 contingent again. They were a part of the official celebration later that day but when I saw them in the Bogor Restaurant they were enjoying a hearty breakfast. I had met them in mid-January in Barakin village in South Kalimantan and it was good to see them all again.

The Indonesian Minister for Youth, Sport and Recreation, joined with the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia to officiate at the opening ceremony. They signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the continuation of AIYEP. Along with other guests and AIYEP alumni from all over Indonesia, and from Australia, they were entertained by the 36 participants of AIYEP 2006/7. The group performed the famous Tarian Dance along with two other cultural performances. They were terrific. The day's other activities included detailed discussions about the past and the future of the program. It was great to meet up with alumni that I have met over the past few years as I covered their activities for KGRE. It was also great that their travel and accommodation costs to Jakarta for this event were covered by the event organizers. Travel costs for ten alumni from Australia were also provided.

On Friday Feb 2nd, Jakarta was suffering from a lot of rain and flooding was everywhere. I left the hotel and decided to go straight to the airport instead of going via IALF. Jl. Rasuna Said was flooded according to all reports. Taxis were difficult to find. The trip to the airport took 3.5 hours. Even parts of the TOL Road were underwater.

I spent the next few hours at the airport waiting for my 6pm flight. I did see Agnes Monika at the airport but as she was about to board a flight there was no time for an interview. Another time they said. Her management has told Ogi that she is happy to do an interview but the problem is finding the time.