Monday, June 11, 2007

It is kind of Holiday
First, I’ve got an invitation from friend of mine who is working with WWF Central Kalimantan; they want to have me in their training. It was in the end of April. In the same time, I’ve got inviation from CUSO and VSO to attend a VSO Conference in Maumere (East part of Flores); While I already had a plan to have a vacation to visit my mother and family in Jogja. These three things were combining with some work that it need to be done outside of Flores and met Robin, my Canadian (Indonesian) friend who was on vacation in Indonesia.

Significant Change?
A long journey out of Bajawa was started when I went to Maumere for VSO conference. The main topic was a significant change in international development issues, especially in Volunte
ering sending organization, such as VSO. A lot of new experience and knowledge that I’ve got in this event was worth it enough to attend, even though I must ride my motorbike, which was I choose it because it was great experience rode a long distance almost half of Flores Island. On the way to Maumere I visited Three Color Caldera “Kelimutu”, east of Ende, around 5 hours from Bajawa. It is a beautifull National Park. Moni, is a small town ‘below’ the volcanic caldera, I stayed one night there and early morning climbed Kelimutu on Sunday morning, just like a first ‘mass’ for church.
By the afternoon, I hit Maumere and met Bernard a CUSO cooperant in Maumere. We attended the VSO Conference as an ‘observer’. Beside the interesting topics of the conference; it was such a unique and I can say it as a ‘small world’ environment of people, since we shared some common experiences and history of ‘human relation’s link’. Not to forget, some part of the VSO conference, the organizer held a cultural night event. Since there were 4 people has a ‘canadian’ background, so we showed and the participants joined our ‘square dance’, a modified and collaborative effort. It was fun!
In term of the issues that had been brought up, all was come down to some questions about how effective our development work that we are doing, especially in Indonesia. Are we making a significant change?
I will put some of my thought in http://www.lava-merapi.blogspot.com/
I would like to thanks a lot for VSO who invited us in this event, as well to CUSO who arranged for us to come down to this fun and learning experiences.
Left Maumere on Friday morning rode my motorbike to Bajawa. This time I rode straight to Bajawa. I took me around 8 hours, include stop over for a flat tire ‘break’. It is fun and great ‘exploring’ Flores Island by motorbike. Saturday morning back to work and had a meeting with database development team in Dinas Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata Ngada, before I went to the ‘vacation’

The first part of “vacation”
A long bus ride from Bajawa to Labuan Bajo (west tip of Flores Island) was my Sunday activity. Whole day! Almost 13 hours on the bus and arrived in Labuan Bajo was night already. Labuan Bajo is a small fishing town. I mean fishing here there are two meanings: fishing for the real fish, just because a lot of Bajonesse as a fishermen. The second meaning is ‘fishing’ for tourists. This small little town has known as a ‘stopping point’ (if you just want to explore Komodo dragon, snorkeling, diving) from Bali tourists. Gateway weekend as supposed to say. It is a ‘transit point’ for some Flores Island visitors who want to explore Flores, because Labuan Bajo as an entry point to Flores from the west side (Maumere in the east side and Ende in the middle side, but Ende has uncertain schedule now). Two days when I was there I had meeting with an international “NGO” that working on developing tourism in West Manggarai District, especially Labuan Bajo. As well I had great discussion with some local entrepreneur in tourism industries who is ‘upset’ with the systems that are not ‘involving’ more local people. A lot of big investors (include the private sector who managing Komodo National Park), are not really ‘sharing’ the tourism activities or profit with the locals. Is this sound familiar to you?
After I’ve got some ‘unhappy stories’ I left for the airport hoped that I would have a better stories to write. But I was wrong! One and half hour before my flight to Bali was scheduled; the travel agent told me that my flight had been canceled. I must ‘fight’ with the staff of the airline, especially they were kind of discriminated me (probably just because I am not really or look like real ‘tourist’) when we tried to get transferred to different airline that was flown in the same day. I did not blamed the staff having that kind of perception and assumption that ‘real tourist should get better service’, just because the ‘system’ told them that. Is this also sound familiar to you?

The first half of my vacation is not finished yet… I will write more later…Coming up a Bali-Jogja-Central Kalimantan-back to Jogja-South Sulawesi (the ‘real vacation’)-Bali……..Flores…Hope you enjoy this writing even though some were not a happy one. Just life should be, there are not always happy and enjoyable….

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