In case you think you're just one person, not significant enough to change anything about the world, check out this story. It was sent to me by Cynthia Dammerer, about how a local hotel group is helping out a Balinese orphanage. Kind of puts things in perspective.
“The traffic buzzed remorselessly down the highway, with cars, vans and bike jostling for the best position along the busy road between Nusa Dua and Benoa Harbour in beautiful Bali. Balinese families, sometimes three or four to a bike, pressed to get to work or home again.
Our van swung suddenly into a rough country lane heading to a rubbish dump, up past the tethered cows and parked cars. A pile of dirt and gravel metres high spread out opposite a small blue-and-white painted office, with two low-slung buildings on either side of a central pathway clogged with sitting children and wheelchair-bound young adults. The quietness seemed at odds with so many children present.
This is the setting of the YPAC orphanage and rehabilitation centre in Nusa Dua Bali, on my first visit in December 2006. It was a sobering glimpse of children’s life in another world. The teachers in charge eyed us suspiciously as we arrived – escorted by Yasa, who has volunteered at orphanages around Bali for years. Helping out, delivering donations when possible, and gathering small financial windfalls.
But this children’s facility only received enough rupiah from the government to feed four children rice each day. There are 59 of them. Some boys and girls live permanently in a small dormitory with mouldy mattresses on the floor, bereft of sheets or pillows and any home comforts. The doors on the toilets and showers do not close since the hinges are rusted open, and they are used to the full glare of traffic in the central pathway.
There is no refrigeration for the little food they do have. As meals generally consist of rice or noodles for breakfast lunch and dinner, rats have very little to attract them, but they saunter cockily about in the kitchen anyway. Classrooms are dingy, dull and lifeless, devoid of teaching aids bar a blackboard, but still we can detect a spark – an interest in learning today’s math lesson despite these surroundings.
We come bearing gifts from Australia . Used text books, dictionaries, games, novelty gifts, used clothing and shoes and some meager art supplies. We have also collected enough money in lieu of gifts at a recent 60th to buy the kids a desktop computer for their own use, and some new tables and chairs to eat the bowl of rice from. It is heartening to see the wide smiles of pleasure derived from a pre-loved baby-born doll, or an atlas, an Eeyore hat, an Eagles football or Ice Age watch. But it makes us more determined not to forget these brave kids – some who are physically disabled, some who are mentally impaired, and some who are burdened for life with both.
These children are forgotten no more. Upon hearing our stories and seeing our pictures, the General Managers of the six Accor hotels in Bali , crossing all brands - All Seasons, Novotel, Sofitel and Mercure – took it upon themselves to adopt this one orphanage, and make a real difference for a sustained period of at least two years.
The next time I visit to deliver supplies, I weep when I see the hard work they have all done personally. Manual labour, all with a determination to make their efforts sustainable, and directed at helping the children and their caregivers “help themselves” long-term. A new fridge gleams in the clean and freshly-painted kitchen. It also has food in it. Toilet doors close, plants are used as decorative dividers, and the children, smiling and happy. I’m positive they have grown a few inches. It turns out they have indeed grown: As a group, the Accor Hotel General Managers have organized for a nutritious lunch box to be delivered to each child each day they attend school.
We came bearing four lap-top computers – given kindly by the head of a large Aussie corporation, who upon hearing the story immediately proposed the donation. The children’s eye’s danced when they realized they can learn how to use a computer in the future. But the cost of electricity is high in Indonesia, so a co-sponsor was found for that cost as well. The roof is to be repaired, before it leaks onto the fresh renovations during the wet season, or caves in completely. The leaning wall and sewer are set to be repaired imminently, and the leaks into the playground will cease. An Australian company is generously helping Accor with that cost. The mattresses will be up on bases, and furnished with sheets and pillows.
Other guests have gotten into the infectious spirit of helping, and are advised what the children need, or would consider a treat. At Christmas time, the hotels put a letter in each guest’s room encouraging them to buy an extra present, and then deliver hundreds of packs of much-needed art supplies, stationery and gifts to the orphanage. One guest even bought a new TV at the local hypermart.
You can’t help all the people who are in need in the world. But you can help some, and if we all did that, there might be some happier lives and more nurtured souls."
Today's Top StoriesDecember surprise: Rate cutIndonesian central bank slashes interest rates to boost growthMore huge Sumatran earthquakes likelyGet ready, say scientists in Nature magazineClintons' Indonesia ties could be troublesomeIllegal Riady contributions rear their head againBank troubles reduxIndonesian oversight sucks almost as much as U.S.?
All together now, to 2008: Good riddance.
What the world needs now is ... not the unholy mess coming out the Mideast. Yet again.
Love the distinct and haunting sounds of gamelan music, but don't have a massive orchestra of Javanese or Balinese musicians handy?
Is it just me, or do most articles about Megawati Sukarnoputri contain the subtext that she's - as the saying goes - not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree?
Russia seems to be making a full-time occupation of tweaking American interests. Sending warships to Cuba, running roughshod over Saakashvili's Georgia, cutting off oil pipelines to Europe whenever it serves its interests.
What a year we've had. As the old Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times."
Here's an amazing travel opportunity I came across: Not only can you visit the endangered orangutans of Kalimantan (Borneo), but you get Dr. Birute Galdikas as your personal guide and naturalist.
Not all endings are happy ones. Seems like Dede the 'Treeman,' the Javanese villager famed around the world and featured on a Discovery documentary about his rare medical condition, has suffered some setbacks on his road to wellness.
Here in the States, it's always en vogue to ridicule the rigid two-party political system of Republicans and Democrats. And in quasi-dictatorships, the one-party option, like Golkar back in the Suharto days, is equally risible.
Washington may be a crime-ridden blotch of humanity full of sneering career politicos, but hey, look on the bright side.
I suppose something must be said about the Shoe Heard 'Round the World.
The pungent Citarum River is getting some international attention, and it ain't pretty.
Recent financial developments like the 40% drop in the stock market, on the back of a total bank meltdown; the housing implosion tied to sketchy subprime mortgages; and the collapse of Madoff investment funds, a $50-billion Ponzi scheme that wiped out high rollers worldwide; makes me reminisce about the Asian currency crisis of 1997/8.
For those of you who were wondering why I haven't been posting for a couple of days ...
Times are tough all 'round, apparently. And not just for Detroit automakers or Wall Street investment banks. Just ask poor Aburizal Bakrie.
Indonesia's been on the front lines of anti-corruption-fighting this last while, with the commission that's been kicking ass and taking names. Seems like every day some new bank honcho or government functionary is taken down. No wonder the nation climbed in Transparency International's index this year, becoming 'cleaner' than 17 additional countries.
Adventure-travel buffs, saddle up. GAP Adventures has uploaded its list of Indonesian options for 2009, and it's a perfectly delectable menu.
There's an intriguing new book coming out that touches on Indonesia, called The Trouble With the Alphabet. The overarching theme is children's welfare, and it's set up so that each letter of the alphabet, such as I for Indonesia, deals with children's rights in that particular nation.
Ironic, isn't it. Just as families are learning to live within their means, instead of taking out mortgages they can't afford and charging everything on plastic, governments are doing the exact opposite.
It seems like an oxymoron - along with jumbo shrimp and military intelligence - but it looks like Islamic fashion is undergoing a bit of a boomlet.
In case you think you're just one person, not significant enough to change anything about the world, check out this story. It was sent to me by Cynthia Dammerer, about how a local hotel group is helping out a Balinese orphanage. Kind of puts things in perspective.
On a selfish note, I have a new book out, just in time for the holiday shopping rush (that is, if anyone has any money left in this recession!).
Yesterday was World AIDS Day, and judging from some startling new numbers, Indonesia is going to need a fresh strategy to cope with this deadly disease.
Here's an innovative idea in social entrepreneurship, fresh out of Indonesia: Nonprofit organizations going capitalist, and buying banks.
Congrats to the winners of our fantabulous Eat Pray Love giveaway, Justin Hampton of L.A. and Evimeinar Nasution of Winnipeg. Which begs the question, what's an Indonesian doing in the frozen tundra of Winnipeg, especially at this time of year? But I digress ... copies are on the way.
Are we seeing a battle for the soul of Indonesian Islam, playing out before our eyes?
What makes me saddest about yesterday's Mumbai massacre, apart from the death and destruction that fill our screens, is how some of the most memorable places in the world are all being subsumed by terrorism.
Much ado has been made in recent months about shariah-compliant investing, especially with all the petrodollars washing around the Middle East. Muslim investors are looking for someplace to stash their billions, that's in line with Qu'ranic precepts against drinking, gambling, and the charging of interest. (So how does Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal become a major Citigroup shareholder? But I digress.)
The military relationship between the U.S. and Indonesia has always been a bit of a head-scratcher. Under strongman Suharto, it was pretty tight, with joint exercises and copious supplies of military hardware. In recent years it's cooled off, just as a democratic government has taken hold.
Can you name the best place in Indonesia to do business? How about the worst?
Life Magazine may be dead and gone, another victim of the print-to-digital revolution, but its iconic photos live on. In fact Google is now hosting their entire photo archive, of which there are about 200 shots of Indonesia at critical moments through the country's history.
If you feel like getting away from it all for a while - far, far from the crashing Dow - reader Michael Corbett sends in word of a unique Indonesian cruise opportunity.