I just left Banda Aceh for the fourth time in over four months of forever. It’s my first time traveling alone since journeying here and I’d almost forgotten the idyllic solitude of solo travel. And being able to sit by the window. As the familiar landscape below faded into a tangle of evening clouds, I felt something unfamiliar in all of my comings and goings from Aceh … relief.
Yes, it’s true – this many months and weeks of working that many days in a row can (even in the most humanitarian of efforts) result in the same condition as too much time in an office or cubicle in Anywhere, U.S.A… Burn-out.
So, you’ve found me not reflecting pensively over adventures or inspirations as of late, but beginning to discover the blissfulness of a real vacation. India awaits. A new continent, a new journey, and the familiar sight of a dear friend’s face. I’m thrilled!
It’s been a grueling few weeks. The “site opening” event I mentioned in the last post that we were planning for a group of newly-constructed houses went incredibly well. The attendance was great and we even had a few write-ups in local papers and much positive feedback. However, the predictable disconnect that occurs in this type of work between “field staff” like myself and those running the show from afar, happened in the day’s following, shifting me into full-blown “I need a vacation” mode. It’s a difficult situation to explain without boring through details, but suffice it to say, that perhaps my greatest struggle work-wise has little to do with anything in Aceh, but more so trying to communicate the realities of our program work (and my related communication tasks) to people far, far away… who just don’t seem to “get it” 99 percent of the time.
Anyway, that’s the downside of things, the very issues I’m endeavoring to leave behind as I prepare to explore a new place. I did have one particularly exciting adventure this week, though – I drove! Well, actually I “test drove” for the first time a month or two ago, but this week, we at last got a car assigned to our house for us to use. Since I had already passed the local “test,” I was ready to hit the road. This may not seem that earth-shattering of an event but, well, they drive on the left-hand side of the road here, so the gear shift, blinkers, and everything are on the opposite side of what I’m used to. But I did it! And amid the crazy traffic, motorcycles, cows, goats, bikes, I cruised around all weekend in our new truck with no radio feeling the freedom of a newly-licensed teenager. It was great!
That was about the highlight of my week, until leaving tonight. I’m in a hotel in Medan now. It’s evening and my flight to Kula Lumpur then on to Delhi leaves in the morning. I’ll likely spend the evening repacking my over-stuffed suitcase and trying (at last) to catch up on some emails.
I’m leaving Indonesia with an expectant heart, anticipating fully to receive the refreshing my soul needs. At least some of the weight of the past few months will still be with me days from now as we reach Dharamsala in the mountains of northern India. Perhaps I’ll find the same refuge and rejuvenation that the Dali Lama discovered there during his years spent in exile from Tibet. Perhaps I’ll plop myself down in the middle of a group of meditating monks and pray and breathe and be quiet… until the knot in my stomach unwinds and the pounds of pressure fall off like raindrops in an afternoon shower…
We will see what lies ahead... and I'm certain it will be good.
I'll leave you with a holiday thought, since Valentine's was a more "visible" holiday in Banda than Christmas was. Yesterday, over a delicious, spicy Valentine’s night dinner and pink drinks, I learned from my Colombian amiga that the literal translation of how they say “Happy Valentine’s Day” in her home country is “Happiness to you on this day of friends and lovers”.... and I thought that was so lovely, so inclusive of all of our loved ones on a day that Love itself should be celebrated. So, I’m embarking on this trek a bit weary, yes, but with a heart full of Love from near, and from afar… feeling all of the compassion and prayers coming from each of you continues to give me strength for the journey...
So, thank you… and Happy Valentine’s Day (in the Colombian sense).
All my love,
bonnie jean
2.16.2006
2.02.2006
afterglow
A few years ago, while taking photos amid the husky gray light of wildfires in California, my wise and dear friend Gene told me about the afterglow… it’s the clandestine light cast after the setting sun sinks below the horizon. Many photographers make the mistake of capturing the sunset, and walking away. But the veterans know if you wait just a few minutes longer, the sky erupts again, with light reflecting through a new prism of colored clouds that’s often more spectacular than the first. But the key is… one must wait for the afterglow.
Perhaps I’m in the afterglow of my time here in Indonesia. The brightly-lit busyness of the first few months segwayed into what at times felt like the darkness of the past few weeks. But now, now the light is peaking through again, and I’m waiting and watching as beautiful hues reform against the clouds.
On my last blog my sister Angie gave me what I felt like was Divine Permission to write about boring things. Because, yes, I often do feel like things are monotonous and that I’ve transplanted myself into the eastern hemisphere yet still have an office job. It’s excruciating at times. But it’s all part of it, and that part I know I haven’t written very much about, for obvious reasons. So, be forewarned, that what follows will likely not be inspirational or exciting, but it’s still… me.
I have the Yellow Palace to myself tonight and am sitting outside on the porch enjoying the cacophony of insects and our orange kitty who probably thought we’d abandoned him. My housemates are still in Medan at a team training that I bailed out of early today because work duties lured me back. I went there on Saturday, and since it’s third or so largest city in Indonesia, there was actually stuff to do… and a Starbucks. I helped with set up and then participated in what was and is a week of programmatic and strategic planning jibber jabber that in many ways was… fascinating. It stirred in me the reoccurring realization that I really do miss being in school. When one gets excited to talk about qualitative and quantitative analysis, there’s certain to be a problem… Problem. Now that starts with a “p” which makes me think of Ph.d… oh, one day, one day...
Anyway, it was good, interesting and a lot of togetherness. Sometimes I feel like my world exists only of these 15 or so people! But I had some good food in the evenings and a nice shower and squishy bed in the hotel, did some shopping and oh, had a semi-disastrous salon experience…
My hair has gotten long, really long for me in recent years, and though I’d decided to let it grow so I could continue wearing it in a ponytail 24/7, what I really needed was a color. My once-lovely highlights had grown out halfway down my head, and well, the gray was showing. So, to simplify things, I decided to ask for just one color and get it all dyed back my natural color – medium brown. Pretty straightforward, I thought, and easy to communicate with a book of samples to point to and a colleague there translating for me. But oh no, it wasn’t simple at all.
Suffice it to say, two hours later, after having my hair methodically painted with some substance that smelled suspiciously like bleach and watching my hairline underneath become a dark shade of orange, the hair was washed, the towel removed and as I saw it unveiled in the mirror all I could say was, “Oh my god!”
And so now, my hair is far, far from a nice shade of “medium brown.” It’s more like an orangey-reddish sorta brown that glows much more vividly in the front than in the back. But I guess that “simple” request was much like many things in my life the past few months… it was Lost in Translation.
The adventures large and small, trivial and significant, never seem to stop.
Speaking of, I’m going to India later this month and am absolutely thrilled. We have “R & R” every few months that’s basically just a free week off, implemented because there were so many people way too stressed out that never could tear themselves away from work. But I will indeed be exiting Indonesia, and what better place to go than somewhere I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember… and now it’s only a short plane flight (or two) away! My dear friend Jennifer (aka The Cowgirl) is coming from D.C. to meet me in Delhi, so not only do I get to traipse through a new country, I get to journey with someone I love and adore and have missed terribly. It will be amazing!
Work-wise, I’m organizing an event for Monday with one of our big partner organizations (working again with the guy who I met within my first few weeks here who was the veteran journalist I thought could be a mentor). One of the housing sites we’re funding through them is finished so we’re doing an “Opening Ceremony” where we’ll hand over keys to the families moving in, have the big wigs speak, and hopefully have some media come out, too, to spread the good news. I’ve gone through every back alley way I know trying to get the Aceh governor to come, and right now it’s looking like the Southern Charm may just have prevailed in Indonesia again… Will let you know how it all goes, so just say a prayer for us Monday morning (Sunday night there) that it all comes together. There are many, many loose ends left to tie up which is why I’m back in Banda from the training earlier than everyone else…
And this event honoring and celebrating the 42 persevering families who will at last have a home to call their own again is just one sliver of light of the Afterglow shining on me in Aceh. My head is so full of ideas that I’ve only partially begun to get down on paper, and hopefully, in the coming weeks will be able to get it all formed into a strategic communication plan for our program here. I want to do and leave something that’s sustainable… long after my journey here has ended. There are lots of people that need to hear from us, and most of all, the people we’re trying to help. And uncovering and understanding the best means through which to do that is a challenge in and of its self… But I’m putting together the pieces of the puzzle, which will likely form a blank canvas to then create upon. Endless possibilities are slightly scary, but mostly… exciting.
I read something today that really moved me and is a link I wanted to share. It was an article from MSF/Doctors Without Borders and described the 10 most underreported humanitarian stories in the world today. Scrolling through line of line of text reawakened a profound awareness of the Reality of the world we live in, and was a good dose of, well, Reality…. Having been mentally wandering through the ups and downs of day to day trying to figure out, carve or create a place and role for myself here, I had forgotten about so much… and even so much of what was happening not too long ago in the community I’m immersed in – civil conflict, people dying of diseases completely curable in the Western world – it’s taking place somewhere in the world every single minute. And I share this not to depress you, but to reawaken you, because maybe you need it like I did… and because we can’t help solve problems that we chose to ignore. Awareness equals Action… and I believe we are all Called To Make Difference.
With love and prayers from Banda,
bonnie jean
Perhaps I’m in the afterglow of my time here in Indonesia. The brightly-lit busyness of the first few months segwayed into what at times felt like the darkness of the past few weeks. But now, now the light is peaking through again, and I’m waiting and watching as beautiful hues reform against the clouds.
On my last blog my sister Angie gave me what I felt like was Divine Permission to write about boring things. Because, yes, I often do feel like things are monotonous and that I’ve transplanted myself into the eastern hemisphere yet still have an office job. It’s excruciating at times. But it’s all part of it, and that part I know I haven’t written very much about, for obvious reasons. So, be forewarned, that what follows will likely not be inspirational or exciting, but it’s still… me.
I have the Yellow Palace to myself tonight and am sitting outside on the porch enjoying the cacophony of insects and our orange kitty who probably thought we’d abandoned him. My housemates are still in Medan at a team training that I bailed out of early today because work duties lured me back. I went there on Saturday, and since it’s third or so largest city in Indonesia, there was actually stuff to do… and a Starbucks. I helped with set up and then participated in what was and is a week of programmatic and strategic planning jibber jabber that in many ways was… fascinating. It stirred in me the reoccurring realization that I really do miss being in school. When one gets excited to talk about qualitative and quantitative analysis, there’s certain to be a problem… Problem. Now that starts with a “p” which makes me think of Ph.d… oh, one day, one day...
Anyway, it was good, interesting and a lot of togetherness. Sometimes I feel like my world exists only of these 15 or so people! But I had some good food in the evenings and a nice shower and squishy bed in the hotel, did some shopping and oh, had a semi-disastrous salon experience…
My hair has gotten long, really long for me in recent years, and though I’d decided to let it grow so I could continue wearing it in a ponytail 24/7, what I really needed was a color. My once-lovely highlights had grown out halfway down my head, and well, the gray was showing. So, to simplify things, I decided to ask for just one color and get it all dyed back my natural color – medium brown. Pretty straightforward, I thought, and easy to communicate with a book of samples to point to and a colleague there translating for me. But oh no, it wasn’t simple at all.
Suffice it to say, two hours later, after having my hair methodically painted with some substance that smelled suspiciously like bleach and watching my hairline underneath become a dark shade of orange, the hair was washed, the towel removed and as I saw it unveiled in the mirror all I could say was, “Oh my god!”
And so now, my hair is far, far from a nice shade of “medium brown.” It’s more like an orangey-reddish sorta brown that glows much more vividly in the front than in the back. But I guess that “simple” request was much like many things in my life the past few months… it was Lost in Translation.
The adventures large and small, trivial and significant, never seem to stop.
Speaking of, I’m going to India later this month and am absolutely thrilled. We have “R & R” every few months that’s basically just a free week off, implemented because there were so many people way too stressed out that never could tear themselves away from work. But I will indeed be exiting Indonesia, and what better place to go than somewhere I’ve wanted to see for as long as I can remember… and now it’s only a short plane flight (or two) away! My dear friend Jennifer (aka The Cowgirl) is coming from D.C. to meet me in Delhi, so not only do I get to traipse through a new country, I get to journey with someone I love and adore and have missed terribly. It will be amazing!
Work-wise, I’m organizing an event for Monday with one of our big partner organizations (working again with the guy who I met within my first few weeks here who was the veteran journalist I thought could be a mentor). One of the housing sites we’re funding through them is finished so we’re doing an “Opening Ceremony” where we’ll hand over keys to the families moving in, have the big wigs speak, and hopefully have some media come out, too, to spread the good news. I’ve gone through every back alley way I know trying to get the Aceh governor to come, and right now it’s looking like the Southern Charm may just have prevailed in Indonesia again… Will let you know how it all goes, so just say a prayer for us Monday morning (Sunday night there) that it all comes together. There are many, many loose ends left to tie up which is why I’m back in Banda from the training earlier than everyone else…
And this event honoring and celebrating the 42 persevering families who will at last have a home to call their own again is just one sliver of light of the Afterglow shining on me in Aceh. My head is so full of ideas that I’ve only partially begun to get down on paper, and hopefully, in the coming weeks will be able to get it all formed into a strategic communication plan for our program here. I want to do and leave something that’s sustainable… long after my journey here has ended. There are lots of people that need to hear from us, and most of all, the people we’re trying to help. And uncovering and understanding the best means through which to do that is a challenge in and of its self… But I’m putting together the pieces of the puzzle, which will likely form a blank canvas to then create upon. Endless possibilities are slightly scary, but mostly… exciting.
I read something today that really moved me and is a link I wanted to share. It was an article from MSF/Doctors Without Borders and described the 10 most underreported humanitarian stories in the world today. Scrolling through line of line of text reawakened a profound awareness of the Reality of the world we live in, and was a good dose of, well, Reality…. Having been mentally wandering through the ups and downs of day to day trying to figure out, carve or create a place and role for myself here, I had forgotten about so much… and even so much of what was happening not too long ago in the community I’m immersed in – civil conflict, people dying of diseases completely curable in the Western world – it’s taking place somewhere in the world every single minute. And I share this not to depress you, but to reawaken you, because maybe you need it like I did… and because we can’t help solve problems that we chose to ignore. Awareness equals Action… and I believe we are all Called To Make Difference.
With love and prayers from Banda,
bonnie jean
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