Goodbye Australia, hello Indonesia!

Firstly we thought we’d give you guys a bit of information about what we’re doing in Indonesia. About 3 years ago we did a stint of living in Sweden and doing some travel around the world. When we got back to Australia and returned to normality we felt that living abroad had really given us the desire to do work overseas. We discovered Australian Volunteers International (AVI), one of a few government-sponsored organisations that pairs skilled volunteers with local partner organisations in various developing and underdeveloped countries around the world, primarily in our immediate region. Given Indonesia’s proximity to Australia and the fact that we both speak Bahasa Indonesia it was an obvious choice, the other being Timor Leste. We both set about applying for suitable volunteer positions in both countries.

After a lengthy application and screening process and some hiccups along the way, I (Nat) finally secured a position as a research editor at an Indonesian women’s rights organisation called Komisi Anti-Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan (National Commission for Anti-Violence Against Women) or “Komnas Perempuan” for short. Indonesians absolutely love their acronyms. Given the position will involve utilising legal, research and translation skills I’m hoping my background as a lawyer and ability to speak Bahasa come in handy. Candice is still in the process of firming up the details of her position and we don’t yet know how that will pan out. We’ll keep you up to date when we know more.

The flight from Melbourne to Jakarta via Sydney was relatively uneventful and really the first time I felt really excited about moving to Indonesia. It was the first time either of us had flown Garuda and despite the bad reputation of the airline, we were pleasantly surprised to find the service excellent. Apparently they have really picked up in recent years. The picture above is actually us on the train to Yogyakarta not the plane but we thought it looked appropriate.

Jakarta airport looked very 1980s and we could already sense the humidity outside as we got off the plane. Jon, our AVI in-country manager was there to meet us with his team and they took us to our hotel for the first few days.

This intake of AVI volunteers in Indonesia comprises seven people – Candice and I, Horst and Alice, Dennis and Deborah, and Jen. Jen, Dennis and Deborah are stationed in Bali while the rest of us are in Jakarta. The first four days or so were spent mainly at the AVI office in Jakarta spent doing our orientation with briefings from local organisations, AVI, the Australian Embassy doctor, AusAid and really just getting set up. We didn’t see much of Jakarta except the traffic. It was almost quicker to walk from our hotel to the AVI office than to drive. In fact on a couple of occasions it would have been!

A layer of smog covers Jakarta most of the time

In terms of population, greater Jakarta is the second largest city in the world after Mexico City. The greater urban area is made up of about 26 million people, half of which commute in and out of the city centre daily. That’s more than the entire population of Australia moving around an area smaller than Melbourne. And it’s getting bigger! The infrastructure can hardly cope with the traffic and we reckon if most people didn’t get around on scooters, there would be no way the roads could accommodate that many cars.

There is an ever-present smog in the air (which we could see from the plane) that prevents you from ever seeing the sky or the stars and there are no footpaths. Having spent a lot of time in South East Asia, and in particular Malaysia, we had expected Jakarta to be similar to Kuala Lumpur given the similarities in language, history and culture between the two nations. We were quite surprised to discover how much poorer and underdeveloped Jakarta is in general despite the opulent wealth displayed by some people here and the hundreds of shopping malls.

Having said all that Jakarta is quite green and the people are very friendly and helpful. We don’t feel as if it is as dangerous as many other countries and violent crime is quite low.

Apart from Jon, the AVI staff based here are entirely Indonesian. Nova, Tuti, Slamet and Aurora were extremely helpful and went out of their way to help us settle in. We’ve now got Indonesian mobiles so send us an email if you want our numbers. It’s cheaper for us to call you though!

These are only our initial perceptions of Jakarta. I'm sure our opinion will change as we get to know our new home! We'll post another update shortly as we're actually already in Yogyakarta for language training as we write this.