On the road again

Just starting to feel settled and its time to pack up and go! After a meeting Monday with the head of our project it was determined that we would depart for our field work Wednesday, tomorrow. If you’re confused I posted a few days ago about what I’m actually doing here… So for me this means a 2am wake up call to board a 3am bus to Jakarta for a 6am flight to Yogyakarta followed by a few hours drive to Pacitan City. Sweet.

Thankfully I’m travelling with Rahmi, the undergrad tasked with translating and babysitting me. I managed to learn a few essential Bahasa phrases for this excursion, nothing remotely useful in conversation unless talking about kedelai (soybeans) or curah hujah rata rata (average rainfall).

I *should* be there about a week, depending on how quickly we are able to arrange the appropriate meetings with farmers, bankers, municipal and community leaders. However, being that we’re on Indo time and most things seem a few days delayed, I anticipate I won’t be back for 10-14 days. Not to worry, I’ve confirmed that the house we’re staying at will have a TV for soccer viewing.

This loose timetable made my packing a little difficult. I’ve got all medicine covered.. and stuffed the rest of my bag full of fruit and the closest items I can find to granola bars. I get hungry and rice more than once a day has gotten old, very very quickly.

Also spent some time today ensuring that we would have adequate funds on our sim cards for proper phone and internet service while in the rural districts. Cell phones here are far more affordable than in the US but infinitely more difficult to figure out. What a nightmare. My hatred for Telkmosel is right up there with the likes of Vodafone, AT&T, the Yankees ticket office, and New York Road Runners. I took some pictures of my packing extravangza this evening which I would post but I’m conserving my megabytes used.. again, thank you Telkmosel for creating an impossible system. Fingers crossed I won’t be off the grid for too long! And that Pacitan will bring me more sunshine, fewer bugs and far less traffic/air pollution than we’ve found in Bogor.

Preparing for the Journey

Today is Monday, May 31 (well, technically June 1 by posting time) and I’ve spent the entirety of Memorial Day Weekend 2010 packing. Not just for the next 2.5 months I'll spend in Indonesia -more to come- but also to move into storage until I return. Why am I moving again, barely ten months after I arrived on the lovely Upper West Side? A brief journey of what got me here. And some shots of what my entire life looks like in boxes.


My WHOLE life

My life for the next few months, even Ken Basche told me I did well packing






In Winter 2009, despite being assured what a vital part of the team I was a few short weeks prior, my cozy Account Manager position with Smithsonian Media was eliminated and I found myself a victim of this recession. In retrospect this is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Although it sounds totally cliché it is completely accurate in my life. It kicked my ass into gear to go back to school and find more fulfilling work. Work that hopefully took into account my childhood joys of bugs and dirt and my undergraduate sufferings through Fordham’s Bio dept and more semesters than I would have liked in physics/organic chem.. By some miraculous feat I applied and was accepted in CU’s Climate and Society program, a one year “intensive” MA program geared to train individuals to utilize climate information in improving human livelihood. After coming out the other end nearly alive, I can say that intensive is an understatement.

Every day since September was grueling, requiring a tremendous amount discipline and sacrifice. More sacrifices than I would have liked or anticipated. I want to apologize now for:

Any phone calls, texts, emails I've failed to respond to.

Any special events - birthday celebrations, weddings, kickball games, happy hours, gossip sessions, concerts, or general fun with friends - that I couldn't attend.

I know at times for many people close to me it’s probably seemed that I’ve flaked out, but this was not the case! I hope that in the end my friends can see this: its been a challenging year but never felt like I was making difficult decisions because I believe in the value of what I am learning.

Although I finished with exams in the beginning of the month, the work’s been nonstop ever since: everything from renewing my passport, securing a visa, ensuring I had one of about fifteen shots and medications, jumping through Columbia’s "cover their own ass" hoops, and who knows what else.. I am pooped. Exhausted. Tired from the whole year, or year and a half of rapid change. Topped off with a move right smack before I depart for a LONG journey. The timing of my lease did not mesh with the trip, so I’m saddling into storage until I move to the other side of the park in August. But I’ve got a whole South East Asian adventure ahead of me before I need to think about move #2 of the summer.

What exactly will I be doing in Indonesia? I'm completing the internship requirement of my degree working with CCROM, the Center for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management. CCROM is based at Bogor Agricultural University, a large and prestigious national university about two hours from Jakarta. See map – its ok if you don’t know where Indo is or that the language spoken there is Indonesian.


View Indonesia in a larger map

Our specific project will investigate the impact climate has on agriculture and the challenges that local small scale farmers face in this tropical climate. Over the past year of study I’ve grown fairly obsessed with the intersection of climate change and food systems, not only because agriculture is central to development but because it can play an important role in mitigating dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. I am also fairly convinced my food obsession stems from the constant hunger I feel as a runner. Hence why the opportunity to work on this project was so appealing to me.

I’m hopeful that West Java will provide a slightly slower pace of life, allowing for adequate sleep and reading for pleasure. Stay tuned on this one. Other wildcards for my new home:

-How will I deal with the flight path? Tomorrow’s journey includes: 14 hours to Tokyo, 3.5 hour layover, 7 hours to Singapore, 12 hour overnight layover, 1.5 hours on to Jakarta, 2 hour drive to Bogor. Yikes.

-How will 90 degree daily temperatures suit me?

-If I can endure the heat, will I be able to run comfortably and safely?? This has been a big concern since I committed to the trip.

More to come!