Days Left to Journey: 15 Days
A Moment of Reflection.
Phew. I need a moment to breathe. I've been at this thing for nearly 40 days. The 40th day is an important milestone: 40 days for Lent, a return to visit a grave 40 days after a death, etc. These last 40ish (37 actual days) days have taught me a lot about myself and life's many routes. The great part about Indonesia, as a developing country (and I use the term quite loosely), is that there are no set routes of accomplishment yet. There are countless paths to a single destination, and even that destination is variable.
What I've come to realize as a late-bloomer on many non-academic aspects of life is that a passion for something shows in one's expression, words, and one's intangible aura. Some friends suggested that I have become more wise from my time in Indonesia. What it really is is that I have had time to stop, step back, and let it all sink in. My experiences or memories aren't bombarded by a non-stop roller coaster of other conflicting events in life.
Back to It.
Right after teaching, I went to Bogor to meet with Tillah and Sita about the community empowerment and conservation group in Sukabumi. Tillah helped with the Earth Day event mentioned before. She is an amazing woman who loves her work at RMI, a conservation group, and does it well. Sita, is a community organizer at the site we will donate supplies to.
Tillah and Sita (left to right).
The Low-Down.
It is a completely community-based movement in the Upstream watershed area of the Cisadane River in Sukabumi. That location is where the water source for many communities downstream begins and also the spring source for many water companies. The area and community movement is made up of 3 villages, 2 high schools, and 5 youth groups. It's hard to define where to demarcate the lines of membership. Some members of the youth groups are from the villages, some are only from the high schools, while some members are from both the villages and the high school. In the end, they all want to help and are working together with the villagers. The groups have formed a forum called Shapta Panca Buana.
Each group has its own mission like tree cultivation, environmental education, or organic farming techniques. However, the overall mission is to educate the community about the importance of biodiversity, train the local residents in organic farming, tree cultivation, and fresh water fish cultivation. The purpose of doing so will encourage the residents to protect the local biodiversity and nature while allowing them to create a livelihood for themselves. Before the forum was formed, most residents worked in far off factories and cities and so the likelihood of residents leaving the land and allowing companies to exploit the natural resources would increase if that system remained.
Now, since the forum's inception in August 2009 the community feels like they have an actual future economically and environmentally on their own land.
What We Will Do.
I've requested Sita to write up a more formal description about their forum and communities with a breakdown of supplies and costs. We all agreed that supplies would be much better than straight cash. Some supplies would be seeds, trays for seed germination, polybags for holding tree saplings, and baby fish. Our plan is to have them delivered on the day we get there. Aside from simply giving supplies, I requested that we get a half day to do things like plant trees and teach English. Tillah made a good point that while our work is for only a half day, it will show the community that people from as far as the United States are excited about the forum's work. And... if they're not convinced I'm American, at least they'll think that people from Japan, China, and/or Korea are interested too.
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