Helping The Less Fortunate

Since moving to Indonesia, we have been trying to find ways to contribute to help the people who are less fortunate here.

At first we thought of making monetary donations (which we already do via the church) but we do not feel very confident about the receiving parties making good use of the money. Morever the level of corruption in the country is making us think twice about handing in cash to people that we do not know.

Here are a few ways that we tried to help:

1. Donation of rice to the orphanage - we visited an orphanage one day and decided to purchase five 50kg bags of white rice for the orphans.
2. Credit for motorcycle repairs - our ex-driver Yudi used to know how to repair bikes and we lent him US$250 for him to purchase a second hand bike to fix up then sell it to earn money. After almost half a year has gone by, we doubt that he has earned any extra money to pay us back but it is OK. We just assumed that the money has been used to help Yudi.
3. Time off for schooling - Our maid is only 17 years old and she was forced to stop schooling due to the need to find work. Therefore we gave her time off to let her attend 2 hours of class in school 3x/week.
4. Credit & time off for schooling - Our current driver Iwan was forced out of school to find work when he was 15. We also gave him time off to attend classes 2 hrs for 3x/week. We also paid for his school fees of US$250 for a 6 months crash course to get his high school diploma.

Hopefully all the aforementioned deeds could help the people who are in need, especially those whom we deal with on a daily basis.

The Secret

Earlier this week I watched a documentary called "the Secret". It was referring to the secret for getting what we want in life.

It uses the "Laws of Attraction" whereby we need to 1) ASK for the things that we want, then 2) ANSWER what to our requests via daily visual aids, then we will eventually 3) RECEIVE the things that we want. The world will give us what we want if we can focus.

A VISION BOARD was suggested to be developed and we should put in all the pictures and photos of the things that we want and look at the board daily. We have to think of the things all the time and eventually a "higher force" will make the things happen for us.

It is also important not to keep reminding ourselves about the bad things that happened and not to dwell in our sorrows. The negative thoughts will generate a vicious cycle and the higher force will grant us what we often think about.....the concept is like requesting multiple wishes from the genie in the Aladdin story (be it good things or bad things).

Here's a sample of the vision board that I have developed (what I want in my life):















Hopefully I will be able to get all of them in the near future!

Mayor Election in Palembang

June 7, 2008 is the election day for Palembang's mayor. This event is held once every 5 years. Our factory has only been established for 3.5 years, so this is the first time we had to give time off to employees to go back and vote.

Here are some interesting Indonesian words used during the election period and some interesting facts about elections and voting here:

1. COBLOS (sounds like & pronounced as job-loss) - to vote; literally it means "penetrating a soft object, like paper". Here they had to poke a hole through the voting sheet instead of putting an "X" or tick mark.
2. PILKADA - Abbreviation for PILihan (selection) - KApala (head) - DAerah (area), short for election.
3. TENDA - tents. They put up canvas covered tents at each community area for people to vote.
4. WALIKOTA - mayor
5. Voting period starts from 7am-1pm and the results will be announced by 7pm latest on the same day.
6. Rumors say that after 7pm normally there will be activities of unrest / demonstrations / violence from the losing parties and people are encouraged to stay home.
7. During the voting period 7am-1pm, all activities are put on hold and the day itself is actually a public holiday but it was not observed by our company. We still do not know whether the restaurants are open for lunch?

The next election will be the South Sumatra Governor election in September 2008 (but heard it might be delayed until after the Hari Raya Aidulfitri celebration in October 2008).

A Break After 3 Months

My work in Palembang only allows me to take 10 days off after working for 3 months. Last week was the time for a break and we decided to spend a few days in Port Dickson.

So we booked ourselves in Avillion Hotel Port Dickson, supposedly a 4 star hotel with over the sea chalets. The environment was pretty nice. All of us liked the place because:

1. We all love the beach & sea
2. We have a seaview room that has a balcony
3. We played in the sand then swam in the pool everyday
4. Loved the open air bathroom/shower
   

But a few minuses of that place were:

1. My wife got bitten by sand flies and they itched for a week!
2. I lost my credit card (partially my fault for not getting it back from the cashier after she swiped it, but if they were professionals they should have handed it back with the receipts)
3. The food is expensive but not up to a 4 star hotel's standard (too salty!)

In summary, we all enjoyed a short break after spending 3 months in Palembang.

Finally A Maid!

We just managed to get a stay-in maid a few days ago after more than a month living without a maid. We had to take her for a medical exam first to get tested for Hepititis B and Tuberculosis before confirming her to work for us.

According to the locals, many maids are afraid of taking blood tests because of the needles and also they believe that only the sick would go to hospitals. Perhaps the word "Rumah Sakit" in Indonesian language is creating the phobia because it literally translates to "House for the Sick".

We just hope that this maid would work diligently and be more polite because our previous one was constantly cutting corners and also a bit arrogant. This one is 18 years old and she used for work for some PUSRI people who mistreated her (they got her to take care of 3 kids and always delay her meal hours). Hopefully she could recognize the positive change in her new work environment and put in her best effort.