Bridge of Hope FC

We have started a Bridge of Hope football team! Off the field I was very impressed with the quality of their skills and confident we would be the team to beat. Well, my gift of perception was again proved fatally wrong. In the last 2 weeks we have lost 4-0 and 5-0! On the field NOTHING seems to going right. And the field? Well, because there are no lawn mowers we use GOATS! Yes, that’s right, so we have areas of well eaten grass, and others close to a foot high! Not only that but we play at 4pm. Each day here begins with not a cloud in the sky. That is until around 3pm when it absolutely pours! Last week it was so wet, around ¼ of the whole field was over 4 inches under water. This is a sight to see, and certainly makes fields in Australia look like Wembley!

Typical day in the life of Will in Manado

I have chosen a different life moving to Manado, North East Sulawesi in Indonesia, working as a Community Education Officer for Micro-financing Organisation 'Bridge of Hope'. I have been settling in for a month now and thought a brief outline of a typical day in the life of Will in Manado might brighten your day:)

6am: Wake up to the sound of roosters outside my room. Take a 'mandi', the Indonesian method of showering, using a saucepan to scoop fresh waterover me. This is thoroughly invigorating in this climate and a real joy.

7am: Have cereal with powdered milk and toast for breakfast - not overlydifferent to Aust.

8am: Leave for work on a little Suzuki 'moto' that I have borrowed from afriend. It provides great mobility, and presents a delightful challenge for typical Asian city traffic. I am getting confident now,after a daunting initial ride from the airport to my new home (30 mins away) on my first day of work.

8am-8pm....In Manado, things happen at a different pace. Here it is called 'jam karet' or 'rubber time'. Rubber time has seen me get picked up for a6pm meeting at 7pm only to find it had finished by the time we had gotthere (no surprise). Or another time where I was due to give an educational speech at 130pm, the organising group were content to go to lunch at 1pm still 40 minutes from the venue. Regarding work ethic, instead of clocking on and off at set times, work happens at a slower pace, and is both on and off. Thus I probably work an 8-9 hr day overaround 12 hrs. My work with Bridge of Hope is in 3 areas. The first and largest is ineducation in Sumompo, the rubbish tip of Manado. A study of this are around 54 children have dropped out of school to work full time to make more money for their family. In collaboration with the local Government we are seeking to get as man children back to school and provide greater access to education. Bridge of Hope will construct an Education Resource Centre on site with a full-time employee. I will bethere 3 days a week teaching English to children in mornings, andpeople aged 16-60 from 7-8pm at night (after they finish work). My other 2 roles concern teaching English to staff at Bridge of Hope, and external relations with Manly through the Manly Manado CommunityPartnership. These will develop as the year progresses.

8-10pm: The nightlife here is also very different. Most nights I am singing and playing guitar with my roommates. They are all refugees from Maluku who are being sponsored to study in Manado before returning totheir respective Islands to be key leaders in health and education.This home environment is very unique, as they are all from differentislands and each have amazing stories of survival through the recent conflict in the region (1999-2002).

10pm: I enter my 3x3 room and take refuge inside a mosquito net, my final defense from viral attacks. I had my first case of sustained sickness last week...flu and fever. These are pretty tough to deal with, I'mjust happy it wasn't malaria or dengue after spending Easter with refugees in a place manifest with disease-carrying mosquitoes.

This was a wonderful week which celebrated the giving of new land for some 600 refugees who have been dispersed and moved around since 2001. 20 families are moving in over the next few weeks, with the rest hoping to be finished in the next few months. I was asked at the last minute to play Thomas in the drama for the weekend. It was being filmed, andI was quite surprised at the quality of acting, costumes, and set with 3 life size crosses and a tomb. Upon my return to Manado I received atext to turn on the tv to see me mumbling my way through my lines over Pacific TV!

It has become abundantly clear to me how central language and culture will be for this experience. I must admit I arrived here feeling pretty confident about my language skills. The week of language schoolin Jakarta was very smooth. However, over these past 3 weeks I havebeen made aware of the many intricacies of language. For example, Bahasa Indonesia is the national language, of which I am quite fluent. However, there is also Bahasa Manado - the local dialect, which has many subtle differences. There are many words that derive from Chinese, as a result of the arrival of Chinese many centuries ago. Moreover, I am living with many refugees from the Maluku Islands whospeak their native tongues. To rid me of any confidence in my own abilities there is a local form of Pig Latin, whereby each word is simply inverted back the front. The challenges of language are always present in light of the fluidity of language over region and time. Consequently, I am experiencing "the outsider" complex whereby I can be excluded from any conversation simply by reverting to a different language, dialect or pattern of conversation. At many times I have felt excluded, isolated, and different.

In this vulnerable state, it is with such joy that I conclude by sharing about how my roommates care for their new 'bule' (Indonesian term for white guy). Without being asked they bought me powdered milk and cereal prior to my arrival so that I don't have to eat rice and fish 3 x a day. Late last night I checked the fridge to find there was no more bread. This morning I woke up and found that one of them had walked to the shops (10 minutes) at 6am to get me some bread for breakfast. That simple act had a profound impact on me regarding the attention, initiative, and care that was shown to me in providing the little things to helpme settle into this foreign culture.That is certainly long enough for a first post...hope you got this far...(I wouldn't have:)I will close citing an Old Chinese Poem that is a meditation of sortsfor me this year:

Go to the people,

Live among them.

Learn from them.

Start with what they know.

Build on what they have:

But of the best of leaders,

When their task is accomplished,

Their work is done,

The people all remark

'We have done it ourselves.'

I look forward to hearing what is happening in your lives, and hope you will find my reflections interesting and thought provoking.