Sengkanaung: One in Heart

On Friday, 27 June, the 'Sengkanaung' Community Education Resource Centre was officially opened. Present were the local council leaders, staff and board of Bridge of Hope and many children and adults from the community of Sumompo. Sengkanuang is a word from the language of Sangihe, a collection of Islands to the north of Manado. The majority of the residents in Sumompo are from Sangihe, and thus the name reflects their culture and background. The word means One in Heart, which is a fitting title for the aims of this education resource centre. The name was chosen by local 13 year old student Meylan Papona, who is very excited about what this means to her. I asked Meylan two questions:

Will: “Why are you excited about Sengkanaung?”
Meylan: “I’m excited that every child has the opportunity to read. Even though they may come from far away, we are ‘one in heart’. Personally, I’m excited to extend my education as I like to read.”
Will: “What is your hope for your future?”
Meylan: “I hope to become a policewoman” (POLWAN is the term which comes from POLisi and WANita which stand for police and woman).

It has been 5 weeks since the official launch with much success to speak of. Each day around 50-60 people come to Sengkanaung to read books, play guitar, interactive games, or attend an English class run by Will. Will teaches every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and is supported by Meldy Modali who is the Centre Administrator. For Meldy this opportunity is not a job. She shows an incredible commitment to the children of Sumompo. The following is a brief outline of her day:

Meldy comes to the Bridge of Hope office at 8am and stays for morning devotions until 930am. She then goes straight to the rubbish tip to connect with children and parents. After lunch she opens Sengkanaung and helps children read. Sengkanaung is due to finish when the centre closes at 530pm. However, on Monday and Thursday she sits beside the 5 children who have recently joined the Government school program offered from 6-7pm. After the class finishes, she then walks the children home, which includes climbing a steep slope named ‘1000 steps’! On the other nights there are many people who are still motivated to read, and so Meldy finishes between 630-8pm. What is more, she works Monday to Saturday! I asked Meldy 2 questions:

Will: “Why are you excited about Sengkanaung?”
Meldy: “I am excited about Sengkanaung because it gives me the opportunity to help children who are not able to go to school.”
Will: “What do you hope to achieve?”
Meldy: “I want to serve them and help them as best as I can. My mission is to love and show genuine concern to everyone at Sumompo. I see this as my calling in life.”

Sengkanuang is just one little project situated on a rubbish tip in North East Indonesia. Yet, it is one little project that gives dignity to the children and community at Sumompo with fruits that will only be fully seen in years to come. It is one little project of thousands around the world that focus on minority groups that are often marginalized and forgotten, and seeks to bridge unnecessary inequalities in our world.

Manly vs Manado in the Spice Challenge!

I have recently left the beautiful surf and sunrises of Manly for the stunning scuba diving and sunsets of Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia to work as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development. This assignment is a part of the Manly-Manado Community Partnership, which aims to improve the well-being of both communities in a mutually beneficial way.

I moved to Manado in March and since then have settled into life in Manado, and teaching English primarily at the rubbish tip where partner organization Bridge of Hope has built a Community Education Resource Centre, due to be officially opened on June 27, 2008.

Manado is well-known as the spice city of Indonesia, situated besides the famous spice islands of Maluku. Settling into Manado very much concerned getting used to spices. After a few months, I was ready for the cultural challenge set forth by my colleagues. I was to challenge a colleague in a food eating contest over who could eat the most spices. It was a contest between Manly and Manado. It was to be ‘The Spice Challenge’.

Sambal is a mixture of chilies, tomatoes, onions, garlic, palm sugar, and terasi, a condiment made from pounded and fermented shrimp and small fish. The sambal was made by Operations Manager Dony Rahardja. Secretary Venny Manorek officialised proceedings by reading out the rules for the contest, so all was ready to begin.

I began at a crashing pace. Adding handfuls of sambal to rice I stuffed myself until half his bowl was finished in the first 5 minutes. Truly, in contrast, began slowly, taking a little bit of sambal, eating delicately, and then adding some plain rice. Ten minutes later, things looked different. The spice had got to my stomach, and the evidence was all over my face. I was in a hot sweat. At this point I was forced to slow down. Truly kept eating, little by little.

It looked as though the story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ was coming to fruition, until in a final burst of energy, and motivated by a faceless crowd of 40 000 Manly supporters, I finished the remaining remnants of spicy sambal, and licked my fingers clean to erase any doubt of complete victory. All staff present for this spectacle were astonished, remarking that I have now been initiated as truly Manadonese! As due punishment for her defeat, Truly has to sweep and mop the office of Bridge of Hope for two weeks, and is not allowed to have her favourite drink Gohu (Papaya with a spicy and sour sauce) for three months.

When asked Dony said that one bag of chilies was used for the sambal, of which he estimated included 200 chilies. I was overwhelmed by this prospect, and thus after the event went to investigate. It turns out that on average 100? chilies are included in each bag. Thus, I ate around 50 chilies in one meal!! Who knows what the next challenge might be? Symbolic to this community partnership, I thought it might have to be ‘the Vegemite Challenge!’

First Day Teaching at Rubbish Dump

The sun was shining at 3:00pm on Tuesday 13th May, as Will left the office of Bridge of Hope to start his first English class at Sumompo, the rubbish dump of Manado. Riding on his little Suzuki motorbike with Whiteboard on his back, he went over the key words in Indonesian he had to remember for this class. Arriving at Sumompo, he was welcomed by several eager students, sitting in trees next to the house of the village head, the place he was to teach. Sharing some fruit, they exchanged names and smiles. At the strike of 4:00pm all was ready as Will to begin.

There were 16 eager faces before him, aged between 6 and 16. He tried to remember their names – Ockly, Santi, Titin, Aldo, Ezra….remembering all but one! Typical to Indonesian culture the children were initially shy, however, through using games as the way to teach introductions and greetings, everyone got involved. At the end of the class, Will brought out a big gold box to the children’s great surprise. Yet it wasn’t a gift. This box was an opportunity for each child to suggest a name for the Community Education Resource Centre that Bridge of Hope is providing for Sumompo. The building begins on Thursday 15th May, and should take 2-3 weeks. Who knows what name will be chosen?

It is exciting that it will be a name coined by the children of Sumompo, giving them ownership of this centre. This centre hopes to plant seeds of motivation and hope to the children of Sumompo through education. To date, there are 54 children who are working on the rubbish dump instead of being at school. Will remains hopeful in the belief that this education centre will provide an impetus toward broader horizons for the children and people of Sumompo.

Teaching at the rubbish dump of Sumompo has begun! I am teaching around 25 primary school kids and several high school students each Tuesday, a group of adults on Thursdays, and the local council on Fridays. The building of the Community Education Resource Centre has been delayed due to confusions in boundaries between districts. This means a few more weeks teaching outdoors with only a whiteboard. Progress is slow, but my joy is building as many creative ideas are springing amidst an atmosphere among the local people which is very inspiring. Everyone is so eager to attend classes.

Life at home is great, we have had many patients come through, around 20 people living together at the moment, and so I made my first sticky date pudding. It was a funny experience as the whole city has run out of dates (after checking 3 major stores) so I settled for sticky raisin pudding which was still a surprising success considering the oven was a smoking tin box on top of a small stove top!

The challenges of language and culture continue to surround me. These challenges have surfaced many weaknesses in my character. I have become aware of how shallow my love for others is. My task is not to teach English, to serve the poor, or any more self-serving clichés. Just to love, and I am finding this a tough road to walk. I am only now beginning to realize that if I perceive each person as a brother or sister, then that fundamentally changes the way I act towards them, regardless of how I look at issues of structural injustice and poverty.

Check out more articles through http://www.manly-manado.org.au/. This is an exciting long term community partnership that seeks to alleviate poverty in its various forms both in Manado and in Manly.

If you’re a person who believes in the value of prayer, please pray through any of the things I am involved in. Rather than write specific points for prayer and dictate what I think would be good to pray for, I would rather you simply pray for what your heart has connected with. I appreciate all prayers, especially from those of you who don’t usually warm to praying!

Our football team had a first non-loss recently, a 1-1 draw. We are ecstatic!

Blood that Saves Life

I am really enjoying the experience of living at a half house half medical clinic. We often have patients from Maluku come over by ship for urgent operations that cannot be performed over there. At the moment we have nine people. They have darker skin, wide feet and wide smiles. I am constantly amazed at their lack of contact with technology, yesterday I had to show how to access water from a water dispenser!

My roommate and close friend Meldy who is responsible for caring for these patients between our house and the hospital sent me an urgent text requesting anyone from my office with blood type O to come straight to the Red Cross clinic [Indonesian equivalent]. Laohin, a 27 year old with cancer has been living with us for a few weeks and needed four people to donate blood immediately. Thus I began to inquire staff members if this was possible. I was overjoyed at the immediate response by staff members with blood O. Several had given blood recently and were unable to give blood. One came straight from work over 30 minutes away to give blood. Because we were still short we rung up Compassion (other partner organization in Manado) who quickly arranged for 2 people to come and give blood. Meldy was overwhelmed by the response by so many professional looking people. He feared that he would not be able to find enough people to donate since he is from Maluku and doesn’t have many friends.

As I reflected on this experience I smiled at the thought that Laohin (pictured right) will never know who gave him life saving blood, just that it was three people willing to sacrifice their time and blood to help another. As a Muslim who reveres Nabi Isa it is fitting that it was another person’s blood that gave Laohin life!

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.