So I'm sorry for the lack of update yesterday - my determination to write every day is failing, ay me!
Yesterday was spent playing email tag with various Indonesian contacts - I don't think email is very commonly used here in Indonesia, or at least not as commonly as in New Zealand - in NZ I'd check my email several times a day, but I think here is more like once every two days! I also attempted to ring people for my two story ideas that are in the actual Features schedule and thus DUE NEXT WEEK (least the paper have an empty page) but had massive problems with getting through, or with people speaking English - something our course co-ordinators did rather skirt over in the two week introduction course.
An interesting thing here is that texting before calling does seem to be the way to go - people will either text you back to say you've got the wrong person and to try so-and-so, an expert in the field, or they'll text back interview times/calling times. It's very convenient, although a little frustrating when you haven't heard back from anyone and so end up sitting staring at your phone for hours on end.
I do actually have other stories I could be working on, but they're not due for a while and I'm one of those idiotic personalities that, once I'm stressed about something, I have to resolve that stress. It's a waste really BUT I have managed to conduct an interview tonight and have one tomorrow morning and the morning after that. I am trying to persuade my LOs from ACICIS to take me to some DVD vendors, to interview them about pornography (I'm sure I'll get nowhere, but I need to say I've at least GONE for my feature idea, plus my editor keeps telling me to SIGH). The only problem is, I'm really not sure whether the original premise (a loophole) exists or not, or how many words I can get out of it. At the very least, my colleagues have gotten much enjoyment out of laughing at me for going into DVD stores and asking if they have pornographic DVDs "Uh, National Geographic??". When I told the subs that that was what I'd been doing, they all looked at me in disbelief, and the guy next to me laughed for a good couple of minutes. Le Sigh.
After a fairly stressful afternoon where I sat at my desk moaning to people and frantically ringing numbers that wouldn't work, I met up with one of the LOs Panda, who is a graffiti artist in Indonesia and a bit of an all-round Indy artisto (I made that word up, because he's cool and anything Mexican sounding is automatically arty and awesome). He gave me the name of a sweet-as non-profit company that has a house in Jakarta with different art displays every fortnight, and also some Indonesian Indy bands - for those of the Indy persuasion, apparently White Shoes and the Couples Company, and Goodnight Electric. I'm not into Indy, but I'm into new experiences, so I'll have to chickity check them out. Panda also told me my pornographic enquiries were useless, as the vendors would be too afraid of the police to talk to me - ay me! He very sweetly offered to ask FOR me if I wrote them down, which I'm fairly sure is a breach of journalistic ethics and also, may scar him for life. Hmmmm.
Then it was back to the grind and an escape at 6pm to have dinner with Trish and Gina, two other JPPers, both of whom seem to have caught this weird parasite that's going around and APPARENTLY can give you brain damage if you leave it too long (don't get all up in scorn's arms about this, medicos, I think the doctor was trying to say that if left long enough, parts of the parasite enter the blood stream and are carried to the brain. I don't know though, I'm only saying that cos I watched a documentary on parasites, where this one guy had a leech in his NOSE for about a WEEK. Grosssssssssss). Dinner was nice - I had weird beef jerky (gross), weird sweet nut-and-muesli type thing (not that great), nice steamed yellow rice in banana leaf and a DELICIOUS green bean stirfry with lemon - yummm! Must buy recipe book.
Tonight, I finally managed to pin down my first interview, and Helena donated some money to the beggar lady with the baby (who is much better!) which was really lovely of her, I thought. She also walked the entire way home with a mask on haha and looked like a fashionable, feminine ninja, since the mask is pink with a poppy on it.
Tomorrow it is off to interview the head of the Children's Protection Commission so I'd better get some sleep. Fingers crossed the interview turns up some journalistic gold!
LESSONS LEARNT 19 & 20:
- Sleep is wonderfulllll
- Not speaking the language makes being a journalist very difficult!
- People really can be lovely - lots of my fellow JPPers who are at NGOs etc have sent me story ideas they can't use
- Texting people in Indonesia for interviews? A-okay
- Mixing in some (polite) Bahasa gets you everywhere
- You never know until you've tried something! Emailing random lawyers in Oz proved very useful, despite my not paying a consultation fee/being some complete random
- Having others who are efficient around you when you're not is TERRIFYING
Wow! Good luck for your interview tomorrow! That's very impressive :)
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