Today's blog is not a happy one. Jakarta has not treated me kindly today, I have to say. Or at least, my newspaper has been giving me ills of the dark kind.
This morning started with an hour-long ojek ride to my first interview. I hadn't realised it was so far away, and was getting quite worried by the time we pulled up - to a set of rickety shacks with the number '35' spray painted on their side. I was pretty sure the head of a National Commission into Children's Protection wasn't going to live in no shack, so I shook my head at the ojek rider and said 'tiga tiga' (three three). He stopped the motorbike about 4 times, asking various people for directions, and some 20 minutes later we arrived at my destination. This is how crazy house numbers are in Jakarta - 33 is about 20 minutes down the road from 35. Very confusing, and another strike against walking. Anyway we finally arrived and although by my watch we were on time, I was ten minutes late by the office clock, and out of change to boot. Whilst I negotiated with the random men hanging around the office, and then told my ojek driver I was going to give him more money for the longer distance (he was all ready charging me an exorbitant 30,000) with him cursing at me and leaving in a huff, the secretary was telling my respected interviewee I had arrived. Since my story idea has since fallen through, and his English was not great, his expression soon began to fall from polite interest to fairly cold disapproval, and I can't say I blame him - my questions were fairly scatty and I was very glad to get up and go. I also have failed miserably to sort out business cards, which is proving a huge problem here, as business cards are the norm.
I bought myself a sustaining coke (gross) and hopped in a taxi. An hour later, I made it back to my work, spending almost the entire time in a traffic jam. VERY frustrating. I again got ripped off by the driver but I was really tired and quite worried at this point - my LOs, understandably enough, had texted me to say they were busy this afternoon and couldn't come interview DVD vendors with me. I then received an email from the head of the course saying I shouldn't be involving them anyway, as this would put them in dangerous situations, since they might get attacked for asking about pornography (and that the story seemed fairly undo-able. Problem is, I've all ready pitched it and have it on the schedule for next Thursday's deadline). This made me somewhat nervous when my editor told me to go out and ask some vendors myself in English and for once in Indonesia I had absolutely no luck in finding DVD vendors, which probably had everything to do with my enthusiasm or lack thereof. I decided to walk in the vague direction of the Old Port since some of the other JPP students said they saw carts and carts of pornographic DVDs there, but it was when my shoe exploded at the seams and left my toe poking out and the sole flapping every time I took a step that I decided to go home.
I've been here ever since, trying to nerve myself to write this story that I know is not going to work, and that I'm pretty sure the editor will can/try and make me re-write at short notice. On a more cheerful note, though, when I was walking over the busway bridge - a huge metal beast that straddles about six lanes of a highway and is completely covered with makeshift stalls, consisting of blankets with wares laid out on them and cardboard signs with prices. This is also where the beggars live - I saw the beggar lady with the baby was using my baby bottle, complete with dancing monkeys, yellow cap and phrases like 'This is a banana!', as a juice bottle, so that was really nice to see!
With that, I'm off to try and write some more before collapsing into bed and getting up early to interview a politician. Then it's off to the West of Jakarta to interview the head of a women's rights group, who confidently told me the journey would take about 2 hours by taxi because of the traffic.
LESSONS LEARNT 22:
- Thoroughly research ideas before pitching them
- Make sure you can tell the difference between the numbers three and thirty
- Get a job you love and can do to save on angst
- People can be giant flakes sometimes
- Illness in Jakarta is best checked out if it carries on too long; the dreaded parasite has struck a few more people
- Things are always worse for someone else
Kia kaha Alex!
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