Ms Elise

More exploring today. Down a windy side road, I found this young lady by the side of a small pond, plucking leaves off a harvested plant and washing the soil off the roots in the pond.

Introducing Ms.Elise.

Her husband was also there helping with the same job, but I decided that he was worth a blip on his own, so I will return another day, if I can find the place again, I forgot to bring my GPS thingy with me. Elise was a charming and friendly young lady and was very easy to extract a smile from, a joy to blip.

The plants are used in the manufacture of baso, an Indonesian favorite, often seen being served up at the roadside. It resembles a grayish meatball and is usually served in a watery soup of spicy condiments and sauces. I have never managed to discover what it was made of, but that is probably just as well. A visit to the baso stand is a really good way to wind up an evening on the town, a bit like going for a curry back home.

The Bandung story - part 5

Indonesians are a very tactile people. I remember walking down the factory drive with my Indonesian manager with hundreds of other factory workers. As we were walking and talking, he took my hand. This was so strange to me, but I managed to resist the instinct to pull away and noticed several others walking with similar connection.

The contract job was not going well. At least two power cuts per day, resulting in loss of work back to the last file operation, so you soon learn to file every few minutes. The almost daily interruption from visitors was also a major loss of time, as we had to leave the premises, as I explained yesterday.

The biggest problem was the constant bickering between the aircraft management and our automotive management. The aircraft guys were forced to accommodate the car job, but they were far from happy about it and made problems at every opportunity. So it was decided that we would seek our own premises. This would take time to organize and prepare, so in the meantime, the entire job and staff were moved to Melbourne, Australia.

Oz was high up on my list of countries that I wanted to visit one day. I never expected to be working there, as their contract rates of pay are far below the rest of the global industry. We all had a terrific time in Melbourne for four months. A wonderful, exciting city and the people were marvelous too. I loved the POME barstard banter that I was subjected to in the bars, but it was all in good humor. I would recommend Melbourne to anyone interested. I have a big bag full of stories from the Australian experience, but I guess they don't really fit in here, so maybe another time.

The new premises readied, we all returned to Indonesia. We arrived at Jakarta airport and the passport control guy was giving me hassle. Obviously my documents were totally in order, the trip paperwork being organized by our administration staff, but still the guy was hinting to me that some fiscal lubrication was required. I slapped a Rp20,000 (US$2.00) note on the desk, rather loudly, this scared the officer, but he quickly hid the note and let me through.

Corruption has always been Indonesia's biggest problem. Foreign companies are put off the idea of locating here, there being way too many palms to grease. Happily, things are improving and the airport corruption is a thing of the past and has been totally eradicated. The efforts of successive governments to clean up it's act are paying off. However, still a lot more work to be done.

The new offices were super, the floors were level and all the chairs had a full complement of castors. The only problem was the toilet facilities. The Indonesian builders were told that the facilities were for western people and they are a lot taller, so they fitted the urinals a bit higher. I'm not sure how much bigger they thought we all were, but the urinal was around belly button height! They were going to remove them all and refit lower, which would have taken another week, so I suggested building a step and the problem was solved in a few hours. That's engineering!

To be continued.

Dave