The Unguarded Blog

Half Term Holiday

2007-06-17T09:40:00.000Z

Good to have a week off over half term, though wouldn't call it restful exactly. Put some shelves up in the dining room, which should have been relatively easy, but discovered while drilling the holes in the wall that I really needed to get some decent drill bits. How did I discover this? When the bit snapped in half as I will drilling into the wall. Thankfully I only ended up with a nasty gash in the wall paper rather than my head.

Realised that perhaps I needed to spend a little more than £2.75 on a pack of drill bits if I was to have any success with DIY. After splashing out £16 on a new set, the drilling suddenly became easy and the shelves went up in no time.

After that it was down to the New Forest for a couple of nights camping with friends. A great three days, with excellent weather, after all the rain at the beginning of the week. Went for a cycle ride one afternoon, where Annabelle discovered the delights of a tag-along bike rather than the baby seat. Zachary wasn't so keen on his baby seat, but stayed put long enough for us to have a good ride.

For the kids sake (OK, mine as well!) we went on a model train ride too.

It was the journey home the following day that really turned into an adventure. We set off about 3 pm on the Saturday, but hadn't been going too long when there was a bump and and a big judder. Decided to pull off at the nearby services and have a look. Some rather worrying looking wires hanging down under the car, so called the breakdown people.

This was when it got really interesting, as we're not in the AA or RAC like normal people, we're members of the Environmental Transport Agency (see http://www.eta.co.uk/). They have a network of garages and breakdown trucks across the country and when you call them they find the nearest one to you and they come and sort you out. Saves vans and trucks crossing the entire country helping stranded motorists.

So we were picked up by a guy from Owslebury Garage (http://www.owsleburygarage.com/) near Winchester. Apparently the drive belt had gone, and the wires we had seen were the frayed ends of the belt. This meant that the power steering had gone, and the alternator as well, so the battery would eventually go flat if we carried on going. We had the option of all getting into the cab of the breakdown lorry, or staying in the car. As there were no seat belts in the cab and no way to secure the child seats we opted to stay in the car. A very odd sensation sitting in your car being carried on the back of a lorry.

After trying a couple of places to get the right spare part, and failing, we were taken to Owslebury Garage itself. Turned out to be a cottage in the middle of nowhere, with various car parts and trucks scattered about. After a bit of a wait we were taken all the way back home on the back of the lorry. This time we decided to go in the cab, as it was a two hour ride, and so strapped Zachary's seat onto the bench seat in the back of the cab. Annabelle sat on Liz's lap most of the way.

Quite an adventure, but we didn't get home till after 9pm, instead of 5.30 when we should have been back.

Zachary's 2nd Birthday

2007-06-17T05:05:00.000Z

26th March was Zachary's 2nd birthday. Amazing to think he's already that old, it really doesn't seem that long ago that he was born. Had about a dozen little friends over to help celebrate and it stayed fairly much under control - no big fights or floods of tears. They also ate up most of food, including Zachary's great birthday cake.

He's quite into cars, especially Mini's. In fact he's very good at spotting cars that are the same as ours or friends and relatives. He seems to be obsessed with any form of transport and loves going on trains or buses. He can spot an aeroplane flying overhead before any of the rest of us. And now he is talking so much more, I can even understand what he says when he points up in the sky at an aeroplane flying overhead.

Lovely Wedding

2007-03-05T20:58:00.000Z

Saturday was Graham and Jane's wedding.

I had the immense privilege of being an usher, so got to dress up in a penguin suit and look important for the day. The children were being looked after for the day by some friends so we got to enjoy the whole day without having to deal with bored children. They had a great time as well, so we all get to enjoy ourselves.

Wedding was great - lovely service, great music, old friends to catch up with, then a ride to the reception on an old bus.

Food was excellent (including my special mushroom-free starter - thanks!), speeches funny and the drink flowed - a great occasion.

The only disappointment was that I just missed out on a bottle of champagne by predicting Bruges as the honeymoon destination, not Brussels. Well, enjoy the beer you two - treat yourselves to a bottle of Kwak in the Grande Place, you can't beat it.

Thanks for a really fun day.

On to Jakarta

2007-03-02T21:52:00.000Z

Sunday evening, fly to Jakarta for two days of meetings. These are with the World Vision Indonesia office, to discuss future plans for longer term work in Aceh, after the Tsunami Response programme has finished.

A pretty full two days, after a busy couple of weeks, but the outcome seemed to be quite positive. A lot more work to be done on planning and transferring work from the Tsunami Response team to WV Indonesia, but a lot of the groundwork has been done.

Meeting finished about 4.30 Tuesday afternoon and I then headed straight for the airport for my flight home. A long journey - first a short hop to Kuala Lumpur, then an hour's wait before a 13 hour flight to Heathrow, followed by two hours in the coach to Warwick, train to Leamington and taxi from the train station to home.

Its been a good trip, but its great to be home again!

Shop till you drop, then go to the beach

2007-02-25T07:02:00.000Z

A nice lie-in Saturday morning, a chance to catch up on the blogging, then picked up by Jun and his family to go shopping.

For a place that has been pretty isolated due to the war for about 30 years, it has a strong culture and seemingly thriving local arts and crafts. They produce excellent embroidered and patterned bags here, in all shapes and sizes. Brought a couple back last time and Liz uses hers as her main hand bag. Decided to buy another one, in a different style and design, and a small bag for Annabelle. Couldn't find anything for Zachary, will look in Jakarta. Also bought myself a nice T-shirt, with a map of Aceh on the back and on the front a design involving the swords that have become the symbol of Aceh and its resistance to outsiders.

Then picked up some more people and did some more shopping and a bit of sightseeing, including the boat that had been picked up in the tsunami and placed on top of a house. It's still there two years on. Not sure what the eventual plan for it is, but they could repair the house and use it as a memorial or small museum about the tsunami, with pictures and stories inside. That would seem to me to be a good way to use the place, rather than just have people come and gorp at it without finding out more about what happened.

Then it was off to the Aceh Museum. Like many museums in these kind of places, it could be improved and made more attractive to visitors, but it had some very interesting things. There was a traditional Acehnese wooden house, which is quite different to the ones being rebuilt after the tsunami. Also, there was a section about the history of the Dutch colonial period here. It was quite horrific reading about the brutality of the Dutch and the way the took control of the place, by slaughtering the local people and forcing them to come under Dutch rule. And what did they bring to the place? Very little I would imagine, it was already a well established city and province, trading with areas around and at one time (16th Century) one of the 5 most important places in the Islamic world. No need for civilising then, which is the usual excuse for colonialism. Just pure greed and a lust for power and slaughter. This, of course, was then continued by the Indonesians as they took over Aceh and brought it under rule from Java.

The we had a well needed break for coffee, in a busy, local coffee house. Came with little snacks, including some really nice battered bananas.

Then it was off to the beach. Felt slightly strange being on this lovely beach looking out to sea, knowing that just over two years ago it wasn't the nice tranquil scene it was today, but instead the sea was a force of destruction, killing thousands of people in a matter of minutes. A lot to overcome, but Aceh is on its way to recovery. It will take many more years, but now that peace seems to have come to the province, with good leadership and openness to the rest of Indonesia and the world, things can continue to improve.

There is potentially a lot here for visitors to enjoy - the beaches, the wildlife, the local crafts, the coffee. If they handle it right there is no reason why a good tourist industry can't develop. It needs to be tightly regulated, so that it doesn't spoil what is here. No huge beach side resorts but staying in keeping with the area, based on local businesses not outsiders to keep the money in Aceh, involving eco-tourism and partnerships with NGOs to help with the on-going reconstruction and development of the province. Then it will be a positive development.

Back in Banda Aceh

2007-02-25T06:04:00.000Z

After two days visiting the projects in Lamno, Thursday was back in the office in Banda Aceh. Started off meeting with Bonie Belonio, who is the peace building and conflict resolution manager. Aceh has been a place of conflict for about 400 years, and especially so for the last 30. A peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the rebels (known as GAM) was signed in August 2005, in the wake of the tsunami, and the peace had held remarkably well ever since. In fact things have moved on so far that in December last year the first elections where held for the position of Governor of Aceh province, which were won by a GAM leader. I have been told that he is a very sensible, pragmatic leader who wants to work with others to improve things here in Aceh, so it is all very encouraging. However, after all those years of conflict, there are a lot of underlying issues that need to be addressed.

Not surprisingly I suppose, the people here have a tendency to react to situations in a violent manner, as this is the model that have seen and experienced over the years. A recent survey of the World Vision staff here in Aceh showed that 60% of the staff had direct experience of violence, either being tortured or witnessing killings. The survey included staff form other parts of Indonesia as well as the Acehnese staff, and so among the Acehnese staff the figure is likely to be much higher.

In this kind of situation it is very important to have a good understanding of the context you are working in, so that the projects are 'conflict sensitive'. It could be easy to create more conflict in the way we work if we don't understand the causes of the existing tensions and conflicts that exist in the communities where we are working. By using a technique known as 'Local Capacities for Peace' (LCP) we can build on the 'connectors' in communities (the things that bring people together) and reduce the 'dividers' (the things that pull people apart). It is Bonie's job to co-ordinate all this. He has lots of experience in this from working with World Vision in the Philippines, so it is always interesting to talk to him.

Then in the afternoon I had a meeting with the Director, David Taylor, to give a de-brief on my visit. This was a useful chat and we talked through some of the issues to be addressed in the coming months as the programme comes to a close.

I have been very pleased with how things have been going, especially after some of the problems there were around the time of my previous visit. It is also encouraging that my input seems to be appreciated and listened to, and that everybody seems to have very similar ideas as to what the direction and priorities should be.

After that meeting I then went to speak to somebody from an organisation called Community Habitat and Finance (CHF) who are doing a lot of reconstruction work here. They have quite an interesting approach which is a little different to the way World Vision has been working. Our shelter construction projects have either been based on the communities doing the building, with World Vision supplying the materials or through the use of professional contractors. The biggest drawback in using contractors is that the communities have little involvement or say in what is going on until the houses have been completed. They are involved in choosing the designs at the outset, but after that there is no involvement.

CHF use an approach where they contract professional builders to do the construction work, but the communities are heavily involved in monitoring and have to regularly sign off their satisfaction with progress during the course of the builds. This seems to give a good balance between quality construction and community participation in the process.

Friday was less of a meeting day, although I did talk to a couple of people and more a chance to catch up on other bits of work, writing up notes and be in contact with the UK office.

Friday evening was also a chance to do a bit of shopping at the local DVD shop. Managed to pick up a whole host of DVDs, and all pretty cheap. Just have to hope we can find time at home to watch them.

Then had pleasant even meal at a very nice fish restaurant with somebody from the hotel here who works for CARE International in the UK. It is always interesting to find out a bit about other organisations, how they work, what the office culture is like, etc.

Tomorrow, being Saturday, is another shopping day, though not till the afternoon, so looking forward to a good lie-in in the morning.

More drinks

2007-02-24T17:53:00.000Z

As well as the coffee, they have some other drinks worth trying here. A pretty good range of fresh fruit juices, but also vegetable juices. And I'm not talking carrot and tomato. I just tried eggplant (aubergine) juice! And it's really pretty good. In fact, it is referred to as 'Dutch Eggplant' juice, so I don't know if the Dutch have very different kinds of aubergine. I probably won't be putting aubergines in the blender when I first get back home, but they are definitely worth a try if you're ever in Aceh. There is also an avacado juice, with chocolate added, which is supposed to be good too.

Coffee Time

2007-02-24T16:58:00.000Z

I'm not really a coffee drinker, usually stick to tea. Growing up I tried coffee ocasionally, when it was foisted on me in an attempt to get me to like it, but I never really got the taste for it. However, the tea here in the hotel in Banda Aceh is disgusting, it is so weak there virtually no tea. Adding milk just makes it look revolting. It's not really a tea kind of place here. Sri Lanka was much better for tea, and in the past when I've been in Pakistan and India the chai is excellent, even if it is quite different from English tea. In Afghanistan the tea isn't the same as English tea or the chai, but Afghan green tea is particularly refreshing. But none of that here.

In more recent years I have tried drinking coffee a bit more, and am beginning to develop a taste for it. It started about 3 years ago on a trip to Albania when I was presented with a small cup of coffee, sort of Turkish style, and felt that I should drink it. Turned out to be quite nice. Since then I have tried coffee a few more times and sometimes liked it, but other times not been too keen. Then when I was in Aceh last October I tried the local Acehnese coffee, and it was really nice, so I took some home with me and drink it at home occasionally.

So after the little tea incident in Lamno on Tuesday, as mentioned in a previous post, I decided that sticking with the tea was a bad idea. Was offered some cappucino, the packet variety where you just add hot water. Probably not for the purist, but it was quite tasty. Continued drinking the cappucinos while in Lamno.

On getting back to Banda Aceh, had an Acehnese coffee. It is remarkably drinkable. Of course, it might be something to do with the extra special ingredient it is rumoured to have. Mariju ...?

Two Days in Lamno - Day 2

2007-02-23T02:46:00.000Z

Headed back to Lamno again today. Slight delay in leaving, as there was a problem with the vehicle. Eventually arrived in Lamno around 11 o'clock.

Had meeting with the Child Protection Manager to discuss the Child Friendly Spaces, Parenting Clubs, birth certificates and building the skills and capacities of the staff.

The Child Friendly Spaces were set up immediately after the tsunami to give the children safe places to play, to meet and to be able to receive help to deal with the trauma they had experienced. Now, two years later they play a slightly different role, as the need for dealing with the trauma of the tsunami has lessened. Instead, they continue to provide an informal place for children to play and study and meet together.

The Parenting Clubs are a new approach started this year. Again, this is an opportunity for parents (particularly mothers) to meet together and talk about issues around parenting and children. Although set up by World Vision the aim will be for the members and the community to run and manage the groups. For this to happen we will need to give support and training but also the communities will need to want and value these groups for them to continue.

World Vision have also been assisting people in gaining birth certificates for their children. For many people in rural areas this is an new thing, so they need help with the process, and naturally there is a certain amount of bureaucracy when dealing with government. That's not to suggest it is corrupt, simply that there are procedures to go through and sometimes local government bodies have other priorities and don't deal with the birth certificates as quickly as perhaps you would like. The issue of land titles is similar, but I won't go into that now.

So after another good lunch we went to visit some project sites. We went to a Parenting Club, which was meeting for the first time. I was introduced to them, and I told them that as a parent of two young children myself I knew how valuable it was to meet together with other parents for mutual support and help. I encouraged them to continue to meet together to support each other even after World Vision's project had finished.

We then decided to visit a Child Friendly Space. This had been handed over to the local community a few months before so we were going to see how well it was now functioning, if at all. On my previous visit to Aceh, back in October last year, I had felt that the handover process for many of the projects had been rushed, are were carried out due to budget constraints rather than because the time was right to hand over control and ownership. I was therefore a bit concerned that there would be nothing happening at this Child Friendly Space. When we arrived there were no children around (it was the wrong time of day), but the 2 men responsible was there. I was delighted to discover that not only was the CFS still functioning but it was also doing better than when World Vision was running it! Previously about 22 children came, now there were 66 children! The two men we spoke to, Tengku Yusuf (the leader) and Mohammad Amin (the treasurer) had set themslves up as a locally registered organisation, called Nashrul Muthalimin, and had received support from an Indonesian organisation to help them run computer classes for some of the older children. They had children from the ages of 3 to 15 and did drawing and craft activities with the younger ones. The older children, as well as the computer classes, had opportunities to talk and discuss issues that they faced in their lives.

They also showed quite an entrepreneurial spirit, as in front of the CFS was a little shop selling top up cards for mobile phones. Just as in the UK, the older children all have their mobiles, so go to buy the top up cards and then go into the CFS.

It was really exciting to see how they had taken this project on and were wanting to improve things and make it interesting and relevant to the children. It was also interesting to see that it was two local men running it, rather than leaving it to the women.

That wasn't the end of the excitment for the day, as we then had the journey home. It had been raining some of the day, so parts of the road were very muddy. It showed the need for a four wheel drive vehicle here (rather than on the streets of Chelsea!), as many other cars were slipping and sliding around. At one point we came to a small bridge over a stream. This was a metal bridge that had a short slope up to get onto the bridge. We stopped before the bridge as there was a line of cars the other side about to come across, and only one line of cars can cross at a time. The first vehicle was a samll pick-up truck and it tried about three times to get up the slope and onto the bridge but slipped back every time. It then gave up and we went across the bridge.

Then we were behind quite a large lorry that was having trouble in the mud. It's right rear tie had lost grip and was just spinning madly, while the other wheels had a grip of the road, so it was struggling along, with the rear sliding out to the left as it tried to move forward. It was quite exciting viewing, especially as the rear of the lorry came very close to the edge of the road on a number occasions. Fortunately there were no steep drops down the side at that point so it was quite safe.

Eventually made it back to Banda Aceh, a bit later than planned, but in one piece.

Two Days in Lamno - Day 1

2007-02-22T16:19:00.000Z

Tuesday morning I travelled to Lamno, which is a two hour drive down the south coast of Aceh.

The road goes right alongside the beach and the sea at some points, and at other times winds up into the hills above the coast. It is quite a twisty-turny drive for quite a bit of the journey, so I did begin to feel a little queasy at times. Some of the road is good quality, with smooth tarmac, at other times it is little more than a dirt track, and pretty bumpy in places.

There is a new road being built, all the way down the coast from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh. This is being build with money from the Americans, through USAID, their overseas aid body. Apparently there has been quite a dispute with the Japanese, who are building the bridges, so the road hasn't got very far as yet.

Set off about 8.15 and were in Lamno soon after 10 o'clock. Needed a drink by that point, so found a cup, tea bag and hot water. Assumed that milk wouldn't be a problem, so pured the water over the tea bag in the cup. Then enquired about the milk. Caused a bit of confusion, and was offered powdered coffee, complete with milk powder at first. Felt a bit embarrassed when I had to decline this, and then was offered a can of milk. It may have been Nestle, but I wasn't going to refuse this as well, so gratefully opened the can and added the milk to my tea. A very welcome cup of tea but then had to decide what to do with the rest of the open can of milk. Felt the best thing to do was to empty it into the cup and drink it.

By that stage I was ready to engage in some kind of meaningful conversation, so met with some of the staff from the Lamno office. Discussed the shelter, education and agriculture projects, talking about the main issues they have been dealing with in the last few months and the challenge they are going to face in the upcoming months until the programme closes at the end of June. After a good discussion we headed out to visit some of the project sites.

First of all went to the village of Ujong Sedheun. This is a very interesting place, as the community originally lived on a small island just off the coast. After the tsunami parts of the island are largely under water, so the community have been moved to a new location on the mainland. I visited here when I was in aceh before, about 4 months ago and although work on most of the houses had started, it hadn't got very far. I was pleasantly surprised to see a great deal of progress. Although none of the houses have been completed, there are many of them with roofs on, just waiting painting and the finishing touches to complete them. Others have the walls complete and just need the roofs put on.

We climbed up a hill behind the village to look at a natural spring that has been tapped to provide water. This gave some good views of the rows of houses with the sun shining on the roofs.

After that we went to see a school. This was again one that I had visited on my last trip, and had little more than foundations at that point. Now the school is almost finished and looks very impressive. There is a entrance gate at the front, with the name of the school, then the staff room and headteacher's office at the front. Behind this are the two rows of classrooms, with a playground in between. Also, next to the staff room is a mosque, for the staff and pupils to pray. Aceh is a very strongly Muslim part of the country and so having a mosque in the school grounds is very important. It is interesting that World Vision, a Christian organisation, is building mosques as part of its post-tsunami recovery work. It shows that even though we are based in one particular faith, we still respect and uphold other faiths. Faiths and faith based organisations don't have to be divisive.

After lunch we visited two more schools, one also nearly complete and with some interesting stone cladding on the walls, the other still some way from completion. Then went to more housing sites. Whereas Ujong Sedheun is being built by professional contractors, the two sites we visited in the afternoon are being built by the community. It might be assumed that community build houses will not be as good quality as those built by contractors, which is outweighed by the greater involvement of communities in the process. However, in one of these two sites, the quality of the build was very good. The other site had a few more problems, but the houses were perfectly adequate.

The final visit was to a patchouli oil factory that World Vision has helped to set up, working with a local farmers group. This is a small scale factory, to produce oil from locally patchouli plants, that can be sold locally, or possibly in Banda Aceh or further afield, to produce a good income for the farmers. If the quality is good enough, they can make a good profit.

There have been a few problems recently that has slowed down the start of full scale production, but we are working with group to resolve these issues. Hopefully soon they can be making a good income.

Then it was the journey back to Banda Aceh, another 2 hours on the windy road. A long day, getting back to the hotel after 7 pm, but very exciting to see all the work that is going on. Back to Lamno tomorrow, to see some of the other projects.

Monday Meeting Mayhem

2007-02-20T16:11:00.000Z

First day in the office and full of meetings. Had four meetings today, starting at about 8.30 am with the Tsunami Response Team Director for an overview of what has happened in the four months since I was last here and looking at the main challenges facing the programme in the coming months.

Then I had a break from meetings in order to get my offical security pass from the local police. As might be expected this involved quite a bit of standing, or sometimes sitting, around waiting, but I suppose it wasn't too long a process all things considered. Of course, there was a problem with the computer so they couldn't do me a proper pass, I've got an official letter instead. Fortunately got back to the office in time for lunch. Naturally this was Indonesian style, so plenty of rice (yummy!), beef, fish and vegetables. Not too spicy and went down very well.

More meetings in the afternoon, first with the Operations Director, for more detailed discussions on the projects, then with the grant accountant to confirm the financial report for 2006 for the DEC, look at the budget for 2007 and discuss the issue of disposing of the assets that have been bought with DEC funds.

Final meeting was with the Shelter Director, to talk about some of the issues we are facing with the house building. Over the three years from when the tsunami struck, World Vision will have build 3,566 houses for people whose homes were destroyed. Its not an easy task, with continual problems to deal with and delays in getting the houses built. One of the biggest problems is dealing with the ridiculous expectations of the media, who seem to expect the whole of Aceh to have been rebuilt by now. We may all have lots of money to spend, but there is a physical limit to how many houses can be built in a given period of time. There are only so many engineers, contractos and labourers around who can do the work. Once they are all working, there is simply nobody left to do more building until the current batch of houses have been completed. Even using the local community members to build their own homes requires supervision and some skilled labour, and so the limitations remain the same.

Given all that, the international community is doing a remarkable job in rebuilding Aceh, as well as all the other countries affected by the tsunami. A lot of mistakes have clearly been made and our approaches have not always been the best in terms of involving the people most affected by the tsunami in deciding how the rebuilding process would take place. However, we've done a far better job than the US government has in rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Well, tomorrow I'm off down the coast, about a two hour drive, to Lamno, where we've been working, to visit projects and meet people. Might even have some pictures to post when I get back.

Sunday in Aceh

2007-02-18T13:57:00.000Z

Nothing very exiting to write about today, spent most of the day working on my laptop in the hotel, with breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner and to check the news on the internet. The UK has been asleep for most of the day, with the 7 hour time difference, so not much seems to have happened, plus it being Sunday it seems that most news people are having the day off. Still, able to catch up on yesterdays footballt results, including the FA Cup games. Another bad day for Aldershot Town in the Conference I'm afraid - a 1-0 defeat away to Southport, who were second from bottom before the game. Aldershot Town are currently ninth, and now 6 points off the play-off places. We should be beating teams like Southport, but our complete inconsistency explains why we aren't higher in the league.

Anyway, enough on football, this is supposed to be a post about what I'm doing here in Aceh. I've been working on the project proposal and budget to send to the Disasters Emergency Committee. With lots of information provided by my colleague here, Jun, I've been able to complete the proposal and budget. It needs checking, but I'm quite pleased with it. Well before the deadline of Feb 26th, though we do need to get the same done for the Sri Lanka programme as well. That's well on the way, so I'm pretty confident we'll get it all to the DEC in plenty of time.

So tomorrow I'm meeting with various people, including the finance staff to discuss how the programme is going and some important issues around accounting for the DEC grant and dealing with assets bought with the grant in previous years.

Getting the bulk of the work done on the proposal will free up more time to look at the quality of the programme here and spend time with various members of staff looking in more depth at their work.

Should have more interesting things to write about in the next few days.

Magic Shirt Update

2007-02-17T15:18:00.000Z

Due to exotic foreign travel, snow-bound UK and the need to spent an evening with the family, I haven't actually played football since the last Magic Shirt post. The Peru shirt has been hanging in the wardrobe waiting to be used for the last few weeks. Now I'm in Indonesia for the next couple of weeks it won't be until March before the shirt has the chance to work its magic again. Just have to hope the magic hasn't worn off in the wordrobe.

More Travel

2007-02-17T14:26:00.000Z

After a week in Singapore and two and half weeks back home (that were far too busy to spent any time blogging) I'm now in Indonesia. After a very long journey, setting off from home at 6.50 am on Feb 14th (yes, I missed Valentine's Day), a journey involving 1 taxi, 1 coach, 3 flights and an 8-10 hour wait in Medan airport I finally arrived in Banda Aceh, at about 7 pm Thursday evening. Even taking into account the 7 hour time difference, it was still just about a 2 day journey.

If your ever travelling this way, I would not recommend an 8 hour wait in Medan airport. It's not the worst airport I've ever been to, that honour would probably go to a bombed out Faizabad airport in the north eastern province of Badakshan in Afghanistan, back in 1998. And I had to wait there for more like 12 hours. Anyway, to pass the time I had the newspapers I picked up at Heathrow (the Guardian by choice, the Telegraph 'cos it was free), U2 on my i-pod and 2 long drawn out cokes and a burger at the Kentucky Fried Chicken stall, followed by an equally drawn out hot chocolate and donut at Dunkin' Donuts. It was at least 4 hours spent in these two glaring examples of globalisation (and that was after another hot choccy at Starbucks in Kuala Lumpur airport waiting for the flight to Medan). Of course, part of me thinks that local food and drink should be more prominent in these places, while the other part is happy to have something clean, reliable and recognisable.

I managed a good night sleep on Thursday night, being completely knackered, then it was on to work Friday morning.

I'm here in Aceh as part of my work as the Tsunami Response Co-ordinator with World Vision UK, so I'm visiting to monitor the projects, discuss progress with various members of staff and to complete a project proposal and budget for 2007. This will be sent to the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK. Friday and Saturday I've been meeting with a colleague from the Tsunami Response Team here to look at the budget and activities for the year. Tomorrow I will be working on putting all this information into the project proposal.

Next week I will spent a couple of days in an area called Lamno, about 2 hours drive down the coast from Banda Aceh, visiting villages where World Vision have been working. Then I will be meeting with various members of the team here for the rest of the week, to discuss how the projects are going and look at some of the difficulties being faced, as well what has gone well.

Finally, I'll travel to Jakarta on Sunday 25th Feb for planning meetings with the World Vision Indonesia office. The meetings will be on 26th and 27th, and I'll fly back home on the evening of the 27th, arriving back in the UK early morning on the 28th. The plan will then be to have a postponed Valentine's Day with Liz that evening.

Singapore Workshop Day 1

2007-01-23T14:19:00.000Z

Day 1 of the workshop today. Started at 8 am which was a little early, especially as jet lag meant I woke up at 4 am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Good to meet up with some colleagues I've met before and to be able to put faces to some names I've been dealing with for a while. Morning was largely taken up with introductions and setting objectives, as well as looking back at the previous workshop a year ago, which was before I joined.

We spent the afternoon doing a simulation exercise which was excellent. Had to role play various different WV offices and other stakeholders in an emergency relief situation, which was good fun but also showed the complications and 'politics' in these situations.

After that it was across the road for a Chinese pork and noodle dish that cost about £1. Excellent food!

Another early start tomorrow, so hopefully a better night's sleep.

Arrived in Singapore

2007-01-21T11:40:00.000Z

Have now arrived in Singapore and in my hotel room. It's evening here, but still morning back in the UK, so I'm not sure what my body thinks at the moment. I think I'll go and find some food and take advantage of my complimentary drink before going to bed. Hopefully a good night's sleep will get me through the jet-lag and I'll be wide awake in the morning, but not before.

Singapore here we come

2007-01-20T19:37:00.000Z

I'm now at Heathrow airport, waiting for my flight to Singapore in a couple of hours. Going to a 3 day conference/workshop for work. In fact I shouldn't really be here until tomorrow, but I made a bit of a cock-up on the flight booking and booked it a day early. Luckily I was able to change the return flight, as I had booked that a day early too, and would have missed the final day of the workshop.

Had the usual security checks on the way through, except I was selected 'at random' for a special check. Did I look suspicious, or was I just the 10th person going through to departures? I had a full body scan, which luckily didn't involve removing any clothes, just standing with my feet apart and arms in the air, feeling a bit of a lemon. Fortunately this was behind a screen rather than in full view of all the other passengers, and I was then fast-tracked to the front of the queue.

Long flight ahead now, but hopefully some good food and a decent film. I'm travelling British Airways, which I haven't done for quite a while. I hope it is up to the standards of Malaysian Air (good interactive in flight entertainment system) or Emirates (great food). Previous experience suggests not, but we will see. Look out for next post, hopefully from my hotel Sunday night.

The Magic Shirt - 2

2007-01-20T19:29:00.000Z

The Peru shirt is continuing its magic! And in a different location now, too.

As my daughter has now started ballet lessons on a Saturday morning, and I need to look after my little boy, I can't make it to the St Paul's football. Hopefully there will be the chance some times in the future. But luckily there are a group of people from work who play on a Thursday evening. So I turned out two nights ago on a cold and windy evening to see how I would get on.

Playing strict 5 a side rules, I had one effort disallowed for stepping into the penalty area. As the game wore on I was beginning to get a bit worried and wondered if a disallowed goal would count for the magic shirt. The ball did go into the net, was it the shirt's fault I stepped into the area?

Then with only about 5 minutes to go I received the ball in the middle of the pitch. I took the ball past two players and was clear on goal, a little to the right of centre. I thought about hitting it into the middle for a team mate to try, then saw I had a great chance, so hit it right footed across the goal and into the far corner! What a strike! Especially as I'm left-footed.

The magic shirt continues. 4 goals in 4 games. Can it continue? Next game in a couple of weeks, I'll keep you informed.

Oh no, he's at it again

2007-01-14T21:18:00.000Z

No, its not a Britney Spears mis-quote, though that was tempting.

It's Bush. Not content with causing mayhem in Afghanistan and Iraq, he's now putting his great big foot into Somalia. Now, discussions on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can wait for later posts, but clearly neither country are now peaceful, democratic nations. Quite what bombing Somalia is hoping to achieve I really don't know.

Somalia has been a mess for many years and probably could do with some outside intervention, but US bombing is probably not the answer. Viewing the Islamic Courts just as terrorists and not seeing that they have brought some sense of peace and security to the country is a big mistake. That's not to say that we should accept the Islamic Courts as the legitimate government, but they have to be seen as a part of the political system not just as the enemy. In a Muslim country like Somalia they will have some popular support, and people have had to put up with warlords for so long, they want someone to bring a sense of order to the country. A US bombing campaign is just going to cause more problems, not a sloution.

More on this when I've got more time to write.

Bible reading

2007-01-14T21:08:00.000Z

Towards the end of last year we were challenged in church (St Paul's, Leamington) to try to read the Bible in a year (or two years). This is using the 'McCheyne calendar'. I thought I'd give it a go, as any system to get me reading my Bible would be worth trying. (I've sometimes considered reading the Koran, just to see what it actually says, but then realised it would be a good idea to actually read the Bible first).

It starts from the 1st Jan and takes you through the whole Bible by the end of December. I suppose you could start on a different day, but Jan 1st seems a good day to start, though I had thought of starting a bit early, in December, to give myself a head start. I'm normally pretty poor at these sort of things that require some discipline so have been expecting things to go heywire pretty quickly. Well, we've reached the 14th Jan and I'm only a day behind. If I can get an early night in tonight then maybe I can do two days worth tonight and be back on track. I was expecting it to go horribly wrong on about Jan 2nd, if not before, so its going well so far. Long way to go still.

Its been good as well. I've got to read Ezra for probably the first time. Also discovered bits in Genesis, Matthew and Acts I hadn't noticed before.

If there was only some system to help with prayer ...

Education

2007-01-14T20:28:00.000Z

This post is in response to the fuss this last week about Ruth Kelly sending one of her children to a private school. Now, I'm not going to criticise her, it seems that the circumstances are reasonably unique and the child wasn't getting the support needed in the state sector. However, I am a bit of a old socialist at heart, so don't really agree with private education. No, that's a big understatement, I would abolish it if it was down to me.

So why would I want to do that? Is it the politics of envy? Do I not agree with parents' choice? I can't stand the phrase 'politics of envy' which conservatives tend to use, a nasty cheap jibe that does nothing to deal with the issues at hand (although the left are pretty good at nasty cheap jibes themselves. As for choice, I think choice is extremely important, in fact so much so that we should all be able to have choices. And that is where the trouble with private education lies, not everybody can afford the choice.

Of course there are many other things where we can't all afford the choices, and those less well off miss out or go for the cheaper option. That's fine with wine, clothes or cars, but education is of fundamental importance to everyone. In fact, it's a human right according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so why should some people be able to buy what they consider a 'better' education that others can't afford? Surely education should be open to all regardless of wealth.

That doesn't mean that all schools have to be the same. It is OK to have a choice of schools specialising in different areas or subjects, as long as they are all open to all. Of course, there is a whole other debate about school standards, league tables, academies, etc. I'll save that for another post another time.

But if we were to abolish private education, I am prepared to be quite reasonable about it. I wouldn't close them all down immediately. The way to go is to raise the standards of all state schools so that private education isn't better than state (that's not to say it necessarily is now). Also, to remove charity status from private schools, so they can't reclaim tax from the government, to add to the vast sums some of them already have. That way private education won't be seen as providing a better education and so will fade away before we need to abolish it. OK, there will probably be a few clinging on that we will need to shut down, but at least then everybody in the country will have the chance of a good education, not just the privileged few.

The Magic Shirt

2007-01-08T20:50:00.000Z

Most Saturday mornings I play football with some lads from the church I go to (St Paul's, Leamington) and some others. It's good fun, possibly keeps me reasonably fit and is played in a good spirit - seriously but fairly and for enjoyment not winning at all costs. I'm not that good, but can sometimes make a contribution. I hadn't scored for about 6 months and then in December I got a new football shirt (Peru - a bit different and looks cool, in my opinion). I've now played 3 matches in it and have scored each time! I think it must be a magic shirt, a bit like 'Billy's Boots" for those old enough to have read Tiger comic as a kid. Not only that, the goals are getting better each time.

I can't decide whether to retire now or risk playing again this week and find the magic has worn off.

If anyone is interested, I'll give an update next week.

Introduction

2007-01-06T21:25:00.000Z

Thought I'd start a blog. Not too sure why, but it seemed the thing to do. I know a few people with blogs, and the easiest way to comment on theirs seems to be to have your own blog (or am I wrong on that??). Also thought it would be a good way to write down all those thoughts, views, opinions and feelings (well, maybe feelings, maybe not, I am a bloke). I usually have something to say and not too many people to say it to. The kids are too young and my wife doesn't want my opinions ALL the time.

So what am I likely to talk about? Anything I suppose, from cricket, football, music to faith politics and the joys of family life. Oh yes, and my opinions on the royal family (there you go, Amy!)

Not sure I'll have time to write too much, but I'll do the best I can.

Also, I travel the globe a bit with work, so a way of keeping friends and family up to date on what I'm up to when I'm away for a week or two.