The very last moment in Indonesia..

As i am writing this report, i am actually staying in Indonesia for the last day. It is hard to believe, but the entire 3-month "double the fun" program came to an end. I would be lying if i said that i was not worried about various maters before i set off for this amazing journey such as accommodation, security in Pakistan, humidity in Indonesia, cultural differences, dealing with local people and so forth. However, honestly, despite certain difficulties, this is probably the best thing i have ever done. My worries turned out to be meaningless, everything was just fine, people were very kind and understanding! Food in Pakistan and Indonesia was so yummy, it just reassured me that i am really addicted to Asian food! Other than that, experiencing different ways of how things are done from various perspectives is just mind opening!! In Indonesia i was experiencing significant differences in living standards through many places where i used to stay. As the final stage i was accommodated in one home-stay family, they all were very lovely and kind to me. Although, i was initially shocked with certain differences in living standards, you have to go through everything to recognize that it is not wrong, it is just different. And that's the main purpose of such programs, to open one's mind in many ways.

I would strongly encourage everyone to undertake similar AIESEC programs, it literally is an eye opening experience!! As a matter of fact, i probably met my soulmate in Indonesia!! Yeahhh!!

If you guys have any question regarding anything what has been mentioned throughout my reports, feel free to contact me on my email: benda.martin@yahoo.com.au

Thanks heaps AIESEC - University of Queensland for making this DtF program happen whereby my life experience has been enriched significantly and also mind has been opened in many ways!

Chinese New Year Eve and Bali

So here we go. Me, Wenjun and Michael organized our trip to Bali! We decided to spend there about a week to explore all the beauty what is offered by this romantic island called Bali. Well, it seems to be pretty straight forward, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated, at least for me. Why?

By a strange twist of fate i ended up with two options, the first was to join Michael and Wenjun for our agreed date to Bali, or the second one to join the president of World Marketing Association for a Chinese New Year Celebration in a 5-star hotel in the centre of Surabaya. Well, it is quite obvious that i went for the second option! What it meant to me was that i had to catch up with with Michael and Wenjun in Bali the following day, thus i had to catch a plane the following morning, they took a bus according to their schedule, but the journey by bus usually takes around 11 hours as opposed to 30 min by plane, so that i was behind just a few hours As i had only one day for arrangements, my flight became quite expensive, however on the other hand, it doesn't happen to often to meet the president of World Marketing Association, other valuable businessmen from Asian business scene and also some honorary consuls of many countries. Yeah, it cost me a fortune to get a flight on the last minute, but is was definitely worth it! I would do that again if i had to!

The celebration was taking place in a 5-start hotel on the occasion of Chinese New Year Eve celebrated this year on the 14.2.2010, which was the Valentine's day. Well, you certainly ask how come i got this invitation..? Well, it was a big coincidence, the president of World marketing Association happens to be the honorary consul of the Czech Republic! And one AIESEC person accidently mentioned my name in front of him that i was taking an internship in Surabaya and he was so eager to meet his first Czech person in Surabaya and hence i was in!! Yeah!! How cool is that!! The hotel was amazing, dinner was spectacular and on top of that i was given the original edition of "Marketing in Turbulent Times" by Phillip Kotler who happens to be the best friend of this honorary czech consul! Wow... i was speechless!! And the final straw was the fact that i have met there an absolutely gorgeous woman! We are still in touch, we went out for a couple of times and had a wonderful time together. Something tells me that this is not the last time i saw her, when i graduate from UQ, i definitely need to see her, either in Indonesia or any other country as she wants to work overseas as well. She is currently employed in the Marketing Association, however we want to plan the future together, so who knows... Too many things were happening...!! I am so stoked that i attended that event.

Well, the following day i caught a plane and got to Bali! I was only three hours behind Michael and Wenjun, which was perfect. Hmm, as soon as i landed in Bali, i immediately noticed certain differences between Bali and other Indonesian cities. Lots of tourists, predominantly Australians (i would say more than 80% of all tourists), local people not as kind as in other cities and constantly trying to rip off foreigners. I took a taxi to get myself to our hotel and then to meet Michael and Wenjun on the nearby beach! Well, the beach was vastly disappointing, lots of rubbish on the beach as well as in the sea! While paddling in the sea, one plastic bag, another one and so forth.. Also, lots of vendors hassling you all the time. I was wondering, this is Bali??? In Bali, commercial places are good just for shopping, not sunbathing or enjoying the beauty of Bali. The following day we decided to rent scooters and drive around the island of Bali and suffice to say that it was much better. Beautiful places, spectacular views, amazing rice paddies, local way of life, palm trees everywhere. no foreigners around, black sandy beaches, magnificent temples, very kind people, beautiful lakes, very freezing mountains (yes in Bali) where i got drenched many times while riding a scooter resulting in having a cold these days :(. We also went diving and because i have a diving license i was allowed to dive deep enough to see shipwrecks...so cool! Our entire stay was concluded by clubbing, which is an absolutely must experience. Drinks are sort of cheap and there are only foreigners in the clubs. Our last day we spent in the hotel to recover ourselves from the last night. Just a few hours before coming back to Surabaya we decided to try local traditional massages. I got a big guy to massage me, whereas Michael got a sexy and skinny woman to massage him, not fair, hey!? :)

In summary, Bali is great, but if you happen to go there, don't go to the commercial places, otherwise you will be heavily disappointed! There are lots of places that are worth a trip, but unfortunately they are not really mentioned on internet! Go figure! Or contact me and i can give you some feedback.

Work, Work, Work and Work....

After our one-week working stay in Situbondo i honestly thought that we would be given at least two or so days off, but it turned out to be otherwise. These guys are really serious about what they do and we were actually loaded with work, school visits, presenting various presentations etc. Our work was taking place predominantly around the city of Surabaya and from time to time not far from Surabaya. The last job we did was in the school called SMK Manang, about 2-hour drive from Surabaya.

This school was just amazing, very green, students were very well educated about environment and teachers, more importantly, were an appropriate example of how people should take care of environment. In comparison with other schools, where they for instance lacked tap water, rubbish bins etc. and students actually did not consider environment to be important. This school was a great step ahead and we were so pleased to see that not everyone is indifferent towards the environment.

Immediately after our arrival we were given the best refreshments i have ever had in Indonesia and then we moved into the presenting rooms. I was presenting environmental education to teachers and my colleagues were presenting climate changes consequences to students. It was our last job so i really tried my best of the best and adequate results were delivered.

Well, as we were working for a few weeks on the bounce (sundays, saturdays included) without any break whatsoever, we decided to spend our holidays in the most well-known Indonesian spot called Bali. Yeah, we were going to Bali!!!

The 3rd internship and new experience.. the city of Situbondo

Situbondo, this is the city where I and the rest of our team, consisted of me, Wenjun (student from Adelaide), Michael (student from Brisbane) and two other employees of Tunas Hijau, spent a week of educating and raising awareness regarding environmental issues and related matters. Essentially, our main assignment was to establish proper students’ as well as teachers’ perception when it comes to environment and also to change their mind towards a more sensitive approach in dealing with some basic environmental issues.

We set off for our journey at the main bus station where we caught a bus heading directly to Situbondo. To my surprise, when we were waiting for some more passengers to come, I could not stop wondering how many vendors were coming in our bus to offer food, toys or just asking for money… There were probably more than 30 people in an hour. It was tremendous to watch them. When we finally got our bus running, we enjoyed heavy raining and thus water leaking in our bus straight on our heads. This journey was full of fun, the way local bus drivers drive is just crazy! They all should have been competition riders! I am serious!

After reaching Situbondo, we were accommodated in our hotel for another week. The following day we went to visit the crux of the matter – our targeted school! We were properly introduced to the staff and also had a tour throughout the entire school facilities. I have to say, that all this school is very clean and well maintained. We also visited some classrooms and to my great surprise we got so much attention from students, they were literally crazy about us. They were so eager to take photos with us, to pose with us etc. It was my craziest time in Indonesia so far. The entire staff of this school was very kind, nice and so pleasant! After a few hours our environmental education got under its way. We started preparing our computer rooms where almost all our presentations were taking place. We spent four days of presenting to students as well as teachers topics such as global warming, air pollution, biomass energy, climate change and environmental education as such. Presenting to students is something I am familiar with, however presenting to teachers startled me a little bit. These teachers are supposed to have sufficient knowledge about these topics and hence I wanted to make sure that my job would be done properly without any discrepancies.

All in all, presentations went really well, teachers and students were really cooperative and keen to obtain knowledge from myself resulting in a smooth way of presenting. To be honest, initially I was really scared of presenting these topics to teachers, but later I was so comfortable in presenting that it represented something what I was looking forward to everyday.

The whole trip was concluded by a short trip to the beach about 30-min drive from Situbondo, where the rest of our team and I took a boat trip and were enjoying the beauty of the Indonesian coast. Afterwards we came back to our hotel to pack our stuff and headed back to the school to say bye to everyone. We all got many gifts from the school’s staff, shook hands and set off for the back journey to Surabaya.

This "business" trip was definitely worth it, I made a lot of new friends, got to know new places and kind people and saw a different way of education and surely I presented environmental issues to teachers for the first time in my life. It was actually so interesting to be on the other side of this teaching process, teachers were listening to me; it was not me who had to listen to them! So cool! I am sure that there will be many more projects like this, let’s see what is going to happen soon.

First days and difficulties in Indonesia, Surabaya

So here we go… I landed in Indonesia in Surabaya. It was again ridiculously hot and humid, it was even worse than Malaysia I guess. After a few moments I met AIESEC people at the airport and they drove me to my temporary accommodation, which was not on my previous schedule.

When I reached this temporary accommodation I immediately noticed significant differences in living standards. Everything was tiny and not well maintained. Indonesians obviously suffer from a lack of space and therefore these tiny houses sandwiched between each other. It was the most significant difference I have noticed amongst others. Before coming to Indonesia, just make sure that you will insist on some evidence of what your place will be like. It will make it vastly easier for you to absorb any cultural shocks. After staying in this temporary accommodation for nearly two days, I finally moved to the orphanage where I was supposed to be working for another 6 weeks. Well, if I had mentioned something about living standards above, this place was far below any known living standards and moreover the TN description was just so different from reality. There were no developing activities whatsoever, my daily duties were to play with kids and that’s it… Pure babysitting - something definitely not for me. I guess I still have enough time to learn how to look after kids and thus I had to appeal to AIESEC people to come up with some other internship, otherwise I would be leaving in a few days. But since i spent money and time to get here, i wanted something in return from AIESEC, to obtain some valuable experience. All this process was difficult and full of pitfalls and various difficulties that I am not going to explain into detail here. However, one advice for any potential people coming to Indonesia, insist on some photos of the place where you are supposed to stay and double check your TN description. AIESEC people in Indonesia (Surabaya) are hard to communicate with and lack any signs of reliability. I strongly believe that they will change their approach since students spend their own money to get here to get some valuable working experience and not to argue about an already signed contract that does not reflect reality. After almost a week I managed to get myself another internship at one organization operating in environmental issues. Sounded promising and tempting. After having an interview I was accepted and the following day I finally begin my work. Thanks god that my six weeks do not get wasted and I will be doing some productive and interesting work. I think that i am probably going to be the only student doing three internships during this double the fun program :)

I began to work for Tunas Hijau (feel free to check out their website, I already finished some articles from various trips: http://tunashijau.org) and to be honest this internship looks really promising and like something what i will enjoy. What Tunas Hijau essentially does is visiting schools in Surabaya and observes how well or unwell they look after its environment and based on this assessment we come up with relevant suggestions and ideas how to improve it. There were a number of activities within the last week where I met the mayor of Surabaya and some other official people. Having a chat with these people is always interesting and the fact that I am from Europe makes them even more interested in me from some reason. Next week our entire team is heading to the city called Situbondo, which is roughly 500km from Surabaya. We are going to educate teachers and students of a middle school how to be more sensitive towards our environment. We should give presentations on various topics and also in an entertaining way to try to raise awareness of relevant environmental issues. It definitely sounds great and I am looking forward to it so much.

Pakistan>Indonesia with a 4-day stopover in Kuala Lumpur

Hi there again… So I unfortunately seem to be out of Pakistan already. Well, to leave Pakistan was sort of hectic. My flight was delayed and hence I had to wait for another four hours. Waiting itself would not be the problem, but the fact that I was kicked out of the airport to wait for my flight outside in the freezing weather was just not fair. Pakistani airport lacks any waiting facilities, big hall for people or whatsoever. There is nothing like that, therefore everyone has to wait outside and is allowed to walk in only 2 hours before a flight itself. Well, it was actually for the first time in my life to experience something like that. This airport needs to be improved significantly in all directions.

Finally I managed to get into my plane and fly all the way to Malaysia. After a 10-hour flight I landed in Kuala Lumpur for my 4-day stopover.

The first thing you usually notice when you get off the airport in Malaysia is the temperature and humidity. It literally hits you as soon as you open the main gate. It is just too much. The sun is too strong, humidity is too high and as a result I started sweating without any break for my entire stay in Kuala Lumpur. I managed to get myself to my hotel and enjoy an air-conditioned room… what a relief… After a couple of hours when I settled, a friend of mine from Australia who I met during my studies picked me up at my hotel and together we went out to the city to roam around and have some lunch and dinner. I love these worldwide connections. Local people know the best where to go, what to avoid and how to avoid being ripped off. Particularly when it comes to taking a cab in Kuala Lumpur, just be aware that you have to insist on using a taxi meter and you had better be a hard negotiator, otherwise it will get more expensive for you!

My friend and I made a to-do list for me for another three days, had beautiful dinner and said by to each other, because she had some things to do with her family. Well, I followed this to-do list and visited the most significant icons of Kuala Lumpur, which were Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur Tower and Batu Caves. I can surely recommend all of these tourist attractions, as they are just spectacular! Particularly Twin Towers are magnificent at night! It is a must and also this is something what Kuala Lumpur is well known for! These three days were such a nice and chilling break before my another internship in Indonesia. The time has come and I had to catch another flight to Indonesia.

The concluding notes of the 1st internship - Pakistan, Islamabad

The time has, unfortunately, come and I seem to have to leave this lovely country… To wrap up my entire experience when it comes to Pakistan is not an easy task to do… I learned many things, met wonderful people, worked with wonderful coworkers, stayed in the most beautiful accommodation ever (yes, in Pakistan!), explored the raw beauty of local scenery, eat strange-looking but wonderful food, coped with a culture shock, was supervised by a very knowledgeable and wise British boss (I learned a lot from him), met people from the whole world, met so beautiful Pakistani girls (you guys in Pakistan are so fortunate) and the story goes on… It is impossible to wrap up this extraordinary experience and to spit out a couple of sentences describing my 7-week stay in Pakistan, Islamabad. I consider the most important part of all this article describing my Pakistani experience is just one question and one consequent answer, which is as follows: if you asked me whether or not I would come back to Pakistan again, I would definitely answer: HELL YES!!

You certainly have to aware of some differences when it comes to dealing with local people and the surrounding environment as such, but this is the challenge to beat and once you get on the same wavelength with local mates, you will find it extremely pleasant and easy to find your way around. I think that I comprehended the way things are around here and managed to get along with local people pretty well… I even picked some Urdu (local language) and once you start saying simple sentences in Urdu, local people appreciate that so much… Just tell me if there is any other place in the world where one buys some fruit and the person selling this fruit refuses to take any money from you. Yes, it happened to me so many times, you ask how much is it and the person answers nothing, you ask again and you can hear nothing again… J How cool is that? Well, I always paid them regardless what they said, but still, the possibility that they refused to accept any money is incredible. To highlight something what I experienced and totally exceeded my preconceived notions in terms of Pakistan is the way that they celebrate weddings. It is absolutely an astonishing and remarkable experience, their dresses are so colorful, decorative, and it is full of traditions lasting three days. I had an honor to be part of their wedding twice. I was literally speechless…

All this entire Pakistani experience changed my point of view when it comes to living, happiness, the fact to enjoy everyday duties of your life and certainly the local craziness, because when you get to know Pakistani people in depth, you will find out that they really are crazy, in a positive way of course!! They appreciate even tiny matters of their everyday lives, the ones we (Europeans or other developed nations) often overlook or miss in lives. Well, I have to admit that I will miss Pakistan and my friends I made here. I will definitely come back sometimes in the future just to say hi to friends of mine or maybe for some employment…who knows? J

If anyone of you guys would be interested in getting more information regarding anything concerning Pakistan that has not been covered by my reports, please, feel free to contact me at any time on my email: benda.martin@yahoo.com.au I am more than happy to answer any of your potential concerns in order to encourage you to visit this lovely country… The first advice is, don’t believe what’s on TV…

I am leaving tomorrow for Malaysia for a couple of days just to chill out and then for the second internship I am heading to Indonesia. My next report is thus going to be created in Indonesia as soon as I settle down… See you later Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia here i come...