There were also visitors galore, many most welcome and a pleasure to see but still it kept me hopping. And, of course, the orangutans! They keep us busy nonstop, night and day, it seems.

I am now in Jakarta and will attempt to blog again. Please forgive me but the forests of Indonesian Borneo, where I do my work, seem to be more accessible by palm oil concessionaires, fires, and illegal loggers than by internet.

Governor Teras Narang of the province of Kalimantan Tengah listening to presentation

Shortly after my arrival in Jakarta I was told (in typical local fashion) that we had an appointment to meet with the Governor of our province, Kalimantan Tengah (Central Indonesian Boneo) in two days’ time.  The appointment was at one o’clock in a suite at a hotel in Palangka Raya, the provincial capital, where the Governor was attending a conference.

Ms. Renie and I, along with two others in our group, took the early morning Garuda flight from Jakarta to Palangka Raya.  I had to get up at some ungodly hour like 4 am in order to get to the airport at least one hour before the flight.  To my surprise, the drive to the airport ,which normally takes at least one and a half hours under the normal conditions of Jakarta traffic, took about 40 minutes in the early morning darkness!  ”I had no idea that the airport was so close, “I told the taxi driver.

Our main purpose in meeting the Governor was to try to convince him to cancel some problematical palm oil plantation concessions in the Seruyan Regency on the eastern side of Tanjung Puting National Park.  The Forestry Minister (I don’t care what anyone says; I have to compliment him on this one case!) has refused to sign off on these concessions.  The Regent of the Seruyan region, who had initially recommended them several years ago, recently changed his mind and wrote a letter to the Minister of Forestry cancelling his recommendation.  We were trying to persuade the Governor to do the same.

Delicious food in Palangka Raya: Fried river fish and prawns

The four of us, including Ms. Renie and myself, were met in Palangka Raya by two state legislators who took us to a local Chinese restaurant for an early lunch.  In Indonesia it is still possible to take drinking water or other fluids on board domestic flights.  This proved a boon as for some reason, despite several entreaties by several members of our party, myself included, the waiter repeatedly forgot to bring me any water or the  fruit juice I had ordered.  I would have been reduced to drinking from other people’s glasses had I not been able to pull out my bottled water.  Sometimes it is best to be prepared.

The local freshwater fish, fried to a crisp, and the river prawns were delicious.  But, sitting in the private dining room off the main restaurant, I noticed that one member of our party was practically dancing with his legs as he sat at the table.  It turned out he had a gigantic cockroach go up under his pant leg.  He shook the cockroach out and it darted under the table, heading in my direction.  Suddenly I felt hard little legs going up my leg under my pants!  I grabbed the creature who was now in the middle of my left thigh under my pant leg  and squeezed as hard as I could with my fingers.  Then I shook my left leg and a smashed, decapitated giant cockroach fell out onto the floor.  I’ve been in Kalimantan too long, I thought.  The incident wasn’t even worthy of comment to anyone at the table.  However, I kept a very watchful eye on the floor for further cockroaches as I ate my meal.  My water and freshly squeezed fruit juice finally arrived just as we were getting up to leave.

We arrived at the appointment an hour early. This appointment was so important that we didn’t dare risk being one minute late.

With the chairperson of the provincial legislature, the Governor's older brother

The hotel had just opened days ago and was gleaming.  The lobby was crowded with officials attending the conference on improving infrastructure in the provice.  I met the Governor’s older brother who was the head of the provincial legislature.  He was a Dayak in his late sixties. (The Dayaks are the aboriginal people of Borneo). The irises of his brown eyes were surprisingly rimmed with blue around the brown.  I told him I had never seen such a thing before.  He laughed, leaned towards me, and said that it was indicative of his European heritage.  I think  he was joking but I couldn’t be certain!

After the older brother left to join a conference session, someone said “That family are the Kennedys of Kalimantan Tengah.”  When I looked confused, he explained that in addition to the Governor, the older brother who was the head of the provincial legislature, and nephews who were provincial legislators, there were other members of the  family who were politicians or in government service.

The Governor saw us ten minutes late.  The meeting which was scheduled for one hour lasted about one hour and two minutes.  The Governor, a thoughtful man behind glasses, listened very attentively to our presentation concerning the forest in the Seruyan area.  The Governor asked several questions but the most interesting question had to do with the Regent of the Seruyan area.  “Why”, asked the Governor “had the Regent from the Seruyan changed his mind about the palm oil concessions and cancel his recommendation for them?”

We explained that the situation in the world had changed.  The Seruyan Regent realized that there was now a possibility that intact forests could be worth more for the voluntary carbon trade than cut down and cleared for palm oil.

View of Palangka Raya on a rainy day from fourth floor of hotel

Could the Governor, I asked, provide a letter that supported the cancellation of the palm oil concessions in the Seruyan area.  The Governor thought for a few seconds and said that he would have to consult with his advisors and other government officials before he could issue such a letter.  He seemed sincere and pleasant.  We were told that he was absolutely “clean” but gave away palm oil concessions as a reward for political supporters.   He could not be bought but did reward his loyalists.  How different is that from politicians anywhere in the world?

The next morning we left Palangka Raya, returning to Jakarta in the early afternoon.  We didn’t know whether our mission with the Governor had succeeded or failed.  Ms. Renie and I discussed it briefly but decided that only time would tell.

The OFI office is in a very typical part of Jakarta, a middle-middle class area with very narrow streets (just wide enough for two small cars to squeeze by each other if both drivers are very careful).  Each household has a car. There are two parks closeby, one small and the other quite large, where children are allowed to play and people walk and jog.

"Siamese", the cat with the long straight tail (unusual in Indonesia) who showed up at the OFI office and took up occasional residence

Closeby is a market.  The market sells fish and chicken and there are cats galore.  The Indonesian attitude towards cats is remarkable.  They are tolerated and almost treated as if semi-sacred.  Mohommed himself respected cats.  It is written that a cat was sleeping on his prayer rug.  Rather than disturbing the cat Mohommed carefully cut around the cat to move his rug so that he could pray.  However, even in the non-Moslem areas of Indonesia, cats are given much respect and never killed.  If an Indonesian kills a cat by accident with a car, it is a major trauma.  People have been known to sell their cars immediately after the car hit a cat.  I know an Indonesian who blamed all his subsequent misfortune to having accidentally run over a cat in the dark.

Government and other buildings in Jakarta

Most cats in Indonesia have short, crooked tails. Visitors ask if someone cut their tails off but it is not so. The short tails come from genetics. Our cat whom we named “Siamese” because she bears a superficial (and possibly genetic) resemblence to Siamese cats in her elegance, large eyes, and screeching vocalizations, started appearing at the OFI office. Eventually we let her in and started giving her left-over rice and tidbits. Her visits became more frequent. Now she comes daily and brings her offpsring with her. I have tried to get her spayed but she is either perpetually pregnant or suckling her kitten(s).

Interesting building in downtown Jakarta

Ms. Renie and Mr. Yandi who work at the OFI office say that a cat’s life near an Indonesian local market is a good one. “Siamese” tends to have one kitten at a time, anyways, they say so there won’t be a cat overpopulation any time soon. Her last litter consisted of a remarkably beautiful orange-colored kitten that has no stripes of any kind. I have noticed that the rats have disappeared around the office. We are fortunate to have this elegant cat and her brood visiting and sometimes even staying at our OFI office in Jakarta.

A campaign banner for the current President of Indonesia on a building next to McDonalds

Buildings with flags from the party of Sukarno's daughter, Ibu Megawati, who was once president and is running again for the office.

Did I not mention that a presidential campaign is going on and the three major candidates for president, which include the current president, a past president, and the current vice-president, are actually participating in official debates?  The polls indicate the current president will win but probably not by a 50% majority which means that there will be a run-off election.

A girl in front of a street corner stall in Jakarta selling cigarettes, candy, and crackers. There are tens of thousands, if not more, of such street stalls in Jakarta.

Graffitti on a wall in Jakarta. The six-pointed star was commonly found on Jakarta's walls. I asked what it meant and someone told me it was the insignia of a street gang while someone else told me it was a cigarette brand.

Typical entrance to typical Jakarta alley

Dr. Birute at the OFI Jakarta office with the mother cat and her offspring who adopted us

Ms. Renie, office manager OFI Jakarta, and Mr. Martin from OCSP, after a meeting in Jakarta

Mr. Edy Hendras, Indonesian conservationist extraordinaire, editing OFI's Indonesian language newsletter

It’s great to be back in Jakarta, a city that many foreigners avoid.  It is also called “The Big Durian” and the pollution does sometimes stink.  Jakarta is Indonesia’s capital, largest city, and probably its most dynamic urban area.  It has at least ten million people and is one of the largest cities in the world, number 12, at last count.

Jakarta is also the city of dreams.  This is where Java’s rural poor come to earn a living, students come to get an education, and entrepeneurs to start or expand their businesses.  This is where people come to make their dreams come true.

Jakarta is the center of government power for the unitary state of Indonesia.  With regional autonomy, the provinces and regions gained some power but in the end, much depends on Jakarta.  About five or so years ago, OFI decided to establish an office in Jakarta.  We are a small foundation so it was a risk for us financially.  But it was well worth it.  Previously, with our one office in Pangkalan Bun, we were relatively isolated from the decision-makers both in Jakarta and the provincial capital of Palangka Raya. Under Ms. Renie’s guidance, the OFI office improved our communication and relations with government agencies.  Even now communication with Pangkalan Bun in Central Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan Tengah) can be a problem.

In particular, there is a tendency in Indonesia to call meetings a day or so before they actually take place.  It’s helpful to have someone in Jakarta who is dedicated to communications and gets told about the meeting as soon as possible.  Otherwise, in Pangkalan Bun we get notified of the meeting days after it has occurred!

Ms. Renie was my first female Indonesian student and did her undergraduate honors thesis on orangutan parasites in Kalimantan.  She went on to study a wild orangutan population in Sumatra.  This served as the basis of her Master’s degree in ecology at the University of Indonesia.  In some ways, she is a pioneer, having studied the southernmost of all Sumatran orangutan populations.  One of her life ambitions was to be a working primatologist and she is grateful to OFI and its supporters for allowing her to fulfill this dream.  For her, Jakarta is where her dream was fulfilled –  in its fullest.

Mr. Edy Hendras is another one of my former students from Universitas Nasional, Jakarta.  He, too, found a successful career in conservation.  He works primarily in conservation and environmental education, having set up conservation education and training programs throughout Indonesia.  I sometimes call him on his cell phone and when he answers, he’s often in the Indonesian portion of New Guinea or in Sulawesi working with local people, training them in such practical enterprises as composting or making gas fuel for cooking stoves from the manure of farm animals.  When he worked for OFI in Pangkalan Bun, he set up field training trips for hundreds of local high school students where they went into the wilderness for several days at a time and learned about conservation and nature.  But he has long been based in the Jakarta area and Jakarta is where his dream to work in conservation was fulfilled.

Jakarta also helped my dream of studying wild orangutans come true 38 years ago.  This is where I received the first permits to do my orangutan study.  I still come to Jakarta several times a year: to buy supplies, to attend meetings, and to catch international flights in and out of Indonesia.

Thirty-eight years ago I heartily disliked Jakarta.  It was a noisy, polluted city where you could barely breathe and where you could hardly hear yourself think because the roar of traffic was so loud.  Air quality was dismal.  My eyes watered.  I had a constant headache.  I coughed incessantly.  Traffic was insufferable.  Drivers honked their horns seemingly non-stop.  Bejaks, bicycle cabs, were everywhere and obstructed traffic.

In time the municipal government banned the bejaks.  I think they should have banned the motorized traffic!  What an avant-garde city Jakarta would have been then!  They also cleaned up the air quality somewhat and instituted “busways” so that commuters could get around Jakarta remarkably quickly with high speed (by Jakarta standards) buses on dedicated lanes. 

During the first twenty years of my stay in Indonesia one of the great things about coming to Jakarta was that I could actually make phone calls to my family back in Los Angeles. It took some effort but it was do-able.  I could taste ice cream and western food such as spaghetti.  Over the years I have lost my taste for ice cream but not spaghetti.  But we can now get a version of spaghetti with tomato sauce even in Pangkalan Bun.  About seven years ago we even got cell phone service in Pangkalan Bun!

I like Jakarta better now than I did when I first arrived.  I think it’s because Jakarta changed and I changed.  I learned Indonesian and became used to the rhythm of life common here.

Jakarta has changed in a number of ways inconceivable forty years ago.  It now has shopping malls to rival New York and Singapore.  All the prestige brands are here. My favourite shopping malls are in Jakarta.  I cannot even afford to think about the three thousand dollar bags and three hundred thousand dollar champagne diamond bracelets but I can browse, take a look, and move on, content that my meagre cash assets are going to save species and individual animals, a pleasure that no mere material trinket will ever provide.  I can buy office  and field supplies, most types of food, and even books and magazines in the English language, all impossible to do when I first arrived in 1971.

Another marked change is the dress of women.  Forty years ago women wore Western clothing or a modified version of traditional Sundanese (West Java) or Javanese clothing.  Now, increasingly, they wear Islamic head dresses and sometimes flowing robes.  Once or twice, I have even noticed full facial veils on local women.  In some places near Jakarta, a tipping point has been reached with signs  from the local government  saying “Respectable women wear  head coverings.”

Clearly, a dichotomy has been reached with one part of Jakarta racing into the future and another striving to hold on or to find a comfort zone that perhaps is difficult to attain in this modern world.

I stayed in Jakarta one and a half weeks, attending government meetings, working on our Indonesian newsletter with Ms. Renie and Mr. Edy, buying watches and backpacks and other supplies for our field staff, and doing a variety of other tasks that needed to get done.

I spent much time (literally hours) in Jakarta’s notorious traffic (worse now than the traffic in Los Angeles or Bangkok) just trying to get from one appointment to the next.  And dreaming, paradoxically, of the days when I could spend more time in Jakarta, enjoying it, instead of rushing through it, and of the days when I would spend none here at all.

Jakarta's traffic is well-known for its hordes of motorcycles

Atypical Jakarta traffic - not so heavy. Notice the abundance of taxis.

Carrying a baby carrier on a motorcycle, the vehicle of choice for millions in Jakarta

Not a bare head to be seen! Presidential campaign banner for candidates J. Kalla, current vice-president, and Wiranto, Kalla's vice-presidental choice, with their respective wives shows all wearing head-gear, the women head scarves and the men mosque-hats.

OFI buying forest from happy local man

Mr. Freddy, a local businessperson from the province of Kalimantan Tengah, flew to Jakarta so that he could immediately receive the funds for 20 ha. of forest that he agreed to sell OFI.  Otherwise, the forest would have been cleared for palm oil and lost forever to a relic population of about 50 – 100 wild orangutans just barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth in a mixed area of peatswamp forest, dry ground forest and cleared land near Pangkalan Bun.

This forest will be ours in perpetuity.  Twenty hectares (approximately 50 acres) may not seem like much but for the birds and mammals who live there, it will be like a universe saved!

Mr. Freddy charged the same price for the forest that he ws planning to charge a palm oil concession but he admits that he feels better about being able to save the forest!