Mountains of Malino

I've actually found somewhere in Indonesia I really like. In the mountains above Makassar is the old Dutch hill station of Malino, which in colonial times provided an escape from the heat of the Makassar dry season for the Dutch masters. I've spent a weekend here tramping in the rain and throughly enjoying it.

Malino was at the end of an entertainingly wet 2 hour motorcycle ride from Makassar, along a road good in places, unpaved in others, and in some about to drop into the steep ravines on which it's built. The river bed is being quarried for aggregate and sand for building projects in South Sulawesi, so there are plenty of trucks to overtake too. Great fun.

Malino lies only 1000m above sea level, but the weather this weekend was similar to an August bank holiday in the Lake District - wet, windy, and really rather cold, so I felt more comfortable here than I have done elsewhere in Indonesia. The people are laid back - but in a good way, not a lazy way, and very friendly and welcoming. So we've not had to pay for a hotel - a local family who is working with another volunteer put us up in their house, fed us, entertained us, and even helped find my sandals when they were stolen from outside the house by a local dog.

I like to think the dogs are descended from the prized pets of the Dutch, left behind in their hasty departue after the second world war brought independence for Indonesia. They're not the standard issue Asian feral creatures, and I think I've seen recognisable traits of pedigree breeds - some labrador here, some collie there.

It's not surprising that Malino reminds me of Darjeeling in India. Built for similar reasons, and Malino even has a tea plantation. A pleasant hour was spent sitting in a makeshift tarpaulin shack, drinking tea, and being laughed at by the few local daytrippers who'd made the journey up here. Apparently there are spectacular views - we had a spectacular view of some clouds, from the inside.

The rain had another benefit, as well as making an Englishman feel at home. The area is famous for its waterfalls, which had plenty of water coming down them after 2 weeks of continuous rain. This also means the braided river system of Jene Berang is in full spate.

I'll be coming back here.

Cloud, trees, and a hint of sun

We've got corn, we've got beer, we've got cigarettes - all you need for a night out in Malino

Waterfall, houses, more trees

A sad sight

Today I saw one of the saddest and most affecting things I've seen so far in Indonesia - a biodiesel plant. This was bought buy the local government in 2007, and could be a way of weening Indonesia off its dependence on fossil fuels, turning plantation crops into usable fuel, locally and potentially sustainably.

I asked how much fuel it could produce in a day. "We don't know", was the answer, "we've never been able to work it." Hence my sadness - someone, somewhere, had a good idea, and got enough money (GBP80 000, which is a huge amount here) to almost make it happen, but forgot that people need to know how to use it as well. So the money has been spent, and the plant sits slowly rusting in the damp Indonesian air.

I wish I knew more about biofuels and could help - there's a project here waiting for the right volunteer.

Why is working in Indonesia so difficult?

There are cultural differences between working in "The West" (and by "The West" I don't mean the M4 corridor beyond Swindon), and in Indonesia. The relaxed attitude to productivity, the music and TV in the office, the timekeeping, the socialising, have all made trying to work effectively in my placement very difficult. This is the sort of thing that you can either get used to, or at least put up with - but I've been feeling the cultural differences go much deeper than this.

Now, from an unlikely source, comes some insight. Listening to the podcast of In Our Time, the utterly, utterly brilliant Radio 4 programme about the history of ideas, I heard Jeremy Black (Professor of History, University of Exeter), talking about the reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain, and not somewhere else:

[Britain had] A culture in which people believe that you should change things, that you should apply knowledge for change. That's really important, whereas many other cultures in the world, and this isn't a racist point, it's a point that notes the dominance of cultural conditioning, do not believe in either the value of change, and do not believe that the purpose of knowledge is to apply it to obtain change. I think that's really crucial in Britain.

[Apologies to Prof. Black if this is not word perfect, I transcribed it directly from the podcast.]

This really articulates what I've been feeling - VSO's commitment to development, as positive change through sharing skills, seems to be at odds with how things are done here. It's as though we've recognised the challenges (there are no problems here, only challenges), but haven't accepted that facing these challenges will need change. It's difficult and immensely frustrating to be in this position.

[In Our Time podcasts can be downloaded here. I can particularly recommend the Industrial Revolution 2-parter, as Melvin Bragg weighs into some robust argument with the other participants. It would never happen in Indonesia.]