A big day

Today is a big day for Indonesia as the country has just finished presidential election. This second direct voting went by quickly and peacefully. I should mention that Makassar is actually where one of the candidate is from (JK) and his house is actually 30m away from our hotel.

As I am writing this, the rest of the team is probably sleeping on their bus ride back to our lovely Hotel Banua. The team took a day off (again!?) at Bantimurung, apparently one of the best waterfalls in Southeast Asia. It really is an awesome place though, highly recommend people to visit if you ever drop by Sulawesi.

















Sadly, Huong fell sick during lunch so we two had returned to the hotel earlier to take a break. (we finished watching Angels & Demons...haha)

--sarah--

Project Indonesia's AMAZING Partners

Here to recognize those who are helping us along the way:
(1) Mother of all: Keke Parawansa


The facilitator for PI'08 and PI'09, me and Syamil cannot agree more that nothing would have happened without her support and her magical connections in Makassar.

(2) CARE International, Indonesia
(linked with USAID and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health)


The future mentors of local SEALNet Makkasar team. We have great expectations for them in their upcoming water safety promotion in the slum area.

(3) Panyingkul

A national society of writers and artists. We have been working closely with their local branch here in Makassar. As I have written before, they are super creative and talented and exciting to work with. We will have performances together on the water carnival day. I should also mention that they are the ones who hooked us up with all media. Props to Nilam and Abdi!!!

(4) BAPPEDA, city government Makassar

Despite the hideous bureaucracy. I guess we should still thank them for renting us the bus and meeting room. Better work with than against the local government right? The hope is still high that they will support whatever local Makassar team plans to do in the future.

Media Partners
(1) Prambors Radio Station

A pretty well-known national radio station. They are our 'exclusive' radio station that covered our outreach activities. They are also going to do a live coverage for the upcoming carnival event! In case you didn't know, Syamil has turned into a radio celebrity in Makassar, seducing thousands of general crowd with his very sexy voice.

(2) Madama Radio Station
The first radio station for the youth here in Makassar, they invited us for a live program to advertize our program. The radio station has a fixed fans in high school, Jr. High schools and universities - Syamil has again seduced all the young ladies in Makassar.

(3) Suara Perempuan Radio station (Voices of the Women)
As the name of the radio station suggests, all their programs target mothers and matured women in the city. An essential part of water safety promotion invovles the empowerment and educationn of women, so of course, S&S&Keke got in touch with them.
Also, Syamil has did it again, secuding all the older women (ibu-ibu) in the town. Dayum!

(4) Fajar TV
A well-established TV station here in Makassar.
They were supposed to do a coverage on our children oureach activities. Sadly, the cameraman fell sick (-"-) and so they couldn't make it to the site. At any rate, we will have them cover the water carnival event!

(5) Tribun Timor

The Makassar branch of a national newspaper "Kompas", they will have a profile page for SEALNet. We will also be taking up some space on water carnival. Can't wait to buy this newspaper and show it to my parents haha.

Moving fast

so im still trying to recap here...

6/29 (Day1): official opening day for Project Indonesia.
S&S&Keke's logistic runs and letter writings have paid off somewhat; we managed to get a office in the city government to gather. Everyone was a bit shy and awkward at first, but we were confident that they were going to be superoutgoing after some introductions and icebreakers, which was exactly the came. The local students were dismissed at 3pm. The rest of the team found a Dunkin donut near our hotel, where we had a focused afternoon to discuss and prepare for leadership workshops, community outreach, and 'Children's day'.

6/30 (Day2): leadership workshop
Huan-Ting and Su(pachaya) did an amazing job! all of us not only laughed a lot, built several cities, but we also have learned a lot about leadership.


We had originally planned to do site visits, but the local government had decided at very last minute that we will not have the bus, so we switched things around and had our first meeting with the local students regarding the community outreach activities.

I wish the internet is fast enough so I can upload more pictures... Above is Jalan Sehat on June 28th.

Today is July 5th and the lack of update is because we have been really busy! The high school and university students are mostly very outgoing although some can be really shy sometimes. We've had our first leadership workshop and community outreach (two days ago).

Also we had Childrens' Day where we invited children and mothers to gather and have water/sanitation related activities and to our suprise, more than 500 people showed up. Shahfar went from house to house to invite the locals and instead of saying HARI ANAK BESOK GRATIS (Childrens' Day tomorrow, and its free) she said BAKSO GRATIS (free bakso (local food)) but everything turned out well :)

Team members will update more soon, we are having sustainability discussion and are establishing the local team today.

Syamil

Ciao

----

ps. the food vendors move with the crowd but only at slower pace.

pps. we attended the walk to ambush the mayor -- we were hoping to introduce SEALNet team to him -- we obviously failed because he was surrounded by 50,000 people. but that's ok. we will just have to introduce SEALNet with our good work.