Mittwoch, Februar 01, 2006
Aceh Journal: Gong Xi Fa Chai
Gong Xi Fa Chai 2557 to all who celebrated it! :)
Yesterday I went to church only to find a surprise waiting. They held the service in more to a chinese way,
chinese songs (not that we don't ususally sing chinese songs, but this time the songs have chinese atmosphere).
At the end of the service, the church gave out an ANGPAO to each who came to church.
I was rather shocked! I've never found or been in any church that gave out angpao to the congregation.
*note: angpao is money in red envelope that is usually given to younger people from their elders, after the young
people perform a greeting to respect the elders (or in another word: those who are married and has worked)
Being home is always nice, isn't it? Being around family and friends ...
I went home for a week the other week, and it was fun!
Met some friends, some new ones too! Spent time with family was also great.
I also got the chance to join the other guys training the new students who joined reserved army in campus.
Celebrating birthdays with my family and friends ... it was a great week! :)
Thanks for the messages and emails and gifts you guys sent! :)
But now I have to say goodbye to civilization for another 6 months maybe ...
Being back here for a week has brought me lots to write here.
First one is news update: we have had another rice harvest here in Banda Aceh, in our return villages (Beuradeun, Lampisang, Keuneu'eu).
I guess it was a good news that people got the result of what they've been working on for months now.
A proof that with hard work and good co-op, we can produce good result.
There have aslo been several volleyball tournaments in town, and the enthusiasm was great.
While watching one of the volleyball tournament, we happened to see an accident. A car hit a little girl, and the girl fainted.
What's interesting was that most people who were watching the game suddenly went to the street to not only help the girl, but
also to hit the driver. He has stopped to help the girl, but couldn't reach her because the villagers came after him and hit him.
A question suddenly came into my mind ..
Is this what we're like? I know that that is not a strange thing to see in Indonesia, but is this really what the acehnese want NGOs
to see here? Can't we stop this kind of behaviour? I mean, after all that the government has done to prevent such thing to happen,
what else do we have to do to stop this?
That accident unfortunately became the start of a series of unfortunate events I encountered last week.
Later that week, I got banned from using MC's email. The problem was actually very simple.
We were joking through emails in the office, following the previous email about insurance policy.
I so happened to be the last person to reply those emails when the IT dept. felt offended about the content of the email.
IT dept also mentioned about email abuse that was going on in the office.
I felt that IT has taken the joke seriously, and so I apologized to them for doing so.
Unfortunately IT has taken it too seriously that they banned me from using the office email.
So Monday morning I went to them to ask what they want from me. It turned out that the IT administrator was very offended with
the email I didn't even sent them. My bad! He was so angry (offended) that he dragged me to the Aceh director to report my "wrong doing".
Then after the problem was solved, he still refused to give me access to office email and internet connection.
This guy took it very personal and implicitly ask for an open war with me.
I thought like that because he didn't ban the other parties that took part in the joke emails. I thought that this was a position discrimination,
because I am absolutely sure that if any person with higher rank than myself did the same, he wouldn't block the internet access.
Now that was the last bad thing that happened to me.
Weekend gave me time to think what's wrong with everything, and after several discussion with friends and colleagues, we agreed that
what we actually need is for all NGOs to run a psycho test before they hire people.
NGOs are seen from the people who work for them, right?
How good does the NGO want to be seen depends on how good the performance of its employees.
But what if the employees are psycho? Wouldn't it nullify the good performance the employees have performed?
I have talked to some NGOs national staffs about this, only to find the same idea.
We found several cases where the NGO became the victim of its employee selection procedure.
In one NGO, I found that the person they thought was good turned out was the bad guy after all.
She set up a coup to take over the office, and provoked other employees to strike.
In another NGO, I heard that one of its consultant think herself as a King and positioned acehnese in general like that, and therefore acted like so.
There are still lots of cases where jealousy was the cause and the locals were the bad guys.
So maybe if NGOs run a psycho test before they hire anyone, all those strikes and psycho actions can be reduced.
What I heard from people was that Acehnese think of themselves as a king or kings descendants, that's why sometimes they act
like an asshole (excuse my language! :p)
I'm not saying all Acehnese are like that. We've met lots of people who are nice and have good hearts, only there are also lots of people who have bad characters.
In another occasion, a friend also told me that in general, all Sumaterans are like that, think of themselves as king.
Ofcourse I have no proof or whatsoever about this, but I found this interesting.
I apologize if any of my language here in this journal is inappropriate or offended you. I wouldn't want to have another problem
just because of my use of language, would I? :p
Another unfortunate event was the cancellation of movie night last Saturday. We were originally planning to watch The Chronicles of Narnia at my house,
but then everything went wrong and we had to cancel the movie night. Well, better luck next time! hehe .. :p
Poor us! We don't have any cinema here that we have to buy pirated dvds to watch new movies.
Ouw, another thing was we also had to cancel our retreat to Toba Lake due to the restructurization that is going to be implemented in the office.
Anyway, keep praying for the humanitarian works that are being done everywhere, and for the people who are working there! :)
I know it helps a lot!
*inbadmoodallweekhye*
Feb 01, 2006
updated photos: www.flickr.com/photos/hye
Yesterday I went to church only to find a surprise waiting. They held the service in more to a chinese way,
chinese songs (not that we don't ususally sing chinese songs, but this time the songs have chinese atmosphere).
At the end of the service, the church gave out an ANGPAO to each who came to church.
I was rather shocked! I've never found or been in any church that gave out angpao to the congregation.
*note: angpao is money in red envelope that is usually given to younger people from their elders, after the young
people perform a greeting to respect the elders (or in another word: those who are married and has worked)
Being home is always nice, isn't it? Being around family and friends ...
I went home for a week the other week, and it was fun!
Met some friends, some new ones too! Spent time with family was also great.
I also got the chance to join the other guys training the new students who joined reserved army in campus.
Celebrating birthdays with my family and friends ... it was a great week! :)
Thanks for the messages and emails and gifts you guys sent! :)
But now I have to say goodbye to civilization for another 6 months maybe ...
Being back here for a week has brought me lots to write here.
First one is news update: we have had another rice harvest here in Banda Aceh, in our return villages (Beuradeun, Lampisang, Keuneu'eu).
I guess it was a good news that people got the result of what they've been working on for months now.
A proof that with hard work and good co-op, we can produce good result.
There have aslo been several volleyball tournaments in town, and the enthusiasm was great.
While watching one of the volleyball tournament, we happened to see an accident. A car hit a little girl, and the girl fainted.
What's interesting was that most people who were watching the game suddenly went to the street to not only help the girl, but
also to hit the driver. He has stopped to help the girl, but couldn't reach her because the villagers came after him and hit him.
A question suddenly came into my mind ..
Is this what we're like? I know that that is not a strange thing to see in Indonesia, but is this really what the acehnese want NGOs
to see here? Can't we stop this kind of behaviour? I mean, after all that the government has done to prevent such thing to happen,
what else do we have to do to stop this?
That accident unfortunately became the start of a series of unfortunate events I encountered last week.
Later that week, I got banned from using MC's email. The problem was actually very simple.
We were joking through emails in the office, following the previous email about insurance policy.
I so happened to be the last person to reply those emails when the IT dept. felt offended about the content of the email.
IT dept also mentioned about email abuse that was going on in the office.
I felt that IT has taken the joke seriously, and so I apologized to them for doing so.
Unfortunately IT has taken it too seriously that they banned me from using the office email.
So Monday morning I went to them to ask what they want from me. It turned out that the IT administrator was very offended with
the email I didn't even sent them. My bad! He was so angry (offended) that he dragged me to the Aceh director to report my "wrong doing".
Then after the problem was solved, he still refused to give me access to office email and internet connection.
This guy took it very personal and implicitly ask for an open war with me.
I thought like that because he didn't ban the other parties that took part in the joke emails. I thought that this was a position discrimination,
because I am absolutely sure that if any person with higher rank than myself did the same, he wouldn't block the internet access.
Now that was the last bad thing that happened to me.
Weekend gave me time to think what's wrong with everything, and after several discussion with friends and colleagues, we agreed that
what we actually need is for all NGOs to run a psycho test before they hire people.
NGOs are seen from the people who work for them, right?
How good does the NGO want to be seen depends on how good the performance of its employees.
But what if the employees are psycho? Wouldn't it nullify the good performance the employees have performed?
I have talked to some NGOs national staffs about this, only to find the same idea.
We found several cases where the NGO became the victim of its employee selection procedure.
In one NGO, I found that the person they thought was good turned out was the bad guy after all.
She set up a coup to take over the office, and provoked other employees to strike.
In another NGO, I heard that one of its consultant think herself as a King and positioned acehnese in general like that, and therefore acted like so.
There are still lots of cases where jealousy was the cause and the locals were the bad guys.
So maybe if NGOs run a psycho test before they hire anyone, all those strikes and psycho actions can be reduced.
What I heard from people was that Acehnese think of themselves as a king or kings descendants, that's why sometimes they act
like an asshole (excuse my language! :p)
I'm not saying all Acehnese are like that. We've met lots of people who are nice and have good hearts, only there are also lots of people who have bad characters.
In another occasion, a friend also told me that in general, all Sumaterans are like that, think of themselves as king.
Ofcourse I have no proof or whatsoever about this, but I found this interesting.
I apologize if any of my language here in this journal is inappropriate or offended you. I wouldn't want to have another problem
just because of my use of language, would I? :p
Another unfortunate event was the cancellation of movie night last Saturday. We were originally planning to watch The Chronicles of Narnia at my house,
but then everything went wrong and we had to cancel the movie night. Well, better luck next time! hehe .. :p
Poor us! We don't have any cinema here that we have to buy pirated dvds to watch new movies.
Ouw, another thing was we also had to cancel our retreat to Toba Lake due to the restructurization that is going to be implemented in the office.
Anyway, keep praying for the humanitarian works that are being done everywhere, and for the people who are working there! :)
I know it helps a lot!
*inbadmoodallweekhye*
Feb 01, 2006
updated photos: www.flickr.com/photos/hye
