Weekend in the Kampung

I've been pushing it pretty hard since Friday night, this is the first real chance that I've had to sit down and think, let alone write. My friend Deanna - a Fulbrighter stationed in Surabaya, about three hours away by bus - came to town. We spent Friday night at another basketball game, where Madiun thrashed the opposing team. Deanna stayed in my house, which we were both expecting to generate massive amounts of controversy in the community; we were both forewarned that people of the opposite sex should not spend the night in the same house until marriage. Either the local elders didn't find out, or they just didn't care. The event went without issue.
Saturday, we drove my motor bike an hour West of Madiun to Lake Sarangan. The lake was less than we had hope for, having been nearly drained to compensate for the recent lack of rain. But we putt-putted farther up into the hills, where we hired a guide who toured us around the hills, valleys and terraced rice paddies for the day. It was some of the best beauty-to-accessbility hiking I've ever done. Hobbled ibus came running by with sacks of hay flung over their shoulders and farmers worked the land and fed us raw carrots (see photo) as we talked with them. At one of the waterfalls in the valley, I also met a group of students from my school (see photo), who were convinced that Deanna was my istri (wife). The thought of spending extended periods of time alone with a person of the opposite sex who is NOT your spouse is seemingly antithetical to local culture and custom.
Saturday evening, after a long and excellent day, we huffed it to Solo, one of the colonial centers of Central Java, where we spent the night in a Quality Hotel. Deanna left the next day, but I met up with the owner of KOMPIP, a local yayasan (NGO) committed to disaster relief and supporting marginalized peoples, like prostitutes and street children. I spent the day touring earthquake-affected kampung (villages) with Akbar and three of his staff. Working on behalf of the Los Angeles-based NGO Real Medicine, I spent my time evaluating how best to use Real Medicine's funds to support villagers who had been affected.
Priorities in post-disaster situations, once disease and deaths have been dealt with, go from providing housing, to treating post traumatic stress, to establishing new mechanisms of generating income. Since the government will most likely be providing shelter, Akbar and I decided to start a "community savings," or microfinance, program in a village called Biren in the district of Klaten. Assuming Real Medicine approves the plan, KOMPIP will establish a sub-center in Biren, where a director and two assistants will infuse money into local neighborhoods over the next six months. I saw several villages where similar plans had been implemented. Through uniquely designed saving mechanisms, whereby villagers contribute a set rate per month (normally the equivalent of ten cents), the money initially supplied (around $US250) multiplies nearly exponentially over a matter of years.
Akbar, the head of KOMPIP, returned from a conference on democracy and economic sustainability in Helsinki the day before I met with him (ie Saturday). His goal is to expand the "community savings" model so that it can be implemented by local governments. The idea is amazing, and very inspiring. If Real Medicine backs our plan, we can support over 1,000 villagers who were left with literally nothing after the May 24, 2006 earthquake.
It was a RAD weekend.