Finally in "the field"-ish

After an uneventful flight, I landed in Pontianak, West Kalimantan's provincial capital which straddles the equator. I went straight to the hotel and after dinner fell asleep, waking up not knowing which hemisphere I was in (how's that for a hangover story, though I wasn't hungover?). As labor is cheap, by the way, my hotel had an overabundance. It was actually a bit intimidating since any time I left my room, there were five or so people asking what they could do to help me.

Meetings an the local university the next day went well. It was much cooler than Jakarta. Since it's on the equator, "dry" season is a very relative term as it's always pretty rainy and so it was pretty cool since it had just rained there. While it was still a city, it was also much more open and laid back in a good way than Jakarta. Chickens, goats and various other animals roamed the streets and I felt like I was back in the good, not over-urbanized part of the developing world. I also visited the equator and checked in with the Northern Hemisphere and found out tickets by boat or plane to Ketapang, my base of operations, would be difficult to obtain because of the impending Indonesian Independence Day. Somehow my counterpart (a local university student I pay and take along with me and put on publications in return for his local expertise, assistance planning things out, etc; they are required by law but also should be genuinely helpful for my project) managed to find me an economy ticket on the boat to Ketapang on Tuesday. I'm not sure what he did to get it because he refused my money to pay for it, saying he had bartered for it.


On Tuesday, despite my protestations (in Bahasa Indonesia---he should have understood), my taxi driver erroneously took me to the airport. However, we had time for him to realize his error
and make it back to the port in town though I got pretty worried. He was pretty embarrassed by it too, so my ride was quite cheap. The 8 hour boat ride reminded me of how much taller I am than almost all Indonesians. The space between seats was not large enough for my femur so it was pretty uncomfortable. The people next to me were very nice though and the seas were calm, so between trying to talk to the people next to me and sleeping for a few hours, I was able to pass the time pretty well.


Ketapang seems pretty nice. Fairly small, but certainly more than just a village. Right after arriving I went with my advisor to play futsal with some locals. I did pretty well, scoring 2 goals and serving 3 assists (to get in on all 5 of our goals) as well as preventing some goals. However, it was ultimately in a losing effort. I'm also staying in a house my advisor is renting, so it keeps things pretty cheap. It's fairly basic with standard Indonesian squat toilet without a flusher and shower=vat of water you scoop water from and pour over you as well as just a mat on the floor to sleep on, but it's nice to have a "home" and it's much more comfortable than many places I've stayed. And it at least has T.P. unlike most of the toilets (which are all squat toilets except at nice hotels) here.

I will try to post a couple pics of the equator and stuff in a separate post since the internet is pretty slow.

Also, as we have no internet at home, I will probably be posting much less for the next 5-6 weeks or so.