The Staff

Novi and Esty

The day after we arrived in Sumba we hired 2 girls to work for us. We had been told that we would also need to hire a guard, but that does not seem to be the case. The two girls we hired take care of absolutely everything (laundry, cleaning, cooking, and watching over Colby). These girls start their day at 6am and finish after dinner. They work 6 days a week and come back on Sunday evenings in time for dinner. They requested a salary of 500,000 rupiah per month (that’s $55). They live with us and we pay for all of the food. It costs about $45 per week to feed 5 people and the dog. I have never come across cheaper childcare let alone housekeeping services. The spendthrift in me is elated, but the humanitarian is shocked by how little money is expected for a full days work and how hard it is for locals to get that money.

Novi:

Novi is 17 years old and she just finished the Indonesian equivalent of highschool. She is still very much a teenager, but works harder than most highschoolers I know. She speaks a fair amount of English and is a great help when we are trying to communicate with the neighbors. She has breakfast on the table by 7am and has already swept and mopped the floors. Novi does all of the shopping and buys the most interesting vegetables many of which I have never seen or heard of before. She tries very hard to make interesting dishes and likes to learn new recipes. 

Novi desperately wants to be a nurse, but does not yet have the money to attend university. The tuition is about $300 per year. With the help of her mother (who is a nurse at Karitas Hospital), she has opened a savings account and is saving all of the money she is making this year. She wants to save at least enough for 1 year and hopes to improve her English. She also has dreams of traveling. She has never left Sumba and has hardly been anywhere outside of Waitabula.

Novi is otherwise a typical teenage girl. She has a boyfriend (Jami) who just started university on another island. She is struggling with how to handle a long distance relationship. Oops! Like any typical teenager, her relationship status changes as frequently as the weather in New England. Apparently, in the words of Novi, “Jami is broken. Forever.” She is infatuated with Daniel Craig (the latest James Bond)! She finds everything that we do incredibly entertaining. She finds the way Chris tries to mime things he can’t communicate in Bahasa Indonesia gut-wrenchingly funny and usually doubles over with laughter. I love it that she feels so comfortable with us.

Esty:

We hired Esty to primarily care for Colby. She is older than Novi with 24 years under her belt and very good with children. She worked for a family in Bali for 2 years. Esty wakes up early with Novi and takes out the trash and starts on the laundry which is all done by hand in a wash basin with a scrub brush. Then she shifts her focus to Colby helping Novi with household chores when Colby is playing contentedly. Most of the time she chases him around the yard or they go for walks around our neighborhood to look at the horses, chase grasshoppers, and play soccer with the other children. Both girls love Colby very much. They call him Prince Colby!

Esty wants to be a teacher and has also been putting away money from her jobs to pay for university. She hopes to have enough to start school in a year or so. She knows a few words in English, but is trying to learn more by talking to us. We try every morning to learn one new phrase. Esty and Novi say it in English and we say it in Bahasa Indonesia. Esty was very quiet at first – partly because of the language barrier, but seems to be opening up. She is extremely good with Colby. She is not over bearing and lets him explore, but still manages to keep him safe. She is a true force working hard all day long.

Esty is a wealth of knowledge about local traditions.  She has a boyfriend name Petrus who is already in school to be a teacher.  We talk quite often about what has to happen if she and Petrus want to marry.  They are catholic, but local tradition still reigns supreme here.  The process is quite long and very interesting.  I will post about it as soon as I have compiled enough information!

Both Chris and I are seriously impressed with these young ladies. They have goals and ambition. They are working their tails off to make their dreams a reality and better their station in life. I hope we can help them along the way. They truly deserve it.

Sumba Nautil Resort

A few days ago, Chris and I finished the first phase of the project we are working on. We completed the census and mapping of Wainyapu. We now know that there are exactly 2678 people living in Wainyapu, and we know exactly where they live. In just a few days, we will begin the cross-sectional survey to look at how many of these individuals are currently infected with malaria. We have been working very hard and decided to take a couple days off to do a little sightseeing.

There are many places that we want to visit in Sumba (places in the East, a national park somewhere in Central Sumba, cool little islands off the coast of Sumba, etc.). We decided our first side trip should be short and relatively close. Pantai Marosi, which is about 2 hours south of our current location seemed to be the perfect destination. It is close. The beach is supposed to be gorgeous and the waves phenomenal. There is also a resort at Pantai Marosi that caters to Westerners – Sumba Nautil Resort.

Okay, everyone is sold, so how do we get there? If you are a solitary travel, you can hop on one of the many local buses. This method of travel takes a bit of faith or ignorance. You will be riding with pigs, chickens, smoking, machete-yielding men in traditional sarongs, and woman chewing beetle nut (mild stimulant that causes one to make profuse amounts of bright red saliva – imagine the spitting). If there are no seats available, you will not be told this information. Instead, you will be expected to cling to the luggage rack on top. Riding the bus is not ideal particularly with a toddler. We chose to rent a car and driver. I’m not sure this idea was better than the bus, but we got to our destination and returned to Bukit Sunyi safely. We left Monday morning in a pick-up truck. (We thought we had rented a car.)

The drive took us up into the mountains. The views were stunning.

We stayed at a super nice hotel in Pantai Marosi run by a Frenchman called Mr. Alli. He has been there for 11 years. His resort is fantastic. They have a pool and a spectacular view of the ocean.

There was Western food with a French flair. We had sandwiches, beer, crepes, flan, French fries, and shrimp cocktail. Best of all – hot water and a toilet. I nearly cried!

Pantai Marosi more than met our expectations. The sand was white, the water cool and clear, and the sun was hot. Unfortunately, there was no swell while we were there, but Chris still managed to find a “zippy little right” that made for a fun morning.

We only stayed one night. The resort was pricey by Indonesia standards (i.e. it cost the same as a hotel with a view of IHOP along any interstate in the US). Mr. Alli did give us the special rate for Westerners living and working in Sumba. He said he knows how important it is to have some place reasonable to get a little respite. I would have paid double just for the toilet.

Recipe Challenge

This post is a plea for help challenge to all of the foodies we know (particularly if you are, for instance, dating one Kate Nixon and happen to be a chef in Boston). Imagine you are stranded have chosen to live on a somewhat secluded island. At your culinary disposable are a wok, a small stockpot, a large stockpot, and one kerosene burner. The small pot can be placed inside the large pot forming a rudimentary double boiler. (Hey, it worked for the brownie mix I found!)

You have regular access to the following ingredients:

Rice (lots and lots and lots)

Mie (think ramen noodles)

Carrots

Cucumbers

Various leafy greens (similar to chard and spinach)

Green beans

Cabbage

Papaya flowers (have a slight bitter taste, but supposed to have anti-malarial properties)

Papaya

Bananas

Tomatoes

Tofu

Tempe

Eggs

Flour

Sugar

Salt

Pepper

Chile peppers (these sure pack a punch)

Yeast (no baking soda or baking powder)

Powdered milk

Butter

Rice oil (for cooking)

The next list is of ingredients you can get with some effort and if you splurge.

Sweetened condensed milk

Cheese (similar to a sharp cheddar)

Bread

Brownie Mix

Chicken (quality is often questionable, though)

Fish (tiny freshwater, bony things)

Big Fish (if we track down a fisherman and pay him well)

Pork (only if someone dies, a pig is sacrificed, and you are invited to the funeral)

Potatoes

Apples

Eggplant

Coconut (young or dried)

There are also some other vegetables and fruits available depending on the “season.”

Mangoes

Cassava (root vegetable; similar to potatoes)

Kelari (root vegetable; sliced, soaked overnight, and fried for breakfast)

Jambu (a small fruit; flavor is melon like with a hint of plum)

(Sorry!!  I know this photo is sideways, but I can't get it to load in the proper orientation.  Just turn your head.)

I have made flour tortillas, banana pancakes, and pan-fried biscuits with some success. The girls that work for us make pretty much the same thing everyday with little variation. Though, Novi did try her hand at biscuits this morning! We have eaten roughly 153 plates of nasi goreng (fried rice), 12 dozen omelets, and 15 kilos of sautéed cabbage, carrots, and green beans. There has to be something else we can make with these ingredients!!!

HELP!

Sakit

(If you are here for a photo, scroll down.)

Well... It has happened. The Nixons have been infected with their first Sumbanese virus. It was bound to happen. We are living in a new place and we have our very own germ incubator. Toddlers bring home so many interesting bugs wherever you live. Colby seems relatively unscathed by the whole affair, so he might not be typhoid Mary after all. He has had some intestinal issues and doesn’t seem so interested in food, otherwise he is his normal crazy self.

Chris’s bout with this particular virus seems to have been fast and furious. He had a raging fever on Sunday and spent most of the day in bed. On Monday, he was still feeling pretty sluggish and had a viral lytic rash starting on his torso. By Tuesday, he was feeling okay, but he was covered in a prickly red rash. The night brought some joint pain, but he was feeling well enough to surf Wednesday afternoon.

I would characterize my battle with this little bug as slow and steady. No fever for me, just an overall lethargy and arthritic joints since Sunday. I actually didn’t think I was sick - just tired from taking care of Chris, Colby and the house on Sunday (no helpers on Sundays). Monday, I started to break out with a little rash on my stomach. Tuesday when I awoke, I too was covered from head to toe by a bright red rash. Since we only have one small mirror in the bath, I was unaware of my altered appearance until I sat down for breakfast and Esty (Colby’s nanny) gasped. This gasp was followed by the declaration, “Oh mum! Merah!” My beautiful rash hung on through Thursday afternoon. It was a little itchy, but not as bad as the chicken pox when I was a kid. It seems to have cleared now leaving behind only a few itchy nodules on my hands and feet. They only thing left is some pain and slight adema in my joints. It is not easy to use the facilities here if you can’t bend your knees.

This virus also attacked the other member of our epidemiology team, Pak Kamilus, and we found out that one of Pak Gerson’s (our local guide) children was ill this past weekend as well. Given that so many of us from our group was sick it is likely that it passed person to person and not from a mosquito, which rules out the big viruses around here (Dengue fever and malaria).

So boys and girls, what have we learned from this experience? Wash your hands frequently even when trekking around a tribal village in the middle of the jungle. Perhaps, the world should consider swapping bows or curtsies instead of handshakes or high-fives. What about a little wink and a finger-gun? 

Sand Schnitzel Sighting

After their brush with death and the loss of the famed ornithologist Herr Polmgren in Uluwatu, Bali, the surviving members of the Swedish ornithology club touring Indonesia have reported a rare and surprising find – the elusive sand schnitzel. This rare bird is normally found in and around large, dark green, tortoise-shaped sandpits commonly part of the normal city park terrain. Surprisingly, this fantastic specimen was spotted on a beach in the Kodi region of Western Sumba.

The group was shocked by the find since the point of the trip that day was a leisurely birthday celebration. To commemorate the 39th birthday of one Christian Nixon, the bird watching group traveled to Watu Malondo. Dr. Nixon was said to be having a spectacular time even before the sighting.

The club was shocked to find this bird in such a strange habitat. The sand schnitzel does not normally inhabit sand so close to massive sea stacks and crashing waves. (See the face in the rock?)

Despite this unusual habit, this sand schnitzel seemed quite healthy and vibrant. The club plans to make a second trip in the near future to look for other schnitzels in the area.

August 17th

Thanks for all of the positive comments on my last post. Wainyapu is a seriously cool place. There is so much rich tradition and history there. I’ll quickly answer a few questions I received.

1.Yes, we did take Colby to Wainyapu the first day we went. Our nanny was brand new and we were only going for a few hours to meet the Village Chief. We felt it was important to introduce him to the whole family.

2.The people of Wainyapu don’t seem to be starving, but they are malnourished. Their diet is not very well-balanced consisting mostly of rice. We never eat our lunch anywhere near the village. It causes too many problems. We do, however, supply lunch and water for the whole census team each day that we work.

3.There are a wide variety of foods here. They can be difficult (and expensive in local terms) to procure. We are well-fed with a diet of mostly rice, tempe, chicken, eggs, carrots, beans, and bananas.

4.We do take our safety seriously. We are strangers here. Quite odd, in fact. We naturally draw a lot of attention. We do our best to minimize that attention.

Independence Day

August 17th is an important day in Indonesian history – Independence Day. Indonesia is a relatively young country celebrating 45 years of independence. For about a week now, the 3 schools near us have been rehearsing for the big day. The drum band practices start at 7am, even on Saturday. Colby really enjoyed chasing them around the neighborhood.

To celebrate the day, a flag raising ceremony of sorts was held at the town soccer field. All of the local schools lined up in across the field, and the various drum bands and a pom-pom squad paraded across.

A military procession dressed completely in white preceded the flag raising. This procession paraded around the field, the flagpole, and the main hut for almost 45 minutes.

It was an intricate display. They seemed to first ask permission to approach the main hut. Then a portion of the squad approached. Permission was again requested to present the flag for inspection. Once the flag was found to be acceptable, they marched around some more before they finally came to the pole and actually hung the flag. I am not sure I got the point of all of this pomp, but perhaps that is because for half of this time I was chasing grasshoppers with Colby.

 

As the ceremony was coming to an end (at least for those of us more interested in grasshopper-chasing), Colby became good friends with a police unit that had set up near us. One of them tried to get Colby to hold his automatic rifle. I was torn between not wanting my toddler anywhere near a gun and not wanting to piss off a man holding a gun. In the end, I decided to smile and pose for a photo and keep a tight grip on Colby.

Colby seemed to really like the police. He climbed up in the truck with them.

As we were leaving, we saw one of our helpers –Esty. She is part of a rescue brigade. For the ceremony, she dressed up in uniform and participated in the line –up.

The best part of the day, in my opinion, was the silence that could be found around our neighborhood. It is amazing how much noise a boarding school makes! Since they were all participating in the festivities, 

Bukit Sunyi was fantastically quiet!

Wainyapu: Field Site A

This post is relatively long. There is so much to tell you! There are pictures in this post and one of Colby at the very end! 

As you all know Chris and I are here studying malaria. Officially, we are working on a Gates Foundation project. The ultimate goal of this project is to determine the effectiveness of spatial insect repellents. This study will look at 4 separate villages in West Sumba. The first field site, a large village called Wainyapu, was chosen before we arrived. Since this project is in its infancy, the remaining 3 villages are still being determined.

Chris and I are responsible for the parasitology portion of this project, but we can’t just walk into Wainyapu and start asking for blood. First, we have to figure out how many people live there and where their houses are. We are starting from scratch on this one. There are no road signs in the larger towns, let alone tribal villages like Wainyapu. We have hired guides from the village to lead us through the 4 sub-villages within Wainyapu and 2 local guys (Kamilus and Wajiyo) to assist with the census. As you can imagine, making a map is no small task. Our task is complicated language barriers. The official language is Bahasa Indonesia, but each island also has its own language. In Sumba, everyone speaks Bahasa Sumba, which they learned at home, and Bahasa Indonesia, which they learned at school. In addition to these 2 languages, there are numerous tribal languages. In Waiynapu alone, there are 12 distinct tribes with their own tongues. Chris speaks decent Bahasa Indonesia, although rudimentary. My Bahasa Indonesia skills are okay suck. We are practicing constantly and learning new words and phrases everyday, but there is no Rosetta Stone for Bahasa Sumba and there is certainly no dictionary for any of the tribal languages! 

Despite these difficulties, we have accomplished a fair amount in our first week. With only 2 hand-held GPS, paper, and pens, we have hiked throughout Wainyapu, geo-positioned every house, and taken names, ages, and genders for every person living in every house. We have counted 562 houses and approximately 2500 people. 

Now, I get to crunch the data and Chris goes back to the field with Kamilus to geo-position all major landmarks (churches, wells, ponds etc.) and map all of the roads and foot paths. In 2 weeks, we hope to have a map of this interesting village and its fantastic traditional homes.

The houses in the pictures are from the main cluster in Wainyapu, which sits near the coast and is just behind the Pasola Field. Pasola Field is the site of an infamous tribal festival, which includes a realistic reenactment of tribal war. Fortunately, they have switched over to using blunt-tipped spears resulting in almost no deaths and fewer injuries. The stone structures in front of the huts are tombs. The tall spires in the center serve to keep the hut cool and as storage space for things such as rice or the dead bodies of relatives they can’t afford to bury yet. Thankfully, I have not been invited inside any traditional homes!

Waiynapu resides in a region of Sumba known as Kodi. This region has a reputation for being rough. We have not experienced any aggression (except from the local dogs), but the people are rather primitive and poverty is widespread. Most everyone practices subsistence farming and almost all tools are made by hand from materials found in the local area. I have seen men making fishing nets with roughly carved tools, thread, and seashells. Women weave mats out of dried grass and beautiful cloths on looms made out of fallen tree limbs. Livestock sleeps under the traditional huts and graze on grass near each cluster. We have seen water buffalo, pigs, horses, goats, and chickens.

Water is lugged from various wells and rivers throughout the village. Sometimes the closest water source is almost 1 kilometer away. We saw one well that is 17 meters down into a ravine. Young girls throw containers on strings into the ravine and then pull up the water. 

To bathe and wash clothing, they must hike to a river or pond, which is also used for drinking water. Everything is cleaned in this water including livestock.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures of people and their activities. We are not tourists here and have a job to accomplish. It is also considered rude to photograph these people without offering some sort of compensation. The only photo I have are of a small group of children who begged Chris to take their photo. They wanted candy!

 

While the majority of people in Kodi claim to practice Christianity, the local adat (custom) reigns supreme. They believe the wealth you acquire on Earth can really be taken with you. (Thus, the reason for corpses in the attic – they have to send their relatives off in style.) This wealth includes livestock (one of the primary symbols of wealth), which are sacrificed at the funeral. Fortunately, the practice of also sacrificing wives and servants has become extinct.

Which brings me to an interesting point.... the treatment of women. While I did not observe any physical signs of maltreatment, women are definitely second-class citizens. Families use their daughters to get substantial “belas” (dowries). The man who “purchases” the girl often considers her more like a possession than a person. She must be a good wife, work hard, and produce many children. The first marriage takes place in the church. Subsequent marriages, if the first wife can not produce any more children, if the husband puts his mistress in a “family way”, or if the man has enough wealth for another belas (more than one wife can also be a sign of wealth), all take place with a village ceremony presided over by the Pak Desun (Village Chief). I met several men with 2 and 3 wives. Supposedly, there is one chief in the region who has 12 wives. These marriages are not legal in the eyes of the Indonesian government, but are valid to the tribe and the village. I asked about the case of Love. What if two people fall in love, but the man doesn’t have enough for the belas (which can be adjusted depending on how much the family likes the match)? Often, the girl will be come pregnant on purpose accident, which requires they get married. The pair spend the majority of their lives trying to pay the belas owed to the family.

I have met many women during the census. Again, none seemed outwardly unhappy. All looked very tired and many times older than their years. I was shocked at the number of children these women already had. By the time they reach my age (the ripe old age of 30), they have at least 4 children, but often 6 or 7. They were equally shocked that I only have one child. I could see they felt sorry for me, because this meant I am either physically weak or my children have died. I am fascinated by their perception of me. When Pak Gerson (my local guide) informs them I am an “ibu doctor amerikat” (American female doctor), a few look at me with awe, many look at me with a hint of disapproval. This disapproval fades from their faces some when he goes on to explain that my husband is also a doctor and he is just over in the next hamlet. I wish I knew enough of the local language to find out what they are really thinking.

While I feel safe in Waiynapu walking with Pak Gerson, (pictured here with Kamilus)

I would not wander through the village without a local guide. Chris attempted to map some roads on his own one afternoon through a portion of the village he was familiar with. He was not met with aggression, but was harassed for money. Adults merely asked repeatedly, while children physically reached into his pockets. Two men who asked for money were pacified somewhat when he told them we would consider making a donation to the local schools before returning to America in a year. Unfortunately, they switched tactics and offered Chris some alone time with their teenage daughters for “seratus” (100,000 rupiah or about $12). He has not tried to work alone since. His words – “It was just too crazy.”  

As promised, here is a picture of Colby and his new best friend, Darcy, sharing a plate of nasi!