Rantau Bertah

While the elephants may have been the highlight of Minas, we still have three more days of interviews. We traveled to Rantau Bertah, which was about an hour outside of Minas on a pretty bad road, but a beautiful drive. The second half of the drive was through a heavily wooded area which I later learned belonged to a paper company - I'm hoping it'll remain beautiful for a long time. We had planned to visit a Mother's Group of pregnant women but when we arrived they hadn't yet started their meeting, so we instead headed over to a posyandu which was overflowing with women coming for their ANC checks and baby weighings. This is definitely a day I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall - with my Nikon, of course - but per usual, we were shuffled into a back room and set up for interviews.

Village health worker noting the growth progress of a baby on her growth chart

Village health worker and posyandu-goers

The antiquated baby scale that I'm certain does not produce accurate weights. And for once, I think this system of baby/children weighing is worse than the system in Mali.

We started our interviews and got many more than we had initially planned. I'll share two stories that highlighted the day in Rantau Bertah. The first is a woman, in her mid thirties who only received an elementary school education, told us about the great relationship she has with the midwife at the puskesmas. She stayed at the puskesmas for both of her births and said that she'll return there for any subsequent births as well. Despite being relatively poor, she didn't care about the costs of childbirth or anything else - she loved her midwife and wanted to be safe.

Surprising me beyond everything, this woman - with an elementary school education only - has given birth at the puskesmas twice. It proves that education level isn't the only determinant to facility-based birth, but that a woman's relationship with their health provider is greatly important.

After meeting here and hearing about her experience with the village midwife, it was great to hear that midwives are more than just baby catchers and that women feel a real connection with them. These midwifes likely offer advice and other pregnancy and birth related services. They also likely provide friendship. After having this wonderful picture painted for me of a midwife who really cares about her patients, we met our next mother. Unfortunately, this woman had possibly the worst experience with the same midwife. As she stood and bounced her newborn to avoid crying, she answered our questions and interjected her story along the way. She planned to deliver at the puskesmas and when she began to have labor pains, she walked to the facility (maybe a km or so). When she arrived, she was 6 cm dilated, but the midwife told her she wasn't ready to deliver and that she should go home and come back when it progressed. As soon as she arrived back at home, her labor pains were worse and she sent a neighbor to bring the midwife to her house. She said that when the midwife arrived, she was annoyed that she had been bothered to come after just sending the woman home. She delivered the baby, but at the same time left the mother with a terrible birthing experience.

This little girl has such a full head of black hair - she was the first infant I saw with so much hair.

Two conflicting accounts of the same midwife. Interesting how two experiences can be so different. It's also a shame that one woman had such a terrible experience that perhaps next time she is pregnant, she'll choose a traditional birth attendant to help her deliver instead of feeling disrespected by the village midwife. For her, I hope she'll take into account her safety and that of her baby, or the fact that the midwife at the puskesmas can handle simple complications that a TBA cannot. It was at this point that I ran into an ethical dilemma. Part of our research asks questions about how women are treated during their stays at facilities. With such a negligence of duty by this midwife, and not knowing if other women have had similarly poor treatment, I'm compelled to report it someone. However, I was told by more than one person that it's not my responsibility and that it's a tricky road to go down. So instead, we leave a midwife of questionable work ethic in place and do nothing. Not an easy situation.

A happy mom and health baby girl with pierced ears

Sign in the posyandu saying:
"Come to the posyandu. Keep Children Healthy. To determine the growth and development of children." And was created by the Health Promotion Improvement Project of West Sumatra in 2001

I know I said I only had two stories, but as I was writing I remembered a third. After we finished at the posyandu, we headed over to the Mother's Group - remember, the original reason we came to Rantau Bertah? - and talked to a few pregnant mothers. In this small village we found a university educated woman who I believe was a teacher. She was very petite, but I remember her being very stunning as well. Throughout the course of our conversation with her, we found that she planned to stay home to deliver her baby. I was shocked and probed a little bit more to find out. Turns out - which has actually been the case in a lot of our interviews - that she was planning on staying home to be close to her family and because it was more comfortable. She said that the only way she would go to a facility would be if her entire family could come and stay with her throughout her stay, until she was discharged.

I enjoyed Rantau Bertah, but it proved that there are always surprises around the corner.

Elephant “Conservation”

Dooni!

During our first morning’s drive to Minas, we passed a sign that said “Elephant Conservation.” I was immediately interested and thought that if we had a free afternoon, or finished work early, that we could have a small adventure and take a look. We headed there Tuesday afternoon. The road was a little bumpy, nothing unusual, but the forested area around me kept me looking out the window, wondering if I was just going to see elephants grazing. We finally came upon the entrance and started driving toward the offices of the organization. On our left, a baby elephant was feeding next to a man who was doing some type of cultivating. This baby was so cute, I just wanted to get out and touch her! But, not knowing what type of conservation organization this is, I decided against it, thinking that she might be aggressive.

The baby elephant who greeted us upon our arrival

We continued a little further down the road and saw three adult elephants and another baby, and the office area which oddly had a circus-like grandstand and some props for elephants to do tricks on (it did not help that I had seen Water for Elephants two days prior). I was pretty confused by the grandstand and the props, but we parked the car and got out and started talking to the men that worked there. They explained that the conservation (which, for the record, I would change that name) was established and funded by the government. Elephants were shipped from all over Indonesia to this area and were then tamed and trained to be sent to zoos. My heart sank, more than a little, since I thought these animals were being rehabilitated from zoos and being returned to the wild. Again, I think the word “conservation” is a bit misleading. All in all, there were 31 elephants there that were being trained. Of the elephants that were close to us, one was being ridden by his trainer who said that he was very nice and gentle.

Dooni, with an unfortunate rider and chain that held his feet together

The trainers, getting Dooni ready for our short ride

What I loved the most was that his name was Dooni (in Bambara, this means small or slow or gentle). I was encouraged to touch Dooni and as soon as I approached him, his wet trunk started sniffing me, presumably looking for something to snack on. Since we had arrived in Minas, I hadn’t found much good food to eat, certainly not any fruit, but on our way back from the site, I saw a small market and we stopped so I could buy some mangoes and apples. They were pretty expensive and I was really looking forward to eating them, but when Doonie was expressly looking for something, I couldn’t resist but share with him! I’m not really sure what I thought, but when I offered an apple, he opened his gigantic mouth, and I was not expecting to see that. I hesitated, but eventually kind of gently placed/tossed the apple in and it was gone in a second. So much for savoring that granny smith! As soon as he swallowed it, his trunk was back, wanting more. How could I resist? So, I shared another apple, but was more comfortable putting it in his mouth this time. Since all I could really see was a lot of skin, I wondered where his teeth were – though I’m sure there was no chewing going on! – and one of the trainers opened his mouth wide to reveal these gigantic white teeth which I did not want my hands anywhere near.

Inside this gentle giant's mouth

Dooni’s skin was perfectly pachadermal – so dry and rough, and on his head right above his trunk and mouth, he had this longer, course hair. Together, they were great new textures to touch, in getting to know Dooni.

The trainers could see how enamored I was with him and asked if I wanted to ride him – uh, yeah, I was afraid you’d never ask! Of course, I was torn by this since these animals would probably never again live in their natural habitat and would constantly have humans bothering them, but nevertheless, I couldn’t say no. The trainer got off, they put on some crazy red cloth/sign for me to sit on and another trainer got on. Dooni sat down and they instructed me to step on his foot in order to get on him. It was challenging to scoot myself up to his shoulder area because he was quite wide, but I made it. Now again, I could have ridden Dooni all day, gone into the forest for lunch and dinner with him, and spent all night hanging out with him (perhaps as a result of Water for Elephants!). But, since I was with others, who really didn’t seem to care about my instant connection with Dooni, we just took a short stroll up the road and back. We took some photos and he gently sat down for me to dismount, and then the trainer pulled him back and he did a “trick” for me. At this point, all I wanted was to take Dooni home, forget about the issue of the plane and lodging –he was adorable. Of course I had more fruit and had to reward him for allowing me my small pleasure of a short ride. This time, I have him a small mango, but instead of placing it in his mouth, he actually took it from me with his trunk and fed himself – I guess the shape and texture of the mango was easier for him to handle.

This picture was taken at the point that I wouldn't let go and wouldn't stop petting Dooni

Dooni, showing off his skills

It was sad to leave, especially since we were only there for only 20 or 30 minutes. On the drive home, I thought about how great it would be to be an elephant keeper, but decided I’d have to hold off on that for my next career, though I could see doing some sort of Maternal and Child Health of elephants project.

Another baby elephant

Remarkable Women Deliver their own Babies

The nameless and brave woman who delivered her own children.

We travelled about an hour outside of Minas to Minas Satu, where women met us at the polindes for the interviews. So far, I’ve talked about puskesmas and pustu but polindes is basically just a village health post, where the ANC clinics and Mother’s Groups take place. Of the polindes that we visited, this one was by far the least equipped. It was a small two room building, with chicken wire for a window and just a wooden table for an exam table. I’m not sure what type of ANC is done here since there was nothing else in the building. When we arrived, there were already tons of women waiting outside. The midwives put together an impromptu health session so the mother’s felt occupied before we could get to them.

Interviewing in the polindes, which you would never expect to be any type of health center from the picture

Things went more or less the same way as the previous day, but we met an incredibly brave and remarkable woman. The primary language spoken is Bahasa Indonesia, and while most ethnic groups speak Indonesian, this women was not educated and from an ethnic minority. Because of this, another mother that we interviewed translated for her. If we hadn’t been so pressed for time, I would have loved to have talked to her more. She is 41 and has had 11 births, 10 of those children have survived. She had recently delivered her 11^th. What’s remarkable about her is that she delivered all of her children at home, by herself. When asked why, she said that she was too embarrassed to deliver in front of anyone else. She was a smart woman, despite never attending school: she had a plan, were there to be any complications with her delivery. She must have taken good care of her children in order for so many of them to survive, in otherwise dismal circumstances – she was poor with so many mouths to feed. I wanted to ask her more about her life and I would have loved to have spent some time with her, but our schedule didn’t allow for it. Even though, in terms of our research, this woman will be considered an outlier, her story is really amazing. I can’t imagine giving birth alone, let alone delivering my own placenta and cutting my own umbilical cord….11 times. Perhaps what I’m even more amazed about is the fact that she and 10 of her children are still alive. The odds of maternal mortality are greatly against her.

Globally, it's rare to see father's with their children. Children are often attached to their mothers, in some form or another. I've seen a lot of father's holding their children here, and not just for the obligatory 20 minutes during the day. I try to capture this as much as possible.

Baby wrapped up in his mother's batik

As a side note, I’m not used to “parachuting” into these sites, visiting and interviewing for a few hours and leaving. It’s a real challenge for me. I’m learning about each woman for 15 to 20 minutes and then saying goodbye. What I really want to do is sit around and chat and learn about their day to day and see where they live and meet their families. There are a ton of barriers to me doing this, least of which is that I don’t speak Bahasa Indonesian. It’s hard to realize I’m not a PCV anymore, and I’m worried that I might never again have the chance to interact with people like when I lived in Mali. Then I remember that I’ll live in Mali again, and that, at the very least, my family will sit around and chat with me until we’re both bored. I get this feeling at least once a day, when I meet a really awesome woman – or more than one! – and can’t do anything to get to know her better.

This young mother waited most of the morning to interview with us, and benefited from health classes from the midwives and village health workers

This little guy was adorable, sitting on the floor while we interviewed his mother. He has a severe handicap of his legs, and as a child it's noticeable but doesn't keep him from running around. Unfortunately, there was another little boy to his left that kept kicking him.

Young girl waiting patiently for her mother's interview to end

Site Visits Begin – Minas

Our first week of field visits begins! Originally, I wrote that I thought we’d be going to Serang, Kutai Timur and Bireun, but the plans changed. Though it hasn’t been said, since my translator is pregnant, the Jhpiego team wants to keep the field visits relatively close to the capital and without poor travel conditions. That’s not to say we haven’t found bumpy roads, but…compared to what we could find, it’s not too bad. So, the plan, or so we thought, was to go to Serang, then Karawang, Bojoengoro and finally Minas. We thought we’d leave on June 13^th for Serang, by car, but on Friday the 10^th, we were issued air tickets and told we were heading to Minas, via Pekanbaru. Talk about putting the brakes on things. I guess it didn’t really matter where we were going and in what order, but I had already written it in my planner…in pen!

We started in Minas, early, on Monday morning. We went to the main puskesmas to meet the chief midwife, Bu Yuni, and the District Health Officer (DHO), Dr. Rani. We needed Dr. Rani’s blessings to conduct our research and Bu Yuni’s knowledge and networking to help us plan our week. Bu Yuni would accompany us to most of our field visits, since she’s in charge of all of the midwives at the pustu, or assistant puskesmas, or at the village level, and also supervises the community health workers. She was very accommodating in trying to get us the exact number of women that we needed, even if it meant waiting until 4 PM to eat lunch – which it often did.

Puskesmas of Minas - smaller puskesmas' are typically one building, so I was impressed that this facility was 4 or 5 buildings.

Labor and Delivery Room - only space for one woman to deliver at a time, and if another woman needs to deliver, she delivers in the ER (see below)

Maternal waiting room - I can't think of what this is called in English, but after the women deliver, this is the room they stay in. Indonesian women typically only stay at a facility for 2-6 hours, unless there are complications.

The Emergency Room - seemingly well-equipped with the bare essentials, but it leaves a bit to be desired, from a Western stance.

Ambulance - this one is out of commission, but was previously used for emergencies

A bit about Minas: Minas is one of Jhpiego’s Chevron sites, meaning they get funding from Chevron to conduct their work. From what I understand, the majority of the work they do here are trainings for the health staff. For example, two weeks after our visit, Bu Ita, from the Jakarta office, will be visiting to do trainings on infectious disease control. Though I don’t know the extent of what Chevron is doing, in terms of their social responsibility, I do know that everywhere we drove, the beautiful landscape was broken up by nonstop oil pipelines and oil refinery stations. There was even a military-like base for the expat Chevron employees and their families. Additionally, when we drove to each of the 6 sites, we were driving on primarily paved road – and some of these sites were 30 to 40 km in the bush. Since it’s my first site visit, I don’t know how the others will compare, but I do know that Minas’ infrastructure must be a lot better off than many other districts, because of Chevron’s investment. I also learned that the research we’re doing may be helpful in writing the next proposal for Chevron’s funding in terms of supplying the health clinics, so that’s potentially good news.

One of Chevron's oil refineries, maybe 20 km from the city

After meeting with Dr. Rani and Bu Yuni, we headed out to Mandi Angin. One of the activities that Jhpiego and Chevron supports are Mother’s Groups, similar to centering groups in the US for pregnant mothers. Centering groups, I learned this past year, are similar to antenatal care checks, but instead of visiting the doctor’s office a couple of times and having 15 minutes to discuss any questions or issues, you meet with a group of women and learn from and support one another. In America I thought it sounded like a great idea, and something that would be really interesting to implement in Mali – since most women sit around and talk anyway! – but it was exciting to see it in action here. Despite not understanding Bahasa Indonesia, there were photos and workbooks that the women were all working with, and it seemed like it was working well. It’s a newly implemented activity here, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how they’re monitoring the activity and what progress the groups make. All that said, the first group of women we met were a Mother’s Group, some pregnant and some postpartum.

Mother's Group

Our research questions begin by asking some simple demographic questions to determine religion, ethnicity, education level and income level. We already assume we know certain things: women of a lower education level and lower income level are less likely to go to a facility and more likely to give birth at home. For every interview, I hoped that the women would prove this assumption wrong. In Mandi Angin, we interviewed 13 women, most of whom either planned to give birth at home or had already given birth at home. The interviews were becoming a little tedious, until we met this one woman:

My day one hero who associated facilities with increased safety

We don’t ask names during our interviews, but this women was the first of the surprises during the week. She’s in her mid-thirties and educated only though elementary school. She was one of the few postpartum women who had delivered at a facility – at the pustu – and when we asked her why she chose to deliver at the facility, as opposed to home, she responded that it was safer for her and her child. I was so pleased, I almost came to tears! After 10 interviews, I was beginning to doubt I would ever hear those words, and I was beginning to wonder if women thought or even knew it was safer to deliver at the facility.

An older postpartum mother

It was a really long first day of interviews, but it ended with sitting on a straw mat, eating rice and fish with my hands, surrounded by a group of midwives and community health workers. It felt good to be in the field.

The midwives and village health workers who were very accommodating

The Bombshell

After two days of field testing and feeling pretty good about survey, we met with a woman named Marge Koblinsky, a great in the field of MCH who works for both John Snow Inc and is on the board of White Ribbon Alliance, who basically told us our survey was confusing and we needed to start over. This was on a Friday morning and we were scheduled to leave for our first district on Sunday. Awesome. Thankfully she had some time to lend a helping hand and all Friday morning we worked on the best approach to the data we wanted to get and finally decided that we needed to have three separate surveys, one for pregnant women, one for postpartum who delivered in facilities and one for postpartum who didn't deliver at facilities (typically home). The skip pattern we had created in the original document was too confusing to follow, which wouldn't be a problem except for that we're planning on sending the survey to two districts where other staff will administered it. Needless to say, it needs to be crystal clear. Around 1:30 on Friday we had an idea of what we needed to do, and I worked all Friday evening and Saturday to fix the three surveys and make them as perfect as possible.

In the end, Marge's help turned out to be integral to our survey. The frustrating part is that we were basically left on our own until the very last minute to create a survey, with little direction or oversight. In general there has been little coordination or direction to help us, which is odd considering the office here is interested in the results. I had hoped for more help, but I guess in the "real world" that help can come at the 11th hour and that I should be ready for last minute changes. However, my super organized, somewhat OCD personality takes issue with this. Ah, the challenges of working with others.

Field Testing Begins

After a four day weekend of relaxing and lots of parties (two kids' birthday parties, and a party for the women's national swim team) work started again on Monday. We finished our draft survey last week and Isti contacted midwives at a local puskesmas (government-run clinic or CSCOM, depending who is reading this) and her private clinic and coordinated our visits on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

Now, first a note on the size of Jakarta and my daily patience testing with traffic. Not only is Jakarta is this ridiculously crowded city, it's also gigantic. I recently read that Jakarta - including suburbs - is 229 sq miles or 661 km²! That didn't really mean a lot to me, until I started comparing it to other places that I'm familiar with:

• Washington, D.C. - 68.3 sq miles or 177 km²
• Bamako - 97.3 sq miles or 252 km²
• Chapel Hill - 19.82 sq miles or 51.3 km²

I mention all of this to say that the distance, in conjunction with the throngs of traffic, makes it miserable to drive in Jakarta, unless it's 1 AM. I left our office at 7:20 and arrived at my destination in Cibubur (pronounced chi-boo-bur), only 12 kms (7.5 miles) away, at 8:20. It took us another 30 minutes or so to navigate through some construction and arrive maybe 5 km away. Ridiculous. We finally arrived at the puskesmas and I was really shocked - it was palatial, compared with the clinics in Mali I'm used to. Granted its in Jakarta and has the potential to serve a very large population, but it was so nice.

Puskesmas in Cibubur

We entered to find at least one hundred people waiting for various services and moved our way though the crowd to the maternity clinic. The floor of the entrance was covered with sandals, typically taken off before entering someone's home or in this case medical facility, and after taking off my own sandals I saw a large group of pregnant women, doctors, midwives and medical and midwifery students. Isti's mother, a very well known midwife, teaches at the school where all of the midwives at this puskesmas attended, so Isti was very well received. We visited the head Doctor to get approval for our visit and explain our questionnaire's intention, and he was very open and the meeting went very smoothly. He actually invited us to come back once we finish all of our research and present to him our findings (a real breath of fresh air after dealing with Docs in Mali who are seemingly just interested in slipping some money under the table to get to do these interviews).

Pregnant women waiting for their antenatal care (ANC) visit with the midwife and doctor.

Midwifery students completing the paperwork for patient's vital signs and weight. The midwives rotate, so sometimes they work on the registration information and other times they work in the exam room with the women.

After our approval, we went back down to the maternity suite and greeted everyone again and got settled in a small corner of the office to start our questionnaire. Since these were field tests, we simply needed to test the questionnaire out on a small sample of women to determine if they understood the questions, if the questions made sense and if they were in a sensible order. Isti and I started the survey on our first patient (photo below) and determined that it took about 20 minutes to administer. Unfortunately, the ANC visits went so quickly that we soon had a line of people waiting so we decided to administer the survey to two women at once. This turned out to be a mistake, we soon found out, since some of the women were maybe too lazy to listen to the questions we were asking and instead were saying, "Yeah, I agree with her." So, lesson one learned: interview women separately.

Our first interviewee: a young woman, pregnant with her first child.

Our young pregnant mother with her medical student, listening to the fetal heartbeat. This is actually the first time I've heard a fetal heartbeat.

We wound up interviewing 10 women before I decided we had done enough. We originally planned to interview 20, but there were some errors in our questions and I thought it to be a waste of time to interview. If the questions aren't perfect, we can't use the data we collect so it was time to stop. We worked the rest of the day on improving the survey since we had interviews to do on Tuesday as well.

Immunization Chart, in Bahasa.

After we made the changes we thought were necessary, we took to the streets on Tuesday to continue. This time, we used Isti's family's private clinic as a base, and one of the midwifes at her clinic walked us through the surrounding neighborhood. The interviews here were again just tests, this time with the slightly changed questions. Of course, one of our questions asks the respondent to rate the quality of service she received with the midwife who delivered her baby, and having that midwife sitting next to her, smiling, didn't necessarily give way to the most honest responses. So, lesson number 2: have midwives help us find pregnant and postpartum women, but don't allow them to sit in on the interview.

Postpartum woman who delivered at a private clinic

We did about 5 more interviews on Tuesday and then went on a wild goose chase for my cell phone that ultimately wound up lost. Amazing how these things disappear in a matter of seconds. By the end of our two days, we thought that our survey was pretty good and ready to be put to the test out in the districts. Little did we know what would happen next....

Jakarta Weekend

Since I arrived in Jakarta, I've been pretty underwhelmed. I'm not sure why I didn't ask more questions or prepare better (oh wait, I was super busy until the day before I left!) but I arrived feeling really unprepared to be here. I was mentally prepared for Mali, or another West African country, and soon realized that I couldn't be the farthest away from Mali. The neighborhood that I'm living and working, Kemang, is Western-central. The best supermarkets are here and all of the Western amenities - yoga studios, fast food, a Pizza Hut that looks nicer than most American restaurants, you name it. Being secluded to Kemang, I started to think that all of Jakarta was like this, and even worse that all of Indonesia was like this. Luckily, this weekend Isti and her husband Agum took me out and about.

Agung and Isti at dinner

Saturday we went to Pondok Indah Mall, which I swear is the nicest mall I've ever been to. We really came here to browse since everything was so expensive. There were two huge department stores and others like Marks and Spencer, Espirit, Mango, Zara, and too many others to remember. This mall was really two malls, connected by a walking bridge (presumably crossing the busy street below) and was super crowded as well. After going here, I pretty much hated Jakarta and just wanted to get out of town. It's nice to have the option of going to a mall - there are no malls, and nothing even comparable to a mall in Mali - but consumerism has really taken over here.

Saturday's excursion wasn't planned, Isti just showed up to pick me up. Sunday, however, we had planned to go shopping after we went to a wedding. When I found out we were going to a wedding, I was super excited (since I still haven't been to any weddings as an adult except for my own) and it was an Indonesia wedding! After Isti and Agum picked me up, we started driving to East Jakarta and I finally got outside of Kemang. Jakarta is certainly more developed than I'm used to, with highways and tolls and the like, but it was great to see fruit vendors lining the streets at the big bus station, people selling their goods while weaving in an out of traffic, and driving through what I can only compare to downtown Bamako and Grande Marche area. I felt at home and immediately reconnected to this foreign place that I was starting to dislike. As a wedding guest, we arrived to greet and eat and then leave. Of course I snapped a shot of the lovely bride and groom.

Chandra and Indiri - Indiri is Isti's cousin from her father's side.

After the wedding outting, we drove through Central Jakarta to South Jakarta to the Ambassador Mall and then Plaza Semanggi for dinner. Since Jakarta has a population of almost 12 million, you can imagine the insanity of traffic and parking. At the Ambassador Mall, we entered the parking lot, but just kept driving until the 5th level (there were no options for parking below that) and excited to start looking. The cars were packed in and some shoppers even left their cars in neutral so the parking attendants could move them, in a straight line of course, if necessary. I think this mall had 7 or 8 levels and the stores weren't as glamorous as the previous day, but much more in our budget. Since a lot of the clothing industry invests in South/Southeast Asian countries for their manufacturing, this mall had "seconds" from stores like Banana Republic, H&M and Zara, but everything was super tiny (probably why they were seconds).

View of South Jakarta, from either the 5th or 6th level of parking at Ambassador Mall.

View of South Jakarta from Plaza Semanggi at dusk.

It was nice to finally see a bit more of Jakarta than I had seen in the previous week, and it gave me hope that our trips out to the districts will be fruitful and full of lots of work. I think Jakarta is a nice city to come to after 2 months in the field (much the same way I felt about Bamako), but right now it just feels a little bit too much like America to me.