Week five
After a nice easy going week in Bali was it time to go to work again. This time not in Jakarta, but in Semarang. This means getting used to a different environment once again; introducing to colleagues, explaining my research and getting about.
The office in Semarang exists out of the collaboration between Witteveen+Bos and Hoogheemraadschap van Schieland en de Krimpenerwaard in the polder project of Semarang. W+B is principally involved and responsible for the technical part, whilst HHSK is taking the institutional part on their account. The technical design is already finished so when I arrived at the office there were no other colleagues from W+B. Nevertheless was I treated very welcome and I felt good at the place.
Most colleagues in the office are members of SIMA, which is the polder board of Semarang. This polder board is set up by HHSK as part of the institutional aspect of the polder project. To us, Dutchmen, a polder board is something as old as Adam, but in Indonesia this is different. They never had a polder board before, so SIMA can truly be seen as an unique piece of craftsmanship. Setting up an organization for operation and maintenance in a country which is mainly focused on the short-term is not an easy task. Add to this the facts that the juridical system in principle did not acknowledge polder boards and there were no skilled people with experience in polders available in the whole of Indonesia, and you will get immediately respect for HHSK and their great work. I really feel honored to be allowed to catch an inside glimpse of this amazing feat.
Another unique opportunity for me is to experience the decision making in Indonesia at first hand. During my first week in Semarang, the project was joined by Mister Johan Helmer and Mister Roy Kraft van Ermel. They are respectively the project manager and political representative of HHSK in this polder project. Together with their local representative, Miss Cecil Iswari, they form the driving forces behind the institutional part of the project. Their visit was business-like and so existed out of a lot of meetings. To my surprise, they invited me to several meetings. Of course I did not have to think long about accepting that invitation; Experiencing decision making is even better then analyzing it afterwards by interviewing, it is the real deal!
The meetings in Indonesia, however, are a lot different compared to the Dutch. Let me explain some differences:
The first difference turns up at the beginning of the meeting, which is usually delayed by at least half an hour.
The next difference is caused by the Indonesian participants of the meetings. They all wore uniforms and their positions within the organization were strictly ordered and clearly noticeable. I had heard that Indonesia is a country of hierarchy before but I did not expect it to be to this amount. Another example of this: The Dutch delegation only consulted with the leader of the Indonesian party, the rest of the party was merely ordered to take notice of things and only spoke when being requested upon.
The use of cell phones can also be acknowledged as a bit different from our habits with these devices: There were we at least mute our phones, are the Indonesians fully enjoying their ringtones; We consider it impolite to take a phone call during meetings, they consider it to be normal; The most astounding fact of this all was that it happened in the middle of conversations, they just accepted their phone calls whilst someone was talking to them…
Perhaps it is not considered impolite to behave this way during meetings, but it surely is very difficult to have fertile negotiations and make well-founded decisions this way. This made me consider the importance of these meetings and sincerity of their decisions. This consideration was supported by the fact that the major items discussed did not seem to be discussion worth at all, from both perspectives. I think there is more to decision making in Indonesian then what just happens in the meetings themselves. I have got the feeling that I am positioned in a political arena which requires more than rationality to conquer it. Perhaps a bit different to our environment, all the greater the challenge to get to the bottom of it!
So far my fifth week’s update, thanks for reading it and we will catch up next week,
Wim
