Week six

Previous week I arrived in Semarang and discussed my research, questionnaire and list of interviewees with Cecil Iswari and Sri Sumarni Cici. As told before, Iswari is the representative of HHSK in Semarang. Cici can be seen as the office manager. Together with them I made a schedule for the interviews. Cici and Iswari supported in this by adding approach strategies and sending invitations to some to interviewees.

Drafting a schedule is not so hard to do, laying down the appointments, however, is more difficult. In Indonesia there are two ways to approach highly ranked persons.
One is the formal way, by sending a letter to them. The odds are huge that this letter will not be read by the addressed person, but eventually meet its companions in distress on the well-known pile. The other way is by knowing the person and just giving him a call, in other words: make use of your personal relation. I do not think I need to tell you which option is best… here is how I figured out:

At first I tried to approach the interviewees the formal way, which resulted in only reactions from the persons known and invited by Cici and Iswari. These reactions consisted out of quotes like “I think I have some time on Thursday, if you could call me in the morning…” and “This week is I am very busy, next week I think I might have half an hour time”. So there I was, fully armed with a tight schedule, a well considered list of interviewees and not even one reaction that fitted my plans. This situation required an immediate adaption to the circumstances, since the initial plans seemed to be hopeless. The only relative certainties were the reactions of the interviewees, so I decided to go along with those. Throwing away some intensive work and betting big time on the unknown are no favorite activities to someone who is always looking for total control, like me…

On Thursday morning I called my first interviewee and he suggested me to come by at 11 am, for a session of maximum one hour. That afternoon I left his office at 14.00 o’clock, having a lunch in my stomach, six pages of minutes and a sequel appointment. On top of that I got some names and numbers to call for information on other topics. Considering this as successful, I enthusiastic started texting the new contacts and the persons I met last week during the meetings. By texting them they are approached personally, have more time to consider and less difficulties with the language barrier. I am very excited about this new approach, I hope it will work.

This week I also paid a visit to the project area, accompanied by Mister Sumono Karmidi. Sumono is a member of SIMA, representing the inhabitants by being one himself. For this reason he knew the area very well and showed me around. During this tour we discussed the problems and possibilities of the Banger area. Every once in a while Sumono pointed out some of them, facing me directly with the problems.

One of those problems is the pollution. The complete area is dominated by plastic bags, water bottles and other garbage. Throwing these in the rivers will clog them, which causes floods and the eventual return of the garbage to the land by those floods. Throwing the garbage on the land, however, creates dreadful hygienic circumstances and an unconceivable smell; the name ‘Banger’ stands for ‘Stink’ and that is no coincidence…

The visit to the Banger Area really put me down to earth. It forced me to stand still at my prosperity and pointed out the importance of the polder, in a very explicit way. Achieving a clear understanding of the problem will help me to solve it. This week I hope to make a leap on that by having a lot of interviews, next week I will share my experiences on them with you, I am looking forward to that!

Thanks for reading my blog, we will keep in touch,

Wim