In the north, bloody protests left three (confirmed) dead.
In the south, torrential rains and flooding.
The former, I chose to avoid. The later, I had no choice but to confront:
Sunda Kelapa
March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Jakarta’s 800-year-old port. Still a working cargo port, Sunda Kelapa only allows piring, traditional two-masted sailing ships.
Cargo is still loaded manually. Interestingly (though not terribly surprisingly) most of the workers in the port and on the ships are Bugis — the seafaring ethnic group that earned notoriety in the English language as “Bogeymen.”
I felt a bit bad actually. Sunda Kelapa is a big tourist attraction (by Jakarta standards, at least), but the people in the harbor have nothing to do with the tourist industry. They’re just putting in a very, very hard day’s work, and have to deal with dozens of cameras trained on them. Granted, this is not their biggest problem, by a long shot. But I still felt like I should hang back much more than I usually would, and it shows in the photos. I’m not too worried though — if I missed anything, I can always buy a post card.
Attracting a Crowd
July 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I had a chance to escape from the office for a few hours yesterday and accompany friends from Voice of Human Rights Media to Klender, a kampung in East Jakarta. They were shooting footage for a documentary about efforts to provide kampung youth with basic legal training to protect themselves and their neighbors against police abuses, especially in drug-related arrests. Bringing a video camera onto the street invariably attracts a little bit of attention:
and then a little more:
and then some more:
(But not, on the whole, as much attention as I attracted when I inadvertently stumbled into a nest of fire ants while trying to get a better angle on a shot. My feet are still stinging and covered in dozens of teeny little welts.)
Day & Night in Jakarta
June 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Gado-Gado vendor in BenHil, Jakarta. On a heated stone, he mixes together peanut, citrus, sugar, chili, and your choice of vegetables, rice cakes, tofu and tempeh to make a delicious lunch.
Hallway of a Rumah Kost in Tebet, Jakarta.