Open Writing

It all started when I noticed an advertisement in the Saturday paper under the Engineering section. Don’t know why I even looked there, as I don’t normally.

Anyway, there it was, the International Development Program of Australian Universities (IDP) was looking for two technical people to assist with a largish project in Indonesia.

Well, I thought I’d give it a try, and I was never sure if they had a dearth of applicants or what, but in a very short period of time, I was in Melbourne, being interviewed about the job. It was a few months later before I heard back from them, and much to my surprise, I had been accepted.

The reason for the delay was not spelled out, but it had something to do with the Indonesian end not being quite ready for us. We later discovered that our Central Workshops were months behind schedule, and work had only just started on the construction phase. We would be responsible for setting up a training facility and running courses for university support staff.

However I was advised that I should let my employers know, and as this was the University of Tasmania, and our Vice Chancellor at the time was Chairman of IDP, I wandered down to his office to ask for his thoughts and support, which were readily forthcoming. IDP promotes co-operation between Australian and overseas universities, as well as co-ordinating the recruitment of new overseas students.

So there it was; self, a family of wife and four kids to be prepared to travel to Indonesia for two years, a small hobby farm to be kept running, and a search for background information on Ujung Pandang, South Sulawesi.

Ujung Pandang used to be known as Makassar, and has recently reverted to this. South Sulawesi was also known in Dutch times as The Celebes, and there seemed to have been precious little available about it in English. We started writing to expat(expatriate - coming from another country on a temporary basis) staff at the University, and getting helpful advice and also strange terms which were obviously in daily use there, but we had no idea what they meant. We were soon to find out.

We were promised a photocopy on arrival of an old Dutch book on Makassar, printed in the 1930s, with an English summary at the end. Lonely Planet just did not exist in the late 1980s. My wife chased around to get all the information we could on schooling for the tribe, as two were just approaching the high school stage and two not far behind them. Letters came back telling us that they were too old for the expat primary school there, and to get some sort of external education help.

Enquiries within Tasmania were not a lot of help as the ‘away from home’ education seemed to be mainly aimed at young ladies who were in some sort of trouble, and the smallish distances of our island state did not warrant a correspondence school as such or ‘distance education’.

We were eventually told by other expats in Indonesia and Malaysia, that South Australia ran an excellent external course, and the kids were duly enrolled in this, with a promise of ‘text books to follow’.

Then we started on a search for a suitable family who might want to take on a hobby farm for a peppercorn rental, and in return have loads of milk, eggs, pork as needed. We were directed to a semi-professional type, who arrived in sleek glossy shoes, and tip-toed around the cow pats as if they might be disease-bearing. He felt that he and his family could manage quite well, and took on the job. I was somewhat concerned that we didn’t see him again before we left, and trusted that he could work out all the taps, valves and pipes supplying dam and drinking water where needed.

To add to the enjoyment of preparing for our two years away, my parents flew in from interstate, and stayed with us until the day before we left. Much as we loved to see them, there was an awful lot that needed to be done before our departure.

We also learned that an American family, who lived in Canberra, would be also be going to work at the University, Steve lecturing in environmental studies. They also had children, and insisted that we all get a course of Indonesian before thrusting ourselves onto the university community. This was duly arranged, and we were advised that we’d be doing a six-week course at the Sacawacana Christian University at Salatiga, Central Java.

So departure day was just two days off, no-one had been to check the farm set-up, parents still being shown around, suitcases in the final stages of being packed, small Apple computer packed, childrens’ books all done up in parcels, and the Post Office next door phones. “Could we come over please, as there are a few bags for you”.

So over the road we went, and there were three or four enormous PO canvas bags, full of books from South Australia. We dragged these home, and hastily did some re-packing and organising, and of course, we were way over the 20kg allowance. However, we were going Business Class (whoopee!) and could take a bit extra.

D Day minus 1 was on us, and parents duly taken to the airport, and yours truly forgot the car was in an ‘unloading only’ zone while answering one of those inevitable airport interviews the tourist bureau foists on people, and copped a horrible fine which left me wondering if I could avoid this, as I was skipping the country next day, but decided to cough up.

So home again, a final milking of the cow next morning, still no new tenants, but I was assured they’d be down during the day, and we were taken into town by friends, so that we could catch a very early plane on the way to Sydney, then Bali and later, Surabaya and Semarang.

As it turned out, our choice of tenants was a disaster, and we came back to a very-much wreck of a farm, empty dams and tanks which took almost a year to get right again, but that’s nothing to do with this yarn.

* * *

To be continued.