In the Middle of our street...

We've moved!  

After a few weeks at Spice Homestay which we really enjoyed, we decided we were better off moving down the street to Maranatha Homestay where we could have a bit more space and a bit fewer distractions.  By distractions, I mean we got away from the loud music and herds of sleeping surfers sprawled out like beached whales at Spice.  In exchange, we have one loud yappy dog (the worst kind, by far) which keeps the girls up at night, and a set of mosque load speakers aimed directly at my bedroom which makes sleeping past the 5 AM call to prayer a thing of the past.  Padang is loud.

That being said, we love Maranatha.  Unlike Spice, there is limited (read: no) english spoken here, so we're forced to use our bahasa Indonesia.  We get a traditional Indonesian breakfast, which at times is a bit too fried for our liking, but we are always surprised by new delightful treats in the morning.  For the first time, I get my own bedroom, and a real bed in lieu of a mattress on the floor.  The little extra space is quite nice.  I even have my own bathroom, or toilet-shower as I like to call it.  It includes a toilet with a seat, and hot water and great water pressure (unlike the cold drip we had at Spice).  I feel spoiled, this place might have ruined me.  Here are a few pictures so you can get a sense of our new home.  Also, we have a new address, but Kelly and I will be leaving by August 16th so send granola bars and money soon!

Manaratha Homestay

Jl. Bandar Pulau Karam 10-D

Padang, Sumatra Barat, Indonesia

   

                     

In other news, Kelly and I surveyed buildings today.  We got to walk around Masjid Nurul Iman for the first time, it was majestic and beautiful and I gave it a big hug.   The three of us have meetings tomorrow morning followed by a visit to some vulnerable costal communities north of the city center in the afternoon.  I got news today that I passed the PE exam, which I am really happy about.  Kelly and Veronica went to a dentist to get their teeth cleaned and, uh, well, I'll let Kelly tell the story...

- Scott Henderson, PE 74677

Blogs, Goats, and Monkeys

We've let you down, we know...  We've dropped the ball, obviously.  Every week you anxiously check the blog to see what Scott and Kelly are up to, and nothing.  It's nothing personal, we've been thinking about you, we have!  Truth is, we've just been busy.  Well today is Sunday and we're taking the day off from meetings and surveys to catch up with some computer work.  Ok, I'm catching up on some computer work, last I saw of the girls they were headed out after breakfast for a 3 hour massage, and then this afternoon were spotted getting facials and manicures.  Life in Padang is tough.  Well rest assured we're back with the blogging and promise not to disappoint.  Coming soon we'll have some updates on the past couple weeks of activities, so keep tuned.

Yesterday we were out for a bridge survey and I took my camera out and shot a few pictures of life as a pet in Padang.  Let me tell you, it looks rough.  Padang has goats, quite a few goats.  I saw this little fella relaxing on the couch, apparently to good for the wooden planks.

And this guy having a quiet afternoon by the fireplace.  Don't let me disturb you Mr. Goat...  What's that?  You need a Bintang?  Oh c'mon, get if yourself.

Then there was this guy, hanging out outside working on a banana peel.  Kelly went in for a high five but got snubbed, which is all for the better since I wasn't in the mood for a flight to Singapore to get her a rabies shot.

All for now.  From Padang...

- Scott

Week One in Padang

Well believe it or not, in addition to all the fun we’ve had our first week in Indonesia, we also hit the ground running with work and research as soon as we arrived in Padang.  Our first 24 hours were spent finding a place to stay (Spice Homestay) and touring the town to get a sense our new community.  Veronica makes an excellent tour guide and having her on this trip has proved to be tremendously valuable.  We quickly realized that the most important first step to working in a new country is exposing ourselves to some cultural education, and we spent some of our first days doing just that.  We’ve been learning to speak a bit of Bahasa Indonesian, Kelly has picked it up remarkably fast and has taken the role of Friendship & Communication Ambassador for everyone we meet.  Learning how and what to eat in Padang was a little difficult on our stomachs as first, but we’ve quickly become quite found of Masakan Padang and each have our favorite dishes.  They say time in Indonesia is like rubber, sometimes it stretches (and less often contracts), and we’ve been learning the cultural interpretations of “having a meeting at 2pm”.

So far Veronica, Kelly, and I have been working collaboratively on our research.  Our first matter of business was establishing activities and goals for the summer.  Veronica has been facilitating our work so far, and will be focusing on pursuing funding so that GHI can remain involved in this project in the future, as well as establishing local relationships with different organizations.  Kelly and I will be finishing the work started by the ESW class at Stanford, and developing relationships with local universities for Stanford to partner with in the future.  We’ve split up the work so Kelly is focusing on evacuation planning and bridge structures, while I’m working on the design of new evacuation structures and the evaluation of existing buildings for use as evacuation sites.

Our first meeting was Monday at the Disaster Study Center at Andalas University with civil engineering Professor Febrin and a couple of his structural engineering students.  We presented our work from the ESW class and discussed our activities for the summer, including enhancing an existing building survey started by Andalas University students.  We’ll be meeting with Professor Febrin and his students again this week.

After traveling to Jakarta Monday night, on Tuesday we visited DKP (the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries) and presented the ESW project to Dr. Subandono and Abdul (Aam) Muhari.  DKP is the Indonesian governmental organization most involved in tsunami evacuation planning, and has been doing work with partners in Japan and Germany on determining the need for evacuation structures in Padang.  If evacuation structures are built in Padang, DKP is most likely the group to make it happen, so Veronica is very interested in partnering with them for future work.

Tuesday evening we met with an architect named Adi Mudigdo from Jakarta who was interested in our research and invited us to have dinner with him and his wife at his house.  He was a gracious host and we have a wonderful time exchanging stories.  We learned about his unique experiences on housing developments in Aceh after the tsunami, and on rebuilding some amazing indigenous homes on the island of Nias.  We also had a little 12-string guitar jam session, he’s a big fan of the Beatles.  He has since provided us with some very helpful insights on designing evacuation structures.

Wednesday we took a beautiful train ride through the countryside to Bandung, where we meet with two researchers at the Center for Disaster Mitigation at the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB).  ITB has active structural engineering and disaster preparedness programs, and we presented our worked and discussed the feasibility of ITB and Stanford partnering on projects in the future.  They were very interested in the ESW course program and the possibility of forming something similar at ITB.

After our meeting at ITB, we met a research geologist named Danny at LIPI (the Indonesian equivalent of USGS) who has worked in the field characterizing the potential tsunamigenic seismic events near Padang.  After presenting our work, Danny provided us with recommendations on the most recent seismic and tsunami hazard data.  The short of it is that we expect the seismic accelerations to be a bit higher, and the tsunami flow depth to be a bit lower, than we designed for during the ESW class.  This is all pending the establishment of an official hazard map for Padang, which is critical to evacuation planning.

Thursday we traveled back to Jakarta, and met casually in the evening with Dave Hollister, a Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor with the UNDP who had helped put us in contact with ITB.  

Friday we traveled back to Padang, and we took Saturday off to celebrate July 4^th.  We spent the afternoon at a beautiful beach and the evening socializing with our Indonesian friends from Spice Homestay (Seri, Ricky, Arnold, and others) at my favorite new hangout Fella’s.  We even saw a few fireworks go off from the beach nearby.  This week, back to work in Padang…

- Scott

Masakan Padang

Upon our arrival in Padang, we were quickly introduced to the local cuisine which is well known all over Indonesia, aptly named Masakan Padang (Padang Food).  Padang food is unique in presentation, preparation, and spice!  A variety of local dishes are prepared at the beginning of the day, and displayed in stacked bowls at the front of small restaurants all over town.  The food is a combination of Indian and Indonesia food, with a lot of spice and coconut milk curries which give Padang food its spicy reputation.

After seating yourself at a curbside restaurant, a large serving of rice and a variety of small plates are prepared tapas style and brought to your table.  You can check out all of the different food options, and choose and pay only for the plates that you want.  The plates you don’t touch get added back to the stacked bowls displayed at the front of the restaurant.  It’s a great way to try small portions of a bunch of different types of food.  The only rub is there is no menu, so you never really know what you’re eating.  Is it fish or chicken?  Beef or buffalo?

At your table, you’ll also find a small bowl of water.  This is for cleaning your hand before eating, since utensils are used for serving but your right hand is used for mixing, scooping, and eating.  It’s a bit messy, but I think licking your fingers is fair game.

Veronica’s favorite dish called rendang is probably the best known at Masakan Padang restaurants all over Indonesia.  It consists of

 chunks of beef slowly simmered in spices and coconut milk.  It’s probably the spiciest dish on the table.

The spice takes a little getting used to, but the food excellent and we’re really enjoying it.  

A Week in Indonesia

Hey everyone!  We're back in Padang after a few days of traveling to Jakarta and Bandung.  Sorry for the lack of blog updates thus far, it's been hard finding reliable internet while we travel.  We're all doing well, excited to be back in Padang, and are looking forward to the rest of our summer.

A few observations after a week in Indonesia...

The coffee served to us every morning at Spice Homestay is served Turkish/cowboy style, they pour hot water into a cup full of coffee grounds and the only way to filter it is with your teeth.  It tends to settle at the bottom, but the coffee is left dark and strong.  One of the surfers we met brought his own French press, but so far I’m digging it Padang style.  To my surprise, our first morning the coffee beans were from Starbucks, but it was Sumatra blend, so I guess that’s legit.

Exchanging money here is a lot more difficult than we expected.  Most of the banks won’t exchange dollars for rupiah. In Padang we discovered the best exchange rate in town comes from a Chinese-Indonesian man who owns a small street level jewelry store, where the value of our $100 bills depends on their condition and the year they were printed.  This seems to hold true across Indonesia, as at a bank at the Bandung train station Kelly discovered that her $100 bills couldn’t be exchanged because they had been folded in a wallet and therefore “broken”.

The summer in Padang is considered the dry season, according to Veronica, and the locals.  Veronica told us not to bring a jacket or umbrella.  What she didn’t tell us, is that by dry season, they mean it only rains 50% of the time.  Luckily it’s always hot in Padang, and we don’t mind getting a little wet.

In Padang you can eat anything you want, so long as it’s either Padang style Indonesian food, Pizza Hut, or KFC.

We keep running into Australian surfers who are headed out to the Mentawai islands.  They’re an interesting breed, they obviously speak English, but I can’t understand a word they’re saying.

Mosquitoes love ankles, not toes.  They should be called mosquitankles.

You need to get use to the differences here, and accept them in lieu of spending too much time thinking about them.  The occasional bugs crawling around the dining table, a cockroach running up your leg and chest, mosquitoes sleeping with you on the floor, it’s all par for the course.

Veronica is, without question, the most popular person in Padang.  Within our first 2 days in Padang we’ve run into a dozen people who giggle with excitement at the site of Veronica’s return.  Taxi drives, travel agents, café staff, hotel owners, she knows them all.

The girls get a lot of attention in Padang (I’m pretty sure it’s not all for me).  Cars constantly honking, people on motorcycles slowing down to cat call, men on the street practicing their English charm, kids shouting “hello mister!”, women giggling.  I’ve seen an entire construction site stop their work to holla’ at the girls as they walk by, on more than one occasion.  They take the attention very well, always returning it with polite salamat siangs and sores.

Jakarta has Dunkin’ Donuts.  Even California doesn’t have dunkin’ donuts.  Unfortunately Padang isn’t so lucky.

- Scott