The YUM Agro Project
Some of you asked to know more about YUM (the ‘Yayasan Usaha Mulia’), which is the Indonesian charitable foundation that I am working for here. Here is an article I wrote for publication in the Jakarta Globe about the work…
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
itilgabut
Flamboyant Palangkaraya
The rainy season has finally and properly arrived, which (counter-intuitively) means that we are getting more clear blue skies and sunshine – with a heavy storm every day or two. We are continuing to see new and often surprising things,…
Manugal – planting rice with the Dayaks
A couple of weekends ago, our new friend (and workmate) Lelie very kindly invited us up to visit her village of Tewang Rangkang, on the Katingan River about 80km (or 2 hours) to the northwest of here. It’s a Dayak Ngaju…
Kuda Lumping
One of the nice by-products of the after-school art classes at the YUM library, which are now co-hosted by Karen, is that she makes connections with families around the immediate area. So, at the Sunday produce market at Tangkiling this…
Idul Adha in Marang village
A few weeks ago we were invited to attend an Idul Adha event in the (mostly Javanese Muslim) village of Marang – about 20km from here. We rode our little Yamaha Jupiter to the village, bouncing along very slowly on…
Smoke gets in your eyes
It’s the tail-end of the Dry Season (Musim Kering) here in Central Kalimantan. Here (and in parts of Sumatra) it’s also known as Musim Kebakaran (‘the Burning Season’), because of the prevalence of man-made fires in the forest and…
Kanarakan village
Last week I went north up the (Rungan) river with some of my new workmates to check on the condition of home gardens in the village of Kanarakan, which has no road access. It’s still the dry season, so the…
Independence Day, Jogjakarta
Chicken sate vendor, Jogjakarta. It was 17th August – Independence Day – and the streets and footpaths of Jogja were streaming with people out be part of the festivities for the big day. Families with little kids waving their red-and-white…