A sojourn at the hospital

Neo-natal intensive care units are, by their nature, very depressing places. Not that other hospital units aren’t depressing, but there’s something more depressing about seeing tiny beings hooked onto tubes and monitors, surrounded by constant beep-beeping of medical equipment.

It’s all the more depressing if your child is in it.

It was just over three years ago that my daughter June spent nearly 10 days in such a room at a French hospital. Recounting the experience, which followed an even more traumatic birth experience, still brings tears to my eyes. And now I am in a déjà vu situation. I have been forced to such a unit, this time in Jakarta, for my son. He is sleeping soundly, between another small baby with a fever and a huge baby with a deformed head with a sickly pallor not unlike cement. Not a happy place to be. Not a place I’d imagined he’d be spending, after an ideal birth 20 days ago.

Unlike my daughter’s birth, which was a medicalized experience and a hugely disappointing one, it was such a relief to have had an ideal birth for my son. Bloody show at one day short of 38 weeks, labour starting naturally in the middle of the night (and allowing me to sleep for six hours or so) two days later, which got so strong by 8 in the morning the following day that I rang my ob/gyn. By the time he examined me at a clinic I was 3cm dilated. I headed towards the hospital, where, less than 2 hours after my arrival, my son was born. The pain was immense of course, and all the breathing techniques I’d learned went out the window, but with the help of the nurses, my ob/gyn, and my husband, I was able to give birth without the help of any pain killers. No induction, no epidural, no episiotomy—the perfect birth experience. Since I have an aversion to hospitals (and especially the food served there, yikes!), I managed to get permission from both my and my son’s doctors to have us discharged the next day. Breastfeeding started off well, my milk came in 3 days post-partum, my baby was gaining weight really well… then all of a sudden, fever stroke. Low-grade fever, but all parenting books say any fever over 38 degrees celsius in a newborn should be treated with caution. So I took him to a clinic, and this is how we’ve ended up back in the hospital where I gave birth.

My son has had blood and urine tests done and cultures taken to rule out signs of bacteria or any other harmful infections. The paediatrician doesn’t know what the problem is—only to say that because fever goes down every time antibiotics are given, it’s probably a bacterial infection. It breaks my heart to see my son in the hospital. What on earth is going on inside this tiny body of his? The only thing I can do for now is to give him the nourishment he needs—my breast milk—and hope that he will get better soon.

Hello world!

Hello! I am Sky, Blanca's son , and I was born on Indonesian Hero's day, 2011. I was so ready to come to this world that my mum (and her driver) was worried that I'd be born in the car on the way to the hospital! Fortunately for Mum I was pretty small at 2.6kg, had I been any bigger I'm sure she would have really suffered. Everything went well and I was able to go home the next day and meet my bigger sister, June. She gave me a nice present that I'll use as my doudou!

That's it from me now. Bye!

The saga continues

The nuclear crisis is far from over. It was extremely depressing to read yesterday that the rating of the severity of the accident in Fukushima has been raised to 7, the worst on an international scale, to the same level as the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

A report in the New York Times reveals that:

The nearly monthlong delay in acknowledging the extent of these emissions is a fresh example of confused data and analysis from the Japanese, and put the authorities on the defensive about whether they have delayed or blocked the release of information to avoid alarming the public.

They wanted to avoid alarming the public? I mean, doesn't the public have the right to know, the right to have information in a timely manner? The public can decide for themselves whether they will be alarmed or not.

As I was reading an article in Conservation Magazine that discusses BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster last April, the description of what happened (i.e., how BP and the US government did not make public some vital information concerning the disaster) are strikingly similar:

For several weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig collapsed last April 18, nobody knew how much oil the busted wellhead was releasing into the Gulf of Mexico—only that the quantity was huge. Without that critical data point, there was no way to gauge the growing size or potential impact of the disaster. Yet the people in charge of stopping the gusher seemed curiously uninterested in knowing the extent of the damage. BP declined to provide any estimate of the volume of oil erupting into the sea, saying it made no difference in their plans to cap the well or clean up the spill, while NOAA offered only a single estimate of 5,000 barrels per day.

The lack of reliable information on an enormous, unfolding disaster made little sense to many scientists and engineers following the news...

... Large-scale disasters almost always overwhelm government agencies. Bureaucracies are accustomed to moving slowly. And when they try to move fast, they hit red tape, turf conflicts, and political obstacles. And large oil companies (or other private organizations) will safeguard their own interests before the public’s... Worse, to minimize political or economic fallout, those linked to a disaster often downplay the severity of the situation or spin it to their own ends.

It depresses me to no end that we seem to be incapable of learning from our mistakes.

Image taken from http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp

Nuclear crisis continued

The past week has been a difficult one for me. I am surprised to find myself distracted very easily and frequently, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but the news in Japan. I think it is fortunate that we do not have cable TV. Last week I visited a Japanese friend who had her TV on to CNN, and during the short time I was there, horrific images were replayed over and over again. I am glad that I do not need to unnecessarily expose myself, and my daughter, to such violent images.

My primary information source is from the internet. The problem with the internet is that there is too much information available, and we never know what political or sensationalist agenda is behind each piece of information. The good thing about the internet is that we can find all different kinds of news and views. According to numerous internet sources, amounts of radioactive material have been detected in water, milk, and vegetables such as spinach, not only from Fukushima but in Tokyo, 220 km away. However, the Japanese government is informing the public that "the radiation levels exceeded the limits allowed by the government, but the products 'pose no immediate health risk'" (The Guardian, 19 March). According to the CNN, the World Health Organization has also declared that "short-term exposure to food contaminated by radiation from Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses no immediate health risk". But really, the question we should be asking ourselves is this: what is meant by "no immediate health risk"? What exactly are the reasoning behind these statements?

As an anthropologist who has documented the human environmental impact of nuclear weapons testing wrote in a commentary: "In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of 'safe'?" To quote a little more from her:

In a nuclear crisis, life becomes a nightmare for those people trying to make sense of the uncertainties. Imaginably, the questions are endless. Radiation is invisible, how do you know when you are in danger? How long will this danger persist? How can you reduce the hazard to yourself and family? What level of exposure is safe? How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimize exposure? What are the potential risks of acute and chronic exposures? What are the related consequential damages of exposure? Whose information do you trust? How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of nuclear disaster? And the list of unknowns goes on. These questions are difficult to answer in the chaos and context of an ongoing disaster, and they become even more complicated by the fact that governments and the nuclear industry maintain tight control of information, operations, scientific research, and the biomedical lessons that shape public-health response. This regulation of information has been the case since the nuclear age began, and understanding this helps to illuminate why there is no clear consensus on what Japan's nuclear disaster means in terms of local and global human health.

Another worrisome development closer to home is this one: that "despite growing opposition sparked by the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan", Indonesia is proceeding with plans to build four nuclear reactors (IRIN, 21 March). This brings us to the question so aptly posed by an op-ed in The Washington Post: "If the competent and technologically brilliant Japanese can’t build a completely safe reactor, who can?"

But the Japanese, just like anyone else, make mistakes. Just this morning I read that people who had escaped in officially designated higher-ground shelters to escape the tsunamis were swept away, because such shelters were designed with 5.5m-high waves in mind, and the actual waves that engulfed the coasts of north-east Japan were up to 7.3m (JMA 2011). It's also reported that just a month prior, government regulators "approved a 10-year extension for the oldest of the six reactors at the power station" and that after the extension was granted, The Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that "it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment related to the cooling systems, including water pumps and diesel generators, at the power station’s six reactors.

I do not know if humans are capable of building "completely safe" nuclear power plants. So long as humans are capable of making mistakes, I suspect not. I hope we do not have to face another nuclear disaster to find out.

A social-natural disaster

Ever since the massive earthquake hit north-eastern Japan on 11 March, my email and SMS inboxes have been flooded with concerns from friends and colleagues. Living in a country where hazards strike and often turn into devastating disasters, I am not surprised to hear expressions of concern coming from strangers--shop keepers that I meet for the first time, for example.

Fortunately, no family member or close friends have been hurt directly from the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami. My parents' dog may suffer from a urinary track infection, as his daily walks have been limited due to temporary stopping of the elevators in my parents' 26-storey apartment building in central Tokyo. Another family member living in Tokyo had to walk 4 hours to get home, as the train services were stopped. But these inconveniences are minor compared to the damage and suffering of people directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. My thoughts are with them.

At the same time, I worry immensely about the developments surrounding the nuclear power plants in Fukushima. State of nuclear emergency has been called, with six reactors reportedly having difficulties with their cooling systems (14 March, Sydney Morning Herald). I am not sure if we should be consoled by comments from experts who say that a partial meltdown "is not a disaster" and a complete meltdown is not likely (14 March, Reuters). What bothers me is the conflicting and contradictory information I am seeing in the various media, in Japanese and in English. In addition to the confusion, there is obviously much covering-up going on, and the truth to the extent of damage may only be uncovered later.

Having lived in two of the top ten countries with a high reliance on nuclear energy (France gets nearly 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, while Japan's is 30%) (IAEA 2008), I cannot pretend to be a simple bystander to the whole issue.

The nuclear crisis in Japan is literally adding fuel to opposition to building of new reactors around the world (13 March, Beyond Nuclear). In Germany and Switzerland, plans to build or renew nuclear power plants are being and suspended (14 March, the Guardian).

The advantage of nuclear energy is that it does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not emit greenhouse gasses (Darwill 2010). It has been touted by many a viable option to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. However, the question we should ask ourselves is this: do we want to resort to nuclear power to combat climate change?

In addition to problems such as environmental pollution (radioactive contamination and nuclear waste disposal) and concerns over safety such as those we are currently facing in Japan, the fundamental issue we should be considering is that “nuclear power is often nothing more than a way to avoid changing anything” (Solnit 2007). Nuclear power plants, like power plants that rely on fossil fuel, retain “the big infrastructure of centralized power production and […] the habits of obscene consumption that rely on big power”. Simply substituting nuclear with fossil fuel is not changing the fundamental problem we have: our increased need for energy.

Nearly ten years ago, I had a conversation with Prof Akio Morishima, former President of the Central Environmental Council of the Environment Agency of Japan. After learning that he spent much of his career fighting for victims of environmental pollution during Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 70s, I was surprised to hear that he supported the development of nuclear energy. While admitting that nuclear energy is problematic, he asked, "but what are the alternatives?" The possibility that our increasing need for energy could be curbed had not occurred to him.

The challenge we thus face is this: to fundamentally change the way we live and suppress our insatiable energy use. Unless we do so, it is unlikely we can stop climate change. And that, in my opinion, is what makes climate change an extremely contentious issue.

I will be closely following the developments surrounding the nuclear power plants. This is a human-made disaster following a geological disaster.

Top photo taken from http://www.smh.com.au/environment/bigpics/japan-disaster, subtitled "Houses are swept by a tsunami in Natori City in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011".

Candi Borobudur

ユネスコの世界遺産に登録されているボロボドゥール寺院遺跡群は、ジョグジャカルタから４０キロくらいはなれていて、車で片道１時間かかります。Alam Bahasa 語学学校のフィールドトリップとして、行きました。８世紀に建設されたこの寺院は、仏教のもの。３壇に分かれていて、階段とドアが東西南北各方向にあり、正面がありません。下の２壇にはとても細かい、仏教説話にもとづいたレリーフが彫られていて、欠けているところも多いものの、見事でした。一番上の壇には仏塔と仏像がありますが、一番上までには、２０１１年６月まで行かれません。２０１０年のムラピ山噴火と影響で灰の被害を受け、現在清掃中だからです。ユネスコのこれに関する記事は、ここを参照。

語学学校の先生の説明はインドネシア語と英語が混ざっていて残念ながら全て理解することができませんでしたが、ボロボドゥールの近くには２つの他の寺院があり、この３寺院は一直線に並んでいるそうです。また、インドネシアにはこの寺院が建てられた後、ヒンズー教が紹介されたけれど、カースト制がインドネシア人には合わず、後に入ってきたイスラム教が定着したそうです。

黒灰色の寺院と、周りの豊かな緑、そして空の青のコントラストが印象的でした。

平日に行ったので一般的な観光客はそれほどいませんでしたが、遠足の学生がたくさん。観光客が多いから週末を避けるようアドヴァイズされましたが、平日もかなりの数の子供達がいました。また、とても暑いので朝早めに行くのがいいですし、帽子または日傘が必需品です。インドネシアに住んでいる証明ができるKITASがあると、入園料が安くなります。

また、安物のお土産を売る人たちに付きまとわれるのと、出口にあるお土産屋の多さには、ちょっとびっくりしました。インドネシアの観光地の出口にはかならずたくさんのお土産屋があり、それを通らないと出られません。店の人たちはかなり強引に声をかけてきます。

２００２年にカンボディアのアンコール・ワットに行きましたが、それと同じくらいくらい感動した場所でした。

Yogyakarta での語学研修

２月、２週間語学研修のためジョグジャカルタに滞在しました。これは私の職場が半分負担してくれる研修制度で、新しく来イした外国人職員がそれを受ける権利があります。インドネシアに来て１０ヶ月、ようやく研修に行く余裕ができました。実際のところインドネシア語ができなくてもジャカルタでの生活にはそれほど不自由しないといのですが、やはりちょっとは知っておくと当然便利。ほんのちょっとだけでも現地語で意思疎通ができるようになるのは現地人に対する礼儀ですし、よかったです。

ジョグジャカルタといえば、ジャヴァ文化の中心地。バティック（更紗）や影絵芝居でも有名ですし、ボロブドゥール遺跡やプランバナン寺院群などの遺跡もあります。市内にはクラトンと呼ばれるスルタンの宮殿や水の宮殿もあります。

ジャカルタよりずいぶん規模は小さい町ですが、車やモーターバイクの量の多さは同じくらいに感じました。ただ、小さい分歩きやすい環境でした。毎日ホームステイ先から語学学校まで１キロくらいは歩き、健康的な生活を送ったような気がします。

我々が通った語学学校 Alam Bahasa は、主にマン・ツー・マンの授業で、一日６時間、２週間で合計６０時間のコースをとりました。１日２時間の授業が３回、毎授業先生が変わります。最初の週は６人の先生がいて、それはちょっと多すぎるということで２週目は先生を４人に減らしてもらいました。ここの先生、上手な先生も多いのですが、あきらかに慣れていない先生もいて（アルバイトに多いよう）、それはちょっと残念でした。また、毎日すごい量のボキャブラリーを学ぶので、毎晩苦労しました。この６０時間コースを修了すると、「Communicative Beginner」の修了証をもらいますが、まあ正直言って、このコースを修了して初めてインドネシア語の奥深さを知ることができた、という感じです。とりあえずタクシーや買い物、レストランで注文するのに不自由しない程度のレベル。

ジョグジャカルタ滞在中は、ヘルさんの家でホームステイしました。ここはホームステイというよりは、下宿という感じ。合計１２の部屋に、主に語学学校の生徒（我々が通った Alam Bahasa と、ライバル校の Wisma ）が泊まっています。外国人が多いため、またホストファミリーが皆英語ができるので、あまり語学のためには効果がなかったのです。が、とても料理が美味しく、毎日夕飯を楽しみにしていました。

これからは、滞在中訪問した観光地の情報をアップしていく予定です。

photo taken from http://www.yogyakartadiscovery.com/

Missing Daddy

I spent most of the day feeling guilty yesterday. I made my daughter cry, over a trivial thing. The lesson I have learned is: never rush a strong-willed girl, even on a morning when there are a million things to do and there are only 10 minutes left before rushing out the door!

My partner has left on a trip for nearly two weeks, thus leaving me, June, and the dog to take care of ourselves. So it's me that has to get everything ready in the morning, and drop June to preschool before going to the office. Yesterday, June took her time eating breakfast, thus little time was left for me to get other things done. I needed to go upstairs to get something I'd forgotten, so I thought I'd just carry June with me and get it quickly before coming back downstairs again to get everything ready for departure. But alas, nothing is that simple these days with a two-year old!

First, she refused to move from the sofa, as she wanted to listen to her favourite nursery rhymes ("music on!"). When I managed to coax her into going upstairs, June insisted that she walk up the stairs (clock is tick-tick-ticking!). And then she wanted to look carefully at all the photos displayed in the stairwell (tick-tick-tick). And ask me questions about the photos (tick-tick!). And then, more questions (tick-tick-tick!). At which point, I just picked her up to rush up the stairs. Next moment, a huge howl from June: "Daaaaddyyyyyyy!!!'. Tears fall down her cheeks.

Of course Daddy is more patient. He probably would have allowed June to ask all the questions she has about the photos, even though she has already asked the same ones a million times. He would also wake up earlier so that he does not have to rush. But then, he does not have to put on make-up and get ready for the office at the same time getting June ready for preschool!

I am sorry, June, for being an impatient mother. But I am doing my best. I know you miss Daddy, but so do I.

あけましておめでとうございます / Happy New Year / Selamat Tahun Baru 2011

２０１０年９月下旬以降は、日本一時帰国、アフリカ、アメリカ、マレーシア、東チモールへの出張があり、ブログの更新がなかなかできなかったことを反省しています。２０１１年はより定期的に、ジャカルタやインドネシアに関することをアップデートしていきたいと思っています。２０１１年が皆にとって、よい年になりますように。

My new year's resolution is to explore and learn more from what Indonesia has to offer.
May the year 2011 be filled with new discoveries for everyone!