Thursday, February 20, 2014

Postcard from Polewali

It is only a week since we left Melbourne, but by jingoes it seems a lot longer than that. We hit the ground running and haven’t stopped yet, currently in our third location since leaving Makassar on Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after we’d arrived. Basically we haven’t had time to wipe our arses (so quite handy that I had a bout of constipation. Looks like “Sulawesi stomach” is a different beast to “Bali belly”. To get daily updates on my digestive status, see my other blog, Sulawesi_bound.bogspot.com.) 

Since leaving Makasssar we have been part of a travelling “cocoa caravan” that has ranged in size from 1 to 4 vehicles, driving from hotel to cocoa farm to trial site to farmer’s field day, stopping at the municipal offices to shake hands with the wakil bupati  (deputy mayor the actual mayor is something like the Phantom apparently; few have actually seen him), then heading on to the next town. The group has included university academics from Melbourne, Sydney and Makassar, people involved with various cocoa research projects in Indonesia, and the head of research at Mars (the chocolate company, not the planet; a company, by the way, that is still fully owned by the Mars family!). Everywhere we receive wonderful hospitality in the form of food (perhaps the cause of my “Sulawesi stomach”). 



 
The team assembles on day 1 in Makassar
The caravan on tour. We kind of parked out the village.
A typical South Sulawesi house. They aren't all as nice as this, obviously.
Selfie with the team, with the head of Agriculture in Polewali on the right.


The itinerary is usually breakfast at 7, then out by 8.30 to the first site, before it gets too hot and humid. Then keep going once it is too hot and humid, trying to drink more than we sweat! Then back to the hotel by 6 for a cold shower (hot water doesn’t seem to be widely available, but it’s only Sulawesi cold) before going out to dinner somewhere then collapsing into bed. I have never felt more a part of the water cycle! 

As you can imagine, there hasn’t been too much time for sightseeing, but that will come once the caravan disbands, people head home, and we are left to our own devices. In Polewali (the fabled city we stared at for months as a dot on a map) I managed to sneak away from the cocoa discussions for a walk along the seafront esplanade. Oddly, it is totally undeveloped, lined with simple houses on one side, all the hotels being located a block away on the fairly grimy main road. Sue’s academic supervisor, who has been coming here for years, admitted to me that he’d never seen the waterfront, which was only about 300 metres from our hotel. This is one focused group of people!



Welcome to Polewali (for those of you arriving by boat).

Pedal-powered fun ride, Saturday evening on the Polewali waterfront

What I have seen in the last 6 days are a hell of a lot of cocoa trees! I have walked around “clone trials” and attempted to tell one variety from another by the shape of the pods. I have peered at leaves to see the traces of the dreaded vascular streak dieback (VSD). I have attended farmer training sessions on the benefits of pemangkasan (pruning), pemupukan (fertilising), kompos (I think you can guess that one), pembersihkan gulma (weeding), naungan (shade) and standing next to the tree with an axe to increase production. (Actually, that is a old Kevin Heinze technique they don’t yet know about. I’ll mention it next time.) 


A pruning lesson from the master, Arif
Ode, Sue, Steve and Arif with the cocoa tree we just planted, cocoa farmers field day
Where it all begins: pods on the tree

It’s no holiday, and that’s not what we signed up for anyway. But in the bustle of activity, I am managing to chat to farmers, swap cultural observations with my car companion Ayu, from Makassar, eat coconuts and rambutan freshly cut from the tree, and soak up the classic Indonesian vista of fluorescent green rice paddies fringed with coconut palms, with hazy mountain ranges in the far distance. As we Aussies would say would say by way of great praise, “Not bad”. 

Classic Sulawesi landscape: rice, coconuts, mountains

Words of the day 

pupuk: fertiliser 
ruko: house (rumah) with a shop (toko) at the front

Still to come

Finding Sugar Man in Anreapi

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Countdown

Two days to go. Then Sue and I will kiss the kids goodbye, give the dog an extra Schmacko, leave a fire extinguisher on the kitchen table and fly off for the first instalment of ... the Sulawesi Project. Our mission? To save the world’s chocolate supply from an evil fungus called vascular streak dieback. Well, that’s actually really Sue’s mission, or more accurately her honours research project in ecology, and as a scientist she probably wouldn’t say ‘evil’, but, well, she can be all sciencey in her own blog. My own role in the adventure is a complex mixture of language/cultural advisor, iPad solar rechargist, food taster and general factotum.

Having recently edited two Indonesian language textbooks for high school students, I am thoroughly up to speed with the everyday phrases of Jakartan teenagers, viz:
  • Saya mau menjadi teman kamu di Facebook. [I’d like to add you to the list of people who can see my gallery of selfies online.]
  • Saya suka mendownload musik alternatif di iPod saya. [I think you might be able to work that one out yourself.]

Great ice-breakers though they might be, I’m not sure these phrases will get me far with the cocoa growers of Sulawesi. Instead, I am boning up with more appropriate vocabulary, such as:
  • Apakah pohon kakao Anda terserang jamur? Is your cocoa tree afflicted by fungus?
  • Tolong tunjukkan saya pohon yang paling sehat. Please show me your healthiest tree.
  • Apakah selalu begitu panas dan hujan di sini, atau mungkin kita datang pada waktu yang kurang sempurna? Is it always this hot and rainy here, or did we just come at a bad time?
  • Saya tahu Ramadan sekarang, tetapi apakah kami bisa dapatkan bir dekat sini? I know it's Ramadan, but could we get a beer somewhere nearby?
  • Maaf, saya berbicara tidak tepat. Sorry, that was inappropriate.
* * *

So, what do we know about Sulawesi?


Well, it is that funny shaped island that looks like a scorpion about to strike, located between New Guinea and Borneo. In olden times it was called Celebes, but people found that too hard to pronounce.


View Larger Map



Makassar, the capital, is right down on the southern peninsula, about one hour by air from Denpasar (Bali). It will be our first port of call and,I imagine, the place we will run to if life in the rural outposts proves to be too much for our soft Brunswick sensibilities.

Makassar is famous for a type of soup called Coto Makassar, made from beef and beef entrails such as tripe, liver, lungs, etc. [Note to self: be sure to learn the phrase for ‘I am a vegetarian’: Saya hanya makan sayuran.] 

Happily they also do a great line in seafood. [Also learn: ‘But I do eat seafood!’ Tetapi saya makan hidangan laut juga.].


From Makassar we will be heading off on a 10-day tour of the cocoa farms that are taking part in the research trials. First stop will be the wonderfully named Polewali. Once we get started on the actual data gathering, Polewali will probably be our first ‘base camp’. What is it like? Unfortunately the internet is not a mine of information on the town of Polewali. Perhaps this humble blog will help to put Polewali on the tourist trail. [‘Hey, what did you do on your holidays bro?’ ‘Hung out in Polewali. Had some awesome Coto Makassar.’ ‘Sick!’ ‘Yeah.’, etc.]

Unlike Melbourne’s eccentric summer weather [41, 25, 39, 28, etc.], the temperatures in Sulawesi are amazingly consistent all year round. 

The climate graph for Makassar:


Note the difference between the "cold" and "warm" seasons! (Source: weatherspark.com)

is the closest thing you are likely to find to two straight lines. In the 'cold season' it gets to 30 degrees, with a low of 21. In the 'warm season' it gets to 32, with a low of 22.

The things that do vary, though, are the humidity and the rainfall.


(Source: weatherspark.com)
Yes, we are going in the rainy season and yes, we will possibly end up as two warm puddles on the outskirts of Polewali.

How will we survive?

In the style of Western explorers throughout history, and with some help from our friends, we have assembled a formidable arsenal of technology to help us collect and analyse data, communicate with family and friends back home, and play Angry Birds.



The pride of the pack is a Solar Gorilla solar charger and its cousin the Mini Gorilla battery (thanks Rory). So ...
  • will it all work in the rain, heat and humidity?
  • will we find food that doesn't contain entrails??
  • is the language I have been learning really Indonesian, or some gibberish made up by a cartel of evil pranksters???
  • will we stop the deadly fungus from cutting off the world's chocolate supply????

Stayed tuned.

© 2014 Steve Dobney