Hundreds Wearing Robes Force Tourists To Leave Aceh Beach Resorts

June 27, 2006 09:45 AM

BANDA Aceh, June 26 (Bernama) -- Hundreds of Muslims wearing robes and veils from a number of Islamic boarding schools in East and North Aceh and Bireuen regencies, went to Ujong Blang beach resort in Lhokseumawe on Sunday and told tourists to go home.

According to a report by the Indonesian news agency Antara, the move was apparently aimed at avoiding immoral deeds in the beach resort some five km from Lhokseumawe.

The group believed that wicked deeds could invite disasters like tsunami, which had devastated Aceh at the end of 2004, according to Teuku Abati, who led the action.

Muslims driving away tourists in Ujong Blang beach came from all Islamic boarding schools in Aceh province, he said, adding that the action was part of efforts to avoid the violation of the Syariah (Islamic law) in the province.

"Launching the action two months ago, we have thus far carried out sweepings from Bateilik in Sigli regency to East Aceh, and the action will be continued," Abati said.

He said the group funded their operation out of their own pocket without being exploited by other groups.

The group is hoping that the action will eradicate immoral deeds, especially sexually immoral ones, in recreation places, he explained.

However, the group's action had left an impression of arrogance as when they arrived at the tourist locations, they simply kicked chairs and tables in cafes and at the same time shouted aloud to tourists.

Volleyball!

We've built about 20 volleyball courts as part of psycho-social rehabilitation of the communities we work in. In turn, we've just finished sponsoring our first tournament that took place in Lhoong - a hamlet that's about 1:15 south of Banda Aceh. Our villages from up and down the coast participated - all together, we were able to pull together enough teams for fill a 16-team single elimination bracket.

I went down to check out the finals and the competition was fierce! On the courts were some of the tallest Acehnese I've ever seen! Or maybe they were mercenaries, since I never see them on a typical field visit. The home team won 3-1 in front of the home crowd and took home 4,000,000 rupiahs! That's $400! Well, if you split it 12 ways, that's like $30 per player, which still ain't bad!

Next up will be a 2-week tournament that'll start the 3rd week of July. This one will be co-sponsored by USAID and Nike. The finals will coincide with a Congressman's visit. I'll have to start the planning process next week, since this one will have both a men's bracket and a women's bracket. We're hoping to fill 8 teams for the women's side. Stay tuned. I may have photos of girls wearing jilbab (headscarves) with a swoosh on it!

Tree Power!

This is from the World Bank's monthly Aceh Conflict Monitoring Update:

Three separate villages in Aceh are planning to protest bad roads by planting trees in the middle. In three separate incidents from difference corners of Aceh, villagers protested bad roads by planting trees, or by threatening to plant them, in the middle of the road. In on village, villagers planted more than 20 banana and tuber trees in a road that the community claims the government has not maintained in 15 years. On Pulau Weh, villagers have begun planting various types of trees in the middle of the road that leads from the city of Sabang to Kilometer Zero. Finally, in Aceh Barat Daya, villages threatened to plant a road with rice if the government did not immediately repair a road that they have promised to on numerous occasions.

Civil disobedience!

Electricity Headache

If I don't have electricity for a couple of nights, big whoop. As long as I have flashlight and some water in a tub to pour over myself and some clean water to brush my teeth. I'm pretty low maintenance but I guess I forget how high maintenance some others are.

So for the past week, we've had some out of town visitors staying in the Guesthouse. I got this annoying/semi-nasty email tonight complaining I'm not meeting their needs because there's no electricity at night and no running water. Stuff like this makes me want to scream. You're in Aceh, suck it up!

What pissed me off more was when I came home tonight, I found my satellite TV box smoking. Literally Smokin'! Apparently there is usually a power surge when the generator gets turned on, and it zapped my TV box! Guess there will be no TV watching for awhile. Sucks.

Otherwise, have had a good couple of good food days - Thursday night was tuna cucumber avocado sushi, fried wontons with prawn filling, and seared tuna. Friday was salmon at the Italian place. Saturday was beef and tomato stew with cous cous and golden syrup dumplings (surprisingly good!) and today was banana nutella crepes. Oh, and I forgot to eat dinner tonight.

I'm going to bed now. Hope tomorrow will be a better day in the electric world.

Super Duper!

Worldcue® Alert
Severity: Informational Alert

Communications/Technology: Electricity supply severed to parts of Aceh since June 18; prolonged power disruptions possible through mid-July.

This alert affects Indonesia.

This alert began 21 Jun 2006 03:02 GMT and is scheduled to expire 15 Jul 2006 23:59 GMT.
A prolonged power outage has been affecting six regencies in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam since late June 18. The East Aceh, North Aceh, Bireuen, Pidie, and Aceh Besar regencies have experienced a total blackout, while parts of Central Aceh and the capital of Banda Aceh are also lacking electricity. Major towns in the blackout area include Lhokseumawe, Bireuen, and Sigli.

The outage resulted from the felling of three metal electricity towers, severing the region's primary power connection to neighboring North Sumatra Province. The vandalism occurred in a sparsely area in the Sungai Raya subdistrict in East Aceh. Power outages caused by saboteurs were relatively common during the 30-year Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement, GAM) rebellion, but authorities have not identified any suspects. GAM officials have denied involvement and former rebels are reportedly helping police locate the perpetrators.

According to officials from the state-run PT PLN utility company, repairs could take longer than three weeks. Some businesses may use generators in larger towns, but expect no electrical service in rural areas in the affected regencies. Natural gas production disruptions are unlikely, but the outage will probably inconvenience many workers in North Aceh.

Finally!

Ok guys! The photos from my Cambodia trip are finally online! Sorry it took so long. It's been a busy week!

Wow. I've only been back for a week...doesn't feel like it at all!

Click here for Cambodia Pics!

20,000,000,000 Dollars

Wait. No. That's 20 billion Rupiahs - roughly about 2 million US Dollars! That's how much grant we're suppose to cut by this Friday! So, the Banda office this week has been quite a madhouse. We've got about 20 villagers in the office everyday since Monday learning to write grant proposals. We're at full capacity in the guesthouse as well, with lots of staff from Jakarta up here to chip in - even had someone sleep on my floor last night! To add to the madness, we've had rain rain and more rain since Saturday evening. The rain knocked my new World Cup antenna into pieces! AND last of all, some assholes sabotaged some electric towers down south, affecting the power supply of the entire eastern coastline of Aceh province. I've had a few hours of power on Sunday, virtually no power yesterday, and some today. I've been lucky though, got some friends who haven't had power for 36+ hours and no generator. Sucks. According to the grapevine, it'll take about 10 days to repair the damage. Ack!!!

Damn, should have gone to Cambodia this week!

Remember the Scampies?

For all of you who are fans of my Scampies, I'm sorry for not giving you updates about them. They're all still alive! But now, after waiting for a couple of months, my friend JC has finished editing the video about my Scampies!!! THANK YOU JC!

Best way is to download the video titled Sharon's Crab Farm and then open it with Windows Media Player, or whatever video-plyaing program you've got. It's kind of funny, you can watch my Scampies scramble around in their Crabitat and take a bath. My housemate Richard also makes a quick appearance.

Ha. Enjoy! Thanks again, JC!

Indovision Sucks

I'm back in Aceh. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time in Cambodia and a fun 1-day stopover in Jakarta, but it's nice to be back...

...until I found out that we don't get the local channel that shows World Cup at our house because Indovision - the satellite TV provider blocked that channel! Even when I'm paying like $35 a month for it! Sucks!!!

So, my staff went out and bought an antenna just now. Will get to watch the matches in the comfort of my home tonight!

Phnom Penh Phun

Hello from Phnom Penh.

It's a lovely city situated at the crossing of the Mekong, Tonle Sap and Bassac Rivers. The city was laid out by the French during their occupation, it's got wide boulavards with traffic circles and the streets are laid out in a grid. To make life even easier, all the streets are numbered with even ones going east-west and odd ones going north-south. The city's got some amazing (and cheap) restaurants along its river front. I've def. been eating well since arriving here.

We took an overnight trip to Sihanoukville - a beach town 4 hours south of here on the Gulf of Thailand. Beautiful stretch of beach lined with restaurants and girls selling delicious lobsters/crabs/springrolls/bbq squid.

So far, I've taken about 300 photos. It'll be quite a task to sort through the pics and pick out the best ones for posting! I'll get the photos up once I get back to Aceh!

I fly to Jakarta via Singapore tomorrow. Will spend 2 day in JKT for meetings before finally landing back in Aceh on Tuesday morning.

Hello from Siem Reap

So I just checked my blog. The template is all weird but I can't really fix it at the moment - currently in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on a road-side internet cafe, typing on the worst keyboard ever.

I arrived here yesterday morning and met up with my friend Ben, who flew in from Bangkok. Today we spent the day exploring the Angkor temple complex. The temples are all really photogenic, meaning I will have lots and lots of photos to post when I return.

It's really really hot here (even hotter than Banda) but at least it's dry heat!

365 Days in Aceh

A year ago today, I woke up in the big comfy bed of the lux Four Seasons Jakarta, took a nice hot shower (not knowing it was going to be my last one in 2 months), had a sumptuous breakfast buffet (knowing it was going to be my last good meal for awhile), and then was promptly shipped out to Aceh. We touched down in Aceh at around 5:50pm (these were the days when the 12:50 Garuda flight was still the 1:50 flight). My boss decided that we were going to go straight down to Ulee Lheue - the hardest hit part of Banda Aceh to show me some tsunami damage. After a somber car ride, we ended up in Ulee Kareng where I was greeted by all of the project staff - most of them spoke very little English or too scared of me to speak to me. After experiencing my first Kopi Aceh and feeling out of place, we then went to Banda Seafood for dinner (these were the days when it was the only good restaurant in town). By the time we finished dinner, it was past 9pm, and poor jet-lagged me, was about to do a face plant in my udang lada hitam. We finally arrive at the office and guesthouse. First thing the boss wants to do is to give me a grand tour of the compound. By the time I stepped into my room, it was way past 10. I was greeted by a toilet that didn't flush (7 months, 16 days & 23 hours later I found out that it DID flush), cold brown water coming out the shower, and a couple of dead cockroaches around the room. After a year, I can admit that I was on the verge of breaking into tears (ok I did break into tears, but I blame my Malaria meds) and asked myself repeatedly just what the f--- I had gotten myself into. I was not a happy camper that first night. Then of course, the Kopi Aceh did its trick and it was 10am in DC and I couldn't sleep for hours.

Fast-forward to 1 year later.

I'm still here. Things have changed quite a bit here. You can pretty much get your dirty hands on anything you want (if you know the right person - usually a Chinese) - booze, pork, 1 gig memory cards, mini-tripods, tampons, Haagen-Dazs (at $11 a pint), decent Italian food, and apparently there's an abundant source of fresh basil off of some backroad in the mountains...

Last night, as an excuse to go out and have a drink or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5...we went to Pace Bene to celebrate my 1-yr here in Aceh.

Su Lin, Bryan, Justin, me and Rohan enjoying our Lychee Vodka cocktails and Bintangs.
I hope I'm not getting Pace Bene in trouble if the Sharia Police Googles "Booze in Aceh"

I'm kind of surprised I've kept up this blog for so long, as I was never a kid who could keep a journal for more than a couple of weeks. I hope to keep this up for as long as I'm here. Who knows, maybe I'll even have some guest bloggers to give their perspective on life in Aceh.

I'm leaving for Cambodia tonight and hope to blog a little from there.