2020 Was A Year Of Life In The Time Of Corona

Here we are in the end of the year to look back on what have we done in the past 366 days of our life. I hope 2020 has been kind to you. Because it did not for many people.

2020 started with news on Coronavirus outbreak, which shook many industries from travel to livestock. China and Indonesia are quite close, and we have heard about the previous pandemic, SARS, in 2003. However, little did we know that Covid-19 would change everything we thought we have known.

January kicked off in a rather normal pace. A cousin asked me to accompany her to a wedding reception of her colleague. The wedding was held in Nias tradition, and it was the first time I saw it. The guests danced together to close the wedding, it was quite fun! I had scaling at RSGM FKG UI in Salemba and donated blood to Indonesian Red Cross in Kramat. Then there was a dine-in event to celebrate the birthdays of former bosses (yeah, we still keep in touch, LOL).

In February, I started working with an ex boss on the topic that I love: environment! It was a daily job, with one report to be submitted before 11.45 am. I also got another work contract for a corporate newsletter, which would focus on construction and infrastructure (my past love!). After signing the one-year contract, I began to build a schedule for my daily work. It would soon dawn on me that I could not juggle three reports in my morning schedule.

By mid-March, the pandemic has arrived in Indonesia. The government started to implement various policies, from social distancing to social restriction. Many people took the pandemic lightly, because the news said that the virus that causes Covid-19 was a relative of the virus that causes SARS. Nevertheless, the panic buying happened. Disinfectant, face mask, and wet wipes went missing from the shelves of supermarkets. Unlike other people, I decided to pile up books to accompany me on the social distancing period through the last public event I attended this month, the 2020 Big Bad Wolf 2020. I went to this event with my friend Ebf, and we went a bit wild with our purchase, because we sort of predicted that we might not be able to leave our homes for book shopping in a near future.

April saw Good Friday and Ramadhan, with both religious events being observed in quiet and calm manners. To be honest, I enjoyed this year's Ramadhan because there was no obligatory breakfasting event. I could spend the whole month just focusing on work and fasting.

This May marked the first Idul Fitri at home. I also decided to quit one of my daily jobs (I had three, and the deadlines were only one hour apart from each other. My replacement turns out to be my former colleague at TJaP, Reynette. My manager asked me to give her some tips on the job, so we got reconnected again. We have a soft spot for stray cats and now our daily chat would include tips on cats.

June and July were a bit quiet. Nothing of importance had happened. 

In August, a friend invited me to take a staycation at Sultan Hotel. I asked her about the safety level, and she said that everything had been ensured to meet the health protocol. I decided to take her offer. I went to the Red Cross to donate blood before joining her at the hotel. But I was rather shocked to see the Red Cross office was swarmed with people queueing for blood donors. One of them even boldly asked if my bloodtype was A. Dude, even if it were, I would not say it. Anyway, the staycation was okay. I did several laps at the hotel's swimming pool.

September was a bit gloomy for me. A client asked for fee reduction, while another decided to terminate the contract due to budget restriction. I still have other jobs and the fee is enough to get by, but my concern is what will I do with the leisure time in this pandemic? I prefer working at home than exposing myself to the virus. I took one day off anyway to clear my head up.

October was the month of demonstration. On Oct. 5, Job Creation Law, or omnibus law, was passed, and a lot of the people raised their disagreement against the law. The demo did not affect me physically, because I worked from home anyway, but it affected my workload. One of the things discussed in the law was telecommunications, which is a key word for one of my daily jobs. So I got more than 5,000 news links to check everyday. My manager thankfully supported me this month, she even taught me a new tips to speed up my work pace. I also had a soft launching of another business venture with my Master friends.

Early November, a friend asked if I would be interested to work on a story gathering project in Sumba. I had a long thought process for the request and finally agreed to go. I sent in a proposal and after several discussions, I departed to Sumba on the last day of November. For this trip, I took leave from two daily jobs and a weekly job.

After coming back from Sumba, I had to catch up with all the reports and other obligations that I put on hold due to the trip. Then I closed the year by renewing my driving license at a Mobile Driving License place. It was the first time for me to renew my driving license at such place, and it was impressively quick. I would definitely come to this place again five years from now.

Whoa, I thought 2020 was pretty bland. But when I looked back at the highlights, while it was indeed bad, it was actually not that bad. How was your 2020, by the way?

2021 may not come any easier than 2020. However, if we survived 2020, then there is a chance we will make it in 2021.

Sumba Story Gathering Project And #TravelInTheTimeOfCorona - Part 3

Enough with the work talk, this post will have photos on East Sumba.

Before the pandemic, I would be irritated if things did not go as planned. Now that the whole world are well into the ninth month of the pandemic, I have learned to improvise, prepare several back-up plans and accept if things could not go as the initial plans.

I must admit that this latest trip to Sumba has given me a lot of last-minute surprises. I've told you about the quick process of the project. But that was just the beginning of many surprises. Another surprises was the videographer could not make it to check in to the airplane on the departure date *insert horror music*.

When I turned on my cellphone in Ngurah Rai Airport, Denpasar during the transit, waves of messages were barging in to the inbox. The most shocking one was:"Mbak, I could not check in to the flight." I did not need to check the sender to figure out who sent it. I quickly replied with a short sentence:"Wait a minute, I need to go to a restroom now."

It was a 4.30 am flight. I left home at 1.30 am, arrived at SHIA at 3 am and had to catch my breath to run to the departure gate. And all my videographer could say was that ambiguous apology? This is unacceptable. I was angry, but also, I needed to think carefully on how to approach this problem. After all, we still had to work for a week in Sumba.

So I sat down at a cafe, sipping a very strong black coffee and laying out my backup plan. I contacted the people in Sumba to delay the schedule by one day, asked the driver to find a hotel (although, I would not worry about this part, because all hotels would be vacant in this pandemic) and decided that I would go to the beach in the afternoon.

 

This is in Walakiri Beach

It was the first time I ever went to all the tourism sites in East Sumba. I just realized that had it not for the videographer's mishap, we might be going straight to the villages, and I would not be able to go to the beach.

 

In Walakiri Beach, a stargirl will find herself surrounded by the stars

 

The driver, Jack, kindly asked me where I'd like to go. I said,"Jack, this is my fourth visit to East Sumba, and I have never been anywhere touristy. You can just take me to any place and I would bet that it would be my first time going there." Jack just stared in disbelief,"But what did you do on your previous visits?" I raised my eyebrows,"I worked, obviously." He just sighed and said,"Ok."

Fortunately, Jack likes photography and he offers to take my pictures. I have a driver and a personal photographer. It's like hitting two birds with a stone or one paddling that takes you past two or three islands (do I even get the last proverb correctly translated? LOL). 

 

This is in Hiliwuku Hill. Sumba has several spots of such hills, with Wairinding as the most famous (you can borrow a piece of Sumba weave fabric as photo prop or ride a horse there).  

As we waited for the videographer to land, Jack had unconventional ideas on places to take photos. The following is an example :D.

 

This would be the first and last time I ever pose on an asphalt road in the middle of the day in Sumba. It was scorching hot, and I believed a part of my butts (if not all) got toasted. Man, being a model is tough.

 

 

Sumba is known for its savanna, so seeing the lush paddy field like this is also a surprise. This might look like a regular view in Java island. But if you notice the house on the background, that is not a Javanese traditional house. Also, the picture does not show, but there are sandalwood horses behind me, just outside of the frame.

 

A closer view of the traditional roof in Kampung Raja Prailiu.

 

 This one is too close, though :D 

 

The videographer and I had different flight schedules as he would leave one day before I did. I asked Ridkey about this, because I thought it would be useless for me to go to field when the videographer had left Sumba and it was Sunday, the day when everyone go to church and had family time. My photography skill is also below the acceptable, and I don't think it's fair to ask Jack to take the photos/videos. He should be hired professionally by the institution. 

 

At first, I thought of leaving on the same day as the videographer. But then, the cost to change the schedule was more expensive than one-day car rental and one-night hotel room, so I stuck to the schedule, but Ridkey allowed me to have day off. Yay!

I decided to go to Waimarang waterfall on that last day.

 

It was not the smoothest journey, especially with the pandemic situation still running at full steam here. Nevertheless, it was a memorable one.

Sumba Story Gathering Project and #TravelInTheTimeOfCorona - Part 2

The project is about meeting the people and listening to their stories, especially about energy usage, renewable energy and their hopes for the future. It's often difficult to get photos of myself working, but here are some still images from the  previous trip.

This is how people work during the pandemic: online and video conference. While we were in Waingapu, we reported our progress to our bosses and a collague via WhatsApp call, with one boss in Sawangan, Depok, one in Larantuka, Flores island and our colleague in Bandung. We had the call at a cafe in the city center called Cetroo Cafe because the WiFi was quite decent. After worrying about the signal in Waingapu, it turned out that it was our boss in Sawangan who had a bad signal reception.

We visited a community health center (Puskesmas) to check if they are ready to welcome the vaccine. They do have a freezer to keep the vaccine, and it is powered by Mbakuhau micro hydro power plant.

 The WiFi system is also powered by the renewable energy.

We had a short discussion before the shooting process. Video shooting is indeed a meticulous process.

One of the SOPs is to ask consent from all sources. After a shooting session, I asked this Puskesmas nurse for his consent.

I will close the post with a YouTube video on our visit to an elementary school that uses solar power plant to supply for the electricity.

Sumba Story Gathering Project And #TravelInTheTImeOfCorona - Part 1

Photo was taken when I was flying above East Java

A surprising opportunity knocked on my door a few months ago when Ridkey asked me to work on a Story Gathering project about renewable energy in Sumba island. I was hesitant at first, but Ridkey managed to convince me that Sumba was in a relatively safe zone. Ridkey was a colleague at the off-grid solar power plant project back in 2017-2018, so he knew I could survive in Sumba island. The project needs a videographer, so Ridkey paired me up with his junior who owns a production house, let's call him Bombom.

Long story short, Bombom and I got the project. We went to Sumba between Nov. 30 and 7 Dec. Here are some steps to take when flying domestically:

1. Check which test you should take in order to board the plane. During my travel period, the government required passengers to take rapid test.

2. If you take public transportation, such as airport bus, be sure to check the schedule because during the pandemic, all modes of public transportation limit their operational hours. For example, the airport bus now only runs between 2 am and 7 pm, previously it ran from 2.30 am to around 11 pm.

There is an empty seat to give space between bus passengers, but extra protection is never too much. I wore a surgical mask, a fabric mask and a face shield.

3. Get to the airport 2-3 hours earlier than your boarding time, because passengers should show the test result upon arriving at the airport. I arrived at the airport at 3 am, and the queue line was already more than 10 meters!

4. When traveling with a transit, always maintain social distance at the transit airport. Check the capacity of the eatery before ordering food/drink.

Kedai Kopi Sigli in I Gusti Ngurah Rai airport, Bali

 

5.  Basically, just follow all health protocols. Wear mask, wash hands regularly and practice social distancing.

Upon arrival at Umbu Mehang Kunda airport in Waingapu, all passengers are advised to wash hands. The airport staffs welcome us in hazmat suits, checked the test result and asked for our cellphone number and other informations.

6. Check on the requirement in each region. For example, in East Sumba, the rapid test is valid for 10 days and I should take a new test if I stay for more than 10 days. Otherwise, we could fly back using the test result we used for departing.

Stay tune for Part 2.