Jakarta and Fulbright/AMINEF
I spent my first 45 hours in Indonesia in Jakarta. A mega city that feels to me very overwhelming for many reasons that I’ll probably share at a later point, more than once. But I was happy to have found a small and personable hotel La Boheme Coffe & Room located sort of at the back of the Setiabudi district where there were food stalls right across the street and still walking distance to the subway (yes, the MRT here isn’t extensive but it’s really nice).
I stayed here because I was meeting the Fulbright/AMINEF team as well as my advisor. I hopped on a Gojek and headed over to meet them on Friday morning. It was such a joy to meet the whole team behind making this possible, especially after having been in frequent contact with the program officer for so many months getting ready. The director Alan joined us for lunch.
What I loved most about it was the energy, they all felt like a family and were all so welcoming- and fun! I’m impressed of the job that they do, guiding so many of us through not so very easy processes with the government, immigration, and various departments and channels on both the US and Indonesian side to make this a smooth ride for us.
After lunch, I met with my advisor Dr. Baskara Wardaya who is a twice Fulbright scholar, a historian specializing on the 1965 event and the New Order era, and the former Director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (PUSDEMA) at Sanata Dharma University. He edited the book Truth Will Out: Indonesian Accounts of the 1965 Mass Violence, which has been informative to me learning about that time in history. It’s beyond an honor to be working with him. My impression of Dr. Baskara is that he’s a charismatic person with such calm and willingness to understand. It was a wonderful and inspiring meeting, where I walked away with more questions and ideas.
I left Jakarta Saturday morning and arrived to Jogja by train. Today is my first day of language classes where I will study Bahasa Indonesia for the next 3 months before my research officially starts.
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