Aug 9th - Aug 12th: SITE VISIT - PAPUA

The thing that differs ASEAN LOGICS from other conferences and forums are "THE PARTICPANT'S ENGAGING IN THE REAL EXPERIENCEs", hence, after 4 days of seminars and discussion, each topic group with 10 delegates will come to a proper destination in Indonesia to expose the real situation and then, can learn some lessons and suggest solutions as well. My group topic which is "HIV/AIDS epidemic" had a good luck (or bad luck???) to go the farest place of Indonesia - PAPUA (near the border of PAPUA NEW GUINE). The day before we departed, we are noticed (and also scared) of all the things goin' on in PAPUA, such as REBELION (actually, the Papuans look like African people than Indonesian, their culture also is quite similar to Papua New Guine, I think that's the reason they wanted to be apart from INDO, and belongs to PNG). The day before we go, we need to take anti-malaria pills in sense that malaria as well as HIV are the most 2 challenging epidemic in Papua. Those things, as well as the 7-hour flight with 2 transits (acac,too long) some how discouraged us before we went. But everything was so different. Far from my imangination, Papua (or at least the main city Jajapura) is quite developed (all people use cars, and their living standard is very high!!!). So, what's the reason leading to the high ratio/percentage of HIV(+) people, well, as we learnt, it's thier free sex culture and the lack of their knowledge. 3 days staying here somehow changed my mindset on HIV/AIDS. I was so surprised to know that there's legal sex workers' area near Jajapura. We also had a chance to visit there, once again, far from my thinkings, the sex workers here are even well-educated (one girl I had an inteview even know the number of countries in ASEAN and also knew that Thailand is the only country in ASEAN has never been dominated by any other countries - which I didn't know before). The reason they chose this plcae to work is the high income of it. With the money they earn per month, they can fully support their family...

One of the good things here is that they have a medical clinic nearby and also the condom machine, but these things are not free, as I suggested in my position paper when I came back to Jakarta, there should be a vocational school hearby so that at the fre time, the sex workers can come and study freely. Hopefuly, some day,they can kick off another life...

Me & the condom machine

In front of a room in the sex workers' areawell, i can't believe that we can get entet to this place so easily like that)

Then, after our visit to the sex workers' area, we spent a warm dinner in a restaurant nearby woth a Karaoke contest:)

Here is the dogbat in the restaurant - so scared to see it t first, but then, it's very nice, I also fed it with some bananas and my finger as well (haha, kidding:)

the other day we had to chance to visit a public hospital in Jajapura. we are deeply touched at the moment we had a small talk with AIDS patients there, one of them was a woman at the last phase of AIDS while she wae pregant. We left the hospital with a big wonder in our thought: whether she can get through this time to bear the baby...

In the hospital...

And here are some other pics:

Visiting "FRIEND HELP FRIEND" CENTER

Taking pic with an HIV(+) woman - the smile on her face always show me how beautiful this life is though...

VISITING WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT GROUP

UNDER PAPUAN STATUE

ENJOYING COCONUT MILK

The last day, we had one hour to hang around "the shopping malls" - in fact those places are native people's handmade shops. Well, there're many things I've never seen before ...

Me & KD (Cambodia) with KOTECA, haaha, let me explain these things, KOTECA is a traditional wearing of native Papua, they wear it i their...penis (oh my GOd, it means theirs are always up with the KOTECA)

tHE NATIVE kING - VO HOANG VIET -heheh

Ok, 3 days inPapua passed by so fast, no doubt that I'm gonna miss Papua for avery long time -as one of the exciting but weird place I've ever been to. the next day we have a site visit presntation in which every group would present all the things they learnt from their site visits as well as thier suggestions. We again dic a good impression with the song "HERO" and an emotional poem by Miza from Brunei - she made it after her visit to the hospital and saw the HIV(+) pregnant woman...