Batik As Far As The Eye Can See

Batik is incredibly popular in Solo City and Central Java is known for the batik that is made here. If you're not sure what batik is you can read my blog from two posts ago - Our Last Weekend in Solo City - to get a proper definition of it.

In Java it is common for people to wear batik to important business meetings instead of suits like we would typically wear in the western world. It was strongly encouraged that we all wear batik for our closing presentation that culminates our time here in Solo City.

There is a lot of off the rack batik to be bought. It's almost literal that you can't go more than a few store fronts without coming across a batik store. Our first weekend here many of us shopped for batik. I bought the dress to the right. I wasn't real thrilled with it at first, but I ended up getting a lot of compliments on it and in US dollars it costs me about $3.75.

A few days into our first week in Solo we found out that Anim, who is our Pyxera Global lead, has a couple of friends who are tailors. AND, it would cost us not much more to have custom pieces made instead of buying off the rack. Being a larger person it's been challenging to find much batik that fits me. Sizes here are about two sizes smaller than they are in the US. So, a person who usually wears a medium might have to get an XL. The largest size made for off the rack is XXL and that's my normal American size. So, my options were pretty much limited to the one dress I found above.

So, I took full advantage of choosing fabric, picking a dress style and having items custom made for me. I ended up having the following pieces on the left made.

I've worn the blue and white dress to work (but had to wear a cardigan with it to cover by bare arms). Today I wore the jacket shown at the bottom. The jacket was made with the batik I was given as a gift from one of the incubator tenants I met with. So, it has a little bit more of a special meaning to me. I was a little nervous when I picked out the jacket style and wasn't sure if I'd end up liking it, but I'm really happy with the. Finally, the dress in the middle I will wear for our closing presentation (with leggings since the dress is above my knees). It's my favorite fabric of all the batik I bought and probably my favorite dress style, too. It will make its debut at the closing ceremony and I am excited to wear it.

Prior to coming to Java I certainly did not plan to buy a partial new wardrobe while I was here, but the fabric is beautiful and alluring. So much work goes into each piece of fabric. They are very special souvenirs I'll be bringing home with me.

And, along with the beautiful, one of a kind pieces of clothing I now own they each are a treasure of my time here in Indonesia.

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Our Last Monday

Today is the beginning of our last week of the CSC program and my sub-team's work with Solo Techno Park. As we were leaving the hotel to head to the office I commented on this and got a little choked up. I think we're all a little in shock that things are winding down, final presentations are being made and we will be finished by 5pm on Thursday.

We were pretty heads down at the office. We are all working on our final documentation to be delivered to the client along with other deliverables we have to turn in or present. Besides documentation to be delivered to the client we have a final Power Point presentation to give to our client, a 15 minutes presentation at the closing ceremony, an executive summary and a joint survey to be filled out with the client.

Tomorrow we are giving our final presentation to the client. Donnacha spent all of today working on that presentation and he did an excellent job. There is a template to follow for the presentation, but a lot of customization has to go into it. He finished just as our day was coming to a close and tonight it is being translated into Bahasa by our project assistant. She will actually be very busy for the next couple of days because all of our documentation and presentations have to be translated into Bahasa.

After an all team meeting at the hotel most of us went to dinner together. We walked about a half a mile from the hotel to a restaurant we've become pretty fond of. It was good to spend time together - talking and laughing and genuinely enjoying each other. We've been really fortunate with our overall team. Everyone gets along and we've had a very good time sharing this experience with each other. I can't imagine being put with a better group of people to make up CSC Indonesia 8.

I believe tomorrow things will continue to strike me as we watch things come to an end. What an absolutely amazing experience this has been and I'm holding tight to the next few days to cherish all we still have to give to our host organizations and to each other..

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The Royal Heritage Surakarta Hotel

The hotel we are living in for a month is beautiful. One goal of the IBM Corporate Service Corps program is to be immersed in the culture we are living in while abroad. Typically this means the hotels are not what would be considered a three-star accommodation in the western world, but might be considered a three-star for the area a CSCer is staying in.

My team hit the jackpot. We are staying in a five-star Indonesia hotel. It's not perfect, but it's pretty amazing and we've been treated very well. We have a huge buffet breakfast to eat at every morning - cappuccinos included; receive a surprise gift and fresh fruit in our room every Friday evening, there is an ridiculously affordable day spa and a beautiful and relaxing pool and pool bar.

This hotel was chosen over other hotels because of the amount of culture in the hotel. While it is a higher living standard than the typical CSC assignment we are surrounded by Javanese culture. Not a detail in this hotel seems to have gone without notice for adding a touch of the local culture to it. The art and decor are stunning; breakfast is very local (but thank goodness has a few western things - such as scrambled eggs and cheese); every morning for two hours two older gentleman play hauntingly beautiful music on traditional Javanese instruments called Ganglan and we are greeted at the door to the hotel by a man dressed in traditional Javanese dress (perhaps of some royal butler kind of apparel).

Here are several photos to give you a feel of our surroundings.

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Our Last Weekend in Solo City

Today begins our last weekend in Solo City. The time has gone by quickly and it seems there is still so much left we want to do.

Today we split into two groups, essentially. The larger group went to hike up Mt. Lawu. The smaller group took the train to Jogjakarta. I went with the smaller group.

Karen, Yemisi and I went to Jogja, along with two of our project asssistants, Oki and Astri, to do a little shopping down Marlioboro Street. Marlioboro is the famous street in Jogja for all your shopping needs. There were dozens of stalls selling loads of cheap souvenirs - flip flops, t-shirt, key chains, etc. However, there are also a lot of nice batik shops, handbag stores and shoe stores. Mostly batik, though, to be truthful.

I don't believe I've explained what batik is: It is a technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to whole cloth. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a canting or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap. The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisan to color selectively by soaking the cloth in one color, removing the wax with boiling water, and repeating if multiple colors are desired.A tradition of making batik is found in various countries - including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nigeria; the batik of Indonesia, however, may be the best-known. Indonesian batik made in the island of Java has a long history of with diverse patterns influenced by a variety of cultures, and is the most developed in terms of pattern, technique, and the quality of workmanship.In October 2009, UNESCO designated Indonesian batik as a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanit."  ** Thank you Wikipedia!

After shopping for a few hours we were very hot and went to Starbucks to cool off. We figured Starbucks was guaranteed to have strong air-conditioning and we were correct! While we were there it poured down rain. So, we lucked out on that one.

We then took a local car (kind of like Uber) to an area of town with lots of sterling silver shops. We only had time to go to one. So, we picked the big one. It was two stories of sterling silver jewelry and off the courtyard on the bottom level was the workshop where the jewelry is forged. I must admit, I bought a couple of things. So pretty and shiny!

Our car ride back to the station was interesting. There seemed to be multiple parades happening throughout the city. Or, maybe it was just one parade and they were having trouble finding each other. Whichever it was it made traffic a madhouse for miles. Eventually, we made it back to the train station and then back to our hotel around 6:45pm.

It sounds like the group that went to Mt. Lawu had a great time, too, and they have the pictures to prove it. I believe tonight might be the earliest we all are in bed in the three plus weeks we've been here.

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Step 1...Check!

Yesterday I wrote about how busy our sub-team was as we were getting ready for our preliminary presentation that took place this morning. There was a lot to it. All three of us had our presentations to put together - one on the training program, one on the incubator program and one on their IT structure. Then, we had to get them to our PA, Candra, in time for each of them to be translated. Somehow we got it all done and we were still able to go out last night for a few hours and have some fun.

This morning was our presentation. Of course, things at the hotel did not start off as anticipated. We planned on leaving the hotel at 7:45am because our presentation was at 8:30am. As of last night the hotel is heavily booked because the President's (who is from here) daughter is getting married next week. Apparently, there is a public reception so many Indonesians are coming to Solo for the celebration. Even though I was at the restaurant at 7am there were hardly any seats available. I ordered three cappuccinos to go - for Donnacha, Candra and me. It took over 30 minutes to get them. While I waited for the coffee I sat out in the lobby, had a light breakfast and sipped on some coffee. We finally left the hotel at 8am with about an 8:15am arrival at STP. Then, we had issues with our presentations uploading and Candra's laptop started doing an update just as she was trying to print off our presentations in Bahasa. Fortunately, we were pretty well pulled together by the time the leadership team arrived.

I must say, we rocked our presentations! I was a little nervous about mine because even though we did a lot research and interviews I was afraid there were maybe holes in our understanding of what is currently happening with the incubator and what they still are in need of. All three presentations couldn't have gone better, really. During our slides on finding and recommendations there were a lot of smiles and heads nodding. It was rewarding and assuring to see that they are in agreement with the direction we are moving it.

So, now we have a lot of work to do on our final documentation we will be giving them about how to follow through on the recommendations we have made.

It's really exciting, though. Seeing our hard work coming to fruition is a great feeling.

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The Concept of Time

Our office at STP has been pretty quiet this week. We're coming up on deadlines and Aban, Donnacha and I have a lot of research to go through and documentation to put together. Additionally, we have to give Candra, our project assistant, time to translate the documents into Bahasa so everyone can read our findings, recommendations and expected outcomes. I'm finding myself sitting at my desk for long stretches of time without getting up for breaks. This has become easier here in Indonesia because we have a constant supply of hot tea, bottled water and yummy treat boxes to keep us fed throughout the day. I have to remind myself to get up and take a break.

The time really has seemed to go by fast. It feels like we have a bunch to do before Tuesday (our final presentation to the client) and Thursday (our final presentation to the Mayor and other stakeholders). It's hard to believe a week from now we will be finished with our projects and the final documentation will be handed off to our client. There is a lot of pressure there to make sure we are meeting the scope we have agreed to.

Besides the work time going by quickly, so has our social time. There are still places we want to go and restaurants we want to try, but between such a short amount of time being left and the fact we will likely be working some in the evenings it;s not a guarantee we will get to all the places. A week ago it felt like we had all the time in the world. Today it feels like everything has sped up and our time is almost over.

We've been making the most of everything. Now, we just have to continue making to most of everything (and maybe up the ante for a week).

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Back in the office

After a weekend full of community service work and a fun day at the waterfall it was time to get back to the office. This week we are focusing on our deliverables. Most of those will come in the form of recommendations, but we still have a lot of work to do to review our interviews and research, summarize our findings and make sure our recommendations match the deliverables we have agreed to.

When we left for lunch we first stopped at a local laundry to drop off some clothes for washing. It's
an interesting place. The building is obviously her home and where she does laundry to make a living. It is very humble. The front room appears to be her living room. There is a very small TV in one corner. Off of this room you can see a bedroom and the laundry room. It's a long narrow building so we're assuming there is a kitchen somewhere, but we could not see one from where we were standing.

For lunch we went to an open-air buffet with a small band playing instrumental music. It felt good to be out of the office and I tried some new foods. As I told Steve, I know I am eating new things, but I can't necessarily tell you what they are. I just know if I like it or not. I do, however, know I had some goat in a soup and it was good. Also, on Sunday I ate rabbit satay and it was fine. It seems that whenever the peanut sauce gets put on something it all tastes the same...unless it's liver, as I found out the hard way.

Speaking of not liking things...before leaving for Indonesia my boss made me promise her (or she at least strongly encouraged me) to try durian. It is a large prickly fruit often referred to as the King of Fruits. Inside the fruit is a custard like substance and people either love or hate the fruit. The smell is so horrendous that there are some areas - like restaurants and airplanes - that ban people from having the fruit. I finally tried it and it was utterly disgusting. Everyone in our group found it vile. The best way we came up with to describe it is that the taste is a cross between a really bad stinky cheese and a rotting onion. Hours have past and I still can't get the taste out of my mouth.

This is what a durian looks like:

Tomorrow will be another busy workday. Time for a little sleep and another tooth brushing to try and get the dorian off of my tastebuds.

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