The Compensation Game

Watch out for animals when you are driving here in the Bird’s Head particularly in the outskirts of the town. You’ll get fined, dude. Yeah, you’ve got to pay some money for compensation to the owner of the animals. The funny thing is the compensation is in proportion to the number of the animals’ tits. No kidding! The more the tits are the higher the compensation is. So there is this rather harsh joke that it’s better to run into a grandma than into a pig.

There are many compensation or fine in Papuan’s traditions. Perhaps it could be thought as penitence to your sins or wrongdoings. When you are cheating on your wife, you’ll have to pay some compensation to your wife’s family. When you impregnate a girl then you have to give some money to her family. The same thing applies when you physically hurts or hit someone until s/he bleeds. You pay for the blood. In some communities, you are even fined when you break up with your girlfriend regardless you already sleep with her or not.

They even asked for compensation when a member of their communities, especially the distinguished one, dies. As long as the person dies in a considerably young age (well let’s say not above 55 or 60 years old) then there is always this suspicion that s/he was murdered. (Well, I don't understand this suspicion.) I heard a demo took place when a native pilot crashed his plane years ago. I witnessed a protest march a few months ago asking for clarification and compensation from the government when a member of local parliament died.

It also occurs in "business" transaction. It's strange but true that when you buy a piece of land, you actually have to pay some compensation for any trees in there. This may cost you extra money because the people who own the land are not necessarily the same with those who plant the trees. This may even cost you some extra energy because you cannot cut the trees down unless you get the permission from the person who plants them. You have to negotiate for that and pay. You should hope that the trees bear no sentimental memories to the owner ;-). There are some durian trees in the land that was bought by the Diocese in Fakfak years ago. The trees are still there because the owner of the trees in the land that is not his hasn't given a permission to cut them down.

Almost everything can be settled with compensation. How big the amount of the compensation is up to the negotiation skills of the parties involved. The negotiation can be quite tricky. Often they start off with a ridiculous amount of money. But they may end up with very little or nothing. It could start from something like Rp 10 million but end up with Rp 2 million or they throw an amount of Rp 50 million but eventually are being content with Rp 5 million. In a more "serious" matter, people may ask for Rp 1 billion but agree to take Rp 60 million or bluff for Rp 15 billion and end up with nothing.

No Alcohol Please

Now I know where to go if I decide to permanently live in Papua. It’s Manokwari. Well, I haven’t been to Jayapura or Timika yet, but I could say that Manokwari is on top of the list for a place to live in Papua. I like the town. Compared to Sorong, Manokwari is far more “civilized”. It’s beautiful, clean, green, in orderly and not very crowded. Whereas it is hard to find streets without holes in Sorong, most streets in Manokwari are in good conditions and clean. Even the streets to the outskirts of the town as far as 80 km are very good (for Papuan standard).

Manokwari just recently became the capital of Papua Barat, the new province. [In case you wonder, it is a picture of fish in the beach of Manokwari]

The town is at the bay and is quite hilly. So the town has the beaches and the hillside. The beaches are clean and beautiful. There is also forest in the northern part of the town that belongs to the local college. You could take a small boat to go to the nearest, small islands like Mansinam where the first Christian missionaries (Dutch pastors) first set foot in the land of Papua in 1855. That’s why Manokwari is called the “Bible Town” (Kota Injil). In every corner you could find a picture of Jesus giving the blessing to the town.

Like other towns in Papua, Manokwari is a small town with perhaps only 2 or 3 main roads. There is 1 department store and some convenient stores in town but there is no (yet) a mall. So you could actually save up some up some money because there is nothing really to spend your money with.

Surprisingly, I saw some coffee shops here in Manokwari. These coffee shops look quite nice. I never see any coffee shops in Sorong. Well, yeah there are restaurants and pubs in Sorong but coffee shop is something different.

The only shortcoming or perhaps advantage of the place (depending on how you see it) is that no alcohol allowed in Manokwari. So, the only place where you could drink wine in Manokwari is in the church during the communion ;-). They’ve got quite some problems with alcohol here in Papua. By legally banning alcohol in town the government hopes to solve the alcohol problems. Effective? Hm ... I don't know. But the rumour has it that some people (those with lots of money obviously) fly to Sorong to get booze during the weekend.

So, perhaps Manokwari is a good place to raise your children. Don't you think? A beautiful and clean place without malls and alcohol. What more could you expect?

Fly Me to The Neck

I just came back from some places around the Bird’s Head of Papua doing some auditing works for the clinics owned by the Diocese. Over the past 2 months I’ve gone to Manokwari, Fakfak, Bintuni and Kaimana. That’s why I’ve been offline for quite sometime.

Sure you have no idea where exactly these places are. I just realized that most Indonesian who live in Java or Sumatra have very poor knowledge about Papua. It’s almost like a foreign country to them ;-). Okay, let me give you some description. Imagine the head of a bird. Sorong is the eyes of the bird and Manokwari is at the backside of its head. If Bintuni is in the chin, Fakfak and Kaimana are both in the neck.

To go to those places, except to Manokwari, one has to take small aircrafts, around 16 people on board. But these are bigger planes compared to the one we took to Suswa last Christmas. Often the flight is delayed or canceled because of the bad weather. The runway in Fakfak is so short and small that in a cloudy day the pilot has to do some maneuvers in order to find it. It took us 1.5 hours, normally takes about 45 minutes from Sorong, to land at the Fakfak’s airport. It was quite an experience to be in a Twin Otter that flew below the cloud, went up the cloud and went down again, made several u turn, flew up and down again for 45 minutes before it finally landed. Phew!

Is it cheap to fly in Papua? Heck No! You pay Rp 1.3 million to go to Kaimana (1.5hours with Twin Otter and 1hour with a bigger air craft, I forgot the type). It costs around 1 million to go to Manokwari (30 minutes with Boeing 737-200). And what really bothers me is the fact that in some places (except Sorong and Manokwari) it is not so easy to get the ticket. You can only get the ticket one day before the day you fly. There is no certainty whatsoever. In Fakfak, having booked the ticket for 1 week, I’ve got told just one day before the day I was supposed to fly that there was no flight to Sorong tomorrow. Great! The plane was rented by members of parliament. Sometimes it is rented by the local government. “Important” people, huh?? I think the reason why they cannot confirm the ticket until last minute is to make the ticket available for these self-important people.

But it teaches me to be more patient. I learn to put up with uncertainty. Here in Papua, you should be ready to stay longer than you plan. And stay calm when it happens ;-). I went berserk when I first experienced this.

Alternatively, you could go by ship. Most places are not yet accessible by cars. Ship takes longer but the schedule is much more reliable. Apparently, ship is quite a popular means of transportation here in East Indonesia. The big ships called Kapal Putih go to most big towns. I once took the ship to go from Fakfak to Sorong. It’s actually quite convenient if you are not in a rush. To most people here, Sorong-Fakfak, 12 hours by ship, is considered close. “It’s only 12 hours”, say them. It takes 3 days to go to Timika (from Sorong) or to Jayapura. Yeah, but a 12-hours-flight could take you from Jakarta to Capetown.