Thief!

On Thursday, just a few days before we leave Indonesia we had our bag stolen while riding in a becak. Like this one but Cheryl was not smiling.... Really annoying, Cheryl & I were heading into town on one of these old rickety things when a motorbike with 2 people sped up and overtook us on the inside. As it did the guy on the back of the bike reached in and snatched our nice little blue bag.

Before we could think or do very much they were off at full pelt. Our becak driver gave chase. It was like something out of the movies! Haring it along the roads of Medan our becak pursuing this other bike. Sadly he was too quick for us and Cheryl & figured it was not worth crashing our becak and the loss of the odd limb or 2 in the pursuit.

I was livid. We lost a bit of money, camera, mobile phone and some plastic. Nothing irreplaceable but it left us with an unease about Medan and a bit dissillusioned, even cynical. The rest of that day we were watching everyone, wondering if they might be a thief or even THE thief. In seconds it had changed our whole view of local people and Medan where we live.

Funny thing is, that morning I was reading my bible and very much felt God was speaking to me about persecution coming to those who believe. Also about putting in the effort to really seek him and sort our lives out. Had real peace about my relationship with Him - same day we get something that tries to shatter that peace! Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it felt like somebody out there did not want us to be at peace, wanted us to doubt God's closeness, his faithfulness.

But we do still trust God and this doesn't change anything. I figure, if we are that important to warrant this kind of activity then I'm interested to see what God will do next!

Sometimes too you have to get things in perspective. We spoke to the becak driver afterwards as he told us how he had lost his mother, brother and sister when the Tsunami hit at the end of 2004. All we lost was a bag and a few things, he lost his whole family. Sobering.

It's a Sign!

Isn't it funny what you find written on signs? Here's some we found recently

Place on the left was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Apparently stays open all the time, even on Bank holidays for all your funeral requirements. When I first saw it I mis-read it and thought I could get a coffee - sadly no. But then would you want one from here?!

Below, an earlier one from Danau Toba, in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Means wheel repairs, car wash and er.. yes a toilet. Didn't try it out.

And finally,

We found this outside a sports shop in Medan. We gather it is an encouragement to play tennis but you may interpret it differently.

On a more serious note, we have decided to head back to the UK. Last couple of months have been pretty hard for us but maybe it's a chance to re focus on what's important. Sometimes we can get so caught up in achieving 'stuff' that we forget people. So, we want to come home and get a chance to catch up with family and friends. Not sure what we will do next but I know God knows. He has a plan and we are not in a rush to miss it.

Bali bliss

Bali is a great place to forget about all your problems. As we were flying over the twinkling Indian Ocean I felt the tension slipping away. I was looking forward to dipping my toes in the water, having a relaxing massage and being welcomed by the warm hospitality of the Balinese people.

Temple next to our hotel, Ubud

Cookery course with the famous Janet de Neefe

Then we got to eat it!

Valley view room, Alam Indah, Ubud

Chris having afternoon tea by the pool

Temples We loved having our Mums to visit!

Is it legal?

When I got back to the house Chris was sat at the computer typing furiously. He'd done a brain dump of his side of the story, answering each accusation in turn. It looked like he was going to fill 5 pages of A4 so I suggested he might want to cut it down a bit so at least someone might read it to the end. I didnt feel like packing. Bali seemed another world away.

I also sat down and wrote a response to my letter. Again the feelings of disbelief came over me. “Can they really do that in law” I thought to myself, “Surely, only if it's gross misconduct”. I looked up gross misconduct and termination on the web. It gave examples fighting, being drunk on duty, stealing, racial abuse, failing to obey management decisions....ok so I didnt always do exactly what Chris asked me too and maybe I hit him a few times (in private)!! But none of the reasons in my letter seemed anywhere close to this.

I said to Chris, “Should we be seeking legal advice?” He said “Ive already checked Swiss law. They don't need to prove anything or give any reasons.” “Hmm” I thought, “Next time I will think twice before working for a Swiss organisation". I felt better when I'd finished my letter. Little did I know that there was worse to come.

Your comments and messages on this blog are welcomed!

The day after...

Saturday 5th April
Somehow managed to sleep. Chris looks grey, drawn and has barely spoken. I spent my waking hours formulating a letter of response to Medair in my head. All that came to mind was how unfair it all was and how powerless we were to do anything about it. If we wrote our side of the story would anyone listen?

I know many are thinking, so what did we do wrong? What reasons were we given to justify our immediate termination? This isn't the place to go into all the details but the main reason given was poor construction quality of the household latrines in Aceh. This would mean extensive remedial work at significant cost to Medair and a redeployment of staff.
There are lots of reasons for not achieving the programme's goal and while Chris was the overall guy in charge of the country programme there were also other layers of staff involved and a history that pre-dated our arrival by many months. The reason for me having to leave were less obvious as I had limited involvement in Aceh. However, with the focus now back on Aceh there would be less funding available for new projects, an area I had been working on. Also it was felt that there was a conflict of interest if didn't leave too; being married to the boss and all. Issues about our management style were also mentioned.

I already had a date at the hairdressers with Laurie that morning for a “cream bath.” This is an hour of head massage, hair moisturising and steaming. They throw in a bit of a neck and back rub too. I thought the treatment might help me de-stress. It did help me switch off a bit but when I looked in the mirror and saw how drained I looked a feeling of self-pity overwhelmed me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I tried desperately not to let them spill over. The thought of Chris back home in total despondency made me sink inside. Feeling sorry for yourself is a dangerous place to go and I knew that I had to be strong, at least in public.

Announcement

We all gathered round as Chris made a short announcement. He said it was time for us to move on and that maybe our role here had just been for the Nias set up. His voice started to falter as he said “We have a great team here and that the projects can carry on without us”. Pieter looked stunned, I was in tears, there was total silence. After hugs and more tears we had to get out of the office to give people time to take in the news. We walked round the neighbourhood that we had become familiar with over the last four months. Medair weren't just taking away our job they were taking away our whole reason for being in Indonesia.
I tried to smile when people people in the street greeted us. “Hello my friend”. “Hey mieeester” people shouted after us in their over pronounced English. Chris, always calm in a crisis, headed for the doughnut shop. I felt sick and could only just manage to sip a black coffee.
We did have something to look forward to – our Mums were meeting us in Bali in two days. Another wave of nausea washed over me as I thought, “How are we going to tell them?”

Solidarity

Later that afternoon
I walked back downstairs into the office in a trance. HQ said to check our emails for further information. It had already arrived marked “Confidential”. To print things our you have to take your laptop to the printer and sit on the floor while it prints, right in the middle of the office. As I waited for the printer to connect I read the words in the harsh reality of black and white print. Silently I began to cry. Big, fat tears rolled down my face and I couldn't stop them. Elvie, our local HR, noticed and came over and sat on the floor with me. Her arm wrapped around me protectively as I pushed my computer screen towards her. She read it too as she repeated in confusion, “Why? They can't do that. Why?” I just shrugged as Indra, our local logistician laid his hand softly on my shoulder and shook his head in disbelief.
We have such a great team and I care about them all so much. We each have our different faiths; our local staff are all Muslims, but grief is the same in any language and the simple act of sitting in solidarity on the floor made me see the bond that connected us.

I walked into Laurie's office and she also looked stunned. “Did you know about this”, I asked. She replied, “I just got a call 3 minutes before you guys asking me to take over as Country Director. I had no idea what was happening”. I sat by her side and mumbled through my tears what I knew. “They say my contracts being terminated immediately. No discussion. No warning. Nothing. They don't even want us to handover.” Her eyes welled up with tears as she offered to pray for us.

All this time Chris was upstairs in a meeting with Pieter, his project manager. He had agreed to do his end of probation appraisal and carried on with it, without mentioning to Pieter what had just happened. There's no way I could have strung together a coherent sentence but Chris seemed to find the strength to plough on. I said, “Chris I think you need to come downstairs and make an announcement”.

The phonecall

The phone rang. When we answered it was the operations manager. I heard him clear his voice and say solemnly, “Due to the serious nature of this call I am here with the HR director and a lawyer. If what I say sounds formal it's because I am reading it from a piece of paper”. I looked at Chris and frowned. My heart had picked up a few more beats. He continued, “ I regret to inform you, that with immediate effect, Medair is termin...” I couldn't focus on the words. A voice in my head was screaming “this call is not for you, just turn off the phone, just turn it off....” There was silence as a list of accusations were read out about us. “Recent assessment report......failure.....at a great cost......close down programme......grave concerns” When it had finished we just stayed in stunned silence. “Do you have anything to say”, they asked. Chris replied “If I say anything now you are not going to like it”.
When we came off the phone we prayed together. We asked God to support us through this. We asked for Him to calm our anger and turn away from revenge. We wanted to seek justice, fairness and a chance to plead our case. We had read Psalm 37 that morning and reminded ourselves of the words, “Be still and wait patiently for the Lord. Do not fret when men succeed in their ways. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath”.

Waiting for the phonecall

3rd April
We'd just ordered pizzas in for the team. We were celebrating Laurie's birthday the week before and Chris' 40th was in two weeks! I'd just cut up the pizza and Chris' phone rang. I answered as Chris was getting everyone drinks. I could barely make out the voice over the laughter and chattering. It was the HR director from HQ. “Oh hi Oliver, how are you doing?”I asked. “Fine yes” he replied, “Is Chris there?”. He said it wasn't an emergency so I took the call. I could just about make out that he wanted to have a conference call with Chris at 3pm the next day. “Congratulations, that your wife is expecting”, I remembered to wish him, just before we said goodbye.
4th April
I'd not really expected to enjoy the karaoke but it was so much fun. Our normally reserved staff were on their chairs yelling the songs out at the top of their voices. Saw them in a totally different light. Thought to myself, we should do this more often.
I'd almost forgotten about the call when Chris came to get me. He said, “They want you in on the call too”. Me? What can they want? The phone we had didn't do speaker phone so we had to hunt around the office till we found one. We went up to our room for a bit of quiet and as we lay on the bed I said to Chris, “What do you think they want?” “Sack us” he joked? “Don't be silly”, I replied.
I could feel my heart beat racing as we waited for the call. That was the moment in time before we heard the news; the one moment when, if you could stop time and change the course of history, you would do it then.

Our side of the story

Finally a blog update after a loooooooooong delay. Why so long? Well, had a few things going on - a holiday in Bali, a boat trip round the top surf spots of Sumatra and...we......well we......how shall I put it..?? We are no longer working for Medair. Ive debated about telling our story but after 1 month I still feel compelled to give our side of what happened. It's been painful, confusing and turned the world we knew upside down.

Happy Valentines

A bell is not a bell until someone rings it,

a song is not a song until someone sings it.

Love wasn't put in the heart to stay,

for love isn't love until you give it away.

- Chanh Kha –

Birthday news

Had an early birthday party last night. Laurie (finance manager) cooked Mexican. We couldnt find the right spices and the tacos were improvised from Malaysian flatbread but it was still yummy. And better than "dog au coco" on offer last week! Indonesians are never to sure about a meal if it doesnt contain rice but they happily munched their way through the guacamole, refried beans and encilladas.

The evening livened up a bit when we played a game of Pictionary. None of the Indonesians had ever played anything like it before but soon got very excited. Whatever the drawing was they would always guess "cumi cumi" which is squid or as we call it "chewy chewy"... not a bad guess when you see Chris' drawing.
One of my birthday presents was membership to the local gym as now Im living in a city the opportunities for eating have increased massively but exercise options are limited. The gyms not quite Fitness First but it has enough things to keep me active.

The best thing is the aerobics classes. It's how classes used to be in the early ninties; limited stretching, lots of bouncing, heavy techno beats and complicated sequences. Everyone took it really seriously except for me and Laurie who spent most of the time laughing.

Hot dog

New Year new location. Me and Chris have moved to the city; so no more screaming pigs, no more nasal passage hoiking. Now its blaring mosques to keep us awake and food hawkers playing annoying jingles. I never want to hear the first line of Fur Elise again!
I do still get to visit my old project and made a trip there last week. I wasn’t quite ready for the celebration meal the staff organised though. It was a late Christmas party and here a celebration is not complete without dog! YES that’s right they cooked man’s best friend. I didn’t believe our driver when I saw him grating up some coconut for the sauce but when I looked into the bubbling cooking pots there it was. The whole thing – lungs, ears, stomach and teeth.

Just proves dog can make you crazy!

The gourmet preparations involved barbequing off the hair, chopping into small pieces then boiling with chilli and coconut for 2 hours. And erm I didn’t partake in the tasting session.