Journeys Behind and Ahead

Well, I am out of here…. the lack of journal posting over the past month has masked an increasing frustration with the bear conservation area. I have been here for five weeks, which I think is enough time for me to be sure that the people, the situation, and my skills are not a great match. I don’t think it is actually anyone’s fault; my skills are not really needed at this place, and there is only such much unskilled labor I am willing to volunteer for. So it goes!

In recap, though, a quick summary of what I have been up to: I have cuddled, batted about, and scratched the bears, feed them, cleaned their cages, and generally learned huge amounts about them. Much I did not know. I have learned even more, though, about biological conservationists and the way that they view the world. Having dealt primarily with social conservation and people-oriented environmentalists at CIFOR, it was quite an educational surprise. The value system that places animal rights equal with or more important than human rights is certainly nothing new, but it is new for me. At CIFOR people were concern with how to work with people to solve environmental issues; biological conservation, as far as I can tell, considers people a problem to be solved, often by teaching them the “correct” way to view issues. It’s not something I have worked with before, and is not something I am quite comfortable with.

As for what I have been doing: The first days I was here, there were a ton of visitors, and I was given a crash course on the bears, and did question and answer sessions with the people who were here to visit. It was great for me, ‘cause it gave me a chance to learn a ton about the bears, and to spend time near them. I worked with the keepers feeding them, cleaning cages, getting to know the bears. The second week I was here, two vets came from a Moon (Asiatic Black) Bear facility in China to operate on all our bears, castrating all the males (to make it possible to put them all in one small enclosure), and working on the sores that two of the bears had on the bottom of their jaws. At the same time, the bears were moved from the medium-sized cages where they had been held for years, to the smaller cages of the holding area, from where they will be released into the enclosure proper. At that point, no visitors were allowed to see the bears, and so I gave no more bear tours. This sadly took me further away from the bears themselves, because the stressful nature of small new cages. There was also simply less room for me to help out—the number of people who can be in there is limited. So, I turned to the work I came here to do—work on some of the education in the area. Unfortunately, because everyone was so preoccupied with the holding area and bear moves, there was little direction, there was not much energy left over for education, and without direction, the work stagnated. Because the stress of everyone had turned to getting the enclosure ready for the bears, working primarily on the electricity protecting trees. So, for the next maybe two weeks, I spent my days mucking in the 1.3 hectare jungle we have. It was not bad at all; I was dirty and muddy, hiking through our little jungle. I was hugging trees and getting covered in ants, playing in rivers, and listening to my poor ipod. Most ipods get to live in cushy cases in big cities. Not mine. Mine lives wrapped in tree-covering plastic in my back pocket in the jungle.

After two weeks, I began to get frustrated with not being able to use any of the skills that I had aside from simple muscular strength. I had a conversation with the woman in charge here, who handed me a few small projects, one education related. All this time, the general stress and worries about the bears have increased, but I have not been very involved. Anyhow, frustration on many levels has meant that I have finally decided head out. It is sad and disappointing, but leaving is definitely the right thing to do.

And, so, oh my god, my time in Indonesia is up. That’s it, folks. After this last year of Aceh, CIFOR, Jambi, and now Kalimantan, I am so ready for freedom. It is looking pretty likely that I will end up in grad school next fall, and so the next months are devoted to freedom and journeys, freedom and joy, before returning to seriousdom. First, next Monday or Tuesday, I will l head back to the town where I lived for many years as a kid, Pontianak, on the other side of Borneo. Then, after a few days there, up to Kuching, in Malaysia, which I remember with immense fondness from my childhood. There are old family friends there, who I will see. Then maybe to Mt. Kinabalu, maybe to be joined by a CIFOR friend. Then Sri Lanka. Then India, probably until June or Julyish. Then home for grad school. Excited, scared, a little sad, and so excited!