On a Saturday in Banda Aceh midnight seems more lively than midday. At Taman Sari park children play on swing sets and fish in plastic swimming pools. Young men check Facebook and play video games at the park’s hotspot, and coffee shops nearby buzz with chatter.

People stay out til 1am, 2am, sometimes they just stay out until the next day begins, said Andre, an Achenese who gathered with friends to shoot the breeze at Taman Sari. The proclivity for hanging out is not unique to Aceh, but given its array of coffee shops and pop-up seating – plastic chairs often sprout up on sidewalks – it seems to do it better than most cities.

It’s refreshing to see such activity in a place devastated not so long ago by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Last year the government opened a tsunami museum built with donor funds as a memorial to the victims. Diorama’s like the one above are some attempt at illustrating the event despite the lack of any written information. But while the museum’s physical structure is complete, the inside is practically empty – a description that in some ways applies to all of Aceh.

New homes, a shiny city hall and even a beachfront walk, are evidence of the rebuilding. The economy, however, is still struggling. Three decades of bloody insurgency that only ended with the signing of a peace agreement following the tsunami set back economic development outside Banda Aceh. As a result, the province still imports most goods from central Sumatra.

The economy will weigh heavy on most voters’ minds as they go to the polls on Monday to elect a new governor, vice governor and 17 district heads. So will the possibility for violence. When the years of fighting finally ended the Indonesian Military put up signs around the city reminding Achenese that “Peace is Beautiful.” The months leading up to the polls, however, have been marred by shootings, acts of arson and allegations of intimidation from Partai Aceh, the political arm of the former rebel group, GAM.

In Banda Aceh people say they don’t fear threats from Partai Aceh supporters. “The point is that there will be peace so we can work and earn money,” said Iwan Jamal, a curtain seller at a local market.

For the youths that sit around all night, jobs are important. But peace, they say, is already here.

Dark clouds hung over East Timor the day before a much-anticipated presidential election on March 17. Jittery analysts might have called them a powerful portend of the way polls would play out in a tiny country known for its outsized history of violence.

But so far the polls have gone peacefully, many say because people feel they have a stake in stability. Without it, plans to develop badly needed infrastructure and create productive employment will stall. After 10 years of independence and billions of dollars in aid and assistance, Timorese say they’ve already gone too long without progress.

Around 41 percent of the population lives below the absolute poverty line of $0.88 a day, according to the World Bank, and inflation is growing at an average of 15 percent (higher in Dili). When revenue from oil wealth is accounted for, the country’s per capita income is $2,500, but few people benefit from that money, with average incomes less than half that amount.

Most of the country’s people eek out a living as subsistence farmers in villages cut off from the capital by a lack of roads. The roads that do exist are broken and pockmarked. In the rainy season they fill with waist-deep water, making them impassible.

Even in Dili, construction has left a muddied slick of road with holes that when filled with water could serve as tiny swimming pools. The project started just before elections, and it would be kind to say progress has been sluggish.

Off the shore, tankers bobbed in the roiling seas. They come full and leave empty. Coffee is the country’s main export; even then a mere fraction of the millions in imports of almost everything else – food, cars, prefabricated houses – the latter part of a program to build low-cost housing for the country’s poor.

Development advisors say the key to stability in this violence-marred country is for the government to create productive employment – rather than import knockdown houses from China.

“People are not getting what they hoped for,” said the head of a local watchdog that monitors state spending. “People see more private cars and nicer houses. That says some people have moved from the middle to the upper class. It doesn’t say anything about poverty.”

Indeed, the gap between the small, intimate grouping of elite who run the country, and the remainder of its 1.1 million citizens is great. On the beach, rusted cans and scrap metal lie corpse-like among speckled granite stones. Dina, 13, says they sell the rocks to a man who uses them to build houses. They sell around 50 bags a week for $2 each.

Dina looks hardened for her age. Most days children with salt-washed hair scamper along the shore here, running naked from the crashing waves. Today it’s just Dina, picking up rocks and peering stoically from beneath the hood of her Kelly green sweatshirt.

On the nearby road SUVs cruise around sporting stickers with various development logos – “bringing development to the world,” one reads. Low-riding yellow Nissan taxis and Pajero minis make up the majority of the other vehicles.

With few private cars on the road, a government plan that prioritizes infrastructure development seems shortsighted. Still, more than half of the country’s $1.6 billion budget for this year will go to roads, seaports and power plants. Much of the money for the country’s national development plan is based on forward projections of money secured from the Great Sunrise gas block, which has yet to be tapped because of an unresolved territorial dispute with Australia.

Analysts say the government is spending without any thought to the future. If it continues at its current rate, the oil money will likely run out in less than a decade.

Those are some of the challenges facing the next president. Although the post is largely ceremonial, as a leading figurehead the president is seen more than others as the person speaking for the people.

From 12 initial candidates, the race has narrowed to two, Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres, the head of Fretilin, the leftist party that led the country’s first government, and Taur Matan Ruak, a former armed forces chief and before that a rebel commander during the 24-year fight against Indonesian occupation.

Ruak’s campaign posters depict the resistance hero in fatigues appealing to the country’s struggle for independence and its need to set out a path for the future. Guterres’ camp says the country needs to focus on more equitable development and end its dependence on foreign aid and assistance.

Observers say regardless of a change in leadership, little is likely to change in the country. “It may be a new government, but the attitudes are going to be the same,” said Nelson Belo, the director of Fundasaun Mahein, a local organization focused on defense and security issues.. “They don’t talk about the fundamental problems people on the ground face.”

Men with knives held skyward ran toward one another in the streets of Seminyak on Wednesday. Some were forcefully restrained. To passersby the scene might have been a cause for panic, particularly after the recent killing by police of five suspected terrorists on this popular resort island.

What it was, instead, was part of traditional dance performed in the run-up to the Balinese new year, marked on Friday by a day of silence. The Barong dance is a staple of Balinese culture, though its increasing commercialization illustrates the strains the booming tourism industry has placed on the island’s traditions. Restaurants now offer dinner packages that include a portion of the performance and some temples cater to paying guests.

When done with heart, as it was on Wednesday, the Barong dance is a thing to be witnessed. Mythological characters with lolling tongues and men who fall into trances captivated the street audience – mostly Balinese in white sarongs and smatterings of tourists with fancy cameras.

Nearby the performance site teens from neighborhood youth groups assembled giant paper-mache effigies used to ward off evil spirits. On the eve of the new year the towering figures are paraded around and then burned in a purification ritual.

Evils of some nature have appeared in Bali in recent years, in the form of terrorist-motivated bombings, environmental damage driven by over-development, and a rise in drug-related crime. But what worries many Balinese is the negative impact the influx of outsiders will have on its culture.

That battle seemed to add gravity to Wednesday’s performance, which might have appeared a bit more realistic than authorities had hoped.

BALI _ After three days of dancing, raucous music and parades in celebration of the Balinese New Year, this popular resort island in Indonesia awoke on Friday to just the opposite – silence.

Each year people here stay sequestered in their homes for Nyepi, a day of self-reflection and purification marked by silence, fasting and meditation. The use of lighting is strictly forbidden, as is travel, work and entertainment.

Aside from patrols of traditional security guards called pecalang, the streets of this normally bustling island are empty. Shops are shuttered and beaches deserted. Hotels run on skeleton staff. Even the international airport stops all but transit flights and authorities switch off radio and television transmissions.

As the only Hindu enclave in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, Bali has fought to retain its local traditions against the advent of outside forces. In recent years a booming tourism industry has sparked an influx of foreign tourists and job-seeking migrants from other parts of Indonesia. Many here say the population is becoming noticeably less Balinese.

Local customary leaders say that creates tensions and puts a strain on traditional culture. Others say it’s important that Bali continues to develop its culture while adapting to outside influences.

“Now Bali does not just belong to the Balinese, it does not just belong to Hindus,” Made Gunarta, a local official in Padang Tegal village, near Ubud.

This year Nyepi falls on Friday, the weekly day of obligatory prayer for Muslim men. Regional authorities from the Religious Affairs Ministry and local religious councils have allowed Muslims living in Bali to perform their prayers at local mosques as long as they arrive by foot rather than car or motorbike.

“We advise people to pray as minimally as possible without disturbing the basic understanding of Nyepi,” said Gunarta.

Still, the influx of other ethnic and religious groups has raised concerns about the potential for conflict on an island that has seen several terrorist attacks in the past and maintains a close watch on extremist activity.

Just days before new year celebrations began, Indonesia’s counter-terrorism police killed five terrorist suspects in southern Bali who were allegedly planning to rob a moneychanger and jewelry shop to help fund terrorist activities.

The raids, which come 10 years after blasts at several nightclubs here killed 202 people, led police to beef up security patrols in major tourist areas. As an added precaution, police banned fireworks and traditional bamboo canons used during the celebrations leading up to Nyepi.

Those restrictions did little to dampen Thursday’s celebrations, however. In Ubud, a city whose verdant rice paddies feature in the Hollywood production of “Eat, Pray, Love,” Balinese teens paraded around towering papier-mâché effigies called ogoh-ogoh.

The demonic-looking figures represent evil spirits and are set on fire at the end of the night as a means of purification. As crowds of people watched the ogoh-ogoh dance to the frantic banging of drums and cymbals, an announcer offered commentary that included a warning to politicians not to be greedy.

When ogoh-ogoh first appeared in the early 1980s, authorities monitored them carefully for any criticism of then-president Suharto, a strongman who cracked down on all forms of political dissent.

In the 13 years since Indonesia became a democracy, the effigies have become increasingly politicized, much to the chagrin of some religious leaders who have asked that all ogoh-ogoh stay true to tradition by depicting Hindu spirits or mythological heroes.

The parade in Padang Tegal, however, included not only a clear political bent but also corporate sponsorship from a tea company that paid for one neighborhood’s ogoh-ogoh, a tiny ogre hanging from the straw of a giant tea box with the company’s logo.

Gunarta, who is also the co-founder of an organization supporting Balinese music, dance, and cultural development for children, said he doesn’t see that as a problem.

“We gave them space for publication, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” he said. “Why don’t we use their money in a good way to support the cultural event.”

While Gunarta appeals to tourists to bring money and spend it in Bali to support next year’s Nyepi celebrations, many remain wary of how foreigners respond to the annual tradition.

On Friday hotel guests are allowed to use lights in their rooms but are prohibited from leaving hotel grounds. Many resorts offer package meal deals and booklets telling guests about the holiday. Music and entertainment must be kept at a low volume.

Wayan Gede Siarsa, a pecalang in Seminyak, says he disagrees with exceptions to Nyepi’s restrictions, explaining how tourists have gotten around the rules in the past by paying money to tour operators who would help “smuggle” them out of the airport.

“You can’t buy our traditions,” he said. “It’s one day; no radio, no TV, everything is closed. We hope we can keep it that way.”

Outside resort grounds, there is little indication that things are much changed. The few sounds are of a dog bark, the call of a rooster, occasionally the footsteps of the pecalang crunching by on dirt pathways. All of the noises magnified for 24 hours until Bali’s buzz restarts the next morning.

On a Tuesday night of one of 7-Eleven’s newest stores in Jakarta, crowds of teenie boppers, office workers and university students sit around tables topped with Slurpees, iced coffee and beer. Some have Big Bites, the aptly name sausages that sell for cheap, but are packed with enough salt and preservatives to make them filling.

“The taste isn’t important, it’s the size,” says Rendie Sumadilaga, a 26-year-old graphic design student who hides a 20 ounce Bintang beer under his chair as he doodles on a sketch pad attached to his computer. He’s been working at 7-Eleven all afternoon, in part because it provides a change of scenery from home, has free wi-fi and cheap food.

Many youths say the same. They’re part of a new generation of middle class Indonesians who hang out at Jakarta’s growing number of mini-marts because they’re affordable, offer a good variety of drinks and ready-made food and are Internet hotspots.

These spots have become so popular, that young teens have created their own trends around them.

“It’s 7-Eleven style to eat Cheetos with chopsticks,” Rendie explains. And it’s uniquely Indonesian. Even the nickname it has garnered indicates affection given a national proclivity for abbreviations – Sevel is simply a compression of the two words, 7-Eleven.

With 57 stores already in Jakarta, and plans for another 100 this year, the Tokyo-based chain is only set to grow its reach. And with disposable incomes growing, there is no telling when it will end.

To usher in the weekend in Gobang Astuti Kusumaningrum like to heat things up. It’s the one night each week that the 23-year-old teacher  lets her students cook. They plan the meal and pool money to buy vegetables. Usually snails collected from the paddy field feature on the menu. Each person has his or her duty – slicing, peeling, collecting leaves to flavor the fragrant rice. When the food is ready Tuti, as she is affectionately known, pours it out onto banana leaves in the middle of the room, communal style.

Eager with hunger and excitement the children wait until everything is laid out on the long, green leaf and then dig in ravenously. Their tiny, black-haired heads mass together as they scoop up the moist rice with their fingers and shove it into their cheeks. In less then 10 minutes they’ve retreated, satiated.

On the night I arrive a dozen boys spend the night in the room outside Tuti’s door. They sleep in rows on a woven palm-leaf mat. There is always at least one student who stays here, she says.

That makes it seem, at times, as though Tuti’s job never ends. Once classes are finished the students follow her back to the village the way chicks flock to their mother, clinging close to her side and vying for her attention. Several times a week she joins a group of girls who play Qasidah, a flat, circular drum used to beat out village folk songs. The girls flip through the handwritten pages of a notebook picking new  titles – “Poor but Happy” is a favorite. Tuti plays and smiles and nods her encouragement. She sings the songs and indulges the girls when they ask for “just one more.”

The way Tuti engages with the children has endeared her to the point of obsession, and she is seldom without one of them beside her. “I think it’s because they need a grown-up they can talk to,” she says.

In the nine months Tuti has been in Gobang she has made some positive changes. When she arrived she noticed that the children would drag in mud from the school yard and leave the classrooms filthy. So she initiated a cleaning competition.

Each day before lessons begin she inspects the classrooms and hands out stars for cleanliness. The reward is a trophy to the class with the most stars at the end of the month. The competition has made a difference, she says.

So has the mobile library she brought. Many of the books come from Kuark, an Indonesian publishing company that helps students prepare for national olympiads in math and science. The government is hosting a sporting olympiad in April and several of the children in Gobang are hoping to represent the regency there. Irwan, 11, wants to compete for the chess title and Tuti bought a chess board to help him train.

The problem, she says, is the lack of personal documentation. Children must have a birth certificate to register for the olympiad; most of them in Gobang do not. Babies are born almost wholly with the help of a midwife, and formal registration would require multiple trips to the provincial capital, Rangkasbitung, an hour train ride away. It would also include an administrative fee. Tuti says the lack of birth certificates creates problems for the children once they leave the village and it’s something she is working to bring to the attention of the local education department.

In February Tuti made a rare trip to Rangkasbitung to meet with provincial heads of that department. She and a handful of young teachers from the Indonesia Mengajar program participated in an educational seminar. Though Tuti seldom leaves Gobang, she says some times it’s necessary to have contact with the other teachers.

“If I have a difficult time I come to them,” she said.

And times can be difficult. On a recent Friday morning a neighbor rushed into Tuti’s kitchen frantically requesting the village midwife, who also lives at the house. The three women rushed off, and when Tuti returned 20 minutes later her eyes were wet and red-rimmed. She quickly packed her bag and put on a smile to greet the children waiting to walk with her to school.

The mother of the school’s sixth grade teacher, Sudriana, had just died, she explained. “I think I’ll have to change the lesson for today,” she said.

In the classroom Tuti told the students what had happened and asked them to write a letter of condolence to Mr. Sudriana

“It’s a lot interacting with children,” she said. As a trained psychologist she was familiar with child psychology and pedagogical theory. “But when you come in the class you see what’s not working. I’m still trying to find the best way to do things.”

She is also still adapting to cultural uniqueness and village dynamics. But she says she likes learning from Gobang’s elders, sitting and chatting with women on porches and spending time in the rice fields. She feels privileged to have given her students what she can, for having supported their dreams and ambitions. But in a few months time Tuti will be moving on.

“I still have my own dreams,” she said.

The mid-day sun beats down heavy on Gobang, lighting up the bright green rails of a new suspension bridge. Construction remains in progress, and the men hammering together floorboards take breaks to cautiously escort girls in long skirts and headscarves from one side to the other. The old wooden crossing, previously the only means of accessing this 50-household village, teeters off to the side looking beat down and forlorn.

Gobang sits in the elbow of the Durian River, a shallow chocolate-colored artery that feeds the lime green rice fields. The farmers who make their livelihood here rely on the river for irrigation. Children and women use it to bathe and wash clothing. There is no piped water and no Internet in the village. But during the rainy season porches are replete with piles of cucumbers, tomatoes and papaya leaves.

Located a mere three-hour journey from Jakarta, Gobang should not seem so remote. But life here follows a different pace than that of the capital. People sit and chat on porches, children play music and card games. Everyone knows everyone’s business, and not because they’ve heard it through their Blackberry. Many youths have never left the village.

It is the ideal setting for a new program that aims to bring young teachers into far-flung villages. Much like Teach for America, Indonesia Mengajar sends volunteers out for a year to help under-resourced schools. They bring books and outside knowledge to children in need of adults who will listen and support their ambitions. And they gain skills that program managers say will position them to be future leaders.

In Gobang the teacher is a young woman named Astuti Kusumaningrum, or Tuti, a name that evokes playfulness and energy, and one that suits her well. Her living quarters include a room that barely fits her small bed and a living space where she has pasted students’ drawings and an alphabet chart to the wall. A bamboo shelf built by some of the boys holds books donated by the program.

Since Tuti’s arrival the house has become the neighborhood hangout. Children gather on the porch to play chess or color. Once a week she lets them cook over the small propane burner that comes as a alternative to the wood fires most families still use.

In addition to her daily teaching schedule, Tuti also assists with religion classes in a small building across from the village mosque. The bare, crumbling concrete walls support two chalkboards that have been turned so their wooden backs face out. Tuti tries to get the children to focus on an Arabic grammar book she has spread out on the floor. A few of her younger pupils lay on the ground copying the graceful, swirling characters, but most bounce around the room to keep themselves entertained. “Usually we write on the chalkboard, but we ran out of chalk today,” Tuti says.

The lack of resources is what brought Tuti here from Jogjakarata, a more developed university town where she lived and studied. “In my place we were living almost like a kampung [village], but with big houses and high fences,” she said. “Here people don’t have fences and the doors are always open.”

The lack of privacy can be irksome, but it is something she has learned to accept. When Tuti really needs some time alone she’ll retreat to her room and watch DVDs on her computer. What’s harder is having someone to talk to about the challenges of teaching and life in the village.

“I don’t interact a lot with people of my own age,” said Tuti, explaining how most of the women her age are already married with children. Many of the 20-somethings from the village have gone away to school or to work factory jobs in Jakarta, leaving an age gap that is noticeable.

Despite the loneliness, Tuti says it’s hard to think about leaving. “When I think about it, I think ‘Oh my God,’” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I think, will they achieve what they were dreaming and will there be someone to support them in that?”

Indonesia Mengajar will send another volunteer once Tuti’s year is up, and she’s convinced that the next teacher will be just as engaged with the students as she. But to be sure she’ll leave the sign she hung above her bed as a measure of what she wants for them: To be proud of themselves and to know it’s possible to make their dreams come true.

It was a forceful reminder for residents of Banda Aceh, the city closest to the devastating 2004 earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 230,00 across South East Asia.

But despite lingering fears from the Dec. 26, 2004 monster wave that killed roughly 170,000 people in Aceh alone and altered the social fabric of the region, Rahmadi, who owns a small perfume shop in Banda Aceh says people are more prepared than they were a little over six years ago because of government programs.

“My parents put all our important things to a bag, and they know which road to use to escape,” says Rahmadi.

Published on the Christian Science Monitor, 11 January 2012

Indonesian youths with a penchant for the past have injected new life into Jakarta’s Old City. Once home to the city’s main port and 17th-century Dutch settlements, the area known then as Batavia is now abuzz with teens who come to ride vintage bicycles, visit the history museum, or snap pictures in front of several crumbling colonial facades.

Groups such as the Sahabat Museum, an informal community of history aficionados, lead walking tours of the area. Sahabat Museum has organized nearly 100 tours around Indonesia since starting in 2003, but founder Ade Purnama says the Old City remains a favorite among youths.

“Because they live here, they grew up here, and they want to know the city’s history,” he says, noting that the last tour he organized there drew roughly 1,000 people.

Many participants come to enhance their knowledge of the country’s past. But Mr. Purnama sees the tours as part of a broader effort to get people to appreciate Jakarta.

Many buildings in the Old City remain in ruin. Their owners say they won’t invest in rehabilitation until the government enacts a widespread revitalization program.

In the meantime, Indonesians are finding other ways of bringing new life to the area. The Indonesian Heritage Society leads tours of historical sites, such as an old bank, a soy sauce factory, and the former homes of Dutch elite, as does a group called Cultural Explorer.

“This is an interesting way to learn about our city,” says Bulan Mendota, who was on a recent Sahabat Museum tour.

By learning about Jakarta, says Purnama, youths will also learn how to make it better.

Published in the Christian Science Monitor, 21 December 2011

As consumers pay more attention to the environmental damage caused by palm oil planting, pressure has increased on manufacturers to use sustainable sources. Unilever, McDonald’s and Nestlé have pledged to use only sustainable palm oil by 2015.

However, a scorecard released by the W.W.F. last month found that the companies that had promised to move toward sustainable oil still got only 47 percent of their supply from sources certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, showing no improvement from 2010.

Published in the New York Times, 05 December 2011