I am now in my second week of work with Mercy Corps and we are feeling more settled and finding our way around.  I thought I’d share a bit about our new city, Ambon, and about the work I will be doing with Mercy Corps.

AMBON

Ambon is a small island in the Molucca straight.  It is the most remote place I have ever lived, you can drive across the island in an hour and there is not much to do other than enjoy the beautiful beaches and explore the jungle covered hills inland…..and eat a lot of fish!  We were able to explore a nearby beach last weekend and had a lovely day of snorkeling and lounging in the hammock.  We were the only foreigners, as usual, so I attracted lots of attention from curious kids and some local teachers that wanted to practice their English.

Me reading a book in my hammock near the beach….kids that climbed the tree to perch like spider-monkeys and watch the bule (bule = gringa or white person. It’s actual meaning in albino but it used primarily to describe light skinned foreigners these days.) Later a few other kids arrived and all climbed the tree and performed an Indonesian rap for me…a lovely serenade!

View from our weekend beach excursion.

A History of Conflict

The entire Maluku region was trapped in a horrific conflict between Christian and Muslim communities from 1999-2002.  This conflict was said to have killed 5000 people and displaced around half a million.  (I will be working on projects assisting the communities that were displaced from these conflicts).  The fighting began in Ambon after a minor dispute between a Christian and Muslim individual, and it quickly spread like wildfire throughout the province.  Now the area is peaceful but the scars from the conflict remain and Mercy Corps is one of the few NGOs that are in the area to provide direct support.

A History of Abundance

It has been very interesting learning about the history of this little remote area of the world.  Most people have never heard of it and will most likely never visit it, but once upon a time it was the most sought after area of the world.  Yes, this little dot in the middle of a vast ocean was known as the ‘Spice Islands’ and was the destination explorers searched for and countries made lucrative deals to obtain this land.  One such deal, was that the Dutch traded Manhattan to the British for one of the little islands in this area to gain control over the lucrative nutmeg production (nutmeg was apparently more lucrative than gold in this time).  At that time Manhattan wasn’t nearly as ‘happening’ as my new home….although things have changed and nutmeg while still plentiful is not in such high demand anymore and these little islands have once again been forgotten by the masses.  This is a project I will be working on, how to find new value and opportunity for the spice farmers of this region.

MERCY CORPS

Well Mercy Corps was the obvious next stop for me – after completing both Peace Corps and AmeriCorps I needed to find a new Corps to immerse myself into and I wasn’t quite ready for the Marine Corps!  So here I am in rural Indonesia working for Mercy Corps.  Mercy Corps is a large development organization based in Portland, Oregon with offices in more than 80 countries worldwide.  Mercy Corps-Ambon is a small office of about 10 staff working on various development projects.  The main office is in Jakarta with other regional offices in the island of Sumatra.  I will particularly be working on economic development initiatives and will be producing many program design and management tools to complete my graduate work at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

One project I will be working on is ‘Spice Up the Deal’, which attempts to revitalize the local agriculture sector, mainly spice farmers.  I am going to be developing an exit strategy to assist with the project culmination in November 2013.  In August Ambon will be hosting an International Spice Conference that will invite all spice related entities (importers, exporters, spice lovers etc.) to the city to discuss all things spice related and create an open dialogue about the industry with a special focus on sustainability and environmental responsibility.  I will be creating a business focused training series to assist local farmers to plan and manage their ventures more effectively.

Also, I will be working with a project focused on IDPs (internally displaced people) as a result of the recent conflict.  I am working with the women of these communities to plan a participatory needs assessment and identify current programmatic gaps and possibilities for Mercy Corps continued work with these groups.

There is also a project that is finishing that has targeted the cocoa sector in a nearby island.  The project had seen success but there have been multiple challenges as Mercy Corps tries to remove itself from the project and turn it over to the community members to continue.  I will therefore be creating a stakeholders engagement strategy to harness the leadership and interest of those already working in the project to carry on with less outside support and to reach out to community stakeholders for additional assistance if needed.   I will also be developing a scale up and sustainability plan for this project to assist the project become internally maintained and create a plan for similar projects to be undertaken in other communities.  I personally would like them to stop exporting the cocoa and start producing amazing chocolate here on the island…but that’s just a selfish recommendation as there isn’t much chocolate on the island and I Love Chocolate…especially since I need it to fuel me through my final capstone project for graduate school!!

Lastly, I will be working with the office staff to share the development tools I have learned in my studies, such as results framework, intervention plans, solution trees.  And I will also conduct a strategic partnership plan to assist the office assess its core competencies and identify areas in which partnership would be beneficial.

Now that I write all of this down I realize the massive amount of work I have ahead of me, but it is sure to be interesting and my professional growth will be outstanding!

….I better get to work….later!

The view from my hammock.

Public Transportation.