Thursday, January 26, 2006

Down There


Road Access. It's not easy but challenging. One of my technical staff
was making sure that we could pass the road. Most of the road
on the east coast of Nias just like this.


One of the schools. Here's in Tuhemberua, Lölömatua.
The progress is still 80%. It will take 3 more weeks
to complete this building.
Today we went to Alasa not Alaska, me, Wilson and Bang Malau. It’s glad to find that there was a good progress for the reconstruction of the school in comparison with the progress when I did the visit of the last two months when I came to Nias. We plan to complete the reconstruction in the beginning of the February. Hopefully, there is no any delay with the plan. Some need to be fixed of course especially the working management. But seems like it’s not real a big deal of it.

Tomorrow we are heading for Lölömatua and Lölöwau and going straight to Teluk Dalam through east coast. Then from Teluk Dalam to Lahusa and will be back to Gunungsitoli on Saturday.
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We arrived in Lölömatua and found that the work was little bit late due to the lateness of materials arrival. On the way, it took a couple hours to fix the car. Finally we arrived in Lölöwau at night and stopped over night in one of the local suppliers’ house there. In the early morning we went to visit the school in Lölöwau. There were a little bit problems there but finally I could fix it. The owner of the land who granted the land and school committee were in different perspective on the land. But after applying my negociation skill, we agree on things. Well, what I learnt here was that he needed someone who listened to him and fortunately, I spent my almost two hours to listen to him. There is a unique way how to approach him.

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These two weeks I’ve spent my days going to the working field area seeing how things goin on there and I found that the works were little bit slow due to the materials and the weather. It rains a lot and the access never been easy. But it's a challenge for me. I like it. Other things I found were the staff and the workers were little bit relax doing things. I found even one of my field staffs instead of staying there, he rarely showed off. I heard that he was busy for his business with BRR. I need to talk to him tomorrow. I actually was thinking of firing him. But then I changed my mind. I dont' think that's a good decision. Instead of firing him, I prefer to talk to him if there is any way to fix his working performance.

Other interesting thing was that when I tried to identify the problem there, I found that my technical teams had problem in communication with the workers there. Well, they are not Nias people and they do not speak Nias language. At the same time my workers most of them speak only Nias language. I fixed couple things; pointing new field staffs and order them to complete the building as soon as possible. We can’t go anywhere since the school reconstruction takes our energy and mind. Actually, we plan to start the housing reconstruction in the first week of the February but seem that it won’t work. Well, there will a little bit delay for that.

Well, I enjoy the working though…. Actually, I plan to go back to Medan this week for writing the new proposal and talk to my finance staff but I can’t. Perhaps in the beginning of the month of February only I can do it. There are a lot meetings that I have to attend here as well. Hmm...
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