(likemind) jkt Play-by-play

And we’re off! It’s 9 a.m. and the WiFi connection over here has yet to recover from the massive flood earlier this month. Ah, how we Jakarta people blissfully found the perfect excuse for each little mishap happening within the last few weeks: FLOOD! Flood is to blame for missed deadlines, coming late for work/meetings, and everything else that doesn’t work properly in this town. Yousuf and myself are starting to wonder whether we should’ve been doing this in the evening instead, but the argument was we might end up being too easy for our own sake. If other cities can do it in the morning, so why can’t we.

9:15 Yaya joins us, but apparently he stumbled upon us by mistake since he didn’t even know we’re having this. Ha. So much for the invitations. Conversations have ranged from the flabbergasted reactions of colleagues on the idea of skipping work for this (fortunately, us Planner-types can claim this as working, so there), to welcoming a fly with a broken leg which landed on our table.

9:45 Well, we almost reach the end of the buffer (in Indonesia, with Jakarta specifically, sadly it is customary to be granted a 45 minutes to 1 hour grace period for lateness from the specified hour) yet no one else but Yaya and the fly turned up so far. Even Yaya has to leave us for a bit for another appointment. And the fly is still struggling on its back.

10:00 Yaya is back and Dacil shows up (apparently he’s very diligent on this buffer thing). By now, the discussion has been ranging from shifting this to Friday afternoon, Jakarta’s apparent lack of interest to catch up with the other cities, how planners should ideally work, definition of working itself and its difference between cities, how the world seems to come together and becomes more transparent yet Indonesians are still leaving themselves out, comparing Soeharto to Sukarno, and leukemia. Dacil insists on discussion about the flood, on which I reply: BORING!

10:30 Dacil and Yaya are posing for the pics, and there goes our effort to try acting natural ha ha. Most likely we’re gonna wrap this up soon, please do visit Yousuf’s for the summary. He’s the better writer between the two of us, hee hee. It has been a fun experience people, now we pass the baton to the next city. Thanks for the support everyone especially the likemind posse out there, our shout-outs to Piers, Jeff and Noah. Until next time!