We began by combining all of the ideas we’d come in with and created the concept of a community center that features healthy fast foods, art sales, local music, Internet cafe and workshop center that teaches computer skills to job seekers. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? I thought so too, but I feel like sometimes I don’t think out of the box enough so I went with it for now. We also had an online part where we would help artists market their goods to the international market.
Informally we pitched this to Denise and she picked out the online aspect (think of it an etsy.com for the developing world) and told us to run with it. Run we did and by that afternoon we had a decent plan for how to make it work, and how it would help connect artists to a wider market. We then pitched this to our breakout group headed by Ryan and felt slapped in the face when he disagreed fundamentally with our issue and idea.
Personally I know that by the end of that meeting I just felt numb to the criticism, and really didn’t want to talk through it anymore. However it was obvious that we needed to figure out what we were going to do, as we have our final presentations in a little over a week. Through a few tense minutes of group discussions we agreed to meet at 7pm that night to eat and decide our course of action for tomorrow, our second field research day.
At dinner we returned to our idea in the morning, and decided that tomorrow we would see if access to markets is an issue like we have been assuming. I was not especially thrilled with where we left off, but after discussing it for another 2 hours we all really needed to get away from each other again, so we left it at that for then.
Putra dropped me off at IndoMart and I got some apples and candy bars to cheer myself up, and the oddest thing happened! I’m not sure if he meant to or not, but this older man bought my groceries for me. What happened is that I was getting cut left and right by other customers, not sure if I’ve mentioned it but lines don’t seem to exist here. Instead to check out a grocery store you squeeze your way up to the counter, out your things down and then steadily push them towards the cashier until they are chosen. Normally I do this, but I was in a pretty sour mood and the store was super busy, so I didn’t even try and get in the muddle.
Noticing this this fellow told me (in Bahasa, but I’m fairly certain that my understanding was correct) to put my stuff in the counter. I did stand then he kindly pushed my stuff in front of his so that I was served next. Then, I was holding my money ready to pay, and he had his money next to his things, and either he told the woman he’d pay for mine or she just took his money as payment, I’m not really sure. Anyway he then told me to put my money away. I was quite confused at this point, so I awkwardly said thank you and left him and the store! Another situation handled awesomely by me. Either way the candy did cheer me up!
Lessons Learned:
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