Newsletter PBI NL

http://www.peacebrigades.nl/fileadmin/user_files/groups/netherlands/files/Nieuwsbrief_voorjaar_2008.pdf

With this link you can download the newsletter of PBI NL. In this newsletter there is also an article about us.

2th July 2008.Visitors from the Netherlands

This week Ankie and Raoel visited us. They came to Yogya especially for us and it felt really good to speak “brabants” again. Even more since Ankie is really talkative! They promised to visit us once we are in Papua. For now we are looking forward to new visitors, Harold's family is coming at the end of July and are planning to have a great time together.

28th June 2008.Birthday at 2965 meters

This birthday was really special. On the evening of 27th of June we started our trip to clime the Merapi vulcano. We were with 7 participants and 4 guides and the clime was rough enough for Harold and me. We walked up the mountain for 5 and a half hours (1400 meters) and reached the top at around 5AM in the morning. In a strange way Harold and I ended up to be the latest reached the top???The walk was hard for us and we felt the weak couple in the team ;)
But once on the top it was wonderful. A beautiful sunrise, beautiful views and the guides made some delicious nasi goreng for us.
But as it goes with climbing mountains we also had to go down. Harold was nock out and really could not walk anymore....But we reached the “finish” safely. Although it was the longest trip downwards we ever experienced.

26th June pre-deploymenttraining

For three days we had our training to prepare us for our work in Papua.

21th June 2008.Cycling to Kaliurang

Because we study very hard during the weekdays we really need some relaxing in the weekends. On Saturday morning at 5am we started to cycle up the hills of Kaliurang. As people from the Netherlands, no mountains!, it was quit a hard trip. But our new bikes were great and after 3 hours we arrived in Kaliurang (mountainvillage) were we could enjoy a great view of the Mount Merapi.

We also visited the famous Budha tempel Borobudur and watched sunset and sunrise overthere.

14th June 2008.Teaching in Yogya

For the first time of my life I (Meriam)teached English to children!It was a real nice experience but is also took a lot of preparation since I am not a native speaker. At this picture there was a end of the schoolyear ceremony with all the teachers and me.

Back in Yogya 18 juni 2008

Papua indah sekali

Hello Fish

Seahorse


BIG Turtle


We are having a wonderfull time at gangga island. Besides all the wonderfull things here like sun, beach, palms, the diving is wonderfull too. We have already seen lots of nudibranch, fish in all sizes and colours, a big turtle of 2 meters, shark, coralgardens, too much to mention! Tonight there was a special event at dinner, we were surprised by a singing staff with a honeymoon cake. We felt a bit in the picture but it was very nice!

Honeymoon/Bulan Madu

Since the 17th of April we are back in Indonesia again. This time we will stay for more dan one and a half year! After having a hard time in saying goodbye's again we now are on Honeymoon!
Yesterday we arrived on a very beautiful island in the north of Sulawesi, called Gangga island. It is almost too beautiful here, nice white sandy beaches, waving palms, cristal blue water, hearing and seeing the sea all day and night, what else do you need to have a wonderfull honeymoon?
Tomorrow we go out to have our first dive and we are looking forward to see all the coral and all the fish!

Yes, husband and wife! Thnx

Aren't we beautiful? ;))
We feel so happy together! In the middle of 2007 our whole wedding started out as a practical matter. Would'nt it be more easy to be married in Indonesia while working for BPI....?How romantic can it get! Well, after a relationship of already 20 years we did'nt really feel the need of being married in the first place, what difference would it make? We decided to have a party then since we would leave our family and friends for a long time and then there where wedding clothes for Harold and one day before the wedding there was a wedding dress for Meriam. Mmme the longer it take the more a real wedding was coming up.
At the end the 4th of april was coming up and there we met on the first floor of our house, mmme we really looked like we were going to get married and we looked really beautiful!
The whole day we felt like being very in love and very happy and very special, on top of that our family and friends made our day even more special, with beautiful romantic surprises and wonderful happy smiles.....
They always say something about the most beautiful day of your life stuff, now we know what they mean!

We want to thank all our family and friends for being with us and for making this day so wonderful and unforgetable for us. XXX

Almost back to the Netherlands

Our house/verandah in Yogya.




Away for the weekend in bandungan (central Jawa).


Tomorrow night we fly back to the Netherlands, We are very excited for the wedding and to see everybody again. We finally managed how to put some pictures on our log so here they are!

cumi cumi

Yes,
Finally a new message on our log.
We now found a more fast internetlocation!

We arrived in Jakarta on the 19th of February, the journey begins!
Jakarta is dirty, busy, chaotic, stinky, hot, humid etc.
But we got a nice welcome from our friends in the PBI Jakarta team were we staid for three days. On friday the 22th of February we went to Yogja by train. And now we are almost two weeks in Yogja. It's great! The language is difficult and the level that we should reach is kind of high. Especially translating everything from Dutch, to English, to Bahasa Indonesia makes things more complicated. But de school is great and we are in an intens programm. De teachers are also very nice and Harold and I are learning together in one class at the moment. But in a week we will have our own private lessons.

Since a week we stay at a very, very lovely family in Yogja near the school. It is a very warm and friendly family and we can practise our newly learned bahasa skills whole day.

The food is great here. You can eat whole day nice Indonesian stuff and enjoy calemares, as the call it here so funny, cumi cumi!

In other words we are doing great and we are having a great time studying the language.

We are getting married on the 4th of April 2008!

February 18th we go off to Jakarta!

Finally, after more then a year of preparing, we go to Indonesia. On Monday 18th of February we fly from Amsterdam to Jakarta to start our big PBI adventure. We are very excited and we (especially Harold) feel some tension. It feels strange and sad to leave all our family, friends and our rabbit behind...
At this moment we are finishing things up here, arrange the visa and soon we will be packing, hihi. Besides that we are planning a (our) wedding, eeks! On the 25th of February we start in languageschool in Yogjakarta. We already had a languagecourse in the Netherlands in the last few months with guru Pak Herman. Thanks to him we are already a bit familiar with Bahasa Indonesia. But there is still a lot to learn! We are looking forward to our languageschool in Yogjakarta and meeting all the other PBI guys.

On April the first we fly back home for two weeks for our wedding and goodbye party on the 4th of April and after that we will be off untill February 2010.

Good news!

Spiderweb-game during the training


Day off from the training on the beach.

I had a great time during my international training in Lisbon and I met some nice people. Nevertheless Meriam and I missed eachother a lot and we called eachother every night during the training. Finally we were together again and enjoyed a wonderful and very romantic holiday on the Indonesian island Bali. Back from Bali we received good news...they want me too as an international volunteer.

Yeeha; Harold can join the international training!

Last Saturday morning Harold received an email from Diana from PBI IP that he is invited to join the international training in Portugal. We are both very happy and relieved and we hope that the training will work out positively. In a way that we both can join the Indonesia Project as international field volunteers.

Since this message came, Harold is very excited and also nerveus, there have been lots of new experiences in the last few months and we both have the feeling that there is a lot to explore and learn. Harold got already a lot of homework, pre-readings, articles and workbook assignments, hihi. At the end our roles turn in a way that Harold is doing the reading and internet preperation stuff. Have fun with the translations honey. (Harold is taking care of the dutch pages of our weblog, we are trying to keep them similar and up to date).

Out of our hands

Yesterday evening Harold had his job interview for PBI with Stuart Bowman over the phone. He feels a bit dissapointed about the interview because he had the feeling that he lost his English languages skills at some times and also he was very nervous. Hopefully he will get selected for the next international training for the Indonesia Project in Lisbon, Portugal in september. It is out of our hands at the moment.

Preparation weekend in the stayokay in Bunnik

In the weekend of 29th of June Harold joined a preparation/trainingweekend with the Dutch PBI countrygroup. We are very happy to hear that the trainers see in Harold also a good PBI volunteer.

Yearday

The yearday of PBI Netherlands on the 9th of June in the Amnesty building was great. There was a lot of information about PBI and especially of the Dutch PBI countrygroup. Harold and I helped out that day and we especially liked the interview with the advocate;Rogelio Teliz Garcia from the Human Rights Organisation Tlachinollan in Mexico http://www.tlachinollan.org/. He explained very clearly the role of PBI in his daily work especially the way he gained more space to do his work. We also liked the interviews with the two former field volunteers in Mexico and Colombia, Marjolein van de Water and Moritz Tenthoff. They give us a good impression about the live in a PBI field team. During the day there was an ongoing exposition about the 25th anniversery of PBI, a short film about the Humans Rights situation in Guatamala, a lot of information in the information stand and music and dance from Nepal.

Invitation Yearday PBI 2007

Saturday June 9th 25 years making space for peace

On saturday June 9th 2007 we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Peace Brigades International (PBI). We welkome human rights defenders from Mexico and Nepal.
From Mexico we have lawyer Regilio Teliz Garcia from the human right organisation Tlachinollan and from Nepal Lalit Shah from the womans organisation WOREC. He works outside Katmandu in the province Siraha. Ofcourse our PBI volunteers from Mexico, Nepal, Indonesië and Colombia join us.
The protection of human rights in areas of conflict in Mexico and Nepal are central during ths day by interviews and a debate. Besides that you can visite de tentoonstelling ‘25 jaar PBI’, and movies and lots of information material. We close the afternoon around 5 with swinging Nepalese music and a drink.
The location is the Amnesty Internationaal building at the keizersgracht 177, 1016 DR in Amsterdam. You are WELCOME at half past 2.

In the weekend of June 29th 2007 Harold will take part in a preparation weekend of the Dutch PBI countrygroup in the Stayokay in Bunnik.

Future PBI volunteers?
Working hard at the training in Puskat Yogjakarta.
From left to right: Masha, Arthur, Metha, Meriam.

Designing a network.
From left to right: Jane, Mira, Renson, Rini, Butch.

For more pictures of the training visit:

http://www.iptrainingmarch2007.punt.nl

PBI Indonesia Project Mandate

Peace Brigades International (PBI), an independent, non-governmental organization founded in 1981 actively works to promote human rights and nonviolent conflict resolution. Upon the written request of Indonesian human rights groups, PBI has established a long-term presence of nonpartisan, international volunteers in the region.
PBI trains volunteers to establish relationships of respect and trust. Team members engage in dialogue and listen to all parties in conflict situations. The Indonesia Project (IP) has offered its services to local groups committed to nonviolent strategies since 1999.
The general objectives of the IP are:

• To open and help maintain a peaceful space for civil society to operate and grow;
• To model nonviolence and promote nonviolent resolution to conflicts;
• To foster social and political dialogue and reconciliation;
• To promote international understanding of the situation of Indonesians and East Timorese;
• To empower civil society in all of the above, so as to reduce and eventually end the need for a PBI presence.

PBI works entirely by consensus decision-making. Our teams do not take sides in conflicts, nor do they propose solutions, acting instead as third-party observers. PBI recognizes that for just and lasting resolution, the parties involved in the conflict must themselves determine the solutions. The work of PBI may include protective accompaniment, observation, interviews, documentation and reporting, peace and nonviolence education and conflict resolution workshops. PBI wholeheartedly respects host countries' cultures and laws.
A global Emergency Response Network (ERN) is maintained on an ongoing basis. The ERN communicates with appropriate authorities and individuals to express international concern in cases of crisis.

Assesment in Yogjakarta

In march 2007 I, Meriam, got selected to join the PBI Indonesia Project training in Indonesia, Yogjakarta. In 11 days I learned more about the principles and the work of PBI. Afterwords I was selected to become a field volunteer for the Indonesia Project!

Cliënts of the Indonesia Project

In november 2006 we met 2 cliënts of the Indonesia Project who gave a reading in the Netherlands. In december 2006 Meriam had an asssesment with the Dutch countrygroup and was postively advised as a suitable volunteer to the Indonesia Project.

Who is PBI

In october 2006 we first met with PBI at an information day with the dutch country group in Amsterdam.