Indonesia: A Reporter’s Notebook

by Rachel Wolf:

Every article in the Globalist is a composition, made from pages and pages of notes that you, the reader, will never see. Each day on a reporting trip is full of details and insights, some pertinent to a reporter’s article, some not. This notebook represents just one reporter’s observations throughout our trip.

Notebook Guide:

For a basic lesson in Bahasa Indonesia (the official language), see page two.

For a trip through Jakarta by taxi, check out pages three and four of the document.

For notes and sketches from an interview on reconstruction issues, turn to page 14.
Marco Kusumawijaya recounts his experience lobbying the government of Jakarta for a more participatory reconstruction process in Aceh and teaches us that mosquitos dislike the smell of white lavender.

On pages 26 and 27, you’ll find a list of items we saw sold in Glodok Market, a sprawling market in Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta, where we found everything from SIM cards to skinned frogs.

What do Indonesian college students think about? Page 34 features notes from our discussion with students at Universitas Indonesia.

Train tickets and boarding passes are page 49. Indonesian train companies like colors.

For notes from our meeting with Ketut Liyer, the medicine man featured in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Eat, Pray, Love,” and a copy of his business card, turn to pages 53 and 54.

Finally, to get a sense for Bali’s characteristic architecture, check out the sketch on page 62.

(Page numbers refer to the document’s page numbers, not the ones written in.)