Sanitization, Segregation, Pomp and Circumstance

"Development is about site seeing," my colleague said yesterday, half sarcastically. I see her point, I guess. It has us shacked up here in Jakarta's Grand Hyatt, a palace of pomp and circumstance. It is where Indonesia's rich and famous come to get married, to sip cocktails, to eat $20 sandwiches. The hotel is connected to a mall that could be Bethesda, Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, Gucci, Hermes, Tiffanys...I am not kidding. The place is crawling with Christmas. Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree has transported itself into the Hyatt's lobby. There are presents galore. The call to prayer at sunset today was laced with the back-beats of million dollar weddings, happening around the Hyatt's pool. And no wonder there is a cultural warfare going on here, in this country with more Muslims than any other nation in the world.

All the pomp, the circumstance had my skin crawling with guilt. I decided I had to get out, to take a walk, to try to venture beyond these grandiose walls without sitting in Jakarta's congestion. The only way around that was to use my feet. I left the lobby, turned left, turned right, with no visible exit in site. A man with a kalishnikov, obviously a Hyatt security guard, pointed out the way. I walked on the sidewalk adjacent to the highway and breathed in the carbon monoxide, the smoke from the taxis, the buses, the mopeds on an adventure to somewhere away. I walked for about 10 minutes, looking for a local place to grab a bite to eat. I saw none. Skyscrapers lined the streets beside me. I could barely believe I was still on the long island in the middle of the sea. The sea seemed miles away. At the end of my 10-minute journey, behind a decrepit metal wall, I glimpsed a little of something different: shacks in a circle, sitting on top of a swamp. It reminded me of an upgraded version of the squatter settlements in Niamey. The families had hung their clothes to dry outside their ramshackle housing. I peeked between the metal to see if I could see who the families were. No one seemed to be around, just 10 minutes from the pomp and circumstance of Grand Hyatt Jakarta.

I headed back to my so-called home. I bought a sandwich and a beverage, which ended up costing me $35. Thirty-five dollars that could have been more wisely spent, I'm sure. It is just strange that in an industry that aims to empower poor people using what seems like only tenuous resources, that we spend so much on ourselves. It is funny that in an industry that tries to explore, to understand foreign problems, we visit and live so segregated from them. How can we understand something we only catch glimpses of for a handful of hours every year, or never at all?