The natives are restive

It's been a nervous week for anyone with a quick anxiety trigger.  In Papua, where we have our mine site, Indonesian police killed Kelly Kwalik, the purported leader of the Papuan Freedom Organization.  Many believe he was the mastermind behind the recent killings and other mayhem around our mine site earlier in the year.  After his death, many Papuans began to strike and/or demonstrate.  We received security alerts advising us to avoid Timika, the small town containing the airport we fly into when visiting our site, due to potentially unsafe activity.

Then came the reports of increased security at Christian churches throughout Indonesia.  For those of us who are new to the area, this was a bit surprising.  I view Indonesia as a well blended melting pot of religious tolerance.  Indonesia celebrates holidays from four religions and companies and employees alike have, by all accounts, displayed nothing but respect for religious differences.  So, when I first read about enhanced security, I was concerned that something new must be raising alarms.  Nope.  This is fairly common practice and has occurred since at least 2001, from what I've read.

Like any normal person, when confronted with this information I decided to work on my golf game.  The last two weekends I've spent Saturday mornings at a local driving range.  My first outing was horrible.  Today's actually went pretty well.  I felt good when I finished hitting a round of 100 balls (hopefully I won't hit that many on the course). 

Driving ranges in Jakarta are a little different than those in the US.  The one I chose to visit, like many in the US, is not attached to a golf course and has two storeys.  I was surprised to find that they also had caddies to take my clubs from the car to my reserved tee.  More surprising was how they collect the balls.  I'm accustomed to seeing a small, motorized vehicle that resembles a lawn-mower driving around the range collecting the balls.  Here, several men wearing construction helmets and dressed in what look like large, heavily padded rain coats that hang to mid-calf wander around kicking the balls into several piles.  Then a different man comes along with a large ball scoop and collects the balls for delivery to the tees.  Instead of one person driving a machine, they have roughly 15 people running around in padded suits.  When labor is cheaper than innovation, innovation doesn't occur.