May 13, 2011 -- Bandung

DATE: Wednesday, May 13, 2011

LOCATION: Bandung, Java, Indonesia

AUTHOR: Ron Hartley

The day dawned early this morning and progressed to be hot and humid (just like the rest of the days).

We are off in separate cars to gather as a group at Anie’s house, before going on in separate cars to visit TVRI (Television Repubilc of Indonesia).

We were warmly greeted by the staff and shown around the television studio. TVRI is roughly similar to PBS in the US. They are commercial free and do news, weather, cultural events, educational and children’s programming, with some use of puppets. They broadcast 5-6 hours a day with the rest of the content coming from Jakarta. There are 30 other stations in Indonesia, which share some programming.  Locally they employ 17 people and nationally, 300.  Their enthusiasm was high, while there equipment was several years out of date.

Our next stop was Uninus University where we were greeted by the Rector and several senior administration and faculty members. We had snacks followed by lunch, a peculiar habit much repeated on other occasions. We had a panel discussion on the current state of education, organized by Phil, with questions from the audience. Marsha, Alan and Ron also participated.



Just one of the platters of food served right before lunch.





The buffet lunch included rice
wrapped in bannana leaves
and a variety of Indonesian dishes.



This was a particularly hectic traffic day, so rather than go directly home, our hostess, Retty, took us to an exotic restaurant where we had refreshments and a rest.

In the evening we had the farewell dinner and party. There was singing led by Phil and square dancing led by Marsha.



Group photo at the farewell party in Bandung