eve's blog

Hello from Surabaya. Last week our concert in Makassar was a hectic week. A big blessing coincidence that my hotel was one block away from family Rijoli. And although I was ridiculously busy, I luckily found some time to meetup with them. Been an afternoon out cruizing on the motorbike with tante Fietje and causin Maikel. Enjoying hot Makassar, the yummie coto ayam, corn with chocolate and not to miss Teh Bottol with view on the beautiful ocean. Visiting Oma, who is already old and sakit, jet unbelievably sweet and still speaks Dutch. We scrolled thru some old photo albums and looking at the pictures of the time she visited Holland. Was great to have meet them again after 13 years. We rushed to Surabaya with the MTV EXIT team, where we’re here now preparing for saturdays concert. A big challange to get 30.000 people on the move. We have lots of full days radio and media visits, not even mentioning all productional hassle. This city is a tough cookie! Gotta say by the way, the food here is delicious! Bye for now, kisses.

Just a short hi from hot and sunny Pontianak, Kalimantan! Can’t type another story now. Will follow up soon! Byeeee.

Hi all. Just a word to let you know I’m still rolling! Ain’t got much to share. I do have to put up some pictures some day. Still haven’t made much jet. Did make some with moms old ‘click’ film roll camera, which I will develop as soon as full. Always looking forward to see what comes out. Love that oldskool way of film development. Will feel more inspired to photograph once on tour probably. Jakarta is not really the city where I feel like pulling out my cam… Also ’cause my mind has been pretty much focussed on the job. Work has been crazy, as I am full on early morning till late night to prepare the concerts with my team. Been cruizing around city for meetings. But happily yeey did have the time for a good night out last weekend. We attended the Peaches concert at Indochine. The night before, she performed in Bali, so we put on a post on our we-like. Pris made great pictures! And I finalized the text a bit. Still happy our little we-like team is working out great, even though we’re not physically together and I am not even in Bali! (You can see it on www.we-like.org by the way.) Hm. What else. O. I really feel like shopping, but didn’t had the time jet. I totally packed the wrong kinda cloths for Jakarta. Hopefully I find time to go to Mangga Dua Wholesale shoppingcenter with Putri this weekend…

Sorry for this boring post. Obviously don’t have anything exciting to share. Could brabble about work stuff, but that ain’t the purpose of this blog though. Next week wednesday we’re off to our first concert in Pontianak (Borneo!). But first on schedule is my crazy one night visa run to Singapore this saturday and the Jakarta press conference for the launch of MTV EXIT Live in Indonesia concert tour. We are in hectic preparations, as this is a major important day for us. Looking forward to it all. Ok, damn. Just DID brabble about work stuff.

I send my love out to everyone at home (happy the sun started shining for you in Holland!), and my sweet sisa’s in Bali, not to forget hardworking mermaid in Sweden and gila boss. Liefs en kusjes!

Back with a new post! And a polaroid, made in the Lomography Embassy Store in JKT. Meet my MTV EXIT indo team: on the left side Ruici from USA/Indo and on the right side Juli from JKT. The other people on the picture are the kidz from Lomonesia. So, anyway, I haven’t been posting daily no mo, ’cause I’ve been pretty much working everyday till late at night and weekends will be work work work. But as you can see on the picture, we make the crazy job as fun as we can. As some might know I joined the team of MTV EXIT, to coordinate media, pr and marketing for the upcoming tour in Indonesia. MTV EXIT is one of the three big foundations of MTV (next to the campaigns Staying Alive and Switch). EXIT stands for End Exploitation and Trafficking. For anyone who’s interested in knowing, I’ll quote from our info (the website is also great to see what human trafficking is and what this campaign is about! www.mtvexit.org):

MTV EXIT is a global campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking and exploitation. Using the power and influence of music, film, visual art, and celebrities, the campaign has produced award-winning On-Air, On-the-Ground, and Online components to reach and educate over 20 million people since it’s launch in 2004. Our on-air products have included documentaries featuring the likes of Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu and Rain, and award-winning music videos by Radiohead and The Killers. MTV EXIT has been working in Asia since 2006. To date we’ve held over 18 concerts in 7 countries in Asia, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan, and Nepal. Please visit our website to see a brief video of some of our events (www.mtvexit.org). We’re excited to bring our campaign to 5 cities across Indonesia, kicking off in Pontianak on May 2nd, followed by shows in Makassar, Surabaya and Medan and a final flagship event in Jakarta on June 6th, to be aired live on Global TV. We anticipate over 100,000 concertgoers for our Indonesia tour.

Sooooo as you can read, I’m going on tour! Yeaaah. End of this month we start in Pontianak (Borneo), where from then on every following sunday the tour continues in Makassar (Sulawesi), Surabaya, Medan (Sumatra) en Jakarta. The biggest Indonesian bands will perform during this Indonesian concert tour. All the international and local NGO’s in Indonesia around human trafficking are involved, as well as the US and Australian Embassay, ’cause the MTV EXIT campaign is completely funded by US AID and AUS AID. We will be visiting victim shelters for MTV documentary material too. Maybe not me ’cause I got other tasks on my hands, but who knows. Would be great. So working means Jakarta crazy life, from meeting to meeting, spending lots of time in taxi (always traffic jam) and doing lot’s of work related lunches, dinners, and that kind of stuff. Having a great time on it. So many nice places to eat and drink or hang out! Well, I gotta go now. I am still in an awful rhythm, where I go to bed around 3am and cannot get out of bed early. Bad discipline as usual. But got an early meeting tomorrow, so I hope I wake up on time. Thanks for reading! Very sweet. Lots of love. Kusjes.

So a few days later, here I am again! I’ve seen a lot from Jakarta and am now happily writing from my new place (on the photo!), which I rented for this month. Yesterday I moved from Wisma Tebet to the area Kuningan. The biggest commercial and business area where local life is mixed with expat life. I’m staying in a small vibrant side street called Jalan Karet Pendurenan. In this street I found many many many nice kos2an. I was driving around with friends Adit and Putri and found a nice, new looking place with good security and a cute garden. The room has a small balcony, aircon, internet, hot water, cleaning, free laundry service and above all… it’s out of reach of the traffic noise! Rented it for 3.2 million Rupiah (about 250 euro), which is quite expensive for a kos, but I guess I got tempted by the comfort and took it. Ah well… just have to eat cheap local food and have to build strong discipline not to buy (the so much amaaaazing cool cheap) cloths. Besides I discovered myself to be a very good budget shopper at Carrefour (around my corner, walking distance!), so I won’t need to worry.
Last weekend has been fun getting to know JKT. Have to say, I kinda like it! Think I gotta thank Oki and his friends who took me out to party at Segarra. A venue where I danced on the grass in between palmtrees. Adit and Putri for hanging out and driving around in their awesome white Jeep. And of course above all Tante Audy and Oma Ietje for the great care and company. Really got to appreciate Tebet area since I got to know it better with tante Audy. Also been seeing some of the great malls in this town with her. Wow! I was surprised by the enormous giants of complexes where the mall becomes a sort of small world where you could hang out all day. Loved the big slide from the 6th to 1rst floor in FX Mall, haha. But I heard in another one there’s even a rollercoaster inside… how about that!
Today I stayed wisefully inside (thank you aircon), reading piles of info and watching a dose of documentaries to get fully updated on MTV EXIT and the human trafficking issue. Tomorrow I’ve got my first meetings scheduled, am excited to start. Ooookay, that was it for now. Liefs en kusjes!

PS: planning to put photo’s on soon.

Am finally on a good internet connection in my new crib. Just want to share quickly all is good in jkt-town. Will wright my next post in the morning and tell aaaaall about my new house and the past few fun days. Love for you all. Kisses.

Hello again! Live from downtown Wisma Tebet… Oeee exciting. Not. No just kidding, I’m not complaining! Tonight’s my positive attempt to get an early night. Couldn’t get to sleep yesterday. Must’ve been a little jetlag and my room being next to the hotel parkinglot where the security guys seem to have loads to talk about at night. Not to mention that the traffic sometimes seems to be passing thru my bedroom. So this morning I made an effort to get up early, but since it ran late and I have a song from Fleetwood Mac as my wake up alarm on my BB, it somehow manages to easily flow into my dreams instead of waking up. I finally freshened up around 12 and stumbled outside next door to aunts house, where I was warmly welcomed with a delicious sweet Indo coffee and a sigarette. Nice. After that I took the Ojek (motorbike taxi) to Kemang area, where I met up with an old Bali friend Oki from Garuda TV (which I now heard doesn’t exist anymore!). Him and his two friends drove around with me all day, checking out many places to stay. How sweet is that! Mainly kos2an (like homestay/studentrooms) with wifi, tv, aircon… pretty nice. Traffic wasn’t busy today, cause of Good Friday, so most citypeople are out of town for a long weekend holiday. Which made it easy for us to roll thru town and having my great first taste of Jakarta life (with that I mean a BigMac and a Bintang). Had alot of fun (especially about the great Indo/English accents: “where does your ‘ant’ live?” How hilarious is that! Hahaha). We ended the day in bar/restaurant Eastern Promise, where Adit, a good friend from Bali living in JKT, shove on with his wife. Was very happy to see someone I know well, so we spend all night talking and reminiscing Bali good times. I’m gonna meet them again sunday for a day shopping and housecruizing in Kuningan (the area where most companies are I need to work with). So after the weekend I’ll be deciding where I want to be living in this bigcity maze. Tomorrow on the planning an easy day with aunt Audy, when I believe I’ll have my first enormous, countless malls experience. But for now, selamat tidur sweet friends and family. Kisses.

Arrived! Managed to survive the wall of heat and traffic jam on the way into town. Sweet aunt Audy picked me up at the airport and accompanied me to my hotel in Tebet area. The hotel is right next to her house, where I’ve spend the day chatting (and eating the best sate ayam!) with with Oma Ietje and cousin Daniel. Been strolling around the neighborhood a bit, which reminds me of busy Denpasar. So, for as anyone knows what I mean, It’s nice, but I’m not getting very excited to stay too long around this area. Will be hooking up with some old friends tomorrow and checking out nice places to live for this upcoming month. Hoping to get in touch with my lovely MTV guys, in Vietnam at the moment, to get to work as soon as possible, cause I think there is a lot to be done! (I’ll write later more about what I’ll be doing for MTV). Peace!