Tuesday, 20 June 2006 @ 1:48pm.

I had my first focus group discussion (FGD) on Saturday (17 June 2006). Though in the end only four people attended (despite confirmation from eight), it was still a quality discussion. My assistant/moderator and I have learned from a couple of mistakes and hopefully things will go smoother with the next FGD. For example, we have to better strategize with regards to jam karet (rubber time) so that we can start and finish at the “right” times. Specifically, it can be hard to know if you say meet at noon, whether people will come promptly at noon or if they will be late 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Yesterday there was a power outage from 10am to 1pm in my neighborhood. Let’s just say I wasn’t able to get much done.

Because I felt a cold coming on last weekend, I took two packets of jamu (traditional medicine) the first day, two packets of the komplit (complete) version the next day, and the third morning took another regular packet. The komplit version had several packets: mixes for tolak angin (”push away the wind,” i.e., fight the cold), ginger tea, ginsing pills, honey, and another ginger-like substance. It was some of the worst tasting stuff I have ever encountered. I can’t describe the taste, but trust me, it was bad. Perhaps people just get used to the taste? I don’t know if it was the placebo effect (e.g., “If it tastes this bad, it must be good for me.”) or if the herbs really did their thing, but I don’t think my cold symptoms were as bad at they might have been had I not taken the medicine. For instance, I didn’t have a terrible stuffy nose, headache, fever, etc. - more like very low-grade versions instead. I decided to try the jamu this time since I needed something to work fast and get me through the focus group discussion in particular. I have tried cold/flu medicine here before, but it usually made me tired or wasn’t fast enough, whereas I had heard through the grapevine that jamu would be much better and healthier.

Tolak Angin (jamu - traditional medicine)