Sunday, December 23, 2007

Proudly Introduce You... We are The Happy Team

Proudly Introduce You... We are The Happy Team


There were so many people join the program at the very beginning: awareness material design, pre-survey, and the field research-training. We thank them so much for their time and willing. We understand if not everyone can get into the activities thoroughly, while we need to spare more attention and intensively focused in the field research right now. Thank you very much for Dedi, Anggit, Agung, Wina, and Ananta from Biology of UNPAD, Nova from LIPI (Indonesian Scientist Institute), Erna from Bandung, Nina and Joko from RMI Kampung Pending, and also Karmele from IAR Bogor. Endless thanks to The Happy Team, every one of us has his/her own way to support the program. Here they are:

· A Dede, the driver and ‘tukang milem’
He is a –two child- happy father, lives in Rajapolah Tasikmalaya with their wife, and a son named Pian ‘the menace’ and a daughter: the always crying-5 months ‘Nita’. A Dede. A in Sundanesse is a calling for an older brother. So Dede is his name, but it isn’t. Dede is only a nick name, because his real name is Dedi Sardi. Well, we absolutely don’t know how he can get his missed-name ‘Dede’ –not Dedi. After all, he is the 2nd oldest among us. He drives the car and also often drives us to found the Javan Slow Loris while doing the survey, first before other. His task also is shooting our activities with the handy-camcorder. Funny, he’s not willing to handle the Javan Slow Loris (The JSL). He denied that he terrified of being bitten, but it is showed from his face. Haha...

· Ades, the web manager
She is a private teacher, lives in Bandung, with so many students busying her time. She never got into the field yet, but she is very kind to spare her time to manage the webblog and get you informed on everything about our The JSL Conservation Program. Ades is also a nick name, again. Her real name is Aah Desi. She’s a biologist and good adviser on the vegetation analyze-thing. By looking at our picture of vegetation or habitat, she can recognize the vegetation name or suggesting the method problem. We think we should kidnap her to join our next survey. Hope the students won’t get mad :-D



· Asep, the ‘juragan tanah’
He’s newest among us, a biologist from Bandung and thoroughly plays as the ‘juragan tanah’. It means master of the land, some kind of person who very rich having so many land in everywhere. Of course it’s just the nick name for the task, and only among us. His real name is very common Sundanesse name: Asep Maman Sukirman. He’s responsible at taking the vegetation data and prepares us the result. His jobs in the field are measuring other people-land (joking! We means: habitat), measuring plant’s diameter and the height. Thanks God, his activities never made the true owner mad. Of course, we didn’t cut the vegetation without permission, and we didn’t make any destruction also. What Asep doing so far, good..!

· Auh
His real name is very good, we say too good for him (joking!): Nasrul Sahidin. Same as Wawan, He is a real mount hiker that used to live in the jungle (joking again!). They both love to do camping and hiking. Auh plays as good finder of The JSL, handling the JSL when we need to measure the morphometric, and also taking documentation by handy-camcorder, duet with A Dede. Sometimes when Dewi very busy, he also help us to cook the meal. Even have got three times bitten by The JSL, it never frightens him in handling The JSL. Let’s get wild..!


· Dewi, the ‘asmen’
She’s not the youngest but probably the littlest one (actually only a little bit different from Winar). Don’t trust your eyes considering her body size. Dewi or Tito (it’s not her nick name, but part of Dewi Hidayati Tito) treat the food as ‘good’ and ‘much’ as everyone of us. She loves to talk and chat with everyone, new or old well known. She comes from Losari Brebes, Center of Java. Her poor Sundanesse obstacle her, but never be in too long. She’s so funny with her creepy voice and nice because she’s a food-handy. Haha.. We love her much on this habit. Her tasks are ensuring the local permit, manage the tools-equipment and first aid kit, and also managing supply on meal. Winar ‘the ibu’ is so helped fully because of her presence. Hungry? Get some meal, go and see Dewi! ;-)


· Fadli, the ‘tukang GPS’
Fully Ahmad Fadli, he didn’t saw The JSL yet -even in the zoo- before joining us. So it is his very exciting experience. Fadli’s task is recording the start and end of transects and tracks, positions of The JSL’s sleeping site, and position of every ‘need to record for data’ with the GPS. He sometimes complained when we have to follow separated track. His responsible to record all the position makes him re-follow the path to record the position. His complain just nothing, because actually he loves handling gadget such as GPS. He is a nocturnal kind of person; usually sleep late before dawn and waking up almost before lunch. But even we have to do the survey in the morning, he still keep up with our schedule. So far so good! Because of these habit also, he proposed to do the field research on The JSL’s behavior. Good for you, Fadli!

· Pa Ade or Mang Ade, the ‘profesor kukang’
Here is the master of The JSL. Pa Ade or Mang Ade or Mr. Ade Sofyan is a conservation aware-poacher. He lives in Sumedang and the oldest among us. Pa Ade is the master in finding and recognizing The JSL in the crowd and tricky of bamboo leaves. He is very outstanding about The JSL. So even if he had his own nick name ‘Abel’, we called him the Professor of The JSL. For him it easy to mounting the bamboo friskily, and then capture it when we need to measure the morphometric. The JSL is clearly visible for him, while it doesn’t for us. His experiences in exploring the nature and his wise local wisdom and culture enrich our knowledge. He also like to jokes always and it is freshens the team in every situation. He has a cute name for us: ‘juragan awi’, just because our task is inspecting bamboo clump mostly. It means Bamboo’s land owner/master. Great, isn’t it? His task is leading us in day and night searching. And he did it very very well. Sometimes we too tired to follow his energy while he still excited and powerful always. What a man! Nice and funny from him is when we have our meal, he always lead us to get the second. But after a few second rests, he will get up and start to ask us to work again. Arrgh... Good Professor!

· Wawan, the photographer


Years ago he used to be as shy as The JSL, silent and not interested to join conversation with stranger and or more than two people, as he confessed. But as he is also a victim (probably the 1st) of The JSL syndrome, he is now very eager to share you the information on The JSL. Just talk about wildlife photography with him, probably you won’t be bored. Wawan Tarniwan is our master on multimedia thing –design and editing, printing, videography, and of course photography. Well, actually no wonder, his daily work is managing the Gecko Dezign Studio. Our The JSL sticker, poster and film to be played at school are some of his designs. His mad love syndrome will always come every time we found The JSL in the wild; he always madly taking their picture in every angle and position, hundred times. He’ll print those then and stick it on the wall. We envy them to be taken the pictures hundred times. Wan, can we get your attention please... Why don’t you take our picture then?! We also like to be a model ;-)

· Winar, the ‘ibu ketu’
Indah Winarti is her rare called name. She’s the leader, 2nd littlest girl, tough, talkative, and always eager if asked about The JSL. ‘Ibu ketu’ means mrs. leader, just because she plays as the leader of the program. She’s the virus for us who spreads The JSL love syndrome. She still studying at Magister School of IPB majoring primatology, and she’s busy go to Bogor and our sites in Tasikmalaya and Ciamis because of that. She loves primates, especially The JSL, and dedicated her time for them since she was study at Biology of UNPAD. No wonder, her loves on this nocturnal species promotes and lead us to get actively involved in the program. Always spirited and powerless, she only gets far from her computer for a minute, even in her spare time (joking!). Winar likes to be asked and discuss The JSL and also almost everything. So don’t ask her about The JSL instead you already spare a longer time :-D


· Ujang Dedi, the ‘ustad’His name is Dedi Sutrisna. Ustad is the Islam –religion- leader/adviser. His nick name comes out just because he looked more spiritual than others. Ujang is Sundanesse nick name for a boy, so Dedi is his real name. As the others, he is also eager to join the team in the field. While he’s working now as a librarian in a junior high school, he has to wait until vacation time so he finally can join the team. Daily, he plays as manager of our base camp, stay there and manage the building. And in the field he plays some ‘The JSL finder’ contest with A Dede, of course not with Pa Ade who’s already a master. His is responsible in handling The JSL while we measure the morphometric. He has got bitten by The JSL and sometimes, as he confessed, he felt trauma. After all, it soon erased by the satisfied feeling on the fact that The JSL is found ok living in their habitat. “I proud to join the team”, that is the latest confession for this paragraph. Go forward, Jang!