Our History in Short

In 1994 Roderick and Rena met each other in the Puri Cinere Hospital, South Jakarta, where Roderick's mother was being treated.
Rod's mum was attacked by a heroin junky in 1993 where she suffered a stroke in the left part of her brains, rendering her paralyzed and unable to speak or understand plain language. Rod's father brought her to Jakarta, where we found them a nice home to stay, with two in-house nurses and 3 servants. For 3 years Rod's mum spent life in a much friendlier atmosphere than she could have, had she stayed in Holland, even though occasionally she would have to go to hospital for treatment.

Anyway, in 1994 Rod was in the process of a divorce from his previous wife who could not settle in Indonesia.
Rena came visiting Rod's mum with members of Rod's family in Jakarta. According to Rena, 22 at the time, she liked Rod rightaway, but Rod doesn't really believe her.
Rena was working as a receptionist with a parcel service at the time, and Rod noticed that she needed glasses which she could not afford. So after some time he offered to buy her glasses, which she found very hard to accept because they cost twice her salary of Rp.200.000 p.mth.

Rod felt sorry for Rena who had no way of getting ahead due to the job market. Her training as a secretary seemed to be for nothing. So he offered to give her additional training in the use of computers, like Microsoft's Office Suite. Since she picked up real fast, Rod intensified her training and expanded it to website building. To Rod's opinion the internet, which had just started to emerge in Indonesia, was going to play a very important role in business in the future. So now was the moment to jump on the bandwagon and be among the first to get to know all about it.

Rena, to Rod's surprise, was a very talented learner and picked up graphics and HTML very quickly, later expanding into JavaScript and Dynamic HTML.
After one year a friend of Rod's, Ferry Nicolaas, who was a marketing director for a trading company, looked for a secretary, and Rena got the job. She gained a lot of experience running the office while Ferry was on the road doing his job.
In 1996 Rod was asked to keep an eye on a bar owned by Ron Mullers, also known as the catering king of Jakarta. Ron owned the Pizza Hut chain in Jakarta as well as a few restaurant/bars. The bar that Rod was asked to mind was the 'Elvis'. Rod liked the idea since he was an Elvis fan from the first hour in 1956, and... Rod liked entertainment since he was an entertainer (singer/songwriter) in England and Holland from 18 years old until 27. 'Elvis' was a restaurant/bar with live entertainment. It was quite a large place, and to be able to operate it properly it needed constant attention and control. Rod did not have the time to do that, so he called in Rena as a secretary as well as floor manager.

Up until now Rena had been a girl who was not used to going out much, except when invited by Rod if he had to perform somewhere at an occasion, as a singer.
Now all of a sudden she was in the middle of it, having to look after guests, the administration, coordinating the waitresses etc. The job fitted her like a glove and she wore it like a loose cloak on her shoulders. She got on well with the waitresses (and their disputes) as well as with the customers. She even got used to drinking alcohol, and after a while that got too much to Rod's liking. Rod hates women who get drunk. In all the years that Rod was an entertainer he stayed far away from alcohol and drugs, afraid that it might influence his behaviour. Rod likes talent and emotion to come out from the heart and not from stimulance.
So after a while Rod told Rena that it was OK if she liked the job so much, but he was not going to pay much attention to her anymore. Period. They did not see each other for a while. After some time Rena changed jobs and worked for a shipping company, looking after documentation and coordinating between clients and administration.

In 1998 things became tough in Jakarta, and on May 13th (Rena's birthday), it culminated in an explosion, the result of which was that President Suharto was ousted.
Things were hectic in Jakarta, you could see fires burning everywhere, as well as tanks riding through the main streets. This is another story to tell some other time. Rod was working for Lucent Technologies at the time as a consultant and, along with 150 colleagues, was sent to Singapore for 10 days for safekeeping. It was a real mess. Rod had a foster daughter of 18yrs that he had to take care of. He put her up with friends in Jakarta, far away from the mellee. Rod's furniture had to be moved. Well, it is a story for some other time. The result of it all was that after 10 days of Singapore all Lucent personnel was fired and sent home. Rod decided to still go back to Jakarta since he felt responsible for his foster daughter.
Jakarta was a shambles. Military everywhere. The economy and job market blown to pieces.
Rod found a former Lucent colleague from Holland who also wanted to remain in Jakarta. So together they decided to start a new busines and opened up a web design company: Web Builders Indonesia.

It was not easy to find personnel, so it was decided to recruit personnel with some experience, and Rod was going to train them as we went. Ivo, Rod's partner did not come from a graphics, multimedia or internet background. He was a project manager with Lucent. We hired a graphics designer and a secretary. Then Rod remembered Rena, who at that time happened to be out of a job as well. He called her up and offered her a position as a web designer. She performed very well, with a great talent for style, color combination and layout, and... she had stopped drinking and going out most nights. After a while Rod and Rena's relationship became closer again.

Then came the day that Rod hired a female marketing manager who was on friendly terms with Rod. Rena could not bear the thought of someone being too close to Rod and started suspecting all sorts of things. This resulted in a widening gap between Rod and Rena and eventually Rena left Web Builders Indonesia.

In the year 2000 Web Builders Indonesia went bust. No one could afford to pay us and we had to shut down the operation and we were US$125.000 poorer, or in other words, we were broke.
Rena was luckier, when she left WBI she started as a web designer for a friend of Rod's, Dean, who had a project for a British Consulting company, the development of rural areas in Indonesia. It gave her the opportunity to expand her design skills, as well as travelling through Indonesia, mainly South and Middle Sulawesi, implementing projects.
She was, after a while, promoted to consultant, giving her a very good salary according to Indonesian standards. When the project finished she moved to a German project development firm, GTZ, doing the same kind of job, now however in Eastern Indonesia, Lombok, Flores and Timor.

Rod on the other hand was not so lucky. The economical climate in Indonesia collapsed and the subsequent governments were as unprofessional as the 'Orde Baru' under Suharto. In fact Suharto was more professional, and the following governments had no backbone in spite of all their promises. No toughness, no consistency, and still the usual 'bukan saya' mentality.
This meant that Rod had to go begging left and right trying to find little teeny, weeny, jobs in multimedia to at least try and get some daily bread.
In November 2002 Rod was again with his back against the wall, trying to negotiate impossible deals with government officials who promise heaven in the future and give you daily rice today, provided you find the seeds and plant them yourself. Rod's lifestyle had degenerated from living in spacious houses to rooms with kind friends for short periods of time.
Then one day a cousin of Rod's told him that 'Oom Jan' had died: "could you please come to the funeral". Having nothing else important to do, Rod went to the hospital where that uncle was laid up. There he saw Rena again. They decided to meet in the coming days and have some coffee together.

Rena was totally distressed at the situation that Rod was in. She came visiting him regularly in the appartment where he was shacking up with one of the government officials he was working together with. Since there was no food or anything else in that appartment, Rena made a point of bringing food and necessities each time she came.

It was beginning of December 2002, that Rena said that she was expecting a bonus and she wanted to go somewhere and take me along during the annual holidays as of 22 December.
Rod protested that he had no money to do such thing, but Rena insisted on paying for it all and we would have to choose between Manado (Norther Sulawesi) and Bali. Rena and I both have our roots in Manado, so the thought of going to Manado was really attractive. But... it would cost a lot of money in fares by plane, or a lot of time by boat... and we only had about 2 weeks holiday.
Then we decided we'd go to Northern Bali. It would be nice and quiet and also cheap. Having decided that, Rod and Rena started booking the tickets for the bus trip to Lovina Beach.

The rest of the story, including the Sumbawa Trip, you can read about in:

IndischInformatiePuntMaillist Indonesireizen   (in Dutch)

See message:
Piekierans van een Indo in Indonesie - Dec.2002

In May Rena and Rod decided to chance the big step into marriage. Hence these webpages....