Lynn has enjoyed chatting with him since we first arrived and has taken the girls to see him several times for tending minor ailments. I didn't give him that much thought, but then learned that he is leaving Green School to spend the rest of his life among the people of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in an effort to try to encourage them to preserve the Lore Lindu National Park, a large park home to many species found nowhere else on earth. The forest dwellers in Sulawesi are quite poor, so they are cutting down the rainforest to earn money.
Dr. Ating has an ambitious goal of changing the behaviors of the people of Sulawesi with an innovative approach of offering health care as a way of gaining trust and then developing an eco-tourism business that will both employ the locals in higher paying jobs and give them an economic incentive to preserve the rain forest.
The Lore Lindu is home to a species of tarsiers, the world's smallest monkey. Tarsiers have large, bulging eyes which when combined with their small size helps them look cute and cuddly.
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Tarsius lariang
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The tarsiers have therefore become the mascot for Dr. Ating's Foundation. Green School has supported Dr. Ating's efforts by having t-shirts with the tarsiers printed up and sold to the members of the school community as a fund raiser for the foundation. Charlotte's class has adopted Dr. Ating's foundation as one of their service projects as well. They have held several bake sales and popcorn sales. They decorated posters and sang a song to him at one of the assemblies.
Dr. Ating has a special fondness for Charlotte since she was literally the first person to make a donation to his foundation. Charlotte developed an immediate affection for the tarsiers. Shortly after hearing Dr. Ating was working to save the tarsiers, Charlotte found a 2,000 rupiah note (worth about 25 cents) on the ground. She immediately brought it to Dr. Ating as a donation. This was a selfless act by Charlotte, though made a little less so when she later explained to us that the money was worthless to her as the cheapest snack in the warung costs 5,000 rupiah, and if it had been a 5,000 rupiah note then she would have kept it to spend it at the warung. She has recovered from this less-than-stunning display of altruism by making other small donations to Dr. Ating, creating posters to raise awareness, helping out with the bake sales, and of course purchasing (and consuming) many baked goods.
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| Dr. Ating with Charlotte and friend, wearing their tarsier t-shirts. 'kita cinta' means "we love" Photo credit: Lynn |
Chatting with him one day at school, he mentioned that he had written up stories from his time working as a traveling doctor among the native tribes in the interior of Papua. One story was of his adoption of a "devil child," one of a pair of twin girls born to an impoverished Papuan family, whom if Dr. Ating had not adopted would have been destined for a short and cruel life. I edited the story for him, at his request, and hope to post it on the blog soon.
Additional information about Dr. Ating can be found at his foundation website and in this profile.
Posted by Nat, comments/edits by Lynn
Dr. Ating could harness Charlotte's reasoning for further fundraising. Her thought process was not that different from that used by the supermarkets here in their fundraising efforts. They ask shoppers if they are willing to "round up" their bills to the nearest dollar, and shoppers often say yes -- because, after all, it's less than a dollar. All those donations soon add up. Maybe there is a way for Dr. Ating to create an arrangement with the warung in which customers have the option of sending his Foundation their change.
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