Last evening, I went down to the new and improved Losari Beach in downtown Makassar. The improved area is tiled and has plenty of places to sit and watch the sunsets (when the weather is nice). There is also a floating dock made from plastic as well. This is were most of the kids do their swimming in the murky, aromatic waters amid the cast off plastic bottles and other assorted detritus. As I arrived, I quickly noticed there to be some sort of program going on. This program happened to be Radio untuk Aids, or Radio for Aids. The event was also heavily sponsored by a cigarette company with the fetching attendants handing out free cigarettes. During this program there were some games in front of the crowd. The participants went on to win tshirt and, you guessed it, cigarettes. Granted a couple of the participants could have been older than the Indonesian legal age of purchasing cigarettes but a couple were clearly not. This comes on the heels of a photo on the front page of The Jakarta Post showing three lads no older than 10 years old sharing puffs on a cigarette outside their school! Once again, it’s not that Indonesia doesn’t have laws or restrictions on many things; it’s just that there is no enforcement of said laws. It doesn’t help that there are few restrictions on advertisements for cigarettes here, many of which clearly pander to youth. It’s something that the country may be trying to work on as there are talks to increase the cigarette taxes. A cigarette sold separately can be as little as 1000 rupiah, or about 1 cent US. There has already been backlash from the proposed hike as it will hurt the poor who are addicted to nicotine. Thank you for smoking.
Well, I’m off to try and fetch some tickets to a jazz concert tonight. It turns out that there is a Makassar Jazz Society and they are sponsoring a free concert of some Indonesian talent. Once again, strangeness occurs. I can’t go to the venue to get the free tickets because it was relayed to Safir over the phone when he called that they would be too busy there. Instead, I was told to go to some place else, probably one of the Society members homes on some street somewhere in Makassar. Hopefully, I’ll pull an invitation and liven up my Sunday evening.