About me

Lungomare di Sant'Elia

I was born in Nias Island, the biggest of all islands off West Sumatra, but I left the island, when I started my high school years in Sibolga, Sumatra. Then after finishing my philosophical study in Pematang Siantar, I went to Münster, Germany, where I studied and worked for almost 11 years.

I came back to the island just 3 weeks before 2004 tsunami hit Indian ocean, including Nias Island, and 3 months before the earthquake finally devastated the island. As programme manager and deputy director I got the task of organising the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work, while building up a humanitarian and social organisation called Caritas Sibolga.

After 4 years work in Caritas Sibolga I started a new job in administration in Sibolga. But Padang earthquake of 30 Sept 2009 took me back to NGO world. I moved to Padang, West Sumatera, to be programme manager of the Caritas joint emergency response for Karina KWI (Caritas Indonesia).

In April 2010 I made myself free for a new way of life and then moved to Europe (or came back to :)).

As I am wandering between two worlds (or a few worlds) I put down here my impression of the things that have fascinated me along the way. The name tells it all, the origin and the destination.

Feel free to visit my places on the web: achida-id.blogspot.com (Indonesian), achida-de.blogspot.com (German) and achida-en.blogspot.com (English).

I am also running a project (niaskeyboard.blogspot.com) to encourage the use of Nias language on social media, by creating Nias keyboard for Android smartphones, helping users typing Nias on the standard not-Nias-friendly PC keyboard, compiling a simple Nias spelling and grammar as well as creating the Nias spelling dictionary for smartphones and PCs.