Getting Unstuck

NINE

Moving from Impasse to Action

IRAWAN SUMANTRI was twenty-seven when he first came to see me. As he spoke, his friendly smile traded places with focused seriousness. He had grown up in rural Indonesia, his father an American-trained physician. He spoke admiringly of his father’s altruistic decision to pass up a lucrative medical career in America and return to his rural Indonesian village to become the only Western-trained physician in the area. Dr. Sumantri was a respected leader in the region, but Irawan grew up in humble circumstances in his ancestral village. Irawan’s voice dropped and his expression intensified as he talked about the poverty of the region and the violence he observed firsthand during a period of civil strife. He grew ...