On a muggy morning in June 1951, the first volunteer with Australia’s Volunteer Graduate Scheme disembarked in Jakarta, capital of the recently proclaimed Republic of Indonesia. Twenty-one-year-old Herb Feith was the only passenger to come ashore that morning; the others had been scared off by rumors of riots, shootings and the indiscriminate slaughter of Europeans. They had stared incredulously when Feith told them of his intention to take up a volunteer placement in Indonesia’s civil service. They told him he was being reckless and overly idealistic; that he wouldn’t survive a week, let alone two years, amongst hostile “natives” and their unsanitary habits.1 Indonesians, too, were often apprehensive. Many came to suspect that Western volunteers had ulterior motives: to make a profit, or try to convert Indonesian Muslims to Christianity. Others simply shook their heads, unable to see the point of it all. Feith soon became accustomed to incredulity and suspicion, as did the volunteers who followed him to Indonesia.