I’m down to 2 weeks now! Wow, where has the time gone? I knew it would go fast, but the last 2 months has really just disappeared. Lately I’ve finished up my travel plans which has left me some time to think about the fact that I’m finishing up here. I can happily say that I have definitely made a difference here, and hey some of it has even been positive!
While I’m just starting to get sad, apparently Daya has been getting that way for a while now. Largely because of that she has been trotting me out, taking me all over the place. For instance, the other day she took me to her family’s ‘garden’ (not what you’re thinking, but not a farm either). I even helped them plant some corn (rather than plowing up a whole field they just use a stick to pound a hole). Then today I went to some more of her family’s as there was a holiday (as per usual, no one had any idea what it was for).
As I near the end of my time in Indo, I’ve been making 2 lists, one of things I CAN do in the US and one of things I CAN’T do in the US. (the title of this blog translates as ‘can or can’t’)
Can’t
•Unabashedly stare at people
•Considering buying water the activity for the afternoon
•Wear a striped red shirt and green shorts and be told I’m handsome
•Pay $2 for a meal and feel I paid too much
•Be tall
•Live for the price of a water jug (<$0.60) every 2 weeks
•Walk into the room and instantly be the most popular person there
•Be a comedian (people laugh at EVERYTHING here)
•Smell my tap water
Can
•Lie out in the sun without being told that it’s too hot
•Swerve inside a road lane… there are lanes, they’re bug enough to swerve & people stay in them
•Be sound asleep at 5am
•Use my shower to get completely clean
•Drink
•Cuss (with people actually knowing what I’m saying)
•Not REQUIRE air-con
•Eat bacon
•Drinking fountains!
•Gorge on fresh vegetables and berries
•Eavesdrop without concentrating
•American Football!
•Actually surf the internet
•Say my name normally
•Disappear
•Recycle
•Move heavy objects with no intent to accomplish something
•Drive a car
•Talk about sports I actually care about
•Eat a meal and be able to identify every piece of food
•Pet a dog without needing to sterilize my hand with a blowtorch
•CEREAL!
•See a woman’s hair
•Pay a set price for something…anything
•Not want to sing, and be normal because of that
•Not have a religion
•Not fake smile all day
•Develop a friendship
This last one seems a little odd I realize, but another ETA made a good point, with the standard/stereotypical Indonesian they ask you ridiculous questions as soon as they meet you, but that’s about it. The result is that you know a person in 10 minutes as well as you do in 10 months. Obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s surprisingly and a bit scarily accurate.
That’s all for now
Friday, May 14, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Visiting friends
It’s been a while since my last blog, largely because my internet was out for a while, along with the power. Now however, things seem to have returned to normal so here’s an update.
The first weekend in May was spent in ParePare. I went to say goodbye to the older couple I had met there, Justin and Diane because they left for a month in Lombok this week. While I was there besides eating lots of Diane’s delicious cooking I met yet another bule; he was from Brisbane. He’s married to a local and bases his international business out of Pare. Talking with/about him, divorces also came up, and I found out that divorces are fairly common here. It seems people can’t say no to organized or pressured marriages, but they can annul them in a few months. That makes sense!
Justin and Diane are always good for some interesting conversations about trying to help in various locations (they’ve been all over including Africa some 30 years ago; now that’s an adventure!). A far amount of our conversations were spent talking about positive and negative aspects of some cultures. On that front I have long been pretty liberal; thinking that cultures are different not better or worse, but as I’ve spent more time here it’s become pretty obvious that there are some cultures which are better than others at accomplishing certain things that we currently value in this world (I had to soften it with that last bit).
The Monday after I returned from Pare there was no class because there was a celebration for the 3rd classes in the middle and high schools finishing. To the boredom of a normal graduation (hot, uncomfortable chairs, long speeches, etc) now add being able to understand about 1/3 of the words, if you really concentrate. It wasn’t horrible, but pretty bad. I played on my cell phone the whole time. After it was over I was of course in a TON of pictures. Then they took down the metal tent in a serious lightning storm; not kidding.
The graduation party also included some celebration for the Prophet’s Birthday. Those Islam-savvy out there will not that was OVER 2 MONTHS AGO! Despite that, this was the second celebration I had been to for the Prophet’s B-day. The first was in a student’s home and Easter had invited me. It was somewhat interesting, but not my favorite thing considering I got to sit and listen to 3 guys read the Koran for an hour while I sweated away. One thing I liked about the celebrations is the banana Christmas Easter Tree! They take a banana tree trunk and jab lots of sticks into it, forming roughly a Christmas tree shape. Each stick is decorated and on the end of it is a hardboiled egg (hence the Easter part of the tree). What I didn’t see coming was at the student’s house when, as soon as the Koran reading was over, everyone (grandma included!) made a mad rush at the tree to pull out a stick and egg!
Then this past weekend I headed to Makassar to celebrate Jimmie’s birthday. We didn’t really do much of anything, but it was good to catch up, and especially get to a gym! I can still hardly move my arms!
The time in Makassar made it very obvious that I know longer need an itinerary to have a very good time, just sitting talking, zoning out, playing on the internet or simply walking around is an activity now…I’ve definitely lost my American ‘everything must be scheduled’ urge; I don’t miss it very much!
We did manage to get motivated enough to see a CLASSY Indo movie and even listened to some music at a concert. Both confirmed that Indo’s are not very good at trying Western media!
So as you can see, not much has been going on here lately, but the time is winding down in a hurry. I will leave the pesantren late night May 28 which means I have 2.5 weeks left!
The first weekend in May was spent in ParePare. I went to say goodbye to the older couple I had met there, Justin and Diane because they left for a month in Lombok this week. While I was there besides eating lots of Diane’s delicious cooking I met yet another bule; he was from Brisbane. He’s married to a local and bases his international business out of Pare. Talking with/about him, divorces also came up, and I found out that divorces are fairly common here. It seems people can’t say no to organized or pressured marriages, but they can annul them in a few months. That makes sense!
Justin and Diane are always good for some interesting conversations about trying to help in various locations (they’ve been all over including Africa some 30 years ago; now that’s an adventure!). A far amount of our conversations were spent talking about positive and negative aspects of some cultures. On that front I have long been pretty liberal; thinking that cultures are different not better or worse, but as I’ve spent more time here it’s become pretty obvious that there are some cultures which are better than others at accomplishing certain things that we currently value in this world (I had to soften it with that last bit).
The Monday after I returned from Pare there was no class because there was a celebration for the 3rd classes in the middle and high schools finishing. To the boredom of a normal graduation (hot, uncomfortable chairs, long speeches, etc) now add being able to understand about 1/3 of the words, if you really concentrate. It wasn’t horrible, but pretty bad. I played on my cell phone the whole time. After it was over I was of course in a TON of pictures. Then they took down the metal tent in a serious lightning storm; not kidding.
The graduation party also included some celebration for the Prophet’s Birthday. Those Islam-savvy out there will not that was OVER 2 MONTHS AGO! Despite that, this was the second celebration I had been to for the Prophet’s B-day. The first was in a student’s home and Easter had invited me. It was somewhat interesting, but not my favorite thing considering I got to sit and listen to 3 guys read the Koran for an hour while I sweated away. One thing I liked about the celebrations is the banana Christmas Easter Tree! They take a banana tree trunk and jab lots of sticks into it, forming roughly a Christmas tree shape. Each stick is decorated and on the end of it is a hardboiled egg (hence the Easter part of the tree). What I didn’t see coming was at the student’s house when, as soon as the Koran reading was over, everyone (grandma included!) made a mad rush at the tree to pull out a stick and egg!
Then this past weekend I headed to Makassar to celebrate Jimmie’s birthday. We didn’t really do much of anything, but it was good to catch up, and especially get to a gym! I can still hardly move my arms!
The time in Makassar made it very obvious that I know longer need an itinerary to have a very good time, just sitting talking, zoning out, playing on the internet or simply walking around is an activity now…I’ve definitely lost my American ‘everything must be scheduled’ urge; I don’t miss it very much!
We did manage to get motivated enough to see a CLASSY Indo movie and even listened to some music at a concert. Both confirmed that Indo’s are not very good at trying Western media!
So as you can see, not much has been going on here lately, but the time is winding down in a hurry. I will leave the pesantren late night May 28 which means I have 2.5 weeks left!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Coming to a happy ending?
One thing I was surprised by during the Bali trip was my defending of Sidrap. Several times during Indonesia-bash-sessions, which ETAs, and other ex-pats, are prone to (we’ve got to vent to someone, sometime), I felt really defensive when someone said something negative about my placement.
This is coming from a guy that was all but ready to call it quits and pack up not that many months ago; though the fact that, knock on wood, mati lampu has become much less frequent and I now have internet in my room has helped my placement a lot. I was stunned as I was telling people that ‘No, the situation isn’t that bad at all’ ‘The ride to Makassar goes fast’ and ‘the food is actually pretty good’.
What was I saying?! Just ask anyone that reads my blog and knows how I live here; it’s atrocious, appalling, and abysmal!
Isn’t it?
It’s very difficult for me to communicate the situation I’m in here. I truly value this experience and I have a feeling when I look back in a few months that my feelings will be turning towards loving it here (with time memories grow more fond, right?). But (and there’s always a but) this country/situation has constant aggravations. Depending on my mood (which has a HUGE impact) those aggravations can roll off my back or can cause near melt-downs. It’s really kind of scary the swings in opinion I can have here: sometimes I really love it and appreciate the colossal amount that everyone has done for me, but then at other times I’m really annoyed by all the issues I deal with. Lately however, the issues have become less and I’ve gotten really good at dealing with them; I have become more comfortable and accustomed to life here than I ever would have expected 6 or 7 months ago. This is certainly a unique experience I have been undertaking, and somewhat stunningly, I think I’m going to miss it (once I’m safe, comfortable, clean, and allowed privacy back in the US!).
This is coming from a guy that was all but ready to call it quits and pack up not that many months ago; though the fact that, knock on wood, mati lampu has become much less frequent and I now have internet in my room has helped my placement a lot. I was stunned as I was telling people that ‘No, the situation isn’t that bad at all’ ‘The ride to Makassar goes fast’ and ‘the food is actually pretty good’.
What was I saying?! Just ask anyone that reads my blog and knows how I live here; it’s atrocious, appalling, and abysmal!
Isn’t it?
It’s very difficult for me to communicate the situation I’m in here. I truly value this experience and I have a feeling when I look back in a few months that my feelings will be turning towards loving it here (with time memories grow more fond, right?). But (and there’s always a but) this country/situation has constant aggravations. Depending on my mood (which has a HUGE impact) those aggravations can roll off my back or can cause near melt-downs. It’s really kind of scary the swings in opinion I can have here: sometimes I really love it and appreciate the colossal amount that everyone has done for me, but then at other times I’m really annoyed by all the issues I deal with. Lately however, the issues have become less and I’ve gotten really good at dealing with them; I have become more comfortable and accustomed to life here than I ever would have expected 6 or 7 months ago. This is certainly a unique experience I have been undertaking, and somewhat stunningly, I think I’m going to miss it (once I’m safe, comfortable, clean, and allowed privacy back in the US!).
Re…Renver…Rever … apa?
One thing I was told about before I came, read about and have been experiencing for the past 8 months, but just lately has registered with me is the lack of reverence that Indonesians typically display.
To me, a performance or a presentation and certainly a formal prayer, are, by definition, times when people should be quiet and show their respect. I mentioned it earlier, but here that respect doesn’t come across like that. It is kind of refreshing to see a people not take themselves so seriously as to think that everyone must be quiet and conservative to humor a particular belief. This is especially true considering the rap that Islam occasionally gets in the US as ultra-conservative. It is also a little disconcerting at first however; until you realize there is no disrespect meant, it’s frankly pretty annoying. This idea at least helps to explain my Bali temple experiences too (which was only exacerbated because Bali is a tourist trap).
This seeming lack of reverence reverberates throughout Indonesian culture and I think at times I have mis-indentified it as several different maladies (such as a general lack of maturity (though I still stand by that to some extent), little boys being allowed to get away with anything, being yelled at on the streets, etc.), when in reality it is simply a cultural attitude not to worry too much about anyone thing particularly what we consider ‘manners’. That is not always the case however, and occasionally strict adherence is required for some things (of course I never know what those things are!).
One particular example of this lack of reverence is eating. This in particularly was annoying me until one of the other ETAs mentioned how unimportant meals are in Indonesia. With the exception of feasts/celebrations, meals are not an event at all, simply a time to get the food you need. Even those feasts are not the ornate, well-organized occasions a Westerner may expect. In fact, there is no word in Indonesian for meal (that I’ve found at least). Breakfast is makan pagi (eat morning), lunch makan siang (eat mid-day) and finally makan malam (you guessed it, eat night).
Once I realized this it made me feel more normal about my eating with Imran’s family. I felt a little awkward because rarely did anyone beside a screaming kid eat with me. But it’s just a cultural difference. Food isn’t really a big deal here (apparently explaining some of the lack of delicious food and also why there aren’t many Indonesian restaurants internationally). The main meal is eaten around midday, but typical dishes are prepared in such a way that they can sit out at room temperature for an extended period of time, even in this weather; I know you don’t believe they’d stay good, but as long as you don’t have dysentery, it seems to work.
It’s kind of surprising to me that such a blatant cultural difference has taken me this long to identify, but now that I have, I see it everywhere. Of course this comes just as I’m getting ready to leave…4 weeks!
To me, a performance or a presentation and certainly a formal prayer, are, by definition, times when people should be quiet and show their respect. I mentioned it earlier, but here that respect doesn’t come across like that. It is kind of refreshing to see a people not take themselves so seriously as to think that everyone must be quiet and conservative to humor a particular belief. This is especially true considering the rap that Islam occasionally gets in the US as ultra-conservative. It is also a little disconcerting at first however; until you realize there is no disrespect meant, it’s frankly pretty annoying. This idea at least helps to explain my Bali temple experiences too (which was only exacerbated because Bali is a tourist trap).
This seeming lack of reverence reverberates throughout Indonesian culture and I think at times I have mis-indentified it as several different maladies (such as a general lack of maturity (though I still stand by that to some extent), little boys being allowed to get away with anything, being yelled at on the streets, etc.), when in reality it is simply a cultural attitude not to worry too much about anyone thing particularly what we consider ‘manners’. That is not always the case however, and occasionally strict adherence is required for some things (of course I never know what those things are!).
One particular example of this lack of reverence is eating. This in particularly was annoying me until one of the other ETAs mentioned how unimportant meals are in Indonesia. With the exception of feasts/celebrations, meals are not an event at all, simply a time to get the food you need. Even those feasts are not the ornate, well-organized occasions a Westerner may expect. In fact, there is no word in Indonesian for meal (that I’ve found at least). Breakfast is makan pagi (eat morning), lunch makan siang (eat mid-day) and finally makan malam (you guessed it, eat night).
Once I realized this it made me feel more normal about my eating with Imran’s family. I felt a little awkward because rarely did anyone beside a screaming kid eat with me. But it’s just a cultural difference. Food isn’t really a big deal here (apparently explaining some of the lack of delicious food and also why there aren’t many Indonesian restaurants internationally). The main meal is eaten around midday, but typical dishes are prepared in such a way that they can sit out at room temperature for an extended period of time, even in this weather; I know you don’t believe they’d stay good, but as long as you don’t have dysentery, it seems to work.
It’s kind of surprising to me that such a blatant cultural difference has taken me this long to identify, but now that I have, I see it everywhere. Of course this comes just as I’m getting ready to leave…4 weeks!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A touristy experience
I have to say I was actually ready to return from Bali when my plane took off Sunday evening. While Bali is certainly a nice place with some great sights it is way too touristy for me. Constantly being hassled to pay this, buy this, look at this, come here, go there is not my idea of traveling. So while I’m glad I went to Bali, I’m also not disappointed that I left it for last and almost didn’t make it there.
I did however REALLY enjoy the food. In fact this was really an eating weekend. In one day I ate French toast, 2 servings of ice cream, three good beers, a serving of traditional pork (babi guling is a Bali specialty and included tender pork, blood sausage, and delicious crispy skin and crunchy cracklings), a banana nut muffin, rye bread, a chicken sandwich and garlic mashed potatoes! And every other day I had at least one meal of MEXICAN food! So yeah, Bali has some redeeming features!
A total of 4 of us ETAs stayed in Ubud for 2 nights with one day looking around the city and buying gifts. Ubud is almost as touristy as Kuta (which is not actually Indonesia, but actually an Australian party town moved to an Indonesian island), but in a completely different way. Instead of clubs, and surfing, Ubud is all about cafes and art. It was kind of fun to walk around the city looking in a bunch of stores and galleries (Mom and Leith, you guys would have loved it…and left completely broke), but I spent my money in the local market. After 3 hours of bargaining I was exhausted! I really like bargaining for things, but when it becomes necessary to bargain for absolutely everything and the people you are bargaining with start out at ridiculous prices, it’s really just a pain; at one point the price dropped on something I wanted by 200% as soon as I spoke a single word of Indonesian! I ended up paying less than 1/6 of the original price.
After the day of shopping and eating in Ubud the next day we went on a temple tour which was pretty disappointing to be honest. Even at these temples we were constantly harassed by someone for something. Despite this Pura Besakih (aka the ‘mother temple’) was pretty interesting, once we finally got in past the ‘mandatory guides’ (they weren’t but we ended up paying a guy a little, mostly just to be left alone).
At several of the temples, most of us were struck by how insincere some of the temples seemed. While it was demanded that tourists wear sarongs and sashes, there were other people throwing their cigarettes around and hawkers of all kinds in the temples. I have absolutely no qualms with wearing appropriate clothing, but when it seems like that is required mostly so that tourists have to rent a sarong, that isn’t right. This is supposed to be a holy location, but it turns into a gimmick. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say that there was not an authentic feel, it seemed the temples were there primarily for tourists to see; though to be fair we did go to the biggest temples that tourists commonly visit.
One slight exception was Gunung Kawi Temple, though there were souvenir stands there too. This was my favorite place we visited; the valley/rice/palm tree views were stunning. In fact, the valley was so lush with growth you could hardly tell there was a draw there. As for the temple, there are numerous temples carved into solid rock. Outside of these older temples there are newer, and in my opinion more sterile looking shrines.
So all in all I considered Bali to be too touristy, though 30 years ago I bet it was a great place to visit. I’m also guessing that if Bali was the only place in Indo you visited you would love it, but after seeing so much else Bali seemed like a hole. Though I did enjoy the touristy-ness in that it allowed me to eat food I had forgotten was so delicious!
Here are some of the pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084645&id=15804233&l=271265a076
I did however REALLY enjoy the food. In fact this was really an eating weekend. In one day I ate French toast, 2 servings of ice cream, three good beers, a serving of traditional pork (babi guling is a Bali specialty and included tender pork, blood sausage, and delicious crispy skin and crunchy cracklings), a banana nut muffin, rye bread, a chicken sandwich and garlic mashed potatoes! And every other day I had at least one meal of MEXICAN food! So yeah, Bali has some redeeming features!
A total of 4 of us ETAs stayed in Ubud for 2 nights with one day looking around the city and buying gifts. Ubud is almost as touristy as Kuta (which is not actually Indonesia, but actually an Australian party town moved to an Indonesian island), but in a completely different way. Instead of clubs, and surfing, Ubud is all about cafes and art. It was kind of fun to walk around the city looking in a bunch of stores and galleries (Mom and Leith, you guys would have loved it…and left completely broke), but I spent my money in the local market. After 3 hours of bargaining I was exhausted! I really like bargaining for things, but when it becomes necessary to bargain for absolutely everything and the people you are bargaining with start out at ridiculous prices, it’s really just a pain; at one point the price dropped on something I wanted by 200% as soon as I spoke a single word of Indonesian! I ended up paying less than 1/6 of the original price.
After the day of shopping and eating in Ubud the next day we went on a temple tour which was pretty disappointing to be honest. Even at these temples we were constantly harassed by someone for something. Despite this Pura Besakih (aka the ‘mother temple’) was pretty interesting, once we finally got in past the ‘mandatory guides’ (they weren’t but we ended up paying a guy a little, mostly just to be left alone).
At several of the temples, most of us were struck by how insincere some of the temples seemed. While it was demanded that tourists wear sarongs and sashes, there were other people throwing their cigarettes around and hawkers of all kinds in the temples. I have absolutely no qualms with wearing appropriate clothing, but when it seems like that is required mostly so that tourists have to rent a sarong, that isn’t right. This is supposed to be a holy location, but it turns into a gimmick. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say that there was not an authentic feel, it seemed the temples were there primarily for tourists to see; though to be fair we did go to the biggest temples that tourists commonly visit.
One slight exception was Gunung Kawi Temple, though there were souvenir stands there too. This was my favorite place we visited; the valley/rice/palm tree views were stunning. In fact, the valley was so lush with growth you could hardly tell there was a draw there. As for the temple, there are numerous temples carved into solid rock. Outside of these older temples there are newer, and in my opinion more sterile looking shrines.
So all in all I considered Bali to be too touristy, though 30 years ago I bet it was a great place to visit. I’m also guessing that if Bali was the only place in Indo you visited you would love it, but after seeing so much else Bali seemed like a hole. Though I did enjoy the touristy-ness in that it allowed me to eat food I had forgotten was so delicious!
Here are some of the pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084645&id=15804233&l=271265a076
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Dancing Horses
Saturday I headed to West Sulawesi with Daya and Yusran (who we nicknamed the domestic bule, meaning it was 2 bule and a tiny woman on a big adventure) on the recommendation of one of the teachers from here. She comes from a city that annually has a, as she described it, horse party, and apparently this year was the biggest ever (100+ horses).
Obviously I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but Daya asked if I wanted to go and she pretty much organized everything so I of course said yes. After leaving at 8am and not arriving to the city until after 12, knowing we were going to return at 4, and not really sure what we were seeing, I was less than thrilled. The drive was pretty nice though and it let me see some different parts of Sulawesi. The city was right on the ocean too, and, as per usual, a good attitude and some patience turned it into a good day. A family member of the teacher (she was in Makassar) came and found us and led us to their home where we were of course fed and stared at (more me than Yusran and Daya!).
To cut the story short, the party turned out to be a parade of ‘dancing horses’ with children riding. The 2 girls from the family we knew had just finished with their reading of the holy Koran; I’m not sure if this was standard for all. There were about 30 horses with boys (wearing, what I imagine as, Arab wear (turban, long white dress-thing)) and 70 or so with girls (some wearing bright traditional Mandar, the local people, wear, others wearing traditional Muslim wear (according to Daya)). Apparently this is a very old tradition, though no one knew how old. There are stories of the Mandar and their horses going back hundreds of years though so I’m guessing it’s old!
In addition to the horses, there were also groups with lots of hide and wood drums usually played by guys from 7 or 8 to 70 or 80. They really got into their music and there was lots of dancing. With all the music, bright colors, and happy people it reminded me a bit of Brasil. In combination with the parade (I really like ‘horse party’ much better) there, in the last few years has been some sort of weeklong sailing competition too (maybe there are ancient ties here, hard to get the whole story, even with fluent translators). One result was that I was not the only bule (not counting Yusran either, Daya called him the domestic bule when he got in the car and then later some random people thought he was a bule too).
I’ve tried to get a video from the parade up with no luck, but I have pictures here in an old album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074625&id=15804233&l=97bf134ccd
Speaking of pictures, the first is a link to the pictures from Jakarta, and the 2nd to the Pesantren album I have going, some new pictures relate to some of the stuff below.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084143&id=15804233&l=51346bc6a5 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074571&id=15804233&l=64d4b87f5a
Some other highlights from the weekend:
So last blog I mentioned that I don’t list all the day to day stuff anymore, well day was particular interesting so I thought I share a couple highlights.
First was walking out my back door in the morning to see a bunch of middle schoolers pulling the feathers off of ducks and grilling them up. I shrugged my shoulders, of course took some pictures, and went back to planning travels (I bought a bunch of tickets today!).
Luckily that duck ended up leading to my favorite food here in Indonesia itik! Itik is a type of duck; it looks just like a classic duck to me, but they also have bebek here which is translated as duck also, but is shorter and fatter. Itik is found all around Indonesia, but apparently is a specialty here.
My next weird moment came at dinner when I was eating left over itik (just picking at it really since even when it was fresh, the meal made my stomach feel a little funky). As I grabbed a piece of itik (it is always chopped up into annoyingly small pieces that are mostly bone), I pulled at a piece of meat, not recognizing it (not a new thing, I routinely have no idea what part of an animal I am eating here). After wiping away a bit of the sauce I realized I was being stared at…yeah I was holding half a duck head in my hands!
As I was walking over to dinner Imran’s kids were getting ready to go do some martial arts, I assumed, somewhere nearby. As it turns out it was a large portion of the pesantren and they were doing them on the basketball court (which has been used for everything, but basketball). I wasn’t feeling that great (this sinus infection/cold won’t go away), but I did go out and take some pictures. There is just something a little odd to see a bunch of teenage girls in Tae-Kwan-Do uniforms…and jilbabs.
Oh Indonesia, how I’ll miss your absurd ‘normal days’.
I already had this written, but because my internet is as it is, I hadn't posted it. Then Yusran came and grabbed me Sunday afternoon and took me to see a Rooster competition. That turned out not to be much (it did make for some interesting sentences from him since the translation he knew was cock) so Yus took me out to see some of his family. As per usual I had no clue what I was getting into, but I had a pretty good time and got some tasty snacks.
What an interesting weekend!
Obviously I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but Daya asked if I wanted to go and she pretty much organized everything so I of course said yes. After leaving at 8am and not arriving to the city until after 12, knowing we were going to return at 4, and not really sure what we were seeing, I was less than thrilled. The drive was pretty nice though and it let me see some different parts of Sulawesi. The city was right on the ocean too, and, as per usual, a good attitude and some patience turned it into a good day. A family member of the teacher (she was in Makassar) came and found us and led us to their home where we were of course fed and stared at (more me than Yusran and Daya!).
To cut the story short, the party turned out to be a parade of ‘dancing horses’ with children riding. The 2 girls from the family we knew had just finished with their reading of the holy Koran; I’m not sure if this was standard for all. There were about 30 horses with boys (wearing, what I imagine as, Arab wear (turban, long white dress-thing)) and 70 or so with girls (some wearing bright traditional Mandar, the local people, wear, others wearing traditional Muslim wear (according to Daya)). Apparently this is a very old tradition, though no one knew how old. There are stories of the Mandar and their horses going back hundreds of years though so I’m guessing it’s old!
In addition to the horses, there were also groups with lots of hide and wood drums usually played by guys from 7 or 8 to 70 or 80. They really got into their music and there was lots of dancing. With all the music, bright colors, and happy people it reminded me a bit of Brasil. In combination with the parade (I really like ‘horse party’ much better) there, in the last few years has been some sort of weeklong sailing competition too (maybe there are ancient ties here, hard to get the whole story, even with fluent translators). One result was that I was not the only bule (not counting Yusran either, Daya called him the domestic bule when he got in the car and then later some random people thought he was a bule too).
I’ve tried to get a video from the parade up with no luck, but I have pictures here in an old album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074625&id=15804233&l=97bf134ccd
Speaking of pictures, the first is a link to the pictures from Jakarta, and the 2nd to the Pesantren album I have going, some new pictures relate to some of the stuff below.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084143&id=15804233&l=51346bc6a5 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074571&id=15804233&l=64d4b87f5a
Some other highlights from the weekend:
So last blog I mentioned that I don’t list all the day to day stuff anymore, well day was particular interesting so I thought I share a couple highlights.
First was walking out my back door in the morning to see a bunch of middle schoolers pulling the feathers off of ducks and grilling them up. I shrugged my shoulders, of course took some pictures, and went back to planning travels (I bought a bunch of tickets today!).
Luckily that duck ended up leading to my favorite food here in Indonesia itik! Itik is a type of duck; it looks just like a classic duck to me, but they also have bebek here which is translated as duck also, but is shorter and fatter. Itik is found all around Indonesia, but apparently is a specialty here.
My next weird moment came at dinner when I was eating left over itik (just picking at it really since even when it was fresh, the meal made my stomach feel a little funky). As I grabbed a piece of itik (it is always chopped up into annoyingly small pieces that are mostly bone), I pulled at a piece of meat, not recognizing it (not a new thing, I routinely have no idea what part of an animal I am eating here). After wiping away a bit of the sauce I realized I was being stared at…yeah I was holding half a duck head in my hands!
As I was walking over to dinner Imran’s kids were getting ready to go do some martial arts, I assumed, somewhere nearby. As it turns out it was a large portion of the pesantren and they were doing them on the basketball court (which has been used for everything, but basketball). I wasn’t feeling that great (this sinus infection/cold won’t go away), but I did go out and take some pictures. There is just something a little odd to see a bunch of teenage girls in Tae-Kwan-Do uniforms…and jilbabs.
Oh Indonesia, how I’ll miss your absurd ‘normal days’.
I already had this written, but because my internet is as it is, I hadn't posted it. Then Yusran came and grabbed me Sunday afternoon and took me to see a Rooster competition. That turned out not to be much (it did make for some interesting sentences from him since the translation he knew was cock) so Yus took me out to see some of his family. As per usual I had no clue what I was getting into, but I had a pretty good time and got some tasty snacks.
What an interesting weekend!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Catching up on a couple things
First the biggest and most exciting news for me: my after-grant travels are setting up. I’ll work my way backwards: I moved my US return ticket back as far as I could to the end of August (28th). Which means I’ll have a little time on my own after mom leaves; she’ll be here from Jul 14 to Aug 16. I’ve spent a bunch of time setting up an itinerary for her and I. Usually I like to just have a rough outline, but since it is the tourist hi-season and we have a limited amount of time, pre-booking is a probably a good idea. Before mom arrives though, Steph is going to travel the Philippines and probably Thailand with me for the month of June! I’m also hoping to get Vietnam in before mom comes.
So far, I’ve booked my tickets to the Philippines; I fly out of Singapore on the 31st. AMINEF doesn’t care when exactly we end (between May 27-31) so I’ll probably leave the Pesantren on the 27th or 28th and go to Makassar for a night or two. AMINEF will buy my Makassar to Jakarta ticket and then I’ll fly on to Singapore (the first part of my return ticket). I’ll probably do all that on the 29th or 30th. If I go on the 29th I can see Singapore a little bit. The other news is that I found a hostel in Singapore that will hold my extra luggage for free. So now I don’t have to FedEx it back (big savings!), but I probably should use their hostel for more than a night, though they said I don’t have to.
Next topic: I’ve heard from a couple people that I sound negative on some of my blogs, and reading over some old ones, yeah I can see that. The reason for that is that the blog is my opportunity to vent a little bit, and besides, boring everyday life is not something people really want to read about; granted what I call boring and normal now is probably not so normal in the US. So I guess just know that I really do enjoy it here, but (and I’m paraphrasing this from Katie, she wrote it too well not to) I’m not a skilled enough writer to incorporate all the amazing and fun experiences I have with the day to day challenges and headaches; instead I just list them all in a big group.
NEXT! Coming back from Makassar on Monday night I realized I hadn’t properly described the road between Makassar and ParePare. I may have mentioned that the road was a little broken, but that doesn’t begin to do it justice, and this road plays a big part in my life here as any time I try to escape I have to navigate it. First you need to realize that this is THE road coming north from Makassar; there may be another road on the east coast of our peninsula, but by all accounts it’s even worse. To put it in a little perspective, this road has the importance of say I-5 running from Portland to Eugene.
To be fair, the main reason the road is so bad is that they are attempting to expand it from a normal Indo road to a 4 lane high way; I say attempting for a reason. Right now the drive from ParePare to Mak, which is less than 100 miles, takes a minimum of 4 hours, and those are not pleasant hours. Driving is really just a free for all. All of the drivers just guess which the best way to go is. They have to chose because there are multiple levels, a couple different lanes, and the fact that you of course don’t have any real traffic laws (want to drive down the wrong lane? Go for it!). It’s basically some twisted, perverted, crazy video game. The multiple levels come from the fact that they’re building the new road in about 100ft segments at a time and the new parts are raised about 1ft above the old road. The result is that you end up ramping (gravel, dirt, etc. meaning lots of potholes and not level at all) onto and off of the new segments. So you end up hauling ass on a nice new chunk of road as far as you can, slamming on the breaks so that you can turn of and tumble down the ramp to the old broken/potholed road. It’s an experience to say the least! Oh yeah gotta add that most of the time your stuffed in a SUV that has had an extra row of seats added so that there are routinely 11 people, and as many as 20, jammed in a car with all their bags and such.
One other thing that adds to the experience, and what I don’t understand, is the number of food stands along the road. In particular, there is this stretch of fruit stands selling a citrus fruit that is basically a big, sweeter grapefruit. I’ve gone down to Makassar a lot of times, and not ONCE have I seen someone stop there to buy these things, yet there are over 100 hundred stands each jam packed with nearly a hundred fruits a piece. I just don’t get it! The other entertainment to watch on the way down is the people just sitting along the side of road staring at nothing for (presumably) hours on end. As you can tell, I find this road terribly interesting (yes that is sarcasm dripping out of your computer screen).
Ok that’s enough for now. Hopefully I’ll get another one up before I head to Bali next weekend (22nd to 25th).
So far, I’ve booked my tickets to the Philippines; I fly out of Singapore on the 31st. AMINEF doesn’t care when exactly we end (between May 27-31) so I’ll probably leave the Pesantren on the 27th or 28th and go to Makassar for a night or two. AMINEF will buy my Makassar to Jakarta ticket and then I’ll fly on to Singapore (the first part of my return ticket). I’ll probably do all that on the 29th or 30th. If I go on the 29th I can see Singapore a little bit. The other news is that I found a hostel in Singapore that will hold my extra luggage for free. So now I don’t have to FedEx it back (big savings!), but I probably should use their hostel for more than a night, though they said I don’t have to.
Next topic: I’ve heard from a couple people that I sound negative on some of my blogs, and reading over some old ones, yeah I can see that. The reason for that is that the blog is my opportunity to vent a little bit, and besides, boring everyday life is not something people really want to read about; granted what I call boring and normal now is probably not so normal in the US. So I guess just know that I really do enjoy it here, but (and I’m paraphrasing this from Katie, she wrote it too well not to) I’m not a skilled enough writer to incorporate all the amazing and fun experiences I have with the day to day challenges and headaches; instead I just list them all in a big group.
NEXT! Coming back from Makassar on Monday night I realized I hadn’t properly described the road between Makassar and ParePare. I may have mentioned that the road was a little broken, but that doesn’t begin to do it justice, and this road plays a big part in my life here as any time I try to escape I have to navigate it. First you need to realize that this is THE road coming north from Makassar; there may be another road on the east coast of our peninsula, but by all accounts it’s even worse. To put it in a little perspective, this road has the importance of say I-5 running from Portland to Eugene.
To be fair, the main reason the road is so bad is that they are attempting to expand it from a normal Indo road to a 4 lane high way; I say attempting for a reason. Right now the drive from ParePare to Mak, which is less than 100 miles, takes a minimum of 4 hours, and those are not pleasant hours. Driving is really just a free for all. All of the drivers just guess which the best way to go is. They have to chose because there are multiple levels, a couple different lanes, and the fact that you of course don’t have any real traffic laws (want to drive down the wrong lane? Go for it!). It’s basically some twisted, perverted, crazy video game. The multiple levels come from the fact that they’re building the new road in about 100ft segments at a time and the new parts are raised about 1ft above the old road. The result is that you end up ramping (gravel, dirt, etc. meaning lots of potholes and not level at all) onto and off of the new segments. So you end up hauling ass on a nice new chunk of road as far as you can, slamming on the breaks so that you can turn of and tumble down the ramp to the old broken/potholed road. It’s an experience to say the least! Oh yeah gotta add that most of the time your stuffed in a SUV that has had an extra row of seats added so that there are routinely 11 people, and as many as 20, jammed in a car with all their bags and such.
One other thing that adds to the experience, and what I don’t understand, is the number of food stands along the road. In particular, there is this stretch of fruit stands selling a citrus fruit that is basically a big, sweeter grapefruit. I’ve gone down to Makassar a lot of times, and not ONCE have I seen someone stop there to buy these things, yet there are over 100 hundred stands each jam packed with nearly a hundred fruits a piece. I just don’t get it! The other entertainment to watch on the way down is the people just sitting along the side of road staring at nothing for (presumably) hours on end. As you can tell, I find this road terribly interesting (yes that is sarcasm dripping out of your computer screen).
Ok that’s enough for now. Hopefully I’ll get another one up before I head to Bali next weekend (22nd to 25th).
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