A weekend in Makassar

Wow do I feel about 100x better after that weekend, or what?! Well, minus the brutal sunburn on my back. I headed down to Makassar Thursday night via a public car (kind of like a bus/SUV-taxi) and an uneventful ride; I was able to (uncomfortably) sleep some, and we arrived to the city sometime around midnight. First, we got a tour of the city as the driver took us to some woman’s house and handed her a bunch of money (weird?, ya), and then took us with him as he dropped off probably over 1000 eggs; which reminds me, we were probably an hour into the drive before I realized there was a live chicken in the car behind me!
Eventually though the driver took me to the address Jimmy had given me. Luckily I made him wait with me, because as it turns out, Jimmy didn’t have the correct address (his school apparently told him a different one, right road, but nearly a kilometer south). I eventually got to where I was almost sure was the correct place and had the driver drop me off. I then had to wait for a few minutes until Jimmy came down. While I was waiting I was trying to look conspicuous so Jimmy could see me, but inconspicuous so the becok drivers would leave me alone! Did I mention this was 130am?
The next day we got a late start (I hadn’t slept past 8am in a long time!), but eventually walked and bought my airline ticket to Surabaya for Thanksgiving (not quite the schedule I wanted, but cheaper!) and got to see some of the city. After that we met up with one of Jimmy’s friends (Thin Thin, a Chinese Indonesian that met Jimmy because she knew a previous ETA) for lunch, and she came with us to Fort Rotterdam. The fort is about the only touristy sight in the city and was unlike what I expected. It was so quiet when we got there; I don’t think there were any other tourists, and there was not all that much to see, though the museum was somewhat interesting (though mati lampu, was a bit of a downer). After that Jimmy and I went to see a group of college age guys Jimmy had met the night before. We ended up hanging out with them for a while and even went out to an island for some snorkeling and diving (diving was the way Jimmy met them, through Thin Thin). The trip out was interesting as we didn’t leave until it was a bit late and started to rain, and Jimmy and I weren’t even sure we were going to be able to go! When we got out there it was raining pretty good and I didn’t even have a mask and snorkel so it looked like I was going to have to sit in the wet, on a boat for like an hour, but I ended up borrowing a mask for a while and saw some really cool stuff, and then we went back to an island and hung out for a bit before racing back to Makassar (only about 10mins away). Hanging out with those guys was a lot of fun as it made me feel like one of the guys again (versus an old man teacher), telling stories, making jokes, etc. Hanging out with them really could have been in the US, minus it was mostly in bahasa Indo and we were sitting on a beautiful tropical island.
The next day I went to Jenny’s place. She lives in a completely different situation than Jimmy (see a note about that below), and unlike any I have seen in Indo. The neighborhood would be affluent even in the US and her school as very nice (founded by the vice president of Indo). That was a nice, tranquil change and it was really nice to have pretty deep conversations.
The other main highlight from the trip (beyond returning to civilization!) was another snorkeling trip. We actually went to the same island as before, but this trip was actually planned out and much more enjoyable. The island was called Samalona and in the daylight was gorgeous. I spent about an hour snorkeling (completely lost track of time, hence the sunburn) and saw some pretty cool fish, coral, and plants while the others were diving. I’ll try to get some pictures up soon of the island, as it was beautiful.
Other than that, I spent some time helping Jimmy get settled in (he’s having a bit of a difficult time getting settled after being up-rooted from rural Kalimantan), and walking around Makassar just soaking up a big city for a change. And it certainly was a change. I’m really amazed at how different all the ETA’s situations are. We’re all in the same program teaching high school students English, but that is where the similarities end. The best example is Jimmy and I. On paper he and I are really similar: bio grads from liberal arts colleges, born in the west with connections to Oregon, who both visited Brazil, have parents connected with forestry, and really enjoy doing outdoor activities. But our placements are opposites: big city vs. very rural, home stay vs. completely on his own, smallish Islamic boarding school vs. huge vocational high school, and the list goes on, but the point is that being an ETA in Indonesia is completely subjective to where you are placed, making it almost ridiculous that we all applied for the ‘same thing’.
I returned late Saturday night with Daya in another hired car (which also gave us a lengthy tour of the city picking people up) after getting some sate with Jimmy and one of his friends. Which reminds me, the stomach is feeling much better after I received my medicine on Thursday. Now I just have to take a week’s worth of flagyl and then a week’s worth of gabbryl.
All in all things are looking much better now!