Last couple things

This posting is a handful of things I meant to blog before, but I never found a place to fit them in:
• Without prevalent AC and really hot and humid temperatures, I definitely appreciate that people seem to bathe at least 2 or 3 times a day, but I still find it weird that the standard here is to bathe with clothes on. And that isn’t exclusive to the pesantren as I have seen others in the area doing the same thing as well as other islands. That brings up why they bathe in clothes: they’re ‘mandi’ing in full view of everyone at a public or family well. In some cases this is right next to the road (interesting location selection). The result is that people usually clean up in fairly conservative swimming clothes. I guess it works, but yet another oddity of Indo I don’t completely understand. I suppose it has to do with availability of a closed kamar mandi but also the decency standards of Islam too.
• I had an interesting conversation about religion with Daya. I’ll spare the details, but what I found interesting was that we were able to have a lengthy discussion about it; that showed just how far I have come here and the friendship we have formed, as well as debunked some of those myths about Islam being so strict. The conversation ended up coming down to that we had fundamentally different views, but we were able to agree on that and move on; similar to my arrangement with religious friends back home. It was a pretty cool experience.
• During a lot of my previous travels I always came away noticing the positive things of the country I was in. Even more though I usually noticed where they were superior to the US, thus highlighting the shortcomings of the US. This time I’m coming back realizing just how damn good we have it. I cannot wait to back to the Western world!