Sara and Lee . com

I was going to try to do 10 things I hate about having a cold in Indonesia, but I could only come up with 6.  That’s a good thing, maybe?  It means I’m still 40% happy, which is about right.

1.)  No hot showers.  When I wake up in the morning with my nose stuffed solid, there’s nothing I like better than a nice, long, hot shower.  Yeah, even though I’m very concerned about drought in Colorado, that was one of my little hypocrisies.  I guess I’m paying for it now, as my morning mandi (shower Indonesian style) consists of ladling cold water over myself while thinking desperately of hot water in an effort to trick my nose into clearing itself.  Unfortunately THIS morning I was thinking so hard of hot water that I accidentally let some of the cold water get into my mouth.  BAD!  Tap water is a huge no here.
2.)  Home remedies.  Or rather, my misunderstanding of them.  Our host mother said that if our throats hurt, we should gargle with “bita leaf water”, water boiled with these elusive “bita” leaves.  Then she said that instead we could drink it.  So I did, as I’m not so good at gargling and tend to choke.  Later, I asked for clarification and found out that they were BETEL leaves.  Mmmmmm, Betel, that’s always healthy.  No wonder Lee claimed to be high afterwards.  Now I just gargle which seems to work better anyway.

3.)  Kleenex.  Due to general incompetence we bought the scented kind (blech), in a quantity that we thought was enough.  It has almost run out, and I have been rationing.  “Rationing” means keeping a half used kleenex around to use the other half later.  I NEVER thought I would be that person.

4.)  My stomach.  WHY in the WORLD does my stomach need to be upset?  Does it not see that I am already down?  Must it add to my misery?  Surely this has nothing at all to do with drinking betel or tap water, or eating large quantities of hot peppers (which are great for clearing the nose).

5.)  No tropicana.  There are two close substitutes though.  The first is “jeruk panas”, or hot orange juice.  I would guess that it is about 10-20% squeezed orange, 50% water, and 30-40% sugar.  Maybe more sugar, there’s always a layer at the bottom that you really have to stir hard to get incorporated into the mix….or whatever the technical chemistry term would be.  It’s good, but a lot of the places here seem to have run out of it when I ask.  The second is McDonalds orange juice.  Yes, Lee and I braved McDonalds today for the first time, just in order to get orange juice.  I managed to drink about 3 sips before my stomach mentioned that it wasn’t really up for the acidic today but man….those were a good 3 sips!  On a side note, McDonalds employees here have the best uniforms ever.  Black with “I’m lovin it” in yellow in huge letters.  And yellow stripes for speed….the yellow stripes look amazing adidas-y, which is not a coincidence, as they actually have adidas logos on their uniforms.  Evidentally McDonalds and Adidas have formed a partnership….at least here.

6.)  My JAW hurts.  I’m not sure how this works, maybe there’s sinus pressure involved?  Maybe because I’m halfway around the world and thus am clearly upsidedown?  Either way, I half woke up during the middle of last night convinced that I was dying because in addition to general cold aches and inability to breathe, my JAW hurt.  Everything always seems worse at night.  Somehow I got it into my head that the best cure would be for me to sleep with my head at the foot of the bed.  Illogically, this worked well and I did not die during the night, though my jaw still hurts.

Before coming to Indonesia, I had gone to wikipedia to try to make sense of Indonesian names. Countries of European heritage tend to put have a given name and a surname. The Chinese do the same, but they put the surname first, and they may also have a generational name. There is nothing like this uniformity in Indonesia. Overall it seems like people have one name they go by (Suranto, Agus, Tami, Butet, Hengky, etc…) Everytime I think about this I start to wonder what database admins do in the country.

I knew names were going to be difficult (epecially remembering them), but I didn’t imagine I would have difficulty explaining my name. L-E-E: three letters, one syllable, easy. The first time I visited the pesantren I will be working at, the headmaster greeted me with a, “Hello and welcome Mr. Lee Becker”. After that, I was paraded around to several classes to be introduced to the teachers. In each and every classroom I was introduced as “Mr. Lee Becker.” A week later at an assembly for Hari Kemerdekaan (Indonesian Independence Day), the headmaster introduced me (over microphone) as Mr. Lee Becker from America.  Later I tried to explain to some of my co-teachers that Lee is my given name and that Becker is a family name and not often used when addressing people in the U.S.  I think they caught on, and it looks like they will probably call me Mr. Lee.

Sara did not offer her full name to the pesantren staff, so they quickly started calling her Mrs. Sara.  When introducing herself to Indonesians, Sara has started calling herself “Sah-Rah”, so that Indonesians know how her name is spelled.

In celebration of Indonesian Independence Day (August 17th), Lee and I went to watch the festivities at his soon-to-be-workplace, Pesantren Pandan Aran, a muslim boarding school for kids ages 12-18. Before going, Lee asked them if I should wear the head covering (jilbab). They said something along the lines of “oh, if she is not comfortable in it she does not have to”…which we take to mean “yes” in javanese. One of the main things drawing me to Indonesia was getting to see and/or experience moderate muslim culture, so I decided definitely to wear a jilbab. It took me approximately 2 hours and a very nice and helpful saleswoman to buy a scarf and accompanying outfit (side note: appropriate muslim clothing here is actually rather form fitting, like moreso than you would think….moreso than I often wear in the US, though not in a gross stretchy leave-nothing-to-the-imagination way or anything. Just interesting, as it contrasts with what I would have expected) . Upon buying outfit, I then spent over an hour at home trying to figure out how to tie the scarf. I finally found something I thought was acceptable, only to be told the next morning that it wasn’t quite right. The picture above is of “not quite right”….in the end the housekeeper was nice enough to tie it for me. Not complicated I guess, but pretty complicated to me!

When we got to the pesantren everyone seemed happy that I had worn the scarf, but I swear, over half the people I met at some point or another asked me something along the lines of “Is it comfortable?” Most times without thinking I would answer “What?” not realizing that they meant the scarf. And then would go on to say yes, it is fine, maybe a little hot (slight understatement…thank goodness I didn’t wear a black scarf!). But here are the rest of my impressions, the ones that were too complicated to explain at the time:

1.) The scarf made me look down more often than I usually do, sort of a submissive, deferential shy looking down. Now, yes, I am normally shy, but this was different. As the day went on it got better, so maybe it was just the new situation, I’m not sure. It’s something I hope to get to think more about as I get to visit more throughout the year.
2.) Males and females at the pesantren are almost always separated. Like even riding in the car, Lee rode up front with the headmaster and I rode in back with the headmistress. Sitting around outside chatting we sat in groups of males and females, not mixed. This complicated things a little, as some of them thought I was there to teach, but luckily my Indonesia for “my husband will teach here” has gotten pretty good. Then again, I was told before going that maybe males would not be comfortable shaking hands with me and maybe I should sort of do this little polite bow with my hands together at my chin. I was ready to do this, but all the male teachers we met there just stuck out their hands for me to shake. This male-female division is something else I want to maybe get to see more of throughout the year, especially having come from a male-dominated workplace. Maybe it will be a refreshing change (ha ha)

3.) It is REALLY hard for me to hear wearing the jilbab, especially the women since they tend to talk more quietly than the men do. I’m guessing that some of them think I am deaf, or that I don’t have a good understanding of English or Indonesian. I hope they don’t take my inability to understand them to be a reflection of their poor English. Their English is actually quite good, though like most Indonesians, they all insist that they are terrible at it

Anyway, that was my first time wearing “acceptable pesantren clothing”….I hope to have many more pesantren experiences throughout the year!

View all photos from Hari Kemerdekaan here.

Usually when people here need to get somewhere outside their neighborhood, they just take their motorcycles.  Judging by the number of entire families I’ve seen on motorcycles, (4 people is the most I’ve seen so far….and usually if there are any helmets involved, it’s the adults wearing them while the kids go without…grrrr), motorcycles can serve as the minivan of choice here.   Our host family has a car, but it is in the shop, so when they wanted to take us and a couple other volunteers to the city of Solo this weekend to watch paragliding (!) they borrowed the SUV of the NGO that our host mother works with.  Said SUV held our host parents, their two kids, and 4 of us volunteers with the kids sharing the front seat (they tend to get carsick) and Lee and I sharing the back on sideways benches.  If you’re thinking “sideways benches, that doesn’t sound safe” remember that nobody but the driver in this car has seatbelts….and remember that the seatbeltless kids are sharing the front seat, often with their little noses pressed against the windshield.  We were comparetively safe (unless you think about where the gas tank is on an SUV…hmmm….), which is all that matters here I think.

Our packed little SUV wound its way through the cities between Jogja and Solo with ease, aided by its horn (our host father likes to pass any and all other vehicles on the road).  At one point I thought we were going _REALLY_ fast, but a glance at the speedometer showed 70kph, which translates to maybe 50mph.  Boy am I going to be a wuss when I start driving in the US again.   Once we hit Solo, we left the bustle of the city and paved roads  to head up into the surrounding mountains on a “dirt road” that was completely reminiscent of all those off-roading trips we’ve taken with Lionel.  The main difference to me was that as a resident of the back benches, I was bouncing around a lot, enough to catch air numerous times.  Also, since we were going up steeply, I was sort of mashed against the back door a lot of the time.  We locked it so it wouldn’t accidentally pop open, but there were several times I contemplated using it for escape when it seemed like we might go over the edge of the road and roll down the mountain.  I’m trying to remember if this is the least safe I’ve felt since being here.  I don’t think it *quite* is (there was an unfortunate night when I rode on a motorcycle w/out a helmet for a short distance), but there were definitely times when I wished I were out walking instead of in the car.
It sort of sounds miserable, but in fact it was really really fun and I couldn’t keep a goofy grin off my face most of the time.  The road/dirt-rock path we were driving on took us through brilliant green tea fields and past all sorts of little farmer shacks and crops.  I saw carrots that I swear were as big around as my wrist (or it looked that way out the windows).  It was such an amazingly beautiful contrast to the cities we’ve been in for the past few weeks.  No offense to cities, but I much prefer the countryside when I can get it.

When we finally got to the “level 4 jump spot”, we got to watch our host father and his friends paraglide, which is both  something I’ve never seen before up close and also something I _never_ expected to see in Indonesia.   It looked incredibly fun, but probably like something I would want to try for the first time in the US rather than here (think safety regulations….)  We watched them paraglide for, well, probably 5 hours, which got a little old but just being in clean air and getting to hear bugs and birds instead of traffic was….sigh….wonderful.  I never thought tropical farming could make me homesick but it can and does.

On the way back my car narcolepsy kicked in again and I managed to curl in a ball on the bench and sleep most of the way.  After all, it was a tiring day, what with the riding in the car and the sitting watching paragliding and the….wait a sec, why was I so tired?  I have no idea.  Maybe it’s the cold I’m getting….wouldn’t you know it I go for years without a cold in Colorado and then manage to get one here in just a couple of weeks, here where the temperature doesn’t dip below 70 as far as I know.  My only consolation is that Lee has a cold too and his is worse

Oh yeah, as the title of this post suggests, it was supposed to reflect how it is riding in the car with the kids.  It’s great!  They share a one-person sized seat and….get this…..THEY….DON’T…..FIGHT!!!  They are sitting right on top of one another and they are FINE with it.   Sure, we sometimes have to stop to get them donuts, or because they feel sick and need to get out to throw up (poor kids!), but they don’t fight.  It amazes me.  It also makes me feel a bit guilty when I think of all the car rides with Patrick where we fought and/or required a kazillion toys and activity books to occupy us.

Last night I experienced my first earthquake, apparently at 4:30AM.  It was weird, I woke up instaneously wide awake and terrified (so much so that I almost threw up in fact) and had no idea what to do.  The person snoring beside me was NO help, seems he can and will sleep through anything.  I’m sure it was a really tiny one, and I didn’t really feel it I don’t think, just heard the tiles on the roof rattling.  It sounded like a train going by overhead.  Afterwards I could hear lots of the neighbors outside (going outside during earthquakes is a good idea as people learned here last May) but since nobody from our house said anything to us I just stayed in the room, trying to mentally plot the fastest escape route.  It took me a good 20 minutes to fall back asleep, once I convinced myself that maybe it wasn’t really an earthquake.  When I woke up this morning our host mother asked if we’d felt the earthquake so I guess it was real.  Then she laughed at me (nicely of course) for being scared.  Maybe next time I’ll be able to downgrade terrified to just nervous and fall back asleep immediately since evidentally these tiny tremors are quite common around here.  OR….I could sleep with a helmet on……we shall see……

I haven’t had a hair cut since about a week before leaving the US. Yesterday my main goal was to finally get a hair cut. During class, I had asked my teachers for a good place to get a hair cut. Nobody really gave a good answer. One teacher suggested a mall. Another suggested going to a salon. Basically they gave the same answers. Nobody suggested going to the Barber Shop (Pontong Rambut Laki-Laki). I also had decided to avoid the barber because in my experience they only cut your hair to the size they want. I asked for any other advice, but my teachers were not very helpful. They said I can practice using my comparatives (bigger, small, less, more). I was hoping to get a bit more advice.  Indonesians don’t seem detail oriented like us type-A Americans.
After ruling out the mall, Sara and I headed to a shopping area that is about midway through my normal bus ride home. At first we saw a salon, but it had a sign that read “Khusus Wanita”. We both know the word “wanita” means woman, so it looked like a bad sign. We looked up “khusus” and learned that means “specifically” or “particularly”. That place was out. Let’s keep on walking. A block later, we came upon a salon that was named something like “Salon Indah”. In Indonesian the word for pretty is “Cantik”, but that applies only to women. Normally men are described as “tampan” which means handsome. “Indah” is used for everything else. We took “Indah” to be an indicator of unisex. I went in and asked how much hair cuts cost. The woman said 10,000 rupiah, but for some reason I hard 5 times that amount, and said in Indonesian “Too expensive”. My ears suck. Sara pointed out my mistake and I retracted my original statement, but I think I offended the owner. FYI, there are about 9000 rupiah to one US dollar.

Having already botched the simplest part of the whole ordeal, I was now set to negotiate the hard part. I sat in the chair and tried to explain that I wanted the sides and back shaven and the top cut with scissors. I explained that in the US I use a size 3 on the sides and back. I think most of the message came across. They did cut off my side burns (ARG!!!), but it looked mostly like I had asked for. Then I got greedy. I asked for it to be a little shorter on the sides. The hair cutter even said size 3. It seems as though she understood.

From there, this is about how things transpired in my mind: “She’s going to the sides first, as I had requested. Good good. Ok, she’s going for the back. That’s right. Now the top. The top? ! Hmm.. maybe she’s just trying to blend things. Wait! No not the top. You’re buzzing my head. Crap, there’s no going back now.”  Sara tried coughing and making noises to tell me that they were cutting off too much.  I didn’t hear the noises, but I knew, and the damage continued.
I now have some sort of crew cut, done all around with a number 3 razor. I could have saved my time and about 7000 rupiah by going to the barber. To add insult to injury, today, while talking with an older gentleman who teaches at the school I will be teaching at, the subject of the haircut came up. He said that salons are good for women, but men should go to the barber shop. So not only do I have a bad haircut, I have a bad, girlie haircut. Hopefully by next time I have an improved arsenal of Bahasa Indonesia to aid me in my own going quest to get a correct haircut in Indonesia.  For now I will have to deal with my kepala kelapa (coconut head).

Here we are in Indonesia, a tropical paradise. Tropical paradise is the perfect place to spend a first wedding anniversary, yes? Strolling along white sand beaches next to a sparkling blue ocean, dining under palm trees, sipping umbrella drinks, gazing into one another’s eyes…..OR…..

Waking in your host bedroom at 6AM to the sounds of NPR-esque music blasting from your local mosque. Spending the day shopping with friends, managing to buy 2 pieces of clothing in 4+ hours and forgetting to eat lunch. Deciding to celebrate monumentous day by sharing cake, a first wedding anniversary tradition. Bypassing the delicious tortes at the mall (my favorite place in the world, the mall, as everyone knows) in favor of a chocolate bread cake with no decoration but a thin layer of frosting and a pound (possible exaggeration) of chocolate sprinkles on top. Deciding to eat cake “later, when we are alone.” Returning home to play with play-doh with the kids for hours. Eating dinner with host family, then sitting down at piano to learn and play and sing patriotic Indonesian songs (Independence Day is coming in just a few short days! My singing needs some serious work….). Heading to room to do homework, as there is class the next day. One of us (name sounds like “Bee”) falling asleep even though it is only 8:30PM. Deciding when said person wakes up at 9:30 that it is too late to try to go for a walk and eat cake, as this would mean host family would have to unlock both door and front gate to let us out. As such, deciding to eat cake next day, which will correspond (given time change) to one year since time that we cut wedding cake in the US. Eating cake next day only to find that it has gotten a bit stale (pickier of the two of us making gagging face when he ate his half, less picky of the two of us not minding because it’s chocolate and that always makes for a good breakfast)

So….it didn’t go as planned or expected but I’ll always remember it. Oddly enough next anniversary has a lot to live up to!

View all the photos from our anniversary here.

Today I went to a goodbye party for Sierra (my predecessor) at CD Bethesda (my soon-to-be workplace).  Here are a couple of the conversations I had with my future coworkers.

I had to give a short speech…very short.  Basically saying hello, that I am from Colorado, and that I am very excited to be here and look forward to working at CD Bethesda and getting to know everyone.  At this point, someone asks “What is your status?”  My….”status”?  Oh.  I am already married I announce.   At this point, someone says something in Indonesian that Sierra is nice enough to translate for me.  It is something along the lines of “Do you want a second husband?  I volunteer”  The proper response to this is to laugh.  I hope.  It’s what everyone else was doing so I think I did ok.  Actually, I did a lot of laughing when everyone else did.  I hope it was all funny.

Two of my other coworkers were sitting near me and being friendly (as everyone here is) they asked me where I was from and then how I liked Indonesia.  I said that I like it very much, especially Yogyakarta.  At this point, coworker A says “Oh, but there are many terrorists here.  He (pointing to coworker B) is a terrorist.  Terrorist!  Terrorist!”  Coworker B starts laughing.  Coworker A is already laughing.  It takes Sara a few seconds to start laughing.  Nervously, very nervously.  Is it ok to laugh about terrorism with people you’ve just met?

 At first I was really good at sleeping in Indonesia.  This surprised me, especially in Jakarta, as it’s loud there (dogs, street vendors, Muslim call to prayer at 4AM), I was sharing a bed with two girls instead of Lee, and I am a horribly light sleeper who has to have a fan to sleep in the US.   Now though I am sleeping not so well, enough so that I sometimes fall asleep mid-sentence when I am reading in class (though not when I am reading out loud, that would be pretty embarrassing).  The following is a list of probable culprits, in the order that they usually appear during the night:

1.)    Loud chewing sound, right outside the room.  Sounds like something is trying to gnaw its way in, or even worse, out.  Have not had nerve to look outside or in the corner during chewing noise to see what it might be.

2.)    Geckos.  I didn’t know before that they made noises, but they do.  Sort of like a bullfrog, but with a definite Geck-o Geck-o sound.  They are seemingly somewhat nocturnal.

3.)    Cat-that-sounds-like-baby-crying-but-in-a-horror-film-sort-of-way.  I cover my

Ears and eyes during horror films, but I’m pretty sure that’s what this sounds like.  It’s scary.  Maybe if I had the nerve to look outside during this sound I would see a cute cat, but I’m not because it might be a baby zombie or something too….

4.)    Nyamuk-nyamuk, otherwise known as mosquitoes.  The ones in Thailand were ]

Considerate enough to bite quietly, so I don’t see why these ones have to whine in my ears so much.

5.)    Planes.  They fly right overhead and contribute to weird dreams I have about

Being bombed and stuff.  I never wake up happy from said dreams, but at least unlike a lot of people in the world, I can wake up from it.

6.)    Cold!  I swear, it’s got to be like….70 degrees at night.  Why oh why didn’t I bring flannel pajamas?  I never thought I would wake up cold here

7.)    The call to prayer.  (Half a block away is a mosque) Half song, half talking, half awake I can’t understand any of it, though I probably couldn’t fully awake either.  I almost wish I had something to do every day at 5AM so this call could be useful to me.

8.)    The kids.  They’re so cute, they wake up every day around 5 or 6 without the motivation of cartoons.  Good singers too

If I would just wear my earplugs most of this wouldn’t be a problem.  But then I’d be missing out on a lot J  Plus, on a brighter note, apparently I now laugh in my sleep (unfortunately I can’t remember any dreams that would explain this), whereas before I would be more likely to kick the person next to me if I was disturbed by noises.  I wonder, when I go back to the US will I not be able to sleep because it’s too quiet? 

I am a horrible blogger. For some reason I thought that I would be good at it, that I would update daily with all sorts of interesting details of my days. The fact is that I am busy…and lazy…a lot of the time. Plus I have the feeling that a lot of what I am doing is not all that interesting, at least not to anyone other than myself. Maybe I’ll be better at this once my job starts.

Thoughts on Indonesia:
Indonesia so far (5 days in Jakarta, 5 in Yogyakarta, or something like that) has lived up to or exceeded all my expectations, at least so far as I remember them. There weren’t all that many actually. The first thing that really surprised me was that when we got to Jakarta at 6:30PM, it was already dark. Evidently that’s how it is around the equator, but it made me feel like it must be the middle of winter or something, since that’s when it gets dark early back home. The second is that it actually gets kind of cold at night. I have to use a blanket, even without a fan or AC. The third is that indeed, toilet paper is rare. To be fair, we were told this months ago and I understood at the time. I understand now too. So why after I use the bathroom do I always immediately scan the walls right and left to find the TP? Oh, and there is a fourth….almost NO cars here have seatbelts in the back seat! They have places where you think there would be a seatbelt, but no sign of them! Cost cutting? Maybe when most of your traffic competition is motor bikes you just don’t need seatbelts in your SUV.
Riding the train

The other day we all went to the botanical gardens in Bogor, city of rain (rainfall the highest in Indonesia, or so they say). It was a nice trip there, we took the express train and I even got in a little nap. We spent a relaxing day there chatting, watching soccer games (yes, soccer games _in_ the botanical gardens), and trying to fly Indonesian kites, ie stick frames with tissue paper. The guys who let us fly theirs were really nice, even when I sort of lost one of them in a tree. Oops. On the way back I was very much looking forward to another train nap, but we just missed our train and had to take the economy version instead. So no nap, it was like a carnival. There were live (cover) bands, food and drink vendors, people selling Kleenex, cotton candy, and candle wicks, and even a trained monkey doing tricks, all right up the center aisle. Oh, and of course not enough seats for everyone. I think it was the kind of experience that alters your view of your life ever so slightly. After we got back to Jakarta train station, we realized we needed to cross some tracks to get to the exit. This involved walking through the trains that were already sitting on them. First one was no problem, just a bit of a high jump to get out. The second, though, started moving (leaving the station) just before I got out. Since some others from our group had already gone ahead, I jumped. And then after me 5 other VIA folks jumped. By the time it got to the last person, the train had really picked up speed. Funny how the thought “never jump out of a moving train” didn’t occur to me until well after I had already done it. For the record, noone was hurt.
Our new family

Our homestay family is great. They have this amazing house, part of which is generations old and traditional Javanese style and has been moved to Jogja from somewhere far away. Lee and I are staying in the kids’ playroom/guest room which has all these cute kid drawings on the wall and, even better, has numerous kids books filled with simple language on the shelves. The family consists of Mbak Tami, who works for a non profit agency in town, Mas Agus, who is a dentist, and their 2 kids Ratri (7) and Bayu (5). Also some extended family is staying here for a few days as they are earthquake refugees and don’t have much of anywhere else to go until their house is fixed. I feel bad that we are taking up room that should be theirs, but nobody seems to mind….the sort of “everyone is family” attitude here is really great. Anyway, they are all incredibly nice and hospitable and they serve us delicious food…whoever thought that stingray skin isn’t for breakfast doesn’t know what they’re missing! (well, ok, I prefer the eggs and tofu in the mornings, but the stingray skin is good….and how cool is it that I have eaten stingray skin?

Merapi is real!
On our second day in Jogjakarta our host family took us to see Merapi up close and personal….er….as close as we were allowed to go anyway. It was in the area that was evacuated and we could see a huge area that was pretty much obliterated by the lava. We saw the place where those two guys tried to take shelter in the underground shelter and cooked to death. We also saw where the man who is guardian of Merapi lives….he’s the one who can sort of communicate with Merapi and will hopefully know when it is going to erupt. It was very impressive to see all the things we’d only read about in 3 paragraph articles in newspapers. There is a lot of new “lava tourism” in the areas surrounding Merapi which is probably good income for the villages, but may be sort of influencing them in western ways, I’m not sure. At least I didn’t see any Nike swooshes etched into the grass or anything like that….. Lots of the other tourists there were wearing masks over their noses and mouths to keep the toxic grit out. Maybe that would have been a good idea. If anyone out there wants to see an active volcano, this is the place to visit!