Sara and Lee . com

Back in March, Sara and I were originally VIA posted in Padang, Sumatra. Despite our best googling skills we were unable to really get pictures and descriptions that gave an accurate portrayal of the city. Lonely Planet calls it mainly a jumping off point to Bukittinggi and the Mentawai Islands. Geologists call a likely site for tsunami and earthquake tragedy. Given only this we asked our fearless VIA Indonesia program director for more information. He replied in kind with an article documenting the buses and mini-buses of Padang.

While we didn’t end up in Padang for various reasons, the article left a definite impression and when we spent some time there after our VIA conference in December, it was a high priority to ride and photograph these marvels of modification. And now I present a small testimonial of their splendor…

Imagine if you let the teenage fans of MTV’s Pimp My Ride take over a major American city’s public transportation system. The city might have buses with giant fins, racing stripes. Taxis might have spinners for rims and the insides might be adorned with black lights, disco balls, televisions, and gigantic bass-thumping speakers. The drivers might model themselves after their favorite characters from The Fast and the Furious. Now imagine this isn’t in the U.S., but it’s in Indonesia and you will have a good grasp of Padang’s bus and mini-bus (angkot) system. Oh just to clarify, buses don’t run on any set schedule and their route isn’t exactly known 100%. Fortunately in Padang there are like 50 million available at any second to assail you with requests to ride with them.

As you can see the inside of this bus is equipped with a TV, dvd/vcd and vcd player. It also had a huge sound system, felt seats, and a light system. It really is a pity we did not have time to ride a bus or angkot at night.

Here we have the finest angkot Audi makes. Or I think it’s an Audi, why else would it have the four-ring insignia? I personally won’t ride on a bus without huge ground effects.

It’s also important to have bad English on your angkot. The worse the English, the cooler your ride. Also check out the fin. No fin, no fare.

Another recurring theme is copyright infringement. Company characters, trademarks, logos, they can all be seen in this Sumatran city’s transportation. I like to think about Disney finding out about this and attempting to prosecute only to learn the drivers are making the equivalent of maybe $10 a day.

The driver of this angkot kept honking at me. I was getting annoyed and turned to Sara and said, “What is wrong with these people. Can’t they see I just want to take pictures and not ride their stupid buses.” Then I realized that he was just asking to get his picture taken. Sometimes I’m a huge, ignorant, impolite oaf.

I could probably spend a month photographing the angkot and buses in all their variety and I would probably still not come close to capturing the diversity and the craziness that these little mini-buses exhibit. The best I can do is leave you with a link to my flickr photo set where you can see Padang’s best pole positioning and lining up for our fare.

There have been lots of pictures taken in the last several months, especially since we spent a couple weeks in Sumatra for our VIA conference. I just haven’t uploaded them until now. Be sure to browse around my flickr page or click on some of the sets listed below.

Photos sets for:

• VIA Conference
  
• Bukkittinggi
• Barongsai (Chinese Lion Dancing)
• Beach near Padang
• THE EQUATOR – There will be a blog post for this one
• Making Egg Nog – We attempted to make egg nog (and failed) for Christmas
  
• The Market at Danau Maninjau
• Danau Maninjau
• Padang
• Angkot Fever
• The night before Idul Adha at the Pesantren

Or as always you can see all the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/leebecker or a more organized view of the the sets at http://www.flickr.com/photos/leebecker/sets/

At work, they are small and a dark red-brown.  Usually I only see them when I leave food out for more than 2 minutes.  Note that by “out,” I also mean in desk drawers.  I once left a used dish in a drawer for the afternoon at work thinking it would be safe.  When I went to go home that night, I had to sprint the dish to the sink, waving my arm as ants swarmed up to my elbow.  Luckily I managed not to do anything too embarrassing like screaming.

Unfortunately, the “work” ants seem to have spread to the home via our laptop.  Yes, we have ants nesting in the laptop.  Not that we have seen the nest, but we suspect it’s somewhere connected to the CD drive. Whenever we turn on the laptop and it heats up, out come the ants.  Lee tries to scare them out by blasting music, but it seems like they might be there to stay.  And to think that a month ago, one of us was freaking out about the mere software virus on the laptop…

The more “native” home ants are all black and come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  To date they have nested in every single room in the house, most often found in small holes in the walls but have also been found nesting IN MY CLEAN CLOTHES.   In general, we try to live in harmony with our insect friends, watching them with a bemused, resigned fondness and asserting our dominance only when they try to eat our food, our furniture, or ourselves – in other words nearly daily.  When a fast and purposeful line of them streams along the floor or walls, when mysterious piles of sawdust start appearing, we know it’s time for action.

Many days I have been late for work after discovering a thin black line scuttling through the house and following it, hands full of weapons.  There are several ways we deal with ants.  Though there is RAID-type stuff here, we don’t trust it and instead resort to the following.  (1) – bleach, diluted – this can be sprayed into their holes and they don’t like the smell or sting of it anymore than I do.  It seems fair because spraying it means it is in both of our homes.  (2) – chalk – that’s right, they make a chalk here that kills ants, and not only that but the box says it is safe for people.  Of course, Indonesians say lots of things are safe for people.  Nonetheless, our furniture and walls lots of pretty chalk art on them.  If only it came in colors other than boring white!   (3) – refrigeration – any food we have that the ants seem to like goes in the fridge.  This includes all non-perishables like sugar and crackers, even though our fridge is only the dorm-sized model.   There is a little pile of dead ants just inside the door, those who were persistent enough to find their way through the seal but couldn’t handle the cold.  I would feel sympathy, but everyone knows you don’t play in a closed refrigerator.

It’s funny, in the US I would have been beyond annoyed and embarrassed to have vermin in the house.  Here, where it’s always warm and the houses aren’t sealed off at all, I haven’t been in a house yet where I _didn’t_ see ants.  Good thing there’s no such thing as Ant Flu.  I’m starting to wonder though if when we go back, things aren’t going to seem a bit too sterile.

I try to stay pretty positive about Indonesia, and don’t dwell much on the terrible poverty, the unsafe…well….pretty much anything you can think of here isn’t what an American would call safe, the shoddy healthcare… But yes, there are thieves here, and though they are unremarkably like thieves anywhere else in the world, it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out.
Lee and I have been riding the bus pretty regularly for 6 months now. Anytime we tell this to an Indonesian, they are likely to say (in Indonesian of course) “Oh the bus is not safe! Be careful! There are pickpockets! You should ride a motorbike instead” Possibly. But the bus seems the easier, less liable to get in a wreck at least one you caused yourself kind of option, so we’ve been taking it. Until recently, nobody tried to mess with either one of us.

The other night, slightly after dark (buses stop running here by 6:30), I was getting on a crowded bus with a female friend. It was a very crowded bus, and many men got on the same time we did. I wore my backpack on the front, both to protect the bag and to protect myself from possible unwanted touching. It was standing room only and I was jostled quite a bit, but really only thought of getting to a spot where I could hold on to something. Suddenly, about 6 guys jumped off the bus and we took off. Seconds later, my friend (who is Indonesian) noticed that her cell phone was missing, stolen out of her purse.

Fast forward to Sunday, when Lee and I decided to take the bus to Malioboro (a huge tourist destination) in the morning. As we went to get on the bus, which we ran to catch as we were convinced it was going to leave without us and didn’t want to wait 20 minutes for the next one, a group of men got on too, hemming us in from front and back. Unfortunately, my phone and wallet were in my pockets, as I hadn’t wanted to carry a backpack. The guys behind me started pushing a little, and then I noticed that the guy in front of me was trying to put his hand in my pocket. In a very undignified manner, I yelled a very American “NO!” and hit his arm. At this point someone behind me was going for my other pocket, so I did the same to him. At this point, the other passengers knew exactly what was going on, but of course, being polite Indonesians, did nothing. The would-be robbers started saying “No, no” as well, and laughing, and quit their attempts. Then, perhaps to save face, an oh-so-important concept in this culture, one of them offered us his seat and when I refused it, hands on my pockets and quite obviously pissed off, they all got off the bus.

Afterwards, Lee and I thought of all sorts of things we could have said, and all sorts of clever things we could keep in our pockets to baffle future pickpockets.  But of course we won’t. If anyone tries to pick my pocket again, I’ll do the exact same thing….well, maybe I will yell “Jangan!” instead of “No!” so as to sound a little more Indonesian.

Ever since we got to Indonesia, there has been sort of a weird tendency for things that I want to just appear.  Usually it’s been food, like I’ll be thinking “I am really hungry” and someone will bring me some.  Or take me to their house to eat, even though I have not said anything about wanting food.  Or I craved ice cream and then they served it at a wedding I went to the next day.  Little stuff.

Today though was the triple crown.

1.) Lately, we’ve been trying to clean up the house and realized that we needed a tablecloth to cover our nightstand (aka the cardboard box the TV came in….it’s stylish as-is of course, but we really want that Pottery Barn look)  Thus, I have been wanting, but too lazy to go and buy, a suitable batik cloth.

2.)  This weekend Lee and I were discussing pudding.  I had a craving for pudding.  Pudding is hard to find here though, or at least the pudding in the stores isn’t what I think of as pudding.  Pudding should be made with milk, right, not water?  I’m pretty sure I’m not just crazy on this one.
3.)   I made a to-do list this morning and it clearly says “After work buy bread”  Not to be too stereotypically American, but sometimes it’s nice to break up the rice monotony a little and have a slice of something wheat.  Or multigrain.

Today, not one, not two, but all three of these things came to me at work!  My coworker bought me a  banana custard while she was out doing errands and it is  exactly how pudding is supposed to be; now I know to look for custard, not pudding.  The other two things were delivered to me at my desk in a package given because someone’s relative just celebrated the 1000th day after their death.  That’s right, the tradition here is to celebrate the 7th, 40th, 100th, and 1000th day after a person’s death.  It’s a nice way to remember them.  The package I received contained two things, a loaf of bread and a batik cloth.  Coincidence?
One of Lee’s fellow teachers at the pesantren told me that if I believed in ghosts, etc, I would be able to see them.  In that Indonesian spirit, I have chosen to believe that I have special powers.  I now wish for a new president.  And a dog.  We’ll keep you updated…..

This past week the pesantren has been busy preparing for a visit from the American Vice Ambassador to Indonesia – Mr. John A. Heffern. Actually I should correct this, his official title is Deputy Chief of Mission. Some other teachers and I literally translated his title to Vice Ambassador.

As the dutiful volunteer English teacher my role was to help with speeches. This included one speech from a teacher and the program for the two student emcees. As has repeatedly been the case, some things never really translate across cultures. Indonesians tend to ask for forgiveness after giving a speech. There is really no equivalent in English, so I kept it. Now I will ask for forgiveness for giving poor English assistance.

The school really pulled together for this event. Other teachers stayed up till midnight pitching tents, setting up chairs, organizing boxes of snacks. There were big banners greeting the Deputy Chief of Mission. The drum corp was suited up and had formed a giant receiving line. I had never seen the pesantren look more put together. It kind of filled me with pride.

After welcoming our guest and sitting down, the students and staff gave their speeches. But they gave them in English only. They didn’t bother to keep their original Indonesian. So when they said things like “please rise for the national anthem”, none of the students understood what to do. Only the Americans really understood, but there was an uneasiness in standing first as we were trying to follow the lead of the Indonesians. I’m a bad English teacher.

The Deputy Chief of Mission actually gave a nice little speech, and I was really happy to hear him say that all of the talent in this school seemed to be coming from the girls. After it was translated the females gave a huge round of applause.  As a volunteer, and as someone who works here, I try not to say things like that too publicly, as that would be rocking a very large Islamic/Javanese boat. But I do totally agree, and I’m always excited to see the girls getting more encouragement.

The ceremony was short and sweet. I’ve spent more time writing this blog post than I spent at the ceremony. Afterwards, we went to the computer lab to see students using the Internet access that had been procured with funds from Mr. Heffern. It was a bit contrived, but kind of cute too. Some students actually googled his name and brought up his picture. I shudder to think that they may have done that with me before my arrival. They may have thought I was this guy or this guy.

And then they left. I got all of 20 seconds to try to explain what I was doing at the school. I think the staff and students were a bit disappointed that our guests didn’t stay longer. But being Javanese, they would never say that aloud.

Later, students and teachers asked me how I felt when I met him. I didn’t know how to explain this. I felt about like how I would feel when I met anyone else (except maybe I could remember his name). Considering I only talked to him for a moment, it was really hard to get an impression. Perhaps Indonesians would feel much more pride in meeting such a distinguished official. The best answer I’ve come up with “he seems friendly”.

After the ceremony in typical pesantren fashion it was decided the students did not want to return to class right away, so I sat around and ate some snacks. Then 3rd period came and we were told we could go teach now. That was a free period for me, so I went to hang out with a class of junior high schoolers who were “too tired” to do a PE workout, until it was time for me to teach 4th period.

And I actually got through my lesson as planned, or at least the first half as planned. Then the bell rang. Not the normal, switch classes bell, but a bell that resulted in jubilation. Turns out it’s a bell to tell students classes for the rest of the day have been cancelled. Last semester I was overwhelmed with too many classes. Now I’m struggling to keep things regular. Oh well, like always, that’s the kind of patience one learns in Indonesia.

Now that I’ve been here for 6 months observing traffic patterns, I’ve decided it’s time to start biking to work.  This is working quite well so far; my ride to work is basically a long downhill coast so I’m not too sweaty when I arrive, and it’s actually faster than taking the bus.  The ride home, well, that’s a different story, but it’s still fun – in a nerve-wracking “I could die at any second or at least be horribly maimed” sort of way.    There are some distinct differences between biking here and biking in quiet, tree-lined-streets-with-wide-smooth-bike-lanes Fort Collins.  

1.)    In Fort Collins, there were bike paths, separate from traffic, where I could bike with abandon, sucking in great lungfulls of clean air.  Here, it is constant exhaust.  I have learned not to breathe at all when starting up at a stoplight, as the resulting fumes are enough to make me dizzy.  The rest of the time it’s ever-present though manageable, except for times when I have to ride through large clouds of smoke from the burning trash by the side of the road.  When I emerge from one of those, vision blurred with tears, gasping for air, I sometimes wonder why people here tell me that biking to work is healthy.  Maybe they haven’t tried it yet.

2.)    In Fort Collins, or indeed most anywhere in the US, emergency vehicles have the capability to change traffic lights so that wherever they are going with their sirens blaring, they have green lights.  Here when there are emergency vehicles, the lights still cycle through their normal routine.  The difference is that police officers stand in the middle of the road, blowing their whistles, emptying the intersection for the vehicle before the siren can even be heard.  I learned this morning that a whistling police officer means STOP, though I took it to mean GO because I had a green light.

3.)    There are absolutely positively no bike lanes here.  Instead I ride as close to what-would-be-the-shoulder-of-the-road-if-there–were-such-a-thing-here as I can, mixed in with cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, bikes, becaks, pedestrians, and yes, the occasional chicken, and hope for the best.  I was especially proud of myself today as I squeezed through what I thought was a tight space, between a line of parked cars and a line of driving cars.  It was maybe 3 feet wide.  As I gloated to myself, some motorbikes passed me, squeezing between me and the moving cars.  It was terrifying, though I have to hand it to them in the “skills” department – they didn’t touch me at all, even though one of the motorcycles had 3 people on it and appeared to be bursting at the seams.  

4.)    The most important rule of the road here is that you are responsible for what is in front of you, responsible for what is to the side most of the time (I try not to be beside large vehicles as much as possible, as I have seen a moving car squish a motorcycle into a parked car and keep right on going), and decidedly not responsible for what is behind you.  This is good in that in means that when I need to veer out into the road to avoid a parked car, I know that the people behind me are watching and, ostensibly, will not hit me.  However, it also means that when a motorbike or, say, ice cream cart pulls out from a hidden side street right in front of me without even looking or slowing down (hypothetically of course), I have to squeeze on the brakes pronto and even drag my feet to come to quick complete stop.  The nice thing about dragging your feet is that it scares the drivers around you a little bit (“Oh my God, she’s out of control!”) and they give you a particularly wide berth.

In order to undertake the ride to and from work every day, I have to put my faith (and my life) into the hands of a higher power – the general Indonesian driving public.  I have to trust that the people behind me can see me and that they will avoid me when they pass (I’ve decided to follow the rest of the bicycling public here and not use a mirror because if I could see the traffic behind me, I would probably be sufficiently scared as to wobble, becoming an accident waiting to happen).  I have to trust that motorbike drivers, even though they sometimes appear to be heading straight for me, can actually see me and will take evasive action at the right point if I just keep my trajectory.  I have to trust that my riding is predictable for them, that I’ve interpreted their rules correctly, and that as we share the road our speech may be different but our body language is the same.  This was incredibly difficult for me at first, blindly trusting this unfamiliar system, but now that I do, I’m finding that it makes a lot of sense and that even if it’s not healthy, in comparison to riding a plane or boat here, it might just be….safe.

This should be Lee’s to write about, but I’m betting he won’t, so I’m going to beat him to it.  The other night we went up north to the house of one of the teachers at the Pesantren, as he and his wife are expecting their first child, and at 4 months pregnant there is a special ceremony/party.  Mostly it involved sitting in a mosque and praying/reading/chanting, while for the two of us it just involved sitting on the mosque floor looking around, listening, and realizing yet again that we are nowhere close to understanding Arabic.  As usual, prolonged (ie longer than 10 minutes) sitting on the floor resulted in my leg falling asleep multiple times, all the way from the hip to the foot.  Oddly enough, it seems that another teacher, Pak R., had the same problem.  He asked “What is it when your leg…..you cannot….?” *pantomime, pantomime*  Lee:  “Oh, when you can’t feel it?”  Pak R: “Yes!”  Lee: “We call that NUMB.”  Pak R:  “Oh, numb.” *Pause* *Smile of recognition* “Like the Linkin Park song.”  Lee:  *Bewildered* “Um, yeah, I guess…..”  Pretty sad when a teacher at a pesantren in Indonesia knows more about current bands in the US than you do!  I’ll bet Linkin Park never thought they would be a reference for new words for Indonesians.  Then again, standard TV reception here does include MTV….

Today while waiting for the bus, I got into a conversation with a young taxi driver, in Indonesian for those who might wonder if we’re able to speak yet.  We quickly established that I was married (a must, I’ve found, otherwise I tend to get into conversations with people who just want a bule girlfriend), then moved on to religion.  He is Christian, same as I tend to say that I am here.  As usual, he asked what church I go to, and as usual I said that I don’t.  And probably smirked, because I knew what was coming next.  Him:  *Shock* — “so Americans do not go to church?” I patiently explain how some do and some don’t, and that I tend to stay home.  “Oh, but you and your husband read the Bible together then.”  Um.  No.  But I am sure there are some Americans who do.  I should have mentioned just for a treat that all hotels in America have a Bible in the room, I bet he would have liked that. 

 Then the conversation moved on, in a rather hesitant way (loosely translated).  Him:  “I am interested in Biology.  I wonder, what do you think about sex?”  Me: *huh?* “Sorry, I do not understand”  Him: “Well, are you enthusiastic about it”  Me:  *laugh* “Maybe that is a very personal question.”  Him:  “I do not often get to speak to western people, and I am wondering, is it like James Bond?”  Me:  *Oh sheesh, I should probably dispel this*  Meanwhile the bus comes.  I refuse to get on, as I don’t want to look like a sex maniac or avoid his question.  I explain about how America is not all like in the movies, using the VIA-volunteer-tested-and-proven analogy “Is all of Indonesia like Sinetron TV?  No!  Laugh”  I think he got it, though he mumbled something else about James Bond.  Then I explained that, as in Indonesia, some people in America practice “free sex” and some do not, maybe more do than here, but really, you cannot assume.  Or at least I think that is what I said.  Then I told him that actually, his question could be thought to be rude, so be careful if he asks it again or he might get slapped.  This was followed by no fewer than 8 apologies, though I tried to assure him that really, it was ok to ask, but that it is better though to ask someone you know as a friend rather than someone you just met on the street.  Then, as a new bus had still not arrived, we talked about how since I am American, I must eat a lot of cheese.  And drink coca-cola.   At least he didn’t make the usual assumption that I eat bread every day.

Unfortunately, I was never good at small talk before in the US.  When I come back, my repertoire will include all the most common topics here, such as where are you going, where are you from, what did you buy and how much did you pay (if you are carrying bags), where do you live and how much do you pay in rent, what do you like to eat, how old are you, are you married and do you have children, what is your religion, and now, seemingly, are you enthusiastic about sex.   I’m going to be really popular wherever I go next, I can just tell

Why does the bus keep its engine running when filling up at the gas station? My possible fiery demise has flashed before my eyes many times at gas stations here; certainly I don’t remember any vehicles running while filling at gas stations in the US, well, maybe if it was the dead of winter…   The answer became clear today though when the bus I was on accidentally turned off during a routine boarding stop.  It would not restart.  The driver tried to give a running start on the downhill, each time hopping out of his door to push the bus, keeping one hand on the wheel and trotting along as traffic flew around us.  As the bus reached cruising speed he would vault back in and turn the key.  Each time, the bus would try to start then shudder to a halt.  I started to wonder if I should volunteer to get out and push, but figured that would not be ladylike and would probably embarrass the driver.  Finally, after many attempts (and we covered quite a bit of ground with him just pushing the bus) the driver called to a shopkeeper, who ran along pushing us for about a block until the engine turned over.  I clapped but nobody else did; good thing the driver already knows me and wasn’t insulted.